From: Michael Lorrey (mike@datamann.com)
Date: Thu Feb 22 2001 - 11:59:28 MST
Neal Blaikie wrote:
>
> Chris Russo wrote:
>
> > I'm just pointing out that you criticized someone for supposedly
> > identifying with a certain "side", but your stances indicate that you
> > have your own side. Pot, kettle?
>
> If you look carefully at my original response to Brian, you'll see that I
> didn't criticize him for identifying with a particular side. I simply asked
> him to define his terms, and asked him why he was so interested in taking
> sides. As I have said over and over again in this forum, I see knee-jerk
> side-taking as more of a problem than taking a particular side. This is a
> subtle distinction, I will admit, but an important one. As long as we continue
> to automatically take one side or another, to see side-taking as an important
> thing to do, we'll never get anywhere. This is the main problem with partisan
> politics. Everyone's so busy taking sides, defining positions, and then
> defending them to the death, that no actual problem solving or forward
> progress is possible.
>
> > Just because you give lip service to the idea of partisan
> > independence doesn't mean that you live by it. You might try not
> > being so offended when someone makes a jab at the left.
>
> I've never once expressed offense because someone has taken a jab at the left.
> My problem is with the act of replacing critical thinking with simplistic
> jabbing. Again, this isn't side taking. It is critiquing what I see as useless
> methodologies.
>
> > Actually, if you had read Brian's post carefully, you would have
> > noticed that he didn't claim to be on one side or the other. He
> > simply said that "the other side" was getting a taste of their own
> > medicine. He could easily have been referring to the other side of
> > Heston's affiliation, but your own simplistic thinking didn't give
> > Brian the benefit of the doubt, you just pounced.
>
> I never claimed he was taking sides. As I said above, I was merely asking him
> to define his terms, and was questioning his need to see things in
> oppositional, side-taking terms. There is a difference between simplistic
> thinking (side-taking) and subtle thinking (questioning the need to take
> sides). Oh, and asking someone to clarify what he has said in a public forum
> is not pouncing. It's a legitimate response.
Refusing to come to a conclusion about which side is right and which is
wrong is not subtlety, it's pussilanimity. Evil prospers by good men
doing nothing. Stop doing nothing.
>
> > If you reject tired old thinking, then how can you see what happened
> > in Florida as anything but a power struggle between two political
> > parties using every legal means they each had at their disposal. The
> > struggle was initiated by the Democrats because they were behind in
> > the count, then it was finished by the Republicans, because they had
> > the highest trump card to play.
>
> I've never once disagreed with this position. I have equal disdain for the
> machinations of the Democrats.
Not once have I heard you take a democrat to task with the same
vehemence. You ALWAYS try to dismiss and disqualify someone elses
partisan commentary by smearing a conservative. You've never taken the
same tactics toward liberal posters, and you consistently agree with
liberal posters. Your 'neutrality' is rather transparent.
>
> > To say that "we have no president" is an indicator that you bought
> > into every single scrap of Democratic thought that came out of the
> > whole affair.
>
> Not true. It simply indicates that I thought Bush was handed the presidency
> unfairly. If Gore had won by the same or similar tactics, I would have made
> the same comment. My problem is and will continue to be the fact that we, the
> American people, have been screwed, they did it blatantly, and very few people
> seem to care about it. I am not a supporter of Gore or the Democratic party,
> and thought he handled himself poorly. If you see this as me being partisan, I
> guess there's nothing I can do about it. You obviously have a different
> definition of the term.
a) 2 million absentee ballots across the country were never counted
b) Bush lost the popular vote by a couple hundred thousand
c) in cases where absentee ballots were counted, Bush won them by more
than 60%
d) if the 2 million uncounted absentee ballots were in fact counted,
Bush would likely have won the popular vote
e) the inventor of the votamatic machines has testified that the most
frequent cause of 'pregnant chads' is when a voter tries to punch
multiple ballots at the same time: i.e. ballot stuffing.
f) there were far more 'pregnant chads' for Gore than Bush, ergo the DNC
was corrupting the Florida election and STILL lost.
g) DNC lobbying firms knew about this pregnant chad phenomenon, which is
why they instigated the 'my ballot wasn't counted' "grassroots" protest
in an attempt to get more votes for Gore BEFORE the Florida polls even
closed (they are on record as having called over 5,000 people in order
to instigate the 'grassroots' campaign).
h) Gore still lost the Florida election despite heavy DNC corruption of
the punch card system by Gore campaign manager Bill Daley, whose Chicago
family has decades of experience in cheating on elections.
i) under the Constitution, the electoral system decides the President,
not the popular vote.
You cannot consistently say both that both sides were equally corrupt
AND that Bush 'stole' the election. If the DNC committed less fraud than
the GOP in Florida, then Bush won despite an attempt to steal the
election by the DNC. If you claim that the GOP committed more fraud,
please document this.
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