presidential poll

who do you think you will vote for?

  • i am a republican voting for McCain

    Votes: 7 11.3%
  • i am a republican voting for Obama

    Votes: 2 3.2%
  • i am a democrat voting for McCain

    Votes: 1 1.6%
  • i am a democrat voting for Obama

    Votes: 17 27.4%
  • i am an independent voting for McCain

    Votes: 1 1.6%
  • i am an independent voting for Obama

    Votes: 12 19.4%
  • completely disgusted and undecided, or won't vote

    Votes: 22 35.5%

  • Total voters
    62

VTXDave

Well-Known Member
P.S. I really feel that way but don't get all mad and upset. Its all in good fun. But for real.... McCain 08' late
If you're referring to me, I'm merely throwing out my opinion based upon what I've researched on the guy. I'm not angry in the slightest, but I disagree that it's good fun. When I cast my vote this November, I will be dead serious. Obama's voting record tells me more about the man than the rhetoric he throws out to win over people. And McCain, IMO, is a non-entity. He doesn't even warrant any of my time as I already know he's an ass.

Bread and circuses.
 

Bongulator

Well-Known Member
A winning war? How do you know we're winning it? They never defined what 'victory' means and until they do, we'll never know we've won even if we *have* won. I guess we'll just have to keep spending our childrens' money in Iraq until someone mans up and defines what victory is.

The goal wasn't WMDs, obviously. The goal wasn't to get terrorists, because Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. So what was the goal in Iraq? Isn't it obvious? It was to get rid of Saddam. Well, we did that, yay us, and that meets my definition of victory right there. How many years ago was he executed? That's when we should have begun leaving, since victory had been achieved at that point. At least by my definition, which is all I have to go on, since Bush and Co. has never given us a definition. (Which is the job of the Commander in Chief, incidentally, so another failing of Bush in that role.)

Before anyone calls me a 'whining liberal', realize that you don't know me. I've served in the military, in and out of combat, in this country and others, Muslim and otherwise. As a soldier, that was what I always wanted to know: what are the victory conditions? Without defined victory conditions, you and your family and the country in general are just left befuddled. It's demoralizing not to know what it takes to win, what the mission is. It's a *terrible* failing of Bush's that he has yet to establish victory conditions...after five years there! That we *still* haven't been told? That's batshit crazy insane.

I don't consider it either liberal or whining to want to know what the victory conditions are, in this conflict or any. Preferably *before* we spend a trillion or two dollars. I realize Bush wasn't much of a soldier, but come on, this is simple stuff, like Warfare 101. Even a psyops grunt like I was knows better.
 

Bongulator

Well-Known Member
I don't espouse whining liberals. I espouse *strong* liberals. The word 'liberal' isn't a bad word. It's basically a mindset, thinking outside the box. Conservatives open the box and see what their choices are, they pick one from the box to solve problem A, and that's that. Liberals say, ya know, we're not omnipotent, we don't know everything, so perhaps it's possible there's a better solution outside that box, and it's worth looking.

There were some studies that showed there may be actual physical brain differences between liberals and conservatives. I do not know if there's anything peer-reviewed, but that interests me if it's true. It would explain much, especially why there are many people who vote Republican/conservative, even when it's against their best interests to do so. Like you see a poor or middle-class person voting for a Republican. They *know* that economically, the Republicans are going to send their money to the rich or to big businesses...but they vote conservative anyway, as if they can't help it.

Look back over the last eight years. For six of them Republicans called *all* the shots, in Congress, the executive branch, even to a lesser degree the judicial branch. Did they do much for the common man when they had all the power? I'm middle class and I can tell you that while we saved like $300/year from those huge tax cuts, my household quality of life has diminished. And at the same time we went from a surplus of 2 trillion dollars to a deficit of 9 trillion. Which means that as an average taxpayer, they racked up around $63,000 in debt on my back. I'd gladly return that $300/year to restore our government to solvency. Bankrupting us wasn't worth $300/year to me. But apparently it *was* worth $100,00/year for the rich folks, and that's what mattered, because Bush won.

But compare to how the rich and big businesses have benefited in that time. The rich saved an average of around $100,000 per million dollars of annual income on those tax cuts, so they're *very* happy with things the last eight years. Big businesses? The oil companies are doing better than any industry in history and yet our government wishes to give them our beaches to drill on...when the oil companies didn't ask for that and haven't even gotten around to looking at the land we've already leased them. Gotta admit, that's some serious big business ass-kissing there, throwing more land at an industry that's rolling in money and can't even use the land they already have. Glad I don't live near any beaches.

I'll see if I can find that info on the brain differences between conservatives and liberals. I think the article even showed that conservatives are less intelligent than liberals, but I don't know if there's much cause-and-effect there. Wouldn't it be funny if there were?

'Hi, I'm a Republican.'

'Ah, okay, you need to wait for the short bus.'

Heh.
 
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NorthernCali13

Active Member
Freedom. Shouldn't everyone have the ability to be free. Say and do what you want w/o someone telling you otherwise? Yes Saddam is gone and thats great for the country of Iraq and the US. A Very bad person and I hope you agree with that. Now these people have a chance to be free and grow their country. Are we the world police, maybe. Ever see the movie "3 kings" great movie. You cant go into a country, overthrow the govn't and leave. All the people that have helped us and wanted us there for their families future to become something would be killed by the underground few from the old gov't that have the guns and are willing to use them. We have to stay until they are able to govern and police themselves. I think that only history will tell if we won or lost this war. But the sooner we pull out the % of loosing goes way up.

Just putting this out there.... why not stay in Iraq? Were still in Germany and they haven't acted up since. It would be a good place for some bases in the mildeast, restore order. Just a thought. And you cant put timelines on war, you know that.

ok really high thought: hope your ready: Ok so we all know how Pres. Bill Clinton had the chance to capture Osama Bin Ladin from I think the Eqyption gov't back when he was pres. blah blah, and he didn't. Then 9/11, Osama takes full credit and is proud of all the people he killed.

Pres. Bush goes in and takes out Saddam, one of the worst ever. What happens if we never did? And what if 10 years later Saddam blew up LA or Miami or some large city. You would all blame bush and want his head for not dealing with saddam when he had the chance. Might have saved a lot of lives, but we'll never know. Just a thought and I know its a "what if" Keep up the Bush Bashing, later
 

Bongulator

Well-Known Member
Here ya go, interesting read if you're into brain physiology or sociology or politics:

Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain



[COLOR=#333333 ! important]Even in humdrum nonpolitical decisions, liberals and conservatives literally think differently, researchers show.[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#999999 ! important]By Denise Gellene, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 10, 2007 [/COLOR]
Exploring the neurobiology of politics, scientists have found that liberals tolerate ambiguity and conflict better than conservatives because of how their brains work.

In a simple experiment reported today in the journal Nature Neuroscience, scientists at New York University and UCLA show that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.


Previous psychological studies have found that conservatives tend to be more structured and persistent in their judgments whereas liberals are more open to new experiences. The latest study found those traits are not confined to political situations but also influence everyday decisions.

The results show "there are two cognitive styles -- a liberal style and a conservative style," said UCLA neurologist Dr. Marco Iacoboni, who was not connected to the latest research.

Participants were college students whose politics ranged from "very liberal" to "very conservative." They were instructed to tap a keyboard when an M appeared on a computer monitor and to refrain from tapping when they saw a W.

M appeared four times more frequently than W, conditioning participants to press a key in knee-jerk fashion whenever they saw a letter.

Each participant was wired to an electroencephalograph that recorded activity in the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that detects conflicts between a habitual tendency (pressing a key) and a more appropriate response (not pressing the key). Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W, researchers said. Liberals and conservatives were equally accurate in recognizing M.

Researchers got the same results when they repeated the experiment in reverse, asking another set of participants to tap when a W appeared.

Frank J. Sulloway, a researcher at UC Berkeley's Institute of Personality and Social Research who was not connected to the study, said the results "provided an elegant demonstration that individual differences on a conservative-liberal dimension are strongly related to brain activity."

Analyzing the data, Sulloway said liberals were 4.9 times as likely as conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts, and 2.2 times as likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy.

Sulloway said the results could explain why President Bush demonstrated a single-minded commitment to the Iraq war and why some people perceived Sen. John F. Kerry, the liberal Massachusetts Democrat who opposed Bush in the 2004 presidential race, as a "flip-flopper" for changing his mind about the conflict.

Based on the results, he said, liberals could be expected to more readily accept new social, scientific or religious ideas.

"There is ample data from the history of science showing that social and political liberals indeed do tend to support major revolutions in science," said Sulloway, who has written about the history of science and has studied behavioral differences between conservatives and liberals.

Lead author David Amodio, an assistant professor of psychology at New York University, cautioned that the study looked at a narrow range of human behavior and that it would be a mistake to conclude that one political orientation was better. The tendency of conservatives to block distracting information could be a good thing depending on the situation, he said.

Political orientation, he noted, occurs along a spectrum, and positions on specific issues, such as taxes, are influenced by many factors, including education and wealth. Some liberals oppose higher taxes and some conservatives favor abortion rights.

Still, he acknowledged that a meeting of the minds between conservatives and liberals looked difficult given the study results.

"Does this mean liberals and conservatives are never going to agree?" Amodio asked. "Maybe it suggests one reason why they tend not to get along."
 

NorthernCali13

Active Member
lol yes it would explain a lot. I believe that there is brain difference between libs and cons. I guess were the more "go getters" and the libs just keep waiting for the hand outs.
 

Bongulator

Well-Known Member
Actually, it shows conservatives are single-minded, less adaptable, less accurate, with lower amounts of brain activity. The singlemindedness would make them better followers or soldiers, but worse as leaders. Leaders need to be adaptable and accurate and open to new ideas, and it probably helps if they have an active brain too.

I won't hold it against you conservatives though. Apparently you can't help it; you were born that way.
 

GarryFroker

New Member
The most important election in US history and there are people out there who are not voting? Unbelievable, you are wasting YOUR right. You could at least vote out the incumbents whether they are Democrats or Republicans in the House and Senate.
 

GarryFroker

New Member
Not voting in my opinion is a valid option. They all lie so do you really want a liar in charge? Obama is just the best liar that's all. Some other countries have corrupt voting just like us. Ours is just not as obvious.
Naw, the best liar is leaving office in Jan. and taking the rest of them with him. Besides, you don't think McCain is a liar? lol He has changed positions more than a late 80's porn queen.
 

GarryFroker

New Member
Looks like this is the year of the naive and hopeful forward-looking Democrats. But that's fine. We just had two cycles of the misleading un-transparent future-destroying war-mongering privacy-invading Republicans, so I'm ready for a break from that. Looks like lots of people are.
Naive Dems? That's a jewel. You don't think there are some Naive Republicans and Independents who voted for Bush the last 2 elections? Now THAT'S STUPID!
 

GarryFroker

New Member
I find FISA and Patriot particularly unpalatable. I can't bring myself to vote for a candidate who voted for legislation that suspended Habeas Corpus nor can I vote for a candidate who voted for legislation that allows warrantless wiretapping on the People. If you can stomach that meal, then by all means.
Talk about naive. Ron Paul would have done the same thing to get elected. I live in Texas and I know this to be fact. He's done it before.

Here is my problem with Ron Paul. Like Obama he sounds great and he has gotten a very dedicated following but in the end he is a POLITICIAN. He'll turn over to win.
 

GarryFroker

New Member
OMG, You Liberals make me sick, keep whining and bitching about everything. Raise taxes, keep high gas prices, pull out of a winning war just to start it all over again a few years down the road. nice. Heres one for you. I think McCain is even too much of a Liberal. I didn't vote for him. You should all be happy if he gets in. Its two libs running against eachother. I would have liked to see Huckabee make it. Im praying he gets the VP. Im not a "red neck" but I do like their style. If I could be pres. heres what I would do..... Close the boarders (Canada too). Deport all illegals from this country (wait in line like everyone else). Offshore drilling. Use bigger bombs/force over seas to show were not playing anymore. Legalize Marijuana. Maybe a few more things I'm forgetting but thats the bigger stuff. I'm not a republican, I disagree with a lot of the things they do/say. I'd say I'm more of a conservative. I do love this country where I can voice my opinions and you can voice yours. Gotta keep the freedom. Keep the love. Positive thinking. Blunt time. PEACE
Keep voting Republican and you'll keep weed illegal.
 

NorthernCali13

Active Member
hahahaha weed isn't the reason Im voting. I would legalize it, but Im not the pres. In fact, there are some good things about weed being illegal....$...... But people do need it.

Naw man, I don't have pinkeye.... Im just really hiiiiiiiigh
 

NorthernCali13

Active Member
I agree and disagree with Bush. I really don't agree with anything the Libs say or talk about, maybe one or two things...maybe, but not a lot.
 
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