I am a conservative and I will be voting for Barack Obama. Here’s why (sanitized behind a cut-line so as not to get in the way of your zombies and warhammer posts!):
Foreign Policy: I admit it – I’m a foreign policy wonk and history nutter. I have a bit more of an interest in such things than most, which does shade how I view the various candidates, and also means I have a bit more authority (even if self-granted) to comment on this than other issues.
John McCain would, at first blush, appear to have the more serious foreign policy credentials. However, almost every statement he has made on foreign policy issues has been reckless and, well, ignorant. His constant attacks on Barack Obama’s willing to “meet with dictators without preconditions” is silly. Of course one would hope America deals with our enemies using diplomacy. That is, after all, how countries interact. It does not mean going off to Teheran hat in hand hoping for a “peace in our time” speech (and it wasn’t what Obama meant when he gave the quote that McCain has been hammering on since), but it does mean challenging those who oppose American interests with every tool in the US arsenal, not simply that of the gun.
And speaking of the gun, America has been far too inclined to use it this past decade. Whether or not the invasion of Iraq was justified (I don’t believe it was; neither does Obama), the fact remains that the war being fought there now is *not* a “war on terror” or a “war on al’Qaeda” (nor was it when we invaded, something Republicans consistently conflate), but a civil war between ethnic groups within Iraq. This is not a war American lives should be be shed for, and our troops must be withdrawn with all due possible haste. Obama has promised to do this, and McCain has mocked those (including the bipartisan Iraq Study Group) which insisted on this, calling them “defeatists” and accused them of demanding America’s “surrender”. Yet given the overstretch our military is suffering, keeping our military engaged in Iraq, in a war we have zero vital interests in other than national ego, those who insist on our remaining in Iraq do America harm. On this issue alone, a vote for Obama over McCain is a necessity.
On other issues, both candidates tend to agree: a stronger intervention in Afghanistan (whose rehabilitation is in America’s interests), challenging Iran and using American influence to halt its nuclear weapons development, and a careful eye on Pakistan and Russia. It does bear noting that an Obama presidency would find it far easier to achieve these goals, simply because the Bush administration has burned so many bridges among our putative allies in blind pursuit of unilateral goals. McCain, by contrast, seems willing to continue this pattern (most notably more willing to insult Spain, a NATO member state and key ally, rather than admit he had confused President Zapatero of Spain with President Calderon of Mexico during an interview).
Given Obama’s thin resume, It was his job this campaign to convince the voters that he is capable of handling America’s foreign policy requirements; he has done so admirably.
The Economy: We are in the early stages of a recession. Arguing over whether it is due to Republican deregulation or Democratic mortgage law manipulation is a sideshow at this point; the clear duty of the next President will be to propose budgets that have some hope of minimizing the damage. Paradoxically for those of us who have lived through the 1970s and 1980s, the Democrats are now the party of fiscal responsibility, while the Republicans, in their last decade of power, have shown a complete inability to control spending, while enacting fiscally irresponsible tax cuts aimed at the wealthy top 1% or less of society.
McCain has recently hammered Obama as something of a socialist (ironic given the Bush adminstration’s effective nationalization of the mortgage and banking industries) for advocating “redistribution of wealth”. This is specious. Taxation by its nature is redistributive; any alternatives (such as flat tax or sales VAT schemes) would unfairly burden precisely the segment of society that can least afford it. The argument is not over whether taxation itself is welcome; John McCain is far from a libertarian, and his attempting to make that argument is absurd. The argument is simply over how that burden will be distributed – in effect whether the tax burden will be redistributed to the wealthy or the poor. Most fair people, regardless of their political leaning, would argue the former. This is why we have a progressive tax system, after all.
The problem then is not the nature of taxation, but its application or lack thereof. P J O’Rourke, in one of his breezy travelogue/political diatribes, looked at the essentially libertarian government of Hong Kong (pre-Chinese takeover) and noted that for government to truly get itself out of the way actually requires a lot of effort. For government to be invisible, it must be effective – and that requires funding. By contrast, the Federal government this past decade has been anything but. FEMA’s fumbling response to Katrina should be uppermost in everyone’s minds, but that is not the only example – our highway system is collapsing (sometimes literally), and our health care system is in a state of siege. The few things our government SHOULD be involving itself in, it is failing at. Some of this is a failure of leadership and priority, but much of this is also due to a simple lack of funding. Before all else, our government must simply do its job, and part of that is in enacting budgets that are balanced and realistic. A balanced budget will also help shore up our collapsed currency, and restore some confidence to the global economy.
Again, Obama is the more serious candidate here. Neither Obama nor McCain have promised balanced budgets (which is probably for the best given a recessionary economy) but Obama’s proposals are better thought out than McCain’s, who relies on railing against congressional earmarks, which while good theatre are a small fraction of the Federal budget.
This is not to say that there are not many issues that I disagree with Obama on in terms of economic policy. Simply put, I am a fiscal conservative and Obama is a classical liberal. Yet, ironically, he still is the more attractive choice for fiscal conservatives, if for no other reason then because he is the one candidate apparently capable of using a calculator, which says more to the bankruptcy of Republican thought than anything else.
Culture, Palin, and thought: The last point is something that the Republican party has to face if it will survive the next decade: among many other ill-concieved decisions, in embracing Sarah Palin and the social conservatism that she represents, the Republican party has made itself the standard bearer for anti-intellectualism.
Sarah Palin, as best as anyone can tell, has no opinions. On anything. In her few unscripted interviews, she has been unable to answer such simple questions as what newspaper she reads in the morning. Her one policy speech has been to support care for disabled children, which while certainly something that we should do as a society as a general rule, is to put it mildly not chief among the issues facing us as a nation. Yet Palin’s, and McCain’s response to the very simple questions raised by Palin’s lack of intellectual curiosity is to attack those who ask the questions, and moreover, to attack the very question itself. “Joe Sixpack” or “Joe the Plumber” wouldn’t ask if Sarah Palin has a foreign policy beyond a woolly grasp of geography.
Instead they would go to political gatherings strongly, horribly reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s Nuremburg rallies to rail at their enemies for being terrorists and socialists and Arabs and the other. Literally. Raising the Republican bogeymen, much as Jews were for the Nazis – no actual meaning, simply the other to scare the faithful with in lieu of an actual reasonable dialogue. This is not merely troubling. It is deeply frightening for anyone with a sense of history, and the Republican campaign has been extremely irresponsible in its prosceution of the campaign and its consequent corrosion of the national dialogue. I disagree with many people politically – this does not mean they are Insert-scary-meaningless-word-here.
This is not occurring in a vacuum. It is part of a pattern shown by today’s Republican leaders and the current Administration – a lack of respect for dissent, an all too easy appeal to fear and the other – sadly made all too easy, and all too quickly exploited, by the 9/11 attacks. If you ask many people today if Saddam Hussein bore responsibility for 9/11, many would say yes. Our government, in this as in so many other ways, has simply failed us. It has devolved to primitive threats of fear and anti-intellectual rejection of reason, something cheered on by the shock-talk conservative partisan media. And we see its application in the McCain campaign and its apparent existence in a strange time continuum where William Ayers is responsible for the stock market collapse and Barack Obama is an Arab terrorist.
This must be confronted. It must be rejected. We as Americans are simply better than this, and we must show this, cleanly and clearly. The appeals to fear and horror must be rejected.
And I have faith, given all of the above, that in a week they will be.
#1 by Snafzg on October 30th, 2008
Not that American citizens should be overly influenced by this, but when the rest of the world is hoping you pick Obama, I think it should still count for something…
As a Canadian, I truly hope you guys pick Obama. McCain seems way too volatile, ignorant, and triggy-happy for me. It’s kind of funny… I’ve been following your presidential campaign much more than I followed our recent federal elections. I’m quite sure your next president will have a larger impact on my country than my own government. Obama will be better for both of us.
I also hope he has the best security detail on the planet if he becomes your next president. There are a lot of crazies out there…
#2 by D-0ne on October 30th, 2008
All I know is that pre-existing conditions must be torn from the Health Insurance play book. If a man or woman goes without a job/health insurance in America for more than 62 days they and their family members forever get the pre-existing rider on all future health insurance. That’s bullshit.
#3 by OZ on October 30th, 2008
Sounds very similar to my opinions. I was actually for Hilary, then when she missed it, was for McCain, due to his experience. Palin’s selection shook me, and her complete lack of knowledge of…well anything, sent me to Obama’s camp. The continued and increasingly negative campaigning done by the side (not that Obama’s camp is in any way innocent) really keeps me from listening to them anymore. It sounds, to me, more like a hate rally than a political rally, and I’m hoping that McCain realizes at some point that he’s going a bit too far. Palin at this point has gone so far into crazyland that she’s as close to being an animated character as William Shatner. The reason that the SNL bits are so funny is that she is really like that. Palin is the most popular costume this year.
Neither of the choices are saints, neither are a perfect fit, but given a choice between the two, I feel that Obama is closer to what I want to see.
#4 by Capn John on October 30th, 2008
Is the “Palin” costume really the most popular one for Halloween this year? You realize what that means, right?
If the Halloween-mask prediction comes true again (like it has for almost every past Election-year Halloween), that’s a sure fire sign of a Republican victory.
#5 by Amaranthar on October 30th, 2008
On the economy and taxes, and the affects of taxes, and this is very important.
Everyone talks about our deficit, and Bush’s tax cuts. Here’s the facts.
Bush’s tax cuts removed $75 billion of tax burden to the people.
However, tax revenues that the government took in in 2006 were $47 billion more than what was projected to happen before the tax cuts were implemented. The projections are the only fair way to look at it, as the population grows.
The reason for this is simple. Tax rates and taxable incomes are two different things. Higher tax rates reduce investment, thus reducing jobs, thus reducing taxable incomes. Lower tax rates do just the opposite.
Capital Gains are also important in the same way.
In 2003, capital gains tax rates were reduced from 20 percent and 10 percent (depending on income) to 15 percent and 5 percent. Rather than expand by 36 percent from the current $50 billion level to $68 billion in 2006 as projected before the tax cut, capital gains revenues more than doubled to $103 billion. And past capital gains tax cuts have shown similar results.
The problem with our deficit wasn’t because we were taking in less tax revenue, in fact we were taking in allot more. The problem was that we were spending a whole lot more. But I fail to see why people want to blame Bush, or anyone for that matter, for this. Look at what we were spending on, and for. We were in two wars, but importantly, we were rebuilding our entire defensive structure within our country to fight terrorist attacks. Allot of money has been spent in our airports, seaports, and cities for detection and prevention. We’ve restructured our intelligence capabilities at home and around the world. I can’t even find figures on the amounts spent because this is massive, and spread out between many agencies and departments, nationally and internationally, state wide, and local.
(And for those who still think the war in Iraq was wrong, I’ve already posted above the reasons why we had to invade.)
Wars cost allot of money. And make no mistake about it, we are in a massive war that includes all of the above and more. But we are winning, and we will win, as we must.
Obama’s tax plans, not even considering that he wants to just pull out of Iraq and hand it over to our enemies, would do the opposite of what has happened under Bush’s tax cuts. It would hurt investment and growth, thus hurting jobs, thus hurting taxable incomes.
The arguments on socialism and redistribution of wealth are wrong. We are doing that now! If you file a tax return, and if you get more refunds than what you owe in taxes, you get refunded more than you paid in taxes. That argument is pure politics. But that’s the way it is, they all do it, because they all have to do it to get elected. Ignore it! Concentrate instead on the facts and the ramifications of their policies.
#6 by Wolfshead on October 31st, 2008
Normally, I do not discuss politics on my MMO blog or on other MMO blogs. I am secure in my political beliefs. I don’t feel the need to convert others or preach to the converted as a way to boost my self-esteem. However, today I’d like to make an exception and address some of the exaggerations and deceptions contained in this article.
First off, you are no conservative Scott. Anyone that would cast a vote for the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate and the most liberal Presidential candidate in the history of America is most certainly not a conservative. Claiming to be the opposite of what you believe is one of the oldest tricks in the book and hopefully most readers didn’t fall for it.
“Culture, Palin, and thought: The last point is something that the Republican party has to face if it will survive the next decade: among many other ill-concieved decisions, in embracing Sarah Palin and the social conservatism that she represents, the Republican party has made itself the standard bearer for anti-intellectualism.”
I detect thinly veiled snobbery here and contempt for people who happen to hold traditional values. In your world, only people that are fortunate enough to attend an Ivy League university are qualified to be vice-president or president of the USA. Being a good leader is far more then being an intellectual, it’s about having character — something that narcissistic Obama will never have despite his debonair charm and teleprompter eloquence. Sarah Palin never set out to be a presidential or vice-presidential candidate. For some citizens, political office is about service instead of grabbing power. To her credit she was minding her own business and the business of the people of Alaska when John McCain asked her to be his running mate. Meanwhile, Barry Obama’s entire life has always been in the pursuit of activities and associations that would pad his resume and further his rise to power.
“Sarah Palin, as best as anyone can tell, has no opinions. On anything. In her few unscripted interviews, she has been unable to answer such simple questions as what newspaper she reads in the morning.
Do you know Sarah Palin personally? If not, then how do you know she has no opinions? Have you lived in Alaska while she was the Governor? How on earth did she get elected having “no opinions”? How did she fight corruption in Alaska and take on her own party without having an opinion? How did she get an 80% approval rating in Alaska with “no opinions”? You, on the other hand, Scott the Blogger seemingly have lots of expert opinions on many subjects and surely that makes you qualified to be vice-president right? The truth is that Sarah Palin has lots of opinions — you just don’t happen to agree with any of them.
Never before in the history of politics has a vice-presidential candidate been the victim of such a concentrated campaign of hate and smears as Sarah Palin. (Oh I must have missed your clever blog entries about how offended you were about the effigy of Sarah Palin hanging from the noose in West Hollywood or how unfunny comedian Sarah Bernhardt suggested that Sarah Palin should be gang raped by African American men.)I doubt you or any of your crew on this thread hiding behind their monitors would survive 5 minutes of the kind of insults or scrutiny that she and her family has faced.
“Yet Palin’s, and McCain’s response to the very simple questions raised by Palin’s lack of intellectual curiosity is to attack those who ask the questions, and moreover, to attack the very question itself. “Joe Sixpack” or “Joe the Plumber” wouldn’t ask if Sarah Palin has a foreign policy beyond a woolly grasp of geography.”
In 1992 a young and previously unknown governor of the State of Arkansas named Bill Clinton become the President. According to a recent interview with one of his advisors Dick Morris, he had ZERO foreign policy experience when he got elected. Morris said that it took Clinton about a year to get up to speed on foreign policy after entering the White House. Governor Sarah Palin from all accounts is also a very quick study. Given your logic a governor of any state in the USA would be automatically disqualified from being the President because they lack any substantive foreign policy experience. By the way, sixteen U.S. presidents were state governors before holding the highest office in the land. Thankfully the American people know better and exhibit much more of an open-minded approach regarding the experience of who they support for president.
On the subject of foreign policy, you fail to mention who has the true deficit of experience: Barack Obama. I find it interesting how you conveniently forgot to mention that Obama totally fumbled his initial response to the Russian invasion of Georgia and demonstrated a shocking naivete of how the UN Security Council veto power works. That’s inexcusable for someone who wants to be leading the free world. You also failed to mention the many gaffs that Joe Biden has made regarding foreign policy including his plan to partition Iraq and his feeling that Obama’s inexperience will in essence be an open door for him to be “tested”. Here’s one of his infamous gaffs:
“When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed,” Biden told the CBS Evening News on Sept. 22.
The facts: Herbert Hoover was president in October 1929 when the stock market crashed. FDR wasn’t elected until 1932, and television made its debut a decade later, in 1939.
Katie Couric conveniently failed to pursue Biden on this gaff. And you are worried about Sarah Palin’s lack of foreign policy experience? At least she’s not a bumbling oaf like Biden.
Now back to Joe the Plumber. Here we have a guy who happened to be throwing a football with his son on a Ohio street where Obama was walking down and (read: looking for an easy photo-op) and asks a simple question and now suddenly he’s the bad guy for daring to ask a question? The very next day Obama mocked and laughed at Joe the Plumber at a rally. This guy’s life has been turned upside down by vicious attacks by their cohorts in the left-wing media and now by Democratic state officials. The media even had satellite trucks parked outside his home — not terrorist Bill Ayers home though. In reality it’s the Obama campaign who has been using ad hominem attacks on people who ask the uncomfortable questions. Joe the Plumber soon learned what happens to you when you question the “change we need”.
“Instead they would go to political gatherings strongly, horribly reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s Nuremburg rallies to rail at their enemies for being terrorists and socialists and Arabs and the other. Literally. Raising the Republican bogeymen, much as Jews were for the Nazis – no actual meaning, simply the other to scare the faithful with in lieu of an actual reasonable dialogue. This is not merely troubling. It is deeply frightening for anyone with a sense of history, and the Republican campaign has been extremely irresponsible in its prosceution of the campaign and its consequent corrosion of the national dialogue. I disagree with many people politically – this does not mean they are Insert-scary-meaningless-word-here.”
That is one of the worst examples of fear-mongering that I’ve read so far during this election. The above assertions are baseless and groundless. As a so-called student of history, you should be ashamed of yourself for publishing such false tripe. Equating people who vote for John McCain and the Republican party with Nazi Germany is a clear sign of desperation and immaturity on your part. Your ego must be huge if you think you could escape the invocation of Godwin’s Law.
“This is not occurring in a vacuum. It is part of a pattern shown by today’s Republican leaders and the current Administration – a lack of respect for dissent, an all too easy appeal to fear and the other – sadly made all too easy, and all too quickly exploited, by the 9/11 attacks. If you ask many people today if Saddam Hussein bore responsibility for 9/11, many would say yes.”
Please provide some concrete and verifiable examples where this administration has impinged upon the rights of Americans to exercise free speech or squelched dissent? That’s right, you can’t. In fact the lack of dissent can be found in the left — within the Democratic Party who won’t allow debates on most votes in Congress, the left-wing biased mainstream media and the political correct academia on most university campuses. It is the Democrats who are opposed to dissent as they are considering reinstating the so-called Fairness Doctrine in an effort to silence talk radio — the only medium that the left has failed to utterly dominate and control. Why? Because it’s the only medium left outside of the Internet where the average American (you know those uneducated, unintelligent, socially conservative dolts who don’t have blogs — that you seem to despise) have a voice.
“Our government, in this as in so many other ways, has simply failed us. It has devolved to primitive threats of fear and anti-intellectual rejection of reason, something cheered on by the shock-talk conservative partisan media. And we see its application in the McCain campaign and its apparent existence in a strange time continuum where William Ayers is responsible for the stock market collapse and Barack Obama is an Arab terrorist.”
I agree the government has failed us on many fronts — especially their involvement in precipitating and managing the current financial crisis. However it has not failed us for the reasons you state. Some Americans are rightfully afraid about the candidacy of Barrack Obama because they know so little about him due to the negligence of the mainstream media who is desperate to get him elected. Obama has failed to release many details about his past to the public and lied about his associations.
Even one of the top reporters for the L.A. Times (a liberal newspaper) recently admitted that Obama is largely inaccessible and essentially a mystery to the press. If only the mainstream media had put the same scrutiny on Barrack Obama as they have done on Sarah Palin this would not be an issue and Americans would be able to make an informed choice. Don’t blame people for being afraid of someone they do not know especially when that person is seeking the most important job in the world.
Please provide some evidence where a legitimate news organization or any serious conservative thinker/pundit has claimed that Ayers caused the stock market problems. That is patently false. Nobody of any import or influence believes that Obama is an Arab terrorist. Please stop making straw man fallacies as you are embarrassing yourself.
Granted, George Bush in many ways has been a less then competent president. Let’s be honest, the current Democratic congress has the lowest approval ratings of any congress in the history of the USA — lower then the current approval ratings of George Bush. As far as fear is concerned, aren’t you a hypocrite? You just finished stoking the flames of fear by equating McCain supporters and Republicans with Nazi Germany but then you are indignant that the media and the American public have no right to be afraid of a candidate that went to a racist church for 20 years and who associates with known terrorist spokespersons such as Khalidi and unrepentant terrorists like Ayers? If John McCain and the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh went to the same racist church together wouldn’t you be at all concerned? You damned right you’d be concerned and rightfully so.
“This must be confronted. It must be rejected. We as Americans are simply better than this, and we must show this, cleanly and clearly. The appeals to fear and horror must be rejected.”
You are right. Scott, you are much better then this. Your absurd appeal equating McCain and the Republicans to the horrors of Nazi Germany is embarrassingly juvenile and amateurish. Making the case for Obama by writing a respectful and dignified article is one thing, but reaching into the gutter like this and smearing your fellow Americans with such mean-spirited language is completely unacceptable and should be rejected. It’s a sad day for the MMO blogosphere when Lum the Mad finally lives up to his name.
#7 by james on October 31st, 2008
Here here, Scott. I commend you on your ability to step back from one’s own political biases and make decisions with clarity. And here’s to hoping that if in the future the tables are reversed and it is the Democratic Party guilty of such malfeasance I shall be able to follow your lead.
#8 by james on October 31st, 2008
Sorry, one other thing… I keep hearing people repeat, as both McCain and wolfshead have done, that Obama is the most “liberal Presidential candidate in the history of America.” O, Eugene Debs, has your memory faded so quickly?
#9 by Viz on October 31st, 2008
The funny thing is, according to the polls (as given by TV network news) is that people think that Obama is more likely to do the right thing vis a vis the economy. This is absurd. There isn’t a ghost of a chance that either candidate will “do the right thing” because they, like most politicos, are still in the thrall of John Maynard Keynes–not surprising, since his theory encourages them to take control of economic resources. (Before anybody jumps in to argue about Keynesian economic theory, consider that Keynes personally invested using the “castles in the air” or “greater fool” method. Somebody’s got to eat that loss at the end.)
All the arguing done is about taxes, but taxes are really less than half the story. The bulk of the problem has to do with spending, and not just government spending but also the spending of the private sector–a problem effectively created by forcing the interest rate. I personally think that allowing the interest rate to move back towards the actual time preference rate of the market would go a long way towards alleviating our economic problems–the savings rate would rise, the present value of many forms of government bonds would decline, thus giving the opportunity to clear our existing debt more cheaply, and it will become more expensive for the government to raise money, hopefully restraining spending.
#10 by Viz on October 31st, 2008
James: Sadly, (or more likely not, from the average American’s standpoint) yes. The United States just wasn’t sufficiently fertile ground for socialist parties.
#11 by Matt D-K on October 31st, 2008
Well put. Thank you Scott!
#12 by Amaranthar on October 31st, 2008
Speaking of accusations of a “lack of respect for dissent”, The Obama campaign has kicked the reporters of 3 publications off their campaign plane, supposedly to make room for others. The thing they all have in common? That their papers have decided to support McCain.
That brings to mind WFTV and news reporter Barbara West, who challenged Joe Biden recently, and was rewarded with a cancellation of future interviews.
Which in turn brings to mind the planned boycotting of Fox News some months ago, which fell through because most people in fact watch them.
#13 by Scott Jennings on October 31st, 2008
> That brings to mind WFTV and news reporter Barbara West,
> who challenged Joe Biden recently, and was rewarded with
> a cancellation of future interviews.
She didn’t “challenge” Joe Biden, she gave what might be one of the most mind-blowingly partisanly stupid interviews in recent memory. She literally asked Biden if Obama was actually a Marxist (which caused Biden to literally perform a double take).
Don’t take my word for it, judge for yourself. It’s funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW_wQgWviZ8
#14 by Amaranthar on October 31st, 2008
Scott, the accusations were already out there. It didn’t used to be uncommon for interviewers to ask the questions to allow the interviewee to respond to them.
#15 by IainC on October 31st, 2008
He’s been accused of being the Antichrist also, you’ll note that she didn’t ask about that. Seriously there are sensible questions based on legitimate issues and then there are loaded ‘So do you still beat your wife?’ type stuff. Those questions do not warrant dignifying with a response.
The recent rash of foamy-chinned tinfoil hat nonsense coming from the right (as exemplified by Wolfshead and others in this thread) is indicative of how little actual substance they possess. No-one is arguing about John McCain’s policies or his stance on anything substantive because the right wing commentators are painfully aware that there is nothing to discuss. Instead we get increasingly desperate attempts to hang increasingly weak and increasingly misrepresented ’scandals’ on the other guy.
#16 by Roc on October 31st, 2008
“Too bad we were raised by government schools that told us we had only two choices.”
*Math* tells us we have only two choices. The two party system is the result of trivial optimization of winner-take-all. Barring a change to our election systems, it’s inevitable.
#17 by Tem on October 31st, 2008
Wolfshead: Wow, I don’t have the time or the patience to go through your post line by line as you did Scott’s to paint you as the brainwashed Republican tool you so obviously are, but I do give you props for the almost Fox News-like rebuttal to what Scott posted. Perhaps you should work for them. But, in short:
- Sarah Palin is an idiot. Plain and simple. Anybody who argues to the contrary simply makes a fool of themselves. She got elected in Alaska because 1. Alaska likes their women (even family sometimes *wink* *wink*). 2. She’s sexy (to Alaskans?).
- Joe the Plumber is a fake. He has been a regular on Ohio conservative radio shows for years now. If you haven’t read any of what has been revealed about him in the last couple weeks, you need to watch something other than Fox News.
- Obama “inaccessible”? Gee, you would think someone who wrote an auto-biography wouldn’t have much more to hide. Bill Ayers? The man was an anti-war protester, not a terrorist. A lot of people said a lot of things about the US Government back then. Saying you’ll do something and never following through does not make you a terrorist, it makes you a hot head. Terrorists, on the other hand, actually do some pretty awful things and rarely are they preceded with clear warnings.
Frankly, I am shocked that someone clearly as intelligent as you could be hoodwinked into towing the Republican line. There are only four reasons why anyone would still be in the Republican tank:
1. Older generation (60+).
2. Social conservatism (Hates gays).
3. Ignorance (What newspaper do YOU read?).
4. Rich and Greedy (You must be Rupert Murdoch!).
Choose any two. Which are you?
#18 by wowpanda on October 31st, 2008
@Tem,
I am none of that 4, but I am not voting Obama.
To of my older friends, both 60+, social conservative (against gay marriage), Rich (Greedy if you call want to make a profile greedy), insisted voting on Obama.
They actually agree with my views of smaller government and people should be responsible for themselves. The only reason they are voting for Obama is hating Bush
So far all the friends who can vote I have talked to (2 McCain 2 Obama), only 1 McCain voter agreed with me and voted Barr. The 3 guys who won’t change all cited that Barr will not win as the reason.
#19 by Scott Jennings on October 31st, 2008
People telling me I’m not allowed to call myself a conservative any more never gets old. (Ignore the fact that so many conservatives are endorsing Obama this year that Colbert did a joke on it.) Maybe we can come up with a new label instead. I hear “whig” is free.
I went to a commuter college in north Florida (and never finished, at that) so I suppose I hold myself in contempt as well? Methinks you are projecting a bit too much. At any rate, I have no problem with people who hold traditional values (such as, oh, I don’t know, myself). People who try to impose traditional values I tend to disagree with.
How dare our leaders be well-spoken and thoughtful!
This is inaccurate. She sought out to (and did) impress the editors of the National Review and Weekly Standard a few years back during their yearly Alaska cruises with an eye towards a place on the national ticket.
Yes, he’s an ambitious politician. HOLY CRAP STOP THE PRESSES, CINCINNATUS ISN’T RUNNING THIS YEAR.
Through her writings, speeches, and interviews. How do you know anything about anyone you don’t personally know?
Because she’s young, attractive, and not Frank Murkowski.
Unlike Ms. Palin, I am well aware of my lack of qualification for high political office.
Yes, normally Karl Rove’s operatives concentrate on the top of the ticket.
I find this highly amusing given the abuse I’ve personally suffered being a visible figure in the MMO community over the past decade, including death threats, obscene photoshops, angry Geocities hate sites, drunken people ranting at me in bars in person, and the occasional indecipherable screaming about “Trammel”. Admittedly this does not compare to the fury of Alec Baldwin waxing wroth on the Huffington Post, but it still is, I note, highly amusing.
Bill Clinton did not avoid the national media out of fear of actually having to answer questions. Sarah Palin does. And from all accounts within her campaign (note: *within her own campaign*) she is anything but a quick study, but instead is a ‘diva’ and ‘whack job’ who was so unprepared she was kept from the media out of a sense of preservation. (Note that those quotes are not from the Obama campaign, but from the *McCain* campaign.)
I find it interesting that you apparently think “the Russian invasion of Georgia” is a clear cut case of Russian aggression that Obama “fumbled”, when in point of fact it is entirely arguable that Georgia provoked the attack though indiscriminate rocket shelling of Tshkinvali (the S. Ossetian capital). I also find it interesting that you apparently think Russian intervention into a former Soviet state in the Caucasus is worth taking the US into war with Russia over. I also wonder if you, like McCain, actually are aware of the history of post-Soviet successor states (which, including Georgia, are far from paragons of democracy) or if you are simply parroting neoconservative talking points.
You are aware Iraq is already de facto partitioned largely through American fiat, correct? That Kurdistan is a de facto independent state, which is not a de jure independent state only due to Turkish sensitivity regarding their own Kurdish minority, and that the US military has been funding Sunni “Awakening” militias ostensibly to protect themselves from al’Qaeda in Iraq (which is effectively wiped out as a military force) but in reality to protect themselves from the Medhi Army militas, SCIRI, and other Shi’ite militias that in effect run the Iraqi central government? I mean, I wouldn’t want to assume that you were speaking out of ignorance on Iraq and judging Biden’s proposed recognition of reality on the ground based on that. Or that, again, you would merely be parroting someone else’s talking points instead of doing your own research on the subject.
No, she is entirely her own brand of bumbling, you are correct there.
That would explain why Wurzelbacher is a long-time figure in Ohio conservative talk radio who plans to run for political office. It’s all the Democrats’ fault, picking on a poor innocent plumber! It’s not like McCain has made him a keystone of his campaign or anything.
Equating people who demand Obama’s execution as a terrorist with the sort of rhetoric heard in Weimar-era fascist rallies is entirely appropriate, given that the propaganda techniques involved (demonization of the ‘other’, nationalist resentment over percieved social injustice) is identical.
Oh good lord, where do I start? Patriot Act, oversight-free wiretaps, search and seizure of laptops at the border being so bad businesses literally instruct travellers not to take them through customs any more… oh, you mean actually impinging on free speech? Here you go: http://www.aclu.org/freespeech/protest/silenced.html
I agree with you that trying to re-impose the Fairness Doctrine would be a mistake. So does Barack Obama.
Obama has written two autobiographies. Perhaps you want him to write more?
The constant attempts by the right-wing media to conflate Obama and Bill Ayers are ridiculous and serve solely to use the words “Obama” and “terrorist” in the same sentence. This is not “rightfully afraid”, this is manipulation via base propaganda.
Barack Obama has been almost impossible to avoid in the media. He has given hundreds if not thousands of interviews, among them to some very hostile questioners. Yet apparently the right wing media is fond of insisting that “we just don’t KNOW about Obama” – are Obama’s beliefs somehow hidden? I mean, there’s a whole website full of them, with his name right there in the URL. It certainly couldn’t be because the right wing media is appealing to fear of Obama’s foreign sounding name and implying that he is somehow a Muslim and that means he’s evil and a terrorist (because all Muslims are evil and terrorist simply by virtue of being Muslim), correct? Certainly they wouldn’t be implying that, they simply want to know what Obama stands for, right? So by that logic, I can only conclude that the right-wing media is incapable of using a web browser.
It’s an ironic joke based on that the McCain campaign found Bill Ayers’ history more worthy of discussion than the collapse of the financial system.
Let’s be honest, the Democrats have held power in Congress for less than 2 years. But, hey, clearly the problems in this country are all their fault – if only the Republicans had had two more years of uncontested political control, everything would be *fine*!
What are you actually trying to say here? That Obama isn’t what he advertises himself to be – namely an unrepentant liberal Senator from Illinois – and is some sort of Manchurian candidate that is going to turn over the country to Hamas and the Black Panthers? Leaving aside the casual dismissal of Obama’s religion as a “racist church” (because only whites are allowed to attend politically active ministries, apparently) and McCain and Palin both being linked to ministers who have said things equally as vile as Wright – what exactly are you trying to say? Is it not enough to vote against Obama because he’s liberal? Because that at least would be intellectually honest. Calling him out on his links with Rezko and crony Chicago politics – again, a fair cop, and something Obama should do a better job of explaining himself on.
But trying to paint Obama literally as a terrorist by his attending a dinner here and a party there with people that we should *fear* as the *other* (despite neither Khalidi nor Ayers actually being, you know, criminals)? That is not fair political discourse, it is guilt by association, leveraged by fear of someone who is feared for being a different race and ethnicity from the speaker and the spoken. Which is not just McCarthyism, but also an appeal to racist fear.
And you’re damn right, I will *not* meekly accept that.
#20 by wowpanda on October 31st, 2008
Yep, Obama actually don’t support fairness doctrine http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6573406.html?desc=topstory, that one alone made him that better than Hillary.
It is the “Russian invasion of Georgia” issues that made me go for Barr.
McCain jumped right on blaming Russia. Obama’s “For MANY months, I have warned …” talk is laughable too (source http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/11/obama-responds-to-conflic_n_118276.html)
It is interesting the republican who I can’t convince to vote for Barr thinks just like McCain….
#21 by wowpanda on October 31st, 2008
I mean on the Russian/Georgia issue
#22 by IainC on October 31st, 2008
About Khalidi: Apparently he’s a PLO spokesman although he’s often been critical of the PLO and neither he nor the PLO have ever claimed any association – in fact both parties have at different times denied any involvement.
He is a professor of Arab studies, sat on the board of a Republican-funded institute for research in Middle-Eastern studies, he is a member of a multifaith organisation of Jews, Christians and Muslims dedicated to dialogue and advocacy regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict and is probably the leading Middle Eastern scholar in America today. Basically the kind of person that anyone with an interest in the area should be talking to. He’s also very much involved in education reform – which has always been one of Obama’s hobby-horses.
But yeah, he’s brown and has a funny name so that makes him a terrorist obviously.
#23 by Viz on November 2nd, 2008
In the McCain campaign’s defense, regarding the “collapse” of the “financial system,” they were really in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. The Republicans are considered responsible by virtue of the fact that they had the White House, rather than because something they did (differently, anyway) explicitly caused the “crisis.” When faced with a choice between “taking responsibility” for something you didn’t really do or appearing to be petulant liars for disclaiming responsibility… it’s not really surprising that they tried to change the subject.
#24 by Gsarducci on November 2nd, 2008
Ya know, this is a great post. Period. I’ve been struggling to put into words just how to explain the tone and character of the Republican rally cry, but the last section of your post bears it out quite eloquently.
What’s truly troubling, and you didn’t touch on this, is how close the race is between Obama and McCain. Here’s part of the problem. People, in general, are pretty dumb. Here’s a few things I’ve heard, unsolicited, out of people where I live here in suburban Chicago:
“Obama supports gay marriage, which means they would be teaching that to our children in school!”
“Obama is a Muslim, therefore he supports terrorism”
“Obama is a Communist”
This is the kind of stuff I’ve been hearing and unfortunately, for these people, there’s obviously no ability to reason logically with them since apparently they’re intellectually void. This is the kind of blind, mindless sheep mentality that saw Bush to a second term. As you’ll recall, they battle cry on ‘04 was “we gotta win the war against terrorism”! Of course, no one at that point had any obvious point of reference since the mainstream news media hadn’t clued in yet that Iraq had effectively nothing to do with the current domestic terrorist problem, so all they had to go by was the rhetoric from both parties, and the American people put their money on “the devil you know” spot, without any consideration for any of the other domestic problems we faced at that time. Unfortunately, the American people have only partially awakened to the notion that closing your eyes and wishing something to go away doesn’t make it actually go away. The only action that seemed to make sense at the time was to move a Democratic majority to the Hill, but all that did was grind the Federal Government to a complete halt for the last 2 years. If for nothing else, at least if Obama makes it into office, SOMETHING will get done!
#25 by Kirk on February 14th, 2009
With the passage of Pelosi’s stimulus package, the appointment of a man apparently too stupid to use turbotax to head the IRS and moving of the census to white house control I certainly hope you all are happy.