RateItAll: The Opinion Network

Whether or not the American people were - collectively - naive enough to give 'God's Own Party' four more years to drive the express train to Hell.

We'll see whether or not we continue to be that stupid this November.

Hmmm! In 2004? I guess that the issue should be: is this time machine working?

How badly will George W. Bush screw up America and will the winner of the 2008 election be able to do anything to reverse the tide?

The very validity of the election itself.Our wealthy,supposedly advanced nation has one of the least effective,easily rigged systems around-worse than even some third world countries.We NEED a paper trail folks!

In browsing responses to this item posted here prior to the election, I saw little mention of moral values as the most important issue and presumably what voters would base their choice on November 2nd. More than 20% of Americans, according to exit polling, cast their vote based on moral, or so-called wedge issues (i.e. abortion and gay marriage/rights). While I see the importance of such issues to many, in the context of what is going on in the world today, it baffles me that those issues had such enormous influence on the results of the election. At a time of war, I'm sorry, our nation's security and economic prosperity should most definitely be a more important issue than gay marriage and abortion, and those that exploited such issues on both sides are to blame, but conservative Republicans especially worked hard to wedge these issues into an election that should have been about the fight against terrorism and the war in Iraq. In my opinion, people should wake up and stop voting their conscience and start voting their brain.

America needs to deal with its understanding of world issues. A law needs to be passed to untie the media stations to the Government...make them truly independent. Ideally, it needs to deal with this administration forthwith and send it into oblivion.

National security. War has been declared against the US. The enemy is armed to the teeth, literally, and they are kidnapping and killing America's and our allies' innocent citizens today, in the most horrific ways, as you read this. If you don't think they want to do the same to you and your family, then you should talk to someone who ran down the stairs of the World Trade Center on 9/11/01. But, maybe, I'm wrong. Maybe, I exaggerate the danger. Maybe, Bush is not the war-time president I portray. Maybe John Kerry is a leader instead of an anti-war weakling. Maybe he'd be strong in a struggle against an enemy who will inflict barbaric attacks on innocent Americans. Maybe there's something in his background to indicate that. Read Unfit for Command and convince me that it's all lies and exaggerations. E-mail me.

Repairing a foreign policy that has set us back 20 years and made us more of a target than ever before.

Bush has served his purpose. It's time to bring our fellow Americans back home to be with their families. Bush is ignoring the economy and telling us that it's growing. Why would he say such a thing? The war needed to happen. We needed to make an example of someone in the interest of National Security. That being said, we've toppled two tyrant governments and replaced them with democracies and we have the orchestrator of mass genocied in jail. What more does Bush want? This is Vietnam all over again. We can't declare war on terror, that's a noun not a country. There will never be a clear winner of that. I supported Bush but I don't support him anymore. He's obsessed. Thanks for listening.

Ralphieboy, yes totalitarianism is a real threat here. However the threat is caused by usurpation of power the judicial branch is exercising in pursuit of deontological philosophy that is in direct conflict with the country the founders created. The ability the people have to govern themselves is continually eroded by judicial activism and legislation of fabricated rights from the bench. Your philosophy is patently inconsistent. On one hand you insist the market must be controlled by force but then you complain about tyranny? Your views are in the small radical minority, what is your solution to impose them on everyone- force? What would your vision of the perfect nation look like? Oh right we already know... Red Flag Hammer and Sickle.****** Ralphieboy of course every great civilization collapses due to a variety of weaknesses in their own cultural structures- yes as will Westernized WASP tradition. Religion isn't man made insofar as man cannot make himself but Western culture exhibits causes for worry no doubt. Within the structure of its tradition of democracy are the seeds of adaption and evolution-growth! Islamic civilizations lack these basic tenents and are subsequently failing.********RaphieBoy Saudi Arabia will eventually fall from internal pressure. The conflicts are multidimensional, so yes money plays a part (natural resources in this case); but the failure of the Islamic culture to adapt under pressure of Westernized Christian principles will eventual force their collapse internally. The Soviet Union existed for almost 3 quarters of a century does that prove it was a successful system or does its failure prove it lost the conflict of ideas? It's the latter. The problem you have is saying our Christian WASP tradition is morally superior. Which it is. *****Here's the crux of your problem RalphieBoy it's not 97% about money! Underpinning the money was a successful tradition that is winning a conflict of visions. It is by no accident that republican democracies, those countries with equal justice for women, jury trials, habeas corpus rights, substantive property rights as part of their entrenched culture produce more wealthy nations. But the culture- the principles are what people are commited to. So even superficially if a dispute is ephemerally about $$$ it's really not. The application of that paradigm theory is unworkable particularly with people bent of Jihad! ****RalphieBoy yes I make typos on occasion as we all do (including yourself! or should I write that in a complete sentance?) and I should be more diligent in reviewing my own work. Small point taken. It's obvious however from the substance of your writings that typos are your only point of defense. On the larger issue of ideas, everything you see is not about class struggle and money though you seem to think so. That weak perspective has long since been debunked. I knew kids like you in preschool who kept trying to smash the square peg through the round holes on the toy work benches- no Ralpieboy it still doesn't work. The antagonism and conflict is that of culture, a battle of belief structures- what makes us who we are and why we behave in a certain manner. Thats what makes people fly planes into buildings and thats why good young men will go off to die for the cause of freedom. Believe me it's not a couple bucks. America became the richest and strongest nation in history for reason, just as at one point Arab civilization was dominant. The building blocks of civilizations- their culture, are what produce monetary wealth. The Arab world is losing that battle of ideas.*************** Reelecting Dubya a president who will assiduously defend our national security by fighting terrorism worldwide and confronting every enemy who threatens our way of life. We are presently in the development stage of a new paradigm, one that eclipses less useful ones in post Cold War world. We are engaging in an antagonistic civilization paradigm. One exacerbated by the globalization of markets and ideas. Islamic fundamentalists have an agenda. One that is antiquated, tyrannical and antithetical to the principles we hold axiomatic. The war in Iraq was simply and epochal action, a battle in the war for a new world order and the first battle in the Clash of Civilizations as coined by Samuel Huntington. All you simpletons can continue to read your lame ass liberally biased baby print and miss the bigger picture but this my friends is what is occuring. The Bush administation at least is wise enough to understand that.

Increasing the unemployment rolls by 2 (Bush/Cheney).

The most important issue is to evict Bush and his gang of thugs. They are happily putting us all in danger to fill their pockets and wallow in power.

National security. I don't know what it will take for Americans to realize that the terrorists truly are at war with us (although we have not yet ourselves realized that we need to fight this as a war, and to devote the resources we need to do it). The recent beheadings of two US citizens, plus other attacks (in Saudi, notably) on Western interests, ought to start getting the message across. If we don't get with it against terrorism, and see national security as the Number One issue, it's all over. I can understand that there are those who, not without reason, have problems with why we got into Iraq, whether there was enough justification, whether we have enough troops there, how it angered a lot of the Muslim world, etc., but the fact is that the terrorists didn't just change their minds overnight from being pro-American to rabid fanatics against the US. The small number of terrorists are really exerting an influence all out of proportion to their numbers - we need to protect this country from attack and go after the terrorists with a vengeance, no matter where we find them. I could go on and on about the need for better intelligence cooperation among agencies at all levels, cooperation with foreign intel agencies, getting support from other Western nations, getting the Saudis to stop being so damned tribal in their outlook and cracking down on terror in their own country, etc., etc., but it all coalesces into a national security issue in the end. Everything else can be sorted out later, but first we have to survive, otherwise there is nothing left to sort out.

The war on the creation of new terrorists by invading other nations. (Translation: getting rid of the Bush / Cheney regime.)

this one is a no-brainer. it is obviously the war on terror. if we lose this war, nothing else really matters.

I can't say that there is a single issue that definately stands out above all else, but I have to agree with Enkidu's update and say that's personally my major concern for the upcoming election.

Of all the issues facing America today, I would have to say that foreign affairs is the number one issue that is impacting Americans today. Our reputation in the world is really on the line now. Despite the fact that we have two weak candidates, a lot is on the line in this election. Simply put, Bush has not led. Most polls suggest that economy and jobs are the top issue, but to that I say that the economy and most everything else is impacted by what goes out in the outside world. For better or worse we are not an island unto ourselves. Americans are connected to the world; the jobs we have today could be imported to China or Mexico tomorrow. Likewise, the price of topping off our gas tanks are affected by how much instability there is in the Middle East and Latin America. People in this country don't have a global view and we need to change that. We can no longer believe that this country can unilaterally impose its will on other countries. Such a strategy is bound to create more instablity and weaken us in the long term. Most of all, we have to drop the culture of fear that has permeated the political discourse recently. On a side note, we need to drop the War on Terror nonsense. You want to fight terror? Quit fearing the world, terror is an emotion, you overcome it by dealing with reality. The current administration has a problem dealing with this. As for terrorism as a crime, we will fight it, but we have to make an important distinction here. Once we turn this into a battle between good and evil, we open up the prospect of a militarized and controlled society. This is one thing that we must prevent at all costs.

I think the biggest issue is that America is going off in an unexpected and dangerous direction, like a drunk stumbling into oncoming traffic. We have thrown away any position of moral leadership we once had in the world; we have caused more people to hate us by our behavior post 9/11 than have ever hated us in history; and we remain stubbornly insistent of our unique right to pollute the planet, dominate its resources and make rules that apply to ourselves alone. All other issues are secondary to this big one. I think it is superbly ironic that a nation that prides itself on being a DEMOCRACY behaves, in the community of nations, like a DICTATOR, and expects all others to follow its dictates. UPDATE: to fix the problem, follow DickDirk's suggestion.

Homosexual Marriage

this may not be the number one in importance but it is very worrisome to me. The USA needs to do something about the health insurance. it needs to be affordable to everyone. Nobody should be without health insurance. yet more people go without it every year. We can no longer afford to pay for full insurance for our family of four. on one income, $350.00 plus was way too much for us to afford not to mention all the deductibles that went with this so called offer. We very reluctantly had to go with the Catastrophic insurance. which in our case means if something real awful happens to us we will have some insurance. It is awful having to worry about not getting sick, or feeling like you cannot go to the doctor because of lousy or lack of insurance. Something has got to be done.Insurance should be fair to everyone not just the lucky handful who get great insurance.

There are really too many to name. (Things like poverty and lack of health insurance, for example.) But one of my biggest concerns is the erosion of goodwill toward Americans and American policies around the world since 9/11. Mr. Bush had a golden opportunity to lead the world.. and he blew it. He started out well with getting rid of the Taliban and trying to unite the world in fighting terrorism.. but then he instituted that boorish (and basically unAmerican) pre-emptive strike policy and went off after Iraq of all places. Our potential brothers-in-arms around the world have since become bitter critics. Now where do we stand?

Firstly, how about drastically decentralizing the federal government back the way Jefferson intended? Secondly, keep socialist liberals out of office.

I think the economy and the environment are very important issues facing the country going into the elections. It was a huge mistake to concentrate on ending terrorism when it is really an impossible task. We also need to save America from the corporate powers and conservatives turning it into a dictatorship. (i. e. Patriot Act)

The economy, healthcare and the environment.

Definitely the economy, and after that we need to figure out a way to get out of Iraq.

George W. Bush's incredibly-awesome plan for rejuvinating the space program must succeed! Forget the cost, this is humanity's future! Ironically, the democrats are against it, when you would think liberals would support something as forward-thinking as humanity's journey into the final frontier. With Iraq becoming a democracy and Al Queda a shambles of a shadow of its former self, we must press on, into space! First, the moon! And, then MARS!