七百萬英里聖潔山

And then there were two.

Tanith Lee, phantastes Britannica, transita est. Prosam suam sæpe dilexi.

DL wrote:

Wait a minute! You couldn't vote for Gore because you didn't like his
wife? Really?

Absolutely. I knew Tipper Gore to be a common scold who deserved a dunk in the cucking-stool, and a thoroughly repulsive human being. She spoke on issues I care about. She spoke on them in a way not too distinguishable from Republicans of the time.

(Bear in mind that the Republican Party of fifteen years ago was not identical to the current outfit, either.)

You couldn't vote for Gore because you didn't like his running mate? Really?

Seriously, the thought of Joe Lieberman being a heartbeat away from the White House and being able to influence Middle East policy was genuinely scary.

And he still was the V-Chip guy as well. Maybe you don't remember the V-Chip. It remains utterly evil: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-Chip

Did you look at Gore's positions on key issues? Did you contrast those positions with the Republican option? Do you still feel that we were better off with Bush? Do you really think that we were better off with Laura Bush as First Lady? Well, perhaps you do. You are entitled. If so, I can't imagine our having a fruitful political discussion in the ongoing campaign.

Actually, I voted for Harry Browne. Then again, Indiana seldom gets a say in who is elected President, and a protest vote is as good as any. It remains the case that it's up to the Democrat candidate to persuade me to vote for them rather than to cast a protest vote.

And with that in mind, let's consider what Hillary Clinton was telling the world during the leadup to the Bush/Gore election:

"As part of a "zero tolerance" policy for weapons, drugs, and other threats to the safety of teachers and students, the President signed an executive order decreeing that any student that comes to school with a gun will be expelled and punished as a condition for federal aid."

—Hillary Clinton, -It Takes a Village- (1996), p. 126

"The 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act... stopped the revolving door for career criminals with its "three strikes and you're out" provision."

—It Takes a Village, p. 126

"Twenty-five thousand new police officers are being trained, with the goal of adding seventy-five thousand more by the end of the decade."

—It Takes a Village, p. 126

"After many years of working with and listening to American adolescents, I don’t believe they are ready for sex or its potential consequences--parenthood, abortion, sexually transmitted diseases--and I think we need to do everything in our power to discourage sexual activity and encourage abstinence."

—It Takes a Village, p. 149

"Casual attitudes towards marijuana and minors’ access to cigarettes raise the likelihood that teenagers will make a sad progression to more serious drug use & earlier sexual activity."

—It Takes a Village, p. 152

"Some critics of public schools urge greater competition among schools as a way of returning control from bureaucrats to parents and teachers. I find their argument persuasive and I favor promoting choice among public schools, much as the President’s Charter Schools Initiative encourages."

—It Takes a Village, p. 244

So 1999-vintage Hillary Clinton endorsed:

- Zero tolerance policies
- Three strikes laws and other tools of mass incarceration
- Police buildup and surveillance
- Sexual abstinence
- Drug war on pot smokers
- "School choice"

And Hillary had not changed her bullshit ten years ago, either, when she sponsored a bill for video game censorship. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Entertainment_Protection_Act

I'll give her a chance to prove she's changed her ways, by rejecting all of this crap she embraced in 1996 and 2005. But she will never generate trust, much less enthusiasm. And I am heartily glad that she was not on the ballot in 2008.

Al Gore's problem was that he came from the same wing of the Democratic Party as his shrew of a wife and V-Chip Lieberman. And at least in 1996 Hillary Clinton was down with the program as well.

So yes, exactly that: at least in 2000, I didn't see enough light between Gore and Bush on many issues I cared about to be persuaded even to hold my nose and vote for Gore.

And if the Democrats nominate Hillary, out here in Indiana where our votes don't count for much anyway, I'll probably vote for someone else in 2016 as well.

Why cockfighting is the acid test of multiculturalism.

Donna Douglas, quae Elly May personavit in Rusticis Beverlacensibus, transita est aevo LXXXI.

The world really would have turned out better if the opinion prevailed that YHWH and Zeus were two names of the same entity.