Wednesday, February 25, 2004
I feel loved
Yes, it's true- I Miranda, most loveable human being of them all (hah) received... hate mail.
It's actually kind of funny, really. Although this is my first true hate letter, I expect it won't be the last, simply because anytime you address controversial issues such as I have, or basically anything to do with politics, not all people are going to agree with you. And that's okay- I readily accept that. But honestly, if you want to express you're opinion, is so hard to do it in a civil matter? Apparantly for some people it is.
Excerpts from the letter received from "Questing Bear" (who shall be referred to as "he")- also, any vulgarities have been edited-
Just a few questions? Do you know what it is like to feel community prejudice? Have you ever had to suffer from starvation because of your beliefs?
Umm as a matter of fact, I do know what it is feel community prejudice. Thankfully I haven't had to suffer starvation because of my beliefs because I live in a very wonderful country and my parents have worked very hard to provide a good life for myself and my family.
You know the really incredible fact is that the State of Texas is shaped like a Comode. You have the Hopper and the Back and the Drain headed towards the Gulf. Oh the next Question is obvious, What comes out of a Comode? STINK
Gasp!! I can't believe somebody out there actually doesn't like Texas, the greatest state of them all! He should apologize, he might have hurt her feelings.
You at this point don't want to listen about How the Populace of Waco Texas Burned Alive Jesse Washington in front of 15,000 Cheering Citizens of your Wonderful State. How your Wonderfull State Sacrifices to the Christian Baptist God of Faith in Jesus and Vengence 20 Human Beings as part of the Texas so called Justice System of Vengence in the Texas Death Machine in Huntsville.
Okay I've never even heard of Jesse Washington, not because I don't care but because I'm only 17 years old. Furthermore, I asked my step-dad if he had heard of him, and he hadn't either, and trust me, if it happened, he would know about it. So I'm not even sure "Questing Bear" knows what he's talking about either. Secondly, the death penalty has equal supporters and opposers from both sides of America, and as far as my wonderful (which he didn't even spell right) state of Texas, did it ever occur to him that, because of our facilities, other states send their convicted prisoners over here? Just because Texas is the state that exucutes the most executions doesn't mean we sentence the most. Also, what about the thousands of innocent victims of abortion who are sacrificed every year? What about the thousands of Americans who died on 9/11, all which could have been prevented if former president Bill Clinton had taken up Saudi Arabia's offer of handing him Osama bin Ladan on a silver platter, long AFTER he had been linked to the U.S.S. Cole and embassy bombings?
You know You and Your Facist Right Wing Beliefs are what is wrong with America. I probably would have been better if the South had Won the Civil War. America could do without your Racist Facist Bullsh**!
Huh? What in the world does he mean by he would be better if the South had won the Civil War? This kind of strikes me as funny, because it seems to me that right-winged republicans are the ones who would be most likely to say the same thing (just to clarify, that is not an indicator of my personal beliefs on the Civil War).
Racist? Facist? What a bunch of crap. I'm not even going to justify that one with an explanation, because it should be pretty obvious to anyone who either knows me or has truly looked into my site.
Go to Hell where you Belong!
Wow, I sure hope he's proud of himself for spewing out such horrible threats to a kid. That's just sad. I have a final question for you, Questing Bear- do you kiss your mother with that mouth? :D
Sunday, February 22, 2004
Final notes on Howard Dean
Sorry about this, but looking back on a post I realized that I never finished my speech on Howard Dean written shortly after the Iowa caucuses. If you will recall, it was entitled, "What factors caused Howard Dean to lost the Iowa caucuses?", and I summed it up into 3 points, the first being that he can't seem to make up his mind on what he believes, and secondly that he is just too liberal for some of his party's more moderate Democrats. So here goes, #3-
Point #3- His party does not believe he has the potential to beat Bush
In a poll conducted by Newsweek, a question was, "If the election were held tomorrow between George Bush and Howard Dean, who would you vote for?" Over 60% of those questioned stated they would most likely vote for Bush, with just over 30% for Dean. In a seperate poll conducted by Time, the question was, "Who do you think would win between Bush and Dean?" Before I reveal the results of this one, I would like to point out that the first question was asked of all people, regardless of political preference. This next one was asked only of registered Democrats. Anyways, as to who would win, over 70% believed Bush would win. Finally, as an example of the public's lack of confidence in Dean ousting Bush from office, most Republicans were actually HOPING that Dean would win, because they knew he would have no chance of beating Bush!!
So there you have it, why Dean lost Iowa. But now, we have to question, what about the rest of the primaries? What went wrong with them? As I'm sure you already know, Dean announced this last week that he "will no longer be pursuing the Democratic nomination". I almost- ALMOST- felt sorry for him, but I guess that's just because of my nature, I'm too kind-hearted I guess :) But seriously, I would have enjoyed watching Dean and Bush debate, especially as to because Bush would have blown him out of the water (at least in my opinion). However, I think the number one reason why Dean did not win ANY primaries or caucuses is because he did not win the first one. Too many people in this country don't bother to get to know the candidates or their issues, and aside from that, a lot of people want to vote for a winner. From the beginning, I have thought that ALL of the primaries, caucuses, whatever, should be done on the same day throughout the country, because it would be completely false to try to say that one state's outcome doesn't affect the others. So with that being said, it looks as if the Democratic nominee for 2004 will in fact be Mr. John Kerry from Massachusettes. I guess we'll just have to see what happens come November.
Great Link
All right, I don't know what's going on with my weblog hoster, but AGAIN yesterday, for the second time, I wrote a really good, long post and it just disappeared when I pushed the publish button! It was just a news round-up for the week, but dang, I spent a long time working on it! Oh well, maybe I'll try again later today.
But for now, the only thing I'm going to talk about at this moment is a great on-line student newspaper that a loyal reader pointed me to some time ago, an article written by himself in London entitled "Seven Lies About Bush". (I've been meaning to link this for some time, but haven't gotten around to it or remembered- sorry Alex.) Anyways, the author of this article, Alex, is a right-winged student from Britian, whom I have had the pleasure of talking with him a few times, and I must say those Brits can be pretty cool :)
So be sure to check it out, it's a great article that makes some very valid points concerning the public's opinion about President George W. Bush. I couldn't help myself, I posted a reply offering my opinions- but thanks to reader G-Man for directing me to this article.
Friday, February 13, 2004
Here I go again...
Okay those of you who have been following might remember that I promised not to talk about this issue again, but I feel it's a very important and controverial topic right now, and that is... (dun, dun, dun) gay marriage.
First of all, I'm not homophobic or anything. Yeah, I think it's kind of gross, but I do realize that gays have rights too, and in fact I even have a very good friend who is gay. I've told him, several times, that his homosexuality, while I don't agree with it, won't affect our friendship, as long as he doesn't go into details about his "relationships" (eww). So while I personally am against homosexuality, I don't think that every gay person is going to hell and they're all horrible people, because different things work for different people.
Now, onto gay marriage- one thing that some of the people pushing this have done is compared it to Texas' striking down on sodomy laws. Though this may be going against my conservative roots, I do feel that that particular law was out-of-date, and for the most part I believe that, in the privacy of your home, mind you, it is your choice of what goes in the bedroom (I also think that sex should be saved for marriage, but that's an entirely different subject which is irrelevant today- just thought I would get that out there).
So yes, gay people should be able to live together and do what they please- but I do NOT believe that they should be entitled to marriage.
Marriage is sacred, and should be reserved for traditional couples, that is 1 man and 1 woman. With marriage comes many benefits, insurance etc., and those too should be reserved for traditional unions.
Although I think this sort of matter should really be left up to individual states rather than a federal law, I believe a nation-wide approval or disapproval is really the easiest and best way to go in this case.
Why? Well basically if one state accepts it, then ALL states will be forced to, because of clauses in our laws which read that when a marriage is performed in one state, other states must recognize it.
BUT... during the Clinton administration, Bill Clinton signed the "Defense of Marriage Act", which said that states did NOT have to recognize gay marriages. Therefore, I think that a nation-wide law is what is needed in this case (preferably one against it).
If you want to be gay, that's your decision. Go to Vermont and get a "civil union" if that's what floats your boat. But you don't deserve to be reaping the benefits reserved for traditional marriages.
If you would like to read a more expert opinion on this matter, click here. You can also check my August archives for more of my thoughts on this.
Snow day!! (well kind of)
I woke up this morning with great news... school had been delayed because of icy roads! Which gave me an additional 2 hours to go back to sleep. :D
So at 8:30, I woke up (again), only to find out that... school was canceled all together!!! Yea!!! :D :D :D
Of course, there wasn't any actual snow... this is west Texas, remember. (But we did see some flakes yesterday about lunchtime.) Instead, we just have moisture that freezes and makes the roads literally undrivable. My step-dad, who is a county deputy, worked the night shift last night and ended up having to stay an extra 4 hours because of all the accidents... not good. But I got a day off that was spent doing some much-needed resting and relaxing. Of course, that kind of puts a damper on Valentine's Day plans, but oh well...
Monday, February 02, 2004
Howard Dean's loss of momentum...
Okay I tried writing this last night, but then, just as I was finishing up, all of a sudden, the whole post just DISAPPEARED!!! I was so mad that I didn't feel like trying to write it up again, but I decided I would try it again tonight. So here it goes...
At a speech and debate tournament about 2 weeks ago, I got to make a speech entitled, "What factors led to Howard Dean losing the Iowa caucuses?"
Immediately, a thousand thoughts went through my mind that I think contributed to his less-than-stellar showing at Iowa (and now New Hampshire, and tonight South Carolina, Delaware, and more states as they begin to come in). However, I was able to narrow it down to 3 main points-
Point #1- the many faces of Howard Dean
It seems that lately people have been reluctant to support Dean, possibly because they never know who he's going to be and what he's thinking from one day to the next. One of his first of many "slip-ups" involved saying something along the lines of "I want to be the candidate for the southern man with the Confederate flag on the back of his pickup." Now personally, I thought this comment was a little risky, but it didn't strike me as entirely horrible, because there are plenty of pickups here where I live, and some of them do have Confederate flags on the back. However, predictably, this caused a lot of backlash, so to try to make things better, Dean stated 6 days later that he believes the Confederate flad is "a symbol of racism and prejudiceness".
Just after the capture of evil-dictator Saddam Hussein, he praised the troops on their fine jobs of capturing him. Okay, nothing wrong with this... but then just 5 days later, he publicly aired his views that the capture of Saddam does not justify the war and does not make this country safer. Hmm...
As a final subpoint, let's imagine for just a moment that Osama bin Ladan was caught tomorrow and put on trial the next day, it would probably be pretty hard to find an impartial jury, since practically every American has already formed their opinion of guilt about him, and it would prove very difficult to convince most of them otherwise... but not Howard Dean!! No, not Howie who stated recently that he "would not be too quick to pre-judge Osama bin Ladan". But wait, he's getting better at this- he didn't even wait 24 hours this time to say that "(Osama bin Ladan) is exactly the kind of case the death penalty is meant for". Wow, if that isn't "pre-judging", then I don't know what is...
Point #2- he may be just too liberal for some of the more moderate Democrats
Perhaps you've heard the song by Toby Keith entitled "The Angry American"? Well over the past few months, Dean has gained the title of... "The Angry Democrat". In a poll conducted by Time magezine back in December, of those polled who responded to be registered as Democratic, 21% believe him to be too liberal to be President. Additionally, 58% believe he is too pessimistic. But one campaign issue has, I believe, really set him apart- taxes. In addition to repealing ALL of Bush's tax cuts, he prmosies to raise taxes by 19%. 19%... that's a lot. But one statement I heard him make concerning taxes was so full of irony, it was almost sickening... basically that the tax cuts served no benefit to the middle-class of America and the only ones who did beneift are the upper-class, rich Americans. First of all, I would just like to say that my family is about as middle-class as imaginable, and we certainly saw a tax break that proved to be very helpful when paying those back-to-school bills that we were currently facing. Secondly, maybe Dean forgot, but HE is among the rich, upper-class American! For what it's worth, he's a frikkin' doctor, and so is his wife! Add that to former governor, and you have just left the land of common America.
On the day of the Iowa caucus, Good Morning America was asking some native Iowans what they thought of Dean and his tax-hiking proposals. Here's what they thought- only 12% asked were in favor of raising taxes. In fact, I remember one man telling Mr. Dean to take his (expletive), tax-raising, no-good (censored) (etc., etc.) "behind" back to Vermont.
There is one more, not quite as strong, but nonetheless important, point that will be added tomorrow, but for now I'm afraid to write any more in fear that it will be erased. So think about some of these points, and I will finish my explanation hopefully tomorrow, and if you wish to offer some of your own reasoning, feel free to contact me at rightwinged@yahoo.com
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