To Supersoulty and John Ford

[MarkDel]

Below is a quote from Supersoulty from another thread. Having read it, I immediately was taken back in time to my middle 20's when I came to many of the same negative conclusions, so I have some advice for Supersoluty, and to a lesser extent, John Ford. This may also be applicable to some other young Republicans here as well.

SUPERSOULTY SAID:

"John Ford's recent posts and the failure of the Bush Administration to sink the Kerry Campaign in spite of innumerable oppertunity have brough me to a realization:

Bush will lose.

Let's face it:

Kerry will win.

Republicans will lose the Senate.

The House will fall in '06.

Kerry will pull out of Iraq in 1 year, leaving a mess there.

Kerry will "make amends" with the UN.

Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Rice, et all will be tried with war crimes and Bush will be executed as such.

The country will head down the toilet.

Conservatives will be basically outlaws and will be either totally shunned or "treated for there disease".

I am almost convinced that there is nothing we can do about it now."

My comments to you, Ford and others are as follows. Both of you guys asked me why I left Politics over a decade ago when it seemed like I actually had a future...well...the answer is in the rhetoric that has come from your mouths the past two days. You are now walking in MY FOOT STEPS...these are the same type of thoughts I had about the Republican Party and my fellow Republicans back in late 1992 and early 1993 when through their stubborness and inability to hold party discipline, they subjected me and this nation to the CANCER that is Bill Clinton. We did not need to lose that election, and we lost more than they won, believe me. This next paragraph is crucial...

At some point, I realized that I was surrounded by gutless, selfish cowards in the Republican Party...AND THEY WERE THE GOOD GUYS! Having worked on Capitol Hill, I saw first hand the twisted and perverted vision of America that most in the Democratic Party were pushing...that party was and IS a CANCER in America. I actually found it difficult to believe that the Democratic Party was FAR WORSE than any stereotype I had of them as a young Reagan Republican in high school. What I saw on Capitol Hill made me realize that Republicans MUST prevent the Democrats from dominating the country or the long term prognosis for this nation is TERMINAL. And then I watched my fellow Republicans put their own needs, insecurity and self-doubt over the need for party unity. I saw them act as a pathetic cowards when it came time to play hardball politics, or at least defend themselves from GUERILLA WARFARE POLITICS as served up by our Democratic foes.

And so, I lost my FAITH...as you two are doing right now. It happened at a younger age for you guys, mainly because communications and 24-hour news cycles forced you to "grow up" faster than I did.

So my suggestion to you is as follows:

1. Do what I did...drop out and focus all of your energy on your personal life.

2. HAVE FUN...enjoy it while it lasts because this nation is DOOMED. It will either fall from within over the long haul as Demoncrats erode economic and social freedom, or it will happen even sooner if their Utopian foreign policy allows nuclear and/or chemical holocaust...one of the two results is inevitable as long as the Republican Party is filled with spineless pr*cks who are not willing to fight fire with fire in the political realm.

3. Make a lot of money. Money can insulate you to some extent from the attacks on your personal and economic freedom. Work for yourself if possible, then you avoid the political correctness of the work place, and your limit your interaction with people who you do not care to see.

4. Avoid politics if at all possible. From 1994 to 1999, I pretty much ignored as much as I could, and I was happier for it. Once you accept the fact that the BAD GUYS will eventually win, it makes it easier to enjoy what time you have. The only thing that brought me back to politics is that George W. Bush gave me hope again...and now I wish he hadn't because despite any of his efforts, there is no way the Left Wing Democrats can be stopped over the long haul. Get used to the idea...stockpile as many weapons as you can while they are still legal (which won't be more than 10-15 years) and buy a house that is easily defended.

5. Don't make the selfish mistake of starting a family like I did...you are only bringing a child into a world that will be, AT BEST, unpleasant, and at worst, intolerable. With Bush in the White House and seemingly headed for another term, I allowed my former optimism to cloud my better reasoning and I decided to bring a child into this world...it was wrong of me to be that naive and that selfis. No child deserves to grow up in a world where Michael Moore is a hero and Dick Cheney is a villain...

And on that note, I bid all of you here at this forum a very fond FAREWELL. I can only say that it was fun at times, and depressing for much of my stay here. And for those of you Democrats who think my view of your party is harsh, i assure you that I am cleaning things up when I post on this forum, my actual view of your party is indeed more negative than I have posted here for reasons of decorum.

There are actually a few people here who I like enough to remain in contact with via e-mail, so they can feel free as they pretty much know who they are.

[The Duke]

Defeat is never inevitable.  In the war and here at home, we have already won.  The enemy just doesn't know it yet.

Don't be fooled by their attempts to seem invincible.  They are like the Wizard of Oz.  Nothing but small people hiding behind curtains.

[migrendel]

My God, this is like Nixon's speech after he lost the governor's race in 1962, except much more pessimistic.

[Brambila]

MarkDel, good speech. I'm glad some people are realizing the coming civil war in America.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

This is utterly ridiculous.

The fights for the hearts, minds, and culture of America will not happen in Washington.  It will happen in on our TV shows, our movies, our workplaces, churches, and schools.  Those are the fronts of this war.  The Republicans and Democrats do not shape what America is or has been.  They merely react.

The fact of the matter is, we are becoming more lazy, more dishonest, less willing to fight and stand up for what's right, more lascivious, more nihilistic, more faithless, and more indifferent.  This has nothing to do with the Democrats, and is nothing that the Republicans can fix.  To their credit, the Democrats have actually resisted the erosion of our country - just less so than the Republicans have.

We are going to have a socialist welfare state - because people are so lazy that they want to screw off and have their lifestyle guaranteed.  We are going to have a smaller and less effective millitary - because people no longer are willing to fight.  We are going to abandon the world to the whims of evil men, because we are indifferent to the plight of others.  We are going to have media that caters to the worst common denominator of voyeurism, titillation, and smut, because we no longer have the will to fight the darkness in our own souls.  We are going to reduce this country's social institutions to completely meaningless and transient relationships, because we no longer value being faithful to one another.

Whether we elect Bush or Kerry will have no bearing on this.  What Washington does is a symptom, not the problem.  If you want to stop this, you must enact change in those around you.  Morality trickles up, not down.

[12th Doctor]

Mark,

I am fine now, I just had one of my moments of extreme doubt last night.  I get those occationally, but so did Lincoln and Adams, so I guess it isn't that bad.

What makes these things worse is that all my friends and family look to me to reassure them that Bush will win in Nov.  While I constantly have to reassure others, there is never anyone there to reassure me.  All I ever see is Bush bashing.

[Akno21]

I am curious how the Democrats/Liberals take away social freedom. You could make a valid point that economic freedom is being taken away by Democrats, but social freedom.

Good "speech" if you call it that. I'll spare pointing out the normal Clinton stuff, but I did notice you seemed to imply that the Democrats were the big, bad powerful, guys who were going to take over the world. Right now, Republicans control everything, federal, local, state, courts, part of media, etc. Our hole in the Senate will get deeper this year, with us losing many seats in the South, the Reagan/Bush years set the courts up Conservative for years to come. My point, is Republicans control this nation, and although we may agree the country is doomed, it won't be because of a Liberal take-over, because I have no faith in my party to win at anything important.

I fear a world where filmmakers are subject to immense criticism and deemed villians by some, but the leaders of our government can get away with acts far worse than those committed by William Jefferson Clinton or Michael Moore.

[Akno21]

MarkDel, good speech. I'm glad some people are realizing the coming civil war in America.

Yes, eventually a major conflict will break out, and if/when it does, I will fight for my ideals.

[Beet]

There is only one solid prediction here, that guns will no longer be legal in 15 years.

This is dead wrong.

[dazzleman]

MarkDel,

I hope you will reconsider your decision to leave the forum.  You've been one of the more fun guys around here, and of course it helps that I agree with most of what you say.

I share your low regard for the Democratic party.  But we need intelligent and articulate spokespeople for the opposing point of view to be out there engaging people, rather than sulking.

Have a drink on me, man.

[Nym90]

I agree, Akno. If America is going to be destroyed, it would be by big money more than anything...see my first post in my thread about "Why I'm a Democrat". Sorry I keep referring people to that thread in others, but I wrote so much there that it covers a lot of ground.

Democrats actually want a morally consistent foreign policy that opposes ALL dictators, not just those that big business deems worthy of going after. We want a foreign policy that does not coddle some dictators while going after others.

Well, at least I do....

[dazzleman]

I agree, Akno. If America is going to be destroyed, it would be by big money more than anything...see my first post in my thread about "Why I'm a Democrat". Sorry I keep referring people to that thread in others, but I wrote so much there that it covers a lot of ground.

Democrats actually want a morally consistent foreign policy that opposes ALL dictators, not just those that big business deems worthy of going after. We want a foreign policy that does not coddle some dictators while going after others.

Well, at least I do....

I think your view is overly simplified.

First off, it has seemed to me for a long time that Democrats don't really have a problem with dictators, as long as they are anti-American.  Liberal democratic fawning over Fidel Castro is a perfect example of this.

Even if we forget that for a moment, some people don't like to acknowledge that the choices available are often between two poor options, and while we must pick the least bad (rather than best) option, even the least bad option will have some disadvantages.  This was the case with our support of the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, and is the case with our continued support of, and "alliance" with, the Saudi royal family and the Pakistanis.

I don't suggest that Democrats or Republican have ever made all the best choices, but I don't think we can pretend that a blanket platitude of opposing all dictators equally is going to lead to the best results.

[The Duke]

I think the pro-America democrats like Nym and a lot of others here want to beleive that their party hasn't been taken over by crazies.  I don't know how to tell them this, but that just isn't so.

[dazzleman]

I think the pro-America democrats like Nym and a lot of others here want to beleive that their party hasn't been taken over by crazies.  I don't know how to tell them this, but that just isn't so.

The Democratic party was taken over by anti-American elements in the 1960s.  They have since learned to shave and put on a suit, but their underlying push for destructive radical change at home, and weakness and military vulnerability abroad, has not changed.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I don't see how Nym is "pro-America" and the "crazies" aren't since he's not much less liberal than me and I'm assuming I count as one of the "crazies", even though I don't hate America, I just hate most pro-America dictators since they are most right wing. All right wing dictators must be destroyed. I'd like to see the Sultan of Brunei's head on a pike and the Saudi Royal Family lying dead on top of the dead Chinese premiers.

[Nym90]

Well, John Kerry is not an anti-American crazie, sorry to break it to you. Say what you want about him, but he's not anti-American, and does not hate his country. You can argue that his policies are wrong, but I can't see how anyone can say that he's not a patriotic American.

So no, the left wing crazies who hate America haven't taken over the party; if they did, we'd be nominating them for President. Someone like Kucinich would've won the nomination. Even Kucinich doesn't hate his country, even though he is clearly a left wing extremist. He's very misguided, but still not evil.

And I don't exactly see liberals fawning over Castro. I certainly strongly oppose him, and I know all mainstream Democrats (Kerry and other party leaders) don't support him. You can't hold the actions of a few radicals against all Dems.

On the other hand, big business does control the Republican party. Money can be a very powerful thing. The fact of the matter is that the GOP supports big business on EVERY issue, including their positions on foreign policy.

Well, I do think that we should always support democracy and oppose dictatorship. If you disagree, that's fine, but I think that American foreign policy should oppose all dictators and support their replacement with democracy. We shouldn't have allies of convenience; history should have told us by now that strategy doesn't work. We prop up dictators out of convenience at the time, and in the long run it comes back to bite us in the a**.

Now, at the time, Afghanistan didn't look as bad as the Russians, but in retrospect, I'd say Bin Laden was worse than the Soviet Union. I do think that the current threat of terrorism is worse than the threat from the Soviet Union, as bad as the Soviet Union clearly was. Likewise, one can question whether it was smart to be allies with the Soviets in our fight against facism in WW2...we slayed one monster only to create another in the process.

I'm not necessarily saying either of those decisions was wrong, we did what we had to do at the time, but eventually supporting dictatorships like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan will come back to haunt us. Dictators are never truly friendly to anyone. They are only allies with us out of convenience also, and will stab us in the back without thinking twice if they feel they can get away with it.

In order to truly defeat terrorism, we must promote democracy everywhere.

[dazzleman]

I don't see how Nym is "pro-America" and the "crazies" aren't since he's not much less liberal than me and I'm assuming I count as one of the "crazies", even though I don't hate America, I just hate most pro-America dictators since they are most right wing. All right wing dictators must be destroyed. I'd like to see the Sultan of Brunei's head on a pike and the Saudi Royal Family lying on top of each other dead.

But I take it you have no parallel concern about left-wing anti-American dictators like Fidel Castro?  And would you prefer a fundamentalist regime, like the Iranian regime, to replace the Saudi royal family?

Many liberals said the same thing about the Shah of Iran, but look at what we got in his place.  The funny thing about "right wing" dictators who are pro-American is that they tend to leave their neighbors alone, while anti-American dictators, like the Iranian and North Korean regimes, are aggressive and cause severe problems.

To say that you have pro-American dictators, but support anti-American dictators who are even more repressive, is plainly anti-American, whether you wish to call it that or not.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So dazzleman, do you support Pinochet and would've you have supported his overthrow of Allende, the democratically elected socialist leader of Chile? sounds like you're one of those types.

I consider Castro better than those because he has helped the people of Cuba. He has virtually ended poverty and homelessness. He has provided exemplenary healthcare and education for everyone. And he has set Cuba on the path to a democratic nation after he dies, as most of his parliment is much more moderate. Cuba is heading toward being the next Costa Rica, while if hte right wing Batista had been left in power, it'd still be just as bad as it was back then. So obviously Castro is superior to Batista.

And I would perfer having a group like the Kudistan Workers Party (yes I know there are few Kurds in Saudi Arabia, I'm just mentioning an Arab leftist group) to replace the Saudi royal family.

[Nym90]

No, I don't support anti-American dictators either. I have just as much concern for Castro as I do for any other dictator. I said I oppose them all, and mentioned Castro specifically.

I said I support the replacement of all dictators with democracy. I don't support replacing dictators with new dictators, no.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's the right that supports replacing democracy with dictators, see Chile 1973, or backing the pro-Somoza regime Contras over the democratically elected Sandinistas.

[Gabu]

Regarding this topic as a whole:

I don't know, I personally have a more optomistic view than most seem to.  I personally believe in an inherent but extremely repressed goodness in human beings that only gets expressed under great trauma but which ultimately will dictate what happens.

Just today where I live there was a woman being attacked and even shot at by her ex-husband because he hated her so much.  What did one bystander in a car do?  He got out of his car, ran up to her, grabbed her, put her into her car and rushed off to a hospital.  She survived, but they said she wouldn't have had he not done what he did, all at his own peril.  He didn't get anything out of it other than the satisfaction that he had saved her life.

A few days ago a woman was being assaulted in the street.  An onlooker noticed and rather than step aside he rushed to the person's help, taking a harsh beating himself, but saving the woman from any serious damage.  What did the man say about it, in spite of having been thoroughly beaten?  "I'd do it all again if I had to."  As for the perpetrator, he turned himself into the police because he felt shame and guilt for his crime.

What did the world do in the wake of 9/11?  Sure, there were a few shady people who took advantage of it, but the vast majority of people around the world all of a sudden forgot their differences.  For a day, no one in Manhatten was a stranger anymore.  There was a sense of mutual understanding and compassion between the vast majority of people, both directly affected and not.  Granted, this feeling went away with time, but it was capable of existing.

There have been times where I've seen George W. Bush with an advantage and I've lost heart dramatically.  I shake my head at it and tell myself that we're all going to hell in a handbasket.  But then I think about it, and we've been through four years of Bush and the world is still standing.  America is still a strong and proud nation.  The same can be said about any president that one might despise.  We forget in all the fervor or anger towards policies and actions that George Bush is not evil.  John Kerry is not Satan.  They're human and they make mistakes and may lie and be weasels, but they're not evil.  It may be better or worse times under one of them but life goes on.  The goodness in humans continues to exist.

There may, of course, be some setbacks for some people.  There may be problems that arise.  One president might do a much better job than another.  One might curb liberties in a way that many people don't like.  One might make actions that others don't like.  In the end, however, it doesn't really matter who wins the election.  As Clinton said in his speech, whether you like the guy or not, every time there's been a real, serious, undeniable problem, "we chose to build a more perfect union."

[Nym90]

I completely agree Gabu. I also am an eternal optimist who believes in the fundamental goodness of the human spirit and that people are essentially good at their core, not bad. I believe that people become bad due to how they are raised sometimes, as a defense mechanism against others or because it is how they are taught to be, but that they are basically good at heart. I do not believe that the world is going to hell in a handbasket at all. I think that things have gotten progressively better in the world over the course of human history, not worse, and that they will continue to get better in the future, no matter who wins. They'll just get better at a faster rate under my candidate, and progress will be delayed for a while under the other guy.

[freedomburns]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Oh God yes!  Oh please Lord don’t play with me, oh please let it be so.  Please please please please please please please!  I swear I will never eat fried cheese for breakfast ever again!
I swear!  


 

[freedomburns]

P.S.  The previous post was just to be funny, and only quotes the reference to the Dems winning.  

Honestly, I love MarkDel's postings on the board.  He is one of the smartest guys who posts here and he will be sorely missed if he is serious about throwing in the towel.  I will miss debating with him a lot.  Hopefully it is just a temporary thing to recharge his batteries, as are all swings toward the ends of the spectrums in this country temporary.  I've been waiting for ten years...  

All politics aside, I like the guy.  He espouses a unique and valued point of view.


Even more honestly, the Dems winning would not be such a great victory to me.  I am just playing for laughs this time.


"fried cheese"  lol  lol    ha ha ha  


chuckle

[TheWildCard]

Sorry to see you go MarkDel you're a good guy and I'm sorry to see you guy. Your opinions over the last few months have been very insightful.

Thanks for the memories and I wish you the best.