Let's Talk Politics....

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Replies

  • LuckyLeprechaun
    LuckyLeprechaun Posts: 6,296 Member


    Please correct me if I've missed something, but really, what has Obama DONE for the gay community?


    So perhaps you should speak so vehemently about topics you've actually researched.

    vehemently? :indifferent: :huh:

    I asked a question, and invited the debaters to "correct me if I've missed something"

    You're fun to debate with. No, wait, that's the opposite of what I mean.


    eta::flowerforyou:
  • EvanKeel
    EvanKeel Posts: 1,904 Member


    Please correct me if I've missed something, but really, what has Obama DONE for the gay community?


    So perhaps you should speak so vehemently about topics you've actually researched.

    vehemently? :indifferent: :huh:

    I asked a question, and invited the debaters to "correct me if I've missed something"

    You're fun to debate with. No, wait, that's the opposite of what I mean.


    eta::flowerforyou:

    Sorry, don't buy it. Your tone, through use of caps etc, very clearly communicated to me that you had already decided that Obama had done nothing. The request to be corrected really just came off like a false mea culpa in case someone did prove you wrong.
  • Bahet
    Bahet Posts: 1,254 Member
    I'm not rich enough or religious enough to vote for Romney.

    To anyone who thinks he'll shrink the debt - why do you think that? How do you think he will be able to do that? Everything he's said he plans to do will actually cost money in the long run. We cannot get out of debt by just shrinking spending. That's what Europe is trying to do right now and it's not working out so well. You also have to raise revenue and stimulate the economy. That's not going to happen if you crush the middle class.
  • kapeluza
    kapeluza Posts: 3,434 Member
    I wish we had better candidates. I am very torn on who to vote for come Nov. I'm so undecided that I might just skip this vote and not vote at all.
  • SarahMorganP
    SarahMorganP Posts: 921 Member
    I care too much about the basic rights all people living in this country should have to ever vote republican.
  • adrian_indy
    adrian_indy Posts: 1,444 Member
    I'm just flat out disgusted by the whole thing. The politicians, the media, the Dems, the Repubs, the citizens. I voted for Obama and while I really don't like some of what he has done, I give him credit where credit is due. Thing is, thanks to our wonderful news outlets, there is so much propoganda now, figuring out what the facts are is practically a full time job which means most Americans will just stick to their favorite bumper sticker slogans. I might vote third party if I see a candidate I actually agree with, but as far as Mitt Romney, I would rather sit on an upside down jackhammer being operated by and epilectic than vote for that guy.
  • castadiva
    castadiva Posts: 2,016 Member
    A question for you all. An old friend of mine, to whom I am no longer close, posted a rather graceless facebook rejection of the celebration this past weekend of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, on the basis that she abhors the concept of inherited privilege. She feels the UK should have an elected Head of State rather than an hereditary one.

    My response ran along the lines that the position of Monarch is a position of hereditary responsibility/duty that far outweighs the accompanying privilege, and suggested that UK politics was infinitely better off with a politically-neutral (and continuous) Head of State than, say, the US, where political partisanship is apparently more important than getting anything done/common sense/compassion, if what we have seen from the Senate/HoR over the last few years is to be believed.

    Politics in the UK, generally speaking, are much less heated, much less intrusive into individual rights (despite not having a written constitution/Bill of Rights), and the principal parties quite regularly reach a consensus on the nuts and bolts of the really important things, despite their differences. Hypothetically, do you think that US Politics would benefit from a politically-neutral head of state with veto power over legislation and/or the power to dismiss the various Houses if an inescapable deadlock was reached? Or, for that matter, with a system that ensured a certain amount of continuity, rather than a complete change in direction potentially every four years?
  • UponThisRock
    UponThisRock Posts: 4,519 Member
    A question for you all. An old friend of mine, to whom I am no longer close, posted a rather graceless facebook rejection of the celebration this past weekend of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, on the basis that she abhors the concept of inherited privilege. She feels the UK should have an elected Head of State rather than an hereditary one.

    My response ran along the lines that the position of Monarch is a position of hereditary responsibility/duty that far outweighs the accompanying privilege, and suggested that UK politics was infinitely better off with a politically-neutral (and continuous) Head of State than, say, the US, where political partisanship is apparently more important than getting anything done/common sense/compassion, if what we have seen from the Senate/HoR over the last few years is to be believed.

    Politics in the UK, generally speaking, are much less heated, much less intrusive into individual rights (despite not having a written constitution/Bill of Rights), and the principal parties quite regularly reach a consensus on the nuts and bolts of the really important things, despite their differences. Hypothetically, do you think that US Politics would benefit from a politically-neutral head of state with veto power over legislation and/or the power to dismiss the various Houses if an inescapable deadlock was reached? Or, for that matter, with a system that ensured a certain amount of continuity, rather than a complete change in direction potentially every four years?

    "Politically Neutral" is not a term that's in our political vocabulary, lol.

    That wouldn't work over here. You'd start a civil war trying to decide how to select such a person.
  • castadiva
    castadiva Posts: 2,016 Member
    A question for you all. An old friend of mine, to whom I am no longer close, posted a rather graceless facebook rejection of the celebration this past weekend of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, on the basis that she abhors the concept of inherited privilege. She feels the UK should have an elected Head of State rather than an hereditary one.

    My response ran along the lines that the position of Monarch is a position of hereditary responsibility/duty that far outweighs the accompanying privilege, and suggested that UK politics was infinitely better off with a politically-neutral (and continuous) Head of State than, say, the US, where political partisanship is apparently more important than getting anything done/common sense/compassion, if what we have seen from the Senate/HoR over the last few years is to be believed.

    Politics in the UK, generally speaking, are much less heated, much less intrusive into individual rights (despite not having a written constitution/Bill of Rights), and the principal parties quite regularly reach a consensus on the nuts and bolts of the really important things, despite their differences. Hypothetically, do you think that US Politics would benefit from a politically-neutral head of state with veto power over legislation and/or the power to dismiss the various Houses if an inescapable deadlock was reached? Or, for that matter, with a system that ensured a certain amount of continuity, rather than a complete change in direction potentially every four years?

    "Politically Neutral" is not a term that's in our political vocabulary, lol.

    That wouldn't work over here. You'd start a civil war trying to decide how to select such a person.

    From the British perspective, that's exactly what the War of Independence was! :wink: :laugh: Almost impossible to do now, I know - selection would be the least of it, I'm guessing. In reverse, I did also make the point to my friend that the thought of who the UK might have the option to elect as our Head of State gave me the shudders - truly horrendous! Hypothetically, though, would it change anything? If things didn't get stirred up so much every four years electing your head of state, would government be more effective?
  • UponThisRock
    UponThisRock Posts: 4,519 Member
    From the British perspective, that's exactly what the War of Independence was! :wink: :laugh: Almost impossible to do now, I know - selection would be the least of it, I'm guessing. In reverse, I did also make the point to my friend that the thought of who the UK might have the option to elect as our Head of State gave me the shudders - truly horrendous! Hypothetically, though, would it change anything? If things didn't get stirred up so much every four years electing your head of state, would government be more effective?

    The thing is, our constitution is not designed for government to be "effective." We don't trust the government, so we rigged gridlock into the system in the interest of protecting individual liberty. In the grand scheme of things, we would rather have a government that does nothing, than one that even runs the risk of becoming tyrannical.
  • adrian_indy
    adrian_indy Posts: 1,444 Member
    No hereditary positions in the US. We have to deal with enough favoritsm for the wealthy and their children in this nation as it is, I don't want someone being born into any type of power or responsiblity just because they were the fasted spunk in the King's scepter.
  • fbmandy55
    fbmandy55 Posts: 5,263 Member
    spunk in the King's scepter.

    :laugh:
  • summertime_girl
    summertime_girl Posts: 3,945 Member
    Obama. There's people I think that could do a better job, but without question, I can't in good conscience vote for Romney. And the reality is, Obama could have done a lot more without the Congress he's been given. If every single thing wasn't filibustered to death, with politicians ADMITTING they hope he fails and that the economy stays bad to further their own agendas, so much more could have been accomplished.
  • lour441
    lour441 Posts: 543 Member
    Obama. There's people I think that could do a better job, but without question, I can't in good conscience vote for Romney. And the reality is, Obama could have done a lot more without the Congress he's been given. If every single thing wasn't filibustered to death, with politicians ADMITTING they hope he fails and that the economy stays bad to further their own agendas, so much more could have been accomplished.

    Obama had an ideal Congress his first two years in office. He could have pushed through anything he wanted during those two years. What we have is 5 trillion more debt and higher unemployment then when he started. I am disappointed with the job Obama has done but I doubt McCain would have done better. If anything McCain would have had 4 years of being handcuffed instead of the 2 years Obama had to deal with.

    It really doesn't matter who wins the election in November. Both parties are at the extremes right now and won't work with each other.

    It would be mildly entertaining if Obama got reelected and the Senate flipped. I would think there would be a new record for vetoes in a 4 year period.

    As for me, I will probably vote for Ron Paul and watch my state (GA) vote for Romney.
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
    Obama. There's people I think that could do a better job, but without question, I can't in good conscience vote for Romney. And the reality is, Obama could have done a lot more without the Congress he's been given. If every single thing wasn't filibustered to death, with politicians ADMITTING they hope he fails and that the economy stays bad to further their own agendas, so much more could have been accomplished.

    Obama had an ideal Congress his first two years in office. He could have pushed through anything he wanted during those two years. What we have is 5 trillion more debt and higher unemployment then when he started. I am disappointed with the job Obama has done but I doubt McCain would have done better. If anything McCain would have had 4 years of being handcuffed instead of the 2 years Obama had to deal with.

    It really doesn't matter who wins the election in November. Both parties are at the extremes right now and won't work with each other.

    It would be mildly entertaining if Obama got reelected and the Senate flipped. I would think there would be a new record for vetoes in a 4 year period.

    As for me, I will probably vote for Ron Paul and watch my state (GA) vote for Romney.

    People are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts. While Obama had stronger majorities in the House and Senate his first two years, he did not have an "ideal" Congress, nor did he have a real "filibuster proof" supermajority in the Senate, which you did not say, but is part of a similar meme floating around.

    First of all, there were never 60 Democrats in the Senate. For a brief time there were 58 Democrats and 2 Independents. One was Bernie Sanders, who can be considered the 59th Democrat, but the other was Joe Lieberman, who was not a reliable vote in the caucus and who only represented the state of Joe Lieberman.

    Al Franken was seated on 7/7/2009. Six weeks later, Ted Kennedy died and was replaced by Paul Kirk. ON 2/4/10, Scott Brown took the Massachusetts Senate seat. So the only period in which it could be remotely suggested that the Democrats had 60 Senate votes was for six months, probably half that time with the Senate in recess. And even during that time, the Democrats never had 60 reliable votes--a core of 6-7 conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats consistently worked against many of President Obama's proposals. In fact, many more pieces of legislation were passed by the House--where the President did have a more reliable working majority, only to die in the Senate.

    Given that, with the exception of the stimulus bill, there was virtually unanimous opposition and a record number of republican filibusters, it is false revisionism to pull out the "Obama had two years to do whatever he wanted" talking point.

    The fact is that, despite those obstacles, President Obama had one of the most productive first two years of any President in modern history. I don't have time to go into detail, but a quick Google of "obama legislative accomplishments 111th Congress" would be a good start for those who feel that 2009-2010 are a mist-shrouded era of ancient history.

    The debt and unemployment will have to wait for another post. Actually, the debt needs an entire topic all to itself that I just don't have time to get to right now.
  • elmarko123
    elmarko123 Posts: 89
    Romney, because at least there's a chance the federal gov't will shrink under him. With Obama, the debt is guaranteed to continue spiraling out of control.
    Because the debt shrank under the last Republican government... oh wa....
  • KaleidoscopeEyes1056
    KaleidoscopeEyes1056 Posts: 2,996 Member
    A question for you all. An old friend of mine, to whom I am no longer close, posted a rather graceless facebook rejection of the celebration this past weekend of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, on the basis that she abhors the concept of inherited privilege. She feels the UK should have an elected Head of State rather than an hereditary one.

    My response ran along the lines that the position of Monarch is a position of hereditary responsibility/duty that far outweighs the accompanying privilege, and suggested that UK politics was infinitely better off with a politically-neutral (and continuous) Head of State than, say, the US, where political partisanship is apparently more important than getting anything done/common sense/compassion, if what we have seen from the Senate/HoR over the last few years is to be believed.

    Politics in the UK, generally speaking, are much less heated, much less intrusive into individual rights (despite not having a written constitution/Bill of Rights), and the principal parties quite regularly reach a consensus on the nuts and bolts of the really important things, despite their differences. Hypothetically, do you think that US Politics would benefit from a politically-neutral head of state with veto power over legislation and/or the power to dismiss the various Houses if an inescapable deadlock was reached? Or, for that matter, with a system that ensured a certain amount of continuity, rather than a complete change in direction potentially every four years?

    It might be a good thing to have the figure head that does all the dinners and the tea time with people and then having an actual president to do all the dirty work. Maybe more time for the dirty work. I feel like I should put a Bill Clinton joke in here, but I won't, as he was the last president to leave office with a surplus. I'll leave him alone.
  • i am republican to the core, but I can honestly say Romney does nothing for me and I don't think he will be the best president. Obama scares the poop out of me and I don't like where our country is now. Don't give me the "he inherited" the issues stuff because they all inherit issues and after 4 years that excuse is no longer valid. I think he has done a poor job on the economy but I'm not sure Romney will be any better. I think the decision is to vote for the lesser of two evils and I'm not sure which one that is........

    i don't think that the "gay" issues really give Obama the star for the best candidate. Really? that is what you are going to base your vote on for running a country?
  • EvanKeel
    EvanKeel Posts: 1,904 Member

    i don't think that the "gay" issues really give Obama the star for the best candidate. Really? that is what you are going to base your vote on for running a country?

    The two candidates are no where near tied from my perspective. If you think the President has a ton of power over the economy with an obstructionist legislature, then you're mistaken. I have yet to see any compelling evidence about the economic evils of healthcare reform from credible sources, even if we do look at this administration's key moments.

    But let's say that romney and obama are tied to some degree. Uh, yeah. Obama wins on his support of the LGBT community. Really. Romney, who wants to shrink government, signs a pledge in support of amending our federal constitution to ban same-sex marriage? Yeah, that's shrinking the power of government, alright. So much for state's rights I guess...super conservative of him.

    It's probably easier to mock that issue when it's not your family that's directly affected by it.

  • i don't think that the "gay" issues really give Obama the star for the best candidate. Really? that is what you are going to base your vote on for running a country?

    The two candidates are no where near tied from my perspective. If you think the President has a ton of power over the economy with an obstructionist legislature, then you're mistaken. I have yet to see any compelling evidence about the economic evils of healthcare reform from credible sources, even if we do look at this administration's key moments.

    But let's say that romney and obama are tied to some degree. Uh, yeah. Obama wins on his support of the LGBT community. Really. Romney, who wants to shrink government, signs a pledge in support of amending our federal constitution to ban same-sex marriage? Yeah, that's shrinking the power of government, alright. So much for state's rights I guess...super conservative of him.

    It's probably easier to mock that issue when it's not your family that's directly affected by it.

    The president didn't have an obstructionist legislature his first couple of years. Obama does win the support of the LGBT community. Romey just signed a pledge in support of amending the federal constitution to ban the same sex marriage, but I disagree with him and I don't think it would pass. He just signed a pledge, he can't amend it all by himself.

    I want less government involved in our daily lives and the states to have more rights - not being railroaded by the feds. Like I said in my earlier quote - I don't think either one of them are very good presidential material.

    i don't believe I mocked anyone, and my family would be directly affected by it.
  • EvanKeel
    EvanKeel Posts: 1,904 Member


    i don't believe I mocked anyone, and my family would be directly affected by it.

    Well I do :) [think you were mocking]

    And what exactly do you think Obama did wrong in his first few year? Could it be the structured bankruptcy of GM that Romney agreed (and agrees) with, and is now taking credit for, even though everyone thought it was a good idea? Something else?

    If you can articulate what you think he did wrong, please do so...with evidence. As a point of contention, the GOP filibustered all sorts of bi partisan proposals those first two years for no other reason than Obama was president. Their stated strategy has always been to remove him from white house.
  • iam_thatdude
    iam_thatdude Posts: 1,266 Member
    I could nvr vote for a liberal
  • JustJennie1
    JustJennie1 Posts: 3,749 Member
    I could nvr vote for a liberal

    Marry me!
  • _Timmeh_
    _Timmeh_ Posts: 2,096 Member
    Lewis Black: Our two party system is a bowl of shlt looking in the mirror at itself.


  • i don't believe I mocked anyone, and my family would be directly affected by it.

    Well I do :) [think you were mocking]

    And what exactly do you think Obama did wrong in his first few year? Could it be the structured bankruptcy of GM that Romney agreed (and agrees) with, and is now taking credit for, even though everyone thought it was a good idea? Something else?

    If you can articulate what you think he did wrong, please do so...with evidence. As a point of contention, the GOP filibustered all sorts of bi partisan proposals those first two years for no other reason than Obama was president. Their stated strategy has always been to remove him from white house.

    sorry if you felt I was mocking - not intended that way. there isn't enough room here for what I think Obama did wrong nor enough room for why I don't like Romney. isn't it always the strategy of the "other" party that isn't in the presidential seat of power to remove or block the president. I just believe there is not candidate that is out for the good of the country or the people. it is all about how to get re-elected and their political buddies. Just the way I see it. I believe i stated in my original post that I don't like either one. still the way I feel -
  • SwannySez
    SwannySez Posts: 5,860 Member
    I'm a Republican, but I won't be voting for Willard. Sorry, I can't respect a guy who has changed positions more often and faster than Alexis Texas. Not that I would vote for Barry. That's just not gonna happen. If I wanted a corrupt Chicago community organizer in the White House I'd dig up the corpse of a dead Daley. So I am resigned to making my vote count by picking the most ridiculous candidate possible and throwing my weight behind them. Hopefully I'll be afforded the chance to support the brilliant Jimmy "The rent's too damn high" McMillan again this year as I did in '08 (no, I could not in good conscience vote to put Mac in the White House after he chose the Grizzly Mama - but the Republic will survive Obama just as it survived Bush).
  • KBrenOH
    KBrenOH Posts: 704 Member
    Frankly I don't believe Romney will spend less or reduce the size of government anyway. Name the last Republican president who did.

    Yes well if Bill Clinton were running I'd vote for him.

    Scary enough... ^^^ I agree with this statement. I honestly think Clinton was probably the last President that did some real good in the country.

    I think Obama has had a lot to deal with coming into office, especially the mess that Bush left. And I like some of his thoughts/ideas but I don't know that I want him in there another 4 years. I know I don't want Romney either. It feels like I was in this same position 4 years ago ... didn't want to vote for Obama.. didn't want to vote for McCain.

    btw, I'm an Independent in my Political choice (which made it very difficult to work for a Democratic Senator).

    I also think term limits should be put in place.