Thursday, June 12, 2008

what are we? a nation of 3rd graders?

mcsame. nobama. hillbilly.

we wouldn't tolerate our children calling others names, but somewhere along the way, they get smart enough to call people names out of earshot of adults. and then they get "reasonable" again, when they realize that other kids can "tattle."

so now... is the internet your safe haven from your parents? or is it simply because your parents can't ground you anymore?

i'm sure you're proud of yourself for being so cool. the name is funny. it's clever. it's insulting to the candidate you're trying to insult. it makes your friends laugh.

and yes, the country should value political opinions from people who are that juvenile.

***

i have to admit, though, "hillbilly" gets me every time. not for political reasons, though. it gives me a mental image of bill clinton as a billy goat. not sure why. once the billy goat shows up, though, politics goes away, and the drain on my faith in humanity goes out of sight for a while. i'd like to braid that billy goat goatee...

on a separate note, i considered ending the rant by calling the name-callers a name, but the irony just isn't that funny. am *i* growing out of name calling?

asshat. wanker. twat. dickwad.

oh, good. i had me worried there for a second.

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

on sexism

yes, sexism is more accepted, and possibly more prevalent than racism. and, in both cases, it actually goes both ways. but women accept sexism much more readily, as long as it's in their favor. ladies' night, for example. if i held a "black people night" at a club, where black people get in for free, said "black people" would likely be insulted, and it would be called discriminatory. ladies' night, on the other hand, is pretty accepted.

however, i agree that it is much more societally acceptable to say "i am not voting for hillary because she is a woman" than it is to say "i am not voting for obama because he is black." (of course, i'm speaking of the "elite" society where we actually know things like... there's a difference between obama and osama.) and i think that's a shame -- discrimination is discrimination no matter what you're discriminating on.

but i'm also reading (from hillary supporters) about how criticism for hillary not conceding is somehow sexist because it asks hillary to bow down to obama, who happens to be a man.

sexism is not, by definition, the suppression of females. sexism is to ask that males and females be treated differently. the expectation that she'd concede, given the circumstances, is no different than if a man had lost to obama--and no different than would be expected of obama had clinton won the nomination, yet they condemn it. who's sexist?

it's like trying to play football with the neighborhood boys. they're more likely to let girls play if they don't pout and ask for special treatment when they lose. and the same goes for the boy that pouts and cries when he loses.

"equality" does not mean that we give women an advantage so we can catch up. it means we treat women and men equally.

to me, hillary's behavior (and lack of ability to even run her own campaign properly, much less show that she can run a country) is a bigger disappointment than her loss. she does not represent my gender, and i do not want her to reflect on my gender. we can only hope that her campaign does not reflect negatively on any future female candidate.

***

lest you confuse my disapproval with elitism, i'd like to point out that i do not, for one second, believe that i would make a better president than hillary would. she is infinitely more qualified than i am, and i do respect her for that.

the truth is that, at the beginning of the primary season, i would have been happy with clinton, obama, or edwards--whoever came out victorious in the primaries would be okay with me. as long as a democrat got to appoint the next supreme court justices, i'd have counted it as a win for me. i leaned towards edwards because i was afraid that racism and sexism might ultimately lead obama or clinton to lose the general election, but i would have happily voted for any of the above (and this is not to say that i wasn't excited to see a woman or a black man elected president... i was just afraid that the country would not be ready for that. to be honest, i still am).

as the election season wore on, however, clinton proved herself more and more unworthy of the potus title. she couldn't handle finances for her own campaign, and didn't know where all of her money had gone (yet claimed that she could help the entire country's economic situation). she claimed that she'd be better equipped to answer emergency phone calls at 3am, yet (bill?) attributed months of false statements (and vehemently defending those statements) about sniper fire to "sleep deprivation."

in a move i'm shocked that no main stream media source (the same msm that hillary supporters purport to be so viciously anti-hillary) has really slammed her for, she claimed she was a champion for the disenfranchised, even though she'd agreed to disenfranchise florida and michigan in the first place. she even claimed that pledged delegates could be courted (effectively disenfranchising those whose votes the delegates are meant to represent), and that the super delegates should give her the nomination, as she is "more electable," even if the electorate voted otherwise. to this end, she even went as far to claim that she held the lead in the "popular vote" at a time when the only way to mangle the numbers to support the statement was to disenfranchise those whose states held caucuses rather than primaries. viewing these inconsistent stances together, it becomes clear (at least to me), that she is not champion of the american people: she is a champion of her own victory.

had hillary won, i probably would have still voted for her in november. there was a time when i thought mccain might be viable (for my views), but it looks more and more like he'd appoint justices along his party lines, and not as the true moderate he was before running for president. do i want that woman to be president? hell no. but i think, in the end, she would have been better than the alternative. from a girl who would have happily voted for clinton to one who would begrudgingly vote for her, only because she'd be better than the alternative.

and no, i have no been drinking obama's kool-aid (i've never understood this kool-aid thing--i assume they mean propaganda, and are not referring to as akin to, say, watermelons. i really hope so). my view of clinton is not based on obama's words (or even his supporter's words)--it is based on her actions. i also believe obama has deep flaws--but at least he was able to run a proper campaign without loaning himself millions every few months. i doubt that can be disputed.

hillary... i am deeply disappointed that your actions may have set back women's equality. i was excited at the prospect of voting for you. now i'm just dreading seeing you again.

p.s. your campaign has deeply hurt your husband's legacy. i am disappointed by bill's behavior as well, and i honestly wonder if he was intentionally trying to sabotage your campaign. you might want to look into it.

hrc will win as an independent?

i keep seeing people spout opinions that hillary should run as an independent, and that she'd win handily if she did so.

are these people delusional?

let's do the math, and let's do it in a pro-hillary way.

president bush's approval rating is currently ~28% (i believe that's the lowest quote i can find). let's assume everybody else (72%) will vote for a democrat. i have a hard time believing this is true, so i consider this an assumption in hillary's favor.

and let's say hillary wins the popular vote among democrats. let's say she wins it by a 60-40 split. this is more than what she received during the primaries, whether you count florida, michigan, and caucuses or not, so i consider this an assumption in hillary's favor as well.

doing the math, .72*.6 gives you a popular vote percentage of... 43% but against obama's 29 and mccain's (bush-approving) 28, that's a win, right?

***

now let's look at this realistically. there are republicans who disapprove of bush, but are still republican, and mccain, while associated with bush by party, isn't exactly a hard-core bush-ite. it's not like we've got rove or condi running here. democrats will likely not get 72% of the popular vote, regardless of how unhappy the country is with the current administration.

knowing that the republican primary ended months earlier, the turnout is understandably low, but at 20 million before idaho, the republican primary voters still outnumber those who voted for either hillary or obama. assuming hillary got over 18 million votes, she's still about 2 million short of mccain's potential base.

i understand the desire to have one's candidate be president (isn't that the point of the whole thing?). unfortunately, there are some sore losers out there who are trying to talk hillary supporters into either voting for mccain outright (out of spite?) or voting for hillary as an independent (essentially contributing to a mccain win by drawing votes from blue to red).

if you're a clinton supporter for any reason other than "she's a clinton" or "she's a woman," an obama presidency is closer to what you want than a mccain presidency. don't forget: a president's job does not include creating policy (unless you're george w bush and you decide that you're allowed to expand your job). a president approves or disapproves policy, acts as a figurehead to our country, and (and please, please take note of this), appoints people to positions. positions like, say, supreme court justices.

cut off your nose to spite your face, and you'll have to pay for it the rest of your life.