RochesterWatch

[SweetMolly]

Well first of all,these past few debates are the first debates that i have been watching. I am only 16 and i used to not even give a damn,but then it occured to me that i am going to be voting in like 1 year and a half so i better get to know my stuff I used to think that George Bush was all lies and bullshit, and made funny faces(i saw Feirnheit 9/11) But now i think he actually knows what he is doing. But i still have to say i am going more towards kerry,for the fact that we are in such debt as a country. We owe millions for the actions that we choose to make, i say bring back Bill Clinton. Sure he made a mistake of sleeping with an intern but what man can't keep himself locked in his pants(ya know what i mean) Anyways....there is my views as a 16 year old,but what do i know right??
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~*Molly*~

[Spike]

SweetMolly wrote:

Well first of all,these past few debates are the first debates that i have been watching. I am only 16 and i used to not even give a damn,but then it occured to me that i am going to be voting in like 1 year and a half so i better get to know my stuff I used to think that George Bush was all lies and bullshit, and made funny faces(i saw Feirnheit 9/11) But now i think he actually knows what he is doing. But i still have to say i am going more towards kerry,for the fact that we are in such debt as a country. We owe millions for the actions that we choose to make, i say bring back Bill Clinton. Sure he made a mistake of sleeping with an intern but what man can't keep himself locked in his pants(ya know what i mean) Anyways....there is my views as a 16 year old,but what do i know right??

Welcome SweetMolly to the forum
SweetMolly, you know more then many people do. At least you are interested in who will be our next leader in the next 4 years.
It's hard to weight the facts, to know who is telling the truth or not.
Just do yourself one favor and look beyond movies like fahrenheit 9/11 and try to find the truth in what the media tells you.

I hope that you will post here often, it would be great to find out what a 16 year old thinks. You just might wind up educating many of us.

Spike
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'The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'-Ronald Reagan

[Mark]

Welcome Molly. Let me address two of your specific points...

1) The big spending. It is refreshing to see such a young person being fiscally conservative. You are correct, we have been overspending like crazy. This has been one failing of the Bush administration in my view. However, some of that spending has been unavoidable. War is expensive and we are at war. This is not, as some have said, a war that Bush dragged us into. This war was waged upon us, they brought it to our shores. Whether or not you agree with Iraq being the theatre for that war, this remains true. Another thing to consider is that Kerry is not going to improve this situation. Kerry is a liberal, always has been. Whether you like liberal politicians or not there is one undeniable fact, they spend big on social issues. Liberals are more or less socialists. They like big government and they like big government programs which breed dependence. Welfare, medicare, social security, those are the kind of wonderful things that socialist libs are looking to fund.

One thing that many people fail to recognize about our deficit is that it isn't all about spending. Largely, it's about income. It's true that we are spending more now that we did under Clinton, but that is true of every administration. Costs go up every year. It's a given. What has really changed is the amount of revenue the government brings in. This is a product of the now slower economy. The economy cycles up and down naturally. Bush didn't make the poor economy, he inherited it. Clinton didn't make the good economy, he inherited it. That's just the way it goes.

2) Don't take Bill Clinton as an example of men in general. At your age there is probably some truth to that (teeneage boys are notoriously and perpetually horny) but this is not the case for grown men. A real man takes reponsibility for his actions and considers the impact of what he does on others before doing them. Adultry is incredilbly selfish and destructive. Don't short-change yourself in the future by believing that men simply cannot control themselves. Real men can, and do.

[Sue M]

Yes, Welcome Sweetmolly: Mark and Spike, you did a wonderful welcome to this young lady. I'm glad you are visiting here as well. If you have time, explore the many pages of RochesterWatch. There's a lot of good stuff here, Molly.
It is refreshing to see a young person, as yourself, interested in wanting to educate yourself about the election and politics in general. We're here to help you sort things out...but for goodness sake, don't hold Clinton up as the person to regard as the ultimate in a presidency. Read your history and inform yourself. Don't hesitate to ask questions of your parents or at this website. We'd all be glad to help you think things out. As I said, there's plenty of posts here already and a lot of discussion. So happy reading, Sweetmolly and welcome. You should also check out Johnathan's College Conservative to a "younger take" on issues. Just look at one of his posts and his website is listed there. Again, welcome aboard.
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Politicians and diapers need to be changed, for the same reason!!!!!

[scooterodell]

Molly,

Welcome! I'm about 10 years older than you are. I can still remember when I first started paying attention to the political world. It is not uncommon to have admiration for the President(s) of your youth. I admired Presidents Reagan and Bush (41) just because they were the President. It was not until I began to understand politics more fully that I developed a respect for their policies and principles. It's true that life was pretty good while President Clinton was in office. The 90's were a peaceful and prosperous decade. Be careful where you place the credit for that peace and prosperity, however. It is often the case that the conditions under one administration are the result of the actions of previous administrations. It is a complex thing to trace all of the factors that can impact what we are experiencing now.

Deficit spending is not necessarily a good thing, but it is also not necessarily bad. We ran up huge deficits in the 1980s. Much of that was spending on defense that helped to defeat Communism (a worthwhile expense). Much of it was pork--spending by politicians to win favor in their districts. We were able to pay it down in the 1990s because it was such a prosperous and peaceful era--the prosperity brought more income to the government, and the peace led to lower defense spending. There was also some reform in congress during the 90s that cleaned out a lot of the pork-spending politicians. Now we are again in a war, and war is costly. The opening attack was 9/11, and the terrorists have shown that they are not done attacking America. To fight this enemy will require tremendous resources, and inorder to do that we will most likely need to continue deficit spending for the immediate future. This would be true regardless of who is in the Presidency. The only way to reduce spending is to cut it in other areas (cutting defense spending will only make us more vulnerable). That means fewer government projects and less spending on welfare, medicare, medicaid, etc. A Democrat is not going to cut these programs, because they are part of the core beliefs of the Democrat party. A Republican might cut some of these programs because Republicans generally believe in less government, but, then again, they might not. It is difficult to remove government spending once it is in place.

The best was to deal with the deficit is to increase government income. This is not as simple as raising the tax rate. Increased taxes can hurt the economy, and that can mean less money available to be taxed in the long run. To increase revenue, you need a growing economy, and that can be done in many ways. In my opinion, President Bush is more likely to promote policies that grow the economy than Senator Kerry. I also believe that President Bush will provide better leadership in the war on terror than Senator Kerry, but both will need to use deficit spending, regardless of what they might say now.

And Mark is right. The difference between a man and a boy is that one has learned how to control himself, while the other has not. Unfortunately, our society has produced way to many adult boys and not enough men. Don't believe the lies that pop-culture sell you that boys will be boys and real men don't exist; it is not true. It's just an excuse.

Again, welcome, Molly! I hope you speak up often!

[Mark]

Sidebar: Scooter, I didn't realize you were also a youngster. It appears we now have at least a handfull of sub-30 rugrats loose in here (myself included, barely).

OK, back to the matter at hand. Don't want to side track the topic with some kind of "age/sex check" like this was an AOL chat-room or something