Post-election-day bullspunk

[feren]

You know, I don't expect everyone to be happy about the results, but I do expect people to buckle down and cope.

Waaah, the Republicans are in power. Waaaah! It's a conspiracy! Waaaaaaaaaaah! Waaaaah, I should move to Canada!

Yes, yes you should. Please move to Canada. Move there and spare me your noise.

Comments

[dustyfox.livejournal.com]

Oh I'm VERY pleased with the results. *rubs hands together*

[spoothbrush.livejournal.com]

I would just like to say that I am pissed off about the "I want to move to Canada" people (or at least the ones who are saying it for political reasons), because as far as I can tell approximately none of them have ever paid any attention to Canadian politics (which I continue to think are as fucked-up as US politics, only with more of a one-party system thing going and a leader who can't talk in *two* languages instead of just *one*). I blame the Vietnam war.

[kristenq.livejournal.com]

I'm really shocked Jeb Bush is still around though. It's still hard for me to imagine the majority of Florida keeping him there, though.

[yakko.livejournal.com]

Maybe that IS their "coping mechanism."

I think it sucks, truthfully. I mean, how do you cope constructively with this? "Gee, I voted against you, but your asstastic presence disgraces me still. Won't you just hurry up and die?" :o)

[feren.livejournal.com]

[I mean, how do you cope constructively with this?]

1. If you don't like the decisions they're making, tell them. A polite, well-written letter is one of the most powerful things a voter can use to make his or her opinion known to their representative. One party is not inherently against the other, they just have a different way of looking at things. Just because the party line isn't your own doesn't mean you can't sway your representative.
   
2. Use this to get shit in order for the next election. One of two things occured here: People decided they agreed more with the Republicans than they did the Democrats (or anyone else) or the Republicans came out and voted and simply overwhelmed the Democrats by turning up at the polls. Somehow I really doubt the former is at fault, so that tells me that Democrats simply didn't exercise their power. Rectify this.
   
3. Organize car pools to the elections.
   
4. Put up signs.
   
5. Attend rallies.
   
6. Donate.
   
7. Volunteer your time to the campaign to get your party's word out.
   

Exercise your strength as a voter in the next election and while doing so make people aware of the issues, the candidates and their own strength so that they vote too. It cascades.

I could go on, but it's not my problem. Above all I'm making the point that I'm fucking tired of hearing people bitch, and I'm particulary sick of the old whinge about moving to Canada. It's tired and it's lamer than a 34-year-old nag with founder standing in the rain. It's like listening to one kid threatening another with "Give me your candy money or I'll... I'll... I'll do something you won't like!" As a threat or a promise it has absolutely no force to it -- it's just something people say when they can't come up with anything really meaningful to say when they're faced with the fact their team lost, pure and simple.

[feren.livejournal.com]

That still amazes me. But then .... it's Florida. It doesn't have to make sense.

Dude

[pogo101.livejournal.com]

With me, my wife and Jen W., I think you make the fourth fur not to hate Tuesday's results. :P

Why?

[pogo101.livejournal.com]

Care to fill me in on why it's so amazing?

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

Funny you should say "team" at the end there. Politics resembles nothing so much as sports these days.

Re: Dude

[feren.livejournal.com]

Actually, that's five. You forgot to count me. ;)

I don't love the results, because I don't see eye-to-eye with the Republicans on a number of issues that I think are important (I'm definately a fan of the independents that run because they tend to reflect my views a lot more closely) but I align with them a lot more than I do the Democratic party. So I definately am not hurt to see the Republicans getting the balance of power shifted to them.

Which is ironic, considering my upbringing on the farm. I mean, when you look back at the history of the party there was a time not so long ago that the Democratic party used to be the party of choice for farmers and "the common people."

[brianblackberry.livejournal.com]

Ugh, need to read my friends' list more regularly, sorry for the lateness of the response...

I suppose what I found most annoying over the whole "Oh no! The Republicans have control over the Congress and the White House, lets move to Canada!" thing is that people assume simply the absolute worst conspiracy theory that somehow this would mean some sort of automatic push into some theocratic, fundamentalist, dictatorship. I suppose they have been saturated by their own propaganda so thoroughly instead of really looking at the voted in congressmen or actually checking the party platform that such a concept is actually plausible, nay probable in their warped minds.

Considering historically when either party in the past (and we can look simply at post WW2 America for this) had the majority in both the legislature and executive that the nation did not suddenly fall into some right or left wing dictatorship, such fears are rather unfounded. Besides, the Congress wouldn't be a rubber stamp for a single party's agenda simply because the majority isn't large enough, have they ever heard of the 'filibuster'? Bi-partican cooperation will still be needed on many issues.

Perhaps they need to read less conspiracy Internet billboards and more actually factual research, but that may be hoping too much.

Personally I only worry for my home state of Illinois, the new governor had promise what is literally hundreds of millions of dollars in new programs and increases in others. The concern being that the money simply is not there as the state budget is one billion in the hole. He will either have to break those promises wholeheartedly, completely strip other programs for the needed cash or majority raise taxes.

[spoothbrush.livejournal.com]

Do politicians not know how to do math, or is it that they've decided that the voters can't?

One of the thing that annoys me most while reading, say, vote-smart.org or anything like that, is to read candidates' positions who talk about increasing funding to programs x, y, and z, but neither about a) raising taxes or raising taxes enough to make up for the spending or b) cutting funding to other programs. The same thing when they're talking live. Hi, not a big fan of debt over here.

Stupid stupid stupid!

Re: Why?

[hightensile.livejournal.com]

It amazes me because i can't find a single person in florida that actually likes the guy. as far as i can tell, he got reelected because his competition was flat. Oh well, it's at least worth investigating more...

--Kit

Re: Why?

[pogo101.livejournal.com]

So it's rather like the situation here in CA. No one respects, much less likes, Gray Davis, but he won anyway. :P

[yakko.livejournal.com]

How about not funding pet program X, special-interest program that only benefits 20 people Y, and just plain wasteful program Z? I'd rather they try trimming a bit of fat before hitting the populace up for tax money.

I'm not fundamentally opposed to tax increases, much less to increases which fund something that's necessary, but there're a lot of things that are not necessary.

[yakko.livejournal.com]

no.

All they do is simply double all the toll roads' charges! :o)

I may be wrong, but haven't those roads been paid for for years? I remember going thru the De Kalb and Dixon toll booths when I was a kid, and now, 22yr later, they're STILL there!

Really, as for the promises, they'll probably do a combination of all three in a carefully crafted manner, so they don't lose votes next time.

[spoothbrush.livejournal.com]

"Necessary" is a fairly subjective term, though. I mean, is an alternative energy plant that'll only provide a half-dozen jobs worth spending 1 or 2 million dollars on? Is it worth spending $12,000 a year of taxpayer money on a stipend for a psycholinguistics graduate student? (I think so, but I'm biased).

[feren.livejournal.com]

Complete with the riots and drunks urinating in sinks?

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

Yeah!

Re: Dude

[pogo101.livejournal.com]

Hey, we can start our own club. A very small club. YET ANOTHER FUR FANDOM FACTION! Just what the world needs. :P

I'm not partisan in any ordinary sense. I am just being taxed to pieces, and the rates get higher decade after decade without fail. Gah!

After a brief period of being a no-tax-too-high Democrat (sadly, there aren't many who aren't in that category lately) in college, I'm basically a SMALL-"L" libertarian ... but I vote GOP in many races because that is the best chance of stopping the greatest overall harm to me and my interests.

And yes, a problem with my being GOP is that most Republicans do not cotton to furs ... let alone furs who life-model. I'd say fewer than 5% of furs would call themselves political conservatives ... that fewer than 5% of life models would do so ... and that there are fewer than 10 lawyers who are life models who like anthropomorphic shtuff in the WORLD.

And nine of THEM are gay.

Which makes me a misfit all over the place. :]

[yakkette.livejournal.com]

What's annoying about democrats bitching about the Republicans winning, well, everything is that:
They don't realize that republicans and democrats are both mostly beholden to big business interests these days, and aside from a couple of issues, are both moving to the center and even if their idealogies aren't the same, run things in an almost identical manner

They like to blame people with the guts to vote green, libertarian, or independent for the loss of their candidates, instead of blaming the candidates for alienating these voters by their moves towards the mushy center

They don't realize that this is just a big chance for the republicans to fuck up, which they will, and that republicans doing well in THIS election gives us a good 75% chance we'll see democrats regain control of a lot of stuff in 2004. Even without the impending second recession my nutso yet often-correct boyfriend keeps talking about.

P.S. Canada is lame.