Right. That's me over the edge.
Nov. 6th, 2012 09:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blamebramptonI try not to judge people on their politics.
Oh I disagree with them, I disagree hard and frequently. But usually I can see that there would be a reason, however dodgy I personally find it, why a rational person would vote for a particular candidate.
But, dear American flistees, if you vote for Romney/Ryan tomorrow, don't ever tell me, because I will judge you harder than I judge a smoking parent holding a newborn.
I was doing so well at letting you all make up your own minds (which I am sure you already have) without any input from me, but Romney declaring that Obama has been the most partisan president ever is a lie so egregious and self-evident that I have just been throwing balls of knitting yarn at the news on my TV.
Long before Obama was in the White House he gave the keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, in which bipartisanship was a key theme. In his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, it was a major topic. This is not a new thing for him, this is a long-term intellectual position.
In 2009, his party took the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to the Senate and agreed to nearly $150 billion worth of changes from the Republican Party, with most of those changes favouring high income earners over low-paid workers, which was in diametric opposition to Obama's personal belief system, but which he agreed to in the interests of including every representative voice. After all this, THREE Republicans voted for that bill in the Senate and none in the House.
The Republicans have also relentlessly attacked Obama on that package, despite the fact that the less 'valuable' parts of it in terms of job preservation were their own amendments.
The Affordable Healthcare Act, which the Republicans call Obamacare and which has been the central goal of this administration, contains more than 100 Republican amendments, which shifted the bill away from the more European/Australian style of public health that Obama was intellectually committed to and towards a compromise that he thought would gather broader political support. Despite this, not a single Republican voted for the bill.
The DISCLOSE Act of 2010 would have required campaign donations to be disclosed, so that whoever made donations needed to be named, and broadened the definition of election adverts to include attack ads not coming from campaigns, requiring the individual behind the ad to take responsibility for it. It needed a Republican co-sponsor. Despite the fact that Senator John McCain had been a co-sponsor of the 2002 Campaign Reform Act, which was designed to crack down on soft money and broaden the definition of election adverts, and despite the fact that many Republicans, especially McCain had spoken out in disapproval of Obama's massive private fundraising in 2008, not a single Republican would co-sponsor the bill, and it did not proceed.
Also in 2010, the Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action Act of 2009 was exactly what it says on the label and put before the Senate a recommendation to create a bipartisan 18-person commission to study and advise the Senate on the fiscal condition of the federal government and to make recommendations that would be put before the House and Senate. It was co-sponsored by Democrat Kent Conrad and Republican Judd Gregg, and there were six Republican co-sponsors of the bill. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader had been a keen supporter of the bill. Until the Saturday before the vote when Obama spoke out in favour of it. The six republican co-sponsors all withdrew their sponsorship and when the bill was voted on, they voted against it, along with every other Republican including McConnell, and it failed.
There is a partisan bias here, but it's not Obama's. And don't even try to convince me he's a Socialist: my ribs have only just finished healing.
So, even if you're prepared to ignore the fact that Romney and Ryan don't think that gay people have a right to visit their partners in hospitals *, even if you have no problem with making abortion illegal and thus killing women as well as foetuses**, even if you're absolutely fine with a tax plan to extend estate tax cuts for the wealthiest 0.3% while ending tax credits for 13 million working families in the lower and middle classes (that's about 26 million children's worth of families), then could you consider not voting for someone who is completely divorced from reality?***
And if you feel you must, then for goodness' sake, shut up about it around me, because I almost never defriend people, but I'd feel obliged. And of course, if you now want to defriend me, it's probably for the best. I wish you well.
* “Governor Romney supports a federal marriage amendment to the Constitution that defines marriage as an institution between a man and a woman,” Romney advisor Bay Buchanan told Buzzfeed today. “Governor Romney also believes, consistent with the 10th Amendment, that it should be left to states to decide whether to grant same-sex couples certain benefits, such as hospital visitation rights and the ability to adopt children. I referred to the Tenth Amendment only when speaking about these kinds of benefits – not marriage.”
** This what has happened throughout history when access to safe abortion is prohibited. Currently, 68,000 women a year die as a result of unsafe abortion. And yes, even as an atheist who thinks a foetus is just cells, I agree that abortion isn't an ideal option as it's wasteful and invasive. But it's often the best remaining option. And until there is such a thing as perfect contraception and we live in a world without rape, that option needs to remain.
*** Democratic Party supporters who wish to complain that Obama is overly centrist and has made political mistakes through his commitment to bipartisanship in places where Bill Clinton (and, indeed, Hillary Clinton) would have just lead with a right cross can go wild. That's fair.
Oh I disagree with them, I disagree hard and frequently. But usually I can see that there would be a reason, however dodgy I personally find it, why a rational person would vote for a particular candidate.
But, dear American flistees, if you vote for Romney/Ryan tomorrow, don't ever tell me, because I will judge you harder than I judge a smoking parent holding a newborn.
I was doing so well at letting you all make up your own minds (which I am sure you already have) without any input from me, but Romney declaring that Obama has been the most partisan president ever is a lie so egregious and self-evident that I have just been throwing balls of knitting yarn at the news on my TV.
Long before Obama was in the White House he gave the keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention, in which bipartisanship was a key theme. In his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, it was a major topic. This is not a new thing for him, this is a long-term intellectual position.
In 2009, his party took the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to the Senate and agreed to nearly $150 billion worth of changes from the Republican Party, with most of those changes favouring high income earners over low-paid workers, which was in diametric opposition to Obama's personal belief system, but which he agreed to in the interests of including every representative voice. After all this, THREE Republicans voted for that bill in the Senate and none in the House.
The Republicans have also relentlessly attacked Obama on that package, despite the fact that the less 'valuable' parts of it in terms of job preservation were their own amendments.
The Affordable Healthcare Act, which the Republicans call Obamacare and which has been the central goal of this administration, contains more than 100 Republican amendments, which shifted the bill away from the more European/Australian style of public health that Obama was intellectually committed to and towards a compromise that he thought would gather broader political support. Despite this, not a single Republican voted for the bill.
The DISCLOSE Act of 2010 would have required campaign donations to be disclosed, so that whoever made donations needed to be named, and broadened the definition of election adverts to include attack ads not coming from campaigns, requiring the individual behind the ad to take responsibility for it. It needed a Republican co-sponsor. Despite the fact that Senator John McCain had been a co-sponsor of the 2002 Campaign Reform Act, which was designed to crack down on soft money and broaden the definition of election adverts, and despite the fact that many Republicans, especially McCain had spoken out in disapproval of Obama's massive private fundraising in 2008, not a single Republican would co-sponsor the bill, and it did not proceed.
Also in 2010, the Bipartisan Task Force for Responsible Fiscal Action Act of 2009 was exactly what it says on the label and put before the Senate a recommendation to create a bipartisan 18-person commission to study and advise the Senate on the fiscal condition of the federal government and to make recommendations that would be put before the House and Senate. It was co-sponsored by Democrat Kent Conrad and Republican Judd Gregg, and there were six Republican co-sponsors of the bill. Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader had been a keen supporter of the bill. Until the Saturday before the vote when Obama spoke out in favour of it. The six republican co-sponsors all withdrew their sponsorship and when the bill was voted on, they voted against it, along with every other Republican including McConnell, and it failed.
There is a partisan bias here, but it's not Obama's. And don't even try to convince me he's a Socialist: my ribs have only just finished healing.
So, even if you're prepared to ignore the fact that Romney and Ryan don't think that gay people have a right to visit their partners in hospitals *, even if you have no problem with making abortion illegal and thus killing women as well as foetuses**, even if you're absolutely fine with a tax plan to extend estate tax cuts for the wealthiest 0.3% while ending tax credits for 13 million working families in the lower and middle classes (that's about 26 million children's worth of families), then could you consider not voting for someone who is completely divorced from reality?***
And if you feel you must, then for goodness' sake, shut up about it around me, because I almost never defriend people, but I'd feel obliged. And of course, if you now want to defriend me, it's probably for the best. I wish you well.
* “Governor Romney supports a federal marriage amendment to the Constitution that defines marriage as an institution between a man and a woman,” Romney advisor Bay Buchanan told Buzzfeed today. “Governor Romney also believes, consistent with the 10th Amendment, that it should be left to states to decide whether to grant same-sex couples certain benefits, such as hospital visitation rights and the ability to adopt children. I referred to the Tenth Amendment only when speaking about these kinds of benefits – not marriage.”
** This what has happened throughout history when access to safe abortion is prohibited. Currently, 68,000 women a year die as a result of unsafe abortion. And yes, even as an atheist who thinks a foetus is just cells, I agree that abortion isn't an ideal option as it's wasteful and invasive. But it's often the best remaining option. And until there is such a thing as perfect contraception and we live in a world without rape, that option needs to remain.
*** Democratic Party supporters who wish to complain that Obama is overly centrist and has made political mistakes through his commitment to bipartisanship in places where Bill Clinton (and, indeed, Hillary Clinton) would have just lead with a right cross can go wild. That's fair.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 10:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 11:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 11:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 01:23 pm (UTC)And then, the Republican campaign has been so utterly insane that it makes Tony Abbott look like a truth-telling sensitive new age guy: there has been a line spun that Obama is shorthand for socialism and big government, which is not only untrue in itself, but is a crazy thing to criticise, as the countries that are exactly what the Republicans hold up as ooga booga scary are Norway, Sweden and Australia, all of which have life expectancies and quality of life ratings that leave the US in the dirt.
If Romney wins, I am going to spend four years looking at cat gifs. There must be enough on the internet to get me through!
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 11:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 11:47 am (UTC)Ah.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 12:13 pm (UTC)I live in a pretty solid blue state (and somehow managed to live in the only Republican district) so my vote for President doesn't really count for much. We don't even have that many electoral votes...
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 01:29 pm (UTC)And yeah, for all that Obama makes me look like a raving Bolshevik, compared to the alternative, he's brilliant.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 12:14 pm (UTC)p.s. your brain (and heart) is so nice and beautiful and comfy and lovely and i wish to live in it forever.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 01:38 pm (UTC)It's all going to be fine. And if it's not, I have a spare room.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 12:23 pm (UTC)I guess I'm one of the people in your third footnote. Except that I remember Bill Clinton, and he signed the 1996 welfare reform act, so I know that he was the same. Centrists are centrist, and compromise is only one reason for it.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 01:54 pm (UTC)All I ask is for rational levels of crazy!
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 12:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 02:07 pm (UTC)Four years ago I was in Firenze sharing a room with one of my besties and we woke up early the day after to check the results. I remember the two of us sitting up in our twin beds, which were very close, and waiting for the internet to load, and then hugging each other with relief.
I think I have to ring her up and see if she'll come down to have a very nervous dinner with us tomorrow.
In the meantime, Chris Rock made me laugh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDxOSjgl5Z4
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 02:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 12:49 pm (UTC)I basically refuse to believe the media saying it's close to a tie, because, really?? HOW CAN IT POSSIBLY EVEN BE CLOSE??? *despairs*
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 02:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 01:07 pm (UTC)Do not need to be afraid of you today...
Grins
Have a great day!
although I do have a bed made up for me in the UK should the rest of the country be stupid :P
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 02:11 pm (UTC)And I have a spare futon and sofa if things get desperate :-)
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 01:27 pm (UTC)I live in Illinois - we are solid blue. I wish I could vote in Wisconsin, just a few miles north of me to help push them to the blue. I pray that this election is not a repeat of the stolen election debacle of 2000, but am not hopeful.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-07 08:51 am (UTC)I haven't been this happy about politics since the last US election :-)
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 01:35 pm (UTC)I think the whole country feels like that four year old girl blubbering over the gorram election and neverending polarized schoolyard taunting and whining. Make it stop, mommy! *throws yarn balls, too*
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 02:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 02:03 pm (UTC)I also can't quite understand that in America the focus is so much on the president and not as much on the party behind him... I mean, no president can do things on his own, there are always more people involved with the president's decision-making. So one candidate's views don't always reflect their party's MO...
For today's election I just hope that people show some intelligence.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 02:38 pm (UTC)And I've often thought Romney and Abbott were family or something, both crazy and terrifying if they rise to power.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 02:42 pm (UTC)I don't think politics and ethics are separate issues when the results of elections have concrete effects on our everyday lives and are about far more than economic theory.
Anyone who supports a candidate who wants to take away my (or my sister and my friends's) rights to control their own body is getting heartily judged by me. Anyone who wants to dictate who can and can't love and commit according to the law likewise gets judged. And anyone who supports a candidate who wants to eviscerate the social structure that people like me, and people with significantly fewer resources than I have, depend on to properly care for their child gets well and truly judged.
*JUDGES*
I've never been so terrified about the outcome of an election. Never.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 03:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 03:23 pm (UTC)Don't worry too much...
Date: 2012-11-06 03:44 pm (UTC)...because Romney will lose Pennsylvania. The joke here is that Philly is a one party city (we have not had a Republican mayor since approx. 1950), and if my FB list is any indication (about 95% for Obama), I will eat my socks if Obama loses. Also you might find this interesting:
http://blogs.phillymag.com/the_philly_post/2012/11/05/sandusky-corbett-defeat-romney/
Frankly, though, I don't like either candidate, and while I'm just a bit jumpy today, I'm going to sit back and watch what's going on in Ohio, while reading political Harry/Draco fanfiction because I truly believe after the way the Obama administration handled the situation in Benghazi, and the reality of The Affordable Healthcare Act, which is an appalling excuse for socialised medicine that is SO Necessary* in this country(God, I could just scream), we are all screwed, either way.
*Fairly recently, I ended up in ER, and while I was doubled over in pain waiting for a doctor, the amount of people in the waiting area for treatment of things like colds, flu, etc. because they had Nowhere Else To Go, or any social workers about to help an intellectually challenged woman with the mountains of paperwork required to be seen, was just another bleak reminder to me of how broken this country really is.
But I'm trying to be positive.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 06:24 pm (UTC)I'm sorry. That wasn't fair to people in frats.
Fingers crossed,
Already Voted In Florida.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 06:43 pm (UTC)I just unfollowed someone who made a post of reasons why she's voting for Romney and she is SO brainwashed by Fox News it's scary. She essentially admitted to thinking that LGBTQ people don't deserve any kind of rights (oddly, she is a massive Dan Radcliffe fan, and happily asked questions in a recent chat he did for The Trevor Project - funny, that). Her opinion is that it's about something much more than whether or not a presidential candidate is homophobic or not. I can't follow someone who thinks like that, dismissing a sizeable percentage of her fellow Americans.
She seems to think she'll magically get a job in her chosen field of study, rather than having to work in a service job, if Romney gets in. Good luck with that, she'll have to grow a penis first.
This election doesn't directly affect me, but it directly affects lots of people that I love dearly. I can't understand how anyone who isn't a white, heterosexual, 1% male can even think of voting for Romney. Voting for Romney is voting for a man who cares about a child right up until the moment of birth, and then couldn't give a shit about them for. the rest of their life.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 08:03 pm (UTC)I might have woo-hooed to that line out loud. :)
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 08:47 pm (UTC)I love this... even down to your insight into George W.
I got the real sense that W. had some sort of actual belief system. I don't believe he acted on even the principles he espoused, but on some level, dead wrong as he was, I think he believed his own rhetoric, or at the very least, genuinely thought he was helping the country. Somewhere buried in bullshit and stammering ignorance, he meant well... i think. ish.
I think Mitt Romney believes in the absolute capability, savvy and worthiness of Mitt Romney.
Policy, morality, humanity, veracity... all of these things are liquid assets to be manipulated at will into whatever configuration best serves his immediate - as in this very, single instance of a moment - purpose.
It's Orwellian.
I have a much longer rant, but yours is delineated beautifully, and I'm fucking spent. Blurg.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-06 10:46 pm (UTC)[is incoherent with rage]
[admittedly, is incoherent with rage a lot, but this is esp. bad]
I voted for Obama (pretty much goes without saying), and if I still lived in Chicago, by God I'd vote again.