Darwinian philosophy tells us that after a shock (attack, threat etc), we are instinctively thrown into self preservation mode. So, as the elections have just passed, I have had to examine closely and (very) selfishly how I might make out during the next 4 year term.

Abortion Ban: I’m male, don’t need one. If a dalliance/spouse/relative needs one, I can afford to get one across a border. (points: 0)

Civil Rights: Prepaid legal services, you’ll need this one. Ensure your payments are on time. Take a legal class or 2. Date a lawyer! (points: -1)

Deficit Spiralling: No plans to have kids. So I don’t care much. Hope you fuckers don’t have large families. They might have to be rented out as indentured servants to China, Japan et al in the future (points: 0)

Draft Reinstatement: Die in piece. I’m beyond draft age. Die though, in the knowledge that your death did not buy me safety from terrorist nor did it get me cheaper gas. (points: 0)

Estate Tax: I wish I had this problem! (points: 0)

Economic Decline: What? You mean you’ve spent everything you saved in the boom days of the Clintonian era? Silly rabbit! Guess you have to starve then. (points: 0)

Economic Ruin: Still on this topic? Some of us know how to hedge our bets. I’m buying Halliburton, Shell, Smith & Wesson etc. Whenever a bullet punctures a lung, my investment climbs. (points: +1)

Flat Tax: Yes please. I live in a donor state. Why the fuck should I fund some reproducing bunny in backwoods Georgia. (points: +1)

Gay marriage: Straight, don’t need one. If I did discover that I have managed to repress my homosexually thus far, and I needed to get married immediately to compensate for this, I’d take the following (legal) steps.
(1) Iron clad contracts, wills, and agreements covering my interest
(2) Move to Massachussets if I felt it important enough
(3) Move to Holland if I wanted even more protection
(points: 0)

Healthcare: I’ll take a hit here. But to stem the blodletting here, I’ll have to vote against any school levies, bond sales etc for the next 4 years. (points: -1)

Privatized Social Security: Well, I never planned to live long enough to collect on this, so imagine the boon when the government hands me a huge check several years early. Please, please gimme the check. And when the older generation live in squalor, I’m hoping to get back enough to afford that villa in the southern harbor of Monaco! (points: +2)

Stem Cell Research: don’t need it (not yet anyway) and when I do, I’ll be able to afford to get the operation from China. [Thanks to the flat tax, estate tax, privatized social security, investments in Halliburton] (points: 0)

Outsourcing: You just have to become better than every person you work it. Think of it as a race (and it is) where the last one to master all needed concepts starve (literally). (points: 0)

Terrorism: I’ll stay away from NY, DC & CA. (My sincere sympathies to these blue staters that essentially shield dumb-fuck red-staters from the wrath of our enemies.) (points: -1 [on sympathy alone!])

Final analysis: Break even! Soooorry Tennessee!

As a final statement, you will see that the choice of president (in the US) leaves relatively unscathed most people that are middle class, educated, reasonably aware of legalities etc. It is sad therefore that the fate of the country is decided by the underclass that continously seek to deprive themselves of a future in the mistaken belief that they are under the seige by either a red menace or liberal elite

Mujahid, I sincerely hope the above was posted as a joke. If not, have fun in the deep end, buddy!

No, its not a joke. What exactly do you disagree with ?

Abortion ban - do you seriosuly think someone is going to do it? I find that idea ridiculous!

Civil rights - every dumb idea like Patriot Act 2 will be defeated by the people or the courts - I am not worried.

Deficit spiralling - yes, John Kerry had a “plan” to get it in control by…raising spending?

Draft reinstatement - how many brain cells do you still have left to believe that after the bill brought up by two DEMOCRATS was defeated almost unanimously in the Congress?

Economic decline - I have been laid off three times in the past three years - I can tell the economy is doing better now. That bogeyman is dead.

Flat tax - we will talk about it when it is brought up seriously and not just as a trial balloon.

Gay marriage - couldn’t care less either ways. I say let them marry and see how much a problem the marriage penalty is.

Healthcare - I like it as it is - I don’t have any solutions to fix it.

Privatized social security - may be a good idea if it is partially privatized. I am open to the possibility.

Stem cell research - so what if it is not federally funded? What happened to private enterpreneurs?

Outsourcing - it is called Free Trade and started in the Clinton years.

Terrorism - Kerry would have fixed it by…..(crickets chirping)

See? The sky is not falling after all!

Shanti, I ‘heart’ you!

Fiesty isn’t the half of it…..

Thus “Iraq” and “Terrorism” are treated as separate issues,: and quite rightly, I say. The article makes it sound like they should be clubbed together!! Hilarious.

Thanks, MD :)

Anya, a lot of people rightly or not see the war in Iraq as a part of the global war on terrorism. They consider bringing to democracy to the Middle East a way of curbing terror. You might find the idea hilarious - a lot of others don’t, which is why both issues should be clubbed together since that is why many perceive it.

Those people also dont read the newspapers.

Yep, all those poor, ignorant bastards! What would the world be without you trying to save people from themselves - you know what, that sounds pretty evangelical to me.

These are the same people who believe that Saddam was behind 9-11 and that Americans found WMD in Iraq.

Here are a few demographics -

Bush 2000/Bush 2004

African-Americans: 8%/11%
Whites: 54%/58%
Hispanic: 41%/44%
Married: 53%/56%
Not Married: 38%/40%
Union Members: 37%/40%
Gays: 25%/23%
Gun Owners: 61%/67%
Protestants: 63%/59%
Jewish: 19%/25%
Catholics: 45%/52%
Republicans: 91%/93%
Democrats: 10%/11%
Men: 51%/55%
Women: 43%/48%
18-29 year olds: 46%/45%
30-44 year olds: 49%/53%
45-59 year olds: 49%/51%
60+ 47%/54%

All these people voted for Bush because they were dumb idiots. I am sure it makes you feel great. Don’t let reality burst your bubble. You have put out argument upon argument that I have debunked here. You don’t admit once you are wrong or even accept the possibility your side might have done something wrong. It is all because “the other side sucks”. Tell me, how are you different from those whom you claim to hate again?

The other side doesnt suck. They are just underinformed or misinformed. I am not claiming that they are bad people. I am only pointing out the fact that a majority of the Bush supporters believe that Saddam was directly behind 9-11 and had WMD. You have not refuted this.
I am a man of science, reason and evidence unlike Bush supporters a majority of whom are people of faith and not reason.

See, there you go again. Don’t you see the condescension dripping in your voice? Everybody else is misinformed but you? Guess what? The entire fucking world believed Saddam had WMD. As a man of science, you probably appreciate that the “abscence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. I am again not claiming to be a mind-reader for these people, so you should stop trying to do it too.

You have not provided any evidence for me to refute about the points you made - back it up first.

Does the entire world believe that WMD were FOUND in Iraq ?
Apparently your republican brethrens believe so !

Who said so? Show me the proof about my so-called Republican brethren and then we will talk. I am not Republican or Democrat btw, though if I could, I would have voted for Bush as a “fuck you” to snobs like you. Even if you do label me as a Republican, how do you explain the fact that I support gay marriage, am not Christian, am not for ban on abortion ? I don’t fit your stereotype here, do I?

Shanti,
If you stop reading Ultra Right Wing Conservative blogs and start reading objective publications you would know that the majority of Bush voters thought that Saddam was directly behind 9-11 and WMD were found in Iraq.

That is it, Mujahid. I am stopping this conversation right here. I asked you over and over again for proof of what you are saying - you refuse to do so and then say I am reading “Ultra Right Wing Conservative blogs” - like who? Instapundit? Michele? JK’s Varnam? Letter From Gotham? EthnoQueer? Tell me who needs to branch out. Better yet, tell me who are the objective ones you are talking about - Atrios? Oliver Willis? Kevin Drum?

Ultimately it doesn’t matter what bloggers think if they cannot back it up with actual proof. Remember why Dan Rather went down in flames? His defense was “so what if the evidence is forged? We all know the story was true”. Nope, “knowing” something will not do. Show me simple facts.

Alright I will google it and show you the proof later tonight

Why do you keep flying off your handle?

Deficit spiralling - yes, John Kerry had a “plan” to get it in control by…raising spending?

Why bring John Kerry into this? He is a loser. Lets talk about what good old Bush can do about this. How is he planning to cut the deficit? By making his tax-cuts permanent? I know for a fact that Paul Volcker went on record claiming that there is a 75% chance that US will be in a big financial mess in the next 5 years. Wanna contradict him?

Dilip, one of the guys who won the Nobel prize for economics this year says Bush’s tax cuts weren’t big enough! Wanna contradict him? :)

I wrote something up on my blog before I strolled in here, but oddly enough it might have been prompted by some of the discussion here. May I direct you there?

The URL by itself: http://dcubed.blogspot.com/2004/11/youre-swine-im-fine.html

Any thoughts welcome.

Such a pleasure always to read a sermon delivered by (an allegedly) faithless Catholic. He writes:

After all, 59+ million people voted for Bush, 51% of the electorate. Not all of them are arrogant bastards. Nor are they persuaded that the guy they voted for is an arrogant bastard. On the contrary, many of them are persuaded that the Dems have missed their particular bus, whatever it is.

There’s more going on here than loonies running away with an election. That lesson must be learned.

How sweetly reasonable.

After all, 51% of Gujaratis voted for Modi. A rough calculation, assuming that Muslims turned out to vote in full strength and that none of them voted for Modi, shows that 60% of Hindus voted for Modi. All of them idiots? “Communal”? “Fascist”? And answering to a whole lot of nasty adjectives which the likes of Teesta Setalvad would like to apply to them? And persuaded that they were voting for a guy who, like them, answered to those descriptions?

Of course yes. That was the truth. There was nothing more to that election than “loonies” running away with it. If anybody knew the truth fuly well, it was Mr D’Souza. He knew that the guys who won that election were the baddies and they won because the Gujarat electorate was full of idiots — if not “fascists” — who did not see how bad the guys they voted for were. Mr D’Souza knew though, he knew that he was not only right on this point, but also that he was righteous. For he prophesied:

Once the euphoria settles, even people in Gujarat will see Modi and his party for the hollow rhetoric-mongers they are, the failures at running a government they are, the extra-smooth Congress-clones they are ..

There you have it. D’Souza O.K. Gujarat voters not O.K. He knew what they didn’t. He possessed the wisdom they didn’t. The villains pulled stunts, and the not-OK voters fell for them:

.. the victory of an astute political animal and his just as astute political machinery; of these men who knew precisely what knobs to twist to get votes

It might appear that he is changing his tune when it comes to Bush victory, but remember: he is OK, you are not OK. “Introspection” is called for to explain the victory of a man whose victory is also due, in no small measure, to the votes of the evangelicals and Catholics; and whose re-election would warm the cockles of John Dayals and those who are dying to depose before the American Committee on “religoius freedom”:

Why is this party unable to appeal to that huge chunk of the USA — West Virginia to Arizona, Florida to Montana — that turned Bush red on our screens last Tuesday? What are the concerns in these places, and why won’t people trust Democrats with them? …

Questions to ask. Introspection to be done. It won’t happen if they write off the other guys as less than human.

What were the concerns of the people who didn’t trust the Congress and the Commies with Gujarat? Is that the right question to ask? NOT! Because …

D’Souza OK. Whites OK. Christians OK. Americans OK. Poor Gujju Hindus. They swine.

* * *

Another chap by the name of Bidwai wrote in the wake of Modi’s victory:

Gujarat … witnessed a complete breakdown of all processes of rational thinking and democratic competition … that alone explains why Narendra Modi could hold on to power.”

Hi! This comment has got nothing to do with what you’ve written. I’m just commenting because I was surprised and happy to find another b-ball fan in India. Haven’t come across too many.
I liked your comment on Dilip’s blog. Made me see the thing in a new light.

You can’t fault Al too much. Like others on the left, he can’t figure out why voters, who are too dim to know what’s good for them, are not swayed by the slogan, “You poor idiots, vote for me.”

Bush increased his voter share in every demographic. He increased his share of the vote in every state, except Vermont.

Think of the elections as a market. You had two products - Bush and Kerry. Both have good qualities and poor qualities. But peole preferred the Bush product. But folks like Al, Jane Smiley, and the rest of the left, rather than figure out how to make a better candidate, blame the consumer/voter. Great strategy, fellas. Perhaps if the leaders of the left stepped out of their cocoons of Big Media and Ivory Towers, they would find what’s on voters’ minds.

Just a thought… Michigan and Oregon, two states full of uninformed/misinformed and dumb, confused idiots who voted for a ban on gay marriage and still went out and voted for Kerry!

Gosh! … Mujahid, you really should consider migrating. You really don’t wanna stay in a country with such a confused electorate now do you?!

As an Indian, one good fallout of Bush victory as I see it is that the members of that lunatic asylum called the Indian media are going to feel a little orphaned. As people prone to catching cold when the editor of New York Times sneezes, these guys may now have to reckon with a lot less guidance from the US media: for even that bastion of Yankee liberalism, NYT, is castigating the liberals for going over the top and alienating the voter! Of course, there is still The Guardian from UK (the pages of which host the labours of our own diva our deprecation, the one and only Ms Roy), but still, Indian media is going to feel a little confused, and will take its time settling for a self-serving compromise: take the cue from NYT and do not fault the American voter; but at the same time insist that there are no lessons here for Indian ‘liberals’, because (this is not generally explicitly articulated) Indians are unwashed (snicker), irrational (sneer), are easily manipulated by evil right-wing politicians (hiss) and therefore need to be ‘educated’ by the ‘liberals’ as to what is good for them.

RR,
Nothing good will come out for India from Dubya’s victory.
Kerry is on record saying that India should be given the oversight over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.
On the other hand Dubya made Pakistan a major non-NATO ally like Israel and South Korea ( without consulting with India) and Kerry has been critical of this decision. Pakistan is therefore entitled to sensitive military training and technology from the US.
Kerry repeatedly called for democratisation of Pakistan and for a tougher stance on the dictatorial regime of Musharraf while Bush has being pussy footing around Musharraf whom he considers to be ‘the number one ALLY in the war on terror’.
The Pro India members in the House are all Democrats. Kerry would have definitely been better for India vis-a-vis Pakistan.
Ofcourse you wont care about that as long as you can take a dump on Times of India or Arundhati Roy or any Leftist peeps around the world.
Peace out.

And one more thing. I know you believe that Dubya is good for India, but you might be interested in knowing that there is widespread speculation on Dubya planning to deliver to Pakistan the remaining F-16’s which were promised to Pakistan and partially delivered in the 80’s. (which ofcourse is in addition to the 800 million dollars foreign aid already delivered and another 2 billion promised to Pakistan by the Dubya administration to reward Pakistan for its role of being a ‘key ally’ in the war against terror)
US has till now refused to deliver the remaining F-16’s. There are reports that the F-16’ which Pakistan received in the 80’s are not in working condition because of lack of spare parts and repair. So the new batch of F-16’s would be life savers for the Pakistani Air Force and will have an impact on India’s air superiority.
Ofcourse you as an Indian, wont care about that, though you have no problems on dissing other Indians and quesioning their loyalty if they would as much as dare raise a peep over treatment of minorities inside India.

being* = been

Al,

I would not put too much stock in what Kerry said. After all, in December 2001 he was arguing that Saddam Hussein had to go. He changed his mind.

You may also want to look at the two party platforms carefully. The Republican platform on India stretches for several paragraphs, describing India as a nation of rising importance, and that America needs to accelerate its strategic and economic relationship with it. The Democratic platform? One line, urging India to observe the nonproliferation regime that Clinton could not pass through Congress.

You may be right about Bush eventually delivering the F-16s to Pakistan. But the value of an aging jet (20 years+) is questionable. Part of the reason the US and India engaged in air wargames earlier this year was to see how much updating US hardware needed. But the security of India is the responsibility of Indians, not America. And whatever qualms I might have with the Congress Party, I doubt Singh is going to let India’s defense abilities suffer.

Salaam alekum Mujahid miyan,

Kerry would have definitely been better for India vis-a-vis Pakistan.

I believe so too.

At the very least, Kerry couldn’t have been worse. What can be worse than taking in Pakiland as an “ally” in the war against TERRORISM!

If I were an American I would have voted Bush. As an Indian I rooted for Kerry.

> The Republican platform on India stretches for
> several paragraphs, describing India as a nation of
> rising importance …

These are the times I miss Nehru. At least there was this much he taught us: to find self-worth in ourselves. Not in the “several paragraphs” that an American party anxious to get every vote it can puts in its manifesto.

Not so long ago we heard ad nauseum from our previous government about how India had finally “found our place at the high table” (a nearly direct quote) — because Vajpayee had actually sat at the same table as Bush at some summit dinner. Why do I get the feeling that the guys who were elated by that non-event would also be elated by these “several paras”?

Nehru taught Indians to find self-worth in themselves? Was this when he went begging to Kennedy to save his butt from the Chinese? Or the frequent famines under his watch? Or maybe it was the focus on higher education for the upper castes, while the lower castes went without schools? India’s current reputation in the world owes more to the doctors, software engineers, and yes, cabdrivers and convenience store owners than “the last Englishman to rule India.”

> India’s current reputation in the world owes more to
> the doctors, software engineers, and yes, cabdrivers
> and convenience store owners than “the last
> Englishman to rule India.”

Yeah KXB, but the points were these:

1) Yes, we owe that reputation to these guys you mention — and certainly not to “several paras” in an election manifesto. Choosing the Republican party over the Dems because of its several paras vs one line strikes me as a simple-minded and mildly craven thing to do (putting it kindly).

2) Nehru had plenty of faults. No argument. One thing he did get a generation of Indians to appreciate was: why give a damn about a reputation in the world? Let’s think about our reputation in our own eyes.

Shanti really needs to fix her comments page to have more space between different comments. Right now, it’s a very difficult mess to read with more than a few comments.

How is it now, MadMan?

Better.

Now get rid of the dotted lines (white space is more effective), increase the gap by another 10 pixels and increase the left margin by a good 30 pixels.

That should fix it.

Anirudh, thanks :) What is your favorite team?

My favorite team is the Lakers :tongue3:

Losers! you know we are going to whup your boys’ butts now that Shaq is gone, right? :evil:

My favorite team this year is the Mavericks — of course I am biased but they have a big bad-ass mama in the center in the form of Eric Dampier. He is already paying rich dividends.

Welcome to the club, Dilip :)

Shanti, here is some material you might be interested in commenting on.

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?sid=5&fodname=20041115&fname=Cover+Story+%28F%29

PS Jha of Outlook psychoanalyzed Americans away to blazes, and discovered that they were driven by fear and paranoia. They lost their marbles. Sweating (out of fear) like pigs, they voted for Bush.

.. frustration, envy and fear have driven this election. Frustration and envy because non-white immigrants are taking more and more of the top jobs and prize places in their colleges and universities and marginalising the ‘real’ Americans. Fear because their world, which was already getting more and more insecure because of the collapse of the trade unions, the disappearance of blue-collar jobs, the replacement of white-collar ones by the computer, and the assault on small business establishments by giant trading conglomerates like Walmart and Best Buy, has been turned into a truly frightening place by the 9/11 attack.

I kind of weakly reasoned that the consequence of all those terrible things ought to have been that the incumbent should have been voted out. But Jha’s Freudian investigation is not without a scientific basis, it appears. He actually did a field study. He interviewed TWO Americans. These guys must have been real people, not fictitious characters, because Jha buttonholed them in the premises of that all-American institution, the men’s loo.

For good measure, they extolled his tax cuts. “I have been able to hire two extra men because of them and I will hire more,” one of them said. “But what about the deficit? Bush is running the nation into bankruptcy,” my friend asked. “The deficit does not matter,” they replied. “What about the 500 billion-dollar balance of payments deficit?” we persisted. “That doesn’t matter either,” came the stock reply

With dimwitted stock-reply dudes like that, who get caught out even by PS Jha, how come yanks have gone on to become a powerful nation? But I digress.

Jha ends with a flourish, with the imperious wave of hand that befits his omniscience:

In the end, this election was not just a battle between two political parties, but an epic conflict between reason and fear. Bush played skilfully and cynically on the peoples’ paranoia, and Reason lost.

What do you think, Shanti. Praful Bidwai has serious competition, no?

RR, you fisked him and saved me the trouble of wading into the fever swamp of Jha’s mind :) This guy sure has a scientific polling technique - how can you ever go wrong by asking two random guys in the loo to represent a country of 300+ million?

_ In the end, this election was not just a battle between two political parties, but an epic conflict between reason and fear._

The idea of fear mongering in this election is not that far-fetched. Charles Krauthammer, writing in TIME, echoed a similar line of reasoning here:

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/krauthammer/article/0,9565,714066,00.html

Fear! … aah!! I agree completely that ‘fear mongering’ can be used to win elections.

The pseudo-secularists use that very effectively and reularly to vote out the ‘dangerous communalists’!!

> The pseudo-secularists use that very effectively
> and reularly to vote out the ‘dangerous
> communalists’!!

Ah I see. And the “Hinduism in danger” bogey that I recall has been trumpeted for years now? Either I dreamed it up, or it was pseudo-Hindus who did the trumpeting. Which was it?

Dilip, I don’t disagree. I just wanted to show that fear is a favourite political tool at the time of elections. To trumpet it as a conclusion of a long article… either by Jha or by the Times’ columnist, is naivety.

By the way, to your statement about the “Hinduism in danger” bogey, I can say that it could be argued that it was a direct result of the “minorities are in danger from the majority oppression” bogey that preceded it and which led to minority appeasement tactics by the pseudo-secularists. ;)

We can go on arguing ad nauseam. But why bother!? … Everyone agrees that fear is an intrinsic element of election strategy and reason has almost never managed to hold its own against fear!

Dilip, I don’t disagree

I disagree.

Hinduism has more or less been eliminated from Pakistan. It is on the way out in Bangladesh. The percentage of Hindus in India has steadily been declining, while that of Muslims has been gradually increasing. Large tracts of land in the Indian subcontinent, from Pakistan to Kashmir to Mizoram to Nagaland, that either hosted Hinduism or were not in the least bit inimical to it in the not-too-distant past, have become no-Hinduism zones. Hindus have more or less forgotten what were the sacred spots that the now-barred lands once hosted for them. (Think of the site where Bamiyan Buddhas once stood. How long will its significance remain in civilizational memory?) And to some of their sacred places, Hindus have to go with a police escort. On occassion, Durga puja pandals have been “banned”, and the ban enforced, by terrorist groups in the North-East.

Hindu-baiters sure have a nice spin to explain all this, but what are they attempting to explain? The fact that the demographic influence of Hinduism is dwindling, the fact that Hindus are not allowed to practice their faith — conducting their festivals and pilgrimage — in peace.

And for all the trouble that Hinduism has faced and is facing, the cry “Hinduism is in danger!” does not go up a tenth as often as “fascism!” or that other favourite leftwing bogeyman: “secularism is in danger!”. Look at our media. What do you read? “Hinduism is in danger!” or “secularism is in danger!”? “Islam under attack!” or “Hinduism under attack!”?

Mr Dilip D’Souza’s forte is the dubious equivalence. His trump card. He’d pull it like a magician would pull a rabbit out of his hat. You gotta be watchful. :)

By the way, happy diwali to all.

Raghu

When is Diwali ?

Raghu, the point here is the usage of ‘fear’ in swinging public opinion one way or the other. Whether Hinduism is in danger of being wiped out is not being debated. Be it the ‘Hinduism is in danger’ bogey or the ‘fascism’ label… it is fear that these pronouncements are intended to invoke. Enough fear to vote for the other side.

Mujahid, Diwali’s on the 11th and/or 12th of November, depending on the person you ask. :)