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Atavachron
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 30 2006 Location: Pearland Status: Offline Points: 64665 |
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Of course I was, but I do like that Tim Gunn meme |
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dtguitarfan
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 24 2011 Location: Chattanooga, TN Status: Offline Points: 1708 |
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Speaking of Snowden and NSA spying and all that jazz - it seems quite stylish these days to blame Obama for all that. But I don't think this is right, for three reasons:
1) He didn't put into place the policies that led us to this point - that was another president....one known by the letter "W". 2) When this thing blew up after the Snowden leak, one of the things Obama said was: "I welcome this debate" - he WANTS to change this. And: 3) I don't think the president is our problem. I think these guys are: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/28/nsa-bills_n_3516928.html |
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Argonaught
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 04 2012 Location: Virginia Status: Offline Points: 1413 |
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Oh, I see .. 'cause before W there wasn't such thing as "government snooping" .. or torture .. or invasion of other countries w/o casus belli or Congressional approval .. Bush invented these. |
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dtguitarfan
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 24 2011 Location: Chattanooga, TN Status: Offline Points: 1708 |
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Things definitely got worse with W. |
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dtguitarfan
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 24 2011 Location: Chattanooga, TN Status: Offline Points: 1708 |
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^ The point I'm making is this: people who don't like Obama love to say to the people that voted for him that he's just Bush Jr. But the problem with this view is that Obama didn't write most of the policies the "Bush Jr." people take issue with. He just hasn't had an opportunity to overturn them. He got a lot done in his first two years, and then the toddler- like temper-tantrum throwing GOP took the house and some Senate seats back, and we haven't been able to get anything done in our government since.
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King of Loss
Prog Reviewer Joined: April 21 2005 Location: Boston, MA Status: Offline Points: 16349 |
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No, his foreign policy has been a lot worse than Bush's policies. At least Bush was straight-forward about what his policies were. The Obama administration has completely turned most of the Middle East into a Salafist whore-house.
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The T
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: October 16 2006 Location: FL, USA Status: Offline Points: 17493 |
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Ambient Hurricanes
Forum Senior Member Joined: December 25 2011 Location: internet Status: Offline Points: 2549 |
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Obama is just part of the problem. The entire system is corrupt, and most of our legislators, republican and democrat, have both feet firmly planted in the Orwellian surveillance camp. You can't let Bush or Obama or anyone who was responsible for this off the hook. While I agree that it is unfair to lay all the blame on the president, you cannot deny that the problem has gotten worse under his administration, not better. Snowden himself said that he had hope for positive change when Obama took office but that the surveillance was amped up instead. Who exactly are you referring to in the article? Congress in general? The people proposing bills to limit the NSA's powers? |
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I love dogs, I've always loved dogs
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King of Loss
Prog Reviewer Joined: April 21 2005 Location: Boston, MA Status: Offline Points: 16349 |
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And I applaud them for having the courage... I hope they don't relent.
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dtguitarfan
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 24 2011 Location: Chattanooga, TN Status: Offline Points: 1708 |
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YES. The majority half, to be more precise. Limit your disbelief for a second and hear me out. Presidents and Senators have to appeal to a broader range of people in order to be elected. They can't go way off the deep end and become an extreme left or right winger, or they simply will not be able to get the majority of the vote. Yes, to a certain degree, if you're running for senate in a Red state you can get away with being more conservative, but you still can't go too far or you won't get it. CONGRESS, however, is elected by district. And the districts are drawn by the government of their state. And if you look into it with an open mind, you'll see that what happened after Obama was elected is that the Republican party gerrymandered the f**k out of states like Ohio, where even though Democrats made up the majority of the vote of the state overall, they ended up with 11 Republicans and 2 Democrats elected to the House. So, because of this state, House Republicans don't worry about pushing things too far. In fact, they know that if they want to win their primaries, they've got to appeal to the "base" - the most passionate people of the party (read: the craziest). So yes, I blame the House Republicans for most of our problems. And you if you really pay attention to politics (I read the politics pages EVERY DAMN DAY), you'll see that everything you WANT to happen in our government is being blocked...by the House. |
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The T
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: October 16 2006 Location: FL, USA Status: Offline Points: 17493 |
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^I think the problem Geoff is that you read politics EVERY DAMN DAY as you say.
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Ambient Hurricanes
Forum Senior Member Joined: December 25 2011 Location: internet Status: Offline Points: 2549 |
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^I agree that most of the republicans in congress are dishonest charlatans who are hungry for power and couldn't care less about the American people. But I think the same of the democrats. We were talking about Snowden, so just consider the reaction of both house and senate to the leaks: both republicans and democrats are unwilling to admit that the government is wrong. Of course, there are a few brave legislators on both sides who are willing to take a stand against the blatant corruption and disregard for freedom present in our security system. But it's both sides who are trying to justify this, both sides that are oppressing the American people.
And please give me some examples of good legislation that is being blocked by the House. |
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I love dogs, I've always loved dogs
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dtguitarfan
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 24 2011 Location: Chattanooga, TN Status: Offline Points: 1708 |
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No, now, see, if you followed politics like I do, you'd know about the Hastert rule. What this basically means is that because the Democrats are not currently the majority in Congress, they don't really do anything. They sit around on their butts waiting for the stupid Republicans to finally do something and when the Republicans finally agree on a bill (which doesn't happen much these days), it gets all of the Republican votes (or nearly) and even if the Democrats are 100% united against it, the bill still passes. Then it goes to the Senate where it gets shot down by the Democratic majority because it was a stupid bill to begin with. |
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dtguitarfan
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 24 2011 Location: Chattanooga, TN Status: Offline Points: 1708 |
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No, I think the problem is that no matter how much research I do, idiots keep trying to tell me I'm mistaken. You can't ever explain to anyone why they're wrong these days, no matter how much fact you have to back you up. Which is why I often take to just giving an abbreviated version of the argument these days and say things like "you're just going to say that everything I say is a lie anyways." |
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Ambient Hurricanes
Forum Senior Member Joined: December 25 2011 Location: internet Status: Offline Points: 2549 |
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It was just as bad when the Democrats had the majority. It's just as bad in the Senate, where they have the majority now. The fact that the republicans do a terrible job when they have the majority does not prove that the democrats are any better. Are you going to answer the question in my previous post, by the way? |
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I love dogs, I've always loved dogs
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The T
Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: October 16 2006 Location: FL, USA Status: Offline Points: 17493 |
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dtguitarfan
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 24 2011 Location: Chattanooga, TN Status: Offline Points: 1708 |
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No, it's not "just as bad" - the Senate during Obama's presidency holds the record for most filibusters and the last congress was the least productive in history. |
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King of Loss
Prog Reviewer Joined: April 21 2005 Location: Boston, MA Status: Offline Points: 16349 |
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Can you just admit that both parties are about 99% identical in terms of policies?
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dtguitarfan
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 24 2011 Location: Chattanooga, TN Status: Offline Points: 1708 |
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I didn't specify who I was calling an idiot. But there are idiots here. Don't think the humor of the situation was lost on me when I had been arguing the merits of a universal healthcare system and was being told how wrong I was, and then someone from a country with a universal health care system joins in and says how great things are. That's the difference between me and the very vocal libertarians on this forum - what I think America should do is based on reality. I say "I think we should do A", and then I point to a long list of countries that HAVE in fact been putting the very same strategy or something quite like it in place for a long time with very good success stories. The very vocal libertarians around here say "I think we should do this thing that has never been done ever before and I have no scientific proof it will actually work - just trust me, I'm enlightened and you just don't see the light yet!" But my answer to that line of reasoning is that what you are suggesting is what we have already in fact been doing, just in a more extreme dose. So if what we have already been doing has gotten us into a mess, why would we think taking a more extreme dose would fix things? It's idiotic, I tell you! |
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dtguitarfan
Forum Senior Member Joined: June 24 2011 Location: Chattanooga, TN Status: Offline Points: 1708 |
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No, because they're not. Now, there are some areas where they are frustratingly similar. But often when people say things like, say, both Democrats and Republicans support a system that has made the USA the highest in prison population, well I say that you have to realize there's no simple answer to this problem. So you have to look at it as a bunch of smaller pieces of the puzzle that might eventually lead to the solution - one small piece being the legalization of marijuana. So then you look at the two parties and say - which one is supporting the legalization of marijuana, and which is saying it should remain an offense that results in imprisonment? Hmm? |
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