Political Pigpin

[HitomiBoy]

Being religious has nothing to do with seperation of church and state. read the constitution.

The reason why a majority would not vote for athiests is that a majority of people beleive in a God, and even Jesus, and as such, want someone with somewhat similar beleifs and morals in office, which is usually why christians (I don't think non christians have ever been in office) are elected. That 45% comes from people not really caring so much about their religion so much as their stand on the issues.

[Prox]

Although religion deals a lot with morality, a presidential candidate doesn't have to be religious to have moral views agreeing with those of a certain religion, but if one announces that s/he doesn't believe in divinity, a good part of religious folk will clam up without considering any of that.

And politicians know this; even the non-religious ones act like they are so as to not lose any support.

[HitomiBoy]

Which is sadly the truth, both of what you said

You don't "have" to be of similar religion to beleive the same things. I know a few athiests who are kick ass people and beleive almost all the same things I do, minus the God part. It's the "Bird's of a feather" Instinct

And politicians claim to have religion for this very reason, even if they don't act it.

[Bluejay]

Carried from Links Topic:

Also best President? Clinton was an embarrassment.

I also said "In our lifetimes" Now I'm pretty sure for most of us that goes back only to Regan.  So I'll say it again, Clinton was the best president during our lifetimes.  He balanced the Budget, Gave us a surpluss instead of a debt, Didn't drag us into a war that is financially crippleing this country, not to mention is morally wrong, AND, he was about the most personable president we've had in a while, I mean he could always joke about himself, he went on late night TV and played the sax for God's sake.  The man was truely a "President of the people" Even at his worst his approval ratings were higher than Bush.

[FyberOptic]

Reagon was a personable fellow and could talk the talk, and quite possible was a genuinely nice fellow, I won't dispute that, but he still ruined the economy, making us owe more to other countries than other countries owed to us.  There's also the whole Iran-Contra debacle, of "trading weapons for hostages", which he claimed never happened, then a week later said "well, we gave them weapons, but it's not what you think..!"  But I guess if Clinton can pull his "I did not have sexual relations" thing, Reagan can have his stretch of the truth as well.

But yeah, on a scale side by side, Clinton wins for doing the post positive.

[ecto]

The star of the media Bill Clinton, as many a democrat would lead you to believe is an outstanding human being that could do no wrong. Of course I’m being sarcastic. He plays the saxophone so that must make him a freaking saint.  You idolize the man I understand that, I however do not. I do blame him for 9/11. He had several opportunities to go after Bin Laden and chose to have an affair instead. What about the U.S.S. Cole? This happened during his term. It was an attack from AL Quida, and while yes the men responsible were tried did we retaliate? Did we do anything afterwards? Clinton yet again chose to sit on his ass. All the man did was put a bounty on Bin Laden.
Al Gore is a fucking hypocrite. I’ll say it again. The man you so admire blamed Tobacco for the death of his sister and…Oh this is just gold. What does he do, he farms the very thing that killed her. Sells it to other people. This was four years after his sisters death.  After he preached against big Tobacco. He is a hypocrite. He was also for Tobacco when he thought it would give him votes. When asked about abortion his simple response was I’d want to think about it. How can he expect to run a country when someone attacks us on our soil? I’d want to think about it is a lousy answer to give America.  A man who sacrifices his principals to get the votes is someone I’d vote for, and great use of scare tactics with Global Warming. Way to go Al.
Even if he does run can we expect him to conduct a preemptive strike when given solid evidence, or will he wait until the enemies at our door step knocking with a nuclear missile? And before this even comes up Bush didn’t "steal" the election. The people voted for the man fair and square. A certain news station got ahead of themselves basing their conclusion on exit polls.

[FyberOptic]

There are so many incorrect statements in there that it would take far too big a post to correct them all.

Watch Clinton's Fox News interview and he sets the entire record straight on what he did about Osama, what he set in motion for whoever took his place to do, and what the Bush administration totally failed to follow up on.  The Bush administration is almost entirely responsible for 9/11.

Watch Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth' and he does in fact discuss the tobacco farm his family had.  Emphasis on his family, not him.  They also stopped growing it afterwards.

We have no resources for anymore pre-emptive strikes, unless you're willing to support a.) a draft, or b.) go sign up to fight yourself.  There is simply no manpower to go anywhere else.

I don't idolize any of the people mentioned, but I put them much higher than any of the republicans that have been in power the last few decades.  All of them have had scandals much worse than a blowjob.

[Prox]

Ain't that the truth.

The U.S.S. Cole bombing happened what, two months before Clinton left office? After the Pentagon investigation on the incident wrapped up, Billy was packing his bags. In fact, the decision to not follow up on the investigation came from Little George.

About the abortion thing, would you rather have a president who didn't think about it before coming to a conclusion? Maybe it's just me, but thinking is probably a good thing...!

Also yes, as soon as Al Gore's sister died of [irony]lung cancer[/irony], his father sold the tobacco farm and later died, leaving Gore with all the money that his family had accrued from selling that junk. And he was pretty rich, too. A millionaire, even. So what he did was buy a house (twice as big as the average american house) and converted it to run on green energy, which is pretty much the thing he's spent the last few years of his life advocating. So, I still have quite a bit of respect for him, because he found a way he can enjoy his wealth and still serve as a model for his own beliefs.

[FyberOptic]

Very recently there was an article about how Gore is such a hypocrite on energy conservation, since his mansion used so much more electricity to power than a normal home.  Yet it conveniently forgot to mention how exactly he powers it.

[ecto]

My point being is the cole bombing happened on Clintons watch, meaning both Bill and Bush are partly responsible for 9/11. As I stated before Clinton had other opportunites to take care of Bin Laden before the Cole incident. He even admits to it.
The abortion thing was simply Gore dodging the question. The house he bought which was twice as big wastes more energy then a normal house hold. I believe he has a few more big houses. As for the military question I have attempted to sign up before. Their reason for not accepting me? I had asthema growing up, still do a little bit. I was calling Gore a hypocrite befoe that article came out. 

[Prox]

Clinton made a bigger effort to catch Bin Laden than anybody else. The fact that he did not actually catch him does not mean that Bin Laden's terrorism is his fault. That's a pretty fallacious argument, and I've heard it from more people than just you.

Also, the fact that the USS Cole was bombed during Clinton's tenure does not mean that 9/11 is his fault, sorry.

Find me all the politicians who have ever dodged a question and you'll find all the politicians who have ever lived. Nothing special there.

And about Gore's house, like I said, the house is powered by green energy. The report that he owns two or three or five whatever number houses came from Sean Hannity, who as you know can't be trusted, as he's been shown to just make stuff up before. The building actually functions not only as a house, but also contains staffed offices for Gore and his wife's business dealings, their global communications network, and their secret service agents, so I can only imagine it'd be pretty large. Like the Pelosi jet scandal, this whole issue is more of an ad hominem attack than a worthwhile argument.

[Bluejay]

Personally I don't blaim ANYONE for 9/11  save the assholes that hijacked the plane.  The fact that we did or did not do anything to stop it is moot at this point, it happened, Bush ignored the warning signs, Clinton ignored them, Bush Sr. ignored them, Regan ignored them... it's been ignored since the 80's. However, if you want to blame Clinton for the USS Cole since it happened in his term, guess what, you have to ENTIRELY blame Bush for 9/11 as it happened a year into his term.  I digress though; The main point here is that Clinton as a President did MUCH more for this country than Bush did in his terms in office.

As for the 2000 election, it was proven afterwards that Gore won the majority vote, but Bush pulled his BS in Florida and stole the election.  By then it was too late as Gore had conceeded the election and the country was tired of the whole ordeal.

[ecto]

Gore was the one who demanded the recount incase you dont remember. I'll say that there may have been a problem with the new voting machines, but as to go as far as saying Bush stole the election just shows the Democratic party are sore losers. No offense to any Democrats here. I'm sure the Republican party would be accusing Gore of stealing the election if he had won. 

[Prox]

Nice lie there. Florida state law requires a mandatory recount for elections with such thin margins as the one in 2000. Gore had nothing to do with it.

About the race itself, it was ridiculously close, and so I wouldn't call any objections marks of poor sportsmanship. Rather, they know that there were problems with the ballots, such as the incompletely punched holes or whatever, so they think that Gore might've actually won. And he might've. Of course, it's kind of pointless to talk about it now that Bush is halfway through his second term, but oh well, people will talk.

EDIT: I'd just like to add that the main reason people say that bush "stole" the election was because he was kind of hurrying it along at the end with his transitional committee, knowing that another recount might put him out of the oval office. Not the most ethical thing to do, but still, no point talking about it now that six or seven years have wasted since then.

SECOND EDIT: Further research tells me that the 2000 election was actually the closest one in U.S. history. A one percent landslide...!

[FyberOptic]

I honestly don't have much of a problem in saying that Bush stole the 2000 election, in the literal sense of the word.  There were far too many fishy circumstances going on back then for them to have all been simple coincidences.  That "Hacking Democracy" documentary showed many good examples of such.

Something that further convinces me of it, is that even though the democrats won the mid-term election all around, there were still some voting officials arrested in places like Ohio for tampering with the vote.  And guess what, they were.. dun dun dun.. republicans!  Apparently they just weren't taking a large enough number of democratic votes into consideration when they tried to rig things, because they still lost.

There are naturally going to be many untrustworthy democrats as well, I wouldn't even try to dispute that, but come on, like we didn't see the vote tampering thing coming considering the current state of the GOP.  With the stakes this time being what they were (the democrats about to kick their butts in the polls, leaving Bush with little power), and that it's so easy to cheat now with these pathetically insecure voting machines, I'd have been surprised if they hadn't played dirty.  The positive thing behind it all is that some of them actually got caught this time, where as who knows what they got away with in the last two presidential elections.

As such, I have to kind of commend the republicans that have been popping up in the news lately for leaving the GOP, due to all the scandals and crooks coming out of the woodwork.  I think there are still good republicans left, but that the corruption has taken over their party to the point that they're a small voice these days.