There are large substantive differences between Democrats and Republicans

[cali]

And at the same time, there are some areas of overlap that aren't pretty: Big money influence being a prominent example, BUT:

Had Al Gore been allowed to take his rightful place in the White House, there would been no Iraq War. That is a monumentally large difference. Had Kerry been elected, we would be out of Iraq. We would have two moderate to liberal Justices on the SC. We would have signed on to Kyoto. SCHIP would have been expanded. The list goes on and ranges from the small to the large. Dems support Habeas Corpus. Repukes don't. Dems support shutting down Gitmo. Repukes don't. Dems support expanding health care coverage and making it affordable, if not truly universal. Repukes don't. Dems don't seek to undermine the separation between Church and State. Repukes do. Dems support a woman's right to choose. Repukes want to either throw it back to the states, or increasingly criminalize abortion on a federal level.

To me, those are substantive and large differences, though I understand that not everyone sees things that way.

[Perry Logan]

1. If Republicans had always been in charge, we would all be dead from DDT.

If the Repubs had retained control of Congress, the internet as we know it would be gone by now.
Our wounded vets would still be lying around in their own urine--and no one would know.

[cali]

2. huh? How do you see that.?

I don't think the internet is so easy to shut down.

[Perry Logan]

3. They would turn it into a corporate thing--like your cable channels.

[Kolesar]

5. I lost track of the "Net Neutrality" issue

The super-media corporations* wanted to hog up all the high performance, large bandwidth capacity of the internet. Was that stopped?

*super in size only

[Kolesar]

4. 35 miles/gallon CAFE standard...eom

[Djinn]

6. what do you think Gore

would have done to prevent the gouging of the US economy that would have occurred had Iraqi oil been dealt in Euro's?

Do you honestly believe Gore would have allowed that? Do you really believe Dem's don't 100% support the primacy of US business interests over and above people in the thirld world?

Why was setting an "Afghan trap" for Russia not an enormous nightmare for Afghan people and the rest of the world because Carter did it?

What makes you think Gitmo is a miscarriage of justice but that Op Phoenix was not?

What makes you think rendition was better under Clinton?

I'm sorry you may claim they are substantive differences but they simply do NOT bear any kind of scrutiny by anyone with a passing knowledge of geo-political history.

[cali]

8. Hard to say.

Do you honestly believe that the U.S. under Gore would have launched an illegal war against Iraq? I can state firmly that I believe that never would have happened.

Do you actually believe that the Soviet incursion in Afghanistan was all the fault of the U.S.? What's next? That the Russian incurion into Chechnya was the fault of the U.S.? Simplistic and absurd.

Yes, I believe there was far less rendition under Clinton, and no one has been able to provide evidence that it anything like what's gone on under bushco. Despicable that it was done at all, but not anything like the last 7 years.

Was Operation Phoenix a miscarriage of justice? Certainly. Comparable to the depths that busco has brought us too? No. Fascile comparisons don't impress me.

Sorry, as someone with two MA's in history, you can't pull the "you're ignorant of geo-political history. I'm not. I'm fully aware of American malfeasance in Iran, in Africa and in South America, not to mention in other parts of the world. I'm not so ignorant as to not to recognize that there are indeed differences between the democrats and the republicans, both domestically and as far as foreign policy goes, in the here and now. To deny that is ignorant as shit. It doesn't take much of a brain to realize that had Gore been President, the world would be a different and better place.

[Toots]

7. Democrats SAY they support all those things you mentioned but when given a chance to prove it

Well we have seen how well they have done doing that..Who exactly have the Democrats held accountable for everything that has occurred?

[Echo In Light]

9. Use the abusive family analogy:

He beats the child {R} while she acts as the enabler who sits back and allows for it with justifications {D}

[ThomWV]

10. Bingo! Oversight my ass, nobody has been held accountable for anything.

[cali]

14. I think there are some pretty obvious clues for anyone who wants

to look. There's the Habeas Corpus Restoration act which all the dems in the Senate voted for. There's the hearings that dems have conducted which resulted in us knowing things we never would have found out if the repukes had held on to control. The fact that we have a 49-49-2 Senate has to be factored in, along with record obstructionism by the repukes. I'm not excusing dems on leadership- they've done a sucky job, but to contend that the repukes and dems are alike is, well, a tired and false meme. For all their many faults, the dems are different and better than the repukes. And of course, we haven't had a dem president the last 7 years. Do you actually believe that everything would have been just like busho's reign?

[porphyrian]

11. Gore and Kerry were elected, they just didn't fight for it. -n/t

[Echo In Light]

12. ...so did they take a predetermined fall. Neither put up a fight n/t

[cali]

15. Gore did fight for it. It's absurd to claim he didn't. n/t

[porphyrian]

18. Bullshit. If you think that was a fight, you've never seen one.

He conceded, surrendered, gave up. When you're right, and you want to win, you don't concede.

[cali]

19. nonsense. David Boies fought his ass off for Gore.

That Gore's team made mistakes, is true. That they didn't fight is another delusional DU meme.

[porphyrian]

20. It's funny that you think I'm the one who's deluded. Keep making excuses. -n/t

[Echo In Light]

21. Yeah, it was all just a bit too cozy...and in looking back at the PNAC plans, their 9/11, and so on.

It's painfully obvious that the establishment entire were all on the same page right outta the starting gate.

[cali]

22. LOL!!

Sometime DU is truly a riot.

:rofl:

[Echo In Light]

24. I don't go out of my way to ridicule you, Cali. So go f*ck yourself, okay know-it-all?

[cali]

25. I'm not ridiculing you

You'd know it if I was doing it. I'm ridiculing the idea that Gore took a fall for bushco. It's deserving of ridicule, in my book. If you're so overly sensitive that flip out over a :rofl:, that's your problem, not mine.

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[cali]

27. no. I think I'll just watch you self-destruct over an emoticon

it's so absurd to see. And I'll take it wherever I want, cupcake.

[Echo In Light]

31. Wishful thinking, blow hard n/t

[cali]

33. you're just too, easy, pookie. n/t

[Echo In Light]

36. lol...and a last word freak too. Given the size of your ego, not surprising

[REP]

28. 'Gore' and 'Bush' do have the same number of letters...

ZOMG! They're in on it together!

[Echo In Light]

30. Silence = consent...in more ways than one n/t

[REP]

32. I have to see a man about a dog

The artichoke howls at midnight.


Yeah.

[Echo In Light]

34. When my colorless green ideas sleep furiously, I'll be coming home to you

...or not

[REP]

35. Most likely not

Enjoy your stay.

[cali]

37. *snicker*

as you can see, some people are actually convinced of that.

[REP]

38. And it makes perfect sense, too!

If you don't get that, you're so deep in the denial-closet you're finding next year's Christmas presents. They're all in it together!

[porphyrian]

23. I don't know if Gore knew it from the beginning or not, but he gave up.

Maybe he figured it out as he went along, maybe the plans for him were worse if he fought, I don't know. But he quit, so did Kerry, and here we are.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

13. There are a few differences

I agree that Gore would not have gone into Iraq. But he probably would have kept the No-Fly-Zones in place, not a complete withdrawal. I don't know if he would have gone into Afghanistan. The Taliban-AlQuaeda link was a little stronger than Iraq's WMD evidence.

I wish I had your faith about the health care issue. I don't think any of the likely candidates will do much in that arena. There will be a lot of words, but no substance. I hope I'm wrong here.

[cali]

16. The environment. Federal judges and SC Justices,

SCHIP, The Justice Department. Are those just of no account?

[Vinca]

17. There is a basic difference between Republicans and Democrats

and it amounts to one letter. They are the "me" party, Democrats are the "we" party. As long as they've got theirs, they're happy. We strive to improve life for everyone.

[rucky]

29. Well-said.

Hope you don't mind if I use that one.

:)

[Vinca]

39. Please do. nt