Red Values vs Blue Values

[darrose]

Am I the only one who noticed that Obama democrat (Illinois) thanked his CHURCH in the first minutes of his acceptance speech?
Apparantly, Red or Blue there are religious people in both parties.

 

[JoeThaNo1Stunna]

Originally posted by snoopy
I don't need exit polls to know there were a chunk of Americans who voted for Bush based on the fact they believe he was God's candidate and that he was the more moral of the two.

I personally feel that war is a crime against God, humanity, and nature itself. I allocated a lot more weight to the Iraq war fiasco than anything else and voted for Kerry largely because of that issue. So I guess you could say I voted based on my moral beliefs as well.

So you were morally opposed to the war, which led you to vote for a pro-war candidate for who voted for the war?

I personally voted in large part due to economic issues. I believe in Bush's tax cuts, which gave a poor guy like me over $500 this year. I wish to be able to have my own social security savings account, because I would like more control over my future. I am without healh care, but do not believe the government should do a thing about it, so Kerry got no points there.

I believe Bush was doing what he thought was in the best interest of the nation when he went to war (as did Kerry), and whether we should have in hindsight is irrelevent. It shows that Bush is willing to sacrifice himself politically to protect this nation.

I believe in the Patriot Act, and No Child Left Behind, very strongly.

While I disagree with Bush on gay marriage, the enviroment, and the death penalty, I think he will make my wallet fatter, protect me from terror, protect our country from legislators on the bench, and do what he believes is right with no regard to the polls.

 

[disney4us2002]

Bet, I had this discussion with hubby last evening as well. I said basically what you did that the MSM wants Americans to separate Iraq from the GWOT and thus ask questions listing them separately but hubby disagreed. He believes they list them separately so that those who agree with the GWOT but NOT with the Iraq war can distinguish their concerns. So for those who list Iraq as a concern - are they saying being there is their concern, getting out of there is their concern, how it's going is their concern, etc? I think these polls are just absurdly off and hard to interpret in that people choose what is important but there is no way to tell if it's important because they are pro or against. All of the raw data can be skewed to mean different things so they are useless and often wrong anway.

 

[wilderness01]

It shows that Bush is willing to sacrifice himself politically to protect this nation.


Bush may be willing to sacrifice himself politically but not personally in my opinion. Why are the Bush daughters not serving in the military? They went out and campaigned for their father and his beliefs which should have made them their beliefs. He believes in this war but not when it affects his family's safety!

 

[Nancy]

I posted this in another thread...but I think it fits here.

In the grand scheme of things, life goes on. We are, all of us Americans. We are Moms, Dads, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters. Everyday we get up and go to work, school, church or stay home and raise our kids. We all have people that we love and they love us. We all want what is best for our self, our families and our country.


Now my add on for this thread.
Everyone of us has a different standard for morality. Some of us choose to follow the teachings of their church 100%. Some of us choose not to. For myself, I don't feel that I am in a postion to judge someone on their morality or lack of it. This election came down to one issue for me and it had to do with something I feel strongly about and I feel comfortable with my decision.

 

[BuckNaked]

Originally posted by wilderness01
It shows that Bush is willing to sacrifice himself politically to protect this nation.


Bush may be willing to sacrifice himself politically but not personally in my opinion. Why are the Bush daughters not serving in the military? They went out and campaigned for their father and his beliefs which should have made them their beliefs. He believes in this war but not when it affects his family's safety!

I would guess his daughters aren't in the military because they didn't volunteer to join. And how exactly do you know anything that would indicate your last sentence is true?

 

[EsmeraldaX]

Originally posted by BuckNaked
I would guess his daughters aren't in the military because they didn't volunteer to join. And how exactly do you know anything that would indicate your last sentence is true?

And also how do you know that they did not join because of medical reasons? Or because they are concerned about being treated differently as the daughters of the president?

I don't know anything about his childrens' health, nor should I. My point is this is a volunteer army and always will be unless we have some sort of REAL catastrophe like an all out nuclear battle which I don't think we will ever have.

We have no right to know why a person chooses not to join the milatary or even why they choose to. Also, how do you know they don't plan to join once their fathers term is up? Maybe they don't think they'd be very good in the military. Some people just are not cut out for military service. I know, because I am one of them. I'd be discharged for medical reasons, and I can't lift more than 5 lbs, and I have terrible vision and balance. Maybe his daughters are like me? Did you ever even consider this?

How can you possibly know?

This whole notion of politicians don't send their kids off to war is really stupid. First off, I recall not long ago a senator's son or nephew was killed in Iraq. The country has a volunteer army. If a kid wants to join, they do. I happen to know a guy who is the son of a very wealthy family is over there serving right now. He CHOSE to go. I also know a lot of poor people who are not serving because they did NOT choose to go. I also have a friend who was discharged from the National Guard because of a chronic illness which prevented him from being able to do his duty in the guard. He was very sad about it.

You can say ..."well, for the poor it's sometimes their only choice" all you want. The fact is, the choice is between signing up, or not signing up. No one is being forced to go and I think to insinuate that they are is an insult to everyone who CHOSE to go.

 

[Nancy]

Right now I don't see any way that a Presidents child could serve in the military. They have secret service with them...so that would mean every time they were deployed, the SS would be deployed along with them. Just the security risks involved would make this impossible. Could you see having the girls in Iraq...the terrorists know what they look like and that they are there, they would be a kidnap target for every nut job out there.

 

[mrsltg]

They went out and campaigned for their father and his beliefs which should have made them their beliefs. He believes in this war but not when it affects his family's safety!

This is just plain dumb. Could you imagine the price on their heads? They have Secret Service protection for a reason. The thought of one of the First Children (of ANY President) being captured and held is horrible. How could any parent make a rational decision when their child is in danger? If Jenna or Barbara were to serve, how would their platoon handle it? At the same time the girls were trying to do their job, their colleagues would have to give them extra protection. I don't expect Chelsea or Amy Carter to join the service, either. They are much to much of a risk.

Erin

 

[swilphil]

Originally posted by snoopy
I don't need exit polls to know there were a chunk of Americans who voted for Bush based on the fact they believe he was God's candidate and that he was the more moral of the two.

I personally feel that war is a crime against God, humanity, and nature itself. I allocated a lot more weight to the Iraq war fiasco than anything else and voted for Kerry largely because of that issue. So I guess you could say I voted based on my moral beliefs as well.

Snoopy, I totally agree. I am a stronger Christian now than I have been in previous elections, and my Christian beliefs made me feel even stronger about voting for Kerry: there's the war issue, but also Christ's views about helping the poor and standing up to those who abuse their power. I am deeply disturbed by the current administration's habit of rewarding the rich, whether it be in awarding them larger tax breaks or siding with big business. Financially I benefit more from Bush's economic position on tax breaks and not taxing capital gains on my investments, but I have to look at how the less fortunate in our country are being affected.

 

[swilphil]

Originally posted by Nancy
Right now I don't see any way that a Presidents child could serve in the military. They have secret service with them...so that would mean every time they were deployed, the SS would be deployed along with them. Just the security risks involved would make this impossible. Could you see having the girls in Iraq...the terrorists know what they look like and that they are there, they would be a kidnap target for every nut job out there.

I think the point people are trying to make is that most parents don't want their kids in combat, period. It's easy to say that the Iraqis need to be freed and "only" 1,100 soldiers have died. But who wants one of those 1,100 to be their child?

 

[Eric95403]

I wouldn't so much call it Red vs Blue, I would call it urban vs rural. If you look at any voting map (my paper had one today) you will see each and every big city in this country voted democratic (with the exception of Texas big cities). I also read that cities with populations over 50,000+ vote overwhelmingly democratic (something like 65-70%). What is it about larger cities siding democratic and rural areas strongly supporting republicans?

I think rural areas are more sheltered in terms of whats going on in the "real" world and support a more "moral" (aka traditional) lifestyle. Big city folk are exposed to more, thus more tolerant to what others might see is morally wrong. I think that is the difference. It's not red vs blue, it's urban vs. rural. I know that is rather simplistic, but it's obvious people in urban America have different views from rural America.

Heck, give me a morally corrupt society (blue) over some red any day. Blue examples: Las Vegas, NYC, Orlando (WDW!!), Los Angeles, Miami, Honolulu. Red Examples: Alabama, Central California, Oklahoma, Mississippi. You get the idea(r). That wasn't meant to offend anyone in those red areas...it was just an example.

Proud Blue (very strong blue) Sonoma County, CA

 

[tonyswife]

Originally posted by Eric95403


I think rural areas are more sheltered in terms of whats going on in the "real" world and support a more "moral" (aka traditional) lifestyle. Big city folk are exposed to more, thus more tolerant to what others might see is morally wrong.

Middle America is not "sheltered" They get the same network and cable news as you, they have the same internet access as you, they read the same news in periodicals as you. Having lived in both very rural and very urban places, I can tell you that intolerance is everywhere, it takes different forms, but no one can claim moral superiority on this issue.

I think most mericans want the same things, they disagree how to achieve their goals. I think that accounts for the majority in the split vote. Both sides have their extremists, of course.

 

[ThAnswr]

Originally posted by snarfer1
We interrupt this thread.....

I have never agreed with anything ThAnswer has said (yet!), and she and I would probably disagree about the color of the sky, but I think your post was uncalled for. It's kinda a funny me calling another to task for a rude post (guilty myself), but I have always found ThAnswer sincere, intelligent, well thought and often very witty. Yes she stands her ground, but I have found that she 'listens'.

Infact she is the closest those blues (Democrats have to a jrydberg)!

Now back to the original thread.....

I feel that it is a combination of the two main 'answers' presented so far.

Different ranking of priorities blended with the methods to accomplish these priorities.

For me, I choose the President based on who hit my 'core' concerns the most:

In no particular order:

Constitutional Federal Government..
Return of State Powers to the States.
Destroying Terrorists a.k.a. National Security.
The Second Ammendment.

Doing the opposit of whatever shortbun wanted (A joke, I swear a joke!)

-Tony

Thank you for your kind words, Tony. I appreciated them. And I appreciate all the people who've posted to this thread. I am sincerely interested in this whole moral values debate. The posts have been enlightening.

 

[ThAnswr]

Originally posted by BuckNaked
I think that too many people automatically equate "moral values" to "religious values", and the two are very different.

This is very, very true. But there is no denying that church goers and people who rated moral values #1 on their reasons to vote, went overwhelmingly for Bush.

 

[ThAnswr]

Originally posted by disney4us2002
Bet, I had this discussion with hubby last evening as well. I said basically what you did that the MSM wants Americans to separate Iraq from the GWOT and thus ask questions listing them separately but hubby disagreed. He believes they list them separately so that those who agree with the GWOT but NOT with the Iraq war can distinguish their concerns. So for those who list Iraq as a concern - are they saying being there is their concern, getting out of there is their concern, how it's going is their concern, etc? I think these polls are just absurdly off and hard to interpret in that people choose what is important but there is no way to tell if it's important because they are pro or against. All of the raw data can be skewed to mean different things so they are useless and often wrong anway.

There are those of us who do not believe Iraq was part of the war on terror when we invaded, however it is now. It has become the conflict that we have to leave, but we can't get out.

Many, many people supported the war in Afghanistan, but felt used by the administration to sell the war in Iraq. And many of us also feel that to create a stable democracy in the Middle East makes perfect sense to the long term goals against terror, but that the American people had a right to know that. It's very dangerous when half your population support the reasons for going to war.

 

[ThAnswr]

Originally posted by Nancy
Right now I don't see any way that a Presidents child could serve in the military. They have secret service with them...so that would mean every time they were deployed, the SS would be deployed along with them. Just the security risks involved would make this impossible. Could you see having the girls in Iraq...the terrorists know what they look like and that they are there, they would be a kidnap target for every nut job out there.

They could serve stateside at a desk job. The Bush twins, and Jeb Bush's son, choose not to.

 

[Nancy]

Originally posted by ThAnswr
They could serve stateside at a desk job. The Bush twins, and Jeb Bush's son, choose not to.

But last time I looked it was an all volunteer army...so they are not required to serve. And if they chose to serve stateside there would be an uproar because they didn't go to war...they took the cowards way out...same thing we heard about GWB. Face it...Bush and family just can't win, they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

 

[dsanner106]

Heck, give me a morally corrupt society (blue) over some red any day. Blue examples: Las Vegas, NYC, Orlando (WDW!!), Los Angeles, Miami, Honolulu. Red Examples: Alabama, Central California, Oklahoma, Mississippi. You get the idea(r). That wasn't meant to offend anyone in those red areas...it was just an example.

Proud Blue (very strong blue) Sonoma County, CA


Ahh, maybe that is the difference between the red and blue then, I would NEVER want to live in Los Angeles, Vegas or New York city. Fine places to visit, one and all, but would not choose to raise children there. I will take the Midwest or rural america in General. This is why 81% of all counties went red and nearly all the big cities are the blue. Interesting

 

[one_cat]

I tend to be a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. I think the biggest difference between the red and the blue is the way they view government. Blue sincerely believes that government is good for the country and the individual. They are in favor of expanding the government so that it can do more good. Red believes that the government causes problems wherever it goes and the less the government is in our lives the better. I think the urban areas tend to be more blue because they tend to see more of the good side of government. They are served by welfare, social security, mass transit, more police etc. The suburban and rural areas see government as an entity that takes their taxes and gives it to the urban areas. I know this is incredibly simplistic but it makes sense to me.