(no subject)

[minervasolo]

You preferred Kerry's statements 89% of the time You preferred Bush's statements 11% of the time Voting purely on the issues you should vote Kerry Who would you vote for if you voted on the issues? Find out now!

Stolen from djcati. I really wish there was a neither option on the war issue. Really disagreed with both there.

Is Tor online? Are we going to have many conversations consisting of "Are you online?" "Yes I am" until one of us isn't online?

Editted to sort out typo. You know, I thought when a username wasn't found it would come up with that, rather than leave the tag as it was. Maybe that only happens in comments?

Second edit: Some of the questions change second time around, so i did it again ^_^

You preferred Kerry's statements 75% of the time You preferred Bush's statements 25% of the time Voting purely on the issues you should vote Kerry Who would you vote for if you voted on the issues? Find out now!

Comments

[djcati.livejournal.com]

Interesting typo. The d's not exactly close to the b. ;P

Yeah, I didn't agree with either option on quite a few questions. I guess I picked Bush's answers on those ones, but they were hard decisions. :\

[minervasolo.livejournal.com]

No, it isn't, is it? I blame essay writing, cleary ^_^ funny that there actually is a bjcati.

The problem with that quiz is all hte answers are quite conservative. I'm considerably more liberal, so I struggled with several, but I guess if you were conservative you'd have the same problem, since some solutions seem very similar. I think it's a good way of summarising the issues though, without the bias of which party offers which. Of course, it would help if afterwards you found out who said what, in case you felt some issues were more important to you than others.

[djcati.livejournal.com]

You can find out with cheat mode, I think. It tells you who you voted for when you pick the answer.

:O The questions change when you go to it again! . . . And I still got exactly the same result. XD;

[minervasolo.livejournal.com]

I'll have another go then

[minervasolo.livejournal.com]

Still Kerry, but less so. Probably those national security questions.

[angrypaladin.livejournal.com]

It's a sad thing, but I don't think either of them are very good choices. There are basically three groups of voters:

1)Those who will blindly follow anything Bu$hus Rex II says. They vote for him because they are either white evangelicals or they are wildly rich.
2)Those who don't understand what's going on but are too scared to have an actual human being like Kerry. They vote for Bu$h because he talks like a cowboy and cowboys are supposed to be tough.
3)Those who are voting against Bu$h out of anger, fear and frustration. They aren't really voting for Kerry so much as they're voting for the other guy who isn't the current guy.

The percentage of people who are voting for Kerry based on the man's merit alone is pretty small. Most people aren't even going to bother to vote, since the electoral college has already been decided in most states for some time. It's just dissapointing... ok, I'll get off my soap box now.

[minervasolo.livejournal.com]

I was discussing it with a friend, and really it's not about changing people's minds as to who to vote for, but getting them to vote at all. I have heard some reasons for voting for Bush, which work for the people giving them (they don't feel Kerry can protect the country, even though they prefer his stance on other issues), but I think from an outside point of view both look ridiculous because the fear of terrorism both parties use to encourage votes simply isn't seen as there. The rest of the world just goggles at America, as its attempts to defend itself make the whole situation worse.

Having just watch part of a history of the Jihad and American politics, now probably isn't the best time for me to be talking politics. Especially not after learning that the neo-conservative policies include demonising an enemy to great a good against evil battle in the minds of the people. Oh, and lying to people to create this enemy, if needs be. So, yes. My view is probably very BBC-biased right now.

[angrypaladin.livejournal.com]

Hey, my view is pretty BBC-biased too, and I'm a yank. ^_^ I really think that a big problem in the states is that folks don't seem to understand what's going on. This is made far worse by the fact that, generally speaking, American culture encourages large amounts of pride about... well, everything! A proud and ignorant person is someone who doesn't know what's going on and is afraid to ask because they don't want to look stupid.

What's worse is that THEY make it seem like asking questions to find out what's going on is bad (if you ask, then you doubt the govn't, which means you like the enemy, which means you're unpatriotic and you don't like America).

An individual vote really doesn't do much good in a non-swing state, but most people don't really understand this, or even want to. The govn't is seen as this monolith that the common folk shouldn't and even can't understand (and there's a certain degree of truth to that latter half).

I think that the @rab = t3rrorist mentality is a dangerous thing, and that a lot of the misunderstanding and fear comes from us being culturally (among other things) ignorant. I know that I want to learn more about the subject. Still, I can't help but notice a lot of old Roman Empire parallels right now, especially this doctrine of Pax Americana going to war to promote industry and provide entertainment for the masses. I'm just waiting for old style gladiatorial combat to be made into a 'reality show'.

[minervasolo.livejournal.com]

The Roman Empire parallels indeed. And the Roman republic, which was not a particularly dissimilar level of democracy to America, sliding into Empire.

going to war to promote industry

Problem is, it actually does. Have you read 1984? George Orwell takes this to its logical ends, where the state is dependent on war to keeps its economy going.

I think that the @rab = t3rrorist mentality is a dangerous thing

Iit's the promotion of racism, purely put. There are a lot of terrified muslims out there who have done nothing wrong except happen to have the same religious book (you can hardly call it the same religion) as some nutjobs. I swear Christianity has one of the most bloodthirsty histories of any religon, but that doesn't lead people to think all Christians are fundamentalist terrorists.

One thing that made me respect The Sun, one of our tabloid papers famous for its page three glamour girls, against my usual judgement was that the day after 9/11 it ran a two page spread entitled "Islam, Not an Evil Religion." And then it went back to finding Osama's face in the clouds of smoke, but that's the tabloids for you.


The media has a lot to answer for, really. From everything I've heard, it in no way presents an unbiased view of the rest of the world. But then, our media does the same to America. I was very surprised to come online and find out there had been demonstrations against the Iraq war in America, because everything on the news suggested all Americans were gung-ho for the whole endeavor. And apparantly, some people were getting precisely the same view of us.

[angrypaladin.livejournal.com]

Heh, yeah I know 1984. ^_^ Funny that, how the news people begin to influence how people communicate with each other.

Well, in all honestly, most Americans aren't too keen on the war. I live pretty close to DC, and there were protests that looked like something out of a Vietnam era textbook... only well organized and much bigger.

I often find myself a bit worried about how we yanks look to the rest of the world. My step-aunt, who lives in Germany, told me that it's not that people (at least in the EU) hate Americans, but rather the govn't. I'm still trying to figure out why Americans are supposed to like Isra3l, but hate France and Canada. Idaknow, I suppose all there is to do right now is hope for the best, though that doesn't feel very productive.

I could go on, but I'm at work and probably shouldn't. ^_^ Sorry 'bout ranting a bit, it's just reassuring to know that people see Americans aren't always gun-toting, war-mongering, racist, red-necked idiots... though there are more than a few of those around.