quote:Why is it that al the (ex)Kerry supporters seem to think they are smarter than everyone else?
There's the rub. If the only reason we support the war is because we are in the war, and its disrespectful to the troops not to support the war because they are risking their lives, then we aren't much better than cheerleaders on either side of this war.
Now, whether this "matters,"(read: morally relevant) is the great issue. By saying it doesn't matter, you've already assumed moral superiority without even understanding the claim, and that's the gulf between us.
Granted, we could be better by not abstracting to Hitler and X and Y, but it would be nice if you finished out the argument before deciding that it doesn't matter.
quote: Hey, Boris, remember your "philosophy of wisdom" thread? [Smile] Not all of us are as stupid as you think.
I'm not saying anyone is stupid. I'm just asking a serious question, do people actually think they are more intelligent than others because of the way they voted? I mean, that kind of thing just doesn't make sense to me. It's just rash, generalized assumption, no matter who does it.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
"do people actually think they are more intelligent than others because of the way they voted"
No. But I do believe that I am more intelligent than the majority of the electorate on either side, frankly. The reason that I'm more intelligent than they are has nothing to do with my vote, but I like to think that the fact that I am more intelligent informed my vote in some way.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
That's good. I'm glad for that, but it seems, with all the arguing that is going on, that people tend to start arguments on the basis of "whoever said this is just stupid, I need to correct them". My first comment said what it says, in general, because I see more Kerry supporters doing this than anyone else. I really wish people would just stop it, cause it's ANNOYING!!! (Not to mention a contradiction of any supposed *wisdom* (Heh, just commenting on my own wisdom post, which is probably just rambling anyway))
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posted
Wanting to correct something does not imply the person you are correcting is stupid. I think people do want to correct things, but don't intend to imply those who disagree are stupid.
posted
Boris, is it really your contention that Bush supporters do not desire to correct the opinions and behaviors of their political opponents? Do you not think that was your intention behind bringing up the point in the first place?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
"by the logic Chad is discussing here, he WOULD vote for Hitler if his cousin were serving in Hitler's army."
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"Just because everyone gets tired of arguing with you doesn't mean they think you're not ridiculous!"
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quote: Wanting to correct something does not imply the person you are correcting is stupid. I think people do want to correct things, but don't intend to imply those who disagree are stupid.
This is true, but more often than not, the way people correct others tends to be somewhat arrogant. After thoroughly re-reading this, I notice that wasn't how you started this out, but that's how it's turned into a big nasty furball that is going to end up with people only being ticked off. Basically what I'm saying is that people need to start taking the heat out of their arguments. When they start getting heated, like this thread seems to have done, the argument falls into a pit of stupidity and serves no logical purpose.
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posted
It's not an inference - you stated it. You didn't state that the logic was your interpretation - you stated the logic was what he was discussing.
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posted
Y'know, Xap/Tres, as I see these conversations progress on various threads, it's becoming increasingly obvious to me that you didn't vote for cactus. Posts: 2292 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I mean specifically this war in Iraq alone. I mean that Kerry's "opinion" of "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" (because it's an opinion from start to finish which has evidence for and against it) is telling him that what he is doing is wrong, where he is is wrong and that his laying down his life for others, is wrong....but you better keep doing it.
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posted
I only stated what you are saying as much as Chad stated what I said. If you're going to complain that I'm putting words into Chad's mouth you can't turn around and put words into mine. You may think my inference wasn't stated by Chad and that mine was, but I think your inference was not at all what I said and my inference is what Chad said.
I know I was making an inference, but I don't normally mention that fact everytime I interpret somethign someone says on this forum. People say too much stuff to interpret - it would become excessive to keep mentioning that I might be wrong about what you are saying in every single post. Even now I am interpretting your last post and you are interpretting mine - and we might both get it wrong. I don't think this needs to be stated each time - I think it should just be implied.
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quote:Y'know, Xap/Tres, as I see these conversations progress on various threads, it's becoming increasingly obvious to me that you didn't vote for cactus.
Actually, I didn't. I think the Democrats forced Cactus off the ballot in my state!
But, if I did, I don't think these conversations would progress any differently. Even if I voted for Bush, I still wouldn't agree with people voting against Kerry just because he speaks his mind and the troops will hear - any more than I currently agree with Kerry folk who voted against Bush because they think he scowls too much.
quote:I mean that Kerry's "opinion" of "wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" (because it's an opinion from start to finish which has evidence for and against it) is telling him that what he is doing is wrong, where he is is wrong and that his laying down his life for others, is wrong....but you better keep doing it.
But if it WERE the wrong war, wrong place, wrong time, would you still not want any President to say it? Even if it were very wrong, like Germany's World War II efforts?
The question is, is the problem just the saying that the war is wrong, or is it that Kerry says it is wrong when you think it is not?
quote:I only stated what you are saying as much as Chad stated what I said. If you're going to complain that I'm putting words into Chad's mouth you can't turn around and put words into mine. You may think my inference wasn't stated by Chad and that mine was, but I think your inference was not at all what I said and my inference is what Chad said.
I know I was making an inference, but I don't normally mention that fact everytime I interpret somethign someone says on this forum. People say too much stuff to interpret - it would become excessive to keep mentioning that I might be wrong about what you are saying in every single post. Even now I am interpretting your last post and you are interpretting mine - and we might both get it wrong. I don't think this needs to be stated each time - I think it should just be implied.
Good God, Xap. Just admit you overreached in the post I've been quoting. You didn't say "the logic I think Chad is discussing." You said "the logic Chad is discussing."
I haven't inferred anything from your post - I've directly quoted it.
If you want to play the "all language is inference" game please announce it beforehand.
posted
well this thread was totally different than I expected it to be from the title. Well below, from my livejournal, is the reason why I voted for Bush. Do with it what you will.
quote: ...Other than the fact I'm straight, I'm in an unmarried long term multiracial consensual relationship. Partner benefits for me were eliminated as well in a couple of the so-called "gay marriage" ammendments.
Having said all that, I voted for Bush. Some of you might accuse me of cognitave dissonance, now knowing who I voted for (though I voted for Obama in our Senate race.) The fact is I was equally apathetic about both canidates. I didn't LIKE either of them, but I DISLIKED them about equally for a bunch of reasons and I couldn't weight the reasons of disliking one heavier than disliking the other. For a while it was going to be a coin toss or I was going to leave the box blank.
Here's how I came to my decision, and yeah some of you may consider it shallow but it is my reasoning: I am in the state of IL. I wish to protest the dismalness of both canididates. Writing in someone is a "throwaway" vote. I will vote for the person (in this case Bush) that I *know* will lose in this state. If I had lived in TX, I would have voted for Kerry. If I had actually been in a swing state like Ohio, I don't know who I would have voted for. I would have gone through even more agony in trying to decide. But on this rationale, further mental and emotional agony was avoided because I *wasn't* in a state where it mattered. I'm all about not going through mental anguish if it is provably unecessary.
This is also why I felt equally apathetic after the election as I did before I guess. I do think that the Gay Marriage issue is one that is going to be a longer civil-rights type struggle, and unfortunately people on both sides thought it was going to be easier than it has turned out to be. Like a sinusoidal decay curve. The first few cycles its gonna swing wildly and unevenly back and forth, but it's gradually going to come to equillibrium, in the realm of sanity somewhere. Maybe it is the Chem E in me, but I guess I do have faith in the correct equilibrium state being attained eventually, though turbulent mixing can and does occur upstream.
posted
Chad, I found out a little while ago a kid who grew up down the street from me and went to the same grade and high school that I did (some years younger than me and I never actually knew him, but I sort of know the family) got a large part of his liver (among other things) blown away while patrolling over in Iraq. He wasn't outfitted with the best body armor, which to be honest may or may not protected him, but would have given him a better chance. Can you see how I would consider criticizing the person most directly responsible for sending him there without the best protection as supporting the troops?
In my mind, there is a big difference between supporting the troops as people, as trying to make their difficult job as easy as possible and supporting the President. This difference is especially pronounced when people more or less give the President a blank check in terms of uncritically supporting whatever decisions he makes with regard to the troops. In this case, I'd say that supporting the troops and supporting the President are usually opposing concerns.
I supported the war based on the overwhelming case the government made for WMDs. Time has shown that at least some parts of where intended to deceive and that many other parts were the result of poor analysis and planning. The conduct of the war has shown to me many other cases where at the very least there was both poor analysis and planning. And during all this, the Bush administration has been unwilling to be held accountable for their mistakes. I am trying to influence the public to apply pressure on the administration to accept the responsibility for the course they've put us on, the decisions that they've made, and perhaps most importantly the way they've gone about making these decisions. One of my major motivations in this is concern for the safety of our troops, so it makes me sad to see that one of the biggest forces opposing me are people who I feel have conflated supporting the troops with supporting the President.
It is possible to think that the decision to do something was a mistake and yet support the effort to get as much good out of the situation that has developed because of that mistake as possible. I still think that the U.S. had the legal right to invade Iraq, but I don't necessarily think that it was a good idea to do so. It has polarized the country and squandered a large part of the goodwill of the world on something that hasn't significantly improved America's security and may have even harmed it. It has also taken the focus off of hunting down the terrorists and, by fostering opposition and distrust of our foreign policy, lost us useful international tools and alliances.
I don't think that the choice to invade was a good one or at least te best one that could have been at that time. I don't think that the analysis and planning both pre-war and post-war have been sufficiently responsible. I wish that our troops weren't there, but, as they are there, I want them to do their best in making Iraq a good place to be and I want them to be as safe as possible while doing it. I don't believe that President and his staff have shown that they should be trusted to achieve these ends and so I criticize them in the hopes that they will be foreced to the accountabilty that they have so far dodged.
I think "Wrong War, Wrong Place, Wrong Time" was a pretty stupid way to express this and I don't think I ever supported John Kerry as a candidate, but I agree with what I think was the underlying message of this, which I believe matches up pretty well with what I said above. Do you consider me someone who doesn't fully support your cousin as well as the many people I've got on the ground over there?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Your comments about the write-in vote are interesting to me.
I chose to write in my own pick because I didn't feel I could choose any candidate on the ballot and have a clear conscience.
To me, it wasn't a throwaway vote-- it was the only good alternative.
Then again-- if I lived in a swing state, I may have voted for Bush. I think then, it would have come down to whom I thought could more effectively handle the war on terror, and who lined up better with my own social agenda.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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posted
Hey Scott, I'm not condemning you for writing in a canidate. It was just my own thought processes in how I got to who I voted for. I'm not even arguing or defending my thought processes, cause it isn't worth it.
If I had been in a swing state I suspect I would have held my nose and voted for Kerry. I held my nose and voted for Bush as it was.
posted
"Basically what I'm saying is that people need to start taking the heat out of their arguments."
Boris, I agree completely. However, if you think only Kerry supporters -- or even primarily Kerry supporters -- have been making heated arguments, I would suggest that you have perhaps neglected for whatever reason to cast a critical eye over their opposition.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Good God, Xap. Just admit you overreached in the post I've been quoting. You didn't say "the logic I think Chad is discussing." You said "the logic Chad is discussing."
I haven't inferred anything from your post - I've directly quoted it.
And yet your statement (a.k.a. inference) about what the direct quote means is (in my opinion) wrong. "By the logic Chad is discussing here, he WOULD vote for Hitler if his cousin were serving in Hitler's army" does not directly state "Chad would vote for Hitler" any more than "If he sends suicide bombers to Iraq, Bush is a terrorist" directly states "Bush is a terrorist."
Come on... this is getting a bit unneccessary. We've both made inferences, and we've both done so without explicitly stating they are inferences, and I don't think there's much wrong with that.
Other inferences: "You generalized his specific statement and attacked him based on you interpretation of it." "He's saying that during the war in Iraq, he won't support a 'Wrong War, Wrong Place, Wrong Time' Commander in Chief because his cousin's over there." "At least Tom asked it as a question - he didn't assume that the undisclosed reasoning process used to arrive at the conclusion was one that justified supporting Hitler in a war." "You inferred it, and in the face of other inferences stated it as a definite."
All of these are inferences about what other people meant when they said things. All of them could be wrong. All of them are stated as fact.
posted
I support the troops. I believe every soldier there should have all the resources they need to do as good a job as possible and to be as safe as possible. And when they return I believe they should have as many resources as they need to return to civilian life. But do I believe in this war? No. I do not agree with it. I believe it was poorly planned and executed from the beginning. What sort of president claims the war is about WMDs and allows 400 metric tons of dangerous weapons to disapear right under his nose? Or claims the war is about bringing democracy to Iraq when that doesn't seem to be what it's really about. I over heard an interesting conversation. This guy stated that the war was really about putting bases 200 miles away from Iran. That made perfect sense to me. Finally an argument for the war that made some sort of tactical sense. But does it make it right? No. Not to the victims at Abu Gharib or the thousands that have lost their love one on both sides. War can be like surgery. Painful and nessasary at times. If people are going to fight a war can't they do it in a way that is responsible? I know that no one is perfect, but this is the fate of millions in their hands. MILLIONS. I am simply tired of the corruption and people dying because of it. This does not make me anti-American, but it sure does make me bitter about my country, especially if I voice this and get pounced on people for it..
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Hm. *My* cousin spent March 2003 to February 2004 in Iraq, then came home and said that he would vote for whomever the Democrats nominated because the experience of his division led him to believe that the Administration misjudged the size of the task and grossly underestimated the material and human demands of war, thus making the Army's job harder. So does my cousin cancel out Chad's cousin?
Posts: 794 | Registered: Aug 2000
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to original post: You mean that if your cousin were not there, but everything else was still going on, would have still voted for Bush?
Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
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