to all the posts about Bush...

[Aemon_]

he won, quit whining. you are in minority, the American people voted, and they voted for Bush. whining like 3 year olds will not change it. nothing would have been better under Kerry, unless you think a terrorist living next door and blowing up the biggest building in your hometown is safety, then i guess things would have been better for you under Kerry. if you don't like Bush being the president, leave. quit bashing the commander and chief of the the greatest country in the world. and yes, it is the greatest country in the world. i'm glad that some people on here actually support our leader, but i dont agree with some things. we are the greatest because we help people with out even so much as a 'thanks'. our soldiers die and their own people don't even appreciate what they do. so every one needs to just shutup and grow up. and no offence intended, really - if you aren't American or don't live in the USA, SHUTUP!! and worry about your own leadership.

i know you people won't care, but i'm so sick of seeing this crap that i'm really wishing there was an ignore feature on this board. i really like what SOME of you say about other things on the board. i've gotten some really good help, but its not worth this stupidity. plus, it would be really hard to participate in the word association thread ignoring people.

anyway, i am done. i probably wont reply though, because i don't even want to see it discussed anymore. let it go.

let the flaming of Aemon begin.

later

p.s. i'm not leaving, thats just immature. but i just wanted to make my opinion known again, and hope that you have some decency as to create a forum for this crap and only give the Bush haters access to it, so that we who do support the president dont have to see it.

[Jason425]

yea bush was the majority... after further rigging the election since he didn't do a good enough job last time because he lost the pop vote and still won (that electoral college needs to die...)

[StinkyMojo]

I hope this wasn't directed to my pic, which has nothing to do with bush bashing.

[Aemon_]

Originally Posted by StinkyMojo

I hope this wasn't directed to my pic, which has nothing to do with bush bashing.

no, not about your pic.

ok.... i can kinda see where this rant came from...... but leadership of your country affects more than just your country.....

the fact that a majority of american people who voted in the last election voted for bush doesn't mean that most of the rest of the world wasn't sitting watching the election hoping anyone but him would get in.....

like it or not the leadership of the united states affects most of the world and everyone is entitled to complain or agree or have whatever opinion they choose

[Dragon]

Originally Posted by Jason425

yea bush was the majority... after further rigging the election since he didn't do a good enough job last time because he lost the pop vote and still won (that electoral college needs to die...)

okay, as much as that makes me wanna retort, aemon is right. its over. he won. it was fun to debate before the election but there is nothing to debate anymore. kerry conceded.

[Aemon_]

Originally Posted by cherrypie

like it or not the leadership of the united states affects most of the world and everyone is entitled to complain or agree or have whatever opinion they choose

yes, but you don't have to knowingly offend every one who's opinion differs from yours along the way. thats just rude, disrespectful, and really just plain annoying. and i'm sick of it.

later

Originally Posted by Aemon_

he won, quit whining. you are in minority, the American people voted, and they voted for Bush. whining like 3 year olds will not change it.

Well, obviously the existence of dissent is going to change the result of the election. No major insight there. but the notion that a) dissent is whining is problematic and b) that the fact he won warrants there not be dissent is absurd. The same would be true if Kerry won. Conservatives would have had just as much right to dissent under a Liberal leadership as vice versa.

nothing would have been better under Kerry, unless you think a terrorist living next door and blowing up the biggest building in your hometown is safety, then i guess things would have been better for you under Kerry.

It's not entirely clear what you are trying to get at here. It's not really much of an argument, but more of an empty assertion/claim. "Nothing would have been better" depends upon a preference ordering, which is a subjective (that is, dependent upon the agent choosing). If my preference was that Kerry won, then, in fact, things would have been better if Kerry won because my preference would have been fulfilled. This is pretty basic decision theory. If what I prefer are a set of "liberal" principles like separation of church and state, a high valuation of scientific theory, a value for human rights, etc., then we can suppose that Kerry would be closer to filling that preference ordering than Bush, and things would have been better. If you are simply referring to the security situation, then your statement is really quite narrow and should read something like "Kerry could have done nothing to improve the security situation in America today" rather than try making a universal claim that Kerry would have been the least Pareto efficient choice among the candidates.

Assuming you are dealing with the narrow context of the security situation, you might find yourself in odd company. Almost every security expert has backed Kerry or at least pointed out gross incompetence on the part of Bush both pre- and post- 9/11, not to mention the "dis"handling (as opposed to "mis"handling, which implies an accident as opposed to purposeful distortion of information, which has been alleged by a number of CIA analysts since BEFORE the war. Basically, no one seriously expected there to be WMD in the intelligence community, it was just a good excuse. This is well documented.)

if you don't like Bush being the president, leave.

Or you can kick me out . . . what is the basis for saying this. There's never been a president that was elected by 100% of the people. Are you saying we should have massive emmigration after each election based on who votes? This suggestion is akin to the kind of elections that were held in Iraq under Saddaam.

quit bashing the commander and chief of the the greatest country in the world. and yes, it is the greatest country in the world.

Again, what is the standard for great? I don't think a powerful military, large economy, or long history of prejudice makes a country great. Unless you can say why you think that, you might as well not write it.

we are the greatest because we help people with out even so much as a 'thanks'. our soldiers die and their own people don't even appreciate what they do.

Or maybe they are just a little pissed that over 100,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since the war, last estimated by British and American researches a few months ago. The US is actually at the bottom of the giving pool as a percentage of GDP among developed countries, counting or not counting private donations. We give LESS than just about any country that has what can be called a modern economy. If you see a millionaire give $50 bucks and a homeless person $20 to a good cause, you're not going to be all that impressed by the millionaire, but you will be by the homeless person. So perhaps they are reserving the thanks to those that sacrifice the most for their own good, rather than those that put in a relatively insignificant portion of their income, kill tens of thousands of their people, reserve profit-making contracts (at Iraqi's expense) for American "coalition" companies, etc.

so every one needs to just shutup and grow up. and no offence intended

I find that hard to believe. They way that is phrased is very much intended to provoke a reaction. Besides, I would think that "growing up" would consist of coming to an understanding that people can disagree on issues and that that disagreement should be allowed to be voiced and should be listened to when forming policy that impacts the entire world.

if you aren't American or don't live in the USA, SHUTUP!! and worry about your own leadership.

It's been said, but if China invaded the US, I'm pretty sure you would very vocally wish for a different leadership in China, perhaps a more pacifist one. Those doing that now with the US have just as much right to voice their concerns. They are not asking to be able to choose our leader, but that we take something other than our own narrow interests into account when voting since our vote has impact well beyond the set of people elligible to vote.

on the issue of rigging the election. I doubt Bush had much to do with rigging the election. If there was any rigging (which the consistency of the exit polls with the count don't suggest there was a significant amount of rigging), then I also doubt Bush was even aware of it. I think since Nixon, presidents and their underlings have been pretty conscious of keeping the head guy out of such rigging. Either way, there are much bigger issues such as 1) the electoral college and 2) partisan districting

1) the electoral college disenfranchises democrats in republican states and republicans in democratic states. the original purpose was to make sure that the people couldn't directly influence the president b/c they weren't viewed to be competent enough to select him. no one accepts any of these as being things worth keeping, so the electoral college should definitely be gotten rid of. Ideally, replaced with something like a Condecerot election, where the person who wins is the person who would win in every head-to-head race against any other candidate, taken one at a time. of course, this assumes that voter preferences are reflexive, transitive, and complete, but i think that's an ok assumption.

2) the US is the only country in the industrialized world where those elected are the same people who draw voting districts. THere is now an entire software industry to allow legislators to better marginalize the minority party through redistricting. Both parties do this. It SHOULD be illegal. However, the Supreme Court refuses to take up the case, and would probably not rule it as such, despite the fact that no one really thinks it is fair, and I would argue is a violation of the right to vote as that vote is intentionally marginalized to the point that the minority party's votes basically do not count as much as the majority party's votes (i.e. we've relegislated the 3/5's clause along partisan as opposed to racial lines. not exactly desirable.)

I like bush... wait, what bush are we talking about? :P

[Dragon]

i think aemon was right. i thouroughly agree that the whining needs to stop. i think eeryone is entitled to thier opinion, and agree with most points from either side. people just cant seem to keep emotion out of it, and it urns into a personal battle. i votd for bush, and am glad he won, i agree with his morals and, moreover, i agree that something needed to be done about iraq for a while now. he went out and he did something flat out. kerry may have been equally successful, but as the most important issue to me, bush seemed the way to go because he had already proven e was gonna go out and do something. i agreed with some of kerrys views and disagreed with some of bushs. the trouble was, kerry contradicteed himself alot, and it shook the faith i may have had in him. i didnt vote straight party, or like my parents or anything. i voted because of what i agreed with. kerry didnt have the approval of the pope either, and i wanted a leader agreeable with religion, because i think that faith in something can be a motivator. i think bush was the right choice, and frankly we'll never know if he was or not.

i also respect kerry for having the guts to concede instead of dragging i out.