posted
1) People taking offense at the election results, as if the majority of voters have decided that the people who did not vote with them think that they should die.
2) People assuming that if you don't share the same views or opinions, your are obviously an idiot.
So, what are you tired of?
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
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posted
When holding unpopular beliefs in a highly polarized environment can actually cause embarrasment.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
Neo-Cons, Social Conservatives too freaking blind to see the contradictions in their preachings and their actions, religious fundamentalism, George W. Bush, and all the moderates who voted for W., when their values often would have had them vote for Kerry, but they blindly followed our war leader with out realizing that according to their stated principles Kerry was actually far more what they wanted.
The last was not targetted at anyone on this board, rather people I know RL.
Posts: 3295 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
What made me angry about the election was that a majority of the people in the US did not like the direction our country was/is headed, and they still elected the same people. That makes no sense to me. If you do not like the way things are why would you not want change?
Posts: 1015 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
We know what we are getting from Bush. We don't really know what we are getting from Kerry. No one knows what he would be like as a President. If things are not going well might as well give the new guy a shot.
Posts: 1015 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
People obviously decided that they preferred what they knew wasn't perfect to what they worried might blow up in their faces. Dems not getting that idea also bothers me.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I understand that somepeople felt that Kerry was not a good bet so they went with what they knew. I think that sometimes playing it safe and going with what you know can be worse then taking a chance. To me Bush is more then not perfect. He is leading the country in a direction I do not agree with and I see major long term effects. I would prefer to risk it on someone new, then to watch my country go in a direction I don't agree with.
Posts: 1015 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
Leader A makes a big mess that needs to be cleaned up. Leader B volunteers to clean up the mess, but his particular way of cleaning up messes is likely to make this mess even worse — like throwing water on a gasoline fire.
So what do you do? Elect Leader B just because you're mad at Leader A and want to punish him? Or keep Leader A until someone who is actually better comes along?
Posts: 1907 | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
The majority of the people who thought the country was headed in was what, 55%? 51% voted for Bush. Assuming the people who thought the country was going in the right direction voted for Bush, only about 12% of those who disagreed would have to decide that the risk wasn't worth it. Not very suprising to me.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
I guess it all comes down to how bad you think Kerry would be. I do not think he would be ideal but I do not believe he would make things worse. If you believed that he would probably make things worse you would not want to vote for him. I just don't think that Kerry could do as bad of a job as Bush. Probably because a lot of the things I do not like about Bush and the things that I see wrong with his policies, I do not see in Kerry.
Posts: 1015 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
I'm tired of there not being a viable choice that I think would be good for the country. I'm tired of people supporting their guy mainly because they think the other guy is worse. I'm tired of people thinking that their responsibilities as a citizen of a democracy begin and end with voting.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Let's see... There are so many things that drive me insane. The hypocrasy. The way so many of these politicians believe that saying it makes it true. That just because you say the country is free or you SAY that everything is going ok then it means that it is, and that I should praise you for doing such a good job when the lives of mine and so many others is NOT exactly getting better. The way that those on the right act like everything Bush does is ok... even when it makes no sense... The democratic politicians acting like pansies or mini Republicans. Politicians catering to special interest groups instead of doing what is truly best for citizens.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:Leader A makes a big mess that needs to be cleaned up. Leader B volunteers to clean up the mess, but his particular way of cleaning up messes is likely to make this mess even worse — like throwing water on a gasoline fire.
The baffling part, though, is how people can believe Kerry's plan is so likely to mess things up more than we have already experienced Bush's tactics messing things up - particularly when the main reasons given for why Kerry's plans will fail has less to do with any plan he gave than with character traits he has been assigned.
posted
The baffling thing is you still think what people disliked about Kerry's plan was more related to his character traits.
I'm tired of people making the unsupported assumption that there are people out there who are both better qualified and would appeal to more people. And I'm sick to death of the condescension directed toward the electorate in general.
quote:The baffling thing is you still think what people disliked about Kerry's plan was more related to his character traits.
well there's not really any other reason to dislike kerry's plan; as the president pointed out the two candidates "plans" were all but identical.
Posts: 380 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:The baffling thing is you still think what people disliked about Kerry's plan was more related to his character traits.
It shouldn't be too baffling, given that that is the main reason people (and the Bush campaign) keep saying they dislike Kerry's plans - because Kerry is a flip-flopper, he's a bad candidate, he says "wrong war wrong time", he sends "mixed messages", and so on and so forth.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
Yeah, I'm kinda mystified by your bafflement Dag. Wasn't most of the stuff put out there as for why you shouldn't vote for Senator Kerry about his character? Weren't most of the explanations as for why people weren't going to vote for him, both on this site and through polls in the real world, that weren't due to a litmus issue like abortion primarily concerned about his character?
Also, I still don't actually know what John Kerry's actual plans were. I knew what he said the effects of these plans would be (good for everybody), but I was never clear on any of the specifics. Economically, the only way I could see what he was saying he could make happen actually occur is if the secret Democratic research facilities discovered cold fusion. And if they did, I'm pretty disappointed that they're not sharing it now that they've lost the election.
As for being condescending to the electorate, well, you and I must have a very different opinion on why and how many people made their decision of who to vote for. I don't see the responsible, informed, engaged populace that you apparently do.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Yeah, I'm kinda mystified by your bafflement Dag. Wasn't most of the stuff put out there as for why you shouldn't vote for Senator Kerry about his character? Weren't most of the explanations as for why people weren't going to vote for him, both on this site and through polls in the real world, that weren't due to a litmus issue like abortion primarily concerned about his character?
Only if you didn't delve past the soundbites.
quote:Also, I still don't actually know what John Kerry's actual plans were. I knew what he said the effects of these plans would be (good for everybody), but I was never clear on any of the specifics. Economically, the only way I could see what he was saying he could make happen actually occur is if the secret Democratic research facilities discovered cold fusion. And if they did, I'm pretty disappointed that they're not sharing it now that they've lost the election.
Exactly. A good reason not to prefer his plan, don't you think.
quote:As for being condescending to the electorate, well, you and I must have a very different opinion on why and how many people made their decision of who to vote for. I don't see the responsible, informed, engaged populace that you apparently do.
I know - you have your own definition of "mature" voting behavior, I'm sure. Luckily, you're not in charge of deciding who's worthy to vote.
Condescension wouldn't be an appropriate response if you were indisputably superior to the electorate as a whole.
posted
So it was a matter of selecting LeaderA who poured the gasoline, set the fire, and campaigns on the promise of continuing to throw gasoline on the fire cuz LeaderB might throw water on the fire. sigh...
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Dag, So we're clear are you saying that you believe that the electorate is in fact made up primarily of informed, engaged, mature voters or just that I'm a bad person for saying that it isn't and for considering myself more informed, engaged, and mature than the average voter?
edit: You're not going to get any disagreement from me that there weren't plenty of good reason to not vote for John Kerry. I didn't in fact vote for him and I tried to encourage other people not to. However, I don't think that many of the people didn't vote for him were particularly aware of many of these reasons.[/edit]
For the record, as I've stated a few other times before, I don't believe in limiting anyone from voting, in large part because the decision as to who should vote and who shouldn't would inevitably be screwed up. However, I also don't believe that the current culture that allows people to hold their responsibilities as a citizen of a democracy very lightly and holds that people don't have the right to criticize what they see as people's poor decision making processes when it comes to who to vote for is a good thing for our country. Legally, I don't think that peopel should be barred from voting because they don't measure up to the standards of being informed, engaged, and mature, but I think there should be a social realization, which doesn't now exist, that they have a responsibility to be so.
posted
I'm tired of "every vote should count" being used as a rallying cry, when it really should be "let every LEGAL vote count."
I'm tired of people saying all the provisional ballots should be counted, without realizing that the reason they are provisional is that the voter wasn't on the rolls and a fair number of those are invalid.
I'm sick of voter fraud in general. I think voting is a privilege that should be respected, and every vote should be counted if it was cast properly, by a properly registered voter. And if it wasn't cast properly and if the person wasn't registered then it should be thrown out.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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