2004 Election Rant

[tysonK]

Unless I heard wrong both Kerry and Bush were officially against gay marraige but Bush would like to make a law against and Kerry would rath have a laissier faire attitude towards it with states having the power as they do now.

It's interesting that religion has such a steam rolling effect on the debates here on the board and in regards to the election. As I work and live I find that religion has very little direct consequence in my life. Things I have no control over such as taxes, work schedule, insurance rates, etc are all unfortunately the more important issues in my life. I guess it's my lack of religion that would make those issues the most important maybe it's ill fated side effect.

Mike although I would like to have great debate with you it's really too difficult. The reason I think it is this difficult is the fact that we have such different lives. By seeing you and your family and how happy you guys are gives you, IMHO a vastly different set of social norms than say me and Scott. I can sort of see the lines drawn in the debates you and Scott already had. I can see the care giver and protector in your posts. I can see the care free doom sayer in Scott's!

[dknv]

Originally Posted by sperry

If I believe that gay marriage is wrong or right, that's my own moral decision, and I can choose to either participate or not in a gay marriage. However, to make it a law one way or the other is wrong, because it tells people how to live their lives when the alternative effects only those involved.

My rights end where yours begin, so to speak. Since marriage is between me and whoever I marry, why should the government have any say in who I marry.

So using this line of reasoning, why shouldn't we let (let's use a disturbing example) brother & sister be married? Or in other words,
'Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifices, dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria! '

Originally Posted by sperry

...does not mean we should stop being vigilant in attempting to prevent the cooersion of the Constitution.

Absolutely!
And in trying to be a vigilant voter, I still feel quite annoyed with the way state amendment questions 3/4/5 were worded - the popular vote has now taken away even more of our consumer rights, under the guise that this will keep our doctors in Nevada.

[Nick Koan]

Originally Posted by dknv

So using this line of reasoning, why shouldn't we let (let's use a disturbing example) brother & sister be married? Or in other words,
'Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifices, dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria! '

It may be repugnant to you and me, but I have agree that there shouldn't really be a law against it. As far as I'm concerned that is a moral issue and should be dealt with in chuch or other social circles.

In other words, just cause its fucking disgusting doesn't mean you have to make it illegal. If it doesn't harm anyone, then there is no point in making it illegal. What happens between two consenting adults happens between them. Its not the governments place to butt in and start slapping the cuffs on.

[dknv]

I suppose if siblings want to be married but not have sex, and not have any children between them, I agree with you. But if they have children there is all kinds of opportunity for gene damage, and therefore it does harm someone. So I guess in my mind one of the reasons for allowing a union to be called a marriage is the opportunity to allow that couple to form a family unit.

Why can't gay couples who want to be together simply call it something else, like a unification, or just say they have tied the knot? They could just legally change their names & wear wedding bands if they wanted. Probably one big reason is that they want their union recognized by a number of organizations such as insurance companies, the state, or adoption agencies. And if that's the case, then they should work towards reform for those organizations to recognize their union -- rather than banging their heads against walls that will likely take years, if at all, to come down.

[dknv]

Originally Posted by MikeK

We don't need religion, we have Darwin

Here's another one,
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...port_naked_man

Say Mike - how do you change a url to say something else, like your 'Darwin' example above?

[Nick Koan]

First part, I vaguely remember reading a recent report saying that most familes are genetically diverse enough now that they could probably suffer a few generations of inbreeding without any harm to the offspring. Ug, I feel this example can only go from bad to worse now, so I'd rather leave it as it stands.

Second part. Its not just the name of marriage, and like you mention its the rights associated with it. Legalizing gay marriage would, in fell swoop, pretty much give gay couples all the rights given to straight marriages. And that is much easier then lobying each of the 400+ legal rights that straight married couples have. I do like your idea, actually, but it seems like it would take forever compared to simply changing the legal definition of marriage to include homosexual marriages.

[dknv]

Yeah, and I just thought of another organization that a gay marriage may desire to lobby for recognition - the IRS. That might actually be worse than banging heads against walls...

[MikeSTI]

so I guess I'm going to jump back in..........with out having a religous tone.

ok lets say we let gay marriage happen in the same fasion as strieght marriage. Sence we now say anyone can marry guy/girl, guy/guy, gilr/girl.

It could provide a slippery slope in the legality of marriage (e.g. having multiple wives or marrying an object could be next). Gay rights activists claim that these marriages should be allowed because it doesn't hurt anyone, but it could start a chain reaction that destroys the whole idea of marriage. If someone wants to marry his dog, why shouldn't he be able to? What if someone wants to marry their brother or parent? What if someone wants to marry their blow-up doll or have 10 wives? Unless we develop some firm definition of what a marriage is, the absurd options are endless.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by MikeSTI

so I guess I'm going to jump back in..........with out having a religous tone.

ok lets say we let gay marriage happen in the same fasion as strieght marriage. Sence we now say anyone can marry guy/girl, guy/guy, gilr/girl.

It could provide a slippery slope in the legality of marriage (e.g. having multiple wives or marrying an object could be next). Gay rights activists claim that these marriages should be allowed because it doesn't hurt anyone, but it could start a chain reaction that destroys the whole idea of marriage. If someone wants to marry his dog, why shouldn't he be able to? What if someone wants to marry their brother or parent? What if someone wants to marry their blow-up doll or have 10 wives? Unless we develop some firm definition of what a marriage is, the absurd options are endless.

Good points. But another thing to consider, so what if it's legal to marry a dog? Chances are there's maybe one person in the country that would try it. Does that one person really make a big difference? Meanwhile there are tens of thousands of gay people that want the benefits of marriage; tax relief, adoption rights, health care coverage, etc, etc, etc.

Perhaps it would be okay to limit marriage to "between two people". It's when you start putting conditions on the type of people that are allowed to marry that it becomes discrimination.

*runs off to elope with an antelope*

[MikeSTI]

Originally Posted by sperry

Perhaps it would be okay to limit marriage to "between two people". It's when you start putting conditions on the type of people that are allowed to marry that it becomes discrimination.

hopefully this is where it will end up "between two people" and they dont leave the door open for all the nonsence. I do think it is a hard topic and I and most others need to get thier emotions out of the topic.

Americans cant be rushed with such a delicate subject. I dont want to stand in the why of two people who love each other, but rather make sure they get eqaul benifits without opening the door to lots of other problems just because we rush to get them Married.

[MikeK]

Originally Posted by dknv

Say Mike - how do you change a url to say something else, like your 'Darwin' example above?

Like this:

[sperry]

Originally Posted by MikeK

Like this:

Here's the Guide: http://www.seccs.org/forums/faq.php?mode=bbcode

[Dean]

It also tells you in the tip area when you hit the URL button in the post a message form...

"Insert URL: http://url or URL text"

[dknv]

You know what? I didn't understand it before. Now I do. Yay! Knowledge, its a dangerous thing!

To the customer

[AtomicLabMonkey]

Originally Posted by sperry

This election clued me into somthing that I should have noticed last election. We are a country divided, and we're divided along some very old lines. If you look at the red v. blue map of the election, you can almost see the Mason Dixon line... yes, this country is *still* fighting the Civil War, 150 years later.

In my opinion you're close, but on a slightly wrong track. I don't think the country is divided along North/South lines anymore; it's divided along the lines between urban and rural populations, wherever they are located. The large trend you see looking at a map is that the massive built-up population centers of the country are mostly on the two coasts, east and west, and their political outlooks tend to be fairly "liberal". Then there's the rest of the country in between which isn't anywhere near as developed, and for the most part it tends to be fairly "conservative". The two major parties have just latched onto these respective areas because they have easy support in them.

I agree that the divide is only becoming more of a problem, not less.. the bitterness between the two only seems to be getting worse with every national election. Left unchecked, trends like this can lead to civil war in a nation...

[AtomicLabMonkey]

Originally Posted by MikeSTI

btw - all faith in this country no matter witch faith it is, is still in God or Jesus!

I think I know what you're trying to say here, but I also don't think it's really true. "God-fearing" belief in a single creator is a fairly "western" idea, from what I've read. Many of the "eastern" religions just simply don't believe in the same idea that Christians do.

[pbaldy]

Originally Posted by AtomicLabMonkey

In my opinion you're close, but on a slightly wrong track. I don't think the country is divided along North/South lines anymore; it's divided along the lines between urban and rural populations, wherever they are located.

I agree, and saw this earlier that illustrates it:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politic.../countymap.htm

This election may have been close numerically, but geographically it was an 83% - 17% landslide.

[MattR]

Originally Posted by pbaldy

I agree, and saw this earlier that illustrates it:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politic.../countymap.htm

This election may have been close numerically, but geographically it was an 83% - 17% landslide.

Good Find, that is interesting

[sperry]

Originally Posted by AtomicLabMonkey

In my opinion you're close, but on a slightly wrong track. I don't think the country is divided along North/South lines anymore; it's divided along the lines between urban and rural populations, wherever they are located. The large trend you see looking at a map is that the massive built-up population centers of the country are mostly on the two coasts, east and west, and their political outlooks tend to be fairly "liberal". Then there's the rest of the country in between which isn't anywhere near as developed, and for the most part it tends to be fairly "conservative". The two major parties have just latched onto these respective areas because they have easy support in them.

I agree that the divide is only becoming more of a problem, not less.. the bitterness between the two only seems to be getting worse with every national election. Left unchecked, trends like this can lead to civil war in a nation...

But it was the same urban vs. rural division between North and South that played a major part of the Civil War. Granted slavery was wrapped up in there, but I really don't think that the South believed slavery was that important to keep, I think they were just pissed that the Northern control Federal Government didn't seem to under stand how important slavery was to the Southern's farm economy.

And now the "South", aka the "Bible Belt", aka the "Country Folk", aka the "Morally Strict" population of the nation are feeling that the Liberals that (let's face it) control the media have gone to far with the errosion of the nation's moral values. While I'd tend to agree that our media is full of shit (bad TV shows, awful music, rediculous ads, etc, etc, etc) I certainly don't think that it's the government's job to control the morality of the nation. And I especially don't see the moral decay of our media as a big problem considering the terrible forign policy of the current administration. I mean seriously... we're at war, hated (and even feared) by most of the world's nations, teetering on the brink of economic collapse, spending money like it's armegeddon, and all people can think about is whether or not guys should should hump each other.

To be honest, I was very surprised that the election turned out the way that it did. The Democrats couldn't have scripted a better situation to oust an incumbent President... I guess never underestimate the homophobia of Middle America. And in hind-sight, I see that this was really a long time coming... like I said, I should have noticed it 4 years ago, but it didn't click as to why people were voting the way they were.

And now that I'm part of the voting minority in what IMO should have been a very clear-cut election in the other direction, I fear for our country. If the majority of the people in the US are willing to ignore the single most important aspect of our government, and ammend the Constitution to include their personal religious beliefs as law, then how are we any different than the Taliban, or any other government based on fundamental religligious "values"?

[sperry]

Originally Posted by MattR

Good Find, that is interesting

"Geographically"? Looks like USA Today's working overtime in their map department. That's gotta be one of the *worst* analyses of the election I've ever seen.

That's like saying the 1000 people that voted in a giant, virtually unpopulated county in Alaska count the same as the million votes from New York, Los Angeles and the Bay Area combined.

What I want to see are the exit poll results from the number of people that said yes to the "did your pastor tell you who to vote for" question that was never asked. I think many people took the "Jesus is my sheppard" analogy far to litterally and basically allowed the church to cast a huge vote in the election. It's one thing to apply your own sense of morals to your selection, it's another to be told by your pastor that you're going to hell if you don't vote for a Republican.

[AtomicLabMonkey]

Originally Posted by sperry

But it was the same urban vs. rural division between North and South that played a major part of the Civil War.

That's true - my point was that the urban/rural divide isn't just limited along the geographic boundary of the Mason Dixon line anymore, as it roughly was during the Civil War period. Now it's spread through the entire country. Even Kalifornia, which taken overall as a state usually votes overwhelmingly liberal, is split between urban and rural counties.. just look at that voting map.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by AtomicLabMonkey

That's true - my point was that the urban/rural divide isn't just limited along the geographic boundary of the Mason Dixon line anymore, as it roughly was during the Civil War period. Now it's spread through the entire country. Even Kalifornia, which taken overall as a state usually votes overwhelmingly liberal, is split between urban and rural counties.. just look at that voting map.

I guess I should have been less opaque in my analogy, how's this:

"Remember the Civil War? Well there are lot's of the same sentiments *right now* that existed just before the Civil War. Perhaps we should be concerned that the division in our nation might lead to a second Civil War."

[AtomicLabMonkey]

Originally Posted by sperry

I guess I should have been less opaque in my analogy, how's this:

"Remember the Civil War? Well there are lot's of the same sentiments *right now* that existed just before the Civil War. Perhaps we should be concerned that the division in our nation might lead to a second Civil War."

Much better, smartass.

[pbaldy]

Originally Posted by sperry

That's like saying the 1000 people that voted in a giant, virtually unpopulated county in Alaska count the same as the million votes from New York, Los Angeles and the Bay Area combined.

Oh please, it does no such thing. It simply breaks down the vote down by county, which is more detailed than the commonly shown breakdown by state.

Now I will say that a case could be made that those 1,000 people in Alaska DO (or should) count the same as the 1,000,000 in NY. Those 1,000 people elect a US Senator whose vote counts the same as the senator from NY who was elected by 1,000,000. That's the whole purpose of the Senate; to give equal representation to each state. This was particularly true before they changed the method of election for senators.

In a similar fashion, that's what the Electoral College is, and why we have it instead of direct election of the President. It's an attempt to give smaller states more say (or at least to lessen their disadvantage). If one carried the Senate/Electoral College philosophy to the county level, you'd have that map.

We could debate this endlessly, and I simply posted the map as an interesting observation about the urban/rural nature of the results. I didn’t vote for either guy, so I’m not playing sides (I did vote, just not for either of them).

Now, can't we all just get along?

[dknv]

It's an interesting map (although I thought it said Alaska wasn't counted in the results anyway), and another way to slice & dice the statistics. I thought it was interesting that the pattern is very similar to 2000.

What I'd also be interested in seeing though, is a slice at where our absentees are (not talking about absentee ballots, but those who simply did not vote). What is it, like 30% or more who no-showed in some parts of the country? And what does that mean?, simply that people are apathetic, or want to uphold their rights to not be bothered, or don't have faith that their vote can change anything anyway?

I think I said it before, but what I was wishing for in this election was someone to vote FOR - and not to be hounded by unwanted propaganda about picking the person to vote AGAINST. That just irked me, to be continuously pelted with useless junk mail telling me Bush promotes nuclear waste dumps in Nevada, or Kerry voted for the war on Iraq. How wasteful! Meanwhile, our trees are dropping dead by the millions in the Northwest by paper mills bent on keeping up with the umpteenth request by the Democratic party to ship me the same piece of postcard material for the 10th time.