... You very clearly did not listen to the speech. He quoted Abe Lincoln and said he humbly prays we are on God's side...

Anyway, I like the man, and will not be crushed if he wins in November. However, until he gives me an explanation as to how he will "rebuild foreign alliances" other than politeness, Bush has my vote.

Nader.

>.>

<.<

------------------
Map-Review | My Portfolio | The Matrix: Unplugged

Banks and banks of humming machinery! I've never seen so many knobs. We're going to have to do something, Charlie! Try pushing that button there. No? How about that one? No, not that one either. I know! I'll try pushing this one. Hold my hat will you? Good fellow.

Jobs can easily be kept in America. If american companies are forced to pay foriegn workers as much as american's, they will have less incentive to hire overseas. Or listen to his speech and hear what he said he would do about it.

------------------
I figure that one day I'll either be famous, or in prison. But I guess if I'm going to prison, I should probably try to do something that would make me famous anyway.

Kerry still has a lot of charges he needs to answer with regards to Vietnam...especially what his old swift boat buddies (including the commander of his task force) are saying. That is the main concern at the moment.

Bill: I dare you to redo your post without using heavy bias like you did. Right now, most people other than "Bush-Haters" will toss it out the window.

Edit - If I'm not mistaken, you can't "force" anyone to pay someone however much when they are outside of your country.



[This message has been edited by Morfildor (edited July 31, 2004).]

It seems that Al Sharpton persuades via volume. “VOTE FOR KERRY!!!... AFRICAN AMERICANS!!!!... THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!!!!...

I'm not big on politics personally. If I were, I'd be republican. I agree that Kerry doesn't seem stable. Heck, the smartest thing that he did was bring Edwards on.

------------------
Prowling out of the tundra, swinging a jeweled meat hammer, cometh Outlaw Torn! And he gives a gutteral bellow:

"I'm seriously going to hump you until you scream like a banshee!"

It doesn't matter of jobs are outsourced. It will hurt peoples lives (not for long though), but lets face it: the world moves on, and America is one of the most advanced countries around. With this in mind it makes sense that we outsource our less complicated or unnecessary jobs. In an increasingly global economy, we can't really afford to bar ourselves off from the outside world. Many of the jobs we all have now simply didn't exist 10 years ago.

Wasn't it Clinton that passed NAFTA anyway?

That said, it will hurt, and I personally wouldn't mind providing a little bit of incentive to maintain American jobs.

------------------
Ω of 14

One problem with forcing them to pay people outside the country what you would inside, or to simply make the factories inside the country and pay them the wage that way, is that you will then have to jack prices increadibly as a company in order to be able to make a profit. Which of course will make sales drop, since less people will buy a product if it is higher price. I was in Mexico for two years, and talked with many, many people who worked in those factories. Your average salary for a factory on the border in Mexico is around 600 pesos a week, say. Sometimes they pay a bit more or a bit less. But never below 550 or above 700 unless the employee has been there a while (which rarely happens). So, 60 bucks a week for a worker down there. Now, you'd probably be paying at least 350 a week to a worker in the US (probably more). So, we're talking at least 5 times the amount of money for each worker. Multiply that by the thousands of workers for the factory, and that comes up to quite a sum. Which translates to quite a price increase on products in order to be able to compensate for that.

And these are rough figures, just so you know, but the point is still there.
------------------
Wisdom is the application of knowledge.

[This message has been edited by Rogue Leader (edited July 31, 2004).]

Rogue.. Rogue Leader...? As in... Lennox III and Lennox MacDuff?!?

------------------
To myself I surrender to the one I'll never please.
But I still try to run on.
You know I still try to run on. But it's all or none.

Eddie Vedder

The one and only.

------------------
Wisdom is the application of knowledge.

But the point you're missing is that by giving those jobs, more people will have more money. These people will go buy things, and that will cause prices to stay about the same. If more people are employed, and more things are purchased, there is no need to raise prices. The companies will still make the same amount of money. And maybe that pair of Nike's won't fall apart.

------------------
I figure that one day I'll either be famous, or in prison. But I guess if I'm going to prison, I should probably try to do something that would make me famous anyway.

OH MY GOD!

Say hello to brother Flank!

Dude its been forever!

------------------
To myself I surrender to the one I'll never please.
But I still try to run on.
You know I still try to run on. But it's all or none.

Eddie Vedder

I've been back for almost two months now posting on these forums. You never come here anymore or something?

------------------
Wisdom is the application of knowledge.

I left for a bike trip up north at Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia about two months ago.. I havn't really been to the forums at all since before I left.

------------------
To myself I surrender to the one I'll never please.
But I still try to run on.
You know I still try to run on. But it's all or none.

Eddie Vedder

Erm, and you have?

I would sit here and nitpick the flaws in your approach to attack Kerry, let alone the arguments themselves, but I really have better things to do.

Bottom line, my vote is for anyone but Bush in 2004. Right now, Kerry has the best chance to beat him, so that's who my vote is going for.

------------------
Try not, do; or do not.

Well... Kerry is the ONLY person that can beat Bush... I mean... If Nader is elected there will be a snowball somewhere hurtling happily through hell.

------------------
I figure that one day I'll either be famous, or in prison. But I guess if I'm going to prison, I should probably try to do something that would make me famous anyway.

**** protectionism. If the world followed your brilliant economic policy, competition and consumers all across the world; everywhere from the US to Chad, would suffer immensely.

Companies go abroad for labor because they can make a greater profit. They pay higher wages to foreign workers than do domestic firms. This means that foreign workers make more money. Companies pay higher wages so they can compete, which are still significantly lower than in the US. This means they make more money. In turn, in order to better to compete for the American consumer's money, they lower prices. This means the American consumer keeps more money.

The net effect is good - for the foreign worker, for the company and for the American consumer. It is undeniably true that foreign companies who cannot compete or find niche markets suffer, and that job loss among American industrial workers is a problem. That is why governments should help workers retrain and become more competitive. But to say that the appropriate response is to hold the interest of a majority of consumers hostage to a minority is contrary to the successful economic policy championed by Clinton (NAFTA, anyone?) More importantly, it is the classic definition of tyranny. For both reasons, we should have none of it.

I say again, **** it, and anyone who votes for it.

Sine reads my mind, yet again. Scary in a way.......

------------------
"This thread is still alive? Someone should kill it."

People earning more money causes more consumer buying, but it also causes inflation. This cancels out products being bought more because each dollar means less, thus causing companies to increase prices anyway.

Unemployment and inflation need to be balanced in order for growth to occur.

------------------
Kieran: The reason I put a link to it is because she is in underwear and I know the admins are touchy on that.
Yecti: Jaiph will touch himself for hours if he so much as smells a woman's underwear

I guess you forgot to read my sentence that I typed afterwards saying that if Bush actually does give details, that it will be better. "Otherwise, each speech will be extremely similar"

------------------
"His Will Was Set, And Only Death Would Break It"

"None knows what the new day shall bring him"

Did you read the part about the number of those that were things he had Promised to support, some of which Failed due [ostensibly at least] to his lack of support?

Interesting way to gain credibility and trust..

------------------
[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"That's why we had to beat you with tennis rackets".
NPC.Interact::PressButton($'Submit');

[This message has been edited by Dormouse (edited July 31, 2004).]

To throw in my gauntlet on this:

Kerry is a man who understands that there is more to making decisions than black and white, good and evil.

If we keep Bush in office, the cowboy decision making will continue, and that is too simplistic when every decision impacts so many other things in today's world.

It's too bad that Kerry doesn't have a perfect record of attendance, and what SEEMS to be "flip flopping" but it's really too bad that our current administration has led us so wrong.

And, to defend Kerry once more, he never *EVER* seemed to me to be an idiot.

Also, if you want flip flopping, let's "stay the course" after the "mission [was] accomplished"


------------------
"If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?"

Like telling people theyre wrong and without any credibility competence or coherence, but deigning not to actually bother to justify those claims with meaningful statements?

Not to mention that wasn't even an Attack. It was simply my listing various ways in which Kerry has failed to gain my confidence in his consistency and so forth as i listed. I don't really have anything personally against him, just that he hasn't done anything to show me why i /should/ vote for him.

------------------
[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"That's why we had to beat you with tennis rackets".
NPC.Interact::PressButton($'Submit');

[This message has been edited by Dormouse (edited August 01, 2004).]

...Wait, what? How the hell is "staying the course" - sticking with Iraq even in the face of terrorist attacks, after major combat operations (you forgot that part) - that is to say, the job of kicking Saddam out of power - are over, "flip flopping?" Poorly put, but you know what I mean..

Summary of why i posted what:

1: "Kerry actually served in a war, thus he defeats Bush". Article: "Yes, but a large portion of the people he served with and under think he would be unfit for duty as CinC"

2: Bush/the Patriot act are so arrogant and American-centric and xenophobic and stuff. Article: Be that as it may, Kerry seems to be all about let's get rid of 'un-american' things and so forth, and then makes a campaign slogan from a Langston Hughes poem which seems to have very little to a negative amount of bearing on how he uses it.
Moreover he then is 'too busy' to attend national security briefings, then loudly criticizes Bush' intel and such..

3: Bush is lying and underhanded and doesn't back up his promises and does things without telling and stuff. Article: Kerry fails to even remotely fulfill his duty during Senate votes, failing to support things he promised to support and so forth, some of which then failed.

4: Anyone But Bush, no more relatives/heirs of ridiculously wealthy people who somehow got into really high-end universities, and various influential secret societies therein.

Article: Kerry is no more a middle-class working man than Bush, if nothing else being married to the insanely wealthy heiress of Heinz. Moreover having little functional difference in his politics and decisions and votes on issues [for instance he loudly decries Bush' proposal for gay marriage bans, and then says that if the vote came up in his home state he'd vote against them as well]

4: Omq liek Bush looks liek teh menkey! Initial response: We're frelling primates, get over it. Pictoral proof: Kerry looks like an android primate shell with a brain-freezy'd alien mind-control symbiote living in its braincase. Or something.

Further muttering:
5: Bush couldn't speak a full sentence without making 734 grammatical and pronunciational and stutteringal and inconsistencies. Responce: Strangely enough he's hardly the only president who has issues with that. Does the term Quaylism still mean anything to anyone on here? Or the fact that Abraham Lincoln reportedly had a rather high-pitched unpleasant voice. In other words: Get over it, or better yet go up there and do the presidential speeches yourself if you can do them so much better, i know i personally am horrid at speaking to large groups and i stutter and stumble and get lost even in personal conversations at times. Being not the greatest public speaker != automatically he's a complete moron who has no place in the office.

6: Enough of this, this thread is starting to remind me too much of debates with me as a captive audience of people trying to convince me how the flagships in Homeworld would /obviously/ clearly win in a fight against the Enterprise E, especially with their ceramic-plated armour, and how Starcraft brought nothing new to the genre and stole the Zerg straight from WH40k's Tyranids.....

------------------
[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"That's why we had to beat you with tennis rackets".
NPC.Interact::PressButton($'Submit');

[This message has been edited by Dormouse (edited August 01, 2004).]

1. Portion? Majority? Link? So what? Even if every comrade hated him, he still would have experienced combat and Bush would have not. I personally don't consider it a pivotal issue, but nothing you said discounts the qualities people associate with actual veterans.

2. Considering Kerry and his base is all about discounting the whole "x is un-american" thing, I'm curious how you managed to get the opposite impression. And all those "national security meetings" you're referring to is actually a single briefing about yet another Tom Ridge attempt at relevancy. From the dubious source.

3. Um, he's been campaigning.

4. If there's no functional difference between Bush and Kerry, I'm sure the half of the nation that votes would appreciate the update. Sadly, you just don't know what you're talking about.

6. Except, you know, this is about the leader of the free world and all that.

I was reading the thread but I got bored.

If Kerry does actually manage to get elected he will have the most unproductive presidency of modern times. Republicans will pay back the democrats by not allowing squat to make it through congress. And it won't bother me abit.

------------------
Have you forgotten ...

1: I showed the link in my post previous. I don't think it's a pivotal issue either, but apparently it's a big deal to a lot of people. What all attributes associated with veterans are you referring to? [and part of that article seems to be about how the pre-conception of what attributes a veteran would have is misleading, at least in that case. Though i may be recalling something different]

2: The numbers i seem to be finding are a bit higher than just one random briefing. From an interview with Senator McConnel, still trying to find an original source for his numbers. [those years not being while campaigning, at least mostly, so don't use that as an excuse here]

From here: http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=147-07282004

Regarding 'un-american' comments, this is one of the first things i ran across though admittedly it was his wife saying it:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5516476/
Though moreso i was referring to that Let America Be America thing as prestend in the article i linked earlier. Which says to me, America apparently isn't America now, so we need to get rid of or revise things somehow which are un-American to get back to the American.

3: So maybe he should not have promised to support things in senate votes when he was too busy to actually do so? Shrug.

4: Well when Kang and Kodoss pop out of their skins at their inaugural addresses, don't say i didn't warn you.

6: Strangely enough, i had thought that there were other major world leaders as well....

------------------
[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"That's why we had to beat you with tennis rackets".
NPC.Interact::PressButton($'Submit');

Dor: Your sources are not reputable. I'm surpised Morf hasn't called you on it. Except, you know, I'm not.

1. If you visit the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" website, they talk exclusively of a dozen other swift boat commanders, who are decidely less qualified than his actual comrades to make assertations. They've apparently dropped most of the claims they made in your article. It might be worth mentioning that officers are usually Republican and enlisted men are more likely to be Democrats.

2. It's a RNC press release quoting a Republican senator, apparently without any independent confirmation. I need better.

Um. There's a distinct difference between echoing the majority of Americans who say the nation is heading down the wrong path and decrying criticism and unpopular opinions as un-American.

3. Three senators missed the unanimous Iraq reconstruction bill. The other two were Republicans. I'd need more information about the jobless benefits and nuclear cleanup bills.

4. Generic cynicism got old around the same time I grew out of it. I'm all optimistic now.

Bill seems to think that outsourcing is this huge problem under Bush.

http://joatmoaf.typepad.com/i_love_jet_noise/2004/06/labor_survey_da.html

No, it isn't.

------------------
Frightening the very small and very old since 1952.

Okay, so perhaps they may not be reputable.

A: Is there some secret rubrick you have to grade them against that you give that without any real justification?

or

B: More importantly. If you have more reputable and/or refuting sources, i'd be more than happy to read them. No sarcasm.

1: "It might be worth mentioning that officers are usually Republican and enlisted men are more likely to be Democrats." I'd be interested in reading a reputable source on this assertion, y'know, just for consistency and fairness, not that i find it implausible, i really am curious. [though the faq asserts that there are also democrats and independants who feel such]

Also i am curious how you decided they [swift boat site] are decidedly less qualified to make assertions, they seem to include at least a couple people in the quotes page that he served either directly with or under [for instance the guy he reported his purple-heart-winning scratch to].

Also interesting is how many of them are very adamant that in all their time there, they never saw any hint of all the things Kerry allegated were happening all the time over there. Not conclusive, just interesting.
" Military personnel who witness crimes and atrocities have an absolute duty to report them to their superiors. Senator Kerry did not report a single instance of criminal behavior. If he had indeed witnessed the atrocities about which he testified to Congress, he should have reported them."

This seems like a good representation of people who would be qualified to make assertions:
"Overall, more than 250 Swift boat veterans are on the record questioning Kerry's fitness to serve as Commander-in-Chief. That list includes his entire chain of command -- every single officer Kerry served under in Vietnam. .. The Swift boats fought in groups, so the other boat commanders who fought alongside Kerry know him well and can accurately describe what he did and did not do. In many cases the commanders have a better perspective on Kerry than his own crew members, since the latter had no way to determine whether he was following orders and how well he worked with his peers."

Now obviously one can't take that site as being totally conclusive or reputable or whatever. However, it still does seem to be rather coherent and such. I did not see anything on there about them dropping their claims or rescinding on anything, i would be interested to see citations on that.

2: Just as soon as he releases his full attendence record to the public i can give you solid unviolable proof, but until then youre going to have to be un-satisfied, and i am not going obviously to hold the point as conclusive and damning. However, simply because someone is of the opposite party doesn't mean they are automatically lying or their statements are meaningless in any case.

As to reform vs un-american criticism, i agree with you there when you put it in those terms.

3: Jobless benefits vote: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,119710,00.html
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/05/11/kerry.vote/
Nuclear cleanup [seems to have much less coverage than the above]:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Jun-04-Fri-2004/news/24030681.html

4: That wasn't really cynicism. It was more a response to the title as much as your use of it.

------------------
[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"That's why we had to beat you with tennis rackets".
NPC.Interact::PressButton($'Submit');

Geez, thanks for the comment.

Actually, I've read the thread only once since my post. I don't tend to get into debates much as the election gets closer. Otherwise, I would have made a much longer post.

Yes. Good news sources report the truth and don't report the not truth. There's no way to determine the validity of news agency's claims except by consulting other news agencies. Therefore, reputable news sources are mainstream and redundant. See CNN, Fox, NYT, Washington Post. Disreputable is anything else, particularly if they've been caught lying in the past.

1. Here?

Only one quote was attributed to someone who actually claimed to have served under Kerry. The rest are unaffiliated or higher-ups.

They apparently could only find a single person to sign who actually sat in the same boat.

2. If they aren't lying there would be independent confirmation.

3. Your articles provide the defense. Republicans have kept crucial votes open for hours while they beat party members into line. Kerry's presence would have changed nothing.

4. I was referring to the Simpson's reference.

Hrm. So if the Republicans will just undermine and sabotage all the pertinent votes and measures and such, how does he figure that will change when he becomes president?

Not voting because it wouldn't have made difference [ostensibly] and then campaigning to people who tend to hold that the last election was rigged somehow by the Republicans and that their votes didn't make a difference, seems a bit.. odd.

[Edit: it should be ammended, that i will not be crushed if someone decisively refutes all the things i brought up]

------------------
[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"That's why we had to beat you with tennis rackets".
NPC.Interact::PressButton($'Submit');

[This message has been edited by Dormouse (edited August 02, 2004).]

Read: "I'd like to imply I'm at least semi-centrist, meaning that my views are less biased and you should pay them more heed."


And then the crunch-line. Read: "Dude take it from me, I'm semi-centrist."


And a nice little strawman fallacy to finish up, using AOL-speak to denigrate the strawman argument. Someone fetch me the bucket of roll-eyes smileys.

Nobody in the left-wing camp attempts to use Bush's physical resemblances as a reason to support Kerry. You're mistaking political satire for political commentary.

No, it's called: Kerry is the only alternative to Bush and so it would be rather nice were he to convince me that he was a worthy alternative.

And the last wasn't really a reason to vote or not vote for him, it was more general commentary aimed at the million and one comments/pictures/whatever i have seen gleefully proclaiming Bush resembles a monkey, and replying that, of course he resembles a monkey, every human i know is in fact a primate. Now if he looked like a lemur, /that/ would be pretty fascinating and worthy of repeated commentary. Though Kerry would still have better hair than he, and so would gain more votes
By the way, it was a joke.

Do you feel so smug now?

------------------
[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"That's why we had to beat you with tennis rackets".
NPC.Interact::PressButton($'Submit');

[This message has been edited by Dormouse (edited August 03, 2004).]

Riiight.

Kerry looks more like Herman Munster than an Android.

That he does. But Bush has Herman's speaking skills.

------------------
There is no signature