House of Eratosthenes

Having said that though…I’ve never disagreed with any of you on the point that if The Messiah wins, we are screwed. SCREWED. We’ve got to do whatever it takes to keep that from happening.

That’s the part I never got. It’s pretty clear that the two party system is stable. If you can’t swallow one of the two choices you are SOL. Given the choice between eating brussel sprouts and being bit by a dozen angry Black Widows, you had to think about it? I haven’t eaten any veggies in 19 years, but if those are the choices, more sprouts, please.
As a secondary consideration, I have never seen a Republican president perform worse then I expected, and I have never seen a Democrat president live up to expectations. Given the choice between maybe being pleasantly surprised and an almost guaranteed soul crushing disappointment, I’m going with the Republican. Thanks again for posting, and I hoping McCain surprises us pleasantly. He’s done so twice now, and that gives a line to plot. Keep your fingers crossed!
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 09/01/2008 @ 00:16
And as I’ve pointed out before, people like you, owe people like me, for HER.

Joe Lieberman doesn’t look nearly as cute, and if John McCain slept soundly at night this whole time about his “base” support, Lieberman’s the guy you’d have.

So you’re welcome.
- mkfreeberg | 09/01/2008 @ 01:23
Thanks again for your thoughts sir. To continue the dialogue, I don’t think people like you made “Her” happen, and I don’t care that much for “Her”. She’s good, but she’s not my dad, so meh. It’s politics, not the prom. As to “people like you”, you all were quite public about your schoolboy crush on Fred. If McCain thought about your faction at all, he was worried about how much Palin would piss you off, and what he could do about it.

Second, you haven’t answered my question. Buying into the McCain Lieberman ticket(which I never did. Lieberman was a good choice for Obama…..), it’s still a barium enema vs. plutonium pellets injected into the body by KGB umbrella. How is unpleasant even a choice compared to dead, when it comes to protecting the people you love?
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 09/01/2008 @ 10:43
Well, on this point we run into an unpleasant truth about me. I live in California, so the question “which would you rather have” is rather a moot point here. California is blue, no two ways about it. It’ll go for Obama. So “How Morgan Votes” really isn’t the critical issue you make it out to be.

Since my vote is an expression of who finds agreement with me, nothing more & nothing less, I simply don’t want to vote for a ticket that doesn’t agree with me. It doesn’t make sense for me to do so — just to make sure a Republican wins — when California’s 50-some-odd EV’s aren’t going in that direction anyway.

And on global warming (depending on which side of the bed McCain wakes up on), illegal aliens, offshore drilling (again, depending on the old man’s mood)…I just don’t agree with him. There’s nothing for me to get past, because there’s no prize that awaits me for doing so.
- mkfreeberg | 09/01/2008 @ 12:36
Ah…… You have not internalized your role as an agent of influence. That makes perfect sense. Thank you. How very Yin of you…..
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 09/01/2008 @ 12:49
Mind you, the Golden State *does* go to special pains for the approval of the fairer sex. So now my hopes are sky-high. Not that high (as I’ve said; a red California??). But they’re pretty high. I’m feelin’ good. 🙂
- mkfreeberg | 09/01/2008 @ 12:52
Not that out of line, either. I recall California being regularly red until a certain Republican Governor ran an anti-illegal immigrant campaign……
- Robert Mitchell Jr. | 09/01/2008 @ 13:17
California is blue, no two ways about it.

Well… SFO (and its bedroom communities) and Ell-Eh are Blue, no two ways about that. But the hinterlands are red, red, red. It’s a population distribution problem, among other things (and I won’t go there, re: “other things”). Still and even, I’m hoping CA goes red just ONE time before I die. I wouldn’t put money on it, though.

I disagree with you on Lieberman. McCain might cherish his role as a self-styled maverick, but the man ain’t stupid. Don’t ever forget that ol’ saying: “There are old fighter pilots, and there are bold fighter pilots. But there ain’t NO such thing as an old, bold fighter pilot.”
- Buck | 09/01/2008 @ 16:49
I’m sorry I just have to laugh on this one. There’s a McCain/Palin thing on the blog that no one reads, and has nothing but trouble with McCain. Regardless of how or why, his choice, and the respnse, is funny.
- Allen L | 09/01/2008 @ 21:13
Oh, McCain’s been a good, close friend to conservatism this spring and summer. A fair-weather friend, that is — for the last six months he’s had more to gain by being associated with it, than to lose. That’ll change in the next sixty days. And sorry, some of you I consider to be good friends, but a lot of you who’ve been twisting my arm about him…you just have confirmation bias about his supposed conservatism. I’ve thrown out a lot of good arguments about why his credentials should at least be subjected to some sort of question, and you’re not willing to hear it.

You have to appreciate how I define “conservatism” to see where I’m coming from. Debating it, to me, is like debating down-being-down and water-being-wet. We debate minimum-wage, and if the democrats want to raise it by a buck and the Republicans want to raise it by fifty cents, McCain’s one of these compromisers who’ll say “I know! Let’s hike it by seventy-five cents!” To the amateur, lazy mind, it seems like an effective compromise. But refer to the More Serious Voter Test to see what I think about it; the debate we should be having about it, is entirely different, and a real conservative would be bringing it up.

So you see, McCain had to make this appointment. Sarah Palin can really “reach across the aisle.” She can address someone who isn’t initially sympathetic to conservative principles, and explain why they make sense. That’s what’s needed. McCain’s tendency is more to take turns, do things the other side’s way half the time. Yes, you’re right Buck, the man ain’t stupid. It’s worked well for him. But that’s just because half the time, the New York Times just loves him to pieces. And believe me, they’ll make sure when the chips are down, it won’t pay off for The Maverick because they’ll throw their support behind his opponent. Like Ann Coulter said, they think he’s much cuter.
- mkfreeberg | 09/01/2008 @ 22:48
Good grief, you know you’re right everything is dead serious, there is no humor, everything is downhill.

You are right, you are a voter that can never be reached, and then you wonder why you are not being reached out to. In the parlance of politics, “single candidate voter.”
- Allen L | 09/02/2008 @ 02:18
Well yes, you’re right, you were just dispensing humor and perhaps I reacted a little bit heavy-handedly. It’s a situation you have to expect when you’re participating in a “horseshoe” configuration of three against one; some of your compatriots do not see this as a joking matter. And, when one seriously ponders the ramifications of a four- or eight-year Obama administration, it doesn’t very much inspire comedy, now does it?

You look at other elections that have been going on up until now, and what I see happening is — the Republicans continue to win, more than they lose. And yet, the nation continues to become more and more stridently left-wing. So to me, the ideological drift of the country is one thing, the label on the cap of the guy in the White House, “R” or “D”, is a completely different thing. How come the conservatives win 5 times out of 7 in the label war, and lose about that often in the substance war?

I think the liberals agree with me about the value of ambiguity in politics. They look at their friends, like Bill Clinton and Cindy Sheehan and Barack Obama, and say to them “we’re just not that sure about youuuuuu….” And then they look at their supposed sworn enemies, like McCain, and say the same thing. Both sides jump through hoops to do what the liberals want. For this reason, and this reason alone, we get things introduced into the public discourse, and sometimes policy that are suitable only for fairy tales. We shouldn’t even be thinking about ’em, let alone enacting them. Like a good energy policy is to burn food and leave the fuel in the ground. Or that it violates the Eighth Amendment to execute you after you’ve killed someone, if your I.Q. is low. Or that it’s a good thing when there are seventy languages in one school system. Or…or…or.

Conservatives, somehow, feel this need to declare loyalty at the earliest possible stage, and never waver. They think this gets the message across. I can appreciate why people think that at first. But over time, it just doesn’t work.

Of course the politicians like it. They like it because the declared loyalty means the politician doesn’t have to spend effort appealing to that person anymore; the politican can therefore kiss the rear ends of others. That’s what I mean by “in politics, if you want to decide things, DON’T.” As I’ve said before — I’ve become a broken record on all this stuff, I know — it has special meaning for me because of the state in which I live. Republicans will not campaign out here…democrats won’t either. It would be a waste of time for both of them. Well, that’s metaphorical for how politicians treat people.

Sorry Allen, you’re right. I should’ve provided better reception to your good humor. I’ve been in a back-and-forth with some others on this thing, and I think we’re all agreed, the stakes are high here.
- mkfreeberg | 09/02/2008 @ 08:27
Thanks Morgan, glad to see your on board now.
- tim | 09/02/2008 @ 08:47
Consider my support pencilled in.

And, let’s hope those in charge don’t forget what they did just before they got it.
- mkfreeberg | 09/02/2008 @ 09:41

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