Romney Bails!

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Ah, yes. I'd forgotten about the attempts by congress to control the big money in politics. Let's help keep elections bought and paid for; anything else would be downright "silly." But I'm not going to derail this thread with specific arguments, especially since the Campaign Finance reform was "bipartisan." I was just looking for a few examples (I thought he may be referring to attempts by McCain to end the use of torture). Are there any others?

 

Of course, since reducing the role of soft money and preventing corporations from running smear...er...issue ads obviously circumvents the will of the people at the ballot box.

 

In the Mormon faith, for example, active, worthy males are ordained to the office of a Deacon at the age of 12, and thus have some responsibility and authority within the church. Granted it is limited, but still important. AS they grow, they advance through the offices, they take on more responsibility and receive the authority to fullfil this. By your proposal, this would disqualify male Mormons from political office.

Further, most of the women in the church have usually held some position of responsibility (usually working with children, young women, the organization for the sisters or also as teachers), and as such would be disqualified. So you're basically saying that Mormons should not hold office. That, to me, is like opposing Barrak Obama because he is black (likely using the N word in your rejection).

Further, Freedom of Religion means the right to practice without sanctions. You have proposed a huge sanction there. Freedom of religion and freedom from religion are on a personal level. In the public eye, the objective is the greater good, and what if religion is right on a particular issue? Is the best option ignored simply because of it's source? That's counter productive, and may cross the line into a soft bigotry. If anything, it shows that Freedom from religion may infact not be as desirable as you claim...

If you want to ban Mormons (as all of them take some position within the church at some point), or any other religion, then I want a provision to ban Aethiests as well. Don't kid yourselves that they are any better. They rail on religion over it's past faults, yet place their faith in the exact same thing that created many of those faults--human intelect and desires.

Anyone holding a calling within the Mormon faith is set apart (similar to ordaining), thus disqualifying them from office under your proposal. You have yet to convince me that this is nothing more than an attempt to institutionalize a form of bigotry.

 

The last 8 years are proof that you hope in vain.

 

Flawed, certainly, but it always has been. Rome fell--or, rather, became an empire--largely because the Senate was composed of men who were short sighted and greedy and inadvertently brought about their own destruction.

 

Rally, I usually agree completely with your comments. Although I have not been thrilled with Bush's performance, I think it's a bit of a stretch to put him in with Hitler, Pol Pot and Khomeini.

 

And that the Democrats couldn't field a better candidate. Seriously, how much of a knob would Kerry have had to be to lose that election? All I remember hearing was mockery and hatred for Bush, but he still got over 50% of popular vote, and he did win without the controversy of his 2000 win...

 

I can tell you in one word why Bush won in 2004. Fear. Fear. FEAR!!!

 

@T2: You're right, it is hyperbole to lump GWB in with Hitler and Pol Pot. The point I was trying to make is that the American electorate has already shown itself completely incapable of recognizing the snake in its lawn.

@Gnarff: I said it at the time of the election, the only Democratic party operative who actually wanted John Kerry to win in 2004 was John Kerry. Suffering through another four years of the GWB administration has immeasurably improved the chances for a Democrat to win now - and the plan at the time was to groom Hillary for the job. If Kerry had won, she'd have had to wait until 2012 to run, at which time people would have been making disparaging remarks about her age (even tho' she'd be 10 years younger than McCain is now...). Sounds like a bit of conspiracy theory? We are talking about Washington, after all!

 

Fear of Kerry. Where I have little confidence in Bush, I had no confidence in Kerry and a lot of the country felt that way (especially veterans).

 

I'm not really sure, but I had thought that GWB one by 1 percent of the total popular vote. There were also a lot of us who had no confidence in GWB, after the previous four years. Kerry ran a confused and uninspired campaign.

 

It was an election where you got to vote against the one you liked least. And Kerry was slightly less popular than a president who put us in a ridiculous war.

I'm rather enjoying this election. McCain versus Obama is the best choice for me -- it's a win-win in my opinion. As opposed to many past elections which were lose-lose.

 

Swiftboating will do that. Isn't libel great?

 

It wasn't swiftboating for me. His public comments when he was protesting the Vietnam war were... questionable. I knew a lot of Vietnam vets that would never vote for Kerry because they felt he chose popularity over honor.

 

I still find it surprising that you considered a politician who not only lied to his own country and the world to start his war in Iraq, but used his daddy's connections to get into the national guard during the Vietnam war without even bothering to finish his military obligation - and who had also been doing a dandy job of bungling the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan - more qualified to handle the Iraq war and the war on terror than a highly decorated war hero who was, at the time, arguing that we needed more troops on the ground to accomplish the objective.

 

Ditto.

Spoiler

It seemed almost unreal when I heard pundits say time and again Bush was more qualified than Kerry. I didn't find anything that bad about his record - he went to Vietnam, he didn't like it, and he said so. He got lambasted for what he said and did some 30 years ago. Yet what was the big deal? He served there and fulfilled his obligation to his country; if the medals are any indication, he did it quite well. Apparently he did not like what he saw and did there, however, but he only said so after his military obligation was complete. If anything, I'd consider it a mark of character that he fulfilled his duties as a soldier even though he was opposed to some of what he saw.

Yet in 2004, it seemed that no one cared about anything except his opposition to the war - not even that he'd actually been in the war and was more than qualified to say what he thought about it. It looked to me like people pounced on what he did after he came to the US even though a) it might have been a common sentiment at the time, b) he might have shared the sentiment genuinely, instead of using it as a popularity bid (I doubt he was the only disillusioned man to come back from Vietnam) and c) he was quite young at the time and probably doesn't think the same way now. He had acted in a certain way three decades ago, but suddenly it was the only thing that mattered about his character then. At the same time this was going on, you'd think G.W.Bush would have to answer a lot more questions about his own escapades in the 1970's and 80's - from his substance abuse problems to his experience in business. Yet while Kerry's youthful years spoke volumes about his current character and ability to lead, his opponent' past didn't matter about his fitness to wage the "war on terror".

 

Drew, you do such a bang-up job with a one-sided, derogatory argument. Kerry also had significant character flaws. His characterization of our troops in Vietnam as war criminals was irresponsible considering what our POW's were going through (his comments added fuel to the fire in Hanoi). He used his status as war hero and anti-war activist as suited him for whichever gave him more votes -- he couldn't even keep on one side of the issue. He proudly displayed his medals after proudly throwing them away. These were important issue to many veterans.

Most importantly, I did not agree he was the best person for the job. Sure, he had some good ideas, but so did Bush. I knew the negatives and positives of both candidates and chose one. I look at many different issues and policies of candidates before I choose. Kerry was the furthest away from the direction I wanted the country to be going.

Which candidate was qualified to handle a war? Neither. True, Kerry was a war hero -- but he had NO experience which would make him a better leader in a war. Neither candidate had experience leading a major combat force. You just hope the whoever is president is smart enough to leave such decisions to the professionals and then hold those Generals and Admirals accountable.

 

You aren't seriously contending that Kerry called all of the soldiers in Vietnam war criminals, are you? And you're calling me one sided? Here, by the way, is the relevant part of the speech you are referencing:

I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command....

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

So John Kerry's big offense was referencing the testimony of 150 veterans who acknowledged personally committing war crimes. First of all, this is a far cry from "characterizing our troops as war criminals". Second, I would argue that not bringing to light the misconduct of our troops would be far more irresponsible than hiding it from the American people. I doubt, for example, you would consider the Abu Graib whistle blowers irresponsible. Unless you feel that the people have no right to know about our war crimes in Abu Ghraib, in arguing that he did something wrong in bringing the admitted misconduct of our own troops to light, you are applying an unfair standard to John Kerry.

You're forgetting one thing, here. Kerry was an anti-war activist. Kerry was also a war hero. He didn't have to "pick a side" since being a war hero and and being an anti-war activist are not mutually exclusive. He was both.

Absolutely...and, unlike Bush (who fired Shinseki for saying we needed more troops on the ground), Kerry would have actually listened to the Generals and Admirals.