The truth about are political discussion

So in fact you really do not realize that your post was filled with the very same baseless assertions and attacks that you accused the Right of making? Cool! It's always awesome to run into a poster so utterly oblivious to the actual nature of what he or she is in the habit of posting.

 

You can't prove they aren't Dem plants unless you supply a link to the source. "Uttered on talk radio" isn't enough to earn you any sympathy for poor misaligned Obama.

[video=youtube;oM8l3X_7Hkg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM8l3X_7Hkg[/video]

Laff some more.

 

So, me basically?

 

It must be a case of tunnel-vision.

 

No, more like 'us' darlin.

Another disenchanted Obama supporter who now hates both parties.

 

Yes, evidently he [or she] doesn't have a clue as to the points inside the thread starter that spat in the faces of the very people he wanted to start a 'civilized' discussion with. Very amusing!

 

Same sweet talk as Obama, "GET IN LINE, YOU IDIOTS."

 

If you keep voting for the same people because they are in "your party" then yes you are part of the problem.

 

This is exactly what I'm talking about. At no point have I ever supported Obama. I was against the Democratic party long ago, and lost it with the Republicans under Bush when I saw they care nothing for small, fiscally sound government. Both parties are and have been trash for some time. How anyone can support Bush and not Obama (or Obama and not Bush) is beyond me because they have kept the nation on the same general track of destruction. The only differences are in a few social issues like gay marriage and Romney Care. Other than that we still go to war, we still spy on citizens, Gitmo is still up and running, nothing has changed but rather many of the old Bush policies have been expanded.

 

Three things here, dude:

1) Your screen name has you identifying as a centrist and yet you say.....

How do you reconcile the two?


2) You say the juvenile tit for tat thing is pointless and yet - while you concede that the left has been just as guilty of the same attitudes toward Bush - your post here is purely directed at the right. Why? Again, if you call yourself a centrist, how do you reconcile these two things?


3) Technically, much of what Obama believes in could be considered marxist. Do I need to break out the quotes?

"I do think at some point you've made enough money."

"I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

etc.

Some of those sources are more solid than others. Breitbart and Drudge are pretty credible. Hannity means well but misses the boat sometimes. As does O'Reilly.

 

So what's your solution? Sit on the sideline and whine?

I say neither of the two major parties are set in stone. Things can change if we vote in people who share our goals & values. There is no doubt the Republican party is changing...and I'm doing my part to make sure my voice is heard.

There is no viable third party because Americans don't agree on what one should look like.

All I'm saying is don't act all superior because you're not committed to a particular party,. That simply means you're part of the problem those of us committed to making things better have to overcome. Another American who wastes his/her vote on a candidate who can't win, allowing the worst choice to end up in the oval office.

 

First off being committed to a political party is just dumb. I'm voting for Ron Wyden, a Democrat, next cycle. Why would I vote for a Democrat you might ask? Simple; he opposes what the NSA is doing and is at the forefront of changing the way their domestic spying works. I am voting for him not because he is a Democrat (that's actually a mark against him IMO), but because I see what he has done and believe he will best represent me. He is the only person I can think of who I will be voting for, with the possible exception of Merkly (another Democrat) because I remember him joining in with Wyden and voting against items such as the NDAA and the PATRIOT Act. Other than that it will be whoever I think is best minus the incumbent because the incumbents have proven themselves unworthy of my vote.

Point is if you just keep voting for the same political party regardless of what they say they will do and what they actually do, you end up with (*)(*)(*)(*) like Obama getting a second term, though I also blame the Republicans for not having put up a reasonable candidate.

 

First let me say thank you for replying and asking some good questions.

I choose “Sane Centrist” as a user name because as left leaning as you may think most of my posts are (and I'll admit a majority of them are) they don't reflect everything I feel or all of the attitudes I have towards politics in general. I would label myself as a moderate democrat (I can hear the laughter) with an open mind towards republicans and republican ideas.

I didn't bash President Bush on all of his decisions, and I never showed up on the Whitehouse lawn with misspelled signs screaming about things he either never did or had no control over.

No I'm not talking about Tea Partiers here, I'm talking about some of the nuts on the left that protested President Bush wherever he went.

I thought his work with the Aids epidemic in Africa was brilliant, and I know for a fact that the man didn't wake up every day plotting new ways to screw up or destroy the country. I also didn't listen to all the voices on the left that slammed the guy everyday...............

I believe President Bush had all the right intentions but went about things all wrong with a very cavalier, cowboy attitude that ruined our reputation around the world, and all but destroyed most of our relationships with our foreign allies.

I don't think he was a very good president but I’m not as outraged as many others on the left.............hence the name: "Sane Centrist"

If you’re looking for an independent or a libertarian, your barking up the wrong tree.

Yes Unifier, my post is directed at the right in the sense that we all already know what kind of media coverage Presidnet Bush got during his terms, and I have conceded many times that it wasn’t always fair.

The heart of the matter I’m trying to get to is if there are any of you on the right that are also willing to make that same admission about today’s pundits when it comes to President Obama.

Everybody wants to spend unbelievable amounts of time tearing apart what I thought was a pretty reasonable, fair question that was set up in great lengths not to offend or sound partisan and it didn’t happen.

Even though I asked for us not to get into the ridiculous back & forth over who shot JR it turned into that. All I want to know for Christ’s sake is the rights thoughts on some of the media personalities (that in my humble opinion) have poisoned our political conversation with the miss-information, personal negative bias's, and sometimes outright lies.

Seriously dude I didn’t think was asking too much.

I wasn’t prepared to slam anybody that would have wrote back defending those personalities, but I sure as hell wasn’t prepared to be slammed myself for asking what I thought was a pretty honest question.

See, this is where I agree with the statements but in no way am I a Marxists. Look man, I’ve seen wealth in my life that is staggering beyond anything you can imagine, I’m talking the kind of wealth that would make every rich person in this country put together look like paupers, and I’ve seen (up close in real life) the kind of crushing poverty most folks only get to see on TV.

I asked this question all through college and I’m still asking it: ”how much is enough, really” Most of the right has taken those comments though and twisted them to mean other things. For example, lots of people asks: “how much is enough” or “how much does one person need”

Are you saying that – that automatically makes them all Marxists? Bit of a stretch, don’t you think?

I‘ll also admit that some right-wing media sources are solid, I wouldn’t agree with the two you mention but ok, cool

Saying that Hannity misses the boat sometimes is probably the world’s biggest understatement my friend.

See, that wasn’t so bad………………………..

 

Nobody's talking about voting for a particular party regardless of what they do. That's the purpose of picking one party over the other... so you have a voice in what they do. For example, this is the first year in a long time that I've donated to the RNC. In return for my contributions, I constantly receive questionnaires asking for my opinion.

Yes, it's be nice to have a voice without donating... but like I said... you either actively participate or sit on the sidelines and wait to see what shakes out.

 

Unfortunately that participation doesn't seem to mean much. The Republican party has gotten worse since it has been out of power. They are playing wholly to the social right, which I guess makes sense because I can't see why anyone else would give them money. I certainly don't sit on the sidelines either. I talk to people all the time when I'm out. You'd be surprised how many people out there don't like either of the two parties and have pretty much given up on voting because of them. An article was recently put up on CNN about how the Boomers should step out of politics and get the next generation into the game before the gap widens too far. I don't disagree. Unfortunately I can't say how well that would go over with people demanding $15 to work at McDonalds.

 

Heh, yes I can "pick up on things" as I pointed out with Matthews, but I think that points to a larger issue. I think these issues are more personal on the left than on the right. I think on the right, it's Obama's policies that are the outrage and cause the upset. I wasn't aware of the difference until after Obama had been President for a while, and basically continued about 85% of the national security / war polices as Bush. But what happened to the left's critique of those national security policies and the war? Poof! Vanished like a puff of smoke. The anti war movement vanished even though nothing had changed and Obama did nothing substantially different. The pull out of Iraq was based on an agreement that Bush had signed, and Obama ramped up Afghanistan. And of course, send in the drones...

The right is not innocent of personalization over policy. Witness last summer's calling of Edward Snowden as a patriot by some on the Right. Although at this point it's fairly obvious that he's a filthy traitor.

But the personalization still seems to be far more a problem of the left. Witness your own statements. You really have a difficult time conceding that the right has an issue with Obama because of policy. Because deep down, you feel it has to be personal, that it's not an attack on Obama the clueless academic leftie and his dangerous policies, but an attack on Obama the man; specifically the black man. It's almost as if you think if there were a white Democrat who governed like Obama with identical policies, the Republicans in Congress would be jumping over themselves to support high taxes, dumb stimulus programs, and lefty health programs. So since you guys personalize your opponents as personal enemies so much, you can't imagine that the right doesn't do it exactly the same way.

You've admitted that your opinion is based on your feelings, rather than actual data or observation, so I won't pretend to think I can change your mind on this. Feelings unfortunately are stronger than mere data or observation. But just because you feel it's so doesn't make it so. The fact that you come back to this same issue over and over shows that it means a great deal to you. I won't deny it does, but it goes to why it's often hard to communicate over the left/right divide. In some ways, our world views are radically different and what you see as THE major problem, I see as an irrelevancy and visa versa.

 

I'll say this for Sane Centrist, he is at least trying to have a dialogue. That's far more than what most of the left tries to do on this board, which is basically just to insult. So that should be worth something, even though just like most other leftists, he regards being on the left as the center.

 

The problem with Hussein Obama boils down to one simple fact: All of his policies are unacceptable.
Nothing else matters.

 

Thanks so much for the reply Mike and I have to say you nailed a lot of it down correctly.

I’ll admit to 90% of everything you said as being fair, balanced and correct. Of course I have a different opinion on the health care law and a few other things that we ideologically see differently, but for the most part……………….you got it all right.

I think the reason why much of the left (as you deftly stated) feel and/or think the way they do is because of the minority of ugliness we all witnessed during the healthcare debate. I'll grant you that was a while back but it stung enough to be remembered forever.

I won’t profess to be an expert on the Tea Party or where most of its members are politically regarding the president or how they feel about the president now, but I can say with certainty that those initial members we all saw in front of the Capitol were mostly rabid racist’s exploding with rage over what they perceived to be some tyrannical takeover of “their” country.

I know how much you don’t like to get into that Mike but seriously dude, there was some pretty gruesome stuff said, exhibited, and exposed. Once again I’ll admit that we all some pretty raw stuff from the left when people were protesting President Bush about the wars but the Tea Partiers took things to the next level in my opinion, and a lot of it was urged on by folks with agendas.

What blew my mind when they first formed was the sheer hypocrisy of it all. You called out the lefts hypocrisy by highlighting the fact that they were mostly silent about President Obama’s continuation of President Bush’s war policies which is accurate.

I’d like to call out the fact that taxes actually did not go up immediately after the president was elected (the way almost all of the Tea Partiers proclaimed) Hell, I still have my tax statement showing how they were actually (albeit a tiny bit) lowered.

I bring this all up to make an attempt to explain to you why so many people on the left see the presidents race and/or color in so many issues instead of policies, even though I agree that you guys could make some great policy issue arguments.

If all of those people that formed the Tea Party were so concerned or bothered by higher taxes…………………….then politely…………………where the hell were they for the 43 presidents that came before President Obama???

And please, before you answer, let’s be crystal clear here that taxes did not go up after the man was elected, so what truly was all the rage & fuss about?

Somehow we managed to have all those presidents before President Obama and quite a few of them were horrible, yet…………………there was no need for a Tea Party to “take back” their country.

My brain and millions of others who voted for the president can never forget seeing that black congressman being spit on as he walked into the house that day to vote on the healthcare law. (and yes my friend, in spite of what anything Glen Beck says about it he was spat on) I can’t un-see all the t-shirts that said “Make the Whitehouse White Again”.

I can’t un-see all of the other t-shirts that said things that I can’t even type here because the moderators will strike it all because of how foul the langauge was, or the pictures of the president in slave caricature, or the effigy’s of him being lynched, and on & on & on &on.

I have never before, nor will I ever make the claim that everyone on the right is obsessed with the president’s skin color, that would be dishonest of me and disingenuous, but there are many.

Many people in this country never thought then nor think now that a black person could be or should be the president of this country, and many of them don’t think that a black person is capable or is deserving of such a position. It’s an ugly truth but it is a truth.

The left sees a lot of marginalizing of the president from republican politicians, they see republicans backing away from positions & policies they once supported now that the president supports them, they see republican governors secretly accepting stimulus funds on the down-low, and then getting on television to demonize the stimulus.

In short Mike they see a lot of hypocrisy, and no, not all of it’s about color, but sadly a lot of it is.

Look at some of the people in here and other conservative forums that can’t even say his name or talk about him “without” throwing "Hussein" into the mix like that somehow is going to keep reminding all of us how he could potentially be a Muslim or is a Muslim.

It’s all very psychological……….

Anyway, your points are valid, well thought out and much agreed with by me………..until the next topic my friend, Ciao…….

 

You got me there. I felt that way for a good week or so until I saw who he ran too. If he stayed here or went to Sweden maybe....but it is clear now he is a jackass. As it was unfolding though...

 

I'm not sure I recall Tea Partiers claiming that taxes went up immediately after Obama became President. I'm not saying they didn't but I don't think it was some sort of immediate Tea Party argument that immediately after the oath of office, taxes shot up. So I can't really speak to that, although if you claim you remember it from somewhere, I'll accept that because there is a certain amount of ignorance in any mass movement.

In fact, I was at first surprised that other than the billions of taxes included in the Obamacare bill, that President Obama didn't try to raise taxes when he controlled the House and Senate. He could have gotten anything he wanted then.But I gradually came to the conclusion that Democrats still feel vulnerable on the tax issue. It was only after the big Republican win in the House in the 2010 election, coinciding with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2010, that the strategy became clear. Democrats wanted tax increases, but the wanted buy in from Republicans first to spread the blame around. They didn't get it so instead, at the end of 2010, with the Democrats dominating both houses of Congress, they passed and Obama signed, an extension of the Bush tax cuts. The Democrats had been running against those for years but ended up enablers of Bush tax policies. They only went full tax increase after there was a Republican majority in the House and they couldn't get their way without, again, full Republican buy in on tax increases.

But as far as the "rage" goes, you forget that Obama's first year in office was rather unprecedented in in terms of spending and deficits. People are frightened by those. Not doctrinaire liberal Democrats maybe but you didn't have to be a Tea Party guy to be worried about that.

I know you may think "take back our country" is something that's specific to Tea Partiers (and I think we know you also mean white tea partiers) but Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, Katrina Vanden Hevuel (editor of The Nation), and James Carville among others have all wanted to "take the country back."

I've not seen the "Make the White House White again" TV shirts, but yes, it would be hard to come to any other conclusion about something like that than it was specifically racist. But I do remember the stroll across the plaza for Obamacare. The spitting thing was not, I thought, a big deal, since the video that I saw showed someone yelling at one of the Congressmen and spittle came out of his mouth. It did not look like he hocked a louge at the Congressman. I guess you can leave that open to interpretation, but I also remember the fake N word from that same walk. Rep Andre Carson claimed that someone called Rep John Lewis the N word. I believed it at first, but it was the most videoed stroll in Congressional history. Rep Jackson had not one but two video cameras, one in each hand, recording as the walked, and there were several other videos of the stroll. None of them picked that up.Or I should say, if they did pick it up, it was never released. Lewis was asked point blank if he was called the N word in interviews, and never actually came out and said that he was, which makes it clear that was the whole purpose of the walk. Maybe they hoped someone would actually use the N word to the handful of CBC Congressmen doing the famous walk, but they were going to say someone did anyway, and that's exactly what happened. Brietbart offered $100,000 for audio or video proof that it was said and never got it. Considering the money troubles that Rep Jackson later got into, you would think he could use a 100 G's.

I'm sure there are racist Tea Partiers, just like racist Democrats, but racism isn't the motivation for the movement. But you'll forgive me if I'm a bit defense on the whole racist Tea Partier accusation. I actually lost a friendship over this. A liberal friend of mine could not accept that anyone could oppose Obamacare other than for racist reasons. Irony alert though, she was a birther during the 2008 campaign when she supported Hillary, so I always had that to hold over her!

I think the points you make about Governors taking stimulus money with one hand, then finger wagging against the stimulus with the other, are valid. It's difficult to oppose government give away programs while you are benefiting from one. Thjat one is easy for someone like me who's not getting jack, but a governor with a tight budget... The Tea Party Governor of my state, who opposes Obamacare, decided to take the extra Medicaid money that's part of Obamacare.

I'm not offended by people using Hussein but I admit it's used as kind of a dig. It does point out his otherness. It's not a normal middle name like Milhous (heh), but again, it's not a tactic used just by the right or just about President Obama. Do a search on this site for "Willard" and you'll see what I mean.

 

I agree with you that there’s usually always some ignorance associated with any mass movement (from anybody on any side) but I think the point I was really trying to make more-so than the tax thing is:

Why these people felt the urgency to form a fourth party, to fight against a government, that does not hate them, that is not looking to take away their freedoms, that is not lead by a Socialist, Communist, Marxist, Tyrannical, Despot, that was elected fair & square, will always be beyond me.

I absolutely agree with you and would join you in scolding people that are always trying to make everything about race because it’s just ridiculous. For Christ’s sake the man would have never been elected if it wasn’t for millions of white people voting for him.

One could make the argument that Tea Partiers were boiling before the election of Barack Obama, and that his election wasn’t the “entire” reason why they finally formed………..but it’s the timing.

I won’t say that they formed solely because of racism or that they got together just to foil the black guy, but think about the implications here for just a moment.

The United States of America finally elects her first black president and a fourth (extreme right) party forms - vowing to fight every policy he puts forth.

What exactly had the man done in the first two weeks “besides move his clothes in” that had them so riled up?

I served in the Marines during President Reagan’s term, I didn’t vote for President Reagan, I didn’t like President Reagan, and I never thought he was the hero the right painted him to be. But I didn’t make YouTube videos saying how I wouldn’t go to war under him, or serve my country under him. I put that damn uniform on every day and did my god……damn…….job……..period!!!!!

I didn’t like President Bush but I stood behind him when we went to the Middle East looking for whoever it was that took down those buildings in NY. Buildings I played in as a kid, buildings I spent time in while ditching school, buildings I cried over for weeks when they were knocked down.

Mike, the president just isn’t the demon or incompetent boob the right has painted him to be, he doesn’t walk on water, he’s not perfect, and yes he’s been learning while on the job (like all presidents) but dammit……..he’s a good guy, and he at least deserves a fair shot. The right really never gave him that fair shot, you may have, but sadly millions of other people were never interested.

Yes the left wanted tax increases………from people who could buy & sell Bill Gates & Oprah Winfrey several times over. Not you & me……

We could start a thread on tax's that would go for like a thousand pages so instead, let’s just say: the house usually always flips after a president’s first term. The where’s the why’s the how’s…………

Yes, the spending, another topic we could wax poetically for days on. A whole lot of economist's & money people all agreed that what the country needed the most after our meltdown was a large infusion of money.

Some key points here: all the money that the government “loaned” the banks and Detroit has been paid back………with interest.

I travel all around the country and sometimes abroad for a living, and I’ve been to every state except for 2 since 2008. I can verify that there are orange - “These Funds Made Available by the American Recovery Act” - signs everywhere. There are road projects, pipe projects, bridge projects, and construction projects all over this country. Those projects put people to work - those people spend money on Main Street - and other places - and make the economny go round & around & around.

I’ll speak no further on it now but suffice to say, we needed it. Oh and one other thing, the deficits are going down almost as fast as they went up, their actually going down at break-neck speeds, but the right never seems to want to talk about that.

The large deficit clock that the republicans loved rolling out at all the campaigns during the last election cycle have all gone away, for good reason.

True, and yes, they have all said the same thing………through a much different prism. Sorry but I can’t let that one go, I know what they mean, I think deep down you know what they mean, and it’s not as innocent as they would like us to believe.

I’m sorry to hear about the split you had with a once good friend. I definitely take you at your word that it’s all ideological for you. Look I’ve admitted to the fact that there are some real loons on the left, and I can’t stand the few that cry about how what they see now is not what they voted for or expected.

I tell them it’s not McDonald’s politics. In other words, you don’t pull up to the window, order what you want and expect it to be perfect 3 seconds later like at McDonalds. Politics is a hard, contact sport that usually leaves it’s members bloody.

I think the problem with our politics in general is the impatience, the mistrust, the lack of loyalty, and the delusional insistence that it’s all very easy. When people don’t get what they expect from their leaders they immediately say: “he/she must be corrupt” instead of: “I guess he/she just couldn’t get the votes”.

Thanks for the honesty; you’re the first person to ever admit it.

I know what you mean, and I think all the name calling is silly. I just don’t see what the digs get anybody at the end of the day.

 

The Tea Party has roots that go back much further than Obama's inauguration. It may look to you like, Black President= Tea Party Opposition, but there has already been a Tea Party revolt once before in recent history, against a white Republican President. Perot won about 19% of the vote for the 92 election running on fiscal discipline, and against high budget deficits. President Bush (senior) had record deficits and pointedly broke a promise about raising taxes. Perot was the wrong messenger, but the right message. He definitely cost Bush a second term. The movement simmered down as budget deficits declined.

Fast forward to President Bush (junior) and although he cut taxes, he also increased the deficit and instigated the Medicare Part D program, another unfunded entitlement program, that the right was opposed to. This generated a lot of conservative opposition but Bush actually did something about it though. He got the deficit back under control and it started dropping right up until the financial crisis.

Then we had a 700 billion bailout for bankers, bailouts for large companies like GM and AIG, companies that were not innocent victims, they created their problems, and of course the stimulus. All together, in the course of a few months if you include the FED we had 11 Trillion in bailouts authorized and we had our first trillion dollar deficit. I realize for some people, the big news during that period of time was that the President was black, but the old Perot coalition had bigger fish to fry.

That was a unique time in history that was tailor made to lead to something like the Tea Party, but obviously, if your gut is telling you that a black President is the cause you're going to go with your gut.

 

Honestly, here’s where I’m at with the Tea Partiers.

I admitted that they were probably brewing for quite some time, and to your points, they were.

I don’t know what they called themselves if they called themselves anything at all.

Here’s what my gut tels me: almost all of those "initial" Tea Partiers camped out in front of the capitol during the healthcare debate were rabid, hateful people intent upon showing just how much they hated our new president, and his idea of healthcare.

I say initial because I’ve seen enough interviews on Fox and other outlets where they’ve severely toned down their rhetoric and they come off much more educated, polished, and policy driven – opposed to the folks wearing the tri-pointed hats with misspelled signs.

I wasn’t there Lil Mike, but I have a cousin that campaigned for the president that was.

He saw hundreds of people camped out in front of the nation’s capital with signs so disgusting that he literally felt nauseous to his stomach. He told me that after a while he just had to leave because the tensions, the mood, the atmosphere, and the intensity of it all was just too much.

Take that for whatever it is, but it is what it is…..

I saw much of the same thing from the video's he took, from what I saw on all the media outlets, and all the other personal video taken from private citizens that was uploaded to social media web sites.

I said this in my earlier posts and I’ll say it again, I completely buy & get the fact that a lot of people were genuinely concerned about spending & deficits. (not the presidents skin color)

I completely buy & get the fact that not everyone that self-describes as a Tea partier is a racist.

Bottom line….wherever the Tea Party is now, and whatever they’re political views are currently, and whatever they morphed into - what I & millions of others witnessed a few years ago was ugly, and it did represent a large swath of that itaration of the original Tea Party Nation.

Good, Bad or Indifferent……………it was ugly, and it had very little to do with policy.

 

Well as I'm beginning to realize, policy does have very little to do with anything. You pick a team and alter your views to fit in. Accept for a few like me, policy is irrelevant.