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Journal pudge's Journal: Leaving the Country 37

Journal by pudge

A bunch of people say they want to leave the country because of the election results. I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, I decided in my youth that if someone doesn't want to be with me, I didn't want them with me. I think this philosophy saved me from a great deal of angst in middle and high school.

On the other hand, Lincoln used force to prevent a bunch of people leaving the last time. Preservation of the Union is important. While I'd cut loose a "friend" in school who was being a jerk, I would try to maintain a relationship with my brother.

I could flesh these thoughts out more, but I doubt the overwhelming majority of people who say it are serious about it anyway ... which just made me think of this.

This discussion was created by pudge (3605) for no Foes, but now has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Leaving the Country More

Leaving the Country

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  • It's funny you mention Lincoln. I was thinking to myself earlier - I wonder how the election might've turned out if the north had cut the south loose in 1861. Of course, temporal paradoxes being what they are - would there even be an election like this now, or some semblance of this country?

    I think in another four years, people might get tired of the religious right's influence in politics, but then again.... maybe not. It seems like people want it.

    In any case, I'm somewhat bummed about this year. You
    • I think in another four years, people might get tired of the religious right's influence in politics, but then again.... maybe not. It seems like people want it.

      Yes, of course they do. They always have, for well over a hundred years.

      I don't want it to move so far into the center that progress in this country slows to a glacial pace.

      That would be heaven. The federal government is supposed to be small and move slowly.

      I'd rather try to effect change here, rather than being some ex-pat pansy bitching
    • It's hard to be a bur in the saddle or a thorn in the side if you aren't close enough to grate on one's nerves. I think that everyone threatening to leave are cowards. First of all, most of them aren't going anywhere and it is just a bunch a crap. If they followed through, I might have more respect for them. Moving out of the country is a big endeavor... I would at least respect their conviction if they followed through. For 90%, however, it is an empty threat (the worst part is that they know it). Se
  • The issue under Lincoln was states leaving the country. The right of individuals to expatriate was one of the patriots' demands during the Revolution.
  • That statement "No no no!" was made by a friend of mine in the Amt für Nachrichtenwesen der Bundeswehr, or German Army Intelligence in response to my joking about emigrating out of the USA after the first Bush election was decided by the courts. He went on to explain that he believed the rest of the world needs Americans like me to stay in the USA because we can have much more influence on politics than could non-citizens. He watched friends at the Pentagon lose their jobs over their disagreement wit
    • He felt as do I that Gen. Shinseki and others including the former President HW Bush and Colin Powell were correct in assessing Iraq not as a quick victory that needed to be won, but as a discrete combat period followed by a protracted occupation which had no real exit strategy.

      Apart from "no real exit strategy," this is what Rummy and Bush and Franks said all along, too. I don't know where the myth that the Bush administration said we would be out of Iraq quickly came from. As to no real exit strategy,

      • I have to agree with him here, and I have no plans to leave the country, but the whole issue of redistricting and recent Republican gerrymandering have got me more than a little disillusioned over the political process here in the USA.

        The GOP doesn't gerrymander any more than the Democrats do. I come from MA, the home of gerrymandering (literally), and the practice is why there is no Republican congressman from the state.

        I think BWJones knows that gerrymandering is not a particularly Republican practice,

        • Ack! THe Fed better not have any say in a state's districts! There is no reason for it. It would be like the Fed telling a state what level to set the state income tax, or how to determine state worker compensation. You might as well eliminate all state governance if you do that.

          Part of the reason a state has partial control over those kinds of laws is so that each state may choose how to represent itself to the population. It also lets states compete against each other for conditions favorable to the
    • He went on to explain that he believed the rest of the world needs Americans like me to stay in the USA because we can have much more influence on politics than could non-citizens.

      This point is going to be key for Democrats in the future. Looking at the electoral map, you can tell that Democrats are grouped in a very few locations...the northeast and the west coast. All the states in the central north were very, very close (MN 48/51, WI 50/49, MI 51/48) except Illinois with a 10% margin. If Democrats a
      • Obviously liberal north-easterners won't hack it anymore.

        This (I think) is the crux of the matter. The Democratic party choose a candidate that was not the best representation of more of the nation. They choose a candidate that was the best representation of their party.

        I am also concerned about the productivity of Congress / Executive Branch with basic control in a single party. Now the Reps can choose the chairs for each committie (assuming strict party line votes) and this sets the tone for the leg

        • Have you heard? The big news this morning was that the new projected chair of the Senate judiciary committee, Arlen Specter (interestingly enough replacing our favorite Senator Orrin Hatch at that job), sent Bush a message that he'd better not expect he can get any judge he wants approved. Specter is a bit of a maverick; he is apparently one of the ones responsible for derailing the nomination of conservative Robert Bork to the court many years ago.

          So maybe having full party control doesn't always cut i

          • Specter is one of the more ardently pro-choice Republicans. His liberal tendencies (pro-choice being only one of them) is why Specter had a very tough primary fight this year in PA, from conservative Pat Toomey.

            Interestingly, George Bush and the junior senator from PA, RIck Santorum -- also chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, which is responsible for helping Senators get re-elected -- both gave Specter their full support in the primary fight, despite their intense opposition to Specter's views o
            • I'm hoping that Specter stands in the way of any hard line conservatives Bush would appoint to the court. I voted Bush, but not for his conservative social values...I'm decidedly pro-choice and ambivalent-to-liberal on the gay marriage issue...I don't want to see Roe/Wade overturned.

              It was and is a nail biter for me...on one hand I like Bush way more than I like Kerry and I trust him to do the right thing with respect to Iraq and the economy. But on the other, social conservatism isn't my bag. Knowing t
              • I'm hoping that Specter stands in the way of any hard line conservatives Bush would appoint to the court. I voted Bush, but not for his conservative social values...I'm decidedly pro-choice and ambivalent-to-liberal on the gay marriage issue...I don't want to see Roe/Wade overturned.

                I do, and I don't. If it were overturned any time soon, the Republican party would lose every single majority it has, come the following election. We just saw what happens when the courts try to force something on a people n
                • The issue is not privacy, but whether the fetus is a life. If it is not, then of course there can be nothing wrong with aborting it. If it is, then there's no difference between that and a born child.

                  There's more to it than this. It's a woman's body, and just like I should have every right to cut off my own arm, I feel that if we take this away from a woman, we're restricting a personal right.

                  Forget trying to determine whether or not it's a life...you might as well tackle the problem of whether or not G
                  • There's more to it than this. It's a woman's body, and just like I should have every right to cut off my own arm, I feel that if we take this away from a woman, we're restricting a personal right.

                    Again, we come back to whether the fetus is an individual life, because your analogy only works if it is not.

                    Forget trying to determine whether or not it's a life...

                    That is *the only issue.* There is nothing else that defines this issue. And your idea that we cannot come to consensus is proven false, becaus
                    • And your idea that we cannot come to consensus is proven false, because we came to consensus on whether blacks are full human beings.

                      If we can't acknowledge a distinction in the difference between the color of a person's skin and at what point cells become life, we should just concede that we won't agree. To me, we're comparing apples and oranges.

                      A newborn infant cannot survive without "external forces," and neither can a person who has a pacemaker.

                      I get into this same argument with a lot of people.
                    • If we can't acknowledge a distinction in the difference between the color of a person's skin and at what point cells become life, we should just concede that we won't agree.

                      That you think the analogy is flawed in this respect is merely an acknowledgment that you don't think that the life in the womb has intrinsic value, which is the very point.

                      I get into this same argument with a lot of people. By "external forces", I mean hooked up to a machine involuntarily.

                      Just like a newborn.

                      A newborn can be lef
                    • Just like a newborn.

                      Huh? A newborn doesn't have to be hooked up to anything in order to survive. Plenty of people that live in the middle or nowhere give birth just fine without modern technology.

                      So you're saying only the ones that can survive this way are lives. And that's stupid. Rethink it.

                      I'm saying that there's a certain point at which a group of cells becomes viable life. If a newborn comes out with a birth defect, I would still consider that life. However, if you remove a fetus at 5 months,
                    • A newborn doesn't have to be hooked up to anything in order to survive.

                      Many do.

                      I'm saying that there's a certain point at which a group of cells becomes viable life. If a newborn comes out with a birth defect, I would still consider that life. However, if you remove a fetus at 5 months, that entity is not a life. Potential for life, but not a life.

                      Your line is *entirely* arbitrary. There is no basis in logic for it, whatsoever. You're just making it up as you go along.

                      My nephew was born after only
                    • Your arbitrary line is based in pure ignorance.

                      Okay, don't insult my intellect because I have a differing opinion. The same could be said for your arbitrary line. Are you going to start condoning masturbation because it's the murder of hundreds of potential children? Your line is just as arbitrary as mine.

                      My point through all of this is you can't prove when life starts, so why bother trying to justify an unprovable position? I have my opinion on it, you have yours. They're both arbitrarily chosen.

                      -
                    • Okay, don't insult my intellect because I have a differing opinion.

                      I didn't refer to your intellect at all.

                      The same could be said for your arbitrary line.

                      I have none.

                      Are you going to start condoning masturbation because it's the murder of hundreds of potential children?

                      "Condoning"? Do you mean "condemning"?

                      Your line is just as arbitrary as mine.

                      Again, I have no idea what line you're referring to and why you think it is arbitrary. Again, you're just making it up as you go along.
                    • I didn't refer to your intellect at all.

                      Saying...Your arbitrary line is based in pure ignorance...is insulting my intellect.

                      I have none.

                      Okay, now I'm confused. Aren't you drawing a virtual "line in the sand" at conception, stating that's where life begins?

                      "Condoning"? Do you mean "condemning"?

                      Yes, yes, ofcourse. Early morning typing.

                      Again, I have no idea what line you're referring to and why you think it is arbitrary.

                      I think your "line in the sand" at conception is arbitrary just as my "line
                    • Saying...Your arbitrary line is based in pure ignorance...is insulting my intellect.

                      No, it isn't. Everyone is ignorant. At worst, it insults your judgment, that you would speak from ignorance.

                      Okay, now I'm confused. Aren't you drawing a virtual "line in the sand" at conception, stating that's where life begins?

                      I didn't state that, did I?
                    • Carl Sagan was not exactly a pro-life scientist. But he had some good points in an analysis of the issue. Quoting:

                      A newborn baby is surely the same being it was just before birth. There 's good evidence that a late-term fetus responds to sound--including music, but especially its mother's voice. It can suck its thumb or do a somersault. Occasionally, it generates adult brain-wave patterns. Some people claim to remember being born, or even the uterine environment. Perhaps there is thought in the womb. It's

                    • I've never so much agreed with Sagan before. :-)
                    • We've been talking about the justification over whether or not a fetus is a life. I argued that it didn't have any intrinsic value until birth, and your argument, I assumed was that it did. If my assumption was wrong, correct me.

                      At what point does life start? That is, after all, the entire abortion argument, according to you.

                      --trb
                    • At what point does life start?

                      I don't know. And because I don't know, I advocate -- until we do know -- drawing the line as early as it might possibly be said that life begins, which objectively speaking must be somewhere between conception and when brain waves exist, for the moral imperative is to protect not that which we are certain is life, but life. So if we something might be life, then we are obligated to protect it, too.

                      And following that imperative, I learn more toward the earlier end of the s
  • Would it be possible to graph slashdot traffic from when the politics section began to after the election? I think the spike might be interesting.

    No Karma Bonus! Don't use you unlimited mod points against me unilaterally! :)
  • I've lived abroad and believe that not many countries would want to open their arms to a bunch of Americans running away because democracy didn't go their way. Isn't the whole point of democracy a peaceful transition of power determined by the people. As far as I can tell, the people chose the president by an overwhelming majority. I don't agree with that 51%, but they are my countrymen and this is our country's process.

    The thing that is interesting, though, is the same states in the last two elections
    • I don't agree with that 51%, but they are my countrymen and this is our country's process.

      Bingo. I see it as similar to the free market: the fact that things happen that you don't like is not to be discouraged, but expected, and if we all embrace it instead of fighting it, it makes us stronger. This is how it is supposed to work. Fight to win, but if you lose, embrace it, and know that in the end, the country will be just fine.

      The people out there who think we're going to hell in a handbasket because
  • If you think Bush is the worst Pres of the country, honestly, can one man do anything to significantly destroy the country? No. We have checks and balances to stop that. Its the major plus of our government.
    Sure, Reps own the presidency, congress, and some supreme justices, but with that, nothing 'really bad' is going to happen.

    If John Kerry was elected, things would have changed. But nothing 'significant' woulda changed. We would live our lives the same as we will in the next four years.

    Really, p

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