{"id":212,"date":"2004-11-05T05:57:16","date_gmt":"2004-11-05T05:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/212"},"modified":"2004-11-05T05:57:16","modified_gmt":"2004-11-05T05:57:16","slug":"a-mini-mandate-but-for-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/archives\/212","title":{"rendered":"A mini-mandate, but for what?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I remember back when Reagan was running against Carter the word mandate meant a clear sign from the people that they supported a candidate, but it seems the word has eroded to the point that today it means &#8220;squeaked by with a 3% margin.&#8221; But at least he got more votes than the other guy this time, so I suppose that&#8217;s at least a mini-mandate. The question is, what&#8217;s it a mini-mandate for?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m pretty sure it&#8217;s not a mandate for:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>torturing and sodomizing our prisoners-of-war<\/li>\n<li>borrow-and-spend economic policy<\/li>\n<li>having a choice of if and when to go to war, but going in without proper planning anyway<\/li>\n<li>lying to cover your ass instead of admitting a mistake and moving on<\/li>\n<li>US imperialism<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I expect most Bush supporters would agree on those points, though they may take offense that I&#8217;d even bring the topics up. I&#8217;m not nearly as certain it wasn&#8217;t a mandate for these other points though:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the erosion of First and Fourth amendment rights in the name of security<\/li>\n<li>weakening of environmental regulations<\/li>\n<li>putting an end to the supression and misery long endured by the rich and powerful<\/li>\n<li>imprisonment or just plain &#8220;disappearing&#8221; people without trial, again in the name of security<\/li>\n<li>isolationism wrt Europe &#038; the UN<\/li>\n<li>nation-building (ironically enough) wrt the Middle East<\/li>\n<li>discrimination against gays<\/li>\n<li>giving tax money to religious organizations<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I remember back when Reagan was running against Carter the word mandate meant a clear sign from the people that they supported a candidate, but it seems the word has eroded to the point that today it means &#8220;squeaked by with a 3% margin.&#8221; But at least he got more votes than the other guy this time, so I suppose that&#8217;s at least a mini-mandate. The question is, what&#8217;s it a mini-mandate for?<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m pretty sure it&#8217;s not a mandate for:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>torturing and sodomizing our prisoners-of-war<\/li>\n<li>borrow-and-spend economic policy<\/li>\n<li>having a choice of if and when to go to war, but going in without proper planning anyway<\/li>\n<li>lying to cover your ass instead of admitting a mistake and moving on<\/li>\n<li>US imperialism<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I expect most Bush supporters would agree on those points, though they may take offense that I&#8217;d even bring the topics up. I&#8217;m not nearly as certain it wasn&#8217;t a mandate for these other points though:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the erosion of First and Fourth amendment rights in the name of security<\/li>\n<li>weakening of environmental regulations<\/li>\n<li>putting an end to the supression and misery long endured by the rich and powerful<\/li>\n<li>imprisonment or just plain &#8220;disappearing&#8221; people without trial, again in the name of security<\/li>\n<li>isolationism wrt Europe &#038; the UN<\/li>\n<li>nation-building (ironically enough) wrt the Middle East<\/li>\n<li>discrimination against gays<\/li>\n<li>giving tax money to religious organizations<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.docbug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}