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Michelle Obama's speech


Muse

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It'd be awesome if America shied away from a two-party system, but with how things are set up, that's not happening. It's going to be ridiculously challenging to change it, so in the mean time, vote. Vote for whomever you choose, just know that in a two-party system you're more or less throwing away your vote if you don't vote Dem or GOP.

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Some of the most prosperous times in the US and he was a "terrible" president because he supposedly got a beej from an intern?

He wasn't impeached for adultery. He was impeached for perjury.

No real reflection on his presidency, but to act as though he was impeached for getting a blowjob is low brow stand-up fodder.

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I'll be voting for Gary Johnson.

Also, how on earth does @14:00 illustrate anything?

It illustrates that you're a cunt.

That's what I thought :reporter:

HA. Says the guy who throws his vote away.

Quite the contrary, you're the one who will vote for a candidate who will continue this country on the path of eroding civil liberties and financial disaster. I'm voting for someone who would reverse both courses. You've admitted that both of your candidates are "evils". You have the choice to stop supporting those evils. You are simply too cowardly or too shortsighted to do so.

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I'll be voting for Gary Johnson.

Also, how on earth does @14:00 illustrate anything?

It illustrates that you're a cunt.

That's what I thought :reporter:

HA. Says the guy who throws his vote away.

Quite the contrary, you're the one who will vote for a candidate who will continue this country on the path of eroding civil liberties and financial disaster. I'm voting for someone who would reverse both courses. You've admitted that both of your candidates are "evils". You have the choice to stop supporting those evils. You are simply too cowardly or too shortsighted to do so.

I can see I touched a nerve.

I "admitted" to a hyperbolic assertion that politicians are evil.

Your other speculations about which candidates are the arbiters of which apocalypses are just that.

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I can see I touched a nerve.

I "admitted" to a hyperbolic assertion that politicians are evil.

Your other speculations about which candidates are the arbiters of which apocalypses are just that.

Not at all. I've heard your assertion dozens of times before and I find it as boring as I find it silly. As far as apocalypses, I've asserted no such thing. I've asserted that both Obama and Romney would further erode our civil liberties. I have asserted that both Obama and Romney will continue deficit spending which, if left unchecked, will lead to a dire financial situation on par with Greece, Spain, etc.

If you'd like to argue either point, feel free. However, I won't allow you to create strawmen.

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I can see I touched a nerve.

I "admitted" to a hyperbolic assertion that politicians are evil.

Your other speculations about which candidates are the arbiters of which apocalypses are just that.

Not at all. I've heard your assertion dozens of times before and I find it as boring as I find it silly. As far as apocalypses, I've asserted no such thing. I've asserted that both Obama and Romney would further erode our civil liberties. I have asserted that both Obama and Romney will continue deficit spending which, if left unchecked, will lead to a dire financial situation on par with Greece, Spain, etc.

If you'd like to argue either point, feel free. However, I won't allow you to create strawmen.

No one is creating strawmen. The issues of "eroding civil liberties" and "ushering in financial disaster" are two issues you brought up out of thin air to debate about. Then you give me the option to debate either two. Red herring fallacy. I'm not another one of the peons Josh.

What I'm talking about is simply reality. It would be nice if it wasn't a two party system. It would be nice if it wasn't between JUST Romney and Obama.

But it is. And it's not my fault. Blame the fact that human IQ averages around 100 with a standard deviation of 15. Blame the media. Blame reality TV.

Like I've said before, if there was a viable candidate who I considered a better option I would vote for them. If Obama is/was far enough ahead of Romney that my vote would be superfluous, I'd gladly cast it elsewhere to prove a more general point.

But if it comes down to Romney's policies and vision versus Obama's policies and vision (which it will) then I'm going to make the pragmatic choice. We live in reality, regardless of how much it sucks.

Edited by Muse
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My question was not a red herring. Is it your assertion that Obama will not both 1. continue to erode our civil liberties AND 2. continue deficit spending? It's my assertion that he will do both.

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I feel like I've said this half a dozen times on this board, but I guess I have to explain my position again.

You think that the only reasonable action is to vote either for the Republican candidate or Democratic candidate because they are the only ones who have a shot at winning this election. However, I disagree with your premise that voting for someone who has no chance of winning this election is wasted. I think that voting for someone who can't win can make a difference going forward.

I think that both Obama and Romney are terrible candidates that will continue to erode our civil liberties and harm the financial status of the United States through deficit spending. You think that it is worthwhile to vote for the candidate you think is the least shitty. I, on the other hand believe, and history has shown, that the parties will continue putting out candidates like these as long as they keep winning. If you think one of these candidates is good, agrees with you on, say, 80%+ of issues, then by all means, keep up the good work. However, if you are like me and disagree with both candidates on a majority of issues, taking action that would potentially impact the choice of future candidates is worthwhile.

Do I think Gary Johnson has a shot at winning? Of course not. However, I don't think there is an appreciable difference between Obama and Romney. Four years of Romney will look nearly identical to four years of Obama. Come on, let's be honest. What has Obama done that McCain wouldn't have done? He pulled of Iraq? Wonderful. He did so on Bush's timetable and only after Iraq refused our troops immunity. Passed Obamacare? It's literally the worst of both worlds. We would have been better off with single payer. Seriously, what has he done that McCain, who would have spent like a drunken sailor, wouldn't have done? He kept open Guantanamo. Continued the war in Afghanistan. Continued the war on drugs. Assassinated an American citizen. Supported the Patriot Act. Passed the NDAA.

As such, I am willing to cast a protest vote in the hopes that one of the parties moves more towards my beliefs. The fraction of "improvement" I would get from one candidate or the other isn't worth the long term trajectory of both parties.

Edited by Joshjrn
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assertion

asserted

asserted

asserted

ASS!!!

But everything you said is bang on. Republican or Democrat, both parties are run by the same people. You guys love to brag about your country being the leader of the "free world", yet you allowed your "democracy" to come to this? You do not live in a democracy, you do not get to choose your leaders, under this partisan system. Ron Paul had one of the best platforms I have ever seen, but he wouldn't "play nice" with the people who really call the shots, so they buried him.

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For the sake of general knowledge, the United States is a republic, not a democracy. Your point stands, though.

A democratic republic though, so to claim to live in a "democracy" is not incorrect (except for the points I highlighted).

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Assassinated an American citizen. Supported the Patriot Act. Passed the NDAA.

Assassinated an American citizen? I've never heard of that before, Josh. Can you post a source or something? That interests me greatly.

Also, what is the difference between a democratic and republic nation? I was never, ever, taught this.

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Assassinated an American citizen. Supported the Patriot Act. Passed the NDAA.

Assassinated an American citizen? I've never heard of that before, Josh. Can you post a source or something? That interests me greatly.

Also, what is the difference between a democratic and republic nation? I was never, ever, taught this.

If we lived in a democracy, every law would come to a popular vote. A republic elects people to vote on each law as a representative of the people.

And the man's name was Anwar al-Awlaki. I'm disinclined to post a link as I could be accused of having a motive in the one I chose. Google him. You'll have more hits than you know what to do with.

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Assassinated an American citizen. Supported the Patriot Act. Passed the NDAA.

Assassinated an American citizen? I've never heard of that before, Josh. Can you post a source or something? That interests me greatly.

Also, what is the difference between a democratic and republic nation? I was never, ever, taught this.

If we lived in a democracy, every law would come to a popular vote. A republic elects people to vote on each law as a representative of the people.

And the man's name was Anwar al-Awlaki. I'm disinclined to post a link as I could be accused of having a motive in the one I chose. Google him. You'll have more hits than you know what to do with.

Thanks. The democracy sounds very appealing, in some aspects. You'd still have religious people doing their whole thing, so that sucks in that aspect. However, we know that the leaders of anything are still people, and people can be very, very corrupt.

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Thanks. The democracy sounds very appealing, in some aspects. You'd still have religious people doing their whole thing, so that sucks in that aspect. However, we know that the leaders of anything are still people, and people can be very, very corrupt.

That's why this country was founded as a constitutional democratic republic. The people (democratic) elect politicians (republic) who are limited in their power, always, by a written Constitution. Unfortunately, political expediency and outright power lust took what was supposed to be a strict Constitution creating a government of limited power and, through the "living document" philosophy, we now have a federal government of almost limitless power. It really is a shame. Our beginnings were so noble.

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What's the solution to our current problem of government, then?

The current problem is that politicians have unlimited power. As such, they can buy elections by currying out favors, from entitlements to ethanol subsidies to exemptions for Obamacare and everything in between. There are two ways to fix the problem. First, elect politicians who will repeal laws that give the government these individual powers. However, to truly fix the problem, we need to draft a new constitution which makes clear some of the "soft" language in our current Constitution, i.e. the general welfare, interstate commerce, and taxing clauses.

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I feel like I've said this half a dozen times on this board, but I guess I have to explain my position again.

You think that the only reasonable action is to vote either for the Republican candidate or Democratic candidate because they are the only ones who have a shot at winning this election. However, I disagree with your premise that voting for someone who has no chance of winning this election is wasted. I think that voting for someone who can't win can make a difference going forward.

I think that both Obama and Romney are terrible candidates that will continue to erode our civil liberties and harm the financial status of the United States through deficit spending. You think that it is worthwhile to vote for the candidate you think is the least shitty. I, on the other hand believe, and history has shown, that the parties will continue putting out candidates like these as long as they keep winning. If you think one of these candidates is good, agrees with you on, say, 80%+ of issues, then by all means, keep up the good work. However, if you are like me and disagree with both candidates on a majority of issues, taking action that would potentially impact the choice of future candidates is worthwhile.

Do I think Gary Johnson has a shot at winning? Of course not. However, I don't think there is an appreciable difference between Obama and Romney. Four years of Romney will look nearly identical to four years of Obama. Come on, let's be honest. What has Obama done that McCain wouldn't have done? He pulled of Iraq? Wonderful. He did so on Bush's timetable and only after Iraq refused our troops immunity. Passed Obamacare? It's literally the worst of both worlds. We would have been better off with single payer. Seriously, what has he done that McCain, who would have spent like a drunken sailor, wouldn't have done? He kept open Guantanamo. Continued the war in Afghanistan. Continued the war on drugs. Assassinated an American citizen. Supported the Patriot Act. Passed the NDAA.

As such, I am willing to cast a protest vote in the hopes that one of the parties moves more towards my beliefs. The fraction of "improvement" I would get from one candidate or the other isn't worth the long term trajectory of both parties.

I see a VERY appreciable difference between Obama and Romney.

And will be dead before the 2 party system in America is.

Hence my positions.

Edited by Muse
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I see a VERY appreciable difference between Obama and Romney.

That's fine. I don't, and frankly, I'd probably enjoy watching you articulate what you see.

And will be dead before the 2 party system in America is.

Hence my positions.

You've apparently missed my entire point. I wasn't saying that my voting for Gary Johnson will somehow usher in the rise of the Libertarian Party. However, if Gary Johnson gets a high enough percentage of the popular vote, say, 10%, I think both parties will take notice. The Democratic Party might take its claimed appreciation of civil liberties seriously while the Republican Party might focus more on bringing the rising libertarian wing into the fold as opposed to catering to the dying social conservatives.

Edited by Joshjrn
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