November 14, 2010 09:52 AM UTC

Down to My Last Buck Explanation (Hopefully!)

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• by: No2Dems

So I have posted that I feel (my opinion get it?) that there was some “slander” and some “deceit” in the senate election that led to what I feel was a mostly “unfair” portrayal of Ken Buck. I posted this response in response to questions to explain my statements. Here they are! It’s the best I can do and I am tired of arguing the same issues, so hopefully this clearly explains my position and you can take it or leave it. Not asking for agreement per se, just understanding, but maybe that is asking for too much.

This is a lose-lose post for me, but I will try one more time against my better judgement. On the one hand, I give my opinion and I am accused of whining and making lame excuses. On the other hand you guys will just disagree with my opinion and try to blow it out of proportion, which will lead to a yes he did no he didnt argument, but I am a glutton for punishment so here goes nothing.

On a side note, the topics I highlight in this diary are not the only topics I feel were “spun.” Also, I am not saying that all of the stuff said about Buck was unfair or misrepresentations. There were fair criticisms of Buck, but I think they were few and far between in the commercials especially.

23% sales tax

Yes Buck considered the idea and thought favorably about it. So what was my personal problem with the Dem ad? They left out a what I think is a big part. The dems portrayed Buck’s belief as the sales tax would be in addition to the current income tax. When the truth is he meant the sales tax would be in place of the income tax.  Minor detail right, and I am sure it was an honest mistake? Seems misleading to me. No, you say? One sure seems more “extreme” than the other in my opinion.

Social security

Buck favored what I feel is a common and logical form of social security reform, which basically consisted of slowly and carefully weaning future generations off of social security. Buck does not believe in taking away something that was promised to people and breaking that promise that people depended on.  Dems played the remarks as Ken Buck is going to cancel social security checks as soon as he was in office.  Apparently we can no longer discuss this issue without being accused of being against the elderly. Is one stance more “extreme” than the other? I sure as hell think so! Nobody wants to take grandma and grandpa’s income away, but the left routinely accuses the right of plotting that way.

Birth control

Somehow being pro-life somehow got twisted into being against birth control. I imagine it is in regards to Buck being allegedly supporting amendment 62. (I never heard him or saw where he officially endorsed it so back off) I will take your word that he did. I don’t think a lot of people that were in support of Amendment 62 fully realized how far it went (yes he should have known), but I never heard Buck say he wanted to make abortion illegal, or more importantly Buck never said that he wanted certain forms of birth control, such as IUD’s, RU486 etc. to be prohibited.  So why so many ads with women saying he was against it? If Buck was so against them surely there is mountains of footage of Buck repeatedly saying so and lecturing us about how bad they are, but there isn’t because he does not believe that way.  Why say he is against birth control? Because that is an extreme view, and we all know that Buck was too “extreme” for Colorado right? Wrong! You may disagree with Ken’s pro-life stance, but it is a common stance on the right and hence I think “extreme” is an extreme word to describe the stance.

Dems followed Buck for around a year. That is a long time and a lot of words, questions, and phrases.  This is where I think the deception comes in. If you disagree fine I don’t care, but the left through ads and other media outlets painted a picture of Buck as the following.

That at every event Buck was actively saying he wants to raise taxes(not true), take away social security immediately (not true), and ban birth control (completely false).  I am sure people thought that instead of “change you can believe in,” Buck was routinely screaming a mantra of,  “No birth control, higher taxes, and no social security!”  I feel that in all actuality the left had to dig deep to find these statements and be able to then work them into the final portrayal, that I described above.  Do both sides do it? Yes to a certain extent. Does that make it right? Not in my opinion.

So we have statements, cherry picked from here and there and then taken mostly out of context.  Next, they took the product one step further to complete the “extreme” picture of Buck. They managed to make people fear and believe that the second Ken Buck became senator that automatically abortion and birth control are illegal, taxes go up, and social security does not exist. Does anybody honestly believe that would have been the case? No, but that is how it was sold to the electorate.

Fair and honest? Not in my opinion! Both sides do it? Sure but I would argue to differing degrees. What do we do about it? Hell, who knows! It is what it is.  

Let me finish, with this reiteration of my feelings about this diary. A lot of these topics have been argued a million times on this site, and honestly it does not matter. Colorado elected Michael Bennet senator period end. With that said, I am not going to argue policy in the terms of yes he did, no he didn’t. I also do not want to respond to blanket statements of opinion without a qualifying statement of logic for the belief. I would appreciate any constructive criticism and arguments against my “logic and reasoning”‘ if i have any.  I worked hard on this diary and I don’t want it to have been a waste of  my time.  Therefore I do not want to waste more of my time responding to nonsense and addressing intentional misrepresentations of my positions.  So I am asking for peer review of statements and for any assistance from leaders of the two “teams” if you will to referee each other.

Let the comments begin!