| Subject: Re: Random Thoughts On John Kerry, Liberalism, and Apathy. |
Author:
Dave
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Date Posted: 21:36:19 08/19/04 Thu
In reply to:
Rob Dog Bastard
's message, "Random Thoughts On John Kerry, Liberalism, and Apathy." on 06:00:10 08/19/04 Thu
I've been thinking about this issue quite a lot over the past several weeks. I'm not done working out a tit for tat argument for all of Kerry's failures, but I've drawn some strong conslusions as to why I can't and won't vote for Bush. As in most if not all political arguments, the points you draw against Kerry could easily be drawn against Bush. Not directly of coarse but here's an example. Bush doesn't support a nationalized health care system (which you say we can't pay for), but he's more than willing to spend billions of dollars that we don't have on the war in Iraq, substantially increasing the deficit.
My biggest concern with allowing Bush to remain in office is what the state of American values will be at the end of his term? We're already beginning to see more and more idiotic "protections" enforced on us. Most of these "protections" are merely window hangings to cover up the fact that theres not much the government can do to protect us. We live (or aspire to live) in a free and open society. There are certain dangers inherent in this way of life. How many more "protections" before that free and open society disappears.
In my opinion, our biggest problem right now is that we've alienated ourselves from the rest of the world. After 9/11 we had the support of the world when we ridded Afganistan of the Taliban and broke up Al Qaeda's base of operations. That was a win win situation for us and the world. But, Bush's hard headed tactics to involve the world and eventually mostly the U.S. in a war with Iraq has swept away all the support that we once had. We are still getting support from the goverments of many nations, but the populations of those nations don't support us. We're fighting a war on terrorism, since when did brute force win out in a gorilla war? If we hadn't gone to war with Iraq we might have retained the support of the world's populations, allowing us to build a stronger intelligence force, which I believe is the only way we're going to win against the terrorists.
I don't believe that it's within Bush's capacity to tone it down on the military front. His administration is a who's who of the hawkish right. The American values that I hold, don't include the idea of preemption. Certainly we have every right to defend ourselves. Unfortunately, I believe that we're defending ourselves against the wrong people. Ask yourself this, how much safer are we after our preemptive strike against Iraq? Not at all safer. Though, we're $100+ billion slimmer in the pocket book.
Kerry has his problems, just like any candidate. Nader has some even wackier ideas than Kerry. What I'm looking for is a person that can slow down our rush into the quagmire of large scale preemptive military strikes that I see Bush leading us.
In the longer run I'd like to see Gen-X produce some grassroots independent visionaries. Forget politics as we know it. Start at the local level. Revamp goverment to be truly democratic (i.e. more than two parties, maybe even no parties). I want internet voting, quick turn around public referendums on most votes, representatives that spend more time with the public than with lobbyists, etc...
The current political system is bankrupt. Our candidates are force feed to us through politcal parties that are more interested in protecting themselves than advancing America as a whole. One last question, you say that people voting for Kerry have no candidate (1st para). Are you so satisfied with Bush that you'd call him your true candidate? Does he really represent your ideas and values?
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