FUCK! NADER, YOU IDIOT!
23
Feb
2004
Seriously, Nader, I don’t know what you’re smoking, but you are fucking things up for the Democrats. Knock it off, dude. This is just the way a two-party system works. Third-party candidates don’t win, they just piss people off. Didn’t you ever take Comparative Politics in college? Because I did and we learned alllll about this. Sorry to disappoint.
oh, I don’t know. this should seal an already solid election for my good friend G.W.Bush.
since I know there is no way nader will win. let me and all bush folks say. GO NADER!
he. he. not that bush really had to worry about re-election but nader running will let bush sleep easier.
Comment by zeb — 2/23/2004 @ 3:03 pm
Hey! Since when are Bushies allowed to post here?
Comment by Katie — 2/23/2004 @ 5:05 pm
actually 3rd party candidates are incredibly useful for pushing issues forward that the other two parties don’t want to touch.
That said, though.. I have been happily watching Kerry and Edwards gaining force and am not crazy about crucial votes going 3rd party way. Then again, KS has always been a goddamn throw away republican state… geez! i’ll be sending in my vote though - what little good it may do!
i would wager to guess that Bush does need to worry about re-election - Pops couldn’t pull it off even though it’s almost guaranteed that the incumbent president wins. I hope thata term of mismanagement and lies tips off the portion of the population that was fooled 4 years ago.
Besides.. i’m sick of the whole bloody world thinking americans are like that idiot. (or in Canada, “the moron”)
pips katie
Comment by mol — 2/23/2004 @ 6:40 pm
All Americans are like that, arent they?
Why else would he have been elected in the first place?
Comment by Amanda — 2/23/2004 @ 9:13 pm
I want to dwell on the past for a moment. What comes to mind: Pat Buchanan and Harry Browne, the great siphons that the republicans have to deal with. In the end, all is super furry and Ralph gets his bacon. A little competition is good and keeps everyone on their toes.
Comment by garrett — 2/23/2004 @ 9:47 pm
Well, with only my intro-to-political-science book to back my viewpoint… I really think that voters are and are not dumb. I doubt people who seriously want to see Bush thrown out will vote for Nader, because they want to make sure Bush is out. The policies are hardly the issue: they know the Democrats and the Republicans are the ones with the greatest support, and what with the state that nation’s in, they know voting for Nader would be voting for mister Sandman.
The only reason why Nader is running, it seems, is that he wants to break the two-party system. Which IMHO is good; but only the people who loathe-loathe-loathe the two-party system will vote for him… the Democrats have Dennis Kucinich, after all.
I doubt there are millions of Americans who are willing to sacrifice a Democrat victory for a multiparty system. There is simply too much at stake: another Republican president naming the Supreme Court judges, (and because of that) the possibility of racism in the judicial system perpetuated, the possibility of another war, the climate & environment, abstinence-advocating ’sexual education’, Christian fundamentalism on the throne. So Nader’s campaign will hardly make a difference; I would think anti-Bush Americans will look to the Democrats to beat Bush. What Nader’s candidacy might prove, for a second time, is that there are people who want to see the current system change. And that should create pressures.
(and this post is mumbojumbo!)
Comment by jg — 2/24/2004 @ 3:28 am
My sentiments exactly: http://www.oftquoted.com/blog-archives/000533.html
Comment by Raymond — 2/24/2004 @ 3:45 am
Truth be told, third party candidates CAN have a lot of impact even beyond just the symbolic effort or as a spotlight-candidate for a few issues that would otherwise be in the dark.
A number of third party candidates have done VERY well in the general election, notably Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose party. In fact, there is still an organization called the “Bull Moose Republicans” that operate like a small wing of the GOP trying to drive them toward a particular point of view. Also, don’t rule out the importance of the third party candidate in the 1860’s, in where the third party (the Republican party headed by would-be-emancipator Abraham Lincoln) overtook the whig party who refused to take a stance on the issue of slavery. Lincoln, until then, was a devout Whig (like Nader who is otherwise a devout Democrat), but was dismayed that the Whigs could not muster the moral stature to decide on any major issues of the day.
The Republican party arose because Southern Democrats were racist murders who oppressed personage in the name of “states rights.” Whigs weren’t certain that the “states rights” argument wasn’t totally incorrect. So it took a third party to rise up to the injustices placed on the people.
Incidently, the new Republican party wasn’t, initally, totally successful. In order to win reelection, Lincoln thought he should take a Democrat as his Vice President– Johnson. John Wilkes Booth (a devout Democrat) thought a regime change was in order and let Johnson lead the United States into a hundred years of out-of-the-closet racism that allowed “slave codes” be redefined as “black codes.” It would continue through the 20th century, through Democrat “hero” Woodrow Wilson who said the movie Birth of a Nation (the story of the rise of the Ku Klux Klan) should be “required viewing” for all people in America.
It would take 100 years to undue the damage caused after the Democrats tried to squelch the third party’s challenge.
Comment by gjoe — 2/24/2004 @ 11:07 am
Oh, of course third parties MATTER. They just…you know…piss me off when it’s in the form of Nader mucking things up worse than it started.
Comment by Katie — 2/24/2004 @ 11:34 pm
I’m with Katie. (…If anyone still gives a rip.)
There’ve been so many paradigm shifts between the parties over the past hundred years it makes no sense to trot out the Civil War as something relevant to the narrative.
The facts are these:
Bush is very much in the pocket of the law-and-order types. That is what makes him attractive to the people who will vote for him.
The Democrats, meanwhile, are running on the point that their political adversaries are constraining civil rights and access to information about government activities (eminently true, as it was before Sept. 11th), and that they’re entrenching the privileged (also eminently true). These are issues that matter most to full-on liberals and libertarians with an excess of political awareness - and those belonging to the former classification far outnumber those belonging to the latter.
So in comes Nader, attempting to force serious cleavage between those same liberals (all ABB types to the last) and create a situation in which common sense is labelled as cowardice.
The major parties are trying to be pragmatic, Nader’s trying to be progressive. While in a just world Nader would win in a heartbeat, this is most certainly not a just world (shocking, I know).
The thought of casting a vote for Kerry makes me nauseous… but I’d have an outright coronary if called upon to vote for Bush instead.
Were I to vote for Nader, I’d certainly be voting my conscience… and in so doing, keeping Bush in office for another four years.
I’m not getting a guarantee that, if I vote Democrat, the mess the Republicans have created will get cleaned up.
I do have a guarantee that if Bush is re-elected, it will get messier.
…And that will get another four years of John Ashcroft leading the Department of Justice. The Executive branch has historically survived far worse than the likes of him, but the less of him we are forced to endure, the better.
There is also the fact that, as an avowed Catholic and student of American history, I can state with confidence that the Separation Clause is strongly supported in Scripture, and to a lesser degree in the Gospel.* When I see the sitting Administration perverting both the Constitution and their stated spiritual imperative, I am filled with a righteous fury.
You should be, too.
The people babysitting W. have no business running this country.
*See also T. Paine’s essays explaining the need for colonial rebellion against His Britannic Majesty George III.
Comment by ben — 2/25/2004 @ 5:24 am
Oh, I care, Ben. I give a rip…
Actually, truth be told, no one is running anti-Patriot act, not Kerry, not Edwards, not nobody.
Spend a little time with CNN and you’ll find out that while Kerry got most of his attention as the war-hero-with-a-concience, now he and Edwards are gaining traction on the same issue– the economy (oddly, because all signs point to a stronger economy, though Democrats have never been particularly economically savvy).
So why is it that no Democrat (other than Howard “Screaming” Dean, of course) is espousing a platform to declare foul on “constraining civil rights and access to information about government activities?” Well because Senators Kerry, Edwards, Lieberman, Kennedy, Rodham-Clinton and ninety-five of their colleagues passed the USA Patriot Act, the final count being a resounding 98-2 victory in the senate. Arguing against the USA Patriot Act is so obvious political posturing and flip-flopping that even the non-politically inclined would understand the contradiction.
And now, a moment of economic discussion to your point that Bush is ” entrenching the privileged.” I suppose this is a charge that tax cuts were geared toward the rich, and inappropriately so. Yet take longer-term approach to the subject and boil it down to the most basic tenant of a capitalist society: jobs. For an economy to work in the long-term, it must create new jobs. How does a political administration create jobs, gentle reader? Well, they create jobs by putting money in the hands of people who have the capital to create jobs. This means, of course, that tax cuts for the wealthiest people mean reinvestment into the economy, where businesses can grow and expand and employ more and more people. Because when wealthy people have more money, they start businesses. Or if they don’t start businesses they buy yachts and stupidly-expensive gourmet food that keep the shipbuilders and the Kansas farmers in business. Or they stockpile it into banks, which allow lenders to lend money at lower interest rates, which allows people finishing college to buy houses and cars and start families and make babies that we all hope one day will grow up to be rich and give jobs to other people and the economy cranks forward ad nauseum.
In fact, go spend a few hours in the library and read some Wall Street Journal issues from October of 2000, when Clinton was still President. Spend a little time to learn how the stock market was flagging, job growth had stalled, and all the talk of how overvalued a business was that had “.com” as it’s last four letters. You’ll learn that eight years of messy fiscal policy had left the economy starved of capital, devoid of job growth in any sector other than the service industries, and how Alan Greenspan was raising interest rates to stabilize an economy so overheated that the talk was no longer about inflation, but deflation.
I think it is odd how the people that ballyhoo loudest about politics and civil rights and economics have the least exposure to underpinnings. John Ashcroft is not an enemy. You can’t be a Nazi and win 5 statewide elections in Missouri, a state known for political schitzophenism so deep that Democrats would vote for a dead man.
Furthermore, though I believe that a fundemental seperation of Church and State is a valuable tenet of a modern society, you are patently wrong that there is scriptural support for seperation. Remember that Before the Common Era, the state of Israel was a religious state. Kings David and Solomon were religious leaders as well as heads of state– a tradition that continued through wars with the Assyrians, the Palestinians, the Cyrenes, and later, the Romans. In fact, the Romans were particularly adept at conquering kingdoms, imposing Roman rule and government, yet allowing smaller governments to rule territories within the Roman empire. This is how at the birth of Jesus, we could measure time based on the Greek calendar (the 184th Olympiad), by Roman emporers (100 years after Julius Caesar and under the rule of Augustus Caesar), or by Jewish Kings (under the rule of King Herod). Herod, the king of the Jews in the Roman occupation, was so afraid of propecy that a new king was born in Israel that he issued a decree that all newborn boys should be slain (Mt 2:16). This is why Jesus Joseph and Mary left tinseltown for Egypt (Mt. 2:13) where they stayed until Herod died (Mt 2:19). And as a matter of popular culture might dictate concurrent with Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, it is important to note that the religious nation of the Jews did not execute Jesus– they didn’t have the authority to do so under Roman law (Jn. 19:7). That’s why they had to drag him before Pontius Pilate to be executed (Lk. 23:24).
Truth be told, Jesus in the gospels said only one thing about the role of government or religion, and that was that we should “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but give to God what is God’s” (Mk. 12:17), which would make a poor, at best, case for seperation of Church and State.
FURTHERMORE, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THE “SEPERATION CLAUSE.” I dare you to find in the consititution any reference to a seperation of church and state. You won’t. It’s not there. Nor is it in the Declaration of Independence. Nor is it in the federalist papers. Nor is it in any law in the federal register. Ain’t no none. I promise, look it up. The first ammendment only provides that Freedom of Religion shall not be abridged, and nothing more. Constitutionally (though not politically, obviously), it would be okay if the government were to establish a state religion, as long as it didn’t prevent others from existing and operating as well.
Ben, Katie, sorry for such a long post. I’d usually save such rants for my own website, but I got a little riled up on this one. Rare is it that someone can be SO WRONG on SO MANY ISSUES all at the SAME TIME.
Comment by gjoe — 2/25/2004 @ 2:57 pm
Wow. I don’t get my ass handed to me very often.
Meanwhile -
While there is no Separation Clause apart from Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion etc. would someone please explain to me why the Supreme Court has again and again and AGAIN made rulings to the end of ensuring that the body of laws in this Republic are drafted and enforced from a secular basis and most certainly not a religious one?
Meanwhile, while the application of supply-side theory may work, after a fashion, that certainly hasn’t prevented the distribution of wealth from massively shifting over the past thirty years.to the benefit of the wealthy. The cost of that success has come in the form of ballooning trade and federal budget deficits, and federal debt, and sooner or later those deficits will need to be spoken for. No amount of bawling about moveon.org’s agenda (or whatever you want to call it) is going to change that fact.
(…And yet somehow the Clinton Administration managed to scrape together a federal budget surplus. Blame that on the economic growth of the 90’s if you like, but I recall fondly that things were pretty flush during Reagan’s second term, too, though there was no talk then of budget surplusses. Hm.)
You’ve yet to address my point about the need for religion to be divorced from the American political process as put forward by Tom Paine in Common Sense. Bringing Israel into this discussion, meanwhile, is like comparing apples to Volkswagens - different culture, different history, different geography, etc. etc.
…And in the Gospels it becomes rapidly clear that the Christian’s life is one of example, not coercion. I’ll volley with Luke 17 and the Lord’s Prayer, since citation is not my strong point.
I would think that Christ’s silence on the matter of the relationship between God and government speaks louder than words, myself, partciularly given the imperative of social justice - kinda leads me to think that not only is the attainment of social justice a Christian’s duty, but also something from which government needs to keep its hands whenever practicable (a thought that oughtta make you libertarians out there quite happy).
Yet we have an Administration, cheered on by a moonbat of an Attorney General, who’d cheerfully cram all sorts of morality down our throats if they thought they could get away with it.
I am not disputing that a ruler or magistrate who evinces faith ought to follow it as a source of wisdom (Scripture is very clear on that as well). Rather, I’m still trying to figure out where the Bible says its okay for those who lead, to force their beliefs on those who follow. (If memory serves, that devolves to Jehovah.)
Regarding the close of Clinton’s term and the role his Administration’s fiscal policy played in the ensuing recession - remember irrational exumberance? I’ll admit that I’m not clear on where the money to start the bubble came from, but it was an outcome that was richly deserved… these zillion dotcoms were putting the cart before the horse, building crap businesses with crap sites and crap revenue models, and no-one, it seems, was actually thinking for themselves about the situation. At least, that was my takeaway at the time, and I was closer than most to the whole mess (though not nearly as close as I could’ve been, had I chosen to fellate Mammon).
The point I’m getting to is that I’m not going to blame anybody’s administration for the recession. There’s plenty of blame to go around.
‘Fraid you haven’t got me convinced that voting Republican is something I oughtta do.
Oh. One other thing -
I lived in Missouri from July ‘89 until August ‘97, excepting a summer in Portland, and my father was in Columbia for two years before I showed up. Don’t get me started on the subject of John Ashcroft, please… While the Missouri electorate may be schizophrenic enough to vote a dead man into office, that dead man was elected with the intent of keeping John Ashcroft out of the Senate. You make the call.
Comment by ben — 2/25/2004 @ 8:05 pm
Ben,
I’m not going to argue with you, I’ll leave that to gjoe. However I would like to bring up a couple things for you to consider: 1) moveon.org does have an agenda (for better or worse), 2) Reagan was in the midst of a “cold war”, from that, it’s quite obvious there would be no discussion of any kind of budget surplus (the money was spent to win the “war”), 3) The economy is always slow to respond to anything (good or bad).
As far as the “Religion issue” goes, I think I’ll stear clear.
Oh, and one other thing, Nader is not concerned with anything the democratic party has to say to him (he’s on a personal crusade).
Comment by garrett — 2/26/2004 @ 1:07 am
I’m not disagreeing with you, Garrett, on the point of moveon.org having an agenda - I was hoping that those who’d feel so inclined would step in and say something harsher. From many perspectives, something harsher would be richly deserved.
WRT moveon.org, though, a point of history needs to be raised: they were started as a grassroots response to Clinton’s impeachment trial, which I find to be fit justice… the man might be a lecher with a forked tongue, but in any event he was hounded from the declaration of his candidacy in ‘92 until his departure from office, and this fact is pretty well agreed upon - the arch-rightwingers couldn’t keep him from getting elected, so they did their level best to clothesline him with a series of scandals - and if you’re going to tell me that that conflict didn’t leech at reserves of time and energy the man needed to exercise the duties of his office more effectively, I’ll call you a fool. The end result AFAIK was that the repeated attacks were disrespect of the office that came about as a consequence of dislike for the man who’d been elected to it, and I’ll tell you: if they were pelting W. with the same rotten tomatoes that they lobbed at Clinton, I’d be just as pissed-off due to the disrespect for the office of President.
It might be possible to make a similar case WRT Watergate, though someone else would need to make it. I was an infant barely out of my mother’s womb when Nixon resigned.
If moveon.org’s role in the election results in W.’s removal from office at the ballotbox, I will call it just desserts.
When you raise the issue of the Cold War, Garrett, you reach into a space where I definitely know where I’m coming from… the writing on the wall was plainly visible in the halls of power (not only in the NATO countries, but also the Comecon countries) by the time the dollar was at its strongest during Reagan’s presidency (around the time of his second inauguration). It was well understood that Gorbachev would be the next GSKPSS, and that something along the lines of perestroika would be called for.
…Yet Federal budgets kept rising. In the spring of 1987 (well after glasnost had started to take hold) the first trillion-dollar budget (don’t recall if it was for FY1987-88 or FY1988-89, because I never studied the legislative aspects) was announced and passed.
Why?
…As becomes clear in retrospect, because the political advantage to be had for the Republicans by the Soviet Union’s disarray was greater than that to be had by smaller Federal budgets.
Put more simply, one can make an easy case that the Republicans and the supplysiders fucked the Federal treasury so that they could seize the credit for winning the Cold War… something that continues to pay dividends even fifteen years later. But even in 1985, it was clear to those in the know that victory for the West in the Cold War was inevitable.
The references to religion can be written off by the uninterested as an argument between a liberal Catholic and a conservative (or at least not nearly as liberal) Catholic. Gee, that’s never happened before. Heh.
…And finally I agree with your assessment of Nader’s motivation. Shades of “we had to destroy the village in order to save it” are entering my peripheral vision, though. :sigh::
Comment by ben — 2/26/2004 @ 4:13 am
wow, bit of a discussion going on here. in norway we have many parties and a very socialist structure, and it works really well. i guess there isn’t one right system for every country.
Comment by mae — 2/26/2004 @ 8:53 am