Bush is back!

This is for all the Americans here.well done.....I thought you were all for ridding the world from fanatical maniacs who possess weapons of mass destruction............and then you go and vote Bush back!!!!

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

This is pretty depressing from my perspective. I think we can look for Bush to act as though he has a mandate to continue his policies. I wouldn't be surprised if we go to war with Syria and Iran during his second term.You should also look very closely at the evangelical christians. These people will rightly feel energized by the returns from this election. Look for more ignorance and prejudice and more restrictions on civil rights. Given the increased control of Congress by the Republicans and the near certainty that more right-wing judges will be appointed to the Supreme Court, I think it's safe to say that America will change dramatically. So long as the only freedoms you care about are the freedom to read your bible and the freedom to go to church, you should be happy.Cheers!

Too right! He also doesn't have to worry about being re-elected; he's going to go (even more) nuts!The Dark Ages are here again!

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Depressing, isn't it?On the up side it will probably lead to a strong democratic win next time around. I imagine the next four years will be pretty hard for America as the consequences of Bush's economic mismanagement and the situation in Iraq come home to roost.I doubt Bush will start another war however, he simply won't have the money, manpower or international support to do it. Unless that is America suffers another big terrorist incident?

I want to vomit.I am so ashamed of the people of my country.Here is the message that was sent this election:In order to win a presidential election, you must:1) Relentlessly fear monger to the electorate. In particular, you must appeal to the racists, the homophobes, the uneducated and unsophisticated thinkers, and the wacko Christian fundamentalists.2) Tell egregious lies about one's opponent.3) Suppress the minority vote.That's how you win electins if you are a Republican.

Ya know, I think they need to come up with a new name for the so-called modern Republican Party. Whatever this crowd represents, it ain't the principles upon which the party was founded. I mean, Jefferson was a Republican. He's gotta be spinning in his grave at what his party has become - 180 degrees opposite from what it started out to be.Maybe we can make some suggestions:Americans for the Integration of Church and State Party
Americans United for Really Intrusive Government Party
American Fundamentalist Neo-Fascist Party
American Jihadist Party
Crusaders for a Christian World Party
All Your Bases Are Belong to Us or Else Party
Anti-democracy Theocratic Union Party
United Fiscal Irresponsibility PartyAh well, I guess truth-in-advertising laws don't apply to politics. Pity, tho'.Oh, and by the way, I am a Republican a la Jefferson - although without his extreme states-rights baggage. Have been since I joined the Young Republicans at age 16. I also voted for Kerry (for what that was worth).

Where do the 'republican' and 'democrat' monikers on American parties come from anyway? They just seem meaningless tags to me?

Don't forget, "no matter how many times you fuck up at the cost of thousands of lives, don't worry about it. Just don't get a blowjob, and everything's cool."

I think it is obvious that Bush and the Republican party are the winners of this election, and that is even if Kerry manages to pull out some sort of electoral college victory. The turnout was large and clearly the majority popular vote has come out for the Republicans and Republican agendas, with perhaps the one exception of support for stem cell research in California.Obviously there was a difference between the largest cosmopolitan areas and rural areas, with the former coming out solidly for Democrats. But this country's majority is clearly not based in its largest cosmopolitan areas. And as an independent I am free to admit that we have been shown where the popular heart of the US stands.This does vindicate Bush's policies in a theoretical way, even if they showed no practical results, and he (or at least the republicans) have a mandate for the future. Unless some major scandal occurs with regards to voting (which I do not foresee), the republican party are the proper representatives of this nation's policies.That said, I am saddened. This is not because I have some allegiance to the Democrats, but because I take the results as a negative statement of where the heart of america lies.I think this shows that the heart of the US lies in unreasoned partisanship and a fallability to "violent spectacle" (thanks scorcese).I say this because many republicans turned out to support republicans clearly on that criteria alone. While hypercritical of Bush policies before, and sometimes during this administration, they fell in lockstep for the election process. That kind of partisanship makes me ill every time.You could see this in interviews where people like Falwell would say they were voting for Bush but not Cheney, and people like Schwarzenneger and McCain would say vote Republican like us, but there was no connection between them and Bush's policies. This means there was no solid plan for the future no set policy any republican could point to beyond glittering generalities.So exactly what policy has a mandate? It seems that more or less, whatever can lead the republicans to victory, and not necessarily any specific practical policy for what they think is best for the US. And in this they are willing to give whatever policy this administration has a popular vote since it is republican.People can accuse many democrats of the same thing and I would agree. It not only happens, but it is equally bad. However in this case it is pretty clear that most democrats in this election were not bending 180 degrees in order to support their candidate. The most you had were some disconnects on whether Iraq should ever have been invaded, and minor differences on approaches. The overall nature of future policy was pretty much consistent.The other issue I mentioned was many voters falling for "violent spectacle". It seems that many did not bother reasoning what violence had been necessary or profitable, but rather ran to the guy with the guns and other displays of power.You could see this in the wholly irrational debate on the use of force. Not one debate regarding the war in Iraq has been won by a republican, and many (unfortunately as I said even those which voted for Bush) republicans came out with how damaging Bush's policies actually have been.Yet, especially through the south and rural areas, voters insist Bush's use of the military has made them safer. No reasoning on this.So it seems the heart of the US is that of the true believer and the partisan.I can only hope that members of the republican party who I usually respect and are not true believer status, can make headway with the future administration. I guess I hope that their partisan political gamble pays off.In any case I will not accuse republicans of criminally attaining their victory unless someone uncovers something massive. They have won, and Bush has a popular mandate, even if not for specific policy (heheh a blank check policy mandate). For better or worse.PS---
For anyone about to criticize my post tell me three things:1) Which specific policy is this administration (and that includes the senate and congress) going to follow on: gay marriage, stem cell research, deficit spending?2) Given any specific answer to #1, why were there many republicans against those very policies at the convention and standing behind men supporting those policies despite the 180 degree difference.3) Give me any indicator that invading Iraq has provided a measure of safety to us, that simply pursuing Al-Queda with greater forces in Afghnistan and Malaysia would NOT have provided us.

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

Mr Jack - those names are leftovers from the mid-1800's, and are, indeed, about as informative as "Whig" or "Tory."

Maybe, but both Whig and Tory are nick-names rather than actual party names: Liberals and Conservatives - their real names - and Labour, for that matter, are names derived from features of their policies and agendas. I was wondering whether there was such a thing for the republicans and democrats - even if they don't hold true any longer?

schrafinator,Normally, you are quite calm and not led to generalizations...I am surprised.I realize that the Republicans pandered to the homophobes....but the racists? Hmmm....Tell me, when you tell a minority group that one party is trying to "disenfranchise" them (Kerry), is that not pandering to racists or at the least inciting some racism?Is the popular vote going to Bush(leaguer) and indication that we really are a nation of white bigots? Perhaps it is an indication that most people don't think Mr. Kerry will be able to change things as he would like, despite all good intentions.Get the UN to support our cause, or the cause of freedom or humanity?...When is that going to happen....when has it ever happened?

Okay, how about the Equivocationists and the Capitulationists?regards,
Esteban Hambre

I think the difference comes down to this. When punched, Americans punch back, harder. Europeans take another punch and ask what they did to deserve the first one.As to the Bush election heralding a new Dark Age - get a grip.Europeans, you are indeed entering a new Dark Age, but it is of your own making. With birthrates well below replacement levels and high Muslim immigration, by 2200, if present trends continue (always a big if), the terms English, French, Belgian, will join the terms Scythian , Hittite, and Cimmerian as names of vanished peoples in history texts. Given the 11 for 11 success of state referendums against gay marriage, I suspect that issue has been fairly decisively rejected.
On civil unions I do not suspect they will be interfered with in states that wish to enact them.Embryonic stem cell research is almost a memetic delusion among Democrats. I've yet to see a credible scientist (not a student, a scientist, with published journal articles) , on this board or anywhere else, declare the inevitability of utility of this research with the fervor that Democrat politicians do.In any case there is not a restriction on private funding of this research, nor will there be.Republican economics is relatively unconcerned with deficits and will remain so, so long as they are not an onerous percentage of GNP, as is the case. The Republican Party is not monolithic on social issues. A committment to free market economics and a foreign policy emphasizing strength and soverignty are the common threads. Many Republicans (including myself) are socially more moderate than W. This is the chief divide between Democrat views on the terror war and Republican. We see the war as global and against a more general Islamic fascism, not isolated to Al-Qaeda. We are equally at war with all other Islamic terroist groups, and state sponsors, at varying levels depending on the strategic and tactical situation.Democrats see this as "Bust OBL and go home". We see it as much larger than that.

Weell, not to disagree with Coragyps - usually a fatal experience - but the names are historical, not nicknames. Jefferson's original party, the Democrat Republicans, was formed from a coalition of anti-Federalist (the "other" party of at the time, lead by Hamilton and Adams) groups that thought the idea of a strong central government was tyrannical. It mostly appeared following passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts in the late 18th Century as a relatively cohesive group. The first Democrat-Republican president was Thomas Jefferson, followed by Madison and Monroe. They believed in democracy (hence that sobriquet) and small government (hence the republican part), liberalism, slashing the national debt, eliminating Hamilton's central bank, etc. The party imploded in 1824 - the first election where the electoral college was chosen by popular vote, and the first time the popular vote had been recorded. The name was shortened to Democrat, with most of the opposition (and many former Democrat-Republicans) coalescing around the Whig party (see, we used to have one, too).A new more-or-less modern (pre-Reagan) form of Republican Party appeared around 1854, more or less from a collection of abolitionist groups. Lincoln was their first president. The party held on to power until Wilson and WWI. The latest (neo-neo Republican?) appeared around the time of Ronald Reagan (actually, late '70s) when the power of the up-to-that-point-marginal ultra-religious wing of the party gained ascendency. This faction now utterly controls the platform and party. So it's time to change the name again...edited to add: BTW, Jefferson was demonized by his opponents in that election as "un-Christian", citing his avowed deism as grounds for not allowing him to become president. Plus a change, plus c'est la mme chose. This message has been edited by Quetzal, 11-03-2004 10:14 AM