Political Correlation?

but not a science degree or one requiring much knowledge of science, particularly biology. remember the OT is not about education and political flavour, but about having "evilutionist" views or "fundie" views, versus views on Kerry or Bush specifically.the thesis is a generalization (purposefully to engage the discussion), but saying it is a "vast overgeneralization" is equally invalid.I expect if you drew a box with "most Kerry supporter" at the left and "most Bush supporter" at the right, then put "most 'fundie' views" at the bottom and "most 'evilutionist' views" at the top and then plotted everyone that there would be a general cloud going from top left to bottom right with more scatter the further away from the diagonal you were.enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

getting slightly off topic into more generalized generalization .... generally speaking.

Sure.For me, the most important issue is which candidate will aggressively confront terrorism. Despite having made tactical mistakes, Bush's strategy is superior to Kerry's. Bush will aggressively confront terror whether the French approve, or not. Kerry will try to "seek consensus" with states (like France) that have conflicting interests with the US and cannot be considered allies, whether they were in the past or not.Kerry's legislative record reflects a career-long tendency to underfund national defense. The criticisms of Kerry's Vietnam record (and Bush's National Guard record) are unfair and not factual, but not really germane to the key question - who would do the better job?I'll give Kerry his props as a fine junior naval officer, but that does not imply he would make a superior President. Look at Jimmy Carter.As to economic issues, I do not have confidence, again based on his legislative record, that Kerry would follow the centrist path of, say, Bill Clinton. His combination of protectionism and tax increases is not the correct prescription for the problems facing the US economy.All IMO, of course.That's not to say I'm an uncritical Bushie. I have grave reservations about the agenda of the religious right, but these are outweighed by what I consider to be a world war between civilized states and terrorism.

I suspect there would be a fairly strong correlation between "strongly supports YEC" and "supports Bush", but the correlation between "strongly supports evolution" and "supports Kerry" (or Bush) would be much weaker.I suspect the pool of voters for both candidates is far more diverse than the extreme wings of either party are willing to admit.Personally I'd prefer McCain or Guliani or Powell as Republican candidate, but Bush and Kerry are my only two choices.

I notice that your only choice that involves bush is aggressive pursuit of terrorism. your others are negative reaction to (way perceived) policies of Kerry.Do you think the war in Iraq is about fighting terrorism? What about letting the warlords take over Afganistan again - does that assist tracking down terrorists? Where is "dead or alive" Osama (bush 09/17/01)? What is aggressive about no longer thinking about Osama (bush 3/13/02)? Only 6 months from Public Enemy #1 to ho-hum?You also talk about Kerry going back to "failed policies of the past" (if I may impose Cheney's characterization on you) and yet the policies of the Bush administration have failed for the last 4 years in ways that puts Reagans 8 years to shame.How about addressing your views of Bush's policies? What about them makes you think he is a better choice? How well do you think his actions have matched is previous "commitments" to action?Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

McCain would be a much better choice than Bush on many levels. Kerry would not be (wasn't) my first choice either. McCain certainly would be able to draw more on bipartisan support and tone down the push to extremism at both ends. Interesting that vietnam still controls politics so many years later, cutting as it does to the formative years of many voter.I think a national "deprogramming" talk about the issues to get beyond the antagonism would be a real benefit - talk about the role of the protesters in the positive steps that have been accomplished AND the positive model of all the vets that willingly served in a time of great uncertainty, committed to the concept of leadership under fire.I am most dissappointed in the results of the bipartisan election review that in essence made no recomendations to change, where change is sorely needed. There are many better ways to vote, that end up representing the majority views better and do not marginalize third parties without creating the havoc of a house full of minority parties.{changed "he" to McCain}This message has been edited by RAZD, 08-26-2004 05:04 PM

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Do you think if Osama is killed or captured, the rest of the terrorists will immediately lay down their arms?Was it necessary to prove direct, material cooperation between Hitler and Tojo (which was minimal) in WW2 to justify making war on both ? Or was the larger problem aggressive fascism ?Continuing on the WW2 theme, does the fact that the invasion of Pelileu, and the Anzio invasion are regarded by most military historians as having been unnecesary, imply that "FDR failed" ?

I think that you are getting off topic here, paisano. I don't see much connection between a world war between competing empires and contemporary terrorism.

I think the reason you can see such a trend is that the sample group is slightly skewed. I would theorise (without any clear evidence of course) that the type of evilutionist that would support Bush is unlikely to go and bash heads together on a EvC forum. Likewise, the kind of creationist that would support Kerry would probably not feel the burning urge to purge the 'net of unbelievers.I realise that this is another set of gross generalisations, but of course (speaking as a left-leaning Brit) it doesn't matter anyway as you are all a bunch of right-wing loons anyway!

This is from personal experience.I have never met a professor that thought Bush was fit for office. Some of them even told me that Bush is a danger to our democracy.

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The Laminator
We are the bog. Resistance is voltage over current. For goodness's sake, please vote Democrat this November!

To start with I think your critical assessment of Kerry was interesting, especially pointing out that good officer performance does not translate to good presidential performance (ala carter).However I am baffled by your view that Bush, especially given his failures, is the best one to lead us in a "War on Terror". He was simply the guy in office when one group of terrorists (who he was warned about) managed to get through an attack.That does not make him a genius or the best suited guy just because he did SOMETHING, he was obviously going to react in some way... and so that is exactly what we must judge, not THAT he did something.1) He did not hold anyone responsible for intelligence failures or policy failures for 9-11 and attempted to suppress any investigation into it. In the end he says everyone did fine.2) When the Iraq War turned up no WMDs and no real connection to Al-Queda he tried to supress an investigation into those errors. Again, everyone has done fine.3) When we unilaterally invaded a nation for no defense reason, and adopted the "Bush Doctrine", we set one of the most dangerous and counterproductive precedents in international relations since Chamberlain traded land for peace with Hitler. (It's just the opposite direction)4) And in failing to prepare for the peace afterward, we not only shorted the Iraqis we were supposedly "helping", but set the stage for future problems from free Iraqis afterward.It seems like no one can remember that this exact thing was already done in Iraq at the beginning of last century (by Britain... creating a seedling democracy) and the resulting failure is what turned out Saddam.I'm doubtful we'll see another Saddam in power, but there is about 0 chance that we won't be seeing some free Iraqis turn to support fundamentalist causes including terror attacks against the US. Al-Queda was NOT based there and none of Iraq's activities were likely to move toward helping them. This is pretty much universally agreed on by the intelligence community and was stated so well before the invasion of Iraq.Thus your innuendo seems misplaced especially in light of evidence gathered after the invasion.Indeed our successful invasion did not change the fact that there had been no real terrorist connections between Saddam and Al-Queda, but it DID set up many mini-dictators and terrorist leaders as new enemies within Iraq.By attacking Iraq, we have simply opened a new front against ourselves with nothing to show for it.Or do you see all of this differently?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Linda Ronstadt feels the same way, but I fail to see where she, or the anonymous professors, have any expertise that would render this argument from authority logically valid.

Not surprisingly, I do. Your argument presupposes that al-Qaeda is the sole terrorist threat that needs to be dealt with. It also presupposes that the insurgency in Iraq is primarily nationalistic (another Vietnam disanalogy). Recall that these terrorists are targeting Iraqis, multinational forces, and UN and foreign relief efforts.I would agree that the Bush administration's planning for the occupation phase left something to be desired. Nevertheless, Kerry has failed to convince me he'd do any better. He won't get French or German troops in Iraq, these nations see their interests as opposing the US and will not cooperate.As far as WMDs I see this as an intelligence failure, not Bush mendacity. Occam's Razor.

quote:

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Some of the anti-Bush crowd seem to regard Michael Moore as the sole infallible source of information needed, much as the 'fundy' YECs do the (interpreted by themselves ) Bible.

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At very least this displays a disregard for the need of external corroborating evidence.

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Of course, in your own case, you refuse to take in any evidence about Michael Moore that might conflict with your preconceptions about what he claims, as evidenced by your refusal to engage discussion regarding your misconceptions about his claims.He supported our actions in Afghanistan, remember.

Paisano, what threat to the US was Iraq before we invaded?