That seems to be assuming that a party's stance should match 100% a party member's stances.
This is amazingly false in almost all cases, and boils down to individuality. It's also the reason straight ticket voters are horribly stupid.
That's a fair point. I guess from my perspective I've seen go many people rage against a_bush_policy_00 over the years that when Obama comes along and the same people start searching for ways to give him a pass... I suppose I overreact.
I fully agree that the people who oppose a Bush policy because it's a Bush policy are fucking tards.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Mostly. I've gone long past the point on giving Bush the benefit of the doubt on any policy. But yes, if he happens to emulate the stopped clock, opposing it because it came from him would be silly.
That seems to be assuming that a party's stance should match 100% a party member's stances.
This is amazingly false in almost all cases, and boils down to individuality. It's also the reason straight ticket voters are horribly stupid.
That's a fair point. I guess from my perspective I've seen go many people rage against a_bush_policy_00 over the years that when Obama comes along and the same people start searching for ways to give him a pass... I suppose I overreact.
I fully agree that the people who oppose a Bush policy because it's a Bush policy are fucking tards.
Yes, those people are fucking stupid. I like a lot of his policies on paper, I just think he's got a shitty habit of appointing people to run things that are monumentally bad at it.
Why? You've already made it clear you don't like Obama.
This is a general election thread. People who don't like McCain don't stop posting about him because they've already expressed that opinion.
C'mon, do we really want to establish Obama-love as a pre-req for posting in here?
Do we really have to have Jeffe or someone else point this out every 10 pages?
Apparently.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Why? You've already made it clear you don't like Obama.
This is a general election thread. People who don't like McCain don't stop posting about him because they've already expressed that opinion.
C'mon, do we really want to establish Obama-love as a pre-req for posting in here?
Of course not. But right now, whenever Deacon pops up with one of his "ololobama" posts, the whole thread turns into a game of whack-a-mole. It's less like a discussion, and more like a sitcom where the weird neighbor comes in the door, says something snarky, eats some snacks, and leaves.
McCain's now saying Webb's attacking him, and Obama's camp can't control their surrogates, and thus can't control the country.
Oh how amusing it would be if people played tapes after this of McCain's advisers stepping down after being caught playing the field in his Great Lobbyist Crackdown or the Great 527 Purge.
On a less stupidly snarky note, he's been going on for three days now about all the horrible attacks on his military record, when nobody's actually attacked his military record. Is the plan to just get people to cover it as if there were attacks on it?
McCain's now saying Webb's attacking him, and Obama's camp can't control their surrogates, and thus can't control the country.
Oh how amusing it would be if people played tapes after this of McCain's advisers stepping down after being caught playing the field in his Great Lobbyist Crackdown or the Great 527 Purge.
On a less stupidly snarky note, he's been going on for three days now about all the horrible attacks on his military record, when nobody's actually attacked his military record. Is the plan to just get people to cover it as if there were attacks on it?
That's...fucking insane.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Now that many of you have responded, much of it boils down to "Obama will do better with it than Bush did." So what happens after Obama leaves?
If a program is so dependent upon who is running it to determine whether it's abused, the program probably shouldn't be implemented. And I realize this could technically be applied to any program - but everyone seems to agree that this one seems more prone to it than most others.
I don't grant your last point. I think this administration is more prone to these kinds of ethical violations than any in recent memory. They are at the very least less worried about hiding these kinds of lapses.
Even with institutional frameworks to prevent abuse this is likely going to become a big chunk of patronage/pork from the administration du jour. It isn't a deal breaker or anything like that, but I still think it's a bad idea.
You may have answered this already, but are you opposed to the faith-based part, or the idea of the fed giving money to charities in general?
The latter. But I wouldn't be opposed to increasing tax incentives to give to those kinds of charities that actually provide material help to the poor rather than MacArthur type genius grants or buying a tote bag from your local PBS station (which relies on viewers like you) to be a backdoor subsidy to faith based initiatives or the local Atheist Secular Soup Kitchen Without Jesus. Charities are good and they should be promoted, but they should serve to be ancillary perks on top of or in collaboration with Federal and State programs that help the poor. Not conduits of Federal and State programs that help the poor.
It starts with "This is proof that the Obama campaign is coordinating this attack" and ends with "if Obama can't control his surrogates he can't handle the white house"
Yeah, the message hits both the He's Secretly Attacking Us With Surrogates to He Can't Control These Rogue Surrogates.
Why? You've already made it clear you don't like Obama.
This is a general election thread. People who don't like McCain don't stop posting about him because they've already expressed that opinion.
C'mon, do we really want to establish Obama-love as a pre-req for posting in here?
Do we really have to have Jeffe or someone else point this out every 10 pages?
Apparently.
I didn't mean that to be directed at you Jeffe. I meant it more as a disappointed agreement that you, or someone else, keeps having to do it, or else that's where the conversation inevitably evolves to.
It starts with "This is proof that the Obama campaign is coordinating this attack" and ends with "if Obama can't control his surrogates he can't handle the white house"
Yeah, the message hits both the He's Secretly Attacking Us With Surrogates to He Can't Control These Rogue Surrogates.
I think Kurt Vonnegut said it best that some people willfully file alway at the cogs in their brain that produce reason.
That seems to be assuming that a party's stance should match 100% a party member's stances.
This is amazingly false in almost all cases, and boils down to individuality. It's also the reason straight ticket voters are horribly stupid.
That's a fair point. I guess from my perspective I've seen go many people rage against a_bush_policy_00 over the years that when Obama comes along and the same people start searching for ways to give him a pass... I suppose I overreact.
I fully agree that the people who oppose a Bush policy because it's a Bush policy are fucking tards.
What about the people who oppose a Bush policy because you know it's going to be either ineptly handled or pretty clearly unconstitutional, but being cautiously optimistic said policy in someone else's hands could work.
That seems to be assuming that a party's stance should match 100% a party member's stances.
This is amazingly false in almost all cases, and boils down to individuality. It's also the reason straight ticket voters are horribly stupid.
That's a fair point. I guess from my perspective I've seen go many people rage against a_bush_policy_00 over the years that when Obama comes along and the same people start searching for ways to give him a pass... I suppose I overreact.
I fully agree that the people who oppose a Bush policy because it's a Bush policy are fucking tards.
What about the people who oppose a bush policy because you know it's going to be either ineptly handled or pretty clearly unconstitutional, but being cautiously optimistic said policy in someone else's hands could work.
If you like something that's pretty clearly unconstitutional if it's run by someone else, we should have Words. :P
That seems to be assuming that a party's stance should match 100% a party member's stances.
This is amazingly false in almost all cases, and boils down to individuality. It's also the reason straight ticket voters are horribly stupid.
That's a fair point. I guess from my perspective I've seen go many people rage against a_bush_policy_00 over the years that when Obama comes along and the same people start searching for ways to give him a pass... I suppose I overreact.
I fully agree that the people who oppose a Bush policy because it's a Bush policy are fucking tards.
What about the people who oppose a Bush policy because you know it's going to be either ineptly handled or pretty clearly unconstitutional, but being cautiously optimistic said policy in someone else's hands could work.
Woah woah woah, that makes no sense at all man. On both metrics.
Basically, any government institution that requires good leadership to function is a crappy institution. The Constitution, the entirety of the government, is designed to spread out power and purpose to as many actors as possible. This is why the President has a cumbersome NSC and interagency process advising him and why the Presidency itself is checked and balanced by the other branches of government. This is why we have a dozen intelligence agencies and several agencies devoted to federal law enforcement- spread power around. Concentrated power means a single incompetant can do tremendous damage, whereas with a shared system it all tends to balance out towards the ideal of mediocrity. Concentrated power also gives someone with a wicked agenda more room to see it come to fruition.
My #1 this-would-never-happen-but-it-would-be-great dream for Obama is that he endeavors to diminish Executive power, like amending the War Powers Act so it doesn't suck so very much. I trust him, I'm voting for him, but the government is not any individual President or Congresscritter, but something that has to function over time with a variety of individuals- some smart, others dumb, some good, some evil. I put my trust in the adequately constructed institution more than I'll put it into a person.
And if it's unconstitutional, it's unconstitutional even if Jesus Christ himself is in charge of it. Full stop.
That seems to be assuming that a party's stance should match 100% a party member's stances.
This is amazingly false in almost all cases, and boils down to individuality. It's also the reason straight ticket voters are horribly stupid.
That's a fair point. I guess from my perspective I've seen go many people rage against a_bush_policy_00 over the years that when Obama comes along and the same people start searching for ways to give him a pass... I suppose I overreact.
I fully agree that the people who oppose a Bush policy because it's a Bush policy are fucking tards.
What about the people who oppose a Bush policy because you know it's going to be either ineptly handled or pretty clearly unconstitutional, but being cautiously optimistic said policy in someone else's hands could work.
Woah woah woah, that makes no sense at all man. On both metrics.
Basically, any government institution that requires good leadership to function is a crappy institution. The Constitution, the entirety of the government, is designed to spread out power and purpose to as many actors as possible. This is why the President has a cumbersome NSC and interagency process advising him and why the Presidency itself is checked and balanced by the other branches of government. This is why we have a dozen intelligence agencies and several agencies devoted to federal law enforcement- spread power around. Concentrated power means a single incompetant can do tremendous damage, whereas with a shared system it all tends to balance out towards the ideal of mediocrity. Concentrated power also gives someone with a wicked agenda more room to see it come to fruition.
My #1 this-would-never-happen-but-it-would-be-great dream for Obama is that he endeavors to diminish Executive power, like amending the War Powers Act so it doesn't suck so very much. I trust him, I'm voting for him, but the government is not any individual President or Congresscritter, but something that has to function over time with a variety of individuals- some smart, others dumb, some good, some evil. I put my trust in the adequately constructed institution more than I'll put it into a person.
And if it's unconstitutional, it's unconstitutional even if Jesus Christ himself is in charge of it. Full stop.
I think I've said it before, but if the Bush presidency has taught us anything, it's how badly the system can be broken with enough effort. There's a difference between thinking something only works with good leadership (which I either unintentionally implied or people are reading into what I said) and acknowledging that with a concerted enough effort any idea, no matter how good, can be made to have extremely bad results. Just because a program CAN be unconstitutional doesn't at all mean possible implementations of it are unconstitutional or that are no ways to make it constitutional
In this specific case, I was trying to draw the distinction between disliking faith based initiatives under Bush, because it was pretty clear from even a cursory examination of his record and rhetoric that this was basically code for government doing everything it can to promote evangelical groups and suppress others, and being at least tentatively optimistic when Obama proposes the idea because given his record and rhetoric I think he's going to put the necessary framework in place to ensure this is done properly, in which case it can be constitutional and a net plus for society.
I don't at all disagree in an ideal world it shouldn't matter who's in charge. Unfortunately, this isn't that world and our government is functioning with as little regard to objective interpretation of the constitution or the balance of power as it ever has in our history.
This whole election cycle has been an eye-opener for me. I voted for John McCain in the 2000 primary, because at the time he was pretty much a perfect candidate for me. I consider myself fiscally conservative and socially centrist, and I vote for Republicans more often than Democrats. But I'm pretty disgusted at what so-called conservatism has become over the last eight years. To me, conservatism is about limited government, balancing the federal budget, and providing a strong national defense.
These days, conservatism is synonymous with nutbag religious zealots who use petty issues to increase their own power.
Abortion? I don't really give a shit. Forcing someone to have a baby they don't want or can't care for makes no sense. I don't care what Hallmark says, a baby is not always a blessing or a miracle.
Gay marriage? I don't really give a shit. In a country with such a high divorce rate, shrieking about the "integrity of marriage" is laughable at best.
Assisted suicide? I have absolutely no problem with this, as long as all parties involved are mentally capable of making the decision.
Yet these are the things I am supposed to be passionately opposed to as a conservative.
I liked McCain when he was poking the eye of the far right, but he's turned out to be just another politician cozying up to the evangelicals. That along with certain positions he's taken in the last eight years makes me very reluctant to support him in the election.
Meanwhile, Obama seems to be genuinely interested in listening to/respecting both sides of the aisle, and find myself closer to his positions than I thought I would be. I still want to hear more details, and I need to do more research, but I'm a lot more optimistic about him than I was at the start of the season.
TLDR: I'm a center-right conservative drifting away from McCain and toward Obama, but still pretty much undecided.
nosnibor on
When you're a spy, it's a good idea to give away your trade secrets in a voiceover on a TV show.
This whole election cycle has been an eye-opener for me. I voted for John McCain in the 2000 primary, because at the time he was pretty much a perfect candidate for me. I consider myself fiscally conservative and socially centrist, and I vote for Republicans more often than Democrats. But I'm pretty disgusted at what so-called conservatism has become over the last eight years. To me, conservatism is about limited government, balancing the federal budget, and providing a strong national defense.
These days, conservatism is synonymous with nutbag religious zealots who use petty issues to increase their own power.
Abortion? I don't really give a shit. Forcing someone to have a baby they don't want or can't care for makes no sense. I don't care what Hallmark says, a baby is not always a blessing or a miracle.
Gay marriage? I don't really give a shit. In a country with such a high divorce rate, shrieking about the "integrity of marriage" is laughable at best.
Assisted suicide? I have absolutely no problem with this, as long as all parties involved are mentally capable of making the decision.
Yet these are the things I am supposed to be passionately opposed to as a conservative.
I liked McCain when he was poking the eye of the far right, but he's turned out to be just another politician cozying up to the evangelicals. That along with certain positions he's taken in the last eight years makes me very reluctant to support him in the election.
Meanwhile, Obama seems to be genuinely interested in listening to/respecting both sides of the aisle, and find myself closer to his positions than I thought I would be. I still want to hear more details, and I need to do more research, but I'm a lot more optimistic about him than I was at the start of the season.
TLDR: I'm a center-right conservative drifting away from McCain and toward Obama, but still pretty much undecided.
Welcome to the club. A lot of us are Liberals because the line moved.
kildy on
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ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAmod
The latter. But I wouldn't be opposed to increasing tax incentives to give to those kinds of charities that actually provide material help to the poor rather than MacArthur type genius grants or buying a tote bag from your local PBS station (which relies on viewers like you) to be a backdoor subsidy to faith based initiatives or the local Atheist Secular Soup Kitchen Without Jesus. Charities are good and they should be promoted, but they should serve to be ancillary perks on top of or in collaboration with Federal and State programs that help the poor. Not conduits of Federal and State programs that help the poor.
Actually, I agree with you entirely. I should probably back up and clarify my position: I'm a proponent of taxpayer dollars going to religious charities if we take as a given that taxpayer dollars are going to charity. In general, I think taxpayer-funded charities are the worst of both worlds. The charities lose some of the onus of responsibility inherent when it's your own money that you're dicking around with, and the government loses any trace of efficiency that might come from a large organization with an established bureaucracy. What you wind up with is a large number of smaller and less-thorough programs with limited fiscal accountability.
Rather than give X dollars to 1000 charities, I'd rather take those X dollars and form a few programs designed to lessen the need for charity to begin with. Job training programs, homeless rehabilitation facilities, and so on. Organized charity in general is premised on slapping a bandaid on a problem in hopes that it gives those people a little more time to fix the problems by other means, and I think that approach is a stupid use of taxpayer dollars.
BUT. If we're already going to do that, then I think it's inherently shortsighted and flatly wrong to withhold funding from organizations solely because they happen to be a church.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Excellent way of putting it, although part of it is I moved as well. Those three issues I pointed out? I used to be passionate about them, but then sometime after adolescense(sp?) I became disillusioned with the church, which caused me to reevaluate a lot of what I thought I believed. College helped too.
nosnibor on
When you're a spy, it's a good idea to give away your trade secrets in a voiceover on a TV show.
Excellent way of putting it, although part of it is I moved as well. Those three issues I pointed out? I used to be passionate about them, but then sometime after adolescense(sp?) I became disillusioned with the church, which caused me to reevaluate a lot of what I thought I believed. College helped too.
Man, I see that. I used to be a hardcore libertarian until I got out of high school.
Daedalus on
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ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAmod
Basically, any government institution that requires good leadership to function is a crappy institution.
I sort of disagree. I think any institution requires good leadership to function, full stop. The idea that you can craft a set of rules and policies so good that even a fleet of retarded bonobos can't jack it up is a fallacy. You put an idiot in charge, your organization is boned.
Now, I agree that a government institution should not be structured such that it requires good leadership to keep from becoming completely corrupted and prone to committing acts of egregious harm. That said, Bush isn't doing such an awful job because he's manipulating the rules to suit his whims. He's doing an awful job because he completely ignores the rules. That's less a problem with the policies and rules themselves, and more a problem with the oversight of the institution of POTUS itself. And even then, it took a perfect storm of power, corruption, and spinelessness to get us into the situation we're in now.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Excellent way of putting it, although part of it is I moved as well. Those three issues I pointed out? I used to be passionate about them, but then sometime after adolescense(sp?) I became disillusioned with the church, which caused me to reevaluate a lot of what I thought I believed. College helped too.
Man, I see that. I used to be a hardcore libertarian until I got out of high school.
I'm trying to picture a high-school libertarian.
Were you the guy who wore obscene T-shirts and claimed the school had no right to search your locker?
nosnibor on
When you're a spy, it's a good idea to give away your trade secrets in a voiceover on a TV show.
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ElJeffeNot actually a mod.Roaming the streets, waving his gun around.Moderator, ClubPAmod
Excellent way of putting it, although part of it is I moved as well. Those three issues I pointed out? I used to be passionate about them, but then sometime after adolescense(sp?) I became disillusioned with the church, which caused me to reevaluate a lot of what I thought I believed. College helped too.
You're a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. Congratulations, you're now without a home. You can disagree with liberals on matters of finance, disagree with conservatives on matters of morality, or disagree with libertarians on matters of sanity.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Excellent way of putting it, although part of it is I moved as well. Those three issues I pointed out? I used to be passionate about them, but then sometime after adolescense(sp?) I became disillusioned with the church, which caused me to reevaluate a lot of what I thought I believed. College helped too.
Man, I see that. I used to be a hardcore libertarian until I got out of high school.
I think high school just breeds extreme socio-political ideologies. I, for instance, was a hardcore communist.
Excellent way of putting it, although part of it is I moved as well. Those three issues I pointed out? I used to be passionate about them, but then sometime after adolescense(sp?) I became disillusioned with the church, which caused me to reevaluate a lot of what I thought I believed. College helped too.
Man, I see that. I used to be a hardcore libertarian until I got out of high school.
I'm trying to picture a high-school libertarian.
Were you the guy who wore obscene T-shirts and claimed the school had no right to search your locker?
A high school libertarian is usually a punk rocker who figured out that anarchy is a fucking stupid "cause".
Excellent way of putting it, although part of it is I moved as well. Those three issues I pointed out? I used to be passionate about them, but then sometime after adolescense(sp?) I became disillusioned with the church, which caused me to reevaluate a lot of what I thought I believed. College helped too.
You're a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. Congratulations, you're now without a home. You can disagree with liberals on matters of finance, disagree with conservatives on matters of morality, or disagree with libertarians on matters of sanity.
We need some kind of shelter. Maybe a soup kitchen.
I've always been a centrist but these days that's about as liberal as you can get.
It is nice that many issues like health care and environmentalism has slid much more towards the center in recent years. Working class people are getting squeezed the hardest by gas prices and high health care costs. These aren't fridge issues anymore. I think is one of McCain's biggest weaknesses that he doesn't see this. The GOP is still wanting to write health care off as an effete ultra leftist issue but that's a big mistake.
Excellent way of putting it, although part of it is I moved as well. Those three issues I pointed out? I used to be passionate about them, but then sometime after adolescense(sp?) I became disillusioned with the church, which caused me to reevaluate a lot of what I thought I believed. College helped too.
You're a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. Congratulations, you're now without a home. You can disagree with liberals on matters of finance, disagree with conservatives on matters of morality, or disagree with libertarians on matters of sanity.
Excellent way of putting it, although part of it is I moved as well. Those three issues I pointed out? I used to be passionate about them, but then sometime after adolescense(sp?) I became disillusioned with the church, which caused me to reevaluate a lot of what I thought I believed. College helped too.
You're a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. Congratulations, you're now without a home. You can disagree with liberals on matters of finance, disagree with conservatives on matters of morality, or disagree with libertarians on matters of sanity.
For a minute I thought you meant I was a homeless person, then I realized you just meant politically.
nosnibor on
When you're a spy, it's a good idea to give away your trade secrets in a voiceover on a TV show.
Basically, any government institution that requires good leadership to function is a crappy institution.
I sort of disagree. I think any institution requires good leadership to function, full stop. The idea that you can craft a set of rules and policies so good that even a fleet of retarded bonobos can't jack it up is a fallacy. You put an idiot in charge, your organization is boned.
Oh, no, you'll still have fuckups, you do want good leadership. But you can't expect it consistently, not over time, so what you want is a system that minimizes the damage a bad leader can do. This necessarily restrains how much good an effective leader can do, so the choice is between extremes of highs and lows, or aiming straight for balanced mediocrity in governance, which is the ideal.
Excellent way of putting it, although part of it is I moved as well. Those three issues I pointed out? I used to be passionate about them, but then sometime after adolescense(sp?) I became disillusioned with the church, which caused me to reevaluate a lot of what I thought I believed. College helped too.
You're a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. Congratulations, you're now without a home. You can disagree with liberals on matters of finance, disagree with conservatives on matters of morality, or disagree with libertarians on matters of sanity.
For a minute I thought you meant I was a homeless person, then I realized you just meant politically.
Our government currently has no party of fiscal sanity Jeffe.
They just want to waste cash on different things. Unless you considered dangerous uber-deficient spending to be a "conservative" tactic
I was going by Official Party Doctrine, but yeah, you're pretty much right.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
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GoslingLooking Up Soccer In Mongolia Right Now, ProbablyWatertown, WIRegistered Userregular
edited July 2008
As far as the Deacon thing: I would love to have at least a few more McCain surrogates in here. I know they're on this forum somewhere. You're reading this, and you support McCain, and you don't currently post in here, please, come on in and give Deacon some backup. If you can intelligently defend your man, you might even win a few of us over. Who knows?
The problem is that Deacon's arguments always tend to boil down to finding something about Obama that challenges a percieved talking point of "The Left", pointing it out, and saying "Ha ha! Who is aggressor animal now?" Which is a) intellectually shallow, and b) easily refutable.
Gosling on
I have a new soccer blog The Minnow Tank. Reading it psychically kicks Sepp Blatter in the bean bag.
Excellent way of putting it, although part of it is I moved as well. Those three issues I pointed out? I used to be passionate about them, but then sometime after adolescense(sp?) I became disillusioned with the church, which caused me to reevaluate a lot of what I thought I believed. College helped too.
You're a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. Congratulations, you're now without a home. You can disagree with liberals on matters of finance, disagree with conservatives on matters of morality, or disagree with libertarians on matters of sanity.
For a minute I thought you meant I was a homeless person, then I realized you just meant politically.
Give it a year or two.
Nah, my home is all paid up, so all we've got to worry about are property taxes, which shouldn't go out of control anytime soon because we live out in the boonies.
nosnibor on
When you're a spy, it's a good idea to give away your trade secrets in a voiceover on a TV show.
Posts
I fully agree that the people who oppose a Bush policy because it's a Bush policy are fucking tards.
Yes, those people are fucking stupid. I like a lot of his policies on paper, I just think he's got a shitty habit of appointing people to run things that are monumentally bad at it.
Do we really have to have Jeffe or someone else point this out every 10 pages?
Apparently.
Of course not. But right now, whenever Deacon pops up with one of his "ololobama" posts, the whole thread turns into a game of whack-a-mole. It's less like a discussion, and more like a sitcom where the weird neighbor comes in the door, says something snarky, eats some snacks, and leaves.
McCain's now saying Webb's attacking him, and Obama's camp can't control their surrogates, and thus can't control the country.
Oh how amusing it would be if people played tapes after this of McCain's advisers stepping down after being caught playing the field in his Great Lobbyist Crackdown or the Great 527 Purge.
On a less stupidly snarky note, he's been going on for three days now about all the horrible attacks on his military record, when nobody's actually attacked his military record. Is the plan to just get people to cover it as if there were attacks on it?
That's...fucking insane.
The latter. But I wouldn't be opposed to increasing tax incentives to give to those kinds of charities that actually provide material help to the poor rather than MacArthur type genius grants or buying a tote bag from your local PBS station (which relies on viewers like you) to be a backdoor subsidy to faith based initiatives or the local Atheist Secular Soup Kitchen Without Jesus. Charities are good and they should be promoted, but they should serve to be ancillary perks on top of or in collaboration with Federal and State programs that help the poor. Not conduits of Federal and State programs that help the poor.
It starts with "This is proof that the Obama campaign is coordinating this attack" and ends with "if Obama can't control his surrogates he can't handle the white house"
Yeah, the message hits both the He's Secretly Attacking Us With Surrogates to He Can't Control These Rogue Surrogates.
I didn't mean that to be directed at you Jeffe. I meant it more as a disappointed agreement that you, or someone else, keeps having to do it, or else that's where the conversation inevitably evolves to.
I think Kurt Vonnegut said it best that some people willfully file alway at the cogs in their brain that produce reason.
obama is a secret GAY muslim
What about the people who oppose a Bush policy because you know it's going to be either ineptly handled or pretty clearly unconstitutional, but being cautiously optimistic said policy in someone else's hands could work.
If you like something that's pretty clearly unconstitutional if it's run by someone else, we should have Words. :P
From the land of Oz.
Woah woah woah, that makes no sense at all man. On both metrics.
Basically, any government institution that requires good leadership to function is a crappy institution. The Constitution, the entirety of the government, is designed to spread out power and purpose to as many actors as possible. This is why the President has a cumbersome NSC and interagency process advising him and why the Presidency itself is checked and balanced by the other branches of government. This is why we have a dozen intelligence agencies and several agencies devoted to federal law enforcement- spread power around. Concentrated power means a single incompetant can do tremendous damage, whereas with a shared system it all tends to balance out towards the ideal of mediocrity. Concentrated power also gives someone with a wicked agenda more room to see it come to fruition.
My #1 this-would-never-happen-but-it-would-be-great dream for Obama is that he endeavors to diminish Executive power, like amending the War Powers Act so it doesn't suck so very much. I trust him, I'm voting for him, but the government is not any individual President or Congresscritter, but something that has to function over time with a variety of individuals- some smart, others dumb, some good, some evil. I put my trust in the adequately constructed institution more than I'll put it into a person.
And if it's unconstitutional, it's unconstitutional even if Jesus Christ himself is in charge of it. Full stop.
I think I've said it before, but if the Bush presidency has taught us anything, it's how badly the system can be broken with enough effort. There's a difference between thinking something only works with good leadership (which I either unintentionally implied or people are reading into what I said) and acknowledging that with a concerted enough effort any idea, no matter how good, can be made to have extremely bad results. Just because a program CAN be unconstitutional doesn't at all mean possible implementations of it are unconstitutional or that are no ways to make it constitutional
In this specific case, I was trying to draw the distinction between disliking faith based initiatives under Bush, because it was pretty clear from even a cursory examination of his record and rhetoric that this was basically code for government doing everything it can to promote evangelical groups and suppress others, and being at least tentatively optimistic when Obama proposes the idea because given his record and rhetoric I think he's going to put the necessary framework in place to ensure this is done properly, in which case it can be constitutional and a net plus for society.
I don't at all disagree in an ideal world it shouldn't matter who's in charge. Unfortunately, this isn't that world and our government is functioning with as little regard to objective interpretation of the constitution or the balance of power as it ever has in our history.
These days, conservatism is synonymous with nutbag religious zealots who use petty issues to increase their own power.
Abortion? I don't really give a shit. Forcing someone to have a baby they don't want or can't care for makes no sense. I don't care what Hallmark says, a baby is not always a blessing or a miracle.
Gay marriage? I don't really give a shit. In a country with such a high divorce rate, shrieking about the "integrity of marriage" is laughable at best.
Assisted suicide? I have absolutely no problem with this, as long as all parties involved are mentally capable of making the decision.
Yet these are the things I am supposed to be passionately opposed to as a conservative.
I liked McCain when he was poking the eye of the far right, but he's turned out to be just another politician cozying up to the evangelicals. That along with certain positions he's taken in the last eight years makes me very reluctant to support him in the election.
Meanwhile, Obama seems to be genuinely interested in listening to/respecting both sides of the aisle, and find myself closer to his positions than I thought I would be. I still want to hear more details, and I need to do more research, but I'm a lot more optimistic about him than I was at the start of the season.
TLDR: I'm a center-right conservative drifting away from McCain and toward Obama, but still pretty much undecided.
Welcome to the club. A lot of us are Liberals because the line moved.
Actually, I agree with you entirely. I should probably back up and clarify my position: I'm a proponent of taxpayer dollars going to religious charities if we take as a given that taxpayer dollars are going to charity. In general, I think taxpayer-funded charities are the worst of both worlds. The charities lose some of the onus of responsibility inherent when it's your own money that you're dicking around with, and the government loses any trace of efficiency that might come from a large organization with an established bureaucracy. What you wind up with is a large number of smaller and less-thorough programs with limited fiscal accountability.
Rather than give X dollars to 1000 charities, I'd rather take those X dollars and form a few programs designed to lessen the need for charity to begin with. Job training programs, homeless rehabilitation facilities, and so on. Organized charity in general is premised on slapping a bandaid on a problem in hopes that it gives those people a little more time to fix the problems by other means, and I think that approach is a stupid use of taxpayer dollars.
BUT. If we're already going to do that, then I think it's inherently shortsighted and flatly wrong to withhold funding from organizations solely because they happen to be a church.
Excellent way of putting it, although part of it is I moved as well. Those three issues I pointed out? I used to be passionate about them, but then sometime after adolescense(sp?) I became disillusioned with the church, which caused me to reevaluate a lot of what I thought I believed. College helped too.
Man, I see that. I used to be a hardcore libertarian until I got out of high school.
I sort of disagree. I think any institution requires good leadership to function, full stop. The idea that you can craft a set of rules and policies so good that even a fleet of retarded bonobos can't jack it up is a fallacy. You put an idiot in charge, your organization is boned.
Now, I agree that a government institution should not be structured such that it requires good leadership to keep from becoming completely corrupted and prone to committing acts of egregious harm. That said, Bush isn't doing such an awful job because he's manipulating the rules to suit his whims. He's doing an awful job because he completely ignores the rules. That's less a problem with the policies and rules themselves, and more a problem with the oversight of the institution of POTUS itself. And even then, it took a perfect storm of power, corruption, and spinelessness to get us into the situation we're in now.
I'm trying to picture a high-school libertarian.
Were you the guy who wore obscene T-shirts and claimed the school had no right to search your locker?
You're a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. Congratulations, you're now without a home. You can disagree with liberals on matters of finance, disagree with conservatives on matters of morality, or disagree with libertarians on matters of sanity.
I think high school just breeds extreme socio-political ideologies. I, for instance, was a hardcore communist.
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We need some kind of shelter. Maybe a soup kitchen.
It is nice that many issues like health care and environmentalism has slid much more towards the center in recent years. Working class people are getting squeezed the hardest by gas prices and high health care costs. These aren't fridge issues anymore. I think is one of McCain's biggest weaknesses that he doesn't see this. The GOP is still wanting to write health care off as an effete ultra leftist issue but that's a big mistake.
We need to form a party.
We can call it the Fucking Sane party.
For a minute I thought you meant I was a homeless person, then I realized you just meant politically.
Oh, no, you'll still have fuckups, you do want good leadership. But you can't expect it consistently, not over time, so what you want is a system that minimizes the damage a bad leader can do. This necessarily restrains how much good an effective leader can do, so the choice is between extremes of highs and lows, or aiming straight for balanced mediocrity in governance, which is the ideal.
They just want to waste cash on different things. Unless you considered dangerous uber-deficient spending to be a "conservative" tactic
Give it a year or two.
I think he meant "classic conservative," not the pathetic excuse for conservatism we have now.
I was going by Official Party Doctrine, but yeah, you're pretty much right.
The problem is that Deacon's arguments always tend to boil down to finding something about Obama that challenges a percieved talking point of "The Left", pointing it out, and saying "Ha ha! Who is aggressor animal now?" Which is a) intellectually shallow, and b) easily refutable.
Nah, my home is all paid up, so all we've got to worry about are property taxes, which shouldn't go out of control anytime soon because we live out in the boonies.