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So which one are you voting for, huh?!

John McCain
3 (9.4%)
Barack Obama
21 (65.6%)
Third Party/Misc
3 (9.4%)
Unsure
3 (9.4%)
Not voting
2 (6.3%)

Total Members Voted: 31

Author Topic: Grand political roundup  (Read 53289 times)

Dunefar

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Grand political roundup
« on: June 29, 2008, 01:14:05 AM »
The primary season has come and gone. Now there are only two left in contention for the office of the President of the United States. Which one are you going to vote for and why? If you're voting for a third party, why? If you're not voting, well, why? If you can't vote in the US, just select what you'd do if you could.

I'm curious as to how things are splitting now before all the election megahype kicks in. If this goes well, I'd like to contrast it with a topic on election day for whom you're gonna vote for.
« Last Edit: September 26, 2008, 04:12:26 AM by Dunefar »
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Dunefar

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #1 on: June 29, 2008, 01:21:05 AM »
I'm going with unsure for now. While I agree far more with McCain than Obama, the fact is that Obama's doing something that hasn't been done since Reagan or Clinton: He's charistmatically uniting people. I miss that. I'm going to see how this election cycle plays out before committing to one horse or another.

The Republicans really suck this year, too.
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superaielman

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #2 on: June 29, 2008, 01:24:17 AM »
Leaning fairly strongly towards McCain but I seriously don't like him. Augh. The options are suck and blow, and I'm 95% sure Obama is going to win the election in a landslide.
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Taishyr

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #3 on: June 29, 2008, 01:34:38 AM »
As usual with a "barring idiocy" clause, currently Obama. Given McCain, I'm honestly not sure we'll see anything different from the Bush gov. except instead of mocking monkey-like features the pundits will mock the shiny head. Since I'm not fond of the Bush gov., this is kinda a no-brainer for me. Also helps that I agree far more with Obama than McCain, from what I've heard/read.

Then again, after 200...1? or so? my opinion of McCain plummeted badly so yeah, kinda know how you two feel about him. (2000 McCain I would easily have voted for. After that... no.)

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #4 on: June 29, 2008, 02:49:55 AM »
Burrrrrp, copying Tai. (What? He said everything I needed to say).

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #5 on: June 29, 2008, 02:58:10 AM »
Tai summed it up pretty well. 8 years of Bush and GOP domination = time for a change.

Now, mind you, I grew up in California, which is notorious for being a liberal stronghold (even though it's often hyperboled, it's more like a 60-40 split. But it's pretty clear in the public education system, material learned, etc.) But even that aside, one of the biggest things that's always erked me is that... well, I still grew up being really damn proud of my country. And until Iraq and everything that's flown since, our image as the world's strongest nation and a land of opportunity was more or less accurate.

But since down? Doooooownhill in a fall that, to me, is hardly coincidental. Yeah, sure, like everything there's excessive overplay and all of that, no small part due to the massive failure of modern media... but the root of the US's tarnishing image still has plenty of factual ground, and I feel there's a pretty clear connection as to why that's happened with the current administration. McCain, as far as I can tell, is hardly offering anything new in this regard, even though I like him more than most Republican candidates on other levels.

So yeah. I think a shift in power is due. Way overdue, in fact. 06 proved that that sentiment isn't small.
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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #6 on: June 29, 2008, 03:26:13 AM »
I'm voting for mickey mouse cause I really don't like either candidate much, and do not believe either deserve my vote.


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Dhyerwolf

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #7 on: June 29, 2008, 03:54:46 AM »
Obama. Environmental/energy issues are probably number 1 to me (Since it covers our economy, environment, and a major cause for us going to war), and McCain seems to throw out a lot of useless ideas there that seems specifically designed to draw votes while being ineffective (Gas Tax? Offshore drilling that would take at least 5 years to have any kind of results and that would only be assuming the oil companies then chose to sell the gas to us instead of a the higher priced European market or the rapidly expanding Chinese market...Both really ineffective and/or harmful ideas). Not to say Obama never has any of these issues, but considering that these are two of the big ideas McCain pushes, my general view on his competency in that area is pretty low.
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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #8 on: June 29, 2008, 04:10:05 AM »
Preeeeety much agreeing with Lagshyr. Not much else to add, honestly.
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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #9 on: June 29, 2008, 04:45:15 AM »
Obama. I'm a flaming lefty in most respects anyway, so it's not like this was hard, but after the way the Bush term has gone I'm pretty scared of what another 4 to 8 years of similar foreign policy would do. Definitely "time for a change," like Tailaggywalker said.
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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #10 on: June 29, 2008, 05:32:55 AM »
Darth Vader? Chuck Norris? The Flying Dutchman? LELOUCH VI BRITANNIA?!?!? Take your pick. McCain seems like another failish Republican, and haha Resident Conservative voting big bad Mr. Liberal. At least Hillary isn't getting elected in the inevitable Liberal Landslide.

Probably gonna end up voting McCain? At least I agree with him on more things than I do with Obama, though I'm seriously considering just writing in something silly and facepalming.
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superaielman

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #11 on: June 29, 2008, 05:52:40 AM »
You're not the resident right winger, that's Hal. And Dune. And me. Sorta. Just don't vote for the Libs. Bob fucking Barr? So much fail.

I just wish Obama had any fucking clue on energy policy. "Oh hay solar energy and wind powar!!" That'll work. No really. In the mean time how about a pl.. you say you don't want to drill anywhere else for oil? Or build more nuclear power plants? But what's that?! Energy rates are going up crazily!!!  PRICE FREEZES!!!!*

*This isn't to say McCain has any clue on energy policy, I'm just not happy with either. Any politican can make worthless blandishments about the environment. Every single thing I've heard from Obama has really amounted to a pile of nothing.
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InfinityDragon

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #12 on: June 29, 2008, 06:16:05 AM »
McCain.

I really, really, really can't see Obama's stance on Foreign Affairs/Iraq as anything short of laughable. The "surge" approach is working and some of the largest former hotspots are being transferred to sole Iraqi security forces (helloooooo Anbar, anyone?). In short, it would be stupidly counter-productive to back-out now, regardless of your original stance on the war.

Also disagree with the usual Democratic stances on anything vaguely related to economics (healthcare, social security, taxation and spending, energy, etc) due to how untenable those stances are, but that's nothing new.

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #13 on: June 29, 2008, 06:19:26 AM »
Same way I always do: straight ticket Libertarian. I'm a card-packing party member, you know.

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #14 on: June 29, 2008, 09:18:49 AM »
This
I'm going with unsure for now. While I agree far more with McCain than Obama, the fact is that Obama's doing something that hasn't been done since Reagan or Clinton: He's charistmatically uniting people. I miss that.

And this
Quote from: Superaielman
Every single thing I've heard from Obama has really amounted to a pile of nothing.

Kind of bother me.  As an outsider and blah blah all that, my views as a fairly hard leftist is not news and who I would probably end up voting for is probably fairly obvious if I bought into a 2 party system.  Those two things together stinks of Reagan and I would hate to subject the world to another bout of Reaganomics.

That said, Wind power is a useful supplement to your power sources and Solar is looking stronger and more economically viable each year, but they need to be used in tandem with other things, you need to have an actual really diverse power network rather than the more centralised station based infrastructure ... pretty much the whole world is based on at the moment.
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Taishyr

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #15 on: June 29, 2008, 12:15:30 PM »
re: super on Obama energy policy:

I just hear the exact opposite from McCain; continue drilling and pretty much don't worry about it. Now, I agree Obama's stance is impractical; I also consider McCain's to be just as impractical.

Now, if choosing President was based solely on this, I'd still go Obama; for when you have two poisons, one of non-action and one of over-action, so to speak, I'd rather take the over-action; it's more likely to be diluted to a far more middle road (since I know the Republicans in Senate/House will likely bitch and rage about it enough and the Democrats are pussywhipped enough at this point that the Republicans will see a lot of the added tag-ons they want).

Of course, this takes what's probably an exaggeration of both platforms to their conclusion; however, I'm more inclined to say that if anyone's going to actually get change done visavis this issue, it'll be Obama, not McCain. 'course, this as usual does not expect blatant stupidity on either side.

Amendment: McCain does wish to handle pollution (good) but I'm not sure his position amounts to much more than "stall by waiting on other countries to improve", honestly, looking it over. Eh. This being said, both are considering nuclear? Huh. That I didn't expect, but I do approve of; the long-term issues present in it are... far less dangerous than most, so long as we make sure the bloody things are staffed well.
« Last Edit: June 29, 2008, 12:25:42 PM by Taishyr »

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #16 on: June 30, 2008, 08:57:15 AM »
You know what we need?  4-8 fucking years of the current administration basically repeated.

Hah.  Obama won't get shit done, but nothing is better than making it worse.

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #17 on: June 30, 2008, 02:08:46 PM »
Also disagree with the usual Democratic stances on anything vaguely related to economics (healthcare, social security, taxation and spending, energy, etc) due to how untenable those stances are, but that's nothing new.

I can see that on most of it, but healthcare? Am I missing something that makes it completely impossible for the US to socialize medicine when a place as poor as Cuba can?

(Just objective, basic morality says that the bla bla about how it'll bog down the system is made up for by the fact that people who currently fail to get care now, will. You can argue on...some.... level that the potential drop in care quality will make this undesirable, but completely untenable? Can't see it.

I suppose you can also argue that bla bla charity bla but actually lower-middle class people have to make their choice between not paying some bills or going to the hospital, since they tend to fall between the cracks for such things, etc.)

Annnyways.

Obama clearly is soft-peddling his own views; He's charismatic, he says what people want to hear, and underneath that it's hard to figure out what he actually believes. His own past history doesn't show a whole lot in that direction either. He seems generic liberal; Is that what he is? I dunno. One interesting thing is that, when they focus on his family, though, he has had a very open-minded(and vaguely weird, really, in what I'd biasedly call a good way...) upbringing, from what I've seen. And that's basically the only clue I've seen either way, though I don't study politicians in depth as much as I should, sadly.

On the other hand McCain is clearly soft-peddling his own views and his real own views, which he's been loud enough about in the past, are positively awful at this point in time; Attempting to close off the US, or even leaning in that direction? In this day and age? This economy? You want to see a depression approaching 1920s? Because that's what could potentially occur. I'm not kidding, the idea of the US even trying to roll back to the way things were would, in short term, completely ruin us; It's something you do in a completely different economic situation. Even trying to stymie growth in that direction could cause horrible damage, short term.

Baaaasically, no matter what you think about how they are on smaller points, thinking about the larger ones seems like a much better thing; McCain has multiple ways he could completely screw over our country due to his own extremist views, or due to holding on to Bush's(Which he seems to have a tendancy to do; I'm never quite sure if he's trying to hold on to that vote base and doesn't care, or if he believes the same way.) too long.

Even if you think Bush was right on his stance about Iraq, it's better to have someone that thinks he was outright wrong and who makes plans to carefully withdraw than it is to have someone who mindlessly follows his same plans too long; The reprecussions of the former mostly just screw Iraq. The latter could screw us, Iraq and possibly some other allied countries. We obviously have to pull out of Iraq eventually, simply for financial reasons; A major portion of why our economy sucks right now is this war. If we get down the line in an unpopular war that is wrecking our economy until we pull a retarded Vietnam-like pull-out, the end results for Iraq are going to be so much worse than pulling out ASAP with a good plan, and far worse for ourselves and all allies.

(Oh. And am I the only one that put 2 and 2 together and remembered things like gas rationing in WW2? Sure, it's not as big of a war, buuuuut...yeah, there's a lot of reasons this is hurting our economy.)

Just from a realistic perspective on what's actually good for the country, Obama's better on balance, unless I'm missing some huge liberal perspective that could wreck the country as much as McCain's more extreme views. So eh.

It doesn't hurt that I lean liberal dem on stuff in general, I'll admit, but I hate both sides of politics. I just happen to have, for once, liked both of the democratic candidates. And I want to hit McCain with a brick and knock some of his silly dangerous idealism when it comes to policies out.

So yeah, going with Obama, myself.
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Taishyr

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #18 on: June 30, 2008, 03:12:05 PM »
Quote
On the other hand McCain is clearly soft-peddling his own views and his real own views, which he's been loud enough about in the past, are positively awful at this point in time; Attempting to close off the US, or even leaning in that direction? In this day and age? This economy? You want to see a depression approaching 1920s? Because that's what could potentially occur. I'm not kidding, the idea of the US even trying to roll back to the way things were would, in short term, completely ruin us; It's something you do in a completely different economic situation. Even trying to stymie growth in that direction could cause horrible damage, short term.

Link me to a reference where he said this, Sage, for my own benefit?

InfinityDragon

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #19 on: July 01, 2008, 12:56:33 AM »
Quote
I can see that on most of it, but healthcare? Am I missing something that makes it completely impossible for the US to socialize medicine when a place as poor as Cuba can?

(Just objective, basic morality says that the bla bla about how it'll bog down the system is made up for by the fact that people who currently fail to get care now, will. You can argue on...some.... level that the potential drop in care quality will make this undesirable, but completely untenable? Can't see it.

How would one go about funding such a massive, large-scale federal program? Raising taxes won't work. The people who need healthcare most (i.e. the lower-middle class) also shoulder the burden of paying the most in taxes, resulting in an economic wash. Imposing higher progressive tax rates on the rich would be political suicide and would just result in rich keeping more of their wealth in unrealized gains (stocks, etc.).

To add insult to injury, the federal estate and gift tax is going to expire quite soon, and most legal tax analysts are fairly certain it won't be revived.

If someone can come up with a scheme of funding that works on a scale for a country as large as the United States, sure it might work. Problem is, the US is huge. Comparing a country like Cuba or Sweden, who have *total country* populations lower than mere *cities* in the US, is absurd.

Implementation at the STATE level might work (key word: "might"), but that would make health care an issue for the STATES to resolve, *not* the FEDERAL government.

Quote
Even if you think Bush was right on his stance about Iraq, it's better to have someone that thinks he was outright wrong and who makes plans to carefully withdraw than it is to have someone who mindlessly follows his same plans too long; The reprecussions of the former mostly just screw Iraq. The latter could screw us, Iraq and possibly some other allied countries. We obviously have to pull out of Iraq eventually, simply for financial reasons; A major portion of why our economy sucks right now is this war. If we get down the line in an unpopular war that is wrecking our economy until we pull a retarded Vietnam-like pull-out, the end results for Iraq are going to be so much worse than pulling out ASAP with a good plan, and far worse for ourselves and all allies.

A number of corrections need to be made here:

1) The United States isn't in a recession. The GDP is still going up at a steady rate of ~+2.0--2.5% per year, as it has been for the longest time. Our trade deficit, while large, is not much higher in terms relative to GDP than other modernized nations who are outproduced by China, et al (The United States is at -4.9%, Britain is at -3.9%, Australia is at -5.9%, etc). Unemployment rate is also still at 5.5%, which is significantly lower than most other modernized nations (Canada is at 6.1, France is at 7.2, Germany is at 7.7, for instance).

2) Any problems with the economy can be linked to the subprime mortgage lending crisis, which is wholly independent from military operations in Iraq. The Iraq war didn't cause lenders to extend credit to people who were clearly unsuitable to receive credit; overzealous lenders combined with irresponsible lendees is what caused the subprime mortgages to be issued.

3) Claiming that pulling out of Iraq quickly without first ensuring it can self-govern and is self-secure will only affect Iraq misses a critical point: an unstable and impotent Iraqi government will result in the destabilization of an entire country/region in the Middle East. This is a chief security concern for ANY modernized country (particularly the US since the US lead to the war that would have caused the destabilization in the first place). We all saw how a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan turned out for domestic and international security; Iraq has the potential to be much worse.

4) Yes, following the blind, ineffective approach to Iraq that marred the Bush administration during Rumsfeld's term as Secretary of Defense would be pointless. This isn't the case. The newer (well, not technically new, most of them are classic military doctrines that were ignored by Rumsfeld) methods being used by General Petraeus (and by extension, by SecDef Gates) *ARE* working and *HAVE* shown success. Thus, fears that we are still blindly sitting around without a clue as how to proceed are now largely unfounded.

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #20 on: July 01, 2008, 04:36:38 AM »
Obama, for Dhyer's reasons.

I have to swallow pretty hard to accept his healthcare plan. *sigh* @ implying that kind of thing works in places like Cuba and Canada. They try it, and there's one of two results: The hospitals are either horrible (Cuba) or take a lifetime to get into (Canada). For the record I don't think anyone mentioned Canada in this topic but it's the common example pro-UHS people point to so I'm pre-emptively responding to it. The people who actually live there tell plenty of horror stories that I don't want to experience first hand.

But those issues Dhyer mentioned are just too important.

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #21 on: July 01, 2008, 05:47:51 AM »
Our health care system has plenty of flaws, and there are plenty of bad stories to tell about it. A lot of my family friends are either doctors or nurses, so I hear plenty myself.

Yours is worse. The US has one of the worst health care systems in the Western World by most concrete measures (from life expectancy to how much costly the health care system actually ends up, never mind the horror stories of what it inflicts on the lower middle class). I haven't looked into Obama's policies on this specifically, and as such am not weighing into the argument in general, but to imply the US is somehow better and hence status quo is a-okay on the issue is pretty laughable. It may be better solved at a state level as ID says (and I believe some states have taken strides to doing just this), but should not be glossed over entirely.

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #22 on: July 01, 2008, 08:12:17 AM »
Another reason to vote for Obama in November: piss off these guys.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25447998/

TL;DR version:

Quote
As the years passed, Peterman and his neighbors approached one another to share in their skepticism about the unknown. What was the story behind the handful of African Americans who had moved into a town that is 93 percent white? Why were Japanese businessmen coming in to run the local manufacturing plants? Who in the world was this Obama character, running for president with that funny-sounding last name?

They also mention that this guy "isn't sure" whether or not to believe newspaper articles over, and I quote...

Quote
...[H]is friend Leroy Pollard, a devoted family man so convinced Obama is a radical Muslim that he threatened to stop talking to his daughter when he heard she might vote for him?

Taishyr

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #23 on: July 01, 2008, 09:00:25 AM »
Psh.

Everyone knows Obama's an omnisexual Pastafarian Mongolian whose real name is Kvetcholescky Amaterasky Dostoyevsky Hitler who happens to be the reincarnation - directly so - of Cleopatra.

Seriously.

The service desk downstairs said it so it must be true.


I'd ask how or why people let such blatant idiocy spread, but then I realize I answer my question in the asking. It's just... asdf. So much anger. I'm not going to enjoy myself back in the States, will I.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2008, 09:10:54 AM by Taishyr »

Otter

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Re: Who are you voting for come November?
« Reply #24 on: July 01, 2008, 09:16:23 AM »
Probably Obama.