Political: *Now* I have a choice

[jasonl]

I don't get into any of the political discussions here but now I need y'alls help.

One favor: Please don't let this thread become a bashing thread. I need honest opinions here.

OK, now that I am FINALLY free from my parents (after 36 years mind you). I can now vote in the way that I want to vote.

Let me back up a little and give you the situation. I know VERY LITTLE about politics. Very little. Basically what I was told from my parents (and some of you might call them "Christianist" or whatever) was that:

Republicans = Good
Democrats = Bad

All this is based on "morals" meaning the Repubs/Conservatives believed it what is right, ie: str8 marriage, abortion is murder, etc. And of course the really extreme ones are against homosexuality and the really bad ones don't like blacks and women. I'm not like that but I'm just giving you a taste of what I grew up with.

On the other side of the coin are the (sarcasm) filthy, evil, perverted, nasty liberals who kill babies, give welfare to lazy people, marry same-sex couples, etc.

This is what I was taught by my parents and basically from when I was able to vote, I was TOLD to vote for Bush, (whoever it was in 1996), George W Bush (both times), or else. Put it this way, after my mom got through telling me how bad Bill Clinton, Al Gore & John Kerry was, my dad would follow up with "If you vote for that ...., I'm going to a) kick your ass b) kick you out of the house c) all of the above"

What they didn't know was I DID listen to what Clinton, Gore, & Kerry had to say. And now I'm listening to what Obama is telling us.

Even today, my best friend Henry is all for McCain for the same reasons he was for Bush back then... because of the "morals" thing and how "evil" Obama is... Whatever.

Enter Helen (and no comments from the peanut gallery)

Now that I'm married and free of the parents, Helen and her kind, angelic ways has slowly and patiently showed some of the truth in what's going on in this country. She's helped me overcome this brainwashing I've had over the years. This country's in BAD shape because I (stupidly) and lots of others voted Bush in, and he did nothing but run this damn place into the ground, and NOW at the end of his term wants to put us into more debt to "fix" the problem. She has shown me how Bill Clinton got this country righted financially by the time his term was up and now hat I look back on it, you know what? The 90s was a party compared to what we have now.

So here I am in 2008 trying to make a decision. I want to do what is right and what will be best for this country. I don't want another 8 years of war and high gas prices. I don't want to spend the next few years working temp jobs and trying to figure out how I'm going to get me, Helen, and the 3 cats fed and hope we can pay the mortgage. What we really need (and I don't want to sound like a commercial) is CHANGE. Can we have the 90s back? Can we have the peace and love that people wanted so bad in the 60s? I don't think McCain is going to bring that to us. Obama might do it but it might take lots of time and more than 8 years to clean this mess up.

We vote because we have a choice. And 2008 (20 years after I registered as a "republican") is the year to make a real honest to God choice on who I think should run the country.

I'm not telling anyone how they should vote but I'm pretty sure I think I know where I'm headed in November.

Obama '08.

 

[jasonl]

As a side note

I did vote for Clinton in the primary. Not that I didn't like Obama but I preferred Hillary.

 

[runematic]

Vote however YOU want. It's nobody's choice but yours. If you vote for who you'd like to see elected then your vote was right.

 

[toggleswitch2]

Opinions are like @$$ holes. Everyone has one and some reall

Interesting. Never discussed politics with partners, parents, siblings, family.

 

[gansky1]

My mother is a cradle republican but is starting to question those beliefs now more than ever. With the recent market losses, their retirement accounts are worth far less than they were and it's likely they won't see those losses recovered in their lifetime.

The hard part of politics is filtering out the "noise" of the campaign and getting down to issues. If you hunt for it, it's out there. My advice is to not watch the TV machine or listen to the talking dough-heads on the radio, but to just read. Read everything you can. Online newspaper publications are a great start. The more real news you read, the more you'll start to understand just how the government impacts your life and this country as a whole.

 

[jaxsunst]

I grew up as a "Yellow Dog" democrat. My dad would do to me what your threatened to do to you if I had ever voted Republican. Having gays in my family I was taught that Republicans are busy body do-gooders who want to kill my some of my uncles and cousins and destroy American business for the rest of us.

Now that I'm older (and definately not wiser), I find that I agree with the dems on most issues.

Find a variety of sources, get informed and make your own choice. I would avoid Fox News, I used to watch them for my "counterpoint", but I have caught them in too many lies to trust them.

I admit my sources are slanted towards dems, but I use:
Stephanie Miller,
Randy Rhodes,
Mike Malloy,
Huffington Post,
CNN, and
Keith Olberman

Good Luck, vote for who you want, but vote informed.

 

[jaxsunst]

BTW, I was a Hillary supporter too. I grew up in Little Rock Arkansas, and I love the Clintons.

 

[toggleswitch2]

Well at least President Clinton could multi-task. He was working the interns, enjoying cigars AND running the country.

It would appear that the current buffoon can't do even ONE thing (right).

Speaking of that family, didja know that in Manhattan Clinton is on top (north of) of Chelsea? The neighborhodds, I mean the neighboroods!

 

[gansky1]

jax - Steph Miller just exploded onto my XM radio a couple of months ago and I love her show! It's slanted but oh so entertaining! Randi is amazing too - bounce those boobies ;-) Do you listen to the Rachel Maddow show on Air America as well? She's my favorite of them all - probably a tie with Steph and Ed Shultz but my son and I really enjoy the "Ask Dr. Maddow" segment.

 

[rp2813]

Well Jason, I don't think you're going to see gas prices go down a whole lot no matter who gets elected. The current financial meltdown should put the brakes on the reckless behaviors we've seen since deregulation started this whole mess about a decade ago. So the undoing of everything Bush and the republican-controlled congresses (including those before he was elected--remember Newt Gingrich thwarting everything he could manage of Clinton's agenda--is about to begin, as long as Mc Cain doesn't get in there and allow more of the same. It's going to take more than a new broom to clean out Washington D.C.. This is going to require a high colonic.

I've been avoiding the political stuff here since it's way too divisive and erodes the friendly atmosphere this site is famous for. But you're asking for our input, so there was mine.

 

[Cybrvanr]

Actually, president Clinton started this financial mess. He amended the fair housing act to require loans to be made to low-income people that didn't have enough money to pay back the loans. The result was bad loans. The banks sold these bad loans as mortgage back securities, and when the homeowners foreclosed...here we are!

While I'm not much of a supporter Bush, and I think he pissed away lots of money and made many bad decisions. Clinton was not too bad...he balanced the budget, and was rather fiscally conservative. I still would like to see a more Regan type republican that lets the economy do what it does best.

You can name pretty much any problem that is affecting this country nowadays, and you will find not only is the government NOT solving the problem and wasting our tax money, but they are CAUSING it! The democrats have traditionally been the cause of this, as their quick knee-jerk reaction is to regulate and throw money at the problem...this ends up not fixing the original problem, but creating new problems where they previously weren't. Now the republicans are getting in on the same act with Pres. Bush leading the way! There's no real alternative. I am getting so sick of all these politicians buying votes. We can be partially to blame for this, as the general American public is too lazy to fix problems themselves, and instead turns to the government and whines "fix it".

A perfect example of this is FEMA. Instead of properly preparing for a storm, we sit around and wait for the government to give a handout and take care of our laziness

 

[jeffg]

> Actually, president Clinton started this financial mess. He amended the fair housing act to require loans to be made to low-income people that didn't have enough money to pay back the loans. The result was bad loans.<

I've heard some revisionist history in my 40+ years, but I think the above tops it all. Simply astonishing ignorance.

We can thank one man for this housing mess, and his name is Phil Gramm ("Foreclosure Phil"), not Bill Clinton.

Foreclosure Phil

Years before Phil Gramm was a McCain campaign adviser and a lobbyist for a Swiss bank at the center of the housing credit crisis, he pulled a sly maneuver in the Senate that helped create today's subprime meltdown.

www.motherjones.com

 

[hydralique]

I believe the largest percentage of the bad home loans weren't made to low-income people, but rather to ordinary middle class people.

 

[swestoyz]

Jason,

I do not mean to hijack your thread. I certainly am very happy that you are now able to feel 'free' within your own decision for whom you will vote for on November 4th. I remember the first time I voted, and will show my age when I say I voted and was able to make the decision for myself, and not based on the input of family and friends back in 2000.

To briefly touch on the subject of the bad mortgages to low-income people:

Tonight I had a lovely discussion with a very lovely friend from work, I'll call her Sally. We were discussing the current economic crisis, and we discussed mortgages and what their current role has been in the crisis, and a brief lending history within the last 25 years. I had mentioned that say 30 years ago when my folks bought a house, they probably had a difficult time getting a note without a substantial down payment, plus the 30 percent rule of income to debt on the note. I took her to current times then when her and I both bought a house. We both thought it was awfully strange that each of our lenders said we were 'approved' for amounts WAY beyond any responsible purchasing amounts should ever be. Herself - 250k, myself, 90k, on SINK incomes. We both understood what our goals were, with her buying a house well below her 'approved' cap, and myself following suit. Her bank even said that they would 'fudge' numbers if she needed a few 5 or 10k more. Her remark to me was, "why wouldn't I believe what my lender was telling me? Aren't they supposed to be looking out for me?"

My answer to her? "Absolutely not. You and I were smart enough to understand our fiscal boundaries - but can you imagine what the hundreds of thousands of other individuals and couples heard the same line in the last 10 years and bought it? Banking is business. If they are able to make more, and they will, on the interest of a 250k note instead of a 100k note, which one do you think they'll push off the most, regardless if they think the person can afford it or not?"

I would certainly believe that it was more of the middle class and upper middle class that fell within these malpractices than anything.

Ben

 

[Cybrvanr]

The line I stated is more or less a 1-line history of the financial mess....yes, I left out a lot of details in the effort to condense, including Phil Graham's role, while he is a great contributor to the mess, is contribution to it is sort of "after the fact" In other words, the runaway train was already rolling down the tracks, he just fed more coal into the boiler!

Still, I don't think regulation is the answer, primarily because of the fact we tend to regulate the wrong things. The American public says "do something, regulate it" and the government responds by throwing some feel-good, looks pretty legislation at the issue that only ends up wasting our money and time, all the while the problem never gets solved, and the fat cats that caused the problem continue to do damage.

If you want more detail on how Bill Clinton started this mess, do some research on the Community Reinvestment act. He revised and strengthened it in 1995. Part of that revision was a minimum requirement that banks had to give mortgages to low-income home and business loans. If you want to *really* look back at the roots of the Community Reinvestment act, it goes all the way back to the Carter administration...yet another democrat.

The CRA is yet another one of those feel-good, sounds-nice legislations that came about from people whining to the federal government to "fix" something. Yea, it certainly looks good on paper, but spells disaster in the real world.

Like I said in a previous post, the US constution does not guarantee happiness, but only protects your right to PERSUE happiness!...you gotta take care of that part yourself!

Here's a site with some more details on the CRA, which also explains how Bill Clinton was involved in it....I didn't re-write history...only condensed it into a single sentence!

http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_the_trillion_dollar.html

 

[jeffg]

Well Steven, if it makes you feel better, wag your finger at Bill Clinton and America's poor, while Bush and his henchmen seize Main Street and give it away to their friends on Wall Street.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/business/26bailout.html?hp

 

[zipdang]

I hope I'm staying on-topic...

Hey Jason. I don't think you're alone in your situation. As adults many of us make decisions based on belief systems that were established during our upbringing. For example, many who identify with a particular religion do so because they were raised in that religion. They didn't choose their faith on their own; instead they were told from an early age that it was the correct faith. And politics aren't so different.

There are exceptions, of course, but many peoples' political beliefs echo their parents' beliefs. Again, it comes down to believing in what one is told to believe. But what happens when we start to think independently and consider different schools of thought?

I applaud that you're challenging the political principles you were raised to believe in. Whether one is brought up liberal or conservative, it's so important that they explore what is truly important to them regardless of society's or family’s influence. And it appears that what you're discovering about yourself--and maybe you always knew it--is that you're more of a liberal than the conservative you were raised to be.

The beauty in all of this is that you’re poised to cast a vote that is no one else's but yours. And now, when your vote is more important than it has probably been at any time during your life, you can vote with convictions that you needn't justify to anyone. Relish that. Whether you vote for a candidate you believe in, a candidate who is the lesser of two evils, or a prop/measure that’s near and dear to you, it doesn’t matter. Your vote belongs to you and only you, and you can cast that vote in any way that you please.

In a way, it’s a voyage of self-discovery. So bon voyage! Learn about yourself, maybe enjoy a perspective you’ve never considered, and bask in the realm of new possibilities. And no matter what, you’re never wrong about your beliefs when you feel passionately about them.

Best,
David

 

[jeffg]

Comment of the Day

"Wow, too bad we didn't privatize Social Security when Bush wanted us to. We'd really be rolling in it now, wouldn't we?"

 

[Cybrvanr]

....actually, the exact opposite is happening according to your article. Yes, you are right The president wants to sieze wall street! Like you said, I don't want "Bush and his henchmen seize Main Street and give it away to their friends on Wall Street. "

The nice thing is that Congressional republicans do NOT want this bailout to go through they are bucking the president on the plan, which I am certainly glad of. I don't want me and fellow taxpayers to be saddled with over a trillion dollars of debt, and a conversion of our economy to socialism, and it looks like the republicans in congress recognize this sentiment of the public too. I do not want any wall-street welfare! Yes, correcting this may hurt for a while, but I say let these banks fail, failure is part of capitalism. The cream will rise to the top. They made bad decisions. Yes, it may be a rough ride, but in the long term, we should come out in the better....better than straddled with more debt that we already cannot even pay!