> Iraqis suffer from contaminated drinking water, inadequate hospitals,power cuts and funding shortage
21 May 2005, 00:37
See above post re: Iceland. Maybe I’ll eat a little crow. It’s good for me, very lean. ;> Still, before bashing America outright, you might ask yourself why so many people are willing to risk their lives to get here.
I’m using "democracy" as shorthand for "republic," but you know what I mean.
You can continue to nurse conspiracy theories about unelected presidents all day, but that doesn’t change the fact that Bush got more votes in the last election than Kerry, Gore, Clinton, or Bush (41) ever did. Much is made on this site about Ohio, but consider Kerry’s margins in these states: New Hampshire (9,274), Wisconsin (11,384), and Oregon (76,232). These three razor-thin wins gave Kerry 21 electoral votes. If they had gone for Bush, he would have won the electoral college vote by a landslide. The election was that close. See these sites:
One of the major flaws of the logic here on Bellaciao is the assumption that only the insidious forces that back Bush steal votes when they can. Traditionally, both of our mainstream parties have done as much as they could possibly get away with. (Remember VP Gore collecting $5,000 checks from a bunch of Buddhist monks who had all taken a vow of poverty? Anything fishy there? What about the affidavit in St. Louis that a federal judge used to grant an emergency injunction to keep a pro-Gore district’s polls open 4 hours late during the 2000 election, and then it turns out that the affidavit was signed by a guy who was—oops—dead?) Vote fraud is bad, but it happens. Touch-screen voting is a terrible idea, even if only because it makes people like me who don’t know much about computers suspicious.
People are free to choose not to vote, and many don’t vote, but turnout was actually up a little this past election. The election was very close, but Kerry lost. Statisticians nerd-wrestling the numbers can’t change that. All they "prove" is that Kerry "should" have won, but y’all believe that already.
Maybe the reason y’all are so bent on discrediting America’s democracy is because otherwise, you’d have to hate the American public who elected Bush, and you’re reluctant to do that. If you conclude that we’re a bunch of duped fools living in a blissful Matrix, at least maybe we’re not as evil as you think Bush is. (I’m trying to be charitable, here.) Ultimately, you may have to face the unpleasant reality that at least some non-diabolical Americans voted for Bush because we weighed the merits of the two candidates and concluded that he was a better choice between the two. God forbid, you may even ask yourselves why we might think that.
See above post re: Iceland. Maybe I’ll eat a little crow. It’s good for me, very lean. ;> Still, before bashing America outright, you might ask yourself why so many people are willing to risk their lives to get here.
I’m using "democracy" as shorthand for "republic," but you know what I mean.
You can continue to nurse conspiracy theories about unelected presidents all day, but that doesn’t change the fact that Bush got more votes in the last election than Kerry, Gore, Clinton, or Bush (41) ever did. Much is made on this site about Ohio, but consider Kerry’s margins in these states: New Hampshire (9,274), Wisconsin (11,384), and Oregon (76,232). These three razor-thin wins gave Kerry 21 electoral votes. If they had gone for Bush, he would have won the electoral college vote by a landslide. The election was that close. See these sites:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/scorecard/
One of the major flaws of the logic here on Bellaciao is the assumption that only the insidious forces that back Bush steal votes when they can. Traditionally, both of our mainstream parties have done as much as they could possibly get away with. (Remember VP Gore collecting $5,000 checks from a bunch of Buddhist monks who had all taken a vow of poverty? Anything fishy there? What about the affidavit in St. Louis that a federal judge used to grant an emergency injunction to keep a pro-Gore district’s polls open 4 hours late during the 2000 election, and then it turns out that the affidavit was signed by a guy who was—oops—dead?) Vote fraud is bad, but it happens. Touch-screen voting is a terrible idea, even if only because it makes people like me who don’t know much about computers suspicious.
People are free to choose not to vote, and many don’t vote, but turnout was actually up a little this past election. The election was very close, but Kerry lost. Statisticians nerd-wrestling the numbers can’t change that. All they "prove" is that Kerry "should" have won, but y’all believe that already.
Maybe the reason y’all are so bent on discrediting America’s democracy is because otherwise, you’d have to hate the American public who elected Bush, and you’re reluctant to do that. If you conclude that we’re a bunch of duped fools living in a blissful Matrix, at least maybe we’re not as evil as you think Bush is. (I’m trying to be charitable, here.) Ultimately, you may have to face the unpleasant reality that at least some non-diabolical Americans voted for Bush because we weighed the merits of the two candidates and concluded that he was a better choice between the two. God forbid, you may even ask yourselves why we might think that.
See ya,
MTT