McCain and Obama Fit Into Neat Ideological Boxes—Extremist—but I Don't
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Hello there, Bonnie. I understand exactly what you're saying. Just because you have your own views doesn't mean you have to accept a label of any kind. It's the same thing with political parties. I vote for who is the best candidate, regardless of party.
I have actually been accused from things I have posted of being a conservative republican idiot, when I actually support Ralph Nader. But see, there some things, not many that I don't necessarily agree on.
Because I do not identity myself as a staunch heavily-left deomcrat.
Nor should I have to.
I have my views that are my own, and they transcend party lines.
It isn't an all or nothing deal. You have to be true to yourself and your principles.
So you don't want to be labeled a feminist because your full values and beliefs don't lie fully with them. To take on a label is a big responsibility, because you have to walk the walk, with fire, too. But if that isn't in your heart and that's not how you want to be indentified, then hell, BE YOURSELF.
Which is exactly what you're doing right now.
It's funny, many women blame men for belittling them, but a great deal of them act hypocritically. Women seem to be immediately vicious to other women. They think you should blindly be this way simply because you're a woman.
F-that.
You are who you are and if they don't like it, let 'em live in their hypocrisy.
You know yourself better than anyone.
And you are actually showing yourself to be an example of how women can be fair and open-minded about things.
I urge you to visit Ralph Nader's website at www.votenader.org
He deserves a closer look by those who want a firm, clear vision of tomorrow. If he were to get on one debate, just one, his numbers would jump tremendously...
But come election time, if in your heart you feel Obama is the best choice for president, then damn it that's your right.
No one should tell you how to vote. Nor make yo carry inaccurate labels as a result of such.
(Good article by the way. As far and balanced as I've seen in a while.)
"Primary voters nominated an extreme conservative and an extreme liberal."
This woman put the "less" in clueless when it comes to politiks.
John McCain an extreme conservative?
That's pretty funny when he votes against
the Conservatives more then any other member in his party.
Ha!
We call him the "democrat" in close politikal circles.
And Barack Obama an extreme lefttest?
What are you smoking honey?
(because I could use a drag of the good stuff too!)
Barack voted down the fourth ammendment to the US Constitution of the United States
when he supported Bush's domestic telecom spy program.
I want my rights to sue these telecoms for spying illegally...
that's right illegally on the American people.
(You ain't afraid of a lawsuit are you?)
They are both kind of weak in my eyes.
I don't have no "fire in the belly" feeling
that wins races for either one of them.
They both pander to the people for "politikal moments"
and one thing I've learned about American politiks
(starting with the Iranian hostage crisis)
is that Governments and politikians love
to use politikal timing toward their advantage.
I'm done played out with this amateur town approach to governing
give me someone with real cajones and not more panderers.
Blah!
Extremeism=Insanity
Dear Chris from AZ & anyone else who still, after all the evidence to the contrary, thinks Bush is "fine" doesn't live in the same universe I do. A wasted 8 years on global warming, a housing crisis, the melt-down of our financial institutions, the price of gasoline out of sight & going higher (the dirty little secret is that we went to war in Iraq, a push-over dictatorship, sitting on a sea of oil, to insure a cheap, reliable source of Middle Eastern oil -- how ironic, and perfectly in keeping with Bush's other blunders, the corruption of the "Justice" Department (probably Rove's idea, silently assented to by Bush), the wholesale shipping of better jobs overseas, while we keep the service jobs at Walmart & MacDonald's for our blue collar workforce, from a Clinton engineered surplus to an incomprehensible deficit, much of it owed to our cheap trading partner, Communist, not free enterprize, China. I could go on & on: torture, our Constitution subverted, etc., etc..
It is beyond my understanding & belief that the voters who gave Bush one term, the first was given, not by the voters, but by the Supreme Court, another of our failed institutions, thanks largely to Bush (Remember, he first nominated Harriet Myers!) cannot now recognize that almost all of the avalanche of problems that we face as a nation are of Bush, & Co.'s making.
PS: I enjoy living in San Antonio, TX, but I never voted for Bush, either one, and I guess it was my good fortune to be born in OK. Maybe MO would have been more logical.
If McCain is an extremist, what about Bob Barr?
Geez, if you consider John McCain a moderate squish Centrist an "extremist" I wonder what you feel about Libertarian Bob Barr?
How can you say Al Gore "clearly" would have made a much better President? What kind of crystal ball do you have? He could have been great or a disaster--the fact is we will never know.
You have no idea how Al Gore would have handled himself after Sept 11, 2001. As someone who witnessed this unspeakable attack, I am just happy that Al Gore was not President and David Dinkins was not Mayor.
If had some one told you on Sept 12, 2001 that America would not suffer another attack on its soil for at least 7 years, you probably would have said they were crazy. Despite the failures of the Bush Administration, let's at least give credit where its due.
I am afraid that I have an appropriate label for you--pinhead.
Come on, now. You're lost in words.
Bonnie, you write as though you're in a personal conundrum of not knowing what you either believe in or support. This would be none of our business, of course, except you're blogging it to us, the public, as though we're to get some kind of "insight" from your writing or even find your comments "interesting."
Here's the deal. There is NO SUCH THING as the "independent mainstreamer" moniker you so proudly made for yourself. You're either "independent" or you're a "mainstreamer" (aka, a sheep following along in the "mainstream" of other sheep). But you're not both.
And you DO have a choice, not "no choice" as you allege. You can choose to prioritze people with Obama or prioritize corporations with McCain. Forget about the feminism thing. It's just a distraction from what is otherwise clear.
"Our political mindset (created primarily by Karl Rove's "if you're not with us, you're a liberal traitor" Republican ideology which became mainstream thinking, somehow) is so bipolar, the entire government should be on Thorazine."
How funny you proclaim yourself to be a moderate, then go on to blast those with whom you have an issue with.
Personally, I despise moderation and independents. You guys attempt to straddle the fence, but in reality your beliefs may tend to be extremely conservative or extremely liberal. If anything out of the past eight years has taught me anything, is that there is no such thing as moderation and independence. Case in point, Bonnie, your point about Al Gore being a better president than Bush. And that McCain is an extreme conservative. One comment is complete opinion, the other flies in the face of reality. I happen to think that Bush was a fine president. Not earth shattering, but fine. I've read many of your postings and some of your other writings pre-Hillary Clinton entering the campaign, and your views there were very liberal. Now, I will grant you this, Hillary was far more centrist than Barack Obama was, but her was rooted in profound liberalism as well. There is nothing wrong with partisanship; where I will agree with you is that there is everything wrong with polarization. And polarization is what the last eight years has given us.
Then again, the polarization was always there. It just took a man doing some unpopular things (in the eyes of some) to bring it to the surface.
The theory of political relativity
The simple fact is, to a moderate, Democrats and Republicans are both extremists.
To a democrat, a moderate is a conservative extremist.
To a Republican, a moderate is a liberal extremist.
By definition, moderates are not extremists, except, maybe, in their hatred of extremism.
Our political mindset (created primarily by Karl Rove's "if you're not with us, you're a liberal traitor" Republican ideology which became mainstream thinking, somehow) is so bipolar, the entire government should be on Thorazine. Every person who toes the party line out of habit or loyalty should learn to do some independent thinking for a change - especially given the shifts in political ideology in each party over the last 20 years. One can not stand on legacy when the party no longer adheres to that particular tenant.
I will, however, take exception to an inaccuracy of labels of any kind. There is one and ONLY one label I accept and I wear it proudly:
I am an American.
Come November, every one of us will exercise our rights as Americans. All i ask is that your vote is an informed one and not one made in habit or out of a sense of tradition.
