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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cage Rattler who wrote (1329)	10/5/2000 5:01:46 PM
From: cosmicforce	Respond to of 10042

If one looks at history, the removal of corruption has been a common theme of autocratic governments taking control. It is hard to say that a system of bribery is worse than a system of systematic removal of personal liberty. It is further ironic that flag-wavers have usually been the first ones to remove personal freedom to achieve some end. Look at the U.S. during the 50's. And I don't want to single out right wing flag-wavers. Left-wing flag wavers have the same general problem. Look at China for an example of that. By allowing our government to focus on a few, key, litmus-test issues, the real issues are ignored. Most people aren't that affected by these litmus-test issues. However, the churches, PACs and many other interest groups on the right and left are invested with increasing their power share. From my experience, most people want to be fair. They want to be kind. They don't want to be taken advantage of. But you know what, they are easily confused. By any of us playing into the "Gore did this" and "Bush did that" kind of nonsense that is passing for issues now, we get worse government. I'm going to vote for the candidate who IMO won't be stacking the court with more liberty-stealing people. It is the ultimate hypocrisy for almost anyone 30-60 years of age in this country to putting people into jail for crimes where one has to look pretty hard for a "victim". I have a friend who is a Columbian. Most people don't know that we have a standing army in Columbia. The "drug" war is actually a very complex maze of feudal fiefdoms with the center of the country being totally out of the hands of the "legitimate" government. An area the size of Maryland is not even really part of Columbia as a de facto matter. The people left holding the bag are the peasants who are victimized by all sides. If this is what we are going to let happen as a matter of foreign policy then we deserve what we get. And we will get more of it. Like the World Trade Center. We usually end up supporting the wrong side of most issues in the name of short term expediency. I for one am sick of the polarization and resent having to wade through one-liners instead of thoughtful discussion of the issues. The debates have gotten to be more and more staged and less and less informative. How on earth are people supposed to make up their mind when we focus on GWB's crack use or what Daddy Gore did on his farm. In the grand scheme of things these two "issues" don't matter one iota.