The American Politics thread

[Top_Cat]

George Monbiot – Romnesia

[wellAlbidarned]

PEWS seeking missle has been deployed.

[Anil]

Originally Posted by LongHopCassidy

Burden of proof on you, tbh.

Exactly...an outrageous comment if I ever heard one...

[Fusion]

Jon Stewart: Mitt Romney getting "dumber" as election approaches

As usual, brilliant.

[silentstriker]

Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...oblems/262657/

I mentioned this earlier, but ffs, what happened to the self-righteous freedom loving democrats who spoke out against the Patriot Act, and these types of foreign policy positions? This is liberal hypocrisy, for sure.

All these guys run against this, and as soon as they're the ones in power, they do the same exact thing as their predecessors. Republicans do this on fiscal issues, and democrats on national security, and privacy.

[Fusion]

Originally Posted by silentstriker

Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic
Until Republicans Fix This Problem, They Can't Fix Any Problems - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic

I mentioned this earlier, but ffs, what happened to the self-righteous freedom loving democrats who spoke out against the Patriot Act, and these types of foreign policy positions? This is liberal hypocrisy, for sure.

All these guys run against this, and as soon as they're the ones in power, they do the same exact thing as their predecessors. Republicans do this on fiscal issues, and democrats on national security, and privacy.

SS you'll get a better discussion going if you don't post about the Patriot Act in the Taufel retirement thread!

Regarding your point, what exactly would you have the self-righteous liberals do? Not voting for Obama is in essence a vote for Romney. If enough liberals abstain in a close election (which this election surely will be), it will allow Romney to win. We all know that a Republican President will not only continue the Bush era policies like the Patriot Act, but will likely expand them. How does that help the liberal cause?

Not voting for Obama is not the solution. If one feels so strongly inclined about the subject, then they need to support the right candidate during the primaries (not just the Presidential primary, but also state and local level as well). Hold the candidates accountable by voting them out during the next primary if they don't deliver on promises. For all their faults, that's the one thing the Tea Party crowd does well. They weed out anyone that doesn't follow through during the primary season. Of course the negative is that having an "extreme" candidate on either the left or right will scare away independents and lose you a winnable seat. The Tea Party cost the Republicans control of the Senate by running rigid ideologues during the 2010 mid-term election.

I actually believe in the William F. Buckley rule, with a liberal twist: "You nominate the most liberal candidate who is electable". Otherwise you not only lose on a few issues that are dear to you, but you lose on all.

[silentstriker]

Doh. Oops.

I would have liberals hold obamas feet to the fire the same way they did Bush. I'm going to vote for him because he's better than Romney and I agree with Obama on most domestic issues. But there should be an uproar from the left. Maybe it won't change his mind but we can pressure him and congress and maybe someone will get it under control.

Where is the outrage like there was with Bush? Just because he is better than Romney doesn't mean he should get a free pass for blatantly switching positions on basic promises that he ran on. Some promises you can make an excuse for, that he simply got no republican or even democrat help so he couldn't. On some of this though - its ALL him. He has persecuted whistleblowers with more fervor than bush, when he said as a candidate he would like to encourage such things. He has ASKED for continuation of the patriot act after rallying against it - cant blame anyone else for that one. The list goes on.

And I'm a multiple time donor for Obama this cycle. That doesn't mean I have to be happy. People should call him out on this stuff like they (rightly) call out Romney on his flip flops (granted, Obama would mean many lifetimes to match Romney on that count, but this SHOULD be an issue).

[Top_Cat]

Originally Posted by Fusion

Regarding your point, what exactly would you have the self-righteous liberals do? Not voting for Obama is in essence a vote for Romney. If enough liberals abstain in a close election (which this election surely will be), it will allow Romney to win. We all know that a Republican President will not only continue the Bush era policies like the Patriot Act, but will likely expand them. How does that help the liberal cause?

As has Obama already, tbh. The war on whistleblowers and infosec, additional surveillance powers, extra-judicial killings, all of these things are practiced on a scale much greater than those under Bush. Forget nebulous concepts like the liberal cause, etc. his record on stuff like that in the past 4 years is terrible.

The default assumption seems to be that Romney is a worse choice for all concerned but on the above list, short of the declaration of martial law and the enacting of an East-German-like police state, it's hard to imagine a world where anyone could have done any worse. For all the good that's occurred under his watch, there's a heck of a lot of bad and 'But the other guys is worse' doesn't cut it, especially since many seem apt to use it as a club to shut down debate.

[Fusion]

Originally Posted by Top_Cat

As has Obama already, tbh. The war on whistleblowers and infosec, additional surveillance powers, extra-judicial killings, all of these things are practiced on a scale much greater than those under Bush. Forget nebulous concepts like the liberal cause, etc. his record on stuff like that in the past 4 years is terrible.

The default assumption seems to be that Romney is a worse choice for all concerned but on the above list, short of the declaration of martial law and the enacting of an East-German-like police state, it's hard to imagine a world where anyone could have done any worse.

Of course Romney can do worse. I don't even think it's disputable really. For starters, he can re-introduce the torture policy, more mildly known as water boarding. Obama has at least tried closing Gitmo but got scared by the political backlash he suffered. I would argue that it's entirely feasible that in his second term Obama would have more flexibility in closing Gitmo. Romney will never think of closing it, in fact he famously stated he would "double" Gitmo if he got elected.

Here's a few more foreign policy items Romney would be worse at:

- He will cancel the withdrawal date for pulling out of Afghanistan. He's made it known repeatedly that he doesn't think there should be a set withdrawal date and the US troops should stay in that country as long as needed to achieve stability.

- He will entirely disengage from the Israel/Palestine peace process. He has said that he doesn't believe the "United States should play the role of of the leader of peace process". Instead, he thinks the US should be following the "guidance of our ally Israel".

- He, along with Netanyahu, would most likely start a war with Iran. Romney has hammered Obama for being weak on Iran. If he's elected, Netanyahu would have free reign to do as he pleases and attack Iran's nuclear sites without the US objecting. Heck, it will probably be a joint attack!

- He will restart the cold war. Bizarrely, Romney insists that Russia is the number one enemy of the US right now. He has made some strong statements against Russia and Putin and his policies (like missile defense) will likely usher in another cold war.

That's just a few of the many stark differences between Romney and Obama. I would strongly argue that as "bad" as Obama has been in regards to the war on terror and an aggressive foreign policy, it can get much worse under Romney.

[Top_Cat]

Honestly, I couldn't care less about prognostication, none of that relates to what I said and anyone attempting the same pre-2008 would have been well wrong on many of Obama's policy moves. It's also fairly easy to see many of Romney's positions being mainly to get votes but whatever. What actually happened, what has actually occurred under the Obama administration is the problem.

Gun to my head, I'd vote for Obama given the choice but there are big, big parts of my personal ethos I'd have to swallow and hide to do so. That so many liberal commentators are lauding Obama for much of what they bollocked Bush for is cynical in the extreme.

[silentstriker]

SNL Mitt Romney Spoof '47 Percent' Leaked Tape - YouTube

[Fusion]

[Jono]

[_Ed_]

Haha, that's fantastic.

[Sanz]

Obama's interest should be in protecting the American Interests and not enforcing the purist Liberal Agenda. Liberals want to live in a utopian world which does not really exist and it never will. This is an imporatnt election and Liberals must let Obama know if they think Obama actions are comparable to Bush's actions then they must excercise their power to vote and reject Obama.


As for the Article in The Atlantic (" Why I wouldn't vote for Obama"), it is a joke.