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Political Yard Sign Wars Wage as Election Nears
gollum123 writes "Yahoo has a story on how tension among bitterly divided voters is translating into a barrage of attacks on political targets that can't talk back - yard signs. Campaign signs depicting support for either President Bush (news - web sites) or Democratic challenger John Kerry (news - web sites) are being burned, chopped down, spray-painted and commonly, stolen away in the dark of night. Though sign shenanigans are common in election years, some Republican leaders are calling this year's activity unprecedented. Democratic leaders say attacks are so rampant that supporters should take their yard signs inside at night to protect them. Has anyone on /. had such an experience."
Because, unlike you, they are informed of the fact that one of the two men will surely win. There are at least some differences between them, and anyone informed on the issues will prefer one of them over the other.
Actually, the differences are enormous in many important areas. In fact, about half the important areas. Your being only halfway informed explains why you can't see it.
"Wow. Now THAT'S a lot of angry Indians." - Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer
The relationship between a political party and its supporters is at time a troublesome one. I firmly believe that you should support a party only so long as you share idealogies with them. However some people support parties so wildly, and believe so strongly that the political party starts becoming part of their identity. As such an attack on that party, is viewed as a personal attack. We see this in soccer hooliganism in europe. Think about yourself, do you think of yourself as a "republican" or a "democrate" or do you merely support certain ideas of the that party. Of course, political parties encourage this sort of behaviour. It allows them to change their views and still remain supported.
Also in this election has been billed as of the highest importance. The very course of human existence depends on the result in November. I am very concerned about the election result this year, but not at the extent of destroying private property, or otherwise resorting to violence. I may be underestimating the importance of this election, but if Bush wins, its only for four years.... This is a truism, regardless of whether you are the furtherest right conservative or the left enough to make Ghandi blush.
You know what? I'm really sick of ignorant people saying "both candidates suck, I shall weep".
I'm a fairly moderate Democrat, and you know what? Kerry doesn't suck. Neither did Al Gore. Neither did John McCain. I happen to really dislike George W Bush, but if I was a fairly hardcore right-wing conservative, I'd imagine I'd be pretty pissed to hear you say that he sucks.
Are they perfect, flawless, shining crystals of purity? No, they're mother-effing human beings who are probably trying to do what they feel is right, most of the time. (That is, when they aren't compromising to reach consensus. Yes, it happens. No, it's not bad.)
I'm sick of reading bitchy posts and hearing bitchy comments about how "oh, all the candidates are bad", and "I'm not going to vote". If you really feel the candidates are that bad, go to the polls anyway. Write in a vote for "NONE OF THE ABOVE", or maybe even the third party candidate of your choice. Badnarik, Nader, whoever--votes for those guys are how the parties realize they need to appeal to those platforms.
If we as young voters all pitch in and at least make an EFFORT to vote (even if they're throwaway votes for Nader or something), then our power as voters goes up. Then, maybe candidates will talk to the 18-28 demographic rather than blathering on about health care. (That sort of talk is all very well and good for Grandma but generally not too important to a 24-year-old.)
So go take a civics class or something and stop your complaining.
[insert witty sig here]
Power to you if you think voting for the lesser evil is actually reversing the downward spiral tho.
Robert Heinlein had it right - you can tell a society is on the skids when basic politeness is viewed as weakness, and rudeness is viewed as strength. /me looks around pointedly at the /trolls
It never ceases to dismay me how people can scream about how *their* right of "free speach!" is being infringed, and then turn right around and infringe upon the free speech of others.
Supporting the speech of those with whom you agree is NOT supporting free speech. Supporting the right of speech of those with whom you vehemetly disagree IS supporting free speech.
You may feel that Candidate Epsilon-1 is perfection incarnate, and that Candidate Epsilon-2 is distilled evil - if you go around taking down signs for Epsilon-2 you are NOT supporting democracy.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I think there are a couple of reasons this is happening. One is that people feel denied their right to dissent. This is what happens when you create "free speech zones" miles out of the way, suppress dissenting opinions and information as unpatriotic, and kick people out of Presidential events for wearing T-shirts you don't agree with. Another is that George W. Bush has polarized the nation to a degree that has rarely been seen before. He claims to do God's work, but it seems to me that all he's managed to do is spread hate: the Democrats hate the Republicans, the Republicans hate the Democrats, the Sunnis, Shiites, and Al Qaeda members in Iraq hate the American occupiers, America hates France, the whole world hates America... listen, I'm not religious in the least, but if I understand things right, Jesus and God are supposed to be about love. All this fear and hatred that Bush incites- if he's getting his directions from somebody, it ain't the guy upstairs, that's for sure. There's a line in the Bible that sums this up pretty well: "and ye shall know them by the fruit they bear". Seems to me Bush has given us a bitter harvest.
My favorite:
Yup, anonymously attack his own client, so that people assume the opponents are doing it, making them look bad. This actually happens.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
That's a pretty good example of uninformed. What Bush's policies do not seem to get is that there are not a finite number of terrorists. Bombing a weapons cache in Iraq kills insurgents, but if you kill women, children, and innocents in the process, you can create as many insurgents as you kill. Furthermore, you'll turn the population against you. Mao said, the guerilla is a fish and the people are the sea: a successful guerilla war depends on popular support for the rebels; and that's what the tactics we are using so far are creating. Besides turning Iraq against us, the war has made the United States extremely unpopular throughout the Middle East. That's going to (a) encourage more people to join al Qaeda and related groups, (b) increase sympathy for these causes, creating the supportive population they need, and (c) make the United States so politically radioactive that no Islamic country can possibly cooperate with us against terror. Not to mention that we need to cooperate with other nations in Europe and elsewhere to prosecute the war on these terrorist organizations, however we've alienated our allies.
How else has he screwed up? Okay, first, 9/11. The outgoing Clinton administration practically screamed at the Bush administration to pay attention to al Qaeda. What did the Bush administration do? They pursued the fantasy of National Missile Defense, a.k.a. Star Wars. Bush did nothing on terror when it would have counted: before 9/11. The Afghanistan invasion is (pretty much everyone will agree) a good move, but we've screwed things up quite a bit since and the warlords control most of the country, and bin Laden is still out there (remember him? Guy who blew up the World Trade Center?). Well, then Iraq. Brilliant invasion. Problem is, it was totally unjustified. So the U.S. has pretty much zero credibility these days. The other problem- no strategy to win the postwar environment. The first major screwup was not putting in enough troops- we needed about 300,000 and they put in 100,000. The second was not stopping the looting (except of the oil ministry). That made the Iraqis extremely distrustful of our motives (and it should). Another major mistake was disbanding the military. Yeah, it was corrupt and criminal, but there were thousands of people trained to use weapons who we could have had shooting insurgents, instead of becoming insurgents. Other screwups? Well, shutting down Sadr's newspaper was dumb. Having him print nasty stuff about us was bad, but preferable to having his army shoot at us with rocket propelled grenades. And of course, Fallujah. The US was provoked into a response, against the advice of the officers on the ground. Once the assault got underway, the Bush administration got cold feet and flip-flopped because of the civilian casualties: again, against the advice of the officers who were there. So that just made the situation worse. Damn, there are so many it's hard to remember them all. Oh yeah, torturing people in Abu Ghraib. That's like an al Qaeda recruiter's wet dream. You couldn't invent propaganda that effective.
It's simple: the world is more dangerous under Bush. Arguably, he's a heck of a lot more dangerous than Osama bin Laden.
I don't understand why people think GW is doing a good job on terror. While we can agree he is doing *a* job on terrorism, I find it at best noisy and attention getting (don't forget, he was a college cheer leader), at worst brutal, uninformed and ineffective. If you've read the accounts of Richard Clarke, Woodward, Ron Susskind, etc and still think GW is doing fine, then I'm totally confused.
Kerry at least appears reasonable, hardworking and open minded, in a word normal, unlike the Bush who lacks experience (10 years ago he was an unsuccessful busisness man with no administrative experience), doesn't read and seems unwilling to learn or take advice outside his small insular circle. Even if Kerry's policy stands aren't exactly to your taste, his views are moderate and he seems much more willing to listen and compromise.
I you want to read a good account of Bush's presidency, try this article Without a Doubt by Ron Suskind in the New York Times.