Claptrap and Lip Service
Posted on: June 5, 2007 - 3:43am
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Claptrap and Lip Service
Link to the dumbest thing I've read all day:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070605/ap_on_el_pr/democrats_religion
Here, the candidates seize middle America by both cheeks and speak directly to the source of their views. This kind of mealy-mouthed political horseshit is just mind-bending to me. I'd rather deal with a Robertson, or even a Phelps: unabashed jackasses and scoundrels. If they say something offensive, at least they say something. You know where you stand with assholes like that. I'm so fucking fed up with religion, and the slobbering political sociopaths who humor its adherents.
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It's all about vote winning. Trying to capture more votes in middle America. As a citizen of a planet dominated by American Foreign Policy (it isn't just Americans who are affected by who becomes President) I'd rather have the Democrats in power. It's a case of the lesser of two evils.
Atheist Books
I heard about this on NPR this morning. You are right, it is claptrap and lip service. Sadly, there are not many candidates in the United States that will leave their religion out of their politicing. They feel the must mention it to win votes (which is probably true), instead all candidates should be evaluated solely on their merit, experience, and posistion on important issues. I do not see whether a candidate prays or not as 'pressing' issue in this country.
But the problem of choosing the lesser evil is that you are still choosing evil. Both parties are owned lock stock and barrel by corporate interests. The only real difference is their stand on a few social issues.
"When you hit your thumb with a hammer it's nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a special kind of atheist to jump up and down shout, 'Oh, random fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!'"-Terry Pratchett
Let me put it this way... What choice do you have?!
Atheist Books
I just saw Obama getting asked "Is God on our side in the war on terror?"
Of course he had to dodge it. He just quote Lincoln saying something like "We shouldn't ask that, we should ask 'Are we on God's side?'"
Edwards meanwhile is sounding like a preacher.
www.andyhanson.net
Jacob, the system is so broken, there is dwindling confidence that we even have a choice between two evils. I can't go a day without seeing a Diebold logo somewhere, and being reminded of how this shitty company has infested the heart of the electoral process. The CEO mentioned in a letter to GW Bush that he would give him Ohio in 2004. What that meant is a small matter of dispute, but the fact is their machines are flawed, insecure, the staff running them incompetent, the company building them inept and possibly corrupt.
I'm uncertain whether we'll ever again (again?) have a clean and honest election, thanks to the folly of whomever contracted these damned machines. In Austraila, they have machines running open source software. Anyone can look at it and point out the vulnerabilities. Here, we have badly programmed proprietary systems which have been easily circumvented.
After Kerry came out of nowhere like a grey fog to diffuse the momentum of screamin' Howard Dean, and screwed our chances to jump out of Bush's flaming wreckage, I've become more jaded than ever to conventional means of dealing with politics. Though I can muster little enthusiasm for it all, I'll "throw away" my vote on those who reflect my conscience the best. Kucinich in the Dem primaries, and whomever the Greens back in the general.
Ahhh...That is a doozy. Unfortunately for me, I live in a very 'red' state, so whomever I vote for doesn't matter, the state will send all its delegates to the Republican nominee.
Our system as it stands is horribly corrupt. The best hope I can see to fix this is a 3rd party. But the people in power have done everything they can to ensure that they stay in power. In my state, a 3rd party has almost no chance of getting on the ballot for even local elections, much less national. I believe that even the Libertarian Party did not recieve enough votes in this last election to remain on the ballot for the next one and the number of signatures required to get on is some astronomical number. Various law suits are pending.
So what do I do? I write to my Senators and Congressman. I campaign for people that I like. I read everything that I can on current events to stay informed of what is really happening...but that is getting harder to do with the lack of any real journalism. I write to the newspaper when they irritate me with their lack of good reporting or obvious bias.(I had to stop reading one local paper due to the fact their poor excuse for journalism had me way past irritated into high-blood-pressure-pissed.) I vote, but in 16 years I've yet to back a winner. Perot, Dole, Abstention, Kerry.
"When you hit your thumb with a hammer it's nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a special kind of atheist to jump up and down shout, 'Oh, random fluctuations-in-the-space-time-continuum!'"-Terry Pratchett
Hillary Clinton: Faith got me through marital strife
Now before you jump to any conclusions, let me state that my problem is not with any of the following:
-a Democrat/Liberal believes in god. OH NO!
Actually, that's all I have. I guess using a "listing" technique wasn't the best strategy. Oh well.
Anyway, I have two problems with this story. First is how transparent Clinton is. Maybe I'm being a bit too cynical here, but it seems like the only reason she said what she said was in an attempt to garner some Republican/Conservative sympathy and, ultimately, votes. "Oooh, she has faith and believes in God. So do I! I can vote for her now! Hooray!" Whether or not she actually believes in God is irrelevant. The fact that it is even an issue is what is most disconcerting, which leads me to my second problem.
Why is an evangelical organization even sponsoring a political debate/discussion? I've never claimed to be much of a history buff or anything, but isn't there some kind of "separation of church and state" thing written down somewhere? Aren't government and religion supposed to operate independently of one another in this country? Did I miss something? What's going on here?
Ah, the Good Ole' Days!