Vote and Be Damned

[Brokyn]

[ For our American comrades, I thought I'd share this. I don't mean to offend any pro-Bush people, this just seemed noteworthy. It'll probably be all over the news for a day and be pushed aside soon after. ]

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October 17, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Vote and Be Damned
By MAUREEN DOWD

First Dick Cheney said that supporting John Kerry could lead to another terrorist attack.

Then Dennis Hastert said Al Qaeda would be more successful under a Kerry presidency than under President Bush.

Now the Catholic bishops have upped the ante, indicating that voting for a candidate with Mr. Kerry's policies could lead to eternal damnation.

Conservative bishops and conservative Republicans are working hard to spread the gospel that anyone who supports the Catholic candidate and onetime Boston altar boy who carries a rosary and a Bible with him on the trail is aligned with the forces of evil.

In an interview with The Times's David Kirkpatrick, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver said a knowing vote for a candidate like Mr. Kerry who supports abortion rights or embryonic stem cell research would be a sin that would have to be confessed before receiving communion. "If you vote this way, are you cooperating in evil?" the archbishop asked. "Now, if you know you are cooperating in evil, should you go to confession? The answer is yes."

As Mr. Kirkpatrick and Laurie Goodstein wrote, Catholics make up about a quarter of the electorate, many concentrated in swing states. These bishops and like-minded Catholic groups are organizing voter registration and blanketing churches with voter guides that often ignore traditional Catholic concerns about the death penalty and war - the pope opposed the invasion of Iraq - while calling abortion, gay marriage and the stem cell debate "nonnegotiable."

"Never before have so many bishops so explicitly warned Catholics so close to an election that to vote a certain way was to commit a sin," the Times article said.

Once upon a time, with Al Smith and John Kennedy, the church was proud to see Catholics run for president. The church was as unobtrusive in 1960, trying to help J.F.K., as it is obtrusive now, trying to hurt J.F.K. II.

The conservative bishops, salivating to overturn Roe v. Wade, prefer an evangelical antiabortion president to one of their own who said in Wednesday's debate: "What is an article of faith for me is not something that I can legislate on somebody who doesn't share that article of faith. I believe that choice ... is between a woman, God and her doctor."

Like Mr. Bush, these patriarchal bishops want to turn back the clock to the 50's. They don't want separation of church and state - except in Iraq.

Some of the bishops - the shepherds of a church whose hierarchy bungled the molestation and rape of so many young boys by tolerating it, covering it up, enabling it, excusing it and paying hush money - are still debating whether John Kerry should be allowed to receive communion.

These bishops are embryo-centric; they are not as concerned with the 1,080 kids killed in a war that the Bush administration launched with lies, or about the lives that could be lost thanks to the president's letting the assault weapons ban lapse, or about all the lives that could be saved and improved with stem cell research.

Mr. Bush derives his immutability from his faith. "I believe that God wants everybody to be free," he said in the last debate, adding that this was "part of my foreign policy."

In today's Times Magazine, Ron Suskind writes that Mr. Bush has created a "faith-based presidency" that has riven the Republican Party.

Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a Treasury official for the first President Bush, told Mr. Suskind that some people now look at Mr. Bush and see "this instinct he's always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do." He continued: "This is why George W. Bush is so clear-eyed about Al Qaeda and the Islamic fundamentalist enemy. He believes you have to kill them all. They can't be persuaded, that they're extremists, driven by a dark vision. He understands them, because he's just like them."

The president's certitude - the idea that he can see into people's souls and that God tells him what is right, then W. tells us if he feels like it - is disturbing. It equates disagreeing with him to disagreeing with Him.

The conservative bishops' certitude - the idea that you can't be a good Catholic if you diverge from certain church-decreed mandates or if you want to keep your religion and politics separate - is also disturbing.

America is awash in selective piety, situational moralists and cherry-picking absolutists.

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Yay.

--William
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Haelrahv Wiki!
++Brown Nosing Points

[soundless]

_________________
A bright-eyed Thekko Ku Kalla dressed in a dapper sailor suit takes to flight and careers through the air toward the Modan Kucho and slams into him!
With a high-pitched cry, The Modan Kucho collapses in death.

[Dante]

[HR-Faith]

Military personnel and their families show a 3-1 preference of Bush over Kerry. These are the people (and their families) who put their lives on the line, who live in constant turmoil (uprooted every few years, etc.) so the rest of you can have the freedom to live how you do.

I'm about as agnostic as they come, AND I believe homosexuals should have the same rights as heterosexuals, yet I choose Bush. Why? Just one reason (and not the only one), I believe he has a better understanding of the atrocities people are capable of committing and is better equipped to help our country defend itself. Kerry lives in a dreamworld, or maybe it is that he wants all of you who are willing to follow him to live in a dreamworld. Either way, from what I've heard come out of HIS mouth (not 'news reporters'), he's so out of touch with reality he can't even remember what he's said from one day to the next.

Maybe you could post some of the OTHER slanderous articles? You know, the other HALF which is anti-Kerry? Or actually, you probably don't even read it, just stick to those who slander the one you've decided you hate.

Open-mindedness and reading the facts (and avoiding all the well-known slanderers in the media...from both sides of the campaign) would go a long way in realizing that while you may not agree on who would be the 'best' president, you can stop touting that one is your interpretation of Satan incarnate.

I may be in favor of Bush, and I may be absolutely spiteful to those who continuously slander him with nothing but a media article on their side, but that doesn't mean I haven't wavered or that I'm even a Republican. I've voted Democrat just as often.

This entire election, including all the horrid crap people have said (on BOTH sides) makes me sick and disgusted and I will be thankful once this election is over and I (hopefully) don't have to read or hear any more of this stuff.
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Counselor Faith Tempest
Medic Guru
hr-faith@haelrahv.com


"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." -- Bilbo Baggins --

[HR-Faith]

Okay, evidently I came off as angry, and I'm not angry, just frustrated.

I'm not frustrated that people don't agree with me, I'm frustrated with all of the bashing, both the Kerry-bashing and the Bush-bashing. I see no reason for it, and I will be grateful when it is over. I'm also tired of seeing one-sided articles when I make a point to NOT read that kind of stuff in the news because I don't want to hear/read words taken out of context, or hearsay, I want to get my information directly from the sources.

So, my apologies if I came across angry, I'm not mad at any specific person, I'm just frustrated in general with the election and want it done.
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Counselor Faith Tempest
Medic Guru
hr-faith@haelrahv.com


"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." -- Bilbo Baggins --

[Praxis Keuplan]

Without getting into a long drawn out argument over politics, I just wanted to make one small reply to what has been said. I'm a tactics analyst for the devision of the DOD and the one thing that most in my field agree upon is what the Vice President has said is correct. Want a good example? Look at what happened to Spain. Apeasement will only put the terrorist in a better position to strike. Then again, what do I know....

One thing is certain though, Americans have forgotten the lessons we learned on 9-11 and if Kerry gets elected, then my point will have been proven correct.
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"I am become death, shatter of worlds." J. Robert Oppenheimer (Creater of the atomic bomb)

[HR-Trevor]

I'm not going to get into yet another tirade about politics, but I'll make a few comments.

William: Good article. However, very very biased, took cheap shots at Bush (the religious subject of the article had no direct links at all to Bush, opinionated conjecture doesn't help much), and I think some of the message was lost once the Bush bashing began.

Religion/Politics: It absolutely disgusts me to read about church figures telling people if you vote for a certain candidate you are a sinner and must confess. I have to admit, I personally have way too many issues with the Catholic church to ever be Catholic, but if I were, I'd leave in a heartbeat once I heard such a thing.

Religion/General: It always sort of intrigues me when certain people decide to make God sound like this badass who everyone has to appease by strict rules, and if you don't do things just right, you're fucked. We're talking about the same God that is talked about as an icon of love and compassion all the time right? It's got to be one or the other. I know people will say, "Oh he loves you, it's just the stern parent sort of thing." but that's bullshit.

If you believe in God then you believe he gave you free will. Which is a lesson for the previously mentioned officials within the Catholic church by the way. If God can let people decide what to do with their lives and know they're gonna fuck up some times, why does the church have to not only bust your balls if you screw up, but actually make a point to make sure you know XYZ is a bad, terrible awful sin before you go commit it? I don't see the ten commandments materialzing before me every time I consider commiting a sin. Maybe that's for a reason, eh?

Terrorism: Look, this is not such a simple cut and dry issue as to be something someone can study and come up with a wonderful solution that is sure to fix it. In fact, I'm not so sure it can be fixed. Still, you don't go running after everything with a hammer just in case it's a terrorist.

Spain, IMO, does not have problems because of their stance toward terrorism. Spain has problems because a) they are divided into political and cultural factions and have been for centuries; and b) they were just generally ill prepared to deal with it.

Hell, look at all the third world countries out there that also seethe with terrorism. Some of them have leaders who are fanatic about doing anything to clean it up, but that doesn't mean they can.

The US is fortunate because it is a fairly isolated country. It sort of reminds me of this issue of the snakehead fish we keep hearing about lately. First it popped up in a couple ponds and it was a big deal. They used poison, electricity, etc to kill them before they could cause real grief. Well now they're in the Great Lakes. At least one is. Along with the zebra mussel and several other predators we never had here before.

Yet these things have existed in other parts of the world for a long time. Fortunately for us here, we have a solid country, united people (mostly), and we simply don't have much in the way of home-grown terrorism. That has nothing to do with race, politics, or religion. It's just a fortunate situation we're in.

However, I hope people don't think it's going to last. There are going to be more attacks, no matter who is living at 1600 Penn Ave. Do the qualities of the adminstration at any given time have an impact on how likely or how severe these attacks are? I'm sure they do to some degree, but mostly, no, not really.

One of the things I dislike about the current state of affairs is that in some respects, bin Laden and pals have accomplished their goal and won a major battle for their cause. They trashed our economy, which has been recovering, and will recover, but more importantly, they trashed our security and freedom.

There's no way to deny that freedoms and liberties have been diminished. I wanted to kick Bush in the throat the other night when during the debate he said Americans haven't lost any of their freedoms due to the war on terror. You can say it's necessary, you can say we have no choice, but you can't say it hasn't happened.

I think changing the law in ways in which we lose some of our freedoms may be inevitable, as sad as that is. But the damn truth of it is, the concept of terrorism has existed throughout time, including during the days the founding fathers penned the Constitution. Somehow, these men were optimistic enough to think fighting terrorism, spies, subotage, assassination, and general major mischief could coincide with freedom, liberty and optimism. It's a damn shame we have to treat life nowadays as if the same isn't possible anymore -- when it is.
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"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." -- Plato

-- Trevor Rage / Rich Mondy

[soundless]

I dislike Bush for three reasons.

1) He does not understand that the church should not influence the state. This guy still doesn't think evolution is real. Now, I'm all for being spiritual, but if you think the jury is out on evolution, then I can't respect someone intellectually. Along with that, someone with a very Christian viewpoint as zealous as his may not always consider the other religious groups within America. If you're going to listen to one, I think as a president of everyone you need to consider all religions. On top of that, you also have to consider those who aren't religious but still good people. I don't think Bush does that.

2) While I like that the government wants to actively prevent terrorism, Bush is trying to bite off more than he could chew, and on top of that do so without regard for the rest of the world. I (and all the non partisan research groups, I'm not talking Michael Moore here) still don't see how Saddam had WMDs. I also don't see why we're in Iraq. Sure, Saddam was an asshole, but he was an asshole for a few decades now. If we're trying to prevent terrorism in America, should we really piss off other fanatical groups? And why aren't we still hunting Osama?

3) The gay marriage thing blows my mind. Beyond that, Bush does not support a UN sanctioned, 85 country supported bill that grants women universal rights because it includes the term "sexual rights".

While it probably makes me a horrid person, I would like to know how Bush would react if a daugher of his is sexually assaulted and, as a result, pregnant. I really wonder how he would react if his daughters are denied their sexual rights.

Hell, I still don't understand how Cheney can keep indirectly harming his own daugther's welfare because she's a lesbian. Is he going to explain to her why she can't see her girlfriend/wife/whatever-down-the-road if she's hospitalized and she doesn't count as a spouse?
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A bright-eyed Thekko Ku Kalla dressed in a dapper sailor suit takes to flight and careers through the air toward the Modan Kucho and slams into him!
With a high-pitched cry, The Modan Kucho collapses in death.

[HR-Mickey]

[HR-Trevor]

I get the impression that Cheney doesn't per se like gays too much, but that he's far less adamant about it than his wife or Bush. In fact, I get the idea that if his wife didn't stir up the issue, Cheney would remain as quiet as possible on it. Of course I also think this is very possibly simply because his daughter is a lesbian, and not some virtue in Cheney himself.

But again, that's all just my theory.
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"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." -- Plato

-- Trevor Rage / Rich Mondy

[Brokyn]

Well, yeah, the article was quite biased. On first reading (afterwhich I posted it here) I didn't really think about how it might be offensive to those that either dislike Bush-bashing or personality-bashing altogether. Probably because I've been thinking the same things myself and just saw it for what it was trying to say: Bush is too centered on religion.

I apologize, Faith, for frustrating you. Ascii-hearts?

Apparently my psyche was just wanting me to jumpstart a good, healthy political debate. We haven't had one of those in awhile, right? I suppose I can try and say a few good things about Bush. That might offset my article a little.

--Banned partial birth abortions. While I agree that abortions should be a woman's choice, the partial birth versions are just wrong. For those unknowing, they induce a premature delivery but force the baby's head to remain inside the woman. Then they take an instrument and, through various motions, manage to crush the skull and siphon everything out. Since the baby isn't fully delivered, this could not be considered a murder under the law.

--Set aside a bit of money toward stem-cell research. Yeah, he restricted the money to pre-existing embrionic lines, but at least he did provide some money. And he didn't restrict private funding at all. While some will say it's like "putting a 10ft leash on a dog and only allowing them a 1ft of it", he did nothing to halt research on umbilical or adult stem-cells. With a quick googling, there's a study that says injecting umbilical stem-cells (along with a fairly common drug - mannitol) to stroke victims reduces the actual damage. While not a cure for cancer, I suppose you could say we found this out because Bush didn't restrict it.

--The economy. Yeah, you can probably blame it's general downturn on him. But, realistically, you can't. Bush himself has no direct control over the stock market, how many people build homes in a period of time, or really the number of jobs. He can introduce policy, but everything has to pass the legislative branches. Plus there's the state and local governments that get to make decisions on how best to spend federal funding. And, sorry to say, but a lot of these people are fucking stupid (Georgia's for one).

Then you have to take into account that this kind of stuff is really just a part of the economic cycle. It's idealistic (and fairly utopian) to think that a society can indure endless years of economic growth and prosperity. There are upswings and downswings. And with the Tech Market Bubble Burst, Sept. 11, and various major corporations cooking their books, you cannot blame investors for being a little skeptical and weary of.. well, investing. And our economy is basically founded on investments. So that's obviously going to slow things down. I read somewhere -- and no, I cannot remember where -- that, given the economic cycle and barring anymore anxiety-causing variables, we're going to have a bit of economic growth in the next four to eight years no matter who's sitting in the Oval.

Hm. That does it for me. Any pro-Bushers want to say a few good words about Kerry?

--William
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Haelrahv Wiki!
++Brown Nosing Points

[soundless]

[Dante]

[HR-Trevor]

I loved when they asked at the last debate about jobs and Bush said the key to creating jobs was to 'keep funding' No Child Left Behind so that kids could have access to "the best schools in America".

So apparently the solution, if you can't find work, is to just wait 5 or 8 years for NCLB to make your kid a genius who will undoubtedly find jobs you can't and pay your bills for you.
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"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." -- Plato

-- Trevor Rage / Rich Mondy