Any and EVERY time anyone posts something highlighting either a positive aspect to the Democratic platform, or a negative aspect of the Republican platform, BOOM!!! The brainwashing effectiveness of Fox News Network and their counterparts in the Liberal News Media manifest themselves.

Is there ANYONE here on this board who considers themself a Republican, a Conservative, or a Bush supporter who is willing and able to have a rational and reasonable discussion and dialog about the issues without falling into the time-worn tradition of bad mouthing a la Coulter & O'Reilly, or invoking the Great Satan Clinton a la Limbaugh?
Is there ANYONE here on this board who considers themself a
Democrat, a Liberal, or a Kerry supporter who is willing and able to have a rational and reasonable discussion and dialog about the issues without falling over themselves trying to prove Republican corruption & racism a la Franken & Stern(although, you got to admit, Howard does a good job of cutting up EVERYONE!)?

I mean, really. Just look at how odious the political arena has become. The politicians are revealed as beholden to special interests. They themselves are revealed as mere puppets on a string. Bush is oily. Kerry is greasy. And Nader is as out of date as a Corvair. DUH!!!WE ALREADY KNOW THAT!!!

I don't expect us to agree on many things, but we are all here because we share something in common.... WE LOVE TO FUCK!!!!! Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Socialists, et al,
EVERY political spectrum is represented on this board. So this means we can all agree on something. That's a heck of a start, and puts us one up on the Middle East.

Now, since we know we are in agreement on ONE thing, why can't we expand that communal energy to discuss our political differences with the same levels of intelligence and sensitivity with which we laud our favorite providers? Why must we lose all sense of rational thought whenever a hot topic button is pushed?

I say Kerry - You say flip flopping Catholic Baby Killer traitor
I say Bush - you say dumbass corrupt Cheney puppet Oil Energy whore

ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't want a fight, or an argument. I want a real, rational, thought provoking dialog about the issues. A dialog where any Democrat, Green Party, Libertarian, Naderite, Peace & Freedom, Republican, or Zoroastrian can participate in a rational dialog of the issues. The only rule is you can't invoke negativity about the opposing view, nor can you invoke negative comments about any former or current political candidate. In other words, stick to the topic. Present your perspective, your reasons and rationale for the issues at hand. The candidates won't tell us a damned thing beyond whats wrong with the other guy. I say we can rise above the fray, elevate ourselves above the teeming masses of unintelligible spin doctors, and present a reasoned point by point rationale for our perspectives.

Parroting Fox News Network or National Public Radio is good for nothing but illustrating your own lack of independent thinking.

I'm off on a half dozen tangents here...

Never before in American history have the people of this country been so completely polarized by political energies.
Whether you realize it or not, the enmity caused by polarization is tearing this country apart at the seams.
My own family was schizmatically torn apart because of severe dysfunction caused by RELIGIOUS and POLITICAL differences.
Read that last sentence again. FAMILY TORN ASUNDER. So if a single, very very close knit family bound together by the deepest emotional ties can be ripped apart because of political and religious differences, how much worse will it be when the rift between the two primary philosophical camps reaches critical mass and tears this country apart?

It's the story of the Tower of Babel all over again.

... not everybody is reasonable all the time.  I like to think I am pretty reasonable.  Others are too.  

Harry

but usually get slammed for it by a few meatheads.  Not you baloneysandwich, you just give me headaches with all the goofy lefty-links you either create or dig up to pitch your side.

 I don't mind a position on the other side, I just don't understand why some need to expand their position with hateful speech, slander and cheap shots.

He came on the show and basically said "Stop hurting the country" to both hosts. He blames the mainstream media for building up the dichotomy, pitting extreme left versus extreme right with no middle ground made available. The end result is that we never get any reasonable dialogue. (The hosts were NOT amused, BTW.)

I think it's a sign of the times. We're used to so much hype and sensationalism in every arena - sports, movies, religion, you name it. It's only natural that it would spill over into politics. Reasonable dialogue does not get good ratings.

I'm a centrist leaning towards Kerry, and I will vote for Kerry this election. I'm not a fan of many Bush policies, but I won't beat up my neighbor for putting up a Bush/Cheney yard sign. In fact, I'll probably have a beer with him on Nov 3, regardless of who wins (we'll know by early 2005, most likely!).

I go back and forth from being angry when I get mena to being reasonable and juust blown away that anyone would even think we are on the right path.

I think you have to blame or at least look to the total attack on Clinton for this.  Here he was, largely using all the best GOP ideas, and charting a pretty middle course, when he got slammed in every media that the right could control!  It was a little jarring.

Right then, I think a lot fo lefties and left of centers started thinking attack was the way to go.   Then Bush finagled the election.  Then Bush went way reactionary instead of being a middle guy like his dad!  Lefties got angry and testy.  Karl Rove's style is to attack and that had been the tenor of the debate.

There was a lull after 9/11 while we all licked our wounds (still ashamed of how pathetic we were for a while there- get up and do something people!).  When the focus went to Iraq before Afghanistan was finished, the lefties went off to hook!  It seemed so obvious that this was a BAD IDEA, and yet we were sliding along and as a pariah into a totally unneeded adventure.  When your buddy drunkenly gets into his car, you want to grab the keys don't you?  Well here we were, saying dude you're drunk, give me the keys take a little breather and you can drive it home tomorrow or we'll carpool.  When our buddy punched us in the mouth and called us an asshole (questioning our patriotism)we went ballistic too.

Now its on like Donkey Kong!  If its a stupid fuckin' move- we call it a stupid fuckin' move!  If we get called a commie- we come back with fascist!

A good time to have thought about where this would lead, would have been right after the 2000 election.  A Pres with a paper thin margin (Uh, Sully- no margin at all really - a president who knew more people voted agin him than for him- ) OUGHT to have acted very close to the middle.  Instead we get all sorts of extreme conservatives getting to have power and cabinet posts.  Ashcroft?  A man WHO COULD LOSE AN ELECTION IN HIS OWN STATE TO A DEAD GUY?  And some of the others and the admin positions were so far to the right, that the center and center left would have had to have been dead not to object strenuously!  Now they are mobilized and pissed off- what a surprise!

All this vitriol is real and it is totally deserved.  And we all seem to have gone here on purpose.  At least it seems to be the Rove plan.

-- Modified on 10/29/2004 4:26:13 PM

-- Modified on 10/29/2004 3:21:17 PM

Beauty is not skin deep, and there is NO WAY I could view this harpy apart from her personality, just like youi would be beautiful at 100 because of yours, Nicole.

First of all, Clinton wasn't the first President to get "attacked".  I believe the style and effectiveness of all the political attacks are being refined by both parties AND the media, who simply loves the craft because it is good for ratings.

Before him, Bush I, Reagan (who was fucking shot btw), Carter (remember the boozing bro'?), Ford (how many times did you see the replay of him stumbling coming down the ramp of AF1?) etc................  Clinton(s) set themselves up with Whitewater, Hilary's expertise in a one-time commodity flap, the blow-job et al.  Of course about 1/2 of the country could give a shit about a man getting a bbbjtcw/osdod (bare-back blow job w/o swallowing, dribbled on dress).  The other 1/2 got a little frustrated because;

1.  HE POINTED HIS FINGER AT US AND LIED "I HAVE HAD NO SEXUAL RELATIONS WITH THAT WOMAN"  AND LIED UNDER OATH ABOUT IT, which happened to be an impeachable offense for a sitting President.  A felony for you and I with probably certain jail time;

2.  The ultimate example of Employer/Employee sexual harrassment.  Where was the N.O.W. when the most powerful man in the world has a trist with an intern??  Where was the N.O.W. when Monica was getting drug through the mud by the media?  Where was the N.O.W. when Paula Jones made her claim of sexual harrassment?  You are scoffing because Paula Jones was backed by right wing zealots, but was her claim and less significan than Anita Hill's claim that Clarence Thomas pointed out that a pubic hair was on top of a soda can?  Do you remember the farce that turned out to be, but how "outraged" certain groups on the left were?  Do you remember the term "housenigger" and "uncle-Tom" coming from so-called leaders of the black community?  

 You don't consider that to be an attack??  WTF!!

 Election 2000:  Bush didn't "finagle" the election!  If anything, his lawyers "out-finagled" Gore's lawyers.  It's as simple as that.  Multiple media outlets have stated that in a total recount of the state, Bush still had a magority of the vote.  It is interesting, however, that Bush had a hell of a lot bigger percentage of the popular vote than Clinton did in his first election.  What did he get?  40%??

 Final thought because I have to move on to other things, if Ashcroft "lost to a dead guy" then who is that strange woman in congress that was married to "the dead guy" prior to her running in his place?  If Sheila Wellstone hadn't been in the plane with Paul, she would have done the same damn thing and she would have won because of the sympathy vote!  I have to include upon mention of the Wellstone plane crash, that they have proven, beyond all doubt that pilot error caused the crash.  It was not a part of any conspiracy AS WAS ALLEGED ABOUT 6 MONTHS AGO ON THIS BOARD.  If you know anything about Minnesota and its politics, you would also know that there wasn't a Repulican within 60 miles of the accident site because it happened on the "Iron Range".  Nothin' there but hard headed, hard drinkin', strike at every opportunity socialists/workers party union rabble.