Bye, bye Fred Thompson

[Jon Miller]

I Will take a Christian fundamentalist any day over a right wing authoritarian.

JM

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I Will take a Christian fundamentalist any day over a right wing authoritarian.

JM

QFT

[Dinner]

What's the difference?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Oerdin
What's the difference?

Fundamentalist Christianisty isn't inherently authoritarian. Authoritarianism is.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
No way.

Guiliani would be far, far worse. A Guiliani Presidency would be one long nightmare of a virtual police state.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
What's the difference?

Consider how Huckabee ran Arkansas and Giuliani ran New York City. Even upper class, white New Yorkers were scared of the police under Giuliani.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I Will take a Christian fundamentalist any day over a right wing authoritarian.

JM

Fundamentalists have their own brand of authoritarianism. For example, they would love to see the sodomy laws reenacted even at expense of violating people's privacy.

They would love to legislate laws that shove Christian religion in faces of all American citizens, regardless of our country's religious diversity.

And maybe, they would want to separate people with AIDS and HIV into ghettos or concentration camps as Huckabee implicitly proposed back in 1992.

Essentially, a United States under a religious-right president could become closer to becoming as oppressive as the Islamic-extremist governments in Middle East.

[chequita guevara]

Huckabee doesn't strike me as the type to shove his beliefs down my throat. Granted, I'm not gay so I have considerably less to fear from yet another right-wing Evangelical presidency. More people are being oppressed by the economic conservatives than by the social conservatives. You might be able to **** more freely under an economic conservative, but you're more likely to be too poor to afford a place to do the ****ing.

[Wezil]

Wouldn't it be more like one long continuous 4-year ****?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by MrFun


Fundamentalists have their own brand of authoritarianism. For example, they would love to see the sodomy laws reenacted even at expense of violating people's privacy.

They would love to legislate laws that shove Christian religion in faces of all American citizens, regardless of our country's religious diversity.

And maybe, they would want to separate people with AIDS and HIV into ghettos or concentration camps as Huckabee implicitly proposed back in 1992.

Essentially, a United States under a religious-right president could become closer to becoming as oppressive as the Islamic-extremist governments in Middle East.

Except that, as governor of Arkansas, Huckabee did none of those things; whereas, as mayor of New York, Giuliani in word and deed routinely showed contempt for human rights, civil liberties, and the democratic process.

Based on their track records, Huckabee aspired to be a run-of-the-mill conservative Southern governor; Giuliani aspired to be Mussolini. I'm no fan of Huckabee, but I can certainly see difference between those things.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
I'm not sure I see it...

He's just not anyone's champion.

Ie, there is something lacking! If he can't even be a single group in the party's champion, then he's a horrible candidate. Everyone's second choice is the first loser in primary politics. It's like picking a VP who is not able to carry their home state... ie, useless.

Strange perception, but ok.

Perhaps this is a result of not being intimately familiar with American politics (where perhaps a lot of your strange view on things during the campaigns come from). Anyone who has followed McCain's 2000 campaign and his career since knows that he royally pissed off far right conservatives back in South Carolina in 2000 (anti-Falwell remarks) and since then by backing McCain-Feingold, working with Hillary on an "amnesty" for illegal immigrants, being against the Bush tax cuts, etc. For somewhat conservative reasons sometimes (being against Bush tax cuts because he wanted to cut spending with it), but still went against the conservative base's pet bills.


Oh, and while I think Huckabee and Guiliani are scary in their own ways, I think Guiliani is FAR more scary. He'd make George W. Bush look like an ACLU lawyer. Huckabee, while nuts, actually does seem to genuinely care about people.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by LordShiva
I was listening to talk radio this morning (someone changed teh radio station on my alarm clock ) and they made it seem as if all Republicans hate McCain. Why?

Immigration issues and attacks on free speech rights. At least that's why I'm suspicious of him.

[Arrian]

To decode: "attacks on free speech rights" = campaign finance reform.

I'd have to grudgingly agree that there is something to what Che said about Huckabee. I don't want him for a president, mind you, I'd prefer McCain if it is to be a Republican. But I see the point Che was making.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Anyone who has followed McCain's 2000 campaign and his career since knows that he royally pissed off far right conservatives back in South Carolina in 2000 (anti-Falwell remarks) and since then by backing McCain-Feingold, working with Hillary on an "amnesty" for illegal immigrants, being against the Bush tax cuts, etc. For somewhat conservative reasons sometimes (being against Bush tax cuts because he wanted to cut spending with it), but still went against the conservative base's pet bills.

And this goes a long way toward explaining his relatively popularity amongst people in the center. Like, say, me.

I wasn't terribly pleased by some things he's done more recently, though. The "torture compromise" for one, and his recent attempt at kissing up to the religious freaky freaky part of the party irritated me, of course.

-Arrian

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Arrian
To decode: "attacks on free speech rights" = campaign finance reform.

I didn't think I was speaking in code.