April 2024 Judiciary News
5 weeks ago
Monday, October 27, 2008
A comment...
My dad seemed a little irritated, to say the least, when I told him I wouldn't be voting for John McCain. I'm sorry, but I just simply won't vote for someone who sounds like they will continue growing government beyond its means. If I knew Michigan was going to come down between Obama and McCain, I would probably come through for McCain, giving in to the fact that a vote for McCain is a vote against Obama. Unfortunately, though, it won't be close in Michigan (thanks for nothing, Detroit). The only good that comes from the fact that Michigan is going to Obama is the fact that I can now vote my conscience rather than my common sense. It's too bad that conscience and common sense don't always align, isn't it?
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6 comments:
I would argue that the first charge of the president is national security. That is foremost. Without that, we have nothing else to defend or fight for.
Many other issues extend into national security - national debt and the economy for example. If we have a weak economy, we become more vulnerable in other ways.
Obama is an international crisis waiting to happen. Ask Biden. I can trust McCain in this area. So I will vote for him. He is much safer for our national security.
Bush grew the government beyond its means. Yet I have to say I respect him as president due to his steady hand with the war. I think McCain has the same steady "big picture" command.
Obama has no clue - except he'll negotiate and talk. But he carries no authority without the military. He needs to get over himself. He even negotiates with himself! He has not shown leadership. Certainly not the type I can respect. What will our enemies respect?
I know who McCain is at least. Who is Obama? He hides too much I fear.
I want my vote to count in the real poll (the election), not just these media driven, media interpreted, media slanted, hyped up statistics. So the polls show McCain is behind in Michigan. I want my vote in the final count against Obama, and voting McCain does that most effectively. Voting for an "also ran" is not the same message in my opinion.
I greatly respect your thinking. Keep up the good word - a conscience with common sense.
Thanks for the comment, "d.a.d." By McCain's own choice, he has no chance in Michigan. Announcing publicly that he was abandoning his campaign in Michigan swung the independents quickly to the left by making it seem that McCain doesn't care about the issues that are important to Michiganders. If I thought that it was going to be close, I would have to vote for McCain. However, he has no chance, which means that a vote for any candidate besides Obama is equally weighed as a vote against Obama. That's one of the major downfalls of our winner-take-all electoral college system. Beyond a certain point, my vote truly doesn't count.
You're not going to find a disagreement from me on any of the comments you made about Obama. He changes his policies depending on who he's talking to, makes bad decisions about associations (which shows a history of poor judgment), and wants to turn our capatlist society into a socialist one. I agree that out of the two main choices, McCain is by far the most sound. However, the two party system poorly represents our country. It's going to take one person at a time making the decision to vote for someone besides the two main candidates for there ever to be an ideological change in our political system. I'm proud to call myself one of many who have already made that decision, and hope that our decision inspires others.
Thank you for responding to my comments. I have some points to make about your response.
You said: “By McCain's own choice, he has no chance in Michigan. Announcing publicly that he was abandoning his campaign in Michigan swung the independents quickly to the left by making it seem that McCain doesn't care about the issues that are important to Michiganders.”
I disagree that McCain chose to have no chance in Michigan. I think he chose to put limited resources where he thought they would impact the election. This is business. You invest where you think the most return will be.
I also disagree that McCain’s choice caused independents to swing left. I give these voters more credit than that. People do not become more liberal, or vote more liberal, just because a candidate makes a business decision. I do think it was a poor choice to announce it publicly, however. What’s the purpose in that? It discourages the grass root support. But that’s a morale issue, not a switch my vote issue.
You also said: “If I thought that it was going to be close, I would have to vote for McCain. However, he has no chance, which means that a vote for any candidate besides Obama is equally weighed as a vote against Obama.”
Here is the dilemma. How close is close? Eight points? Four points? When would you switch your vote back to McCain? Are you really going to give a poll, or an average of polls, that much power over your decision making? Will you be like Clinton, hold a town hall meeting, take the polls, and then make a decision accordingly? Or will you make decisions on principle, in spite of the polls? What does a leader do? Or a voice of reason?
And how are you getting your numbers? On what day and by what poll? My point is that I cannot and will not trust the polls. Why do you think there are so many of them? Because they all have different criteria and all have a purpose. And the people they poll are fickle according to the day of the week and the recent stock market loss or the World Series score or the weather. The media then uses them (the poll and the people) to make the point THEY want to make.
The polls are a tool of the liberal media and nothing else. The media make polls popular. They spin the results daily. They choose which poll to talk about today. Polls are not a democratic tool. They are not! A poll is more like a toy the kids get to play with. It’s shiny and makes noise and I have more. The polls showed that Kerry would likely win over Bush. Right. Even that same day, election day, Kerry was supposed to win according to the media.
The only poll in a democracy that counts is the election. You said: “Beyond a certain point, my vote truly doesn't count.” I understand your frustration and also the limitations of the electoral college. But I say that even if I was the only one, my vote matters. I understand that you want to move the meter with your vote. If you truly want to do that, vote McCain. He is the only candidate opposing Obama that has a voice.
I greatly respect your thinking. Keep up the good word - a conscience with common sense.
And have you considered, that your blog, and your daily conversations and life, are actually more meter moving than a vote? Think about it!
I agree that polls are only accurate to a certain point. However, I think that when you take a great number into account, and analyze them yourself rather than listening to the media's interpretation of them, they can give you a good idea of what the outcome will be. The polls in 2004 poorly predicted the outcome for several reasons, including their inability to predict the number of social conservatives who would come out in great numbers to support Bush. Those social conservatives are not as supportive of McCain as they were of Bush, and even if they come out in unexpected numbers as they did in 2004, there are whole other groups that can easily make up for their momentum, and then some. These other groups include first-time voters and black voters. The magnitude of these groups' impact isn't shown in the polls, which means the polls may actually be showing less of a lead for Obama than they should. Obama's lead in Michigan is 15 points, with about 6 percent undecided. Even if all 6 percent of those swing for McCain, which is unlikely (I'd say it's more like 4 percent that he'll pick up), McCain loses by double digits. I would say that if the polls showed McCain within 9 points, I would vote for him (the margin of error + the percent of undecided...obviously being optimistic that all undecided voters would swing to McCain).
I disagree with you about the reason so many independents swung to Obama. I think my original reasoning was correct. Voters cast their vote based on who they think will address the issues that matter to them the most. Even if McCain's decision was a business one, which I agree it was, his pulling out of Michigan made it seem as if he cares less about the issues important to Michigan voters. Unfortunately, I think you give people too much credit. It amazes me every day how very uneducated people are about the issues or how little they know about a candidate before they make up their mind to vote for them. Most Americans are grossly overconfident in their own opinions. If America was truly educated, Obama wouldn't have even held an elected office in the first place.
The one part of your response that actually bothered me was when you said "Or will you make decisions on principle, in spite of the polls? What does a leader do? Or a voice of reason?"
If I was going to vote on principle, I would ignore all polls and STILL vote for someone other than McCain. McCain's principles often do not align with my own, so if I were voting on principle alone, it would obviously not be McCain. A leader makes the right decision, no matter how tough or unpopular it is, which again leads to the conclusion that I would not vote for McCain, as I have determined that although voting for McCain may be the popular decision for people who are anti-Obama, it isn't necessarily the correct decision. The voice of reason would be the only one of the three to actually cast their vote for McCain, as reason says that McCain obviously stands the best chance to defeat Obama. That is the dilemma, and the beauty of the title of my blog, in that principle and reason require a difficult and delicate balance. Not all decisions can satisfy both principle and reason.
Finally, just to say one more thing about polls...polls are a tool, and just like any other tool, they're only helpful in the hands of someone who knows how to use them. I agree that the only real poll that matters is the election, just like seeds in a sports tournament don't matter because upsets happen all the time. If we were going to go off of seeds, why even play the games? It gets to a point, though, when you can take other factors into account and say almost without a shadow of a doubt what will happen. Of course McCain "still has a chance," but if I am going to vote based on the best combination of my principle and reason, I cannot vote for McCain.
P.S.
Ever think about starting your own blog?
“Ever think about starting your own blog?”
Well, at the risk of more than you know, I am now going to tell you something you cannot believe and wished you had never heard.
I had a blog once. Until only those registered with the Democratic-Socialist Party were allowed to write freely on the internet.
I am writing from 20 years into your future. A few geeks of the Freedom Underground Party recently discovered how to do this - how to use the internet to get to the past - but that’s not the important part. Our plan is to use this knowledge to do re-elections (like the movie Groundhog Day, only real) until we can defeat Obama, who has been “president” these past 20 years.
Yes, that’s not a misprint. 20 years. There’s too much detail to communicate in the short underground internet “worm time” I have, so here’s a summary. About July 2012, during the presidential race, a national security crisis occurred when two cities, Houston and Seattle, were bombed and briefly taken over by Al Qaeda sleeper cells. The world-wide chaos was frightening. The street fighting in these cities was at first a blood bath with National Guard forces running head-long into some carefully set traps. All in all, 166,000 citizens and military forces died (Independent research estimates four times that many due to the effects of the dirty bombs used). It took almost seven weeks to regain some semblance of peace. It took almost seven years before some refugees returned “home.”
Obama declared martial law to prevent other cities from suffering the same fate. The capital building was closed down after unspecified but “substantiated threats” by Al Qaeda. Congress was locked out for three months. When they were finally allowed to return (some never did), the country (and the world) was a different place. Rationing was the rule. Certain industries, like coal mining, were shut down for various reasons, partially due to “negotiations and peace agreements” with OPEC and the new Russian Oil Coalition. The food supply is still run by the government today. Not just regulated, actually run, by government employees. Farm land is now leased from the government “temporarily” until we “make the needed changes socially and can move from despair to hope.”
The original crisis lasted well past the election with “no new and fair election possible under such conditions.” To keep the calm in the economic crisis, Obama created roughly 50,000 new jobs under the newly created “Department of Regulations and Opportunity.” Communications of all kinds, internet, television, media and newspapers, became heavily regulated and taxed to “prevent certain anarchy of ideals and principles which could undermine the national security.” As I said before, only those registered with the Democratic-Socialist Party are now allowed to write freely on the internet.
Of course there is much more, such as what happened to Governor Sarah Palin and her family, but that’s beside the point. This has been our first attempt at a “re-election.” We have successfully broken through several barriers in the process. The 2008 Presidential race must not go to Obama. If we are not successful this time, we will be back to the past to try new methods. These are desperate times calling for desperate measures to re-secure the freedom we all once enjoyed.
I know we are trying to change history, and this in itself has dangers we are even not aware of. But the past 20 years has also changed history and introduced dangers worth the risk of what we are attempting. Some day there will again be a free market. A new Wall Street will develop. People will once again own small businesses and enjoy the hard work of success in working for themselves. Elections will resume. If you do not prevent Obama from being elected tomorrow, we will be back, again and again and again.
I had a blog once. I would give anything to have that measure of freedom. I will give everything to have that kind of freedom. How much better to protect and value and defend that freedom than to pay the cost to win it back.
Thank you for standing in your freedom with such a clear voice of passion, reason and principle!
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