Posted by eric_emeralds
So, who is everyone voting for? I'm voting for John Kerry.
Posted by absinthebri
Is there any point in voting when you don't have a democratic system?
Posted by riflogic
As posted before me, is there really any point in voting when there is nothing "democratic" about the democratic elections held in the US.
By the way still go and vote and vot Bush out of the Whitehouse!
Posted by plasmadog
Eric, you reckon kerry'd win the election? Or will it come down to florida again?
Posted by RichLok
I voted for........... ME!
Posted by eric_emeralds
@all
it is democracy, just selective democracy. at least this way i can say i did my part to get that maniac out of office
@plasmadog
i'm almost positive kerry will win. especially now that the FBI is investigating the no-bid contracts halliburton got in iraq. but there's always the chance OBL will show up halloween night
Posted by absinthebri
Last election (2000) 47.9% of people voted for Bush. 48.4% voted for Gore. Bush "won". What sort of "democracy" is that?
Posted by scotsboyuk
@absinthebri
The same sort of democracy that exists in the UK apparently, since any one party only needs approximately 37% of the vote to gain a majority and therefore become the government.
Proportional representation would solve some of those issues.
The U.S. system means that there are some states that will almost certainly go to one or another candidate, hence it could be argued that voting for the other candidate is a waste of time.
Posted by absinthebri
Sure, in the UK a party can form a Government with about 36% of the vote but it's hard to imagine a two horse race where second place wins!
Posted by scotsboyuk
@absin
Good point, although if one is choosing between the Tories and Labour then it is more of a one horse race.
Interestingly though, who would non-Americans vote for? Personally I'm a Kerry man.
Posted by eric_emeralds
@all the brits
i haven't kept up to date on UK politics, is Tony Blair popular in the UK? when is the next election? please fill me in, as i'm sure this will be important to us Americans' "grand coalition"
Posted by scotsboyuk
@eric_emeralds
Blair isn't all that popular here, but he will probably win the next election, which is next year. The Iraq war has upset most of the population and I would imagine that that will cause Labour's majority to decrease quite a bit. The main opposition party probably won't benfit from many of those losses because they are also very unpopular It is likely that the third party, the Liberals, will increase their number of seats as will the smaller parties.
Who the Prime Minister is really won't have all that much effect on the US., that is unless the Liberals win the next election!
Posted by k700nut
Tony blair is a lying tosspot,just like bush.all politicians are corrupt,and or masons!not got time of day for any of their lies and antics.
Posted by scotsboyuk
@k700nut
At last, an unbiased and objective viewpoint on politics.
Posted by eric_emeralds
@absinthebri
after all the research on what went wrong in florida in 2000 was finished, it was determined bush lost the state by 537 votes. it's still a loss, but 16 million people lived in florida at the time of the election. 537 out of 16 million is an incredible margin (0.003% to be precise) but the electoral college needs to be changed to allow states to split their electoral vote according to their popular vote. 2 states (nebraska and maine) can split their electoral vote already, and there is a referedum currently in legislation in colorado to allow their electors to vote according to the popular vote. incidentally, colorado is a traditionally republican state, but polls for today (10-29) show kerry with a 4 point lead there.
Posted by k700nut
@scotsboy..always been anti-politics,and even more so anti-monarchy mate.just by observing blair & bushes idious body language\\gestures,and facial expressions...i could never,ever take a word from their mouths as truthful or serious!
Posted by scotsboyuk
@k700nut
I don't think Blair is particuarly deceitful, but I do think he was presented with poor intelligence I don't think it does anyone any good to be too cynical about politics, although I realise that that can be difficult at times.
I'm very much a royalist and I think the current system we have at the moment is actually rather good. We have been governmned by the same system, in one form or another, since Roman times and it seems to have worked rather well for us. I don't think monarchy itself is the problem, rather it is the fact that so few people are actually interested in the political process. So many people like to moan about politicians, but often offer very few practical ideas of how to improve things themselves.
Posted by eric_emeralds
@scotsboyuk
"So many people like to moan about politicians, but often offer very few practical ideas of how to improve things themselves."
i guess brits and americans have more in common than we think
Posted by scotsboyuk
@eric_emeralds
I think that is common to everyone who lives in a democracy.
Posted by scotsboyuk
I have just been watching coverage of the U.S. election on FOX News and I was grinning by the end of the O'Rielly Factor. He was actually promoting a range of clothing he is selling on the news! Talk about tacky.
Posted by absinthebri
There's nothing tacky about that, Scots! It's called "freedom of speech" and it comes free with "democracy". Iraqis love it. Well, the ones not murdered by the Coalition might.
Posted by scotsboyuk
@absin
Are you suggesting that British troops (or Americans, Poles, Australians, etc) are murdering Iraqis?
Posted by absinthebri
Scots, as the war and occupation is illegal under international law, all the actions of the occupiers are also illegal. Do you think all these women and children are dying of the common cold?
Posted by jcwhite_uk
Laffen for president.
Posted by scotsboyuk
@absin
I was merely asking your opinion. Coalition forces at the very least do not deliberately target Iraqi civilians, unlike the terrorists.
I regard all wars (with one exception) as being illegal as they destroy life, but I also realise that the world is not perfect and that wars do happen. Is Iraq better off without Saddam? Probably, but I think that any benefit to Iraq will only be seen in the long term.
To steer this back on topic I wonder what Bush will do if he is re-elected; he will have no need to worry about another election and will, in effect, be able to do what he pleases.
Posted by absinthebri
I don't believe laffen is a US citizen and is therefore ineligible to run for President.
Posted by scotsboyuk
@absin
There is the possibility of a change in the American Constitution to allow U.S. citizens born in other countries to become President. For sheer comedy value, it might be fun to see a President Schwarzenegger.
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[ This Message was edited by: scotsboyuk on 2004-10-30 15:33 ]
Posted by absinthebri
Scots, Coalition forces DO deliberately target Iraqi civilians. There is at least one British soldier who has been charged with the murder of an Iraqi civilian in an English civil court. But you don't have to deliberately kill someone to commit murder, you merely have to be wreckless in your actions. The Americans have stated their intention to attack Falluja, a town full of civilians. What is that but planning murder with "malice aforethought"?
Posted by scotsboyuk
@absin
If one Britain comits murder does that make all Britons murderers? Expanding on your logic that one act of murder by that one British soldier would mean that both you and I could be labelled as murderers.
Was the soldier in question in a strategic command position? Did he organise other troops to attack civilians? Was it official government policy to target Iraqi civilians?
I do not agree with any form of killing, but I do not consider all Coalition troops to be murderers. What fraction of the Coalition forces have deliberately targeted civilians?
Sometimes violence is necessary to achieve peace, oxymoronic as that sounds. Should Allied bombers not have targeted German cities in WWII because they were killing civilians in the process, even though it severely damaged the German economy, reducing Germany's ability to fight and hastening the end of the most monstrous evil the world has ever seen?
Posted by absinthebri
The war against Hitler was a legitimate war of defence against an aggressor. The Iraqi war is illegal and therefore their is no defence to any charges resulting from it. And I didn't claim ALL coalition troops committed murder - it was you who claimed none did.
Posted by scotsboyuk
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Very true, but that doesn't make killing any more legitimate, only more acceptable. These matters are very subjective, one man's hero is another's villain. Would Irish Republicans view the death of British soldiers in the same way as the families of those soldiers would? Do the Japanese see their troops who fought in WWII in the same light as Britons do?
If you look at the reposnse sof Iraqis, whether interviewed by Western or non-Western media, the majority are thankful to have Saddam gone and want Coalition troops to stay in Iraq to provide security whilst they rebuild. What I disagree with are the reasons for war, I am pleased that Saddam is gone, if the reason for going to war would have been to remove Saddam rather than WMD then I think there would perhaps be a lot more support for it.
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I did not. Read my previous posts, I say that I do not view all Coalition troops as murderers or as deliberately targeting civilians. You mentioned the term 'Coalition might', which insinuates the activity of more than single soldiers; it brings to mind images of overwhelming Coalition force and grand strategy deliberately targeting civilians in a deliberate attempt at killing as many as possible.
Posted by eric_emeralds
does anyone know how many british troops have been deployed to iraq since march 2003?
Posted by scotsboyuk
@eric_emeralds
Wasn't the original deployment around forty thousand (including support staff)? Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there are currently around eight or nine thousand British troops in Iraq.
Posted by richy240
@scots
You bring up some interesting points, some of which I've been trying to convince my mother and others of for some time. I especially like your opinion that "military" murders being good or bad is a matter of perception. No one else seems to understand that.
What if Iraq were to invade the US to overthrow the Bush Administration... Not that they could, but what if. There would be just as many (if not more) "terrorist" attacks against the invading armies as there are in Iraq against the coalition. But people would rather ignore that and blame Iraqis for killing "innocent" coalition forces. It makes me sick.
Put the shoe on the other foot and it might suprise you.
EDIT: And I voted for Michael Badnarik, the Libertarian candidate, and I feel very good about that. (http://badnarik.org/) I considered voting for Kerry, but I live in Texas (Bush's home state) so I knew my vote wouldn't count toward anything anyway.
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[ This Message was edited by: richy240 on 2004-11-01 21:20 ]
Posted by absinthebri
richy, you note a relevant point - every occupation in history has been met with resistance. It's human nature.
Posted by richy240
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Well, naturally. No one wants to be invaded.
Posted by Ninjaturtle
This pretty much tells us what the world think of the US election...
http://www.quartervote.com/
Posted by kimcheeboi
ELECTION IS TOMORROW!
im on the edge of my seat!
Posted by Sammy_boy
@ninja - very interesting link there - the comments are quite true!
Heard of a similar site - www.betavote.com which has very similar results!
It seems the only people that like Bush are the disproportionately powerful US religious right
Posted by Ninjaturtle
More like disproportionately stupid.. hehe.
Betavote was interesting, 500000 voters and bush wins in 2 countries out of 150...
[ This Message was edited by: Ninjaturtle on 2004-11-01 22:44 ]
Posted by kimcheeboi
im not very fond of the religious right
Posted by k700nut
@scotsboy;re your education query.i had a vacation in florida roughly 2yr ago,and a huge amount of the american residents were obese/ultra large wallers...imo this suggests,they have little or zero knowledge about diet,or they have severe genetic/health problems.secondly,have you ever seen the "usa" weakest link?if the contestants are typical american stamp,i need say no more!
Posted by kimcheeboi
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we're a fat country, yeah
but most people aren't that fat.
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It's not genetics, its diet problems. Too little exercise, too much stress, too much fat, etc. etc.
Posted by scotsboyuk
@k700nut
When you said education I thought you meant it in the sense of learning e.g. school, university, etc.
@richy240 and absin
Not every occupation; Ukranians ironicaly welcomed Nazi troops in 1941, thinking that they were finally free of Stalin. I suppose I am only partly correct, however, as there was significant resistance once the Nazis had begun their occupation.
Michael Moore was on a U.S. version of Question Time the other evening and he made a similar analogy to richy240's; France invading America to liberate them from the British; quite an interesting, not to mention ironic, analogy I thought.
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[ This Message was edited by: scotsboyuk on 2004-11-02 15:00 ]
Posted by boto43
hey,youve got something like the picture today
Posted by sorac
yep botto you are right, they have finish linne today.. i personaly hope for kerry, but i don't know anything about usa situlation..
Posted by lenn24
Posted by Mohammed98221
its over kerry has conceded ,bush is still president
Posted by Sammy_boy
@axxxr, best start the next anti-bush thread now for 2008, get in there early!
Posted by welsh uk
The way things are going in the world there wont be a 2008
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[ This Message was edited by: welsh uk on 2004-11-03 17:08 ]