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 Post subject: Young Voters Support Bush, War in Iraq
PostPosted: Wed 07-28-2004 1:47PM 
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Here is an article about a Newsweek poll that finds surprising (to older adults, at least) support for the President and the war in Iraq -- http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4063502/site/newsweek/. The results of the poll are surprising because youth has typically trended much more liberal than the average voter. This support for Bush is also interesting considering more of our generation gets its news from John Steward than from legitimate news sources.

The question is why we, the younger generation, is trending more conservative, at least on these issues, than our parents. Anyone can give a waffly answer saying it's too complicated or that it's a laundry list of reasons (I find those answers pretty much a copout to avoid critical thinking). I have a few theories, none really substantiated, that might deserve some consideration.

1) We have not lived through Watergate.
Watergate, from my understanding, really crushed the confidence Americans had in their elected officials. While I think our generation has healthy skepticism (reinforced by the Lewinski affair and now the intelligence failures in Iraq), these scandals weren't as proven nor blatantly criminal as Watergate.

2) We have not lived through Vietnam.
As bad as you might think the body count in Iraq is, the body count in Vietnam was orders of magnitude worse. Compound that with the length of the conflict and the involuntary conscription, and you get a bad experience sending the military overseas. The only conflict baby boomers remember was a loss. This has to affect their view of other conflicts.

3) Demographic shifts.
I was the one that started the earlier thread about abortion affecting political demographics. We are the first generation that could have been legally aborted in the United States. Now, the actual impact of this is far from certain, I suspect that it is much more significant (at least a few percentage points towards conservatism) than one might initially expect. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go find the thread titled, "Abortion Advocates are Killing Themselves Off" or go here: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005277. This is a Wall Street Journal column or I would write it off as nuttery. Anyway, the numbers show that 2 million probable Republicans, 1 million independents, and 3 million probable Democrats were aborted. This is from '79 to '86. This is significant because this 1 million person difference is out of a population size of about 24 million.

--On a side note, if the 6 million were not aborted, the young population would be 25% larger. 6 million people is a good sized city. And this is just from '79 to '86. Abortion isn't as rare as we think.

4) We're just a little smarter than our parents, at least politically. :wink:

If you think I'm full of crap (or on the mark, even) on any of this, throw in your two bits.


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PostPosted: Wed 07-28-2004 2:17PM 
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I think you are full of crap on number 4.... Granted I don't know how old you are, but for the most part, we've only been paying attention to politics for say...6 to 10 years... How long has our Parents been paying attention?? yeah.... You may be educated like crazy in politics...but that will not overcome experience.

On number 1...how would Lewinski crush/reinforce the confidence of Americans?? America did well under Clinton (IMO)....if the "position" lewinski had had a factor in that....make it a permanent position! If a happy president makes for a productive president....create the job of 'Presidential Fluffer'

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PostPosted: Wed 07-28-2004 2:31PM 
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i think it could be more of a swing back because most of our gen's parents were liberal hippie ish so as a result we as a gen might be trying to balance them out. or it could just be that we are fucked up from all the divorces, alternative child rearing techniques, corporate manipulation, and increased drug use both legal and not.

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PostPosted: Wed 07-28-2004 3:36PM 
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Maniac: On number 1, I was trying to say that our skepticism was reinforced by the Lewinski thing (obviously Clinton lied through his teeth until he was basically caught red-handed).
...And I am full of crap on number 4. But if out parents are smarter then we, shouldn't our grandparents be the smartest? Aren't seniors much more conservative than baby boomers? I don't think our generation wants to automatically buy inherited beliefs, even though we trend that way naturally.

Bj: Good point on the backlash to the hippie thing. I've thought the same thing myself at times. Perhaps we see more of the repercussions of the "divorces, alternative child rearing techniques, corporate manipulation, and increased drug use" and want something more honest, responsible, and tangible, at least politically and socially.

I guess I meant on 1 and 2 that the emotion of living through traumatic times politically will shift your ideology. Whether that shift is justified or even beneficial can be judged by us, given sufficient education in history and such.


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PostPosted: Wed 07-28-2004 3:38PM 
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Fark_Maniac wrote:
I think you are full of crap on number 4.... Granted I don't know how old you are, but for the most part, we've only been paying attention to politics for say...6 to 10 years... How long has our Parents been paying attention?? yeah.... You may be educated like crazy in politics...but that will not overcome experience.

On number 1...how would Lewinski crush/reinforce the confidence of Americans?? America did well under Clinton (IMO)....if the "position" lewinski had had a factor in that....make it a permanent position! If a happy president makes for a productive president....create the job of 'Presidential Fluffer'


The country did not do well because of Clinton. It did well because of what Bush SR put in place.
As far as lewinski goes, it wasn't the ACT that bothers people. It was the fact that the President of the United States, the person who represents America, LIED under oath. He was not a good leader because of that, in my opinion. I don't give a shit if he fucked little boys, but when under oath, the President should be honest, plain and simple.

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PostPosted: Wed 07-28-2004 5:01PM 
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Actually, he didn't lie. I don't agree with what he did, but he didn't lie, which is what a lot of people think. He was asked if he had sex, and since it was ambiguous, he asked them to define sex. They defined it as intercourse, which he didn't have.


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PostPosted: Wed 07-28-2004 5:46PM 
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Junk Kicker wrote:
The country did not do well because of Clinton. It did well because of what Bush SR put in place.


Um, not sure where you got that, the policies that created the economic boom were put into place by Reagan. However, H. W. Bush was not re-elected because he had to pay the price for the policy decisions of Reagan. In addition, you can definetly make the argument that Clinton coasted on the previous adminstrations policies, but then you jmust also assign the faults of those policies as well. By that I mean the fact that the line between the have and have nots increased greatly during the past 20 years in both democratic and republican presidencies. Essentially, the poor got poorer and the rich got richer. Granted for a lot of people, those were good times, but for a lot of others, it was just as bad or worse.


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PostPosted: Wed 07-28-2004 7:36PM 
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-|F.I.B.|-LowMan wrote:
Granted for a lot of people, those were good times, but for a lot of others, it was just as bad or worse.


So basically, just like always.

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PostPosted: Wed 07-28-2004 7:37PM 
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Sutherlands wrote:
Actually, he didn't lie. I don't agree with what he did, but he didn't lie, which is what a lot of people think. He was asked if he had sex, and since it was ambiguous, he asked them to define sex. They defined it as intercourse, which he didn't have.

They didn't ask if he had sex. They asked if he had "sexual relations." A blow job is a sexual realtion, no matter how you look at it.

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PostPosted: Wed 07-28-2004 7:49PM 
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Apparently not, did you not read the part i said he asked them to define it?


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PostPosted: Wed 07-28-2004 8:44PM 
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Junk Kicker wrote:
Sutherlands wrote:
Actually, he didn't lie. I don't agree with what he did, but he didn't lie, which is what a lot of people think. He was asked if he had sex, and since it was ambiguous, he asked them to define sex. They defined it as intercourse, which he didn't have.

They didn't ask if he had sex. They asked if he had "sexual relations." A blow job is a sexual realtion, no matter how you look at it.


I'd bet a hooker would not see it as a sexual action....it's a business transaction! sry...had to say that.

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PostPosted: Wed 07-28-2004 9:22PM 
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Fark_Maniac wrote:
Junk Kicker wrote:
Sutherlands wrote:
Actually, he didn't lie. I don't agree with what he did, but he didn't lie, which is what a lot of people think. He was asked if he had sex, and since it was ambiguous, he asked them to define sex. They defined it as intercourse, which he didn't have.

They didn't ask if he had sex. They asked if he had "sexual relations." A blow job is a sexual realtion, no matter how you look at it.


I'd bet a hooker would not see it as a sexual action....it's a business transaction! sry...had to say that.


But what is the business? Sex.

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PostPosted: Wed 07-28-2004 10:52PM 
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Clinton lied under oath and it was put on National Television... If he didn't lie flat-out then he with-held the truth, which in is also a lie. "I pledge to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth..." That right there shows something of his integrity. He may have done well as Pres (IMO he did not), but that does not give him the excuse to lie to his people about something so trivial as getting a BJ. I, personally, can't stand when ANYONE lies/with-holds the truth about sex or infidelity in a relationship. If he had flat out said "Yes, she was blowing me" then the media would have dropped it and no one would have cared. Many powerful leaders throughout history have had mistresses, so why make a big deal over it now.


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PostPosted: Wed 07-28-2004 11:04PM 
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Yeah, I think the whole blow job thing got blown way out of proportion. Shows that Clinton was a normal person after all. Granted, its not the image that we WANT our President to display. Too many people have this idea that the President is supposed to be completely infallible and are willing to villify him for every little "mistake" he makes.

Same thing goes for Cheney and his F-bomb incident. Sometimes only certain words will do when expressing emotions.



My problem with this generation: Too naive, immature and lacking in common sense. I am tired of hearing about young people who have made up their minds on politics but can't follow the directions to make some Hamburger Helper if their life depended on it. I think that it goes back to their parents. Lazy in school, lazy in life. Too much babying and pampering from good old mom and dad is the likely cause. That and MTV.


Last edited by Stumbles on Thu 07-29-2004 12:07AM, edited 1 time in total.

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PostPosted: Thu 07-29-2004 12:06AM 
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Junk Kicker wrote:
Fark_Maniac wrote:
Junk Kicker wrote:
Sutherlands wrote:
Actually, he didn't lie. I don't agree with what he did, but he didn't lie, which is what a lot of people think. He was asked if he had sex, and since it was ambiguous, he asked them to define sex. They defined it as intercourse, which he didn't have.

They didn't ask if he had sex. They asked if he had "sexual relations." A blow job is a sexual realtion, no matter how you look at it.


I'd bet a hooker would not see it as a sexual action....it's a business transaction! sry...had to say that.


But what is the business? Sex.


Define "sex" please.

Is the act of touching a sex organ an act of sex?
Is the act of stroking a sex organ an act of sex? if so, how many? I will hardly say that if a girl stroked my peener just once...that is not sex.
Does there have to be penetration of some orafice to be an act of sex? if so, which ones? Is skull fucking an act of sex? Nope...that's an act of a fucked up individual.

My point with my first post was great...a happy president is an upbeat president, and he will not be discouraged more often. My 2nd post was just a sad attempt at being funny. This post is filled with nonsense as well. Seek42 is not worth getting your little panties in a wad.

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