Title: 4um poll. Are there any here who consider themselves a D? An R? Source:
[None] URL Source:[None] Published:Apr 14, 2008 Author:me Post Date:2008-04-14 10:55:39 by Jethro Tull Keywords:None Views:3517 Comments:242
I'm thinking we have some died in the wool Ds, and that might explain, in part, the Obama pimping.
Poster Comment:
I'm a reformed R, who now is a electoral non-participant.
I'm thinking we have some died in the wool Ds, and that might explain, in part, the Obama pimping.
My fear is that we will have four more years of Bush in the form of McCain. I will cast my vote wherever I think it will be most effective in stopping this.
Going by the record of the past 7.5 years, I would prefer to take a chance with either Democratic candidate than to continue on our present course - which is what McCain has promised us.
Given what McCain has promised, voting for McCain ratifies the Bush policies and McCain would come to power with what he believes is a genuine mandate to continue them. All in all, a very dangerous situation.
I also think the plutocratic 2% who control small town America know the jig is up. We're in for a crash. They'll be front page pictures of bread lines and of the helicopter on the roof of the Baghdad embassy soon. McCain is old and sick and he'll be gone soon, so he can absorb the blame and then die. Fox News and the rest of the goob foolers have already assured the people in Wichita and hick Pennsylvania that McCain isn't a real conservative and he isn't one of them, so the failure can be easily disowned when it comes. The veep choice is the interesting one - he's the one that will be chosen to protect he plutocracy.
#74. To: ..., Original Intent, Peppa, Cynicom, lodwick, Dakmar, christine, Obama, Clinton, McCain, Chertoff, all (#33)(Edited)
Here's my bitch. I think our foreign policy is many pay grades above the office of the presidency. One (s)elected man/woman isn't going to defund the MIC while it's in full earning potential. We're talking about trillions and trillions of dollars in profit and countless corporations and jobs depend on war as their Mother’s milk. That richest 2% of people and governments you speak of will *never* tolerate a penny less in profit, and this reality was the sole reason I never gave RP a snowball‘s chance in hell despite having all the issues “right“.
OTOH, on the domestic front, the political left irks me b/c the social programs they love so much costs me money. I'm like a lot of other folks, I simply can't afford to give even more to a central government for redistribution. I also want the political left to get their laws off my guns. Obama is capable of further damage to my bottom line, and he’s despicable on the 2nd amendment. How a man who proposes that self defense in one’s home is illegal, can be accepted by so many, sucks.
So, to sum up my political feeling, McCain is correct; we'll be in Iraq for the next 100 years. Neither Obama nor Clinton will have the power or authority to change that, should they be (s)elected. The points that matter to me most make Obama the worst choice between the three.
OTOH, on the domestic front, the political left irks me b/c the social programs they love so much costs me money. I'm like a lot of other folks, I simply can't afford to give even more to a central government for redistribution. I also want the political left to get their laws off my guns. Obama is capable of further damage to my bottom line, and he’s despicable on the 2nd amendment. How a man who proposes that self defense in one’s home is illegal, can be accepted by so many, sucks.
So, to sum up my political feeling, McCain is correct; we'll be in Iraq for the next 100 years. Neither Obama nor Clinton will have the power or authority to change that, should they be (s)elected. The points that matter to me most make Obama the worst of choice between the three.
very well said. that 2nd amendment position that obama holds is appalling, imo. i'm changing my mind about wanting him to have the op to fulfill his promises for change, on that one issue. no matter what, we cannot as a populace be disarmed. that is still the only thing that the tyrants fear.
#88. To: christine, Peppa, farmfriend, Cynicom, robin, TwentyTwelve, Wudidiz, Kamala, HOUNDDAWG, James Deffenbach, Percy Dovetonsils, Pinguinite, ratcat, Palo Verde, aristeides, all (#83)
...no matter what, we cannot as a populace be disarmed. that is still the only thing that the tyrants fear.
True, but what they fear even more is an alerted armed populace. We need both, and we need to keep cool heads and keep pushing - alerting and waking people up to the true, and real, danger they are in.
Too many people do not want to look e.g., I have a good friend, who owned a very successful machine tool business, who will not look at or believe how many innocent people have been murdered in Iraq and Afghanistan - because it disagrees with the world view implanted by the lamestream media. He thinks McInsane is a good choice because he will continue the "Waronterra" as he has accepted the false rationale sold for it. He is not a stupid man, but he is "afraid to look" at the reality because it is too awful for him to confront.
True, but what they fear even more is an alerted armed populace. We need both, and we need to keep cool heads and keep pushing - alerting and waking people up to the true, and real, danger they are in.
Obama was signalling that in his statement the other day. While almost at the same time, Mayor Nutter was moving that effort forward. He's getting pushback, but there is no mistaking Obama's position on gun control. People should look up his votes on this, his comments about it... and I have suggested that Hillary and McCain are no better, so look up their positions too.
Obama, disagreeing with the D.C. government and gun control advocates, declares that the Second Amendment's "right of the people to keep and bear arms" applies to individuals, not just the "well regulated militia" in the amendment. In the next breath, he asserts that this constitutional guarantee does not preclude local "common sense" restrictions on firearms. Does the draconian prohibition in Washington fit that description? My attempts to get an answer have proved unavailing. The front-running Democratic presidential candidate is doing the gun dance.
Barack Obama, who informs campaign audiences that he taught constitutional law for 10 years, might be expected to weigh in on the historic Second Amendment case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices are pondering whether the 1976 District of Columbia law effectively prohibiting personal gun ownership in the nation's capital is constitutional. But Obama has not stated his position.
Obama, disagreeing with the D.C. government and gun control advocates, declares that the Second Amendment's "right of the people to keep and bear arms" applies to individuals, not just the "well regulated militia" in the amendment. In the next breath, he asserts that this constitutional guarantee does not preclude local "common sense" restrictions on firearms. Does the draconian prohibition in Washington fit that description? My attempts to get an answer have proved unavailing. The front-running Democratic presidential candidate is doing the gun dance.
That is a dance that many Democrats do, as revealed in private conversation with party strategists. As urban liberals, they reject constitutional protection for gun owners. As campaign managers, they want to avoid the fate of the many Democratic candidates who have lost elections because of gun control advocacy. The party's House leadership last year pulled from the floor a bill for a congressional seat for the District to protect Democratic members from having to vote on a Republican amendment against the D.C. gun law.
Hillary Clinton has extolled the Second Amendment, though not to the degree Obama has. Campaigning at Iowa's Cornell College on Dec. 5, he asserted that the Second Amendment "is an individual right and not just a right of the militia." He has repeated that formulation along the primary trail, declaring at a Milwaukee news conference before the Feb. 19 Wisconsin primary: "I believe the Second Amendment means something. . . . There is an individual right to bear arms."
That would imply that the D.C. gun law is unconstitutional. Mayor Adrian Fenty's brief to the Supreme Court rests on the proposition that the Second Amendment "protects the possession and use of guns only in service of an organized militia." Consequently, I concluded in a March 13 column about the case that Obama had "weighed in against the D.C. law."
On March 24, a reader wrote in an e-mail to The Post that "Obama supports the D.C. law" and demanded a correction. That was based on an Associated Press account of Obama's Milwaukee news conference asserting that "he voiced support for the District of Columbia's ban on handguns." In fact, all he said was: "The notion that somehow local jurisdictions can't initiate gun safety laws to deal with gang-bangers and random shootings on the street isn't borne out by our Constitution."
That leaves Obama unrevealed on the D.C. law. In response to my inquiry about his specific position, Obama's campaign e-mailed me a one-paragraph answer: Obama believes that while the "Second Amendment creates an individual right, . . . he also believes that the Constitution permits federal, state and local government to adopt reasonable and common sense gun safety measures." Though the paragraph is titled "Obama on the D.C. Court case," that specific gun ban is never mentioned. I tried again last week, without success, to learn Obama's position before writing this column.
Obama's dance on gun rights is part of his evolution from the radical young Illinois state legislator he once was. He was recorded in a 1996 questionnaire as advocating a ban on the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns (a position he has since disavowed). He was on the board of the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation, which takes an aggressive gun control position, and in 2000 considered becoming its full-time president. In 2006, he voted with an 84 to 16 majority (and against Clinton) to prohibit confiscation of firearms during an emergency, but that is his only pro-gun vote in Springfield or Washington. The National Rifle Association grades his voting record (and Clinton's) an "F."
There is no anti-gun litmus test for Democrats. In 2006, Ted Strickland was elected governor of Ohio and Bob Casey U.S. senator from Pennsylvania with NRA grades of "A." Following their model, Obama talks about the rights of "Americans to protect their families." He has not yet stated whether that right should exist in Washington.
As a Constitutional lecturer, he should well know, rights of self defense are God given, not government given. The nuanced tap-dancing doesn't show leadership. It reveals he is unwilling to take a position that could cut off his career. It has nothing to do with what his Constitutionally correct. IMO>
Well, I suspect he doesn't care enough about the issue to expend political capital on it.
In any case, someone with his views on the issue is not likely to change the status quo much on it. Any more than the Bush Justice Department (which takes precisely the position Novak ascribes to Obama) has.
I don't like that D.C. law myself (and, as someone who works in D.C., it matters to me). But I can live with it. I'm much more concerned about ending the war in Iraq and the Bush regime's violations of civil liberties.
I'm much more concerned about ending the war in Iraq and the Bush regime's violations of civil liberties.
The ruling elite can't have either our civil liberties or constitutional rights as long as we're armed. To date, the liberties and rights we've lost has been on a voluntary basis. Given Obama's position on the 2nd, we'll no longer have that option. It's been said America can come back from a socialist government, but can we come back from a government who has disarmed us? Now, put on your best Bronx accent and please give us a yes or no to that question.
Given Obama's position on the 2nd, we'll no longer have that option.
The Bush Justice Department has taken precisely the same position on the D.C. gun law that Novak says Obama has taken on the Second Amendment.
I don't think we can come back from a government that has successfully disarmed us. But I see no reason to believe that a President Obama will do that any more than Bush or preceding presidents, including Democratic ones, have done. Democrats learned from electoral losses in the 1990's to be gun-shy on Second Amendment issues.
So I see the Second Amendment as very much a secondary issue. I'm more concerned about the civil liberties that the Bush regime has taken from us and about the wars of aggression that it has launched.
The ruling elite can't have either our civil liberties or constitutional rights as long as we're armed.
Have you ever watched a round of layoffs in a major corporation? The company picks off the people one by one and the ones remaining hide under their desks and try to stay invisible - or they nark out other people trying to buy favor until the ax falls on them.
The company breaks age discrimination laws and every other employment law in the book as they know no insider will testify against them. And the people they've already screwed over don't make good witnesses.
Eventually, even the most craven boot licker gets screwed in the ass and the department is cleaned out.
After seeing this bunch perform in corporate world time and time again, I just don't see them spontaneously rising up into a bloody gun fight with the government. And I know an easy way to stop a confrontation of this sort if it ever happens, have AM Radio announce that anyone photographed at the confrontation will lose their job.
And it will be easy to get informants to simply pick up the agitators and few willing to fight. Look at Mudboy, he's dumb and loyal to the government no matter what the government does. All the government has to do is tell him everyone on earth is a lib except for him and he would be a willing tool for the fascists. That's how the Nazis controlled France, one or two informants per village and it was over for the resistance.
And suppose a miracle happened and people did rise up. How would a fat Texan with a shotgun fare against a modern army? Look to Mogudishu for an example. 2000 killed for 19 government casualties. And here the civilians were better armed than Americans, full auto AK-47s, RPGs and grenades. And the soldiers were only trying to leave - not to inflict major damage.
My point is that I don't think the elites are very worried about people having guns - save for the crime angle. They certainly arn't worried about armed resistance. It's the people in hick Pennsylvania that are as hysterical about guns as they are about two queers in the tenderloin getting married.
The ruling elite can't have either our civil liberties or constitutional rights as long as we're armed.
The real problem is see with the focus on guns is that they provide a false sense of security to powerless, dumb people.
I saw this recently with a kid who had signed an employment contract that gave the corporation a right to screw him over for the rest of his natural life - on a whim. If a manager didn't like him, the contract gave the manager a right to disrupt the kids employment at other companies for ten years.
When I tried to explain this to the kid, he got mad and took the position that nobody could do that to him. When I pointed out that the company had a perfect right to do it and that they had screwed people this way before, the kid he had guns and would take to the street before that happened to him. I knew this was the end of the story. I also knew the kid would just get screwed like the kid before him and the kid before that. And the kid, with a new baby and a mortgage, would never take to the street.
The point here is that the kid pounded his chest and ranted about his gun instead of going in and getting the contract amended. Which he could have done and which would have served him much better.
I've seen the same thing happen when the government takes away people's constitutional rights. Instead of doing something effective to stop the process, the powerless dumb people pound their chests, rant about their guns and then go back to watching the game on TV.
As I said before, the elites don't care if these people have guns. It placates these people and the guns pose no real threat to the elites.