Dear World: On behalf of American voters...

*Inches her chair slightly further north, hides under her fuzzy moose fur hat*

This is going to be another scary four years. But hey, I just won a hundred bucks on this election, so what the hell.

Too bad the recreator of the jet was a guy named Pyotr Czukor.

Well, it looks like it's going to be a very dark next few years for our country.

At least I saw the Red Sox win the World Series before the inevitable.

ahh yes --your own personal Dick Cheney

Only if there is already a version in world that can be used for.... umm... inspiration. That's it. Inspiration.

Let's clarify something... for a couple of people who decided that I esssentially said those who have not served have opinions worth less than mine. Guess what.. you almost have that right.. bt not quitel. And not quite is a big difference.

I allow and encourage any and everyone to have an opinion - simmilar to or different from mine. I just could care less about your opinions. They don't matter to me in terms of my political views or evaluation of the world, how it works or where it's headed. I Rely on personal experience, study and a learned distrust of mankind in general. Hence the name curmudgeon.

People who want to proclaim the end of life as we know it in America due to the reelection of Bush - or any President (including the Republicans who were so against Clinton) - are obviously not completely rational as I understand rationality. That's okay. In some snse, I am the only rational one in my corner of the world, because my thought and views are the only ones I have complete background and understanding about. But ideologues bother me... extremists are people who must have things their way --- while I do want my way, it only goes so far as my own life. I don't ask, insist or even particularly care for you/anyone to feel the way I do, believe what I belive or think the way I do. It's simply your loss that you don't - but that doesn't really bother me.

Before you ge all het-up about that and insulted and shit, you might as well save you ire for some one who cares. Kerry conceded. I am nnot gloating.. Look at my post above. I would have supported him one second AFTER he was sowrn in as President. Looks like that won't ever happen in my lifetime now. While Bush was my preferred candidate I don't feel any great sense of relief that he won - I thought and predicted it was inevitable... forget the numbers.. it was a feeling that was proven correct when Kerry conceded.

Checking this post again for any reference to lockstepping with me.. check my post before. I never suggested that. I said the "loyal opposition". I can be loyal and yet opposed... apparently that is too tough for some. Fine. Too bad. Doesn't really matter to me/won't have any measurable effect on my world....and it won't lower my opinion of those who don't see things my way.

You already answered your own question, Isis. The divide in this country falls squarely along religious lines. We've done such a poor job teaching our children what this country is supposed to stand for that a frighteningly large percentage of our populace would rather call this a Christian nation than a Free nation and are too ignorant to understand that it can't be both. We're headed for a culture war between nationalistic relgious zealotry and secular humanism. Whether we like it or not this country is controlled by Christian fundamentalists who value their mythology over the principles on which this nation was founded. I have never been more sad to be an American than I am today. I'm ashamed that we have come to this. We have a citizenry that places more value on forcing their religous views on everyone else than they do on the ideals of freedom and tolerance and intellectual advancement. I love this country but if I ever have children I don't want to raise them here. Ideologically we are being left behind by the rest of the world. The only other countiries in the world that are ruled by relgious fundamentalists are all mostly in the Middle East. I shudder to think where we'll be four years from now. Welcome to the new Crusades where "freedom" has become a euphamism for forced Christian moralism.

"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not."
- James Madison

George Orwell says it better than i ever could:

"YEARS passed. The seasons came and went, the short animal lives fled by. A time came when there was no one who remembered the old days before the Rebellion, except Clover, Benjamin, Moses the raven, and a number of the pigs.

Muriel was dead; Bluebell, Jessie, and Pincher were dead. Jones too was dead-he had died in an inebriates' home in another part of the country. Snowball was forgotten. Boxer was forgotten, except by the few who had known him. Clover was an old stout mare now, stiff in the joints and with a tendency to rheumy eyes. She was two years past the retiring age, but in fact no animal had ever actually retired. The talk of setting aside a corner of the pasture for superannuated animals had long since been dropped. Napoleon was now a mature boar of twenty-four stone. Squealer was so fat that he could with difficulty see out of his eyes. Only old Benjamin was much the same as ever, except for being a little greyer about the muzzle, and, since Boxer's death, more morose and taciturn than ever.

There were many more creatures on the farm now, though the increase was not so great as had been expected in earlier years. Many animals had been born to whom the Rebellion was only a dim tradition, passed on by word of mouth, and others had been bought who had never heard mention of such a thing before their arrival. The farm possessed three horses now besides Clover. They were fine upstanding beasts, willing workers and good comrades, but very stupid. None of them proved able to learn the alphabet beyond the letter B. They accepted everything that they were told about the Rebellion and the principles of Animalism, especially from Clover, for whom they had an almost filial respect; but it was doubtful whether they understood very much of it.

The farm was more prosperous now, and better organised: it had even been enlarged by two fields which had been bought from Mr. Pilkington. The windmill had been successfully completed at last, and the farm possessed a threshing machine and a hay elevator of its own, and various new buildings had been added to it. Whymper had bought himself a dogcart. The windmill, however, had not after all been used for generating electrical power. It was used for milling corn, and brought in a handsome money profit. The animals were hard at work building yet another windmill; when that one was finished, so it was said, the dynamos would be installed. But the luxuries of which Snowball had once taught the animals to dream, the stalls with electric light and hot and cold water, and the three-day week, were no longer talked about. Napoleon had denounced such ideas as contrary to the spirit of Animalism. The truest happiness, he said, lay in working hard and living frugally.

Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer-except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs. Perhaps this was partly because there were so many pigs and so many dogs. It was not that these creatures did not work, after their fashion. There was, as Squealer was never tired of explaining, endless work in the supervision and organisation of the farm. Much of this work was of a kind that the other animals were too ignorant to understand. For example, Squealer told them that the pigs had to expend enormous labours every day upon mysterious things called "files," "reports," "minutes," and "memoranda." These were large sheets of paper which had to be closely covered with writing, and as soon as they were so covered, they were burnt in the furnace. This was of the highest importance for the welfare of the farm, Squealer said. But still, neither pigs nor dogs produced any food by their own labour; and there were very many of them, and their appetites were always good.

As for the others, their life, so far as they knew, was as it had always been. They were generally hungry, they slept on straw, they drank from the pool, they laboured in the fields; in winter they were troubled by the cold, and in summer by the flies. Sometimes the older ones among them racked their dim memories and tried to determine whether in the early days of the Rebellion, when Jones's expulsion was still recent, things had been better or worse than now. They could not remember. There was nothing with which they could compare their present lives: they had nothing to go upon except Squealer's lists of figures, which invariably demonstrated that everything was getting better and better. The animals found the problem insoluble; in any case, they had little time for speculating on such things now. Only old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse-hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life.

And yet the animals never gave up hope. More, they never lost, even for an instant, their sense of honour and privilege in being members of Animal Farm. They were still the only farm in the whole county-in all England!-owned and operated by animals. Not one of them, not even the youngest, not even the newcomers who had been brought from farms ten or twenty miles away, ever ceased to marvel at that. And when they heard the gun booming and saw the green flag fluttering at the masthead, their hearts swelled with imperishable pride, and the talk turned always towards the old heroic days, the expulsion of Jones, the writing of the Seven Commandments, the great battles in which the human invaders had been defeated. None of the old dreams had been abandoned. The Republic of the Animals which Major had foretold, when the green fields of England should be untrodden by human feet, was still believed in. Some day it was coming: it might not be soon, it might not be with in the lifetime of any animal now living, but still it was coming. Even the tune of Beasts of England was perhaps hummed secretly here and there: at any rate, it was a fact that every animal on the farm knew it, though no one would have dared to sing it aloud. It might be that their lives were hard and that not all of their hopes had been fulfilled; but they were conscious that they were not as other animals. If they went hungry, it was not from feeding tyrannical human beings; if they worked hard, at least they worked for themselves. No creature among them went upon two legs. No creature called any other creature "Master." All animals were equal.

One day in early summer Squealer ordered the sheep to follow him, and led them out to a piece of waste ground at the other end of the farm, which had become overgrown with birch saplings. The sheep spent the whole day there browsing at the leaves under Squealer's supervision. In the evening he returned to the farmhouse himself, but, as it was warm weather, told the sheep to stay where they were. It ended by their remaining there for a whole week, during which time the other animals saw nothing of them. Squealer was with them for the greater part of every day. He was, he said, teaching them to sing a new song, for which privacy was needed.

It was just after the sheep had returned, on a pleasant evening when the animals had finished work and were making their way back to the farm buildings, that the terrified neighing of a horse sounded from the yard. Startled, the animals stopped in their tracks. It was Clover's voice. She neighed again, and all the animals broke into a gallop and rushed into the yard. Then they saw what Clover had seen.

It was a pig walking on his hind legs.

Yes, it was Squealer. A little awkwardly, as though not quite used to supporting his considerable bulk in that position, but with perfect balance, he was strolling across the yard. And a moment later, out from the door of the farmhouse came a long file of pigs, all walking on their hind legs. Some did it better than others, one or two were even a trifle unsteady and looked as though they would have liked the support of a stick, but every one of them made his way right round the yard successfully. And finally there was a tremendous baying of dogs and a shrill crowing from the black cockerel, and out came Napoleon himself, majestically upright, casting haughty glances from side to side, and with his dogs gambolling round him.

He carried a whip in his trotter.

There was a deadly silence. Amazed, terrified, huddling together, the animals watched the long line of pigs march slowly round the yard. It was as though the world had turned upside-down. Then there came a moment when the first shock had worn off and when, in spite of everything-in spite of their terror of the dogs, and of the habit, developed through long years, of never complaining, never criticising, no matter what happened-they might have uttered some word of protest. But just at that moment, as though at a signal, all the sheep burst out into a tremendous bleating of-

"Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better! Four legs good, two legs better!"

It went on for five minutes without stopping. And by the time the sheep had quieted down, the chance to utter any protest had passed, for the pigs had marched back into the farmhouse.

Benjamin felt a nose nuzzling at his shoulder. He looked round. It was Clover. Her old eyes looked dimmer than ever. Without saying anything, she tugged gently at his mane and led him round to the end of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written. For a minute or two they stood gazing at the tatted wall with its white lettering.

"My sight is failing," she said finally. "Even when I was young I could not have read what was written there. But it appears to me that that wall looks different. Are the Seven Commandments the same as they used to be, Benjamin?"

For once Benjamin consented to break his rule, and he read out to her what was written on the wall. There was nothing there now except a single Commandment. It ran:

ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS

After that it did not seem strange when next day the pigs who were supervising the work of the farm all carried whips in their trotters. It did not seem strange to learn that the pigs had bought themselves a wireless set, were arranging to install a telephone, and had taken out subscriptions to John Bull, TitBits, and the Daily Mirror. It did not seem strange when Napoleon was seen strolling in the farmhouse garden with a pipe in his mouth-no, not even when the pigs took Mr. Jones's clothes out of the wardrobes and put them on, Napoleon himself appearing in a black coat, ratcatcher breeches, and leather leggings, while his favourite sow appeared in the watered silk dress which Mrs. Jones had been used to wear on Sundays.

A week later, in the afternoon, a number of dogcarts drove up to the farm. A deputation of neighbouring farmers had been invited to make a tour of inspection. They were shown all over the farm, and expressed great admiration for everything they saw, especially the windmill. The animals were weeding the turnip field. They worked diligently hardly raising their faces from the ground, and not knowing whether to be more frightened of the pigs or of the human visitors.

That evening loud laughter and bursts of singing came from the farmhouse. And suddenly, at the sound of the mingled voices, the animals were stricken with curiosity. What could be happening in there, now that for the first time animals and human beings were meeting on terms of equality? With one accord they began to creep as quietly as possible into the farmhouse garden.

At the gate they paused, half frightened to go on but Clover led the way in. They tiptoed up to the house, and such animals as were tall enough peered in at the dining-room window. There, round the long table, sat half a dozen farmers and half a dozen of the more eminent pigs, Napoleon himself occupying the seat of honour at the head of the table. The pigs appeared completely at ease in their chairs The company had been enjoying a game of cards but had broken off for the moment, evidently in order to drink a toast. A large jug was circulating, and the mugs were being refilled with beer. No one noticed the wondering faces of the animals that gazed in at the window. .."

Animal Farm (Chapter X) the last Chapter

Ignorance is Strength

"Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered. Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other.

The aims of these groups are entirely irreconcilable... "

"The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living."

"Nevertheless the dangers inherent in the machine are still there. From the moment when the machine first made its appearance it was clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the machine were used deliberately for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy, and disease could be eliminated within a few generations. And in fact, without being used for any such purpose, but by a sort of automatic process -- by producing wealth which it was sometimes impossible not to distribute -- the machine did raise the living standards of the average human being very greatly over a period of about fifty years at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.

But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the destruction -- indeed, in some sense was the destruction -- of a hierarchical society. In a world in which everyone worked short hours, had enough to eat, lived in a house with a bathroom and a refrigerator, and possessed a motor-car or even an aeroplane, the most obvious and perhaps the most important form of inequality would already have disappeared. If it once became general, wealth would confer no distinction. It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance."

"The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed. "

"The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city, where the possession of a lump of horseflesh makes the difference between wealth and poverty. And at the same time the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.

War, it will be seen, accomplishes the necessary destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way. In principle it would be quite simple to waste the surplus labour of the world by building temples and pyramids, by digging holes and filling them up again, or even by producing vast quantities of goods and then setting fire to them. But this would provide only the economic and not the emotional basis for a hierarchical society. What is concerned here is not the morale of masses, whose attitude is unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at work, but the morale of the Party itself. Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war. It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist. The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its members, and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes. It is precisely in the Inner Party that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest. In his capacity as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones: but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of doublethink. Meanwhile no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire world.

All members of the Inner Party believe in this coming conquest as an article of faith. It is to be achieved either by gradually acquiring more and more territory and so building up an overwhelming preponderance of power, or by the discovery of some new and unanswerable weapon. The search for new weapons continues unceasingly, and is one of the very few remaining activities in which the inventive or speculative type of mind can find any outlet. In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for 'Science'. The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty. In all the useful arts the world is either standing still or going backwards. The fields are cultivated with horse-ploughs while books are written by machinery. But in matters of vital importance -- meaning, in effect, war and police espionage -- the empirical approach is still encouraged, or at least tolerated. The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought. There are therefore two great problems which the Party is concerned to solve. One is how to discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred million people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand. In so far as scientific research still continues, this is its subject matter. The scientist of today is either a mixture of psychologist and inquisitor, studying with real ordinary minuteness the meaning of facial expressions, gestures, and tones of voice, and testing the truth-producing effects of drugs, shock therapy, hypnosis, and physical torture; or he is chemist, physicist, or biologist concerned only with such branches of his special subject as are relevant to the taking of life."

"In past ages, a war, almost by definition, was something that sooner or later came to an end, usually in unmistakable victory or defeat. In the past, also, war was one of the main instruments by which human societies were kept in touch with physical reality. All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers, but they could not afford to encourage any illusion that tended to impair military efficiency. So long as defeat meant the loss of independence, or some other result generally held to be undesirable, the precautions against defeat had to be serious. Physical facts could not be ignored. In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four. Inefficient nations were always conquered sooner or later, and the struggle for efficiency was inimical to illusions. Moreover, to be efficient it was necessary to be able to learn from the past, which meant having a fairly accurate idea of what had happened in the past. Newspapers and history books were, of course, always coloured and biased, but falsification of the kind that is practised today would have been impossible. War was a sure safeguard of sanity, and so far as the ruling classes were concerned it was probably the most important of all safeguards. While wars could be won or lost, no ruling class could be completely irresponsible.

But when war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases to be dangerous. When war is continuous there is no such thing as military necessity. Technical progress can cease and the most palpable facts can be denied or disregarded. As we have seen, researches that could be called scientific are still carried out for the purposes of war, but they are essentially a kind of daydreaming, and their failure to show results is not important. Efficiency, even military efficiency, is no longer needed. Nothing is efficient in Oceania except the Thought Police. Since each of the three super-states is unconquerable, each is in effect a separate universe within which almost any perversion of thought can be safely practised. Reality only exerts its pressure through the needs of everyday life -- the need to eat and drink, to get shelter and clothing, to avoid swallowing poison or stepping out of top-storey windows, and the like. Between life and death, and between physical pleasure and physical pain, there is still a distinction, but that is all. Cut off from contact with the outer world, and with the past, the citizen of Oceania is like a man in interstellar space, who has no way of knowing which direction is up and which is down. The rulers of such a state are absolute, as the Pharaohs or the Caesars could not be. They are obliged to prevent their followers from starving to death in numbers large enough to be inconvenient, and they are obliged to remain at the same low level of military technique as their rivals; but once that minimum is achieved, they can twist reality into whatever shape they choose. "


"A Party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the Thought Police. Even when he is alone he can never be sure that he is alone. Wherever he may be, asleep or awake, working or resting, in his bath or in bed, he can be inspected without warning and without knowing that he is being inspected. Nothing that he does is indifferent. His friendships, his relaxations, his behaviour towards his wife and children, the expression of his face when he is alone, the words he mutters in sleep, even the characteristic movements of his body, are all jealously scrutinized. Not only any actual misdemeanour, but any eccentricity, however small, any change of habits, any nervous mannerism that could possibly be the symptom of an inner struggle, is certain to be detected. He has no freedom of choice in any direction whatever. On the other hand his actions are not regulated by law or by any clearly formulated code of behaviour. In Oceania there is no law. Thoughts and actions which, when detected, mean certain death are not formally forbidden, and the endless purges, arrests, tortures, imprisonments, and vaporizations are not inflicted as punishment for crimes which have actually been committed, but are merely the wiping-out of persons who might perhaps commit a crime at some time in the future. A Party member is required to have not only the right opinions, but the right instincts."


from his book "1984" - George Orwell

Ohh yes sniveling, cowardly, lying twits who run businesses into the ground, start wars on false pretense, abandon their military duty, cover up numerous dui's, and rely on known political scoundrels like Carl Rove, lie repeatedly to the American people, caused the largest defecit in the history of the world...your right...I should admire a man of such a distinguished background. Just because he declare moral superiority, attends church and prays that his warmongering will make his cronies some loot....I cannot believe I have been so completely wrong.

Chip,

I am so afraid you may be right, but hoping you are wrong.

Chip, this is precisely why my husband and I had kids in the first place. I remember a conversation with him before we got married when we discussed the possibilities of remaining childless; we were both educated and had good jobs and a comfortable life. We could have easily stayed childless and enjoyed buying a nice condo in downtown Seattle, international travel, and the other benefits of a double income/no kids life.

But my husband looked me squarely in the eye and said, "If people like us (educated, moderately liberal people with more of a social conscience than a steadfast conviction to impose rigid moral beliefs on others) don't have kids, the only people raising children in the US will be those on the religious right." And I had to agree.

As science more and more reveals flaws in the dogma that faith would have us take as absolute truths, I believe that the children of the next few generations in the US will begin to reject the rigid "morality" that is being pushed by the Republicans. I plan to do my part in raising children who will see religion for what it really is (in most cases): An attempt to control and strike fear in the hearts of the public at large. It's a heart-wrenching thing to look a five year old in the eye and tell him that we are all going to die, and that I honestly don't know if there is a god or if there is life after death. But I just can't, in good conscience, feed my kids the same load of religioius crap that has lead our country into the sorry mess where we are today.

My almost four year old daughter gave me a smile on this otherwise dreary morning when she proclaimed, "George Bush is a Muppet!" After questioning her about why she would say this, I realized she had heard my husband and me say that Bush was a "puppet" for the GOP. It gave me a momentary bit of cheer to imagine Bush being controlled by Frank Oz with a stick up his back. But I also realized the power I hold in my hands, as a parent, to help shape the future. This is my country, and it's now my kids' country. I continue to believe in a future where rational, intelligent decisions will be made by even-handed, humanist-minded politicians. George Bush is a Muppet, after all, don't you know?

Do something about it.

http://www.au.org/site/PageServer?pagename=issues_churchelectioneering

You assume much, Chip. I, for one, am far from a religious Zealot, but I am also far from being a liberal. I am very much against religion in politics, but I'm likewise very much agaisnt welfare and socialism.

Like most people (or so I tend to believe) I'm a moderate. I only get really uppity over issues that I believe concern me directly. Which is not to say I don't have opinions on other issues, just that defending those opinions is much less of an issue to me.

I supported Bush in this election... Primarily because the liberal propaganda machine never convinced me that Kerry was actually capable of following through on what I believed to be a bunch of empty promises. That, and several of his announced ideals were things that I adamantly disagreed with. They concentrated far too much on the "Anybody But Bush" campaign, and not enough on actually selling their own candidate.

This isn't even funny to me anymore, it's just sad and pathetic. I'm sorry to the soldiers in Iraq and there families and sorry to be part of a country that re-elected this moron.

http://media.ebaumsworld.com/sovereignty.mov

Oh! They won? That's nice.

You're forgetting about the welfare mothers and liberal teens. Unless, of course, you're referring specifically to people who actually raise their kids, instead of just having them.

Very true. The Democratic party is lost, wandering around in a daze after 9/11 and the Clinton scandal.

Just remember, though, that the party you support is now in complete control. And the folks that are in charge of the party, in charge of the congress, in charge of the executive branch, and are in charge of appointing not 1 but probably 2-3 lifetime members of the judicial branch are religious zealots. There will be no more compromise, no debate of ideals, no moderation. The Bush administration and the GOP power has proved that. The country is heading to the religious right on a bullet train. That isn't good for liberals, moderates, or even Reagan conservatives and anyone who cares about a country that cares about all it's citizens.

You gotta look at the big picture. I'd hate it if it was the reverse, with the democrats controlling everything. That would be a recipe for disaster as well.

As a Brit i see this result as Bush 1 World 0

I feel extremely sorry for the half of the population who did not vote for him to have to live with this man as President for the next four years.

I am a stay-at-home mom and raise my own kids.

And Grim, I'm also thinking about the teens and other mothers unable to take care of children they will be having if Bush continues to push his efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade and make abortion illegal. As a woman in the US, and a woman with a daughter, I am very afraid that this right will be revoked because a bunch of Christians want to dictate the country's morals. If George Bush wants to tout adoption as an alternative to abortion (as I've heard him do), he'd better be ready to tell everybody on the religious right that it's their duty to adopt at least one child. I seriously doubt that would happen, though.

That statement wasn't targetted at you. It was targetted at your statement that only religious conservatives and moderate liberals have/raise kids.

And FYI, abortion is one of those issues that I don't have extremely strong opinions on, but as far as the opinion I do have goes, I'm pro-choice (to a point.)

Welfare, on the other hand, I do have strong opinions on. As long as we continue to pay people to have babies, they're going to keep having babies. I have a serious problem with liberal socialists taking my money, that I worked for, and giving it to people that are too apathetic to work.

I have an even bigger problem with the fact that when my dad dies, 40% of everything he scrimped and saved over his entire life will be taken and given to these people instead of going to the people he actually saved it for. I mean really, what's the point of working for a better life for your kids, when you and the kids both can just sit at home, watch TV, drink beer, and let the go-getters of the world pay your bills, instead?

Okay, deep breath. Everyone say it with me now. Neither the Republican Party (nor the Democratic Party) is a monolithinc entity. Are there some demographic/institutional "biases", you bet. But plenty of times in SL there have been social situations with perfectly nice folks who go off on "All Republicans are stupid/evil/immoral" whatever. In all fairness, I expect in other groups, there is likey the reverse against the Democrats.

Either way, whichever direction, it really pisses me off (either as blind contempt for me, or someone on my "side" making me look like a bastard by association). On occasion I have called people on this inworld, and they usually realize they've gone a bit overboard and focus on particulars, which is completely fair game. But this monolithic view of either party is just intellectually lazy.

But as a nominal Bush supporter, I can see how many in the Democratic camp would have some major concerns. I share a good number of them. But if you take two random Democrats out of a random line up (or two Republicans), my concerns would not likely be exact or exactly mirror each other. We are all individuals dammit!

I strongly object to characterizing George W. Bush as a cowboy.

As someone who has worked ranches in northeast Nevada and southern Utah, I can promise you that the President the United States would barely qualify on a dude ranch, and only if the Secret Service kept his spurs safely out of reach.

Ask him what the difference between a lasso and a lariat is. Someone did -- he couldn't answer.

Lordfly, you owe cowboys across the American West a manful apology.

A Lariat is a trim level for a Ford pickup truck.

Hank - I only use your post as a point of reference.. not as a personal response directed specifically to anything YOU said.

So what that the Republicans control Congress and the Presidency? On WHAT does the liberal intelligentsia base its forecast of doom and gloom? I see no evidence that Republicans as a whole are a group of religious zealots. I am certainly not one. I see no evidence that any Supreme Court justice has ever made any ruling based on his religious beliefs rather than his sense of judicial fairness.

Why do you think Republicans will not debate issues? The Republicans I know are constantly debating with any and everyone about more things than I care to listen to. I could say the same thing about Democrats. The difference that I see, and this is purely a personal perspective based on recent experience in academia, the liberal intelligentsia seems to feel that it's their way or the world will come to an end. That anyone does not agree with another person's conclusions does not mean that there has been no debate or that one side is unwilling to debate. I hear just as many doom and gloom predictions from such people as I hear theories about left-wing conspiracies from a limited number of extremist Republicans. But the average Republican politician is not an extremist, certainly the average Republican, from what I can tell, is not - by definition at least.

I know a lot of Democrats. I like a lot of Democrats. I dislike extremist Democrats just as much as I dislike extremist Republicans. If you think Bush/Cheney are extremists, take a look around. They are not the extreme. True ideologues cannot debate... their minds are closed. There are ideologues on both sides... be careful who you label as such lest you merit the label yourself.

The Democrats ARE a lost group right now..IMHO. That is their greatest weakness. They have not yet articulated clearly what they are FOR. This campaign, on at least the Presidential and Congressional levels, was waged by Democrats as a campaign AGAINST something... but that something was a person, not a well-articulated idea. THAT is the Democratic party's greatest weakness right now. I don't revel in that... it is simply are rhetorically arguable conclusion I reached some time ago - definitely evident in Clinton/Carville campaigning as well as this campaign. If you happen to be a Democrat and you are truly upset with how things wound up today, get your party to make a well-articulated stance on something. Don't live in generalities and empty promises.. ("I can do better" is about as weak a campaign statement as this academic has ever heard). You guys get specific and I will respect you again as a party.... well, maybe. That's the best I can do... other than to say there's no gloating here.. Things just went differently than a loud minority wanted them to go. Imagine the noise that you guys would be making if your party had won. Gotta tell you, though it might seem like sour grapes, I'd probably have avoided the forums had that happened.