bryanstrawser.com

I wrote recently about the concept of respect in terms of the Presidential election. I thought it would be interesting to take a look around the blogosphere and see the reactions to the election results:

NewsNation:

How did Bush win?

He had too many hillbilly redneck fools in this country vote. People that know nothing about Bush and the things he has done. Poor people that blindly vote for a president that will never stand for them, that lied to their faces and forced us into a war that should have never been, a man that drove this country into financial ruins and social disaster! These people STILL think that we are in 2 wars with more to come in the name of terrorism and that we are fighting for freedom! They need to be institutionalized because this way of thinking goes above and beyond the limits of acceptable stupidity!

So the only folks that voted for Bush are those who are poor and vote blindly. Yup, that's it.

More NewsNation:

How did Bush win?

Because Americans have been brainwashed. The Nazi party was also very popular with the German masses back then, while the rest of the world looked on in horror. Just like today.

If you ever want to understand how millions of people cheeringly followed Hitler into war, all you have to do is look at America today. History is repeating itself.

If you ever want to understand how Nazis could care so little about all those dead jews, all you need to do is look at America's total indifference to 100,000 dead muslims.

Isn't it written somewhere that as soon as you start comparing your opponent to Hitler that you lose your argument? I sure wish that were true. The author of this particular comment, by the way, often refers to conservatives as "fascists". Great rhetoric.

Blurbomat (comments);

This doesn't even skim the surface of ways in which he's really screwed our country over, inside and out. This is an inept wealth-serving man who claims the identity of God-hearing Christian but is really a monarch ruling by his own version of divine right. He could not understand the plight of anyone not born the son of a wealthy oilman/senator if his life depended on it and will, whether unwittingly or apathetically, screw over the masses even further if he is back in order to privatize social security (exposing it to the vagaries of the stock market), install more meat industry flunky friends to head the USDA and FDA so testing on our food supply is reduced even further, and opens up another 5000+ acres of national parkland for industrial development. And I'm sure I speak for many besides myself who have at least bachelor's degrees when I say: STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME GO TO COMMUNITY COLLEGE. Why doesn't bush go and take a public speaking course or ten?

But then again, considering the CEO of one of the companies manufacturing the voting machines, namely Diebold, donated generously to his campaign and pledged to deliver the vote to him, who's to say all those people really voted for him?

Yup, you got it. Bush only won Florida because of the Diebold machines. Ignore that 350,000+ vote margin - it was rigged, Yup, rigged. HE WAS SELECTED, NOT ELECTED. Or so they say.

Blurbomat (comments):

I am crying this morning and trying really hard not to throw up. I am so fucking disgusted and upset at this, that the election is going to Bush, that it was even CLOSE made me ill!! I just don't understand how people could be so ignorant about what his agenda is and how fucking SCARY it is. Say goodbye to your rights. Say goodbye to the Constitution as you know it. Say goodbye to the environment. Say goodbye to your JOB, probably. Say goodbye to separation of Church and State. And say goodbye to your friends and family in the military.
My country voted out of FEAR not BRAINS. I am sick. Truly sick. In my opinion, the terrorists won this election. The terrorists.

God help us all, and I mean the whole world not just America, because this will affect everyone.

Yup, no rights. The constitution is just going to be shredded. The environment will be destroyed. In fact, I heard that the new EPA Director ran out in the woods this morning and started cutting down trees herself - just for fun. And then to make things even better, she threw a couple babies out in the street and pumped bullets into them. Yup, BABYKILLERS.

Blurbomat (comments):

Better to be unborn and aborted if Bush is reelected than be brought into a country of misery and the creation of an entirely new second class citizenry.

Yup, it's better to just be dead rather than to have to live under a Bush Presidency.

Blurbomat (comments):

To Bush supporters, I say this: Put your life where your mouth is: ENLIST. Please. Hurry. If life is so expendible to you, please go DIE IN WAR. Quickly, before any more truly valuable lives are lost.

This is my personal favorite. If you voted for Bush, just go DIE. Yup, dead. That's the voice of our "loyal opposition"

Blurbomat (comments):

First off, there's the obvious fiasco of the voting machines. These were manufactured by an ardent Bush supporter who (I still can't believe he was so brazen as to say it) PLEDGED to give bush the vote, dubious machines which leave no paper trail and in at least one case so far actually changed a person's vote from Democrat to Republican on the last reviewing screen of the process . These hackable machines in no way reassure me of accuracy or fairness.

And there were questionable practices in play during the voting process, with reports of thousands of Hispanic voters having been turned away from polls in Ohio because the particular polling place did not "deal with" Hispanic voters. You also had reports of bushmongerers trying to intimidate voters at polling sites: I mean, wtf?

That's just from what I've read so far. I have a feeling the story gets a lot uglier.

So excuse me if I really don't feel having bush inflicted on us another 4 years was a fair or even actual outcome.

In this person's mind, as in the minds of many others, the only way for Bush to win was to CHEAT, LIE, STEAL. So all 3.5 million of those votes for Bush that put him ahead of Kerry were STOLEN. Diebold and the Freemason were behind it.

Megacity:

You get what you fucking deserve, assholes. This country is going to be annihilated under the sheer force of its own stupid citizens. "Go America!" half of you shout, but you don't know anything. Anything at all. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of England, but I guess you all are. By the time four years is up, we'll have a white christian country with a consistently low IQ, no health care of any kind, and no economy. Congratulations. If you're a Bush supporter, delete me from your list. You're no friend of mine. Frankly, I hope you die, slowly, painfully, and that your family goes with you, for spawning you.

Derek at Megacity posted this - it was someone's "Away" message on an instant messaging client. Classic, eh? You can't be my friend because you voted for Bush. Unbelievable.

Daily Kos (comments):

How the hell could the exit polls be so wrong? I suspect foul play--the Bushes are involved. Also, Bush said something at a rally last week to the effect of "I know one thing we're going to win Florida this time"

Not that I would expect anything less from a reader of the Daily Kos - here's one where clearly voter fraud was involved for Bush to win - after all, the exit polls couldn't possibly be wrong. Could they?

Russell Beattie:

I just don't understand how so many people in the U.S. could vote for such an ignorant, cowardly, lying, close-minded, intolerant, wicked person.

Wow. Cowardly? Ignorant? Intolerant? Wicked?

Kerri:

Apparently you can win an election, by the way you did it - by lying, cheating, and using scare tactics -- just stinks.

I'm ashamed of Americans. How stupid can you be people?

Come on Kerri - I'm not a stupid person, you know that. Neither are most of those who voted for Bush - we knew exactly what we were getting. And we found him much better than the candidate that you supported. Cheating? Oh yeah, I forgot. Bush can only win if he cheats.

Asia Times:

Total concentration of right-wing power - legitimized by the popular vote: this is the new neo-conservative dream turned reality. So the road ahead is to flatten the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah in Iraq, bomb Iran because of its supposed nuclear aspirations, depose President Hafez Assad in Syria, crush the Palestinian resistance, and remodel the Middle East by "precision strike" democracy.

There will be serious blowback. A new pan-Islamic nationalism, for example, featuring Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's Shi'ite masses allied with the Sunni triangle to kick out the Americans from Iraq, eventually supported by both Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iraq crisscrossed by guerrillas and Iran penetrated by US intelligence, both leading - plus Shi'ite eastern Saudi Arabia, where the oil is - to a new, catastrophic oil shock.

And then the neo-conservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) - which virtually took over the US government - will create a major confrontation with China. Asia, beware.

Not that I would expect anything different from a foreign newspaper - but this one is a bit behind the pale, don't you think. We're going to bomb Iran, depose the Syrian government, and then provoke a confrontation with China. Hmmm.

We may indeed have confrontation with both Iran and Syria. If they continue on their present paths of supporting terrorism and developing nuclear weapons - I'm not so sure that's a bad thing.

Joi Ito:

It was close, but the Americans have chosen Bush. It's a sad day, but in a democracy, you get the politicians you deserve/vote for. This was their chance to change their leader and they have failed. For awhile, many of us thought that they had been conned into voting for Bush - that they didn't know he wanted to be a War President. Many people didn't equate the US policies with the people of America. We thought they had made a mistake. Now US policies = US Citizens. You Americans have my sympathies, but it's still your fault.

It's all our fault? Wow.

I like Bush. I wanted him as President - and I wasn't presented with an alternative that made sense to me, so I stuck with what I knew. So did many others. So be it.

So there's the recap - and that's just a glimpse of what I found last night. When people talk about a divided country and how the Republicans (or conservatives in general) are trying to divide the nation - I have news for you. It's not just the conservatives. Perhaps the solution for the Democrats (or liberals in general) is to take a long hard look at your own house.

It's going to be an interesting four years watching the opposition to see how they handle another for years in their role as the minority party in the United States.

Respect? Not really.