The 3rd Debate - And the Winner is....
I'm going to take a few of these questions and answer them myself.
"And that is, will our children and grandchildren ever live in a world as safe and secure as the world in which we grew up?"
Bob, the world you grew up in was not any less safe than the world I grew up in. Remember Duck and Cover? Remember the red 'menace'? Well, we have the environmental emergencies, the war on drugs and the hyped-up war on terror. Can one really say that my growing up was any less or more 'safe'?
As long as politicians create a world of fear and dread, of course we won't feel safe. And because we don't feel safe, we stay on the offensive, always pushing our agenda for a 'safer' world while we continue to oppress other nations for our personal gain.
"Suddenly we find ourselves with a severe shortage of flu vaccine. How did that happen?"
It's funny that neither candidate nor incumbent mentioned what the vaccine was actually contaminated with. And add the fact that over 22 million doses of potentially 'contaminated' vaccine has already been administered. And people are getting flu-like symptoms and pneumonia from it. And health experts across the country are agreeing that it's probably best if people avoid the vaccine this year.
"Mr. President, what do you say to someone in this country who has lost his job to someone overseas who's being paid a fraction of what that job paid here in the United States?"
I say - screw you motherfucker!
Dubya really screwed up on this one. He promotes more education for those poor sods who lose their jobs to indian and chinese IT personnel? These poor bastards have already spent 20-30 grand and 5-7 years on college. You think they want to go back to school, waste more time when the next job will likely go to outsourcing as well?
I really wish the president would have answered this question. But he can't.
"Do you believe homosexuality is a choice?"
What a stupid question. Of course it's a choice, but so is heterosexuality. At least in my opinion. I think both the encumbant and the candidate are wrong on this count, and both of them are narrow-minded in their approach to gay marriage. If we are going to elevate the importance of male-female marriages, then we might as well throw color in as well. White straight people should get all the recognition! I don't think so. Yes I'm white (translucent, mostly, thanks to being indoors behind a monitor all day), and I'm married, but I don't think I have any more rights to marriage than my many many gay friends (some of whom believe that homosexuality is NOT a choice).
I say, as long as it isn't hurting anybody, we should accomodate everyone we can and let them be expressed as equals in our society. The march of the WASP homophobes is coming to an end, my friends, but many are still hanging onto the old ways of eugenics and separatism.
Minus ten points to both candidates, but especially to Bush who dodged the real meat of the question altogether.
And Bush's comment about 'activist judges' sounded like something you'd hear on the 700 club. What a freak.
"The New York Times reports that some Catholic archbishops are telling their church members that it would be a sin to vote for a candidate like you because you support a woman's right to choose an abortion and unlimited stem-cell research. What is your reaction to that?"
I think they're a bunch of narrow-minded idiots, that's what I think. They sound no better than the extremist islamic groups we are out there bombing and bashing. They are hypocrites, plain and simple. If you vote for Bush, you vote for continued war, death and destruction. Kerry may not be the ideal opposite, but at least he is intelligent enough to approach the topic with some rationality.
Really, what would Jesus bomb? Wouldn't that be a sin as well? Thou Shalt Not Kill?
"What part does your faith play on your policy decisions?"
Let's see. When faith becomes a deciding factor, an influence, it becomes a tool for the will. Or the willing. Bush is clearly a puppet for the religious right, so of course his faith plays a big role. He answers to the big bad G-O-D before he looks at the constitution, or the people protected under it, or the people that don't believe the way he does.
"Senator Kerry, after 9/11 -- and this is a new question for you -- it seemed to me that the country came together as I've never seen it come together since World War II. But some of that seems to have melted away. I think it's fair to say we've become pretty polarized, perhaps because of thet would be your attitude on that?"
We've become polarized for a few reasons: 1) The Patriot Act has eroded our rights. 2) We're constantly lied to, so why should we trust politicians. 3) Many people understand the carnage and the wastefulness of war, of killing for oil and a sense of dominance. Others do not.
All in all, a rather dull debate. No clear winners, but Kerry remained consistent. Bush had this funny half-scowl half-smile going on all night, and I kept imagining him sucking on a long piece of grass like so many rednecks do out in the fields. I just don't believe he's a regular aw' shucks kinda guy, that he's putting on a show for his base and nothing more.
Now that the debates are over, I guess we're stuck with spin and lies until election day.
posted by novachild @ Thursday, October 14, 2004,
