Obama vs. McCain: Thoughts?

[adciv]

Fuggle, it was that exact weapon that eliminated segregation on the Montgomery Alabama bus system. That's the same thing people do to Walmart by refusing to buy there. That is the same way that the NAACP can keep KKK members out of their organization (and vice versa for that matter). Do you really want to eliminate that weapon?

The problem with society is just what you're saying, plus what I'm saying about it. It's not that we have freedom of association, it's that we're generally so immature that we're going to whine and bitch and tantrum and use Freedom of Association as a weapon against other people; and that is one of the tyrannies of Society.

Fuggle, would you then use the tyranie of government to force people to behave the way you want? To 'legislate morality'? What happens when someone gets into power with a different morality than yours? The Jim Crow laws come back baring interracial marriages? Or would you bar intraracial marriages?

[The Cid]

I don't TRUST it for anything, but I'm willing to use it for the problems that're too big, or that you can trust it with more than you can trust (the also un-trustworthy) private interests (like for-profit insurance, which is so absurd a concept that surely it must have originated from a farce!)

Don't get me started on health. I hate insurance companies as much as the next guy, but I'm certain that under a socialized healthcare system in the United States the overall quality of the medical practice in America will drop sharply, starting with research. This is a government that cannot get people out of a drowning city. This is a government that struggles to deliver the mail. How the Hell are they going to get their act together and provide us adequate medical care?

I'm going somewhere with that, so bear with me. And if you still don't at least see where I'm coming from after this, let's take it to private messages before we start tearing at each other like roosters in a cockfight.

if not to run it, then to at least kick the people who do run it in the face and hopefully keep them within certain lines that they'd never draw for themselves.

You seem to think that the only way to regulate industry is to create laws and tell industries what they can and cannot do. Do you think all Americans are blind sheep when it comes to spending money on a product or service?

The metaphor rather falls apart here. How do you arm chickens against threats to their liberty that don't come from the government? And you don't seem to do a good job of it ... against whichever predatory mammal represents businessmen, it's always seemed that Libertarians are rather fond and in favor of regulating fowl weaponry.

Giving them more money is a means of arming them. The only thing you'd like to arm them with is a vote. No personal protection, no money for their own, just sitting there hoping the foxes know what's best. ...Even though they almost never seem to.

I'm not calling the philosophy foolish for being opposed to governments (in a scope that doesn't expand to anarchy), I'm calling it foolish for not extending it to other, nongovernmental power systems. Properly, in the name of liberty, someone should be as opposed to society (as we know it) as they are to government.

So who would receive the liberty?

There would still be laws against theft and embezzlement you know. It's not like I would want to do away with the rule of law, although we would like to lessen the law's grip over the private lives of private citizens. A company will not be completely unchecked against unlawful action. Society in general will not either. And remember, with civil liberties comes the freedom to stand up for yourself.

right now, yes, I consider both society and business to be as big a threat to liberty as government, and government to be the only coherent force at the moment to fight society and business with.

And what force keeps government in check? Especially given that you seem to want private industry to have LESS power.

...Well, maybe the government will regulate itself. You're convinced industry never would, but for some reason our elected officials would limit the scope of their own power for the good of the land?

I'm not sure what you mean, here. I'm going to assume that the politicians are the "scum of the earth", and by that rhetoric, it's them and only them, and heads of business and society are exempt from also being the "scum of the earth"

WHERE DO OUR POLITICIANS COME FROM, FUGGLE?! Where? Are they all military men like Senator McCain? Or are most of them former executives, MBAs, private lawyers and other such respected members of private society?

You expect them to regulate the industries they worked for? You expect them to care about the impoverished? You expect them to stop flooding our society with needless litigation? Our legislative body is filled to the brim with power mongers and dirty businessmen and you'd rather THEY keep my hard earned money than ME? Three guesses as to who they're going to spend it on--themselves or me. First two don't count.

but what's meant by the last bit, "more power than any group of Americans could ever be"?

Putting it in bold: You keep talking about weapons to fight society and private industry. A more powerful government will be impossible to fight. No group of citizens could keep that government in check. Not even through elections. Against private industry, freedom of choice is our weapon. Against society itself, we have free speech and freedom of association. Freedom of association means we can band together with the like-minded to fight for our rights any way we can, and Adciv just listed a few examples above me of this happening in the past.

You can be afraid that people will fail to exercise their power over industry and the greater society. I worry about that too, should we ever get such an opportunity. However, what they CAN'T do with their power is the scariest thing possible: abuse it. The government, however, has proven many times that it is entirely capable of abusing its power--especially if abusing power will give it even MORE power.

[Deacon]

I honestly don't understand people like Fuggle. Apparently history's taught him nothing and his cynicism is radically schizophrenic.

Anyone else watching the news coverage of this election? Obama's shills on CNN are already talking about how any "conservative" Democrats elected to Congress will "owe" Obama for his amazing technicolor coattails and that this will lead to "reconciliation between the right and the left." ...WHAT? There are so many things wrong with this that I don't really know where to start except by drowning. And that's assuming you haven't noticed Obama's platform has been one of eschewing "reconciliation" in the first place, of associating every possible negative thing in the world with McCain and anyone right of the Democrat party line.

Oh well. As sad a commentary on the American populace as it is, it looks like the stuffed suit will carry this one. There are only two outcomes, here:

1) Things recover, and the complicit media lauds the Democrats as saviors.
2) Things stay down or get worse, and Republicans are blamed.

EDIT: Now, after over a year of subtly feeling out the trashing of Reagan's presidency, the black dude on the CNN panel is saying Barack Obama will govern like Reagan and has been studying his legacy, etc. Oh my god.

[Martin Blank]

Things were going to recover anyway. The question is how much, and how fast. However, if things linger, or if they recover only slowly, there will be no one else to blame, since the Democrats will have controlled the entirety of the body handling the laws.

[Deacon]

No, see, the hole Bush himself personally dug for this country destroyed the shining star Clinton made of it, and he so thoroughly managed to find ways to cripple this country that the Democrats may be too little too late to save it entirely, the hole too deep for them to lift us completely out of it. While the Democrats are near deities and Obama himself is compared to Jesus Christ himself, he's not quite capable of walking on water (yet...just give Olbermann a couple of days), and it's unreasonable to expect him to turn around such a terrible state in which the Bush-Cheney-McCain economic policies have left us. McCain hates normal people and loves only evil rich people and mouthbreathing rednecks, so we get what we can.

CNN and Fox News just went ahead and declared Obama the winner. The question of style versus substance in politicians in America has finally been answered.

[StruckingFuggle]

Ha ha ha. Writhe and burn. Hate all you want, it won't change reality.

[Martin Blank]

No, see, the hole Bush himself personally dug for this country destroyed the shining star Clinton made of it, and he so thoroughly managed to find ways to cripple this country that the Democrats may be too little too late to save it entirely, the hole too deep for them to lift us completely out of it.

Deacon: Admit it. The Republicans fucked up over the last eight years. They came in promising a return to the Reagan era, and instead outdid the Democrats in spending and pushing government interference deeper into our lives. Maybe now they'll regroup and go digging in whatever mineshaft they buried their core principles and bring them back out for practical use.

I've opened a thread as a global announcement for CIVIL discussion of the election results. I will smack down anyone who strays too far from civility, possibly without warning.

[Deacon]

Deacon: Admit it. The Republicans fucked up over the last eight years.

I was about to get angry but realized that you don't visit SPPACE that often these days. Otherwise you'd know that I do not consider myself a Republican (and certainly am not registered as one) and have been consistently critical of exactly the things you mentioned. You'd know there's nothing to "admit" on the topic because there's nothing that's been denied on that front. But you'd also know that it's incredibly frustrating to me the fleece job that's been perpetrated on the American public in claiming that the current economic status was caused by George W. Bush and the Republicans, which is more lie than truth, that Obama's proposed economic policies will be good for the middle class, that the last eight years have consisted of a constant wailing and gnashing of teeth, caused by a cackling, delighted Dubya. It's a lot easier to level criticism and agree with that leveled by others when it's both accurate and sane. It also makes it much easier to agree with when that criticism is leveled not solely at one person or party to the complete exclusion of anyone else who bears significant criticism as well, something with which I've had a very severe personal problem since I was a child.

[Martin Blank]

I visit far more often than you think, Deacon. I simply don't have the time to post what I would like to. But I believe that most people here would take your words -- even with the criticisms that you may have of Republicans, comparatively rare though they are -- as being strongly conservative if not adhering to the Republican platform, even if you criticize the office-holders themselves.

[Makh]

Hey thank you Americans, today I must bake a cake. The girlfriend and I had a bet and I lost. She said Barak Obama would win. I said people will never vote for black president, even if they say so.

More seriously, congratulations. I think a black president will show to the rest of the world that color of your skin is not criterion for political success anymore.

I would like to know if one of you can link me the final political map, you know where you see red states and blue states? I can not find a recent one, thank you.

[Arc Orion]

Try this Google map.

[Hirschof]

I honestly don't understand people like Fuggle.

I think the closest you can get to understanding Fuggle requires beating yourself in the head with a hammer while reciting words out of a thesaurus.

[Thorsman]

I honestly don't understand people like Fuggle.

Fuggle's actually pretty easy to understand. He simply doesn't agree with you, and you carry on pissing and moaning at him for not agreeing with you. Learn to have a little tolerance of others' views and stop being such a dick.

[ampersand]

Not sure if you were advising Fuggle, Deacon, or both about that...

Anyway, if I have to hear one more comparison between Obama, John F. Kennedy, and Camelot one more time, there may not be a television left in house (if my ultra-conservative parents don't beat me to it first).

[Hirschof]

Anyway, if I have to hear one more comparison between Obama, John F. Kennedy, and Camelot one more time, there may not be a television left in house (if my ultra-conservative parents don't beat me to it first).

With cameras rolling 24/7 on everything I doubt Obama is going to come close at all to nailing as many actresses and singers as Kennedy.