Have you ever regretted your vote for a US president?

[X Factor]

Good comeback.

Hmmm... let's see here. Bin Laden was killed under which President's Administration again? Was it Bush's or Obama's?

Bush was told that there were a bunch of middle easterners taking lessons to learn how to fly a plane without learning how to take off or land it. It's possible Gore could have taken that more seriously and looked into it a bit deeper.

Bush also sat there with a blank stare on his face after being told the first plane hit the tower. It's possible Gore could have jumped into action and started grounding planes or scrambling interceptors faster.

Can't be too sure, but it's not unreasonable to think it's at least possible Gore would have done more to prevent it considering how incompetent Bush was at everything else he did during his administration.

I edited that reply. Your response was exactly consistent with the hack that you have shown yourself to be.

 

[gdgyva]

Attaching poll. If your answer is yes, who and why?

regrets....no

but i have voted for what turned out to be a LOT of losers

Perot

Rand Paul

etc....

 

[Phys251]

Totally not trying to get away with anything, here. I have asked you two separate questions. I have far from read all your posts so I cannot answer either for you. For sure, there is not a single thing wrong with or bad about supporting a president that advances an agenda you agree with. I presume we all do that which is why I think Trump still has support despite his seemingly permanent foot in mouth condition.

Oh come on. Giving up so soon? Surely you can at least attempt to piece together whether "no president could actually be too far to the left for [me]."

Still, it is good to hear you say that tRump has a problem with saying stuff he shouldn't say.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I understand it fully. You think both parties are bad and going to hell, but what you don't grasp is that neither party seems to realize it because every 4-8 years they are convinced that the American people love them again. Because the American people keep bouncing back and forth between them neither party ever ends up in their own version of hell long enough to convince them that they should change. By not picking a side, and sticking with it you're propagating that problem.

You will never ever convince Ikari. Not even indisputable math moves him.
I even studied the whole "Homestuck" genre to see if that was the reason and drew a blank.
Ikari is just convinced that somehow Libertarians will "aggregate enough votes to continually force the Republican arm" to do something/whatever when the reality is, those Libertarian votes help the Republicans WIN WIN WIN.
All third party votes, regardless of who they are for, are siphons to the Republicans.

Ikari (and quite a few others) refuse to acknowledge the math.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

The lesser of two evils is still evil.

Actually, refusing to vote for the lesser of two evils always gets you THE BIGGER EVIL.
You aren't stupid, but you're way too purist and you're almost the poster child for "perfect is the enemy of good".

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Hmmmm, how do you square this with the stated goal of the destruction of the Repub party? Yes, I m know that being conservative isn’t the same as being Republican, but it is where the large majority of conservatives hang out.

Stated by WHO?
You're responding to ME, did I state that?

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

So Bush was at fault for 9/11?

Are you expecting me to get sucked into an argument that is clearly a ploy to try to lay this at Clinton's feet?
Any idea how stupid that is? That attack happened in September, the memos were circulated in AUGUST, and previous memos had circulated before that last one.
Whatever Clinton did or did not do, the one thing he did not do was sit in the Oval Office in August 2001 and dismiss a memo designed to spur his administration into drastically ramping up security and state of readiness.

Now, 9/11 HAPPENED and it HAPPENED in September 2001, and by October 2001 we were in Afghanistan.
By March, 2003 we were heading into Iraq instead, and that is where Bush lost my support.
He wasn't my guy, I was pissed about the whole 2000 election but once the planes hit the towers I supported him, until he and his stupid cabal of CHICKENHAWKS decided to play army in Iraq.

FAULT? How about the better question? Was Bush responsible for screwing the pooch in response to 9/11?
And the answer to that would be: YES, yes he was.

 

[cabse5]

Sure, if you consider any negative diplomatic action "war-like".

Sanctions and political pressure are the alternative method of showing displeasure and punishing a country rather than escalate into a war.

Can sanctions lead to countries like Russia gobbling up other countries to gain the resources they need? The second world war and Nazi Germany is a good example of sanctions gone terribly wrong. Not to mention the country being sanctioned won't come to agreements with countries doing the sanctions. This isn't rocket science.

 

[X Factor]

Actually, refusing to vote for the lesser of two evils always gets you THE BIGGER EVIL.
You aren't stupid, but you're way too purist and you're almost the poster child for "perfect is the enemy of good".

I voted for who I thought (and still think) was the lesser of two evils and I think that’s true of a lot of Trump voters, so we’ve done what you say should be done. In your opinion, were our votes more or less of a detriment than those who voted for a 3rd party candidate?

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Some lefties think we have nobody to blame for 9/11 but ourselves.

Some lefties this, some lefties that, some lefties etc etc bla bla bla.
You don't go to war with the lefties you want, you go to war with the lefties you have, and right now the lefties you have aren't the least bit interested in some ridiculous character assassination games and broad sweeping generalities.

9/11 happened because a lot of people in both private industry and in government stood to profit off a terrorist attack, and because of a certain amount of hard baked arrogance among other career professionals in defense who didn't actually think such a stunt could actually be pulled off.

But just in case it DID, a lot of people had a long laundry list of what they WANTED in case such an attack were to ever happen.
I give you The Patriot Act as "Exhibit A", a long list of new alphabet soup agencies as "Exhibit B" and a garishly swollen, inefficient, criminally negligent and wasteful military industrial complex as "Exhibit C", and top it all off with a compliant Congress on both sides who are only too willing to do the bidding of that swollen monster if it advances their political careers.

And to those ends, those personalities made sure that they did the equivalent of "placing a want ad in the personals section" under "lonely terrorists" in the hopes that their dreams might be answered, so that they could GET their laundry list fulfilled.

THE WANT AD read like this:

"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."

ASKED

AND ANSWERED

The Architects of the Iraq War:

 

[Hawkeye10]

I regretted voting for Reagan by the start of 1983.

 

[iliveonramen]

Can sanctions lead to countries like Russia gobbling up other countries to gain the resources they need? The second world war and Nazi Germany is a good example of sanctions gone terribly wrong. Not to mention the country being sanctioned won't come to agreements with countries doing the sanctions. This isn't rocket science.

Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland wasn't due to sanctions. Fascist Japan attacked the US claiming our embargo on oil and steel was the reason for Peal Harbor...but it just accelerated Japans plans. They had already invaded Korea and China and had plans for a SE Asia Empire.

Sanctions were put into place for a reason...Georgia, Crimia, US elections...Russian's have been causing issues for awhile. What's not rocket science is that the US needs to take some sort of action.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

I voted for who I thought (and still think) was the lesser of two evils and I think that’s true of a lot of Trump voters, so we’ve done what you say should be done. In your opinion, were our votes more or less of a detriment than those who voted for a 3rd party candidate?

I am not out to castigate you for voting for Trump.
The fact you think he's still better than Hillz, I guess we will have to agree to disagree on that one.
To the possibility that you might be thinking Trump is something of a disaster, I'll extend an olive branch if that's your belief, because I love my country and I think that if enough liberals and conservatives can just put aside the BS long enough to take BOLD ACTION, we might just save ourselves.
We can always go back to fighting like cats and dogs later, which by the way is as American as it gets.
It is the sign of a healthy democracy and I look forward to tussling with the loyal opposition.

But right now, this is a crisis, and it's a pretty bad one.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

That's another question, but my personal opinion is that the attack would have happened anyway.

Yes, yes it might have.

 

[Ikari]

You have to win the game before they'll let you change the rules.

That's why I vote third party. We aren't going to get a shot til we "prove" ourselves. If I vote Democrat, that in no way helps libertarians or to promote my philosophy. So it's self-harming to do so. I cannot "win the game" by supporting the OneParty.

No, it can't. Because most people aren't as naive as you. They realize that if they want to change something it's easier to do it from the inside than the outside.

Yes, people say this all the time. And after working on the "inside" and seeing it not change, it made no sense to say and work against my own selfinterest in some naive hope that I'd be able to change the status quo by supporting the status quo. The only way I can change the system is to exert outside force. Simple physics really.

But they've changed radically when one side realized it couldn't win anymore.

They have changed, because they found a way to isolate themselves from the People. Now isolated and working for a different "boss", it's not quite so simple to "change it from the inside".

But you've changed your tune a bit here. It's no longer destroying the Republican party by supporting the Democrat. Now it's "change from within". And if I were to buy that this is a viable method (it's not, not any longer), then my efforts would be on the Republican side of the coin. Traditional conservatism, as it once was, has more in line with my personal philosophy than the Democrats are.

But you said you don't vote Democrat. You vote third-party. So it's you voting third-party that hasn't killed the Republican party.

Certainly hasn't, nor have millions of people voting Democrats killed the Republican party.

You shouldn't. You should come over to my side to make the other side listen to you.

They're not going to care. They still won. Even if I voted for Hillary this past election, the Republicans would still have won. Why would they care whom I voted for? Why would they listen to me? They wouldn't care anymore than they care now.

Yes, it would have. Hillary won the popular vote by 3 million. This race was insanely close. If everyone who voted third-party would have voted for Hillary she would have won. The Republican Party would have lost three straight elections, and the more moderate Republicans in the party who are more libertarian would have been able to say to the rest of their party, "look, we tried a war hawk in McCain, and we lost. We tried a big business religious nut in Romney, and we lost. We tried a racist in Trump, and we lost. Time to start talking the libertarians more seriously."

Instead, Trump won, and because he won the Republicans now believe his bull**** antics are the blueprint for victory in the future. Until you break the election strategy of one party they're not going to fix it.

And 3 million + 1 wouldn't have changed the outcome. I'm not going to kill the Republican party by voting for the Democrats. It in no way motivates the Republicans to listen to me, nor does it preclude them from winning. So by what mechanism are they going to be "destroyed"?

Yes, it is. And that's exactly what voting Democrat does, you're just don't seem to understand that.

No, you don't seem to understand. The Democrats are not in line with my goals, they are not inline with my political philosophy. You want me to vote against my own platform and my own self-interest to fulfill your self-interest of this imagined collapse of the Republican party, which quite frankly is not going to happen.

Are you sure? Because I get to vote for presidents I like every time, and they at least win about 50/50. Presidents you like have never won. Maybe you should try listening to the person who at least wins some of the time.

Huzzah, you get the guy you like. The guy you like is almost assuredly NOT the guy I like. You don't seem to understand. Your guy gets in half the time, the Republican's guy gets in half the time. But 100% of the time, those are clowns I do not like. I do not support. It doesn't matter if I "get wins" if those wins work counter to my own wants. And me voting for the Democrats is not going to implode the Republicans. It just won't.

Supporting the status quo will not change the status quo.

 

[X Factor]

Some lefties this, some lefties that, some lefties etc etc bla bla bla.
You don't go to war with the lefties you want, you go to war with the lefties you have, and right now the lefties you have aren't the least bit interested in some ridiculous character assassination games and broad sweeping generalities.

9/11 happened because a lot of people in both private industry and in government stood to profit off a terrorist attack, and because of a certain amount of hard baked arrogance among other career professionals in defense who didn't actually think such a stunt could actually be pulled off.

But just in case it DID, a lot of people had a long laundry list of what they WANTED in case such an attack were to ever happen.
I give you The Patriot Act as "Exhibit A", a long list of new alphabet soup agencies as "Exhibit B" and a garishly swollen, inefficient, criminally negligent and wasteful military industrial complex as "Exhibit C", and top it all off with a compliant Congress on both sides who are only too willing to do the bidding of that swollen monster if it advances their political careers.

And to those ends, those personalities made sure that they did the equivalent of "placing a want ad in the personals section" under "lonely terrorists" in the hopes that their dreams might be answered, so that they could GET their laundry list fulfilled.

THE WANT AD read like this:



ASKED

AND ANSWERED

The Architects of the Iraq War:

Far from disproving “sweeping generalities”, you actually demonstrate them.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

That's ludicrous. It is Democrats fighting against things like Citizen United. Libertarians think the magic of the free market is going to solve everything apparently not realizing that it's actually the free market that keeps libertarians from being viable candidates in the first place.

I think you misread my statement.
The Republicans are no longer a political party at all, period.
They are an organized crime family.

I am not saying that we will have a better opponent politically, or that I think Libertarians reject oligarchy.
I am saying that Libertarians have not organized themselves like a criminal gang, at least not yet.

The Republican Party is basically an arm of the Vladimir Putin at this point.
I think that it is safe to say that despite vast differences in political ideology, at least Libertarians recognize an external threat.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Far from disproving “sweeping generalities”, you actually demonstrate them.

Which ones?

 

[<alt>doxygen]

Yeah I've lived in NOVA for a while, but while I was active duty I was able to maintain legal residence in my last stateside permanent duty station (Washington), and I did so for tax purposes. I live in the VA 10th and supported and donated to my local Congresswoman and some other state folks, but had to vote in WA. Since switching my registration I get lit up by pollsters and PACs, and who not. I guess that comes with living in a swing state.

Interesting. I worked with some folks that lived out that way and commuted in. One was in Winchester and the other in Purcellville. Great sports car roads out in that MD/VA/WVA corner. I can't deal with long, congested drives, so we lived in Reston. I also lived in a handful of places over on the MD side. All were pretty close to the Potomac.

I've been NPA all my adult life, but when I moved here I started getting stuff from the Republicans. I guess they figure that I might lean their way because the area is generally quite red. I filled out the questionnaire they sent but didn't send any money or give them email or phone info.

 

[Ikari]

That's a ridiculous comparison. You've survived Bush and Obama. Neither killed you. Bush left the country in the middle of two wars, and the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression with an exploding deficit. Obama presided over a growing economy, tried desperately to bring those wars to a close, and reduced the deficit by the end of his term. Now you're telling me that Trump is the worst president we've possibly ever had.

Even if you seriously think Democrats are deadly(they're not), the comparison is at worst cigarettes vs cyanide. Cigarettes may not be good for you, but you'll live a lot longer smoking them than taking cyanide. At least by choosing cigarettes, you can put the cyanide company out of business, and hopefully, they'll change their business plan.

I'll survive Trump as well. But it's not a ridiculous comparison. You want me to operate counter to my own self-interest. And the only reason you can give is that there is something else out there operating against my self-interest that I should be wary of. I'm wary of the lot. And why would I have to choose cigarettes or cyanide? Both are harmful, both will kill me. Just because cyanide does it quicker doesn't mean that cigarettes are now a good choice. They aren't. They are a bad choice. I'm gonna take an apple instead. I don't need to take either the cigarette or the cyanide and it's foolish for me to take either since they both work against me.

BTW, cigarette smoke has trace amounts of hydrogen cyanide in it. So no matter what, I'm getting the cyanide.

No, I hear you perfectly. You're just wrong. And you're very obviously wrong. You'd see that if YOU would listen.

You said that by voting Third Party you're taking votes away from Republicans, and hopefully, if they lose a few times they'll move in your direction. But Republicans didn't lose, because simply not voting for them doesn't hurt them enough. You have to vote for the other side instead. By voting third party you left the choice up to someone else.

You don't hear me perfectly. You think you do, but you don't. You won't listen, you just keep repeating the same failed arguments as if it will make a change. I do vote the other side, I vote Libertarian. The opposite side of that is your OneParty you keep trying to endorse.

You're not going to lose. Republicans will lose. You won't win, but you won't lose. In the short term, things will be slightly better. You'll get rid of Trump, but you'll still have someone like Obama. However, in the long term once Republicans keep losing they'll eventually move your way. Once they move far enough that they're closer than Democrats then you can flip and vote Republican. Now the Democrats will lose over and over until they get desperate and move toward you again to get you back.

So long as you remain a spectator in the tug of war you are irrelevant.

How are "Republicans going to lose"? Millions of people vote Democrats, the Republicans still win. Millions vote Republican, the Democrats still win. By what magical property will my voting against my self-interest make the Republicans lose? And why doesn't this work the other way around. As far as I see it, the Democrats are the ones on the rope now. If my goal is simply to eliminate one of the OneParty parties, why shouldn't I start voting Republican and put the Democrats out of their misery, replace the Democrats instead?

 

[Ikari]

Simply astounding. You can admit that Trump will likely go down as the worst President we've ever had, yet you didn't try and protect your country from him, by supporting the one candidate who had a chance to stop him.

Colorado voted for Hillary, my vote to Gary Johnson had no impact on that. Even if Colorado had voted for Trump, less Trump won by 1 vote then my vote for Gary Johnson wouldn't have changed that.

But I got to vote for the candidate I felt was best out of all the candidates running and the one who best represented my political ideology. I think if people did that instead of "voting for the win", the Republic would be in a MUCH better place.

 

[Ikari]

Actually, refusing to vote for the lesser of two evils always gets you THE BIGGER EVIL.
You aren't stupid, but you're way too purist and you're almost the poster child for "perfect is the enemy of good".

OK.

I'm not necessarily looking for "perfect", but I am at least looking for "good". So I vote for the candidate whom I believe could do the job best out of all the candidates on the field. I vote for the candidate whom reflects best my own political ideology. That's the way this is supposed to work. To vote for the "win" despite it being bad, that doesn't get us anywhere better. And we are seeing where that has gotten us. Election cycle after election cycle, worse and worse candidates. Until we were actually left with Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump. Now, I don't always like to say "bottom of the barrel", because when I claim something is bottom of the barrel, the establishment seems to take that as a challenge. But that's bottom of the barrel. I don't know how it could get worse, and I certainly do not want to see worse.

Give me a better candidate, and I'll consider supporting them. But if you give me a crap candidate, you can piss off. I'm not supporting crap.

 

[LincolnRossiter]

Interesting. I worked with some folks that lived out that way and commuted in. One was in Winchester and the other in Purcellville. Great sports car roads out in that MD/VA/WVA corner. I can't deal with long, congested drives, so we lived in Reston. I also lived in a handful of places over on the MD side. All were pretty close to the Potomac.

I've been NPA all my adult life, but when I moved here I started getting stuff from the Republicans. I guess they figure that I might lean their way because the area is generally quite red. I filled out the questionnaire they sent but didn't send any money or give them email or phone info.

Hah. I worked at a DIA annex in Reston for a few months. Lovely little town. But I live farther out in Centreville. We needed a little more space for a little less money. Also lived in Crystal City for 9 months while house hunting. Loved it. Didn't love paying $2700 a month for a one-bedroom apartment, though.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Hah. I worked at a DIA annex in Reston for a few months. Lovely little town. But I live farther out in Centreville. We needed a little more space for a little less money. Also lived in Crystal City for 9 months while house hunting. Loved it. Didn't love paying $2700 a month for a one-bedroom apartment, though.

HAHAHAHA Crystal City!!
Even back in the 1970's it was a trap.
It was also where tons of high powered DC execs (both government and private industry) had their "kept women" stashed.

Centreville, a friend of mine who actually DOES WORK the White House beat (and Capitol Hill) as a news camera and/or live truck operator lives in Centreville and it still appears to be a lovely little town just like it was back when I last visited in the 70's.
It has grown some but the cost of living is decent.

I feel for you, having to get stuck in Crystal City.

 

[Helix]

Some lefties think we have nobody to blame for 9/11 but ourselves.

the terrorist organization and the violent assholes (most of whom were Saudi Arabian) who hijacked the planes were responsible. however, it isn't completely black and white. the US has made a lot of mistakes in that region of the world. you do realize that this group can trace its roots to the mujahideen, right? you have to realize that geopolitics is exceptionally complicated and complex. this is why it isn't the best thing to have half-witted leaders who can't even be bothered to crack a history book.