who will u vote for in Nov.?

[Ogre Mage]

I will be voting for Kerry in November because I find myself in severe disagreement with most of Bush's policies and particularly with his international and health policies. I detest the Republican administration's attempt to cancel overtime for many people. I detest their gag rule policies with respect to clinics overseas that have cost many women and children their lives. I detest their highhanded and arrogant treatment of foreign countries. I think that their Iraq adventurism made the country far less safe, by providing fertile recruiting advertising materialfor al Qaeda for the next 50 years while allowing the Taliban and al Qaeda (the real terrorists) to regroup in Afghanistan. Additionally, this war was extremely badly planned without an exit strategy, and hugely expensive and cost many, many Iraqi lives and an every increasing number of American lives. Bush came into office with a good sized surplus and by injudicious tax cuts primarily given to the rich, he has acquired a huge deficit. Even Greenspan is expressing grave reservations about the long term effects of this deficit. These are my public spirited reasons.

ITA. I would also add that the Bush Administration's Environmental Policy is a disaster and arguably the worst of the last century. Bush's solution to the current gas price crisis was oil drilling in the Alaska Wildlife Refuge. They have moved consistently to weaken pollution controls, gutted the Clean Air Act, pulled out of the Kyoto Treaty, the ABM treaty and for a time claimed global warming didn't exist. In the view of the current White House, ideology trumps science. Bush is the only president I am aware of who took us to war and cut taxes (for the rich) at the same time. Fiscal responsibility anyone?! Don't get me started about the administration's ongoing hostility to the rights of people of color, women and gays and lesbians.

[chuckm]

Can't vote for Kerry (no one really knows where he stands on anything, because it changes from day to day).

Can't vote for Nader - he lives in a different universe from the rest of us.

[StillBlueLake]

I'll be voting for Kerry, not that it matters, because I happen to live in Massachusetts. Wish I still lived in MI, there my vote could actually make a difference.

Can I vote for electoral reform too?

Anyway, I feel that Kerry will be a competent, reasoned and effective President. We have none of those things in our leader presently.

[bronxgirl]

Ah yes, electoral reform. One of the many issues that have been neglected over the past few years. Anybody for another round of hanging chads? (NOT! :( )

[Ptichka]

I'm against pro-death... I know exactly what abortion is and what it does... and I'm against it.

I, too, am against pro-death. But as in against pro-death penalty.
I am 100% pro-choice. I think pro-life movement should concentrate on education and prevention. I the former Soviet Union, abortions were illegal before late 1950's. I've talked to my grandparents. My paternal grandmother is a doctor, and she recalls horrific stories about women who would come in dying after trying to have illegal abortions; she wasn't even allowed to treat them until they'd give her the name of whoever helped them. My maternal grandparents are lawyers. They recall processing many cases of poor girls being sent away for a long time after attempting abortions. You wouldn't believe some of the things women tried! Here is one example (WARNING: if you are squeamish, don't read on in this paragraph): a pregnant woman would "plant" an onion inside herself. When its rootds got big enough, they'd encircle the fetus. She would then pull the onion out together with it. The abortion part in this would usually succeed; unfortunately, women often damaged themselves beyound what any doctor could help.

I am not suggesting it would get that bad in the US if we didn't allow abortions. But one thing I got from talking to my grandparents was that outlawing abortion does not prevent it. It only pushes it underground.

Ah yes, electoral reform. One of the many issues that have been neglected over the past few years. Anybody for another round of hanging chads? (NOT! :( )

I wish we'd do away with electoral system. I, too, am in Massachusetts, meaning my vote doesn't mean squat. After 2000, I really thought there'd be more momentum. Too bad I was wrong.

[Piel]

The two "If These Walls Could Talk" (HBO I think) gave a very good representation of abortion through the years. Ptichka your grandmother's story is right on target as to what some women have had to go through. No one is going to force someone who is antiabortion to have one so if they think it is a sin they don't have to have one. Why do the so called prolifers (who BTW are usually pro death penalty, go figure)feel they have the right to force their beliefs on others? IMO if they treally wanted to help with the problem of unwanted children they would adopt some of the many unplaceable minority and disabled children that are stuck in foster system hell.

[euterpe]

There is a great deal of difference between being pro-life and favoring the death penalty. Many pro-lifers view abortion as murder, and the persons being killed are innocent of any offense other than being brought into existence. The death penalty is applied only to those found guilty of a heinous crime, most often involving the death of another person.

Not all pro-lifers are out there trying to force their views on others. There are radicals and activists on all sides of any issue.

[show 42]

You want children to do well in school? Then make sure they get breakfast, make sure they come from a home where they feel safe, make sure their parents care about how they do in school, etc, etc.
Tests prove nothing.

Princess, as an elementary school teacher, I thoroughly agree......

Toni, as to your concerns, I can only say that children come to school with "baggage". They are often hungry, tired from activities the night before, stressed due to parents arguing, being shuttled from one parent's house to the another, anxious, often sick, hurt, the list goes on and on. They don't always come to school bright-eyed and eager to learn. The older ones may be worried about their homelife, parents who don't come home, not enough money. Getting a good education is often not their top priority when just making it through the day is enough........not trying to give out excuses why children don't do as well as we like in school, just reasons...............42

[Piel]

There is a great deal of difference between being pro-life and favoring the death penalty. Many pro-lifers view abortion as murder, and the persons being killed are innocent of any offense other than being brought into existence. The death penalty is applied only to those found guilty of a heinous crime, most often involving the death of another person.

.

Well, IMO the death penalty is murder, government sponsored murder. As those murdered by the death penalty tend to be poor and African American it could be said that it is selective government sponsored murder. And then there are those who get the death penalty and are innocent. Once someone is executed you can't go back and say "Oops,we made a mistake". And, as long as there is the chance of error or manipulation of the facts there is the chance for the innocent to be executed. For example Fred Zane a medical examiner who lied......................

http://www.hyways.com/death2.html

[euterpe]

The difference between abortion and the death penalty is also one of numbers. Abortion takes the lives of thousands of innocents every single day. Can you provide me a list of innocent people who were executed by the state? Can you prove that they were innocent?

Seems to me two of the last highly publicized executions (Timothy McVeigh and Karla Faye Tucker) were not poor and black and they were not innocent.

The death penalty may be imposed at trial, but the fact is it is very rarely enacted these days. There are many, many people on death row in my state, but I can't recall anyone ever being put to death here. What is scary is that in many cases, death sentences are eventually commuted to life, and in this state that means after 30 years violent criminals can be paroled.

The last criminal given the death penalty was the rapist/killer of 8-year old Megan Kanka. He had raped and strangled another child some 10 years earlier, and left her for dead. She survived, but all this guy got was a slap on the wrist. He served his time in an institution for sex offenders, refused therapy, got out of prison, moved into the Kanka's neighborhood, and lured Megan into his home where this time he made sure she was dead. Sooner or later the death penalty will be commuted to life for this creep, too, and he is young enough to be back out on the streets 25 years from now.

You think the death sentence is murder by government, and you are entitled to your opinion. I think abortion is mass murder legalized by the government.

[Tonichelle]

AMEN! euterpe!!! AMEN!!!!

[Piel]

The point is that if you are against abortion you don't have to have one. But you don't have the right to dictate your moral beliefs as to what I can do with my body if I don't believe it is murder. That is the dividing point regarding abortion and will be debated forever. OTOH when an execution is carried out you know for sure that a living person is being murdered there is no question there no matter what your beliefs are. If even one person gets the death penalty by mistake that is one too many. You are correct about Timothy McVeigh and Carla Tucker they are white with very high profile cases. Check out the numbers of how many poor African Americans are on death row as opposed to whites. Poor minorities don't get the same news coverage as the high profile cases. It is possible to enact laws that keep the guilty locked up. Maybe instead of trying to dictate morality to law abiding adults that energy could be used to work for tougher laws to keep the real criminals locked up.

For more information on race and the death penalty.......


http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/arti...d=539#Appendix

I am not sure how appropriate it is to debate this at GS as I know this is a volatile issue and while I enjoy the debate others here may not. So feel free to PM me if there are any further comments.

[dorispulaski]

Project Innocence

Euterpe, You seem to doubt that anyone innocent has ever been convicted.
Unfortunately that is simply not the case.

Project Innocence is a project to prove the innocence of those wrongly incarcerated or sentenced to the death penalty. This project alone has proved 144 people innocent to date.

It is estimated that 5 to 10% of the people on death row in Texas, the state with the largest number of people sentenced to death, are innocent.

In Illinois, Governor Ryan, a Republican, suspended all death penalties after he discovered the confessions and guilty pleas of a large number of inmates in Chicago were extracted under torture, after the real perpetrator of the crimes was caught.

In NY, the teens convicted of beating up and raping the Central Park jogger were convicted, but turned out to be innocent many years later. Additionally, a Peekskill man was convicted of murdering his ex mother in law, but was later proved innocent, having been framed by his ex wife,who had actually murdered the mother. This again was a case taken up by ordinary citizens, who tracked down the leads.

The lying medical examiner that Piel cites is not the only one. The handwriting expert on the Martha Stewart case was convicted of lying on a previous case.
There are quite a few others.

Sometimes the police work is just sloppy. Witness the recent case of the attorney whose finger prints were supposed to have been found at the Spain train bombing. The Spanish police insisted the fingerprints were not his. The FBI had him arrested. The Spanish police tracked down the person whose fingerprints they actually were and arrested them. If the FBI can get sloppy, trust me, little town police departments, underexperienced and understaffed, do too. And so do big departments.

Wrong convictions happen all the time. The only way to prevent executing innocent people is to stop executing people.

If you have a lot of money, you can be guilty and go free, like O.J. Simpson, but if you have no money, it is way too easy to be sent to jail or executed for things you didn't do.

I have more reason than most of you to have thought about this. My dad was murdered. Having seen police investigation close up, I can tell you how great the pressure to arrest is in a high profile case. I can readily believe that some police would arrest someone in some cases just to get rid of the pressure.
They fall in love with their own theories; it is usually not deliberate, but in the cases where it is deliberate, wrongly convicting the wrong person of murder, is also murder.

Very, very few countries have a death penalty any more for these reasons. The US should get rid of its death penalty IMO.

[show 42]

Wrong convictions happen all the time. The only way to prevent executing innocent people is to stop executing people.

Piel and Doris........totally agree. Murder is murder, anyway you slice it and government execution is the worst form of murder.......42

[RealtorGal]

I've never voted Republican in my life (I grew up in Mass.). However, Bush has my vote this time--despite his stand on abortion (and believe me, I shudder over it). He gets my thanks for ridding the world of the reign of the monster known as Saddam H. WMD not found in Iraq? They made their way safely to Syria a long time ago.