Election Results

[Steele]

LOL...Canadians really give a hoot aboot American Politics, Eh?

[SiFi]

We should: Us and Mexico are two really close possible targets that share land borders with you guys, though bush proved that he wasn't averse to starting a war overseas based on false principals. I wouldn't be surprised (ok, I would, but I'm ranting here) if bush invaded Mexico to stop the flood of illegal immigrants that are "stealing the nations jobs!"

[Aluscia]

lol.... no, he'd have to invade Vietnam and Taiwan and China to do that

[Gambit]

Ok, ok. Time to step in, I see.

Apparently I must remind you that, prior to the invasion of Iraq, nearly everyone thought Saddam had WMD? Including Kerry, and other Dems, all of whom urged action. Including France, Germany, etc. A pre-emptive strike was not necessarily the first choice of action for most, but if Bush truly believed that Saddam had 'em, and was indeed willing to supply terrorists with them to use on our soil, it's tough to fault. The 9-11 commission found that the intelligence services had not been doing an optimum job - like it took a commission... And Bush didn't just jump in, either. Remember that Iraq had still never complied with many of the conditions it agreed to in order to end the Gulf war in the first place! He made his case to the other nations, and what did they want to do? More of the same things that had been done for the last ten years and apparently not worked. Mind you, I'm certainly not happy with the war or the way things are going over there now, but here we are.

Regards the economy, let's also not forget that the internet bubble burst several month prior to Bush winning the election or taking office. The globalization of the workforce is inevitible given the level of technology we've reached. Why do American companies use overseas workers? Because they're cheaper than American ones! Why are they cheaper? Might it have to do with onerous employee regulations, which do indeed benefit the American worker but also push up domestic labor costs. A publicly-held for-profit company has an obligation to maximize profit for stockholders. I'm not really happy about this, either, being an American worker whose job can be outsourced, but that's the way capitalism works. Working for an international corporation is not the only means of making a living.

This is oversimplification, of course, but the Democrats sell a vision where everyone is taken care of by the government. The Republicans sell a vision where you can darn well keep what's yours. Neither is accurate, and there are attractive things about both, but I obviously swing a bit more to the right.

How much to you Canadians pay in taxes? You all get free health care for that, right? So why do so many of you come south for medical treatment?

[Aluscia]

Umm... I seem to remember the UN being against action vs Iraq. But of course, those guys who are devoted to peace know nothing.... unless of course, you mean they were right. I'm just waiting for their search for WMDs to end up at the Oval Office.

*CLICKCLICKCLICK* "Sir, the Geiger counter is going mad!"
"That's right... it's Bush fingering that trigger again"

As far as our health system is concerned, people head south because they have money. Because the quality and speed of Health Care in the US is decided by wealth, it is a lot easier to just pay for the service than wait for it for free. It's not as if we don't have the services ourselves.

[Steele]

ROFLMAO...is it hot in here?...so uh...how 'bout them Red Sox?

[KitZune]

I hate arguing about Politics... this thread should be moved to the bitch pit or something... I usually ignore the bitch pit ; P

[SiFi]

I second the motion.

[sh@rp]

well if you didnt understand my random smiley thing im happy bush won :-P

[Kaleban]

Well, I'd like to follow up comment here. And I'm not arguing with anyone, even Gambit, I'm just posting my opinions, for what they're worth. I could be a moron and wrong, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Prior to Iraq, everyone did think Saddam had WMDs, true. But what do you think would happen if Hans Blix came knocking on the Oval Office door with the same demands and questions, since the USA is part of the U.N.?

Probably would have been fed to the sharks... ;-)

The WMD argument doesn't hold water either for the simple fact that North Korea is KNOWN to have them, and has been recorded as being ready and able to use them, and yet, I see no naval battle groups anchoring offshore to start air riads into Pyongyang! And since WMDs can be any type of Nuclear, Biological or Chemical weapons, there are hundreds of groups with access to these weapons. The entire argument was based off the hunt for Al Qaeda and Osama Bin-Laden, and yet we're entrenched in urban guerilla warfare with a under-prepared and under staffed ground force, trying to do nation building with one fifth of what was recommended by several Joint Chiefs! And still no admission of a mistake from ANY Republican.

The reason many other countries at the UN were voting for trade embargoes and other alternatives to war is because they KNEW what trying to invade and democratize the Middle East would cost, and are probably still laughing behind cupped hands at the folly of the Bush administration. The whole concept of bringing Democracy to the Middle East is noble, but that's NOT why we're there. Its for profiteering basically, and knowing that the American public (or at least a big enough voting bloc) can be fooled by Fox News.

The other folly in democratization is that Iraqis are NOT Christians, nor Americans. Their whole culture, from religion to government, is strictly rooted in Islam, which, while basically a peaceful religion, has its fanatics just like Christianity. Islam is very patriarchal, so most Moslems are raised in a society that encourages fealty to those in power above you. The Iraqis themselves may not want democracy, but the imperialists in our government don't care about that. They want guaranteed oil, profits and the ability to establish a permanent military installation and America friendly government in the middle of an area known for its hatred of American decadence.

So to conclude, pre-emptive war is stupid. As we will see, probably over the next decade, I have no illusions that Bush or those he surrounds himself with have the intelligence or savvy to end this in four years. And when it does finally end? There will be more people who hate America than ever before, and Americans both domestic and abroad will be in more danger than ever before.

P.S. And as to the business comment. Businesses are held to employee regulations, yes, but if they outsource to another country, why are those regulations not followed. Just like an embassy, an Indian computer programmer should be paid the same as if he WERE in the USA. The government allows corporations to outsource to 3rd world nations for cheap labor because those same corporations PUT those politicians where they are, and so the politician on a string cannot risk alienating his constituents (read: NOT the voters, no one cares about them anymore) or he can't get re-elected to further line his pockets. Government in America is just as much a business as any other large corporation, and Americans fool themselves if they think the government works for them any more. Truly sad.

[SiFi]

Go Kaleban!

[Stang]

Right on brotha!

[Gambit]

*rolls up sleeves*

Before I begin, I wish two points noted. 1) I didn't start the politicking. 2) How can you realistically expect a politically titled thread ("election results") not to contain some politics?

I shall not rebut sentence by sentence, but point by point. It'll save at least a little space...

A) You being a moron - I have no evidence for that, and the fact that you write intellegently argues against it. I shall refrain from getting personal and trust you'll do the same.

B) US getting inspected: The US hasn't violated what, a hundred-something UN resolutions? We've not used any WMDs since Nagasaki, as opposed to Saddam who had a long history of depending on them to fight Iran, Kurds, and whomever else he felt like. As a matter of fact, IIRC, the US does (or did) submit to some sort of inspections during the cold war in the interest of toning down nuke fever.

C) WMD & N. Korea - They're very insular. No reason to suspect that they're supplying anyone anything. And we don't know they have nukes yet, though I do agree with you we ought to do something about their obvious capability and will to develop and use such. They've not broken UN treaties, except the nuke development one. The fact that Al Queda and Iran are both muslim, and almost all international terrorists are muslim, probably helped, rightly or wrongly. I will note a difference in motives, however. Saddam wanted to intimidate his neighbors (Iran), and had demonstrated that he would invade them given the opportunity. Kim Jong Il (is that correct) is seeking attention. He's jumping up and down, yelling "look at me, everybody!" I won't pretend to analyze his mind - what I've read of him is obviously twisted - but there is a notable difference there. They're both pretty brutal.

D) embargoes/democracy in M.E. Well, the embargoes were apparently not doing much. Now that we're in there, it's obvious they were hurting, but towards then end Saddam had also figured out ways around them, and they'd have been a complete joke in another year or two. As far as being there for profiteering -- I strongly, sincerely doubt that's the reason for the war. Are there opportunists out there? Yup. Do powerful people cooperate with them when they really shouldn't? Yup. Do either of us know what's going on in people's heads when we only see them on the news? Nope. Please don't state your speculation about other's motives as fact. For the record, I think the motive of "bringing democracy" doesn't hold much water either.

E) Fox news(subitem): You know why people like Fox? Because they're tired of major news sources that swing so far to the left. There needs to be some right-wing flavor to balance. If things swing too far to the right, there'll be a similar backlash to the left. Happened before (1960s), will happen again.

D) Iraq Muslim/Christian/democracy. Fact: There are over 2.5 million professing Christians in Iraq today. (http://www.assyrianchristians.com/ is one source.) And in a Muslim country, to be a professing Christian is a lot more meaningful than in the US. The common person in Iraq today is skeptical, but hopeful. Two years ago "hope" wasn't in the picture. You hear about the harm US has done there, but you should also be aware of the good being done. You don't hear squat of THAT on mainstream media - see the aforementioned leftist slant. As far as "what the Iraqis want" - refer to above comment regarding assignation of motive. Strictly militarily, having a strong US presence in the M.E. is a brilliant strategic move. It's already toned down a lot of rhetoric from Syria and Iran. Though I admit the methods of getting there have been quite a bit below optimal.

E) You're going to gripe at Bush for trying to get out of Iraq within four years? Isn't that part of the platform Kerry was running on? Also, don't you think we'd get some scorn for not finishing what we start, and leaving the country in a shambles to tear itself apart?

F) The anti-American sentiment has been building for much more than four years. Current events have brought it to a head, but Dem and Rep administrations have done their part to create, ignore, and feed the beast. Hollywood helped, too.

G) Business/economics: (As an aside, it's the unions, who support the Dems, that made it so tough to hire people in the US. I agree that they are needed, to a point, but they've gone well beyond that.) If the US were to make a law that said US corps have to pay US wages to its workers no matter where they are, the corps would leave the US. If the law said that only goods which were made in the USA could be sold in the USA, other countries wouldn't buy our stuff, either. Happens all the time.
Business follows profit, and creates Jobs, which are filled by consumers who spend the money, and the government takes its slice every step of the way. Democratic (system, not party) politics follows the voters, who tend to vote their pocketbook. The taxes pull the whole economy down, since they're felt in so many different places but ultimately fall on the consumer. (When you tax a business, it has to raise its prices or lower its wages.)

If American workers want to keep jobs in America, they HAVE to buy American-made goods and services. American companies have been telling us that for years! But those Korean-made cars and Tiawanese computers and Japanese stereos are so much cheaper than their domestic counterpart that hard-working Joe American picks them instead. It's simple economics. As it becomes more convenient to ship goods and travel and communicate with people in other countries (and who doesn't like convenience?), economic barriers fall and it becomes easier to equalize those markets in nearly every respect. Goods, services, employees, everything. It will all balance out eventually, but as long as there are sharp divides between economic systems, there will be this kind of turmoil. The US will be lowering its standard of living relative to the rest of the world, one way or another, as will other "wealthy" countries.

Do you know what has been supplying the growth for the world's economic engine prior to now? Frontierism. Columbus' "New World" is one example of that. It's someplace where "civilization" isn't, however you want to term it. To the Europeans of that era it was America. Prior to that it was the Orient (conversely, from the Orient it was Europe...). Africa has been there at both ends (say Egypt), as has India, the M.E., etc. One problem with our economic system is that we're out of frontiers, at least until we extend our economics into space. So, now that faraway places are becoming more and more "local," the spikes are going to level out a bit. Any country that tries to stop this progress will get left behind - that's how the M.E. went from being a shining star of culture and science to its current state of stagnation. Ideally, economics should be a mix of market-driven and planning. Unfortunately, the market is usually much better at handling things than any government has ever demonstrated its ability to plan, so I'm an avowed capitalist - though I'll allow that a little wise regulation is a good thing.


Final note, non-party oriented: If there was such things as altruistic politicians, could we recognize them? Or would cynics of the other side always tear them up?

[Steele]

Good Post Gambit...

This is an interesting read...by a Brit...http://www.hacer.org/current/US128.php

[XMEN Ashaman DTM]

Gambit's C, first D, second D, first E, and G:

C: N Korea is suspected of having at least a half dozen fission weapons. And the reasoning for that is in part on how far along their known research efforts were, and on the types of missiles they've been testing (Long March II, and so on...) Chances are that N. Korea has nukes. And chances are that Kim Jong Il is going to still run his country into the ground to produce more of them. And it's a tossup on whether China really can control N. Korea as well as it thinks it can. On the one hand, they've got the troops to invade and force N. Korea to stand down if necessary. On the other, N. Korea is so well isolated from other nations, except China, that it's possible that they'll do something, the US and S. Korea will respond, and China will step in to back up their ally (N. Korea). Then Nato countries will get involved, especially Britain, and you've got a big mess that's hard to back down from. N. Korea definitely has the launch capability to put nukes into the Seoul Hilton.

first D: We have to remember that Russia, France, and wealthy arabs were supporting Iraq. What better way to do operation testing of weapons for France and Russia, than in a real environment against the threats they were meant to counter? And wealthy arabs will more than likely give money to those in need (islam requires it of all muslims, IIRC).

second D: EVERYONE forgets that Osama bin Laden's group are religious fanatics at their core. You can't treat religious zealots the same way you treat terrorists. Terrorists are in it for money, power, release of other terrorists, etc. Religious fanatics are in it to either impose their religion or to silence those that speak out against their reiligious beliefs. Of the two, I would say that religious fanaticism is more significant because faith can create very strong emotions, and give rise to very strong beliefs. Especially when those beliefs and emotions are being shaped by people who have a goal such as the destruction of America.

I can see why government officials (I'm speaking in a non-official capicity here ), say that the enemy are terrorists instead of religious fanatics. If they state that religion is the root of why they're fighting us, then ALL muslims become the enemy... the common, Joe American won't see the difference. I can see why it's done this way, but I don't agree with it and it allows people to draw false conclusions. It keeps the higher ups at the pentagon from realizing that they're ultimately fighting religious warriors... though I think this is changing.

first E: The whole FOX news thing just gets me for one reason: they don't allow non-FOX news viewpoints without a counter-argument that's laced with scorn. I don't mind the fact that they lean more towards the right than CNN and MSNBC and others. In fact, I am a HUGE fan of that kind of diversity. I am NOT, however, a fan of the way those right-leaning views are presented. It's propaganda, Gambit. Plain and simple. (Though I will say that I like to watch it at times because their news-women are generally more attractive. )

G: Well, the world economy isn't as much of a free-market as your statements would imply, Gambit. It's more of a regulated-free-market than anything else. A prime example of this would be China. The Chinese government won't release its currency from specific numbers that their government derived. Those numbers don't accurately reflect the health of the Chinese economy, and it forces foreign goods to come in at dramatically lower prices than they otherwise would be. Chinese currency is held at a certain value regulated by the Chinese central bank, and that fixes the conversion between dollars and... Chinese dollars (?). That means that even though the US economy reacts to world conditions, and the prices for some things will go up or down, it's always going to cost the same in China. Say MS office (legal versions): 100 dollars in the US; 20 dollars in China.... and when the US economy changes: 150 dollars in the US; 20 dollars in China. This situation is only good for China; the US doesn't benefit other than it gets a trading partner.



As for the Iraq war in general: I think it was a good thing that Saddam got removed. I think it was a horrible thing to justify it on false pretenses (WMDs)... everyone thought Iraq had them, but that was based on poor evidence and in a couple of cases, outright lies.

The whole point of Kerry's "test" was to say to our friends, "Hey... we think Iraq has WMDs. What does your intel say? How confident in that are you?" then take what they say and analyze it and see how it fits with our data. It's not a "permission slip" to do anything... it's a double-check to make sure we don't look like dumbasses. Had someone done that, we would not have used WMDs as the pretense for the war. We may have still gone to war... but justified on different, more truthful reasons.



Personally, I think the bin Laden is either hiding out in Pakistan/Afghanistan, or hiding out in Iran. I say Iran because the government there is not friendly towards the US, and it's based heavily on religion. That's two key things for bin Laden's group.