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Posted by: ZeroStar on

11:13 PM  

Yeah okay that makes no sense. I suppose because the south once had slaves years and years and years ago, they can't possibly vote on the candidate that they know is right? If you look at the county by county map the only place that are blue are on the west coast and New York City, not state. Oh veg, you clueless whale kissing bloke. The vote had very little to do with God. People don't want socialist liberals raising taxes and giving handouts to the lowest common denominator. BTW I loved you "conspiracy theory" post about how a glitch gave Bush more votes. Thats so funny! Ta

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Posted by: R on

12:19 AM  

Hello,

I would like for nothing more than to write something rather witty and funny, in Klingon right here, but sadly, I am only a Klingon in name...

Nice to meet you.
R

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Posted by: Kingfish on

9:27 AM  

As a southerner who knows a couple of things about the civil war let me point out a few things. I have heard the term "The South Will Rise Again" but rarely have I heard the term Ohio and Iowa will rise again. Also looking at a county by county map I must say I am surprised how all us "racist sutherners" have made gains in the rest of the country. Gosh during the civil war Ohioians and Iowians were dying by the droves down here to perserve the Union. Better yet look we almost took the former slave owning states of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Gaw Lee. Better yet appears that counties just next door to you in wonderful San Franscico have been inflitrated also. Please instead of playing the race card maybe its time to admit more people thought Republican policies were right.

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Posted by: veggiedude on

10:07 AM  

Well, different people read different things into what they see. No matter what evidence is presented, people vote with their own convictions. We saw that in the election. Despite all the evidence and millions of dollars for a 9/11 commission that declared Saddam had nothing to do with the attack on the US, had no intent to attack the US, had no ties to al Qaeda, over 40% of voters disagreed and believed otherwise. Evidence be gone. Sort of like the O.J. trial. Which brings us to the 'race card'...

Now, back to the map. I see that the predominantly liberal areas of civil wars times are still liberal today. The conservative times of the civil war are predominantly still conservative, with some considerable growth. Are you denying that the country has swung to the right?

Your accessment that this is about race, or that conservatives must be racists, are your words, not mine.

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Posted by: Joanna Terpstra on

11:07 AM  

Re the election outcome. I figure this Murphyism still applies:
The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.

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Posted by: TheJediCharles on

10:43 AM  

"Your accessment that this is about race, or that conservatives must be racists, are your words, not mine."

You and Laurie are apparently cut from the same cloth, letting images speak for you in a manner you don't feel the need to defend.

All I can say is shame on you.

Shame on everyone who takes personal delight in these images.

Shame on this being one of your first expressions in bridging the divide you liberals freely cast full blame for at Bush.

Well, you may not like the idea in moving forward, but if you can't hack the idea in letting old wounds heal, perhaps you would best serve your country by at least volunteering your services in picking them back open for the shear snide pleasure.

...oh, and every post directed at Laurie here applies to you too.

http://www.macactivist.com/2004/11/no-comment.html#comments

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Posted by: TheJediCharles on

10:48 AM  

I meant NOT picking old wounds back open.

Damn blogs and their lack of edit buttons.

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Posted by: Anonymous on

9:18 AM  

Charles,

You seem to be making what YOU will of the post and the two images contained in it. To you, and to many others if I understand all the posts correctly, the images seem to imply that the southern, mid western, and non-coastal states that voted for Bush (and once fought anti-slavery initiatives) are indeed still racist or would to this day practice slavery if left to their own devices.

That's not what I see.

To me, the images imply that those states are still intrinsically traditionalist. They tend to vote against new ideas, ideologies, and socio-political changes that, to them, threaten their existing way of life. They vote against gay marriage, socialized medicine, partial birth abortion, and fetal stem cell research because these things challenge their existing institutions, just as anti-slavery laws challenged their existing institutions.

Now, after the passing of centuries (or decades) and the subsequent passing of one form of morality into another, one may judge this traditionalism "wrong" or "hateful" or "stupid" or "right" or "honorable" or "prudent," but in any case the sense of traditonalism does indeed seem to exist today as it did then. The states in red do indeed seem resistant to change. This isn't necessarily a bad thing (good or bad is a decision left up those with varying political/moral principles to decide for themselves), but it is a fact.

Texas is still made up of folks that are proud, driven, and set in their ways. "Don't mess with Texas" signs seem to illustrate this fact in the same way that the two images above do. Because the images were posted, however, by a Democrat on a Democratic blog, certainly they are a criticism of that traditionalism, but they don't serve as an outright condemnation. And even if they did, the administrator of this blog as nothing to apologize for. He would be perfectly within his right to condemn that traditionalism as another would be in his or her right to praise that traditionalism.

Again, it is all a matter of how you decide to percieve the "data", which itself is suspect, presented in the images. If you decide the data says that Texans and southerners were slave owners then and racists now, then certainly you, as a reisdent of one such state, would be offended. If you decide said "data" says something else about those states (such as that I outlined above) then your reaction may vary. (You may even argue that said states aren't traditionalist, and you could be right.)

Again, in either case, the admin has nothing to apologize for.

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Posted by: TheJediCharles on

11:13 AM  

All address all further comments on Laurie's post, as I have with this one.

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Posted by: Joanna Terpstra on

9:44 PM  

I recommend you check out the cartograms on:
Maps and cartograms of the 2004 US presidential election results
Michael Gastner, Cosma Shalizi, and Mark Newman
University of Michigan:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7emejn/election/

The results look more like an aborted foetus...

It is sad that the most powerful person in the world has not only been responsible for the deaths of over a hundred thousand innocent people, but that he now has a mandate to keep on doing it. He should be punished, not reelected. I hate to say this, but Bush is a case in point for legalizing retrospective abortion - many lives would have been saved.

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Posted by: TheJediCharles on

12:56 PM  

"It is sad that the most powerful person in the world has not only been responsible for the deaths of over a hundred thousand innocent people"

That figure (originally submitted by NewScience in an article not even subtilly slanted against the war) has been disproven many times as being very unscientivicly arrived at (polling households not scientificly randomized? As if.) Even Osama himself says the death count is only 15,000! Why would HE not echo higher figures?

http://www.antiwar.com/ips/lobe111203b.html

The more realistic figure is below 55,000.

And to call EVERY ONE of them "innocent" unintended targets is a bit bloating as well.

Everyone hates innocents having to die in war, but if you want some fun research, look up how many Iraqi innocents were regularly dying before the war ever started, and how many probably WISHED for death.

You've got your global villians upside down.

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