Why I won't vote for Hillary.

[Blarch]

Lets start with Reagan.

He brought us Iran Contra ...and was not held responsible.
The very act of not holding them accountable let them know they were free to act how ever they want, when ever they want.

This brought us Bush sr. , and Iraq Gate ...where, again...nobody was held responsible, even though Bill Clinton promised to do so.

Fast Forward to Jr., He packed his administration with all the people we SHOULD have held responsible in the past, knowing full well that they will never be held responsible for their actions.

And here we are today, nobody has ever been held accountable, and the criminals who have taken this country are encouraged to take it even further.

Now Hillary....Hillary, Hillary, Hillary.

If we sweep your recent behavior under the rug and do nothing, hoping future candidates won't be encouraged to act in the same manner..we WILL get burned. If you are not held accountable for your filthy campaign then we will surely see this again, just like we will see the neocons again.

Not This Time. It's time to send a message.

[guyanakoolaid]

1. Since she can't win, these threads are counterproductive.

We're moving on, trying to make sure Hillary supporters realize the greater evil is a Republican in office.

[Blarch]

3. Thats right, she can't get the nod

But if we all stood on principles, she would be polling in single digits. The message would be sent. But here we are.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. So...if she's the nominee, you won't vote for her?

You'll sit it out?

Or you'll vote for McCain?

*shakes head*

ANY Dem is better than any Republican...ANY...

Just think about the Supreme Court, and those aging liberal justices...

Just my two cents...

[Blarch]

5. I will sit out.

I won't compromise my principles.

[Asgaya Dihi]

7. Big problem with that though

We've been on this kick of any dem is better than a repub for years now, where has it got us? The most imprisoned nation in the world bar none in terms of our own people, both per capita and in raw terms. Growing control of the nation by the rich and powerful, corporate control, disaster capitalism and neo-liberalism in our name which has crippled whole peoples in the name of profit. And more. All the compromise has been costing us big time and rather than standing up to the problem we've been buying into it for too long now. Too much of what enabled Bush these last few years had dem support to get established in the first place.

I wrote two posts some time back which touch on my views of this from the perspective of my issues, I'll link them below, but in short, no. Any dem is not better than a repub for the simple reason that the more we buy into the problem the more responsible we are for it and the fewer options that are left to EVER find a way out. It's time and past time to stand up for something and stop compromising on matters of simple right and wrong. It's already hurt us, and more than most realize. These explain it more from the perspective of my issues but if we examine it I'm sure we'll find that the same holds true for many issues, not just a few of them.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2480831&mesg_id=2482133
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2496606&mesg_id=2496606

[AndyTiedye]

15. So We're Supposed to "Punish" The Democratic Party by Letting McCain Win

and letting him start more wars like he promised
and letting Roe v. Wade get overturned
and let the economy go down the toilet
need I go on?

[Asgaya Dihi]

18. You obviously didn't read a word I said

No, we don't need to punish anyone. We need to stand for something and stop buying into the problem. If we're right, and we are, even if we lose one election we're the obvious choice for change when the next rolls around if we just stick to our principles and don't become a part of the problem ourselves.

The simple fact that enough of us do insist on compromise has allowed the repubs to control the agenda for ages now in spite of the fact that when we get down to the nuts and bolts of it in rational discussion the public should be more on the other side of the issues.

Take the drug war for instance. We're the most imprisoned nation in the world bar none with a higher damage and death rate than most in spite of it. Death rates for heroin and cocaine have gone UP several times since the 80s, not down. Prices adjusted for inflation have dropped considerably at the street level on both and purity on heroin at the street level is several times higher than it used to be. On every goal we set we failed and by every measure what we've accomplished is to actually increase the damage as we fund our own enemies in a market we created, but who is telling the public any of this? Much of that was already sourced in what you were pointed to, if people know you think that might make a difference?

But tough on crime is such a good line and soft such a dangerous accusation, so in the name of cowardice and reelection we allow things like this and much, much more to continue unabated.

And you think it's about punishing someone? Try reading what you were pointed to, then we'll talk if you'd like.

[AndyTiedye]

21. Nonetheless You Still Are Willing to Sacrifice the Supreme Court (for a Generation) and Much More

and let McCain make the war even bigger, just to send the Democratic party a message.

And what message do you think they will hear?

That they must move to the left to win? Nope. Every time the Democrats lose, they move further to the right.

[Asgaya Dihi]

22. No, I'm not

I'm not willing to sacrifice the next generation to compromise the same way as we've compromised away the last one. We keep taking this short term view of things, the repubs won so let's be more like them, but we refuse to look at the long term consequences of that choice. How has that compromise worked out so far? Like the direction we're going? Want more?

It's a difference between the short term view and the long term view, if you don't agree that's your right but to take the attitude that you are without examining what that attitude enables isn't exactly the most honest way to go about the debate. Better maybe that we both have the right to our views without that, huh? As attractive as the short term win might be what it's actually bought us over the last few decades is an http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/magazine/16supreme-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2">increasingly conservative and business oriented Supreme Court since you mention it, the growing militarization of our police, growing from an average nation in those terms to the most imprisoned nation in the world, the growing disparity between the rich and the poor with a greater share of the nations wealth going to a smaller and smaller percentage of us, and more.

That's all developed with us in charge as often as not, the media consolidation which enabled this mess in large part happened under Bill. And before him there was Tip O'Neil asking for a bill fast when Len Bias died, and Anne Richards shouting from Texas that if they run out of room they'll build more prisons, and more. We got on a bad path and we need to take something other than a short term view. Have to stand up sometime, because nothing changes if we don't.

[AndyTiedye]

23. Letting McCain Win Sends Us Even Further in the Wrong Direction

What do you think that letting the Repiglickans win would do to make things better?

Is this the Naderite "let the Repigs totally wreck the country (and the world) in hopes that the people will 'rise up'" argument?

[Asgaya Dihi]

24. For four years, at worst

Personally I think we'll win this election and do it under Obama. If Hillary had run a campaign like she should have I would have happily voted for her too, but if we keep compromising principles and adopting the tactics of the other side we're no longer a part of the solution but of the problem. The evidence of that is all around us, you can't be like them without becoming more like them. Not kids hanging with the wrong crowds, not troops who go too far in combat and become something they shouldn't have, and not politicians or nations.

If we keep voting against our own interests they'll keep taking corporate money and acting against our interests. The only way to get accountibility out of them is to hold them accountable. They've got to not only stick a big D behind their names but they have to actually stand for what we say our values are.

Why do you think we're so little bothered as a nation by what's happened over the last few years? We've become so used to doing it to our own with the drug war and other issues that it's hard to get worked up about others. That's just the way life is these days. We've never been perfect but that's not who we used to be as a nation, the abuses were always better hidden and we pretended as a group to be better than that. Most of us actually thought we were. We don't even pretend anymore because of the way we've lived over recent decades and the direction we've allowed ourselves to go.

Long term vs short term, that's the difference, and tossing nader into the mix is just stupid. I've yet to call you an equivocating, compromising, enabling quisling or anything, have I? I'd appreciate it if you'd stop calling me naderite or accusing about wanting a repub win too. Might be nice to have a civil conversation for a change, you think?

[AndyTiedye]

26. The McCain Supreme Court Would Be With Us A Lot Longer than 4 Years

[Asgaya Dihi]

27. So was the one which elected Bush

We had control of that one for eight years before they did that, lots of good it did us huh? Wrong appointments. The main difference over recent decades hasn't been the direction we were going, but the speed, or sometimes not even that so much as the style. Bill Clinton (and the dems in general in that time) screwed us as we see now with NAFTA, media consolidation, prison growth and the drug war, and a bunch of other issues but at least he did it with a smile and tried to make us feel good about it. I'll grant you that.

We were still heading in the wrong direction though and being screwed with a smile isn't good enough. We've got to stop being forced into a choice of the lesser of two evils and demand that they stand for something, if we remove enough of the compromisers and support solid progressives like we did some recently and have with Obama we've got a damned good chance of reshaping the whole political landscape. We've got no chance if we accept politics as usual and don't even try.

Long term. It too the repubs 30 years or so to go from the start of the moral majority the the blowout they recently had, it'll take us time to build power too. Not as long though with the internet and funding power the grassroots is showing now though.

[AndyTiedye]

30. Wish We Had More Justices Like the Ones Clinton Appointed

We had control of that one for eight years before they did that, lots of good it did us huh? Wrong appointments.

With Repigs intead of Clinton's Justices, Bush v. Gore would have been 7-2 intead of 5-4.
Clinton's Justices have been on the right side of most of the issues that have come to the Court since they were appointed.

The only trouble with Clinton's appointments is that he only got to make two — the only Justices appointed by a Democrat in almost 30 years!

23 Supreme Court Justices have been appointed in my lifetime so far. All but 6 by Republican Presidents.
Those appointed by Republicans have served a total of 294 years if you add up their terms of service.
The Justices appointed by Democrats have served a total of 91 years.

[Asgaya Dihi]

31. I'll grant you that one then

Wasn't entirely sure how many he had so I'll grant that, we have voted for an awful lot of the repub ones we could have maybe stopped though. Including two under Bush. Might not have been easy but we didn't really try that hard so we'll never know if we could have stopped it.

In general I don't argue in the slightest with your basic premise, we are marginally better off under dems than repubs. We also allow too many things under both which we shouldn't allow at all. I don't see it as a punish anyone deal, just as voting in our own best interest for a change. If we can replace compromisers in the primary then win the election with a progressive that's great, but if a compromiser loses to a repub and we can take the seat back next election that just might be better than living with that compromiser for the next 30 or 40 years.

It's been nice talking with you but I probably should take a break, getting tired and probably shouldn't continue this too much farther. As should be obvious from my many edits to correct the mistakes ;) Take care

[AndyTiedye]

28. It's Just a Bit Hard to Understand How You Expect This to Work

I didn't call you a Naderite, I asked if you were making a Naderite argument. I'll take your response as a "no",
but I would like to know how you expect your proposed strategy to work, when every defeat only drives the party further to the right.

[Asgaya Dihi]

29. That's where we differ

It's not every defeat that drives the party to the right, it's every compromise for the win. During Clinton we started off stronger than we were when he finished his term and the repubs ended up more organized and with a more intact agenda than when Bill took office. Bill himself came out ok but the party as a whole bled.

What we keep failing to notice with the compromises is that this nation already has a republican party, as long as we insist on running on their agenda of course they are the more likely winners. We haven't set our own agenda for ages now and we all know it. We talk immigration because they or the media does, tough on crime because it's safe though not always right, we voted in depressingly large numbers for many of the repub nominations that are now our biggest obstacles such as the Attorney General. And you don't see it's the compromisers that are costing us?

If we never stand up and demand change we've got no way to expect it. The repubs went from decades of dem control to their recent power through a slow building process, that's the way it's always been done. By both sides. We just at some point forgot that and need to remember instead of putting down and attacking the grassroots.

[goldcanyonaz]

4. That cuts both ways.

[guyanakoolaid]

6. We all need to keep our eyes on the greater evil

[Snarkoleptic]

8. Right on!

The twisted and demented McNasty will destroy our national character.

[Taxmyth]

9. Dirty politics

Senator Clinton is far more experienced and able to handle this UN-uniquely style of American politics better than Senator Obama. You only need to look at the last debate to see that fact. Senator McCain is seen as a moderate in the Republican ranks and Senator Clinton also is seen as a moderate in the Democratic ranks. Both are appealing to the mass majority of American voters. Senator Obama has not been defined as a moderate and will draw the "Liberal" label that so many voters turn against. In reality, Senator Obama IS a moderate and needs time to be seen as such. But if he goes up against Senator McCain, he will get his ass trounced. Just my opinion of course but I'll take bets if anyone is interested.

[Blarch]

10. Well....

"Both are appealing to the mass majority of American voters."

Obama is polling ahead of Clinton, come back to reality

He is polling better, has more delegates, more states won, more votes, more donations and more money.

Put the joint down already.

[Taxmyth]

12. Senator Obama may very well win the nomination

and the picture you've shown above will beg the question "who did she pass it to"? Just another of the long list of unexplored areas of a Senator Obama as Democratic Party nominee. And they will be explored in the months leading up to November.

[emilyg]

14. I'll bet with you.

[Taxmyth]

19. with me or against me?

[emilyg]

20. With you.

[Taxmyth]

33. excellent

waiting for the Vegas oddsmakers to post a line....

[oasis]

11. You name two GOP presidents who screwed up big time. What has Hillary done that

even comes close?

[bigwillq]

13. Well it doesn't look like you have to.

Just be happy.

[goldcanyonaz]

16. The ABO movement is bigger than the once ABC one.

[Zuiderelle]

17. So, you'll be supporting McCain in your sit-out then. Very nice.

I would love if she gets the nomination and you say that here then.

[Elidor]

25. Which message is that?

"I'm too dumb to vote for my own self-interest?" We need your vote in November, regardless of whose name is in front of the 'D.' If you can't see that, you haven't seen enough of Bushco to understand the stark choice in front of you. Principles are not compromised by keeping the most rabid and idiotic of the warmongers out of office. Principles, if you take them seriously, demand that you do what you can to minimize the damage. You will not be soiled by voting for Clinton, if it comes down to that.

[FlaGranny]

32. Her snarkiness today

was repulsive. I have a hard time imagining anyone accepting that against a fellow dem and colleague.