2007-09-13 US Politics Matter

Hehe. As I said a while ago, I’ve stopped posting much about politics... I’m having too much fun at the moment, and I can’t stand the feeling of helplessly watching the world go down. So I’ve closed my eyes, decided not to have any kids, and go down singing. Or something like that.

By chance I found a website by somebody interested in roleplaying games and he had an interesting page on US politics on the same site. I liked it.

“One of the pervasive myths of politics, promulgated by a mainstream media obsessed with process instead of policy, is that there’s no difference between Republicans and Democrats; no difference between liberals and conservatives. This myth is corrosive, reducing elections to beauty pageants and posturing. It disengages the common citizen from the political process, which only makes it easier for those with a vested interest in promoting public apathy to push their personal agendas while staying out of the public’s eye.
“But leadership matters. So as we perch precariously on the razor’s edge between responsible government and opportunistic payback, I’d like to take a moment to look at the most recent and most vivid example of why we should care about politics: The maddening margin of victory which made George W. Bush and not Al Gore our 43rd president. And four key events over the past six years in which the world could have gone a different way.” – Why We Care About Politics by Justin Alexander

Why We Care About Politics

​#USA

Comments

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Alex, this is precisely why you need to either have kids, or to adopt.

For myself, someone who never wanted to have kids, who was literally *tricked* by his girlfriend into having a daughter– For myself, I’ll just say: It’s been a wonderful ride, and I think having my daughter improves the world, and contributes positively to the evolution of humanity.

And that I voted for Al Gore.

– LionKimbro 2007-09-14 03:51 UTC

LionKimbro

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Non-progenitors are just as political and contributive to society.

The stunning irony about supporting Democrats just because they’re last names aren’t spelled “Bush” is that the entire argument is entirely apolitical. Sounds like a contradiction? True, Bush does enrage and politicize people. Electorally, it produces anybody but Bush (ABB) phenomenon. In 2004, it re-elected Bush (failed to unseat him). ABB-ism lacks any real criticism of issues or any stance on where to go next and therefore offers *no leadership*. “Bush is incompetent”, but he’s unfortunately he’s not a solitary element. Last I heard, Bush isn’t running in 2008. Also, the foreign wars, corruption and human rights violations championed by Bush are operated by an entire political system. The system includes members of the Democratic Party. There needs to be an opposition movement, not settling for supporting an opposition party.

Politics do matter. Unfortunately *electoral politics* in the United States is a board game (game show!) played between two players where the general public always loses.

– AaronHawley 2007-09-14 15:19 UTC

AaronHawley

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Alex:

Right now in an alternate Universe, an alternate-universe version of myself is looking forward to having Barak Obama as the next President of the Alternate Universe United States of America.

Unfortunately, back here in this Universe, I beleive we are going to end up with another Republican, who’ll win after we experience one or more terrorist attacks in the US, which will launch the wars against Syria and Iran, whcih are already basically starting now as proxy wars (Isreal attacking Syria, proxies fighting the US on the Iran/Iraq border on behalf of Iran).

I hope my prediction is wrong, and that we “merge” conditions with the better Alternate Universe...

– SamRose 2007-09-14 19:38 UTC

SamRose