"If what you say is true, why isn't anyone doing anything about it?"

[mmonk]

This is a question a Republican voter posed to me when I was talking about the upcoming elections and concerning bush administration misconduct. In other words, why should she believe me? How would you answer?

[Orrex]

1. Simple

It's because the thing that is true, by its nature, prevents anyone not benefiting from it from doing anything about it one way or the other.


I just realized that the wording of the above might be clumsy and therefore hard to understand. Let me know...

[mmonk]

2. I understood you.

I have told her many in Washington are corrupt. Still, without validation from what people see as the press and mainstream media, it is difficult.

[Orrex]

3. Sadly, you're correct

On the other hand, you could always say:

"Everything's been great under the Bush Whitehouse. That's why gas is $4.00 per gallon, we're losing at least two wars, the stock market is a hugely corrupt yo-yo, jobs are hemmorhaging overseas, and we've become the laughingstock of the world."

You're almost better off not having the conversation in the first place, because people who can't see how bad things are aren't going to be persuaded by anything as trivial as facts and evidence.

[mmonk]

5. The conversation began about an inquiry into Obama and should she

vote for him and break with their family history of voting for Republicans. Later, the rest came into play.

[Gold Metal Flake]

4. The offices that are charged with oversight have been compromised.

Filled with party loyalists willing to break the law to advance the party agenda. The DOJ is a perfect example. The Justice dept. will not investigate any allegations of wrongdoing by the admin because the admin has stacked it with party loyalists. The same with congress for most of the * admin. There is not enough of a Dem majority in Congress to force changes, and they can't force the DOJ to do anything anyway, and there are just enough go-along-to-get-along conservative Dems (and perhaps a few compromised liberals) to prevent extreme action.

Just a thumbnail sketch.

[mmonk]

6. That's why I have been for impeachment.

[Gold Metal Flake]

8. Yup. Impeachment is about the future, the present and the past.

Convict now to prevent future crimes. It's not rocket science.

[EFerrari]

7. How old is she? She sounds very young, young enough to believe

that some adult somewhere is taking care of things.

I think I'd just point her to a good source of information rather than argue about her false premise.

[mmonk]

9. Old enough to know better.

She's mid to late 30's and my barber. She hasn't been arguing with me, just inquiring because she feels something's wrong.

[EFerrari]

10. Another way to get at this is the idea of the permanent campaign.

Elected government officials now have to spend so much time raising money, it's surprising they do anything else at all.

/typo

[trof]

11. It's their standard rebuttal.

I get the right wing BS emails from 'friends'.
No link to original material, usually not even an author's name.
Just total bullshit that somebody made up.

I'll go to snopes or a similar website and totally discredit their propaganda with links and references.

Then I get "But how do you know THEY are telling the truth?"
Screw it.
Life is too short.

[mmonk]

12. I have a chance to get her to vote for Obama. I'm going to take it.

[redqueen]

13. Yes... these people don't seem to grasp the concept of facts or reality.

They seem to see everything as simply a matter of opinion.

[Enrique]

14. I personally don't talk about Bush adm. misconduct with republican voters

I'm in Florida and by far most of the people I talk with about politics are republicans, and I'm on a quest to convert as many as I possibly can. I only talk to them about ideas, never about personalities. My theory is that people are attached to their personalities and that criticism of them makes them defensive and more difficult to convert.

I am sure to remind them about Clinton's 1993 budget battle, which included tax increases on the wealthy, and which passed with zero republican support. I remind them about the republican rhetoric about how his budget would cause a "depression". That was Dick Armey's term.

I don't need to remind them what happened with the economy in the 1990's after that budget was law.