<p>The only public figure for whom I have ever had a personal, visceral loathing is Dick Cheney. In “Masters of War” by Bob Dylan, there is a verse: “I hope that you die, That your death will come soon…etc etc…I’ll stand over your grave till I’m sure that you’re dead”. I picture Dick Cheney when I hear those words. I would just insert a phrase “that your death will be slow and painful”. I know it doesn’t rhyme but it sounds musical to me.</p>
<p>“I think we Independents are generally much more capable of nuanced and objective thinking.”</p>
<p>You mean like this:</p>
<p>"I picture Dick Cheney when I hear those words. I would just insert a phrase “that your death will be slow and painful”.</p>
<p>Yay independents: I like Clinton’s health care, McCain’s immigration, tax and NAFTA, Obama’s statesman-like non-Washington overall leadership.</p>
<p>FF: LOL. I do not agree with poetsheart about Independents being more nuanced and objective. I think independents are all over the map, just like the partisans. I would be a partisan if only I found the party with the right platform- mine!</p>
<p>BTW, I do have plenty of objective reasons to dislike Cheney too, but on top of that I have a visceral revulsion to him that I don’t have towards Bush or our nation’s other domestic enemies.</p>
<p>LOL! Perhaps you’re right, vicariousparent. Maybe I should just speak for myself (always a good policy, come to think of it;)). I’ll do just that by saying that I try mightily to engage in nuanced and objective thought. I don’t always succeed, but I try to look at all sides of an issue, squarely and objectively, which can be quite difficult and painful at times.:(</p>
<p>Can we at least agree on the concept that Independents don’t, as a rule, drink the KoolAid for any candidate, because no candidate ever seems to embody everything we believe in?</p>
<p>The last two administrations, and may be more so this current administration, has gotten USA more into government interference. In some areas the lack of governmental oversight has created a distrust of what we have taken for granted (airplane critical inspections, drugs, toys, meat and food, and financial [products) and now the electorate is forcing the government to spend much more money to do the things that the government should have done anyway. </p>
<p>If you were the chief administrator you would have to protect the Administration, your agency and your constituents by insuring that Government will not fail again. The natural reaction is to over regulate and over inspect and over document and over spend. The result is that the Conservative Movement had gone so far as to cause a moral, ethics, and incompetence problems that will be more Government; Just the thing that the Conservations wanted to eliminate. </p>
<p>Is anyone worried that airplanes have not been inspected or have documentation that the airplanes have been inspected?</p>
<p>Is anyone worried that the US Government sent nuclear triggers to Taiwan?
[SFGate:</a> World Views : Oops! U.S. sends wrong spare parts - for nuke missiles - to Taiwan](<a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=15&entry_id=25203]SFGate:”>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=15&entry_id=25203)</p>
<p>Is anyone using their Head Cheese?</p>
<p>I need to look up Kool Aid on Wikipedia. Too many references to it and I don’t understand the context.</p>
<p>Independents are all fine and dandy, but they can’t vote in the Pennsylvania primary next month… which, after years of meaning nothing, looms large in this race.</p>
<p>“I need to look up Kool Aid on Wikipedia. Too many references to it and I don’t understand the context.”</p>
<p>Look up Bob Jones. It’s a term used for the mass sucide of Bob Jones an his followers after they attacked a congressman or senator on the tarmac of an airfield in Guayna back in the 70’s or 80’s. His religous cult of followers all committed sucide by drinking poisoned kool-aid. Men, women and children. Since then the term applies to those who blindly follow any leader.</p>
<p>Thank you. I looked it up, it was 1978. I was not even born then (or so I would like you to believe).</p>
<p>That’s Rev. Jim Jones, not Bob. </p>
<p>Bob Jones (Univ.) is indeed an over-the-top religious organization, but Jim Jones ran a completely different over-the-top religious organization.</p>
<p>I’m glad someone asked about the “drink the Koolaid” phrase. It gives me a chance to voice my dislike of it. I never use it, and really abhor the use of it–I find it’s an easy way to dismiss someone else’s point of view. It signals immediately that the user thinks the one so addressed has no powers of independent thought or discernment. It actually, ironically, signals that the user doesn’t have to give a thought to the ideas of those being called that, because after all, they “drank the Koolaid”, i.e., stopped using their brain.</p>
<p>I do not agree with the stipulation, furthermore, that one who identifies more with any particular political stance has given up independent thinking. I don’t use the word “liberal” to describe myself, because so much extraneous baggage has been attached to it, but most of my political/moral positions fall on the left side of the line (not all, but most.) this, I assert, comes not from any “Koolaid drinking” but from my application of critical thinking applied to each issue. Feel free to disagree with my positions, but please don’t dismiss my thoughts because they often fall on the same side of the political spectrum. I say that in my defense, but also in the defense of many principled conservatives that i know, who, equally, did not drink any “Koolaid” to arrive at their conclusions.</p>
<p>“Bob Jones (Univ.) is indeed an over-the-top religious organization, but Jim Jones ran a completely different over-the-top religious organization.”</p>
<p>That comparison is what’s over the top.</p>
<p>^^I don’t equate Jim Jones and Bob Jones. As I said they are completely different. But they do share in common being intensely religious and rather far from the mainstream middle.</p>
<p>Garland, I understand what you’re saying, and I do often use the term here on CC. Guilty as charged. But I only use the term, and mean it wholeheartedly, when I encounter individuals who, in my estimation, totally lack the ability to see any side than their own with any sort of objectivity. Specifically, I’m thinking of those individuals who are so enamored of a particular political candidate, as to refuse to acknowledge that they may have even the slightest flaw. The same individuals often act as thread ■■■■■■, taking every opportunity to bash an opposing candidate with glee, all the while accusing everyone else of drinking KoolAid for that candidate. </p>
<p>I will acknowledge here, that just because someone drinks the KoolAid, it doesn’t mean they don’t bring up some valid points. Even the KoolAid drinkers challenge me to reconsider my position sometimes. ;)</p>
<p>“totally lack the ability to see any side than their own”</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s a lack of ability. I think it’s a lack of willingness.</p>
<p>As an aside, Obama was on “The View” today. I watched part of it. Turned it off when they all told him he was sexy.</p>
<p>Jim Jones, Bob Jones… hey off the top of my head… </p>
<p>Drinking the kool aid basically means suspending common sense and following someone… Both sides of the isle have people who participate often in this concept. </p>
<p>From the War to National Health Care… the people who don’t stop to ask “HOW DO WE PAY FOR YOUR IDEA?” are sipping from the cup. </p>
<p>When you disbelieve how your own checkbook works compared to what someone offers as a solution… That’s grape flavored. 
</p>
<p>The honest problem we have is who’s kool aid do you want to drink? the gop or the dem’s? Both sides require you to suspend belief. We can fight a two front war without paying for it… we can provide healthcare to everyone without paying for it. In real life the question is How long? and when we run out of options do we do a chapter 11 or 7? How does that work for the country? Right now I hear both sides talking about things that require spending money we don’t have. So, we either stop spending it or we start taking more of it from people. We can’t afford what we’re doing now, but they can’t be honest about it either? because the people elect them now, not our grandkids later.</p>
<p>Barneyfife - do you think that we don’t provide healthcare to the sick now? Do you think that a single payer healthcare system would mean spending money we’re not already spending?</p>
<p>There are a lot of issues involved in the healthcare discussion, but the fiscal one is actually the least cogent. There’s a lot of solid evidence for the conclusion that overall health care costs would go down with single payer, not up. Of course, the payments would come through taxes instead of HMO premiums, but dollars out of pocket are dollars out of pocket. I find your injection of health care policy into a discussion of “Kool-Aid” drinking to be either inapposite or ironic.</p>
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<p>That is the problem, politicians say what they think we want to hear. In the end, people are going to vote for what they like hearing the most. Some people will also vote for their party regardless whether they believe in them or not, then when that party doesn’t hold up to their promises, people are shocked!</p>