If the red in that county map were an indication of the population in the area, then every state would have voted for Bush.

What you forget to take into account is that the red and blue in your county map are not based on population. Many of those red counties that appear in the blue states are small farming towns or rustic areas with small populations (ie. not the major cities...where the educated and enlightened tend to gravitate towards).

The majority of the population of a state makes up the popular opinion and political viewpoint of that state. The pro-slavery vs. 2004 state election maps I posted earlier represent an accurate indication of how the majority of people in that area feel. The voters of those red states today are simply patterning the same beliefs as their slave-owning ancestors.

Of course there are going to be some democrats and republicans living in states that don't coincide with their state's party's beliefs. However, that's beside the point.

The real point is that it is the overall majority of the party's population in that state that dictates their political viewpoint.

----

I'd bet you a pretty penny that you hear far more racial slurs and derogatory remarks in those red states (and the red counties), than you do in the blue ones.

neocons suck even more!!!

wow...there are so many things I could reply with, but I'm not going to bother, as I know i'm just wasting my breath. I didn't forget about population, I'm just making a point that the stupid map color has nothing to do with it. And, no, I've heard just as many racial slurs about anywhere i've been in this country, and I have been places.

I can't speak for other countires, but in the US, conservatives and liberals are actually much closer alike than you think; they lean more towards the center and are nowhere near being facist or communist. it's really like splitting hairs when you look at the things they have in common and the things they don't. they both believe freedom of religion, a seperation of church and state, a governement for the people and by the people, free enterprise, free speech, defending our nation and our allies, ecology, a strong economy and protecting the rights of all people in America and abroad, especially those who cannot protect themselves. their main differences lie in how large the governement should be and how they view the constitution of the united states. conservatives have a conservative view of the constitution. they believe our forefathers vision of america was right. they believe that the federal government should be small and that the states should have more power and authority. the conservatives believe in lower taxes, allowing businesses and citizens to have more money to spend and invest to drive the economy, less goverment spending on welfare, social security and special interests, more governement spending on a strong military, education, farming and technology and through that the economy will take care of itself from self improvement and a trickle down economics. the liberals have a liberal view of the constitution and believe that it should change and be ammended with the times. they feel that the federal government should be large and inclusive and that it should give jobs to many. they believe in higher taxes, a smaller military with more government spending on welfare and special interests. the major gap between the conservatives and the liberals lies not on the war in iraq or on taxes, medicare or social security, but on the abortion issue. the exit polls from the last predential election the main issue that most americans picked as their reason as to why the voted the way they did was not the economy, education, the war in iraq, or the war on terror, it was on family values. the democratic party did not recognize the voting power that that issue held and that was a major reason why Bush defeated Kerry. successful politicians follow their constituencies and most right wing conservative republican voters in the red states are religious people who believe that abortion is murder while most left wing lieral voters in the blue states believe in a woman's right to choose. politicians in the so called 'swing' states have to stay as close to the center as possible to get elected.

this is a more realistic scale of political / economic theory


notice how close the liberals and consercatives really are to each other. conservatives are more liberal than facist and the liberals are more conservative than communist. A monarcy is a form of government with a large religious influence wherein the people are oppressed into believing that the king / kaiser / czar / emperor has god-given rights to rule, or in the most extreme cases like japan in the early 20th century that the ruler is a living god himself. when european monarchies lost their power in the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries the people took over power, but they were not educated enough and/or powerful enough to keep rule over the new nation. they gravitated either towards or against the ideas of karl marx and his theory of socialism. before and after the first world war, socialism took a strong hold in many of the european nations, with facism taking a strong root in some of the others. facists believe in a very strong single ruler government and was usually made up of those who were still loyal to the previous king. socialism is a theory that everyone pitches in based on their own skills and everyone shares in the nation's wealth. in theory socialism would probably be ideal; hey, it works wonderful for the SMURFS, but it does not work in the real world becuase there is no free enterprise or any incentive for self improvement and the absenence of religion gives the people no hope. for those at the top, the thrist for power is too hard to control and becomes it self indulgent. In most of europe after the fall of the kings, the military usually retained power and control over each nation, or it was invaded and taken over by a neighboring country. communism is a leninist view of socialism, with a strong single dictator controlling a large military to keep it's people in line. it didn't work in russia and china because they couldn't keep up economically with the other large nations of the world, but it has taken strong root in some smaller nations like cuba. an anarchy is an abscense of goverment. true anarchists are socialists who believe in no government at all and an every man for himself approach which in reality is worse than its alternative.

nicely done. I'm glad that you can give an unbiased opinion, regardless of your political beliefs, Mere_Artist. Yes, you're scale is more accurate, I just did mine in a couple of seconds to get the point across, but you took it to a new level.

heh, and I also just found this.

Population of counties won by:

Gore=127 million; Bush=143 million

Square miles of land won by:
Gore=580,000; Bush=2,242,700

States won by:
Gore=19; Bush=29

Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:
Gore=13.2; Bush=2.1

Professor Olson adds:

In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land
owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country. Gore's
territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned
tenements and living off government welfare.

very thorough mere_artist, altough you should get an update on who governs the US today: the NEO-conservatives, or new conservatives. Here's a short description of these ppl:

Neocon 101 - Some basic questions answered.


What do neoconservatives believe?

"Neocons" believe that the United States should not be ashamed to use its unrivaled power – forcefully if necessary – to promote its values around the world.
Some even speak of the need to cultivate a US empire. Neoconservatives believe modern threats facing the US can no longer be reliably contained
and therefore must be prevented, sometimes through preemptive military action.

Most neocons believe that the US has allowed dangers to gather by not spending enough on defense and not confronting threats aggressively enough.
One such threat, they contend, was Saddam Hussein and his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
Since the 1991 Gulf War, neocons relentlessly advocated Mr. Hussein's ouster.

Most neocons share unwavering support for Israel, which they see as crucial to US military sufficiency in a volatile region.
They also see Israel as a key outpost of democracy in a region ruled by despots. Believing that authoritarianism and theocracy have allowed anti-Americanism to flourish in the Middle East, neocons advocate the democratic transformation of the region, starting with Iraq.
They also believe the US is unnecessarily hampered by multilateral institutions, which they do not trust to effectively neutralize threats to global security.

What are the roots of neoconservative beliefs?

The original neocons were a small group of mostly Jewish liberal intellectuals who, in the 1960s and 70s, grew disenchanted with what they saw as the American left's social excesses and reluctance to spend adequately on defense.
Many of these neocons worked in the 1970s for Democratic Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a staunch anti-communist. By the 1980s, most neocons had become Republicans,
finding in President Ronald Reagan an avenue for their aggressive approach of confronting the Soviet Union with bold rhetoric and steep hikes in military spending.
After the Soviet Union's fall, the neocons decried what they saw as American complacency. In the 1990s, they warned of the dangers of reducing both America's defense spending and its role in the world.

Unlike their predecessors, most younger neocons never experienced being left of center. They've always been "Reagan" Republicans.

What is the difference between a neoconservative and a conservative?

Liberals first applied the "neo" prefix to their comrades who broke ranks to become more conservative in the 1960s and 70s.
The defectors remained more liberal on some domestic policy issues. But foreign policy stands have always defined neoconservatism.
Where other conservatives favored détente and containment of the Soviet Union, neocons pushed direct confrontation, which became their raison d'etre during the 1970s and 80s.

Today, both conservatives and neocons favor a robust US military.
But most conservatives express greater reservations about military intervention and so-called nation building. Neocons share no such reluctance.
The post 9/11-campaigns against regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq demonstrate that the neocons are not afraid to force regime change and reshape hostile states in the American image.
Neocons believe the US must do to whatever it takes to end state-supported terrorism. For most, this means an aggressive push for democracy in the Middle East.
Even after 9/11, many other conservatives, particularly in the isolationist wing, view this as an overzealous dream with nightmarish consequences.

How have neoconservatives influenced US foreign policy?

Finding a kindred spirit in President Reagan, neocons greatly influenced US foreign policy in the 1980s.

But in the 1990s, neocon cries failed to spur much action. Outside of Reaganite think tanks and Israel's right-wing Likud Party, their calls for regime change in Iraq were deemed provocative and extremist by the political mainstream.
With a few notable exceptions, such as President Bill Clinton's decision to launch isolated strikes at suspected terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998, their talk of preemptive military action was largely dismissed as overkill.

Despite being muted by a president who called for restraint and humility in foreign affairs, neocons used the 1990s to hone their message and craft their blueprint for American power.
Their forward thinking and long-time ties to Republican circles helped many neocons win key posts in the Bush administration.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 moved much of the Bush administration closer than ever to neoconservative foreign policy.
Only days after 9/11, one of the top neoconservative think tanks in Washington, the Project for a New American Century,
wrote an open letter to President Bush calling for regime change in Iraq. Before long, Bush, who campaigned in 2000 against nation building and excessive military intervention overseas, also began calling for regime change in Iraq. In a highly significant nod to neocon influence,
Bush chose the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) as the venue for a key February 2003 speech in which he declared that a US victory in Iraq "could begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace.
" AEI – the de facto headquarters for neconservative policy – had been calling for democratization of the Arab world for more than a decade.

What does a neoconservative dream world look like?

Neocons envision a world in which the United States is the unchallenged superpower, immune to threats. They believe that the US has a responsibility to act as a "benevolent global hegemon."
In this capacity, the US would maintain an empire of sorts by helping to create democratic, economically liberal governments in place of "failed states" or oppressive regimes they deem threatening to the US or its interests.
In the neocon dream world the entire Middle East would be democratized in the belief that this would eliminate a prime breeding ground for terrorists.
This approach, they claim, is not only best for the US; it is best for the world. In their view, the world can only achieve peace through strong US leadership backed with credible force,
not weak treaties to be disrespected by tyrants.

Any regime that is outwardly hostile to the US and could pose a threat would be confronted aggressively,
not "appeased" or merely contained. The US military would be reconfigured around the world to allow for greater flexibility and quicker deployment to hot spots in the Middle East, as well as Central and Southeast Asia.
The US would spend more on defense, particularly for high-tech, precision weaponry that could be used in preemptive strikes.
It would work through multilateral institutions such as the United Nations when possible, but must never be constrained from acting in its best interests whenever necessary.

i might add, they lie on a regular basis and have no remorse whatsoever.

ps: i'm an american citizen so don't pull the "foreign hate" thing on me.

oh, come on, the whole thing was good until the "i might add, they lie on a regular basis and have no remorse whatsoever." All politicians lie, regardless if they're conservative or liberal.

yes i agree, i make no distinction between liberals or conservatives tho, they look the same into my eyes. Corporate whores.

what about the words HO and N-GGA? aren't they racial and derogatory? not to mention the words B-TCH and F-G. i'm not sure, but I think you hear much, much more of those in the blue areas of the map.

“Let Every Nation KNOW, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay ANY PRICE, bear ANY BURDEN, meet ANY HARDSHIP, Support ANY FRIEND, oppose ANY FOE to ASSURE the Survival and Success of Freedom.” John F. Kennedy - 1961

so is JFK a neocon too?

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." Nancy Pelosi Dec 16, 1998

"If Saddam rejects peace and wehave to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." President Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

"For the risks that the leaders of Iraq will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against usor our allies is the greatest security threat we face." Madeline Albright, Feb. 18, 1998

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

"We urge you to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Letter to President Clinton, signed by Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, and others Oct. 9, 1998

"Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999

"Saddam Hussein is using the cover of a licit missile program to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the United States." Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,)and others, Dec 5, 2001

"There is no doubt that Hussein has invigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue." Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, Dec, 5, 2001

"Saddam continues to refine delivery systems and to develop longer-range missiles that will threaten the USA and our allies." Letter to President Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL,) and others, Dec, 5, 2001

"We should be hell bent on getting those WMDs, but we should try to do it in a way which keeps the world together and that achieves our goal which is removing Saddam Hussein" - Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Dec. 9, 2002

"Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandates of the U.N. and is building WMD?s and the means of delivering them." Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sep. 19, 2002

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"[War against Iraq] is simplya long-standing right of the United States and other nations to take the actions they deem necessary in their self-defense." Wesley Clark, Sept. 26, 2002 House Armed Services Committee Testimony.

"Saddam Hussein retains his chemical and biological warfare capabilities and is actively pursuing nuclear capabilities." Wesley Clark, Sept. 26, 2002 House Armed Services Committee Testimony.

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Ted (Burp) Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons." Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002

"Saddam Hussein has since 10/98 embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002

"I will be voting to give the President the Authority to USE FORCE to DISARMHussein because I believe that a DEADLY Arsenal of WMD?s in his hands is a Grave Threat to our Security." Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002

"There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and willlikely have nuclear weapons within the next five years." Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct. 10, 2002

"He has systematically violated every significant UN resolution that has demanded that he disarm and destroy his chemical and biological weapons, and any nuclear capacity." Rep. Henry Waxman (D, CA), Oct. 10, 2002

"Saddam has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members.? Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

"It is clear that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002

"Saddam would resort to chemical and biological weapons against our troops in a desperate -attempt to save his regime if he believes he and his regime are ultimately threatened." Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) Oct. 8, 2002

"Saddam Hussein used chemical and biological weapons. He disregarded UN resolutions. His forces fire on American jets. And he has the potential to develop and deploy nuclear weapons." Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002

"To dismantle Saddam Hussein?s WMDs, the U.N. must interview relevant persons securely. That could be the only way to obtain truthful information about Saddam?s weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Joseph Biden - January 23, 2003

"We are in possession of compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002

"We need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real ..." Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

"With respect to Saddam Hussein and the threat he presents, we must ask ourselves a simple question: Why? Why is Saddam Hussein pursuing weapons that most nations have agreed to limit or give up? Why is Saddam Hussein guilty of breaking his own cease-fire agreement with the international community? Why is Saddam Hussein attempting to develop nuclear weapons when most nations don't even try, and responsible nations that have them attempt to limit their potential for disaster? Why did Saddam Hussein threaten and provoke? Why does he develop missiles that exceed allowable limits? Why did Saddam Hussein lie and deceive the inspection teams previously? Why did Saddam Hussein not account for all of the weapons of mass destruction which UNSCOM identified? Why is he seeking to develop unmanned airborne vehicles for delivery of biological agents?" Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), October 9, 2002

"Saddam Hussein's regime represents a grave threat to America and our allies, including our vital ally, Israel. For more than two decades, Saddam Hussein has sought weapons of mass destruction through every available means. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons. He has already used them against his neighbors and his own people, and is trying to build more. We know that he is doing everything he can to build nuclear weapons, and we know that each day he gets closer to achieving that goal."
"Iraq has continued to seek nuclear weapons and develop its arsenal in defiance of the collective will of the international community, as expressed through the United Nations Security Council. It is violating the terms of the 1991 cease-fire that ended the Gulf war and as many as 16 Security Council resolutions, including 11 resolutions concerning Iraq?s efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction." Congressional Record Sen. John Edwards, October 10, 2002


Hmmmm, maybe all the so called NEO-CONS are liars. They are lying to us everyday when they tell us that they are LIBERALS!

OH! somebody mentioned JFK!
what do you think about his assasination?

oooh...BOOM! nice one, mere. I hate it when I can'r find a decent retort, but you're doing a swell job of it. as for JFK, FF, I've been to the site before. nifty place.

for pete's sake, lock all political threads! human decency commands it!