Decius wrote:

] 1. The thirty second response format was annoying this time.
] Kerry in particular seemed sound bitey during those quick
] responses.

It is due to the fact that he cannot give a straight answer to any question. He is the most apologetic politician I have seen since Swaggart. Whoops, that was a televangelist! Sorry.

] 2. Bush seemed more personable. Kerry seemed smarter.

Bush seems like an irritable old man. Kerry seems like a Frankenstein monster.

] 3. In my mind Kerry won the joust over partial birth
] abortions, but the thing is that most people aren't interested
] in the complexity of the situation and Kerry didn't underline
] it on an emotional level. Stupid people like stupid black and
] white choices. They are blinded by their convictions. You have
] to ask them how they would feel if their wife was going to die
] and the doctor had the power to save her but it was illegal.
] You have to reach for the throat to cut through the propaganda
] of the fundies.

Well, partial-birth abortion does have several strong arguments going against it. In cases to save the mother's life, then the doctors may well be serving their oath (e.g. Do No Harm), but that procedure runs dangerously close to infanticide. If an organism is viable, operable and essentially a fully formed human being, then jabbing scissors into the back of its head, sucking the brains out, vivisecting the motherfucker and forgetting about it aren't unconscionable acts, then we, as a society have no place caring about soldiers in Iraq, ourselves, our the goddam whales. In effect, this process should only be legal when the mother's (ironic choice of words, considering the topic) life is in jeopardy. If this procedure is common for trivial reasons, then our people have no right to fight for any good cause. We are disgusting and disposable at that juncture. If a woman hasn't figured out, by eight months of pregnancy, that she is going to abort the thing, then she should be sterilized and given a lobotomy, since the only thing in her skull is fecal matter. I defy someone to justify this utter waste.

] 4. They both seem to be buying my vote. The debate over middle
] class taxes was a little annoying. Am I supposed to eat the
] rich, Kerry? At least be subtle about it.

I doubt that Kerry REALLY wants you to eat the rich, otherwise his wife's pubic hair would be stuck between your teeth. He is giving that illusion, but all democrats and republicans screw everybody, annually. It's quite amazing how this occurs. Kerry will be a bit less conservative than Bush, but that is it. Neither of them are conservative in the right ways. Nor is either one liberal in the right ways.

] 5. Bush did seem to spend too much time talking about Kerry
] and not enough time talking about what he plans to do.

Wonder why this is? Could it be that he hasn'... [ Read More (0.6k in body) ]

Vile wrote:
] We are pretty good in our system, tom, but I wish you would
] have offered some examples for us to compare to.

I don't have good examples. I don't know how other systems of government work. But lets underline that. You're not taught in school how other systems of government work. Most people who live here have no idea. And yet almost everyone here will tell you that America's system of government is the best, the most free, the most democratic. How do we know that? Do we ever spend time thinking about it?

The only other system that I understand well enough to discuss is the parlimentary governments in the UK, Canada, Australia and some other places. These are technically monarchies, but in practice this makes little difference. As I see it they offer one critical advantage over the U.S. system and one critical disadvantage. The advantage is that our system is structured to support two parties, period. Three or more just doesn't work well. In these countries you've got a lot of different parties. This means you might make a political choice which more closely reflects your actual thinking then red/blue. The disadvantage is that in our system you can vote for one party for the legislature and another for the executive. In their case these are one in the same. This means that you have to vote along party lines rather then making more general decisions about the aptitude of particular people for particular work. In the end it really doesn't amount to a lot of difference.

I also don't have a lot of recommendations. There are two things that I think are excellent ideas which we do in some places but not everywhere:
1. Ballot referendum. (At the federal level this is difficult, but we could be doing it in more states.)
2. Voter information booklets. Before every election in California every registered voter receives a booklet with a complete description of every candidate and pro and con arguments on every referenda item. The press does a terrible job of informing voters, particularly about local elections. This does it better.

In addition to these items, I think there are some process changes that might make more parties more sustainable. Even a ballot in which voters are allowed to make multiple choices for president would be a communications tool that would give the government more feedback on what people really think without dramatically changing the results we're likely to see in elections.

Decius wrote:
] I'll drop my hat in but I'll bet people are afraid to tackle
] this. Its tough.

I found Friday's debate interesting because it drew more specific distinctions between the candidates on certain issues. On the other hand, it made things more difficult, because I agree so strongly with one candidate on some issues, and with the other candidate on other issues. :/ So, my comments are split here among the different issues, including which candidate I agreed with on each one.

Economy. I agreed with neither. I'll freely admit that economic issues are not my strong point. I've listened to plans from both sides, but have no strong opinion either way on whether one plan or the other is the clear choice.

Healthcare. Kerry. When the subject of prescription drugs came up, Bush's answer nauseated me. Like the issue of whether or not to import drugs from Canada, he gave the party line answer, "First I want to make sure they're safe." Oh give me a f***ing break. Most of those drugs are American drugs that we sold to *them*! Are we trying to say that we shipped unsafe drugs to Canada? That answer was just garbage.

War in Iraq. Bush. I've researched the heck out of this issue, and know it way better than most reporters and columnists who are writing about it. Saddam needed to go. We knew it, the world knew it, every single one of Saddam's neighbors knew it. Even other Islamic governments were calling for him to step down. We'd tried every other method of removing him from power, and nothing had worked. Every indicator said that he was just biding his time, waiting for world scrutiny to go away, and then he was going to rebuild everything. WMDs, weapon programs, everything. Military intervention was necessary. Clinton agreed. I agreed. The only thing most people disagreed on was, not that military intervention was necessary, but the *timing* of it. In other words, most thoughtful people are not so much upset that the war happened, but *when* it happened. But I still support the war, and think Bush had the right idea, and I'm hopeful that at some point more of the behind-the-scenes information will come out to explain why we chose the timing that we did.

War on Terrorism. Bush. This is another one that I've researched the heck out of, and know backwards and forwards. It is not a hypothetical question as to whether or not there are terrorist plots to cause widespread death and destruction. There *are* such plots, and they are actively trying to get one of them through our shields, and it's only through the hard work of our law enforcement personnel, tips from the right sources, and a fair bit of luck, that we've stopped the planned attacks since 9/11. I agree with Bush here, that it's not about waiting to be attacked and then responding, it's about carrying the attack to the enemy, and keeping the war away from our own shores. In a nutshell, on this one issue, I will sleep safe... [ Read More (0.5k in body) ]