AMosely

Running mates are typically announced during the summer months, I think. Kerry announced his selection of Edwards on July 6, 2004.

Elwenil

He has said that he will open dialogue with terrorists. It has been a long standing US policy not to deal with terrorists. As I said in previous posts, they constantly break whatever promises and agreements made when it suits them. Obama will make deals and basically open our venerable back to a dagger.

Also, Obama refuses to display the American flag, he refuses to put his hand over his heart for our flag or during the National Anthem. To me, this is disrespectful to our country as a whole and really puts in question where his loyalties lie.

McCain will not pull out of Iraq and allow it to collapse in on itself. He will see the Iraq War to it's end and further the War on Terror. This is a very good thing. Too many times we have defeated a terrorist organization left them alone thinking we have achieved "peace", only to have them regroup and come back stronger than before with new weapons and tactics to spread terror and their agenda. I believe McCain will continue the work in progress towards a victory over terrorists and eventually either peace in the Mid-East or at least a non-violent stalemate. Terror will not be defeated with words, Israel has already tried that. It must be met with decisive and overwhelming force.


Again, I feel the two names are closely related in sound and in meaning as far as Obama and his wife's unpatriotic comments. I feel their mission is the same, the destruction of the American way of life, so the comparison is valid in my mind. As far as Obama being a racist, HE is the one who claimed Rev. Wright as his MENTOR, he went to that church for over 20 years, Rev, Wright performed his marriage ceremony. How anyone could possibly think that he could be that involved with his preacher and not at least sympathize with his sentiments? Not to mention that Obama made the comment about his own white grandmother that she was a "typical white person". I wonder how many fights I would get in if I went to the local NAACP office and told everyone there that they were "typical black people". He can call it a slip or speaking without thinking or whatever but in my experience, a slip of the lip or a comment said on the fly is normally exactly what a person is really thinking. If he didn't have some sort of racist feelings, that would have never come out of his mouth. Especially since he is so well spoken and politically correct in his formal speeches.

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Elwenil

Oh, and even though I am just a bitter, gun toting American Patriot, at least I know how many States are in our great nation!


What an idiot! BWAHAHAHAHA!

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Razcsak

You are making the comparison that Obama and bin Laden have the same goal? Really? Obama wants to destroy the United States? While I can understand that you may think that his goals will eventually destroy the US (I respectfully disagree), I cannot believe that you think he is attempting to destroy the country with malice aforethought. To believe that would be so monumentally paranoid as to be absurd. But hey, if fear-mongering works, go for it.

Tell me, what exactly is the American way? Is it the status quo? What we had in the fifties? the early 1800s? An idealized vision that exists only in your head?

Yes, I will admit that there is a double standard when it comes to discussing race in this country. Odd, that, given the events of the past two hundred and twenty years in the country. Who would have figured that there'd be a double standard when one race was systematically and fairly brutally oppressed for almost two hundred of those? I certainly wouldn't think that when any form of meaningful change began within living people's memories that there would still be problems with social differences, nosiree.

edit: There is already a thread on the topic, thanks. I'd wager you get frustrated at the derision Bush gets every time he makes a slip of the tongue. *sigh*

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Elwenil

Hey, Bush is not a public speaker, that is for sure. And yeah, it's embarrassing to all Americans to a certain extent but at least he just pronounces things wrong most of the time. Obama's little slips border on Dan Quayle fame.

EDIT: Thanks for the neg rep. I didn't know there was a thread on this already since I generally just click the direct links in the email notifications to take me directly to the thread. But either way, I feel it's rather valid in this thread since we are comparing our opinions and facts on Obama and Clinton, and McCain to a certain extent.

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Rob

Raczak, first of all, which European countries are you reffering to? secondly, the higher standard of living is debatable, and better, lower-cost health care is a farce. Public healthcare systems have been proven to not work as well as privatized ones, and private healthcare in Europe (if it still exists) simply proves my point.

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Steeler

Elwenil, you are a veritable font of mendacious partisan talking points. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that your comments represent some form of self-replicating meme performance art. The alternative is that you are actually Rush Limbaugh's stenographer.

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Rob

On a note about racism, most of the people in this world who have oppressed blacks are other blacks. When slave trade was legal in this country (thankfully it is not anymore
Whites would go to Africa and many times simply buy black prisoners and slaves who were already owned by blacks. Today, who gets away with calling African-Americans N*gg$rs? Other blacks. Historically, blacks have known to have been even more racist against whites than whites were to them. That brings us to Senator Obama's quotes about his grandmother, and his seeming lack of loyalty to traditional American values. To say that Obama is not racist when he has spent his whole life being influenced by people who are openly racist is ridiculous.

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Elwenil

No, but I do watch Glen Beck, lol.

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Razcsak

Really? I'd like some sources on that "proof". The United States costs the most per capita in the world and is ranked 29th in the world for infant mortality. (As an aside, infant mortality rate is the most appropriate statistic for the general health of a populace. It covers nutrition, preventative and palliative care, surgical skill, and infant care. No other single statistic is as effective as getting an overall impression of the health care in a country.) That is worse than South Korea, Cuba, Taiwan, Gibraltar, Israel, and almost every single Western European nation. Using other benchmarks produces a similar disparity between the high cost and low coverage of US health care.

So, where's the proof again?

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Rob

Raczsak, would that include abortions, and is it a percentage rate your talking about as far as infant mortality? More importantly, high health care costs in this country are partly due to the government forcing hospitals to give health care to Medic-aid applicants at very reduced rates. Low prices for a few create high prices for many. Also, after looking at the healthcare of a country like Cuba, why not go to Cuba sometime to see how great life there really is? This is asked rather sarcastically because as a tourist you might be treated fairly well,but not as a citizen. And if you ever live in Sweden, or some other Western European socialist country, you might see that the standard of living there is high, not because of new socialist ways of running a country, which are really not new at all, but because of the small remains of capitalism, and ultimately, the tiny remnant of Christian values and civilization that remain, almost unnoticed by the current citizens of the countries they live in. Read this article on Cuba http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/27/we...=1&oref=slogin

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Steeler

So you're the stenographer's stenographer. Got it.

I think the most depressing and infuriating thing about politics in my lifetime is the emergence of up-is-downism, or "truthiness" as a cogent political ideology. If something isn't factually the way you like it, just loudly and righteously claim that it is so. And if someone points out with clear evidence that you're wrong, shout louder and call the person uninformed, naive, or unpatriotic. Turn every weakness into a strength by simply declaring it so, and project every flaw of yourself onto your opponent.

In short, troll the world around you.

Whoever wins the Democratic nomination, this thread is just a small taste of the kind of ignorant bigoted bile that's going to flood our airwaves, inboxes, and sandboxes come late summer.

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Razcsak

Take it up with the World Health Organization, which supplied me with my data, not the Cuban government. I have not been to Cuba and I am aware how, in general, shoddy the standard of living there is. However, you need to remember that Cuba was essentially the medical capital of the Soviet Union. Huge amounts of funding were shoved into Cuba to shore it up as a communist medical paradise at the US' border. Doctors from all over the Soviet Union would be sent to learn in Cuba. Essentially, Cuba exported doctors and medical supplies while importing food. When the Union fell, it lost the food and easy means of exportation, which means that all the Soviet-trained and supplied doctors are still largely around. Now, I'm sure you have some lovely anecdotal data about a visit of yours to Cuba, but you'll forgive me if I believe the WHO rather than an unknown poster on an internet forum.

Abortions do not figure into the infant mortality rate, as that rate is a measure of the number of living infants, per 1000 (so yes, it is a rate that factors in the total size of the country's population) that die within the first year of their life. As to your reason for high costs, how, then, is the lower cost of European health care explained? (yes, that cost includes tax money given to health organizations) You also miss the point of "per-capita." When you say that lower costs for a few leads to higher costs for many, you're forgetting that you need to factor in the lower costs for the few into your per-capita rates. The European scaling tax system features the same kind of pay disparity that Medicaid does, btw. The poor people pay less (as a percentage of total earning) than the rich for their health coverage, just as the Medicaid system ensures that the poor pay less for their health care than the rich. I'm not seeing your points here.

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Rob

My main point is that if the rich continue paying for the poor (in other words) there will soon be no more rich, and everyone will be poor. I am rather incredulous when anyone asks me to prove this point. History has proved it for me! Look at Rome, look at the Soviet Union, and the other countries of the Soviet Bloc, the civilizations failed. You will obviously say, Raczsak, that the Western European countries are working with Socialism, but we will all eventually see them do as New Zealand did, and turn back to Capitalism, or gradually reform back to some form of free market, as China is starting to do, or they will fall, as history repeats itself once again.

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AMosely

Thanks for elaborating Elwenil, you've just invited some healthy debate!

Dialogue doesn't necessarily mean making deals, and I believe the only dialogue Sen. Obama has alluded to was within the context of Iran and the Palestinian Authority. There is a tremendous difference between governments that have been labeled as terrorist supporters (such as Iran and the Taliban) and actual terrorist organizations (such as Al Qaeda). It should be pointed out that despite tough talk, negotiation is often inevitable if peace is to stand a chance of achievement, as the Bush administration has learned with Fatah. There is more proof that negotiation, however difficult, can prevent war than proof of it causing more war. Unless your ultimate goal is war and victory at all costs, in which case I would say your approach is not much different from a terrorist.

This seems to indicate that he does both, at least part of the time. I'm not sure about his refusal to display the flag, unless you're talking about the infamous lapel pin flag. Since when is anyone required to display the flag?

Can you cite examples of the US defeating a terrorist organization only to have that organization come back stronger? In the case of the Taliban, they didn't start behaving like a terrorist organization until US forces beat them back in 2002/2003 - even still, the Taliban's goals have never extended beyond Afghanistan. Perhaps you are thinking of Saddam's forces before and after the first Gulf war, except that his military was a conventional force, not a terrorist organization from a tactical or organization standpoint - and depsite claims to the contrary, he was never able to fully rebuild following that conflict. All of my study of the subject has seemed to show that fighting terrorism, especially indirectly or by proxy, tends to generate the kinds of propaganda and hopelessness that give rise to more and more recruits. Such is the history with some of the more destructively successful terrorist organizations such as Al-Jihad, Hamas, and Al Qaeda. I'm not saying that dialogue is the solution to all problems, but the head-on military approach does not seem to be working well in Iraq or elsewhere. Dialogue, on the other hand, has a proven track record of diffusing many conflicts, with the worst possible outcome being no change.

I find that to be a very irrational conclusion on both fronts, but especially in terms of Obama - you may think that he as President will destroy your way of life, but that does not mean that he wants to destroy the American way of life (or your way of life). I would not think that any American presidential candidate would want to destroy the very country that produced them, or that they are about to devote years of their life to and in the service of.

Some of the issues and perspectives of race that this campaign has brought up are sorry sights indeed. In terms of Rev. Wright, the public witnessed the way that story played out, and Obama's eventual dismissal of Wright. The terms changed and Obama let him go. I think the people need to let him, and themselves, do just that.

In a much broader sense, I think it's healthy for the country to confront its racial problems which are very real and all too often get brushed under the 'civil rights' rug. However, I must say that white people, as the overwhelmingly dominant (in terms of power) race in America, have no justifiable right to define the boundaries or terms of race. This is precisely why the imbalance (he can say 'typical white person' but I can't say 'typical black person') you are referring to exists. A typical white person in America has no concept of white priviledge, and everyone, including a presidential candidate has a right to point that out. If you listen to what Obama has said, and more importantly has written, he deeply understands this as both a black man and an American.