Politics Shmolitics

http://www.dailykos.com/statepoll/2010/1/31/US/437

Today, I want to discuss this poll. And where politics is in this country.

First, a few basic caveats. Yes, I am a Democratic socialist liberal commie who hates America and clearly supports the terrorists. Blah blah blah. And yes, the poll is funded by the great orange satan, who not only hates America worse than I do but is clearly a terrorist himself, someone think of the children, etc etc. So I'll have my liberal slant on the whole thing, but I welcome discussion. Second point is that even though it was founded by a Democrat, the polltakers are supposed to be non-partisan, and none of the questions seem too push-polly, so maybe they are. Third, these are taken of people who self-identify as Republicans, which means that libertarians like Steve are (I assume) out, and so we're left with the actual party base. And as a math major, statistical error blah blah blah. 2000 people were interviewed, but I'm not sure what the breakdown in region really was and all that.

That being said and caveats out of the way (unless I think of more) let's analyze it better than Markos did (because I AM that gifted, of course). I'm skipping the president in 2012 question because it's pointless. If you went back to 2006 and tried to find out who democrats were going to vote for for office, kerry or edwards were leading the list. Barack was probably pretty low, so this is equally a dumb question. The only reason Palin, Cheney, and Romney have higher numbers is name recognition, so at this point it's a stupid question. Two years from now the republicans will line up behind their guy and the process will continue, blah blah blah.

The next question I feel is shady. Should Barack Obama be impeached? 39 percent say yes and 29 percent are not sure. Well, hell, back in 2000 I'm willing to bet that you could find an easy 39 percent of people who wanted George Bush impeached for stealing the election. Granted, Obama hasn't led us into a false war or fucked up the myriad of ways Bush did, but it's not hard to find members of the other party who want to impeach the guy. The smart followup question would be, "why" of course, but that wasn't asked. So this question while informative that Republicans hate BO isn't much more helpful than that. I could stand here and go "ZOMG HOW CAN THEY BE SO F***ING RETARDED?" (and then sarah palin would call for me to quit my job of course) but that's not going to help the situation. Do I think Bush should be punished for all the crimes he committed? Yes, but I'm also a pretty strong liberal. Hell, I want Ann Coulter shot into the sun, but I only have one vote, etc etc.

Was Obama born in America? Well, hell, when the entire right wing media is bringing up kerning and all that bullshit, then of course you'll believe anything. Note that Yes is stronger than No with the exception of 2 categories, the south (racism forever, bitches!) and 18-29 year olds (i maintain that it's within the margin of error). The south, well, hell, we've tried fixing that cesspool before and it's not getting better. They want to hate black people, we can't stop them. But the 18-29 year olds? They're the ones reading the right-wing blogs and listening to Rush Limbaugh. If we go back to my liberalism, every time that W and Co fucked up in his 8 years, liberal blogs were all over that shit. "Cheney said fuck on the senate floor! He's ruining the VP office!" "we tortured prisoners! we're the worst country ever!" (that last one is a fucking travesty btw). So when you read 5-6 conservative blogs a day that are all saying "Not born in america zomg!" you start to believe it. And I'm not saying liberal blogs don't fuck up too. The problem with both is that no one remembers the retractions, and outrage doesn't lessen after you read a retraction a few days later, no matter what side.

The regular media should have actually never given the story as much weight as it did, but hey, first black president, election cycle scooping of each other, need to be the first one there, pointless both sides to each issue, etc. And the retractions should have been louder, even though no one likes to admit they screwed up. But hell, people were still mad 8 years after Bush "stole" the election in 2000. This issue isn't going away, it's just morons being dumb. The socialist claim is a similar thing. Blogs, Fox news repeats, radio shows, etc. The fact that that one sticks is easier because while you can easily say, "here's a birth certificate you ignorant jackals" it's a lot harder to go "here's a capitalist agenda you shmucks." You can't get out of the 20s with socialism, so there's one that's not going away. The problem is though that NO ONE CARES ABOUT SOCIALISM.

I was born in 86. I have many friends that were born in the 80s as well. None of us actually remembers Reagan as president. George W Bush is also a distant memory, as is the USSR and the cold war. I've seen video of the Berlin wall falling, but when it happened? I was busy watching Ninja Turtles, which was more exciting to me at the time. So when you try to drudge up scary fears of communism, the only people you're affecting are those that are at least 30ish. You're not recruiting the younger generation with talk of "socialism" and "red scares." Realistically, the best shot of socialism working is hoping the new Red Dawn isn't a glorious piece of shit. Hell, James Bond has stopped fighting commies, as has Captain America. You're not affecting youth culture with something youths have never cared about. It's the equivalent of saying "Oh no, Barack Obama is going to take your CD player away!"

Does he want the terrorists to win? Oh, you have to be kidding me. There is no way that the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES wants the terrorists to win. What, is he going to wake up tomorrow and say something like "well, thanks for electing me, y'all, but as of today, we're letting all them Muslims come in and kill y'all!" Thank goodness that half those polled (ish) were able to figure that out. And there's still that stubborn 25(ish) percent that says yes. Media, media, media.

Did ACORN steal the election? Maybe if people had a better idea of what ACORN did they could answer this question better. ACORN signs people up to vote but they don't make them vote. IE, if you sign up Donald Duck for a voter registration card, unless Donald walks in with a valid ID, he ain't voting. And if you've never given a fake name to any form or shitty email sign-up (who here doesn't have a dumping email address for spam signups?) then throw the first stone. But accusing them of throwing the election is straight right wing media BS.

Is Sarah Palin more qualified? Get your heads out of your asses. The woman didnt know why there was a North and South Korea. She quit her job as governor. The ability to say "you betcha" and look like a hot librarian is not a presidential qualifier. This is just like that "who would you have rather have a beer with" bullshit. I don't want to have a beer with the president. I want to have a nice town hall meeting where he answers my questions, or failing that, a good state of the union speech. I don't want to be choosing between presidential candidates based on which one Mystery Date tells me is dreamier. Governor of Alaska barely counts as a job. I'm willing to bet I could be governor of Alaska now. You know why? It's f***ing Alaska! Half the residents are animals! I am willing to concede that each had similar national experience levels when they entered the stage, but you know what? Barack had a decent idea of what he was talking about and could explain policy decisions. He had that hour long speech where he listed all his plans for office, but Sarah Palin didn't have to do that, partly because she was running for VP and partly because, hey, look, tits. "I read all [the newspapers]"? Really? That's great, explain what you read. You want to make the point on election day that she's more qualified, I might be willing to buy that, even though I'd think you're an idiot. But now? After she quit being governor and then yelled at everyone in her final press conference and has basically been on a book tour for the last few months while BO was out being the President? No, you can't make that claim. These people are just wrong.

Does he hate whitey? Well, whites, men, the 60+, and the south sure seem to think so. Let's look at those lists. White Republicans - scared of black people. Male Republicans - "Where all the white women at" indeed, Cleavon Little. The 60+ are afraid he's going to come back and get them for slavery and the entire policy of whites pre-1960 America. The south? well of course the black guy hates white people, we hate him. It's projection, plain and simple.

Should we secede? Ok, that may be push-polling...or just plain stupid. You know who wants to secede? Idiots who spend Saturdays at the gun range in their Rebel Flag tee-shirts listening to Skynyrd. The south is the strongest who want out, but it's still a 20 percent difference and this question is pointless. There's 25 percent of people who would support anything.

I had no idea that people hated unions so much. Growing up in Chicago there's no such thing as non-union labor, which works I gotta say. With my living experience, I have no idea why unions would be seen as bad and shouldn't be created, so anyone who cares to enlighten me is welcome.

Immigrants! Even when it was the bears, I knew it was them. And everyone hates them, because the American dream was only meant for white people 50-100 years ago. F*** those Mexicans, man, they took 'er jerbs! It's more fear of "where all the white women at" again combined with an actual fear of losing their job, with another bit of religious paranoia thrown in for a few people. Not being an immigrant or hating them, I'm not exactly qualified to try to qualify these numbers.

Gays in the military? Well, not much you can do about that, now is there? That problem will be fixed soon enough. Gays allowed to marry and receive benefits? Nope, them queers is gonna ruin marriage. If I can deny someone I don't like the chance to be happy, why wouldn't I? Strangely, the youth demographic is going right with the party line on this one, which is weird. I would have expected them to know someone who "caught the gay" and be a little more accepting; that's how I stopped being scared of it. But as these are self-identifying Republicans, I imagine a lot of them are not only toeing the party line but also overly Christian. And I definitely remember Jesus saying "Hate the sinner, hate his sins too. Throw those rocks boys!" Even if America was founded on Christian ideas, separation of Church and state, people.

The gays teaching in public schools question was a trick. The reason it was asked was because back when Reagan was running for president he actually stood up and said yes, they should be allowed to teach. So Saint Reagan was OK with the gays, but I imagine that knowing a lot from Hollywood helps. If people could see gays as normal then things might get easier to deal with.

Sex education and creationism? Ugh, church and state people. Church myah, state, nyah. Sex education keeps your daughter from getting pregnant and creationism is why we're behind japan and india in educational standards.

Marriages equal or the men in charge? There's always wackjobs in every case.

Contraceptives outlawed and are they abortions? Well those two tie together nicely. If you want the hard Catholic belief, sex is for creating babies. If you're doing something else with it then you're doing it wrong. If it's outlawed, then the girls can't go on the pill and go out and have sex. No one wants their daughter to grow up, but sometimes you have to let her. As for is it murder? I suppose if you look at it in a very skewed way then yes it is. But it's a hell of a skew and you're just being dumb. Some girls take the pill for bad periods, some take them for intense cramps, it's not just so you don't need to worry about the babies.

Abortion is murder. Sorry I'm Catholic, but it is. However, sometimes we gotta go lesser of two evils, and church and state are separate. It's going to happen whether it's legal or not, and I'd rather it be in a clean and sterile location rather than a back alley with a coat hanger and a punch in the stomach. Personally I don't like it, but you know what? I haven't knocked a girl up, I don't have a uterus, I really don't deserve a huge say in the matter. And if you're pulling the pro-life bull crap, why do they then so strongly support the death penalty? "Those of you without sin throw the first stone." And if we want to call abortion murder, what punishment fits the crime for women who have abortions?

Women can work outside the home, that was kind of a pointless question.

Most Republicans are Christian, shocking. It's a Christian nation, and as Catholics are one of the few if only sects that believe works can get you into heaven, of course they're all about faith.

So what does this tell us all (sorry I've been going on for so long)? That there are crazies in the Republican party. You know what? From the other side, there's crazies in the Democrat party too. I'm willing to bet you can think of all sorts of issues where I'm wrong or crazy or what have you. But the party difference is where things happen. Republican leaders have to vote the party line or they get kicked out of the party. You have to be pro-life, you do what you're told. If your head guy says vote No on the bill, you vote no or you lose your committees and are voted out next election. Meanwhile, the democrats still employ Joe Lieberman. The democrats are more willing to take people in, but that leads to varied messages and a bunch of crappy compromises. Shouting at the other side isn't going to get anything done, but that's not what the media would have you believe.

What the poll says to me is that those people who still identify as Republicans generally have Republican beliefs, and I think several of those beliefs are wrong. That's why I'm a Democrat. Welcome to freedom in America, where you can believe what you want. The problem is that if you want to be a Republican leader in this day and age you have to agree 100% with the party line, which is eventually going to be set by a lot of those people polled. I don't like that, as the beliefs I didn't like the most were the ones that were just about hating others. The whole point of being Christian is that you don't hate other people, which is what a lot of the opinions kinda were. If you want to live in a more Christian world, why don't you start treating these people in a more Christian way? Forgiveness and kindness, not yelling and killing. But that's just my take on it all.

Join me tomorrow when I go back to being comical and amusing for your benefit. A small post about my weight loss program and another small one about the Super Bowl probably.