After my first post, you countered by saying that she didn't represent the majority. I then proceed, with the help of Island Dog, to prove that she was in fact very similar to the majority of voters. At which point you reply by saying she isn't the majority of the majority. Can you clarify that argument? What I'm getting is that her style of thinking isn't part of the majority of people that are voting for ignorant reasons. In other words, the majority of people are voting for really stupid reasons. (He talks nice, he's white, etc.--I'm trying to get both sides here.) But people like her don't make up the majority of those people.

Are you saying that the majority of people are in fact, ignorant, but that this majority is seperated into groups? One group is voting for Obama because he talks nice, another because he's black, another voting for McCain because Obama is black, etc.?

No derbal213, I'm saying that to indict an entire class of voters because you've found some nutters or fools that agree with them, or you for that matter, is LUDICROUS.

Here is a decent op-ed piece that examines the culture waves that have happened in America from the early 1900's to today.  While it is bookended on an anti-Palin message, I think the material in the middle is what's relevant.  It's not presented as fact, but just some interesting analysis of the past and its relevance to the present and perhaps the future.

I'm not indicting an entire class of voters. I'm merely trying to say that is ridiculous for people on both sides to vote for stupid reasons like "they look nice" or "He's black."

1.  I don't think we will know who the majority of voters are until Wednesday morning.

2.   As to that bit about "the majority of people are in fact, ignorant" --  (yeah...pretty much, myself included on some things).  I believe the majority of people are KEPT ignorant, because, to quote Col. Nathan R. Jessep from "A Few Good Men" "we can't handle the truth" - We'd be rioting in the streets if we knew the truth. We would be sick with grief if we knew the truth.  A good fantasy with enough props beats the truth any day of the week.

Oh, and I want to point out there is a difference between the definition of the word ignorant and the word stupid.  

Thank you. I realize that there is a difference between stupid and ignorant. But what I'm trying to get across is that the majority of voters (on BOTH sides, in other words, the majority of people who have or will vote for any candidate) are ignorant to the real issues and are voting for stupid reasons.

I also, admit, that on some issues, I am completely ignorant. By no means do I know or claim to know everything. The issues that I do know something about, though, I agree with McCain on more than I agree with Obama. I respect that others feel the opposite. I'm not sure who said it earlier in the thread, but to quote them, "I'm not going to change your mind, and you won't change mine."

Yes, makes perfect sense.  Not sure about the 'majority' part, though - that's just conjecture.  Certainly applies to some, but we'll never know to what extent.

Well, duh! 

Just as it is for people to NOT-vote for someone because they "don't look nice" or "are black."

I'm glad we can at least find common ground that we all SHOULD be voting on the issues.  I hope this election portends a sea change in this regard.

True, remember that according to the bell curve of life, 1/2 of all human beings are average intelligence or less.  So BOTH sides get stuck with them en masse. 

Seriously, stupid is genetic, but there's no excuse in this age of information for ignorance.

Unless your arms were broke as a POW, so you can't use a computer.   (I'm sorry...I couldn't stop myself!)

I read your post. My point was that this is a different election.

People vote for different reasons in different elections. Someone may have voted for Bush in the last election for completely different reasons than why they are voting for McCain in this one.

I find it funny that many people are saying they are voting for Obama because of what Bush did. McCain is not Bush. Everyone should be comparing what McCain plans to do with what Obama plans to do. People should compare what McCain has done with what Obama has done. Bush is not in this election.

We have a new litmus test, folks - computer literacy. 

Well, as the Geico ad goes, it's "so easy even a caveman can do it."   LITERACY is important.  You probably wouldn't vote for someone who couldn't read (although I have known a very successful person who was illiterate--the rest of us had to cover up for him, as he caught the boss with his trousers down, and that meant if the rest of us wanted to keep our jobs, we had to do our job AND his when it came to the reading part).  We live in a digital age, and computer literacy is, in my opinion, rather important.

To borrow from a different debate I read on line, "what if the 3 a.m. call comes in the form of an e-mail?"

Also, it seems to me that although the president might not NEED to use the computer himself, if he is at the mercy of his underlings to "work the machine" for him, that means he's in a position to be compromised (moles, plants from the enemy that end up getting the position of keyboard money for the Prez), would be in a position to screen important information from his attention, or plant wrong information.  Ignorance leaves one vulnarable.

Maybe not, but McCain voted 90% in favor of everything Bush proposed.  I suppose that makes him Bush lite to some of us.  

McCain was definitely NOT Bush in 2000.  But he just BECAME Bush in order to get his party's nomination.  I used to have a HUGE amount of respect for John McCain, but when he hired the same mudslingers Bush used to beat him in 2000 for this campaign, I sadly saw the writing on the wall.  I really wish McCain had stayed true to his anti-Bush roots.  While he might not have won the nomination of his party, he'd still have his integrity.  Now he has lost both his bearings and the election (presumably).  I think this would have been a MUCH closer election is this was the John McCain of 2000.

What she sed.

To this generation, oh yes indeed.

Make no mistake, the young voters behind Obama don't have the scars of the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam, or Watergate to get over.  They've grown up in an integrated society and many don't even own CDs.  They buy everything digitally, communicate wirelessly, and are connected to friends all over the world 24 hours a day.  They care what the world thinks of us and they've been paying attention on social networking sites to all of this for years.

And for ANY Presidential candidate to be utterly technologically illiterate is just anathema to them.  Or in the language of McCain's more gray-haired supporters will grok...it's "totally squaresville, daddy-o."

The only question is will they come out and vote this time around.  If we could vote via Myspace, this election would already be over.

My greatest fear is not the outcome of this Presidential election, but whether I continue to have many a sleepless nights thinking that the attitudes expressed here by the individuals who's minds have been made up from the beginning are going to be the ones running this Country after I am gone.  What a legacy you've begun.  I'm glad the Electoral College still exists.  The general population has no business electing our leaders.  We have no business trying to get involved in our own lives and the government who decides our fate as an American. 

You have the opportunity, with all the resources available, to be one of the most informed and intellectually responsible group of voters than any time before in our 232 years as a Democracy, yet some of you choose to follow blindly the rants of each political party without confiming the details for yourselves.  If I were your teacher at any time during your schooling, I would have smacked you with a ruler for not checking your sources. 

With each Presidential election we ask ourselves, "Will we be better off 4 or 8 years from now if I choose Candidate A or B?"  "Will the policies of my previous choice continue into the next administration and will my choice this time be the one blamed for what has played out to be a mistake as with most previous administrations?"  "Will this new Adminstration actually fix the problems that plague this generation and the ones before?"  We Americans have a short memory. 

It is not a question of who has spent the most money, or whether one spends more on a wardrobe than the GNP of several small nations, the true question is, what have these candidates shown to the intellectually responsible voter that can convince us they have the experience necessary to run this complex nation of diversity.  That, my friends, will be the question I answer November 4.  God bless this United States. 

Oh, please.  That's a McEnroe if I've ever heard one.

This is complete BS. ALL communications to the Whitehouse are through someone else first. Just try to call the president directly and you will get the switchboard first and they will screen you. Do you really think that the President answers his own emails?? Nope, someone else sees them first...and may answer them instead of sending them to the President. Do you think he types his own letters? Hardly.

I still can't believe that this is an issue.

And I can't still believe that abortion is still an issue, (seems like a no brainer...if you're against them, don't have one; and if you're a guy and you're against them, make damn sure you wear a condom, because once the sperm hits the egg, you're opinion on the matter is of no consequence), yet every election I hear this one ad nauseum, followed almost in the same breath with who Jesus's choice would be.

Put on that tinfoil hat mr.idog. It must be a left wing conspiracy. Funny how the goes around - comes back around isn't it?

Quit whining and get used to it. Just as everybody else has had to get used to & deal with GWB - who I would guess you voted for. Am I right?

I bet you'd vote for GWB again though wouldn't you? You and many others here - judging from what I've seen in the past.

Laughable. Give me a break.

Oh right, she's not qualified, but no one's really qualified to be president unless they have enough money behind them to say so.

Well, this seems to support the assertion (I think by Lantec) that conservatives are more likely to vote outside of party lines, but such progressive thought tends to leave the route to presidency wide open for democrats.

Ha, I'm still reeling over that comparison. At least Obama's not just sitting down doing a crossword or something. . . Yeah, I definitely prefer the dedicated maverick.

You can stop reeling.

That picture was taken NOT during the pledge of allegiance as mistakenly posted across the internet, but during the NATIONAL ANTHEM.  And there are many, many Americans, myself among them, who were taught that you put your hand over your heart during the pledge, but NOT during the anthem, as during hockey/baseball games etc.  You stand in respect and sing if you can and/or want to during the anthem, but the hand over heart is SAVED FOR THE PLEDGE of allegiance only...to give it the added weight it is intended to have.

And I was tested on these things to become a US citizen. 

So, the right wing pretends it's a requirement, when it isn't, then gets the event wrong (there is video on snopes showing that this is indeed during a horribly mangled rendition of the star spangled banner - not during the pledge), and then tries to make Obama unpatriotic because he's doing what he and many Americans were raised to do. Hell the guy leads the pledge in the senate, and YES he puts his hand over his heart...always has.  There are pictures there of that.

Go to ANY hockey game, etc. and you'll see the same thing. I guess none of them hockey moms and dads are patriots either.

The sad thing is, even in this day and age, when the TRUTH is a 2 second search on Google away, people would rather let the ignorant lie stand because it supports their ideology to do so.