So at this point I’ve seen I don’t know how many people complaining about liberal this, new Muslim president that, he’s an illegal alien, Barack HUSSEIN Obama is going to ruin the country, etc, etc, etc. And I can’t help but think; how do you call yourself a patriot? Do you really care about our country? There comes a point after an election where you have to take a step back and say well, we lost; I don’t agree with the principles that the candidate who won has set forth but for the sake of our country I hope I am wrong and he is right. It is realistic to be worried but to pander to the lowest common denominator falls right into what people who think opposite to you love to see while they gloat. Its amazing the people that come out of the wood work when they are up and you are down; to add kindling to their fire, lighted by your ignorance, is not only self defeating but makes anyone else who is from a “red state” or sees things a certain way appear as “backwards” as the garbage that you put forth. As President Bush said today no matter how Americans cast their ballots, they should be proud of the history that was made yesterday and the progress the vast majority of our country has made. If anyone chases their dreams they can accomplish anything in this great country, no more excuses. It is beautiful that people can freely disagree with a peaceful transfer of power at the end of a democratic election where hopefully (at least on my end there’s not) any ill will towards the other side. As someone once said, “The American eagle has a left wing and a right wing, so let that eagle soar.”
Not horribly long ago there was a situation similar to this one. Besides being a sleazy horn dog, Bill Clinton did a good job of soon realizing (well three years into his presidency) that he had to move to the center to run the country; being too far to the left would not work. Hopefully a new President-Elect Obama will figure that out sooner; although his past associations, possible choice of Chief of Staff (Rham Emanuel could not be more partisan), state voting record, and senate voting record would point against that (97% record of voting w/ his party in the Senate); his campaign, one of the best managed probably in the history of our country all respects to Karl Rove seemed to have moved more to the center in at least foreign affairs the last few days and weeks. Is that a sign of more moderate views to come? Obama will hopefully go in and like Clinton say well I campaigned to lower taxes and raise them for the rich but we are in a recession and we can’t do that right now; likewise with his other campaign promises that in this current environment are doomed to fail. He is an intelligent man and I am sure he is aware of a backlash now just like then should he scorn the middle road to become Pelosi and Reed’s right hand.
Now let me explain. I am a conservative in a way that is not new although lately the word has been twisted to mean republican just as liberal is now a democrat; which is not a true definition of either really. Reagan, in attempting to define conservativism, said: “If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals — if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.” This was even earlier articulated by Edmund Burke, who in his ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’ wrote,…”It is to the property of the citizen, and not to the demands of the creditor of the state, that the first and original faith of civil society is pledged. The claim of the citizen is prior in time, paramount in title, superior in equity. The fortunes of individuals, whether possessed by acquisition or by descent or in virtue of a participation in the goods of some community, were no part of the creditor’s security, expressed or implied…The public, whether represented by a monarch or by a senate, can pledge nothing but the public estate; and it can have no public estate except in what it derives from a just and proportioned imposition upon the citizens at large.”
That is to say it’s not the right of the government to take on pet projects and pass the burden of the cost of the deficit created to the tax payer; likewise with many other forms of unnecessary government intervention. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger probably articulated it best when he mentioned he was a republican because having come from a socialist nation, he loved the idea of small government. Government obviously has its role in our lives, there must be some regulation and so on, but a line of course has to be drawn. Just like Barry Goldwater advocated many years ago this line should be drawn and applied to social values as well.
This election was lost because republicans turned away from what defines them. It isn’t because Obama turned around and reneged on his promise to stick with public financing and vastly outspent the republicans. It wasn’t because of a reverse Bradley effect or white liberal guilt. It wasn’t because of media bias. It wasn’t because of the failings of McCain or Palin. While these may have helped Mr. Obama, the Republican Party alienated both its base and independents by essentially becoming an intolerant version of the Democratic Party. For the good that Bush did, he has greatly increased the size, power, and spending of the federal government, and the size of the national debt, both of which are against general conservatism. Our party needs to sit back, recompose itself to something more resembling the party of Reagan, and even takes steps as the party of Lincoln to embrace equality for all and as part of a new platform. In regards to racism and sexism it has done a great job of this, but it will soon need to realize that in today’s society in a true ideology of small government and separation of church and state there is no reason for why it espouses outdated beliefs that, even if shared by democrats, we can be the ones that take this next great step in American society when both parties have up until now dropped the ball.
The world is a dangerous place. Russia already is challenging President-Elect Obama, with other countries that don’t like us very much likely soon to follow (Mr. Biden was almost right; although it wasn’t six months it was six hours). Hopefully Mr. Obama is able to establish a global order quickly and is able to, despite his wishes, move to the center and push a good economic plan. Hopefully he realizes that a strong military and a strong America is in the best interests of the planet. Hopefully he figures out a way to make it so that our educational system ranks among the best in the world. Maybe he will even create this utopia he painted a beautiful picture of with his words although he may have set expectations too high even for himself. He has written poetry of change that now has to become something substantial. I want nothing more than for our country to prosper, our President-Elect to succeed. If not? That there is a revamped Republican party to take charge and guide the country, lest this be the death rattle for the GOP. Is this something that we can accomplish? To borrow the slogan of a man who ran quite an impressive campaign and as the first minority leader of the free world has already inspired millions, “Yes we can.”
I the first 100 days the republicans in the House and Senate should do absolutely nothing.
Let the Democrats pass what ever they like, might as well get it over with as soon as possible. Let them run rampant.
During this time the Republicans can make damned sure that anyone who is corrupt, stands down or arranges to stand down. The public hate the current members of both houses more than they do GWB.
On day 101, the republicans should call for redistricting to be done by independent demographers, and maybe then more of them would worry more about their constituents, rather than their parties selection committees.
Yeah lets just fold up the tent and move on, not very damn likely. If you want to quit it’s up to you, me never, and he’s not my president at all, I’m sorry but he will never be.
a very well thought out post, thank you for taking the time to write it. i hate to say that while i agree in part, i don’t agree completely. we need to break the stereo type that has always been the republican party. i know more young republicans than i do young democrats. we need to project youth, and we had great opportunity for the internet and it never took off. i want to know if “the base” thinks that wisdom comes with age, or if they think age is stagnation. i think youth brings promise, not that there won’t be the occasional slip up, but youth has energy. mccain was so worried about being a gentleman and not showing his temper that he lost on passion for his nation. yes palin played the attack dog as is typical of her position, but mccain never once stepped it up. yeah, he defended joe the plumber, but i think he would have been tar and feathered had he not. but the republicans didn’t use what is at their diposal.
OMG… a “moderate” author that wants the government not to govern. Moving to the center is not governing… gee! I will try to remember not to read your threads anymore. You make my pH go acid. I will stop here on your nonsense because it could get ugly. In my mind Obama will always be a bum that hang around with terrorists, communists, Marxists, socialists, leftists, American Haters, anti-Semites and crooks. And it is not you who will change my mind on that. That guy is an idiot… sorry to tell you but you will soon find out. A RINO… help!
P.S.: Why not abolish the Republican and Democrat parties if everyone will govern in the Center? You wont need them anymore. That will save the costs of elections. Anybody can govern from the Center, because this is not governing at all.
You highlight the exact problem with the conservatives that has led to their loss of power. We have always respected and protected the system, and now the Democrats have done just as the Islamist are doing in the rest of the world and turned the system against us by cheeting and abusing it.
Oh I will give Obama his chance, because he was commonly elected, meaning I had a say in his election. I have no say in Pelosi or Reid’s position, and so they get no leaway from me. Besides I’ve been watching and listening to them for years now.
But just because Obama is POTUS now doesn’t mean I wont fight him at every point where I dissagree with him. I will point out every flaw and every weekness. Failure to do so has proven to be an invitation for his reelection. The middle american voter was stolen in this last election by lies and distortions. We must work and work hard to get those voters back, and that means getting our message out there at EVERY turn EVERY time to EVERY one. Exposing the treachery and hipocricy and decete of the Obama and his minons EVERY turn EVERY time to EVERY one.
The only way Obama will get my support is if he does the things he should. And while I’ve seen a few hopeful signs, they are weak and sparse. So I will be strong and frequent in my criticism.
I will respectfully disagree…
Nobabama was elected because so many people are stupid… lazy and want something for nothing..
Everyone with a blog blames “the direction of the GOP”… I disagree because people are stupid and lazy and now we see the result..
Nobama is a socialist POS and will surround himself with the socialists that the DNC tells him to and we will be well and truly f’d…
It will be down hill for a quite some time… think Carter on steroids and you see the next year..
I would love to be proven wrong but I doubt it..
Bigpapa, I fully agree with you.
Which is personally something I love about this country, that we can agree to disagree as opposed other countries and their regimes where you can’t speak against whomever may be in power. Most polls showed that the vast majority of America still leans right of center despite an elected government that looks to be more to the left. However, to say that someone disagrees with our views is “stupid” et al just makes us look bad. That’s another reason why we lost this election; instead of the new fresh ideas that Reagan would have loved for us to run on, we simply attacked, poorly at that. So, as someone who loves my country, I wish for it the best. As an American, I also reserve the right to criticize our government, but until the man at least has his pieces in place and is sworn in, I can’t judge his Presidency when it has yet to start officially start. Is this someone I would have wanted in power? I didn’t vote for him so obviously not for all the reasons we see on this site and others on a daily basis (the valid ones at least). But now that he is, and I will respect him as our President, even if I do not agree with his views as I wish democrats had at least done with President Bush. Why? Because we aren’t angry liberals and can be big enough people to do so. Close the tent? No, but redefine it and open it to let more in? I don’t see a problem with that.
In essence, Bigpapa I agree with you in that I don’t feel he was the right choice, (and his choices of men like Mr. Emanuel don’t do anything to change my mind as of yet), but not to repeat myself but as a Republican and not an Angry Liberal, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and respect as POTUS, until, as a sworn in President and not President-Elect, and given enough time to govern, he proves us wrong in which case he is still our President whether we like it or not, but then we can make rational arguments as to why we are then criticizing him. I fear that the tactics we used previously will get us nowhere in the next election (what more experience can he have as President than four years in office?). We need new leadership and new ideas coming from our mouths, not just frothing at the sight of liberals, letting out negative dribble.
I think it’s time for a reality check. 30% of the nation is hard core GOP base conservative. These are people who are evangelicals, racists (will explain this below), and USA/USA/USA militarists. These people wanted to lynch Bill Clinton and believed that George W Bush could do no wrong. Another 20% are old fashioned economic conservatives, of the George Will, Bill Buckley, David Brooks persuasion. 20% are true centrists. 30% are hard core Democrats — blacks, post graduate intellectuals, big labor unionists, gays, secular humanists.
Look at Bill Clinton’s approval ratings when he left office. Over 60%. He got the 30% hard core Dems, the 20% true centrists, and more than half of the old fashioned economic conservatives. And this is after the impeachment debacle. Look at George Bush’s approval ratings now. He’s barely holding on to the hard core COP base conservatives. Look at Obama’s current approval ratings. Close to 70%. Pretty much everyone, other than the 30% hard core GOP base, which would seem to include pretty much all of the Flopping Aces contributors.
Here’s an interesting statistic I heard on ABC’s “This Week” show. The strongest age group supporting McCain was the 30-49 age group, which became politically aware during the Reagan years. It seems as if there is a political “imprinting” which does go on. In my own case, I grew up in a staunch GOP household, but I came of political age during the Vietnam War. I’m a classic 60’s liberal Baby Boomer.
What about the “millennial generation?” 67% of the 18-29 age group went for Obama. Provided Obama doesn’t screw up, which I think is a very good bet, this generation is locked up for the Democrats for the next 20 years. And you’ve got the exploding hispanic population, which the GOP has poisoned with all the anti-immigrant invective. Reagan carried the Hispanic vote in the California governor’s race. Pete Wilson turned California from Red to Blue with his own anti-immigrant invective. Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.
This all reminds me a a bit of doggerel poetry:
This is the grave of Mike O’Day,
Who died maintaining his right of way.
His mind was clear.
His will was strong.
But he’s just as dead as if he’d been wrong.
At a certain level, we’ve got to realize that we are really one country. As Obama says, not red state America or blue state America, but the United States of America.
On second thought, I go over the “racist” statistics some other time.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA
@jainphx:
Quitting is not what Jose is saying.
Did you participate in the election process? Are you an American? Then face it: Barack Obama is your president. You don’t have to like it; I don’t like it; but to say he is not your president is just childish and no better than the Dems saying it about Bush. Why even have a United States anymore? Let’s just divide the country up into two camps and respectively move to the left and to the right. Then we only have to deal with likeminded lunatics within our own political sphere.
@Craig:
And neither is polarization. Your comparisons regarding “moderates” and “the center” make about as much sense if I were to point out moderation in eating habits- eat too little and you’re anorexic; eat too much and you’re obese. Life is all about taking things in moderation and finding your “center”; of finding a balance…although fringies and extremists have their uses, too.
Boy, Wordsmith, you sure didn’t convince me at all. On the contrary. What you said makes no sense at all. Comparing governing with eating is absolutely ridiculous.
If you really do believe this center bullshit, than why don’t you abolish both parties. If you want them to govern from the Center, that means that Democrats and Republicains will the same… no difference, you do not need them anymore. Both in the Center. Both on the neutral shifting gear. Lets only have one party: THE CENTER. You wont have to vote anymore and you will save a lot of money on elections. All in the center, no right, no left… cut the wings of the eagle, you don’t need them anymore, you are going nowhere anyways. Boy, I can’t beleive you think this way. Can you see how illogical that is… ONE party that governs from the center. Why two? They are the same centrists… no reason.
Any idiot can govern from the center because it is not governing. No values, no goal, no soul. Anybody can do it. You could do it, your neigbor could do it everyone could do it.
When you have a governement that is just an ornement in the White House, I mean one who govern in the center (meaning he is not governing), the country stagnate. You lose 4 year of accomplishing stricly nothing. Is that what you want for the country that you say you love? You really want it to become mediocre with no values, no goal, no soul? Because this is what the Center is: Nothingness. The center is a dead point. No action, no pulse… NOTHING. It’s dead!
First off:
@Larry Weisenthal:
You know, I learned a valuable lesson from the late Stephen J. Gould to never trust any statistics or anything that displays the “average” numbers because they’re not applicable to all the situations. If anything, you can try reading “Winnowing the field of America to One Representative” by William Grimes (a NYT article). In it, he explains that for all the studies out there, you cannot find the average American, no matter how much data you gather. By cutting out and whittling down people because they don’t fit into the “average” criteria, you’re left with someone who’s actually not-so-average.
My point? I know quite a handful of people in that age group, myself included, who were supporting McCain. This is only in one district out of the entire blue state of California. Imagine that if I can find as many people supportive of McCain or the GOP in one district, imagine how many you can find in other districts, in other states; imagine the size of the group in a red state or a battleground state.
Of those I know, they’ve either switched from being a Democrat, even after the “liberalizing effect” of college when they were supposed to be leaning to the left or have been GOP supporters almost all their lives. I myself changed my own party identification in college. And I doubt that I or any of those that I know will be changing their party alignment in the next 20 years, given the extreme party polarization of our time.
Again, I must correct you. The hispanic population that I know is highly pious and highly Catholic – and I know for a fact that no Catholic in their right mind would ever support a candidate who favors abortion. And for more than half these people, what gets their votes are what they’re surrounded by. It all depends on what kind of a state they live in.
And not for nothin’, but ABC’s a pretty crummy source for these kinds of facts.
As for the post overall, I agree with Jose. We lost the election, and now it’s time to sit back and watch what happens. All of our bitching and moaning will do us no good – whatever way we spin it, we’re stuck with President Hussein. All we can do is hope that he doesn’t run our country to the ground and that he’ll do things to pull us out of our economic depression instead of dig us deeper into it. I know we’ll all be watching his every move carefully and want to raise all the red flags when he doesn’t keep a promise or does the exact opposite of what he said he’d do. But keep in mind that these guys can never keep their promises, no matter how much they want to. They’ve got about 100 days to enjoy – after that, the thing that went up starts to come back down. He’s not going to keep his promises – that’s a given – but let’s all hope that those promises he reneged were for a good reason, for the good of the country.
We’re proud conservatives. We’re proud Republicans. We’ve all made our decision for our candidate based not on race or any other trivial issue, but because of logical reasons every voter should consider – policy, past voting records, history, experience, character, future possibility of what would happen under the president and how he’ll face those issues, etc. We made our proud decision, but the rest of the nation chose otherwise, for whatever reasons (and I do agree that undereducated voters is one of them). But should we really reduce ourselves to behaving like Democrats? Should we follow their example and keep holding onto grudges against the other party and block whatever attempts at consensus and bipartisanship may come our way? It’s our duty as the minority party, as we have already said we’d do, to keep the majority party in check, to be highly critical of the majority party’s actions and to raise alarms when we find corruption or power abuse. It’s our democratic duty to be the police and make sure that the Democrats don’t suppress us or quiet down our wishes. Remember, we still have the power to speak up in government. Besides, the president almost always loses support in Congress during the midterm elections, and if Obama screws up, you can be damn sure that we can elect Republicans into office and take the Congress. It’s our power to punish them.
Like I’ve said before – just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show. We’ll be watching. It’ll be the Democrats who’ll have their every moves scrutinized this time around.
@Craig: You identify with the recent trend of our country – I hope you know that in the past, party polarization was little to none. Representatives, senators, even presidents were more willing to work with the other side than they are now. This “Ew, cooties!” mentality of both parties is a recent trend, and it’s a bad trend. It can only spell disaster for the entire democratic process of our country.
Bill Clinton ran for office as the candidate produced by the Democratic Leadership Council (which he chaired), an organization (still in operation) dedicated to moving the Democratic Party back toward the center. He was never a left-wing candidate and he didn’t “come to realize” that he needed to move to the center. He was never withing 10 zip codes of where Barack Obama is and has been for as log as we can trace his history.
Nice try.
As Popeye said, “I y’am what I y’am what I y’am.” Barack will never say that. But, he is, nevertheless what he is.
Trying to compare him to Clinton when Clinton either ran or took office is frankly ludicrous.
I don’t think that, generally speaking, anyone is holier than anyone else.
Another interesting statistic that Leah won’t like, because she doesn’t like statistics, is that the approval rating of the Democratic majority Congress was something like 12%, or about half that of the President. So this means that the Dems should have been punished at the polls, right? Well, they picked up 20+ seats in the House and 6+ seats in the Senate.
One of the reasons the last Congress was so dysfunctional is that the GOP Senate minority set an all-time record for filibusters over the past two years. Just a couple of years before that, McCain and Graham joined with some Democrats to beat back a GOP attempt to limit the ability of the filibuster rule to block legislation and judicial appointments. They were strongly criticized by the core conservative base at the time, but they wisely recognized that nothing is forever, including GOP Senate majorities. Sort of the same wise thinking that motivated McCain to oppose torture. Torture and an end to filibusters are great when you’ve got the power, but not so great when you don’t. So now the GOP can continue to (1) obstruct or (2) protect, depending on one’s point of view.
My comparison of Obama to Clinton was not odious, nor was my comparison of GW Bush to Carter. The later were principled idealists, who were motivated more by a desire to realize their ideals than by ambition for personal glory. Obama, Clinton, and Nixon is/were all motivated primarily by a desire for personal achievement, far more than by any core ideals. Clinton had a more centrist history, because he ran for election in Arkansas. Obama had a more liberal history, because he made the calculated decision that he could best succeed by moving to Chicago’s South Side. Now that he’ll be in the White House, he’ll move as far to the Right as he can get away with, because this will maximize the marginalization of the GOP and maximize his chances for personal success.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach
@Jose:
I can respect your position Jose…
And I will respect the OFFICE of the POTUS but I will never respect the individual in it after Jan 20th.
I admit it may be a little childish but I know some libs with BDS that have some pay back coming.
Larry, congradulations on misreading….everything. The media convinced uninformed Americans that if they just gave power to the dems everything would be cotton candy and rainbows. They even convinced them that the FM/FM disaster was the fault of the GOP. The economy going south as a result of it didn’t help us either. GOP filibustering was not why things turned out like they did. In fact, they saved us from many dem knives and I’m glad they did.
Clinton did not govern from the center, but the left. Just because it wasn’t the faaaarr left doesn’t make it the center. I lived thru Clinton so please don’t tell me he was a centrist.
Also, we were right to fight Clinton. He sold out our national security for Chinese campaign contributions, his policies allowed 9/11 to happen, he went into Kosovo without any Congressional approval where we had no security interests. He castrated our military yet used them like they were the international Red Cross. There’s more, but I won’t waste the bandwidth. I will fight obama tooth and nail.
Thank you, Jose. This was an excellent post. Now, I supported and voted for Barack Obama, and am glad that my side one this time. But “this time” are crucial words to recognize. I’m being very cautious not to gloat too much, as only time will tell if this will work or last. For most of my life the Republicans have been in charge, and the score is nowhere near tied.
The thing I have a HUGE problem with, and both sides are guilty of this, is the proclamation of the losing side that the winning side won because the majority was uninformed. My fellow liberals were saying the exact same thing four years ago! I told them then, as I will say here – yes, there are certainly a large number of horribly misinformed voters, on both sides. But there are also a large amount of voters who know the issues and just disagree. The notion that if we all did our research and knew what we were voting for, then we would all chose the same candidate is to negate the fact that we can simply disagree on what’s best.
The nature of politics is cyclical. At the moment, it’s our turn. Eventually, it’ll be your turn again.
I don’t agree that the Republicans lost because of this particular reason or another. I do agree that the entire nation of “too lazy to research a damned thing” voters elected a man of questionable background and integrity in reaction to rather than in support of the way the country should be governed. Given that every politician is supposed to lie and make completely unrealistic campaign promises, we have indeed elected a man who done just that. We await the demonstration of his performance. I add that there are only two things that determine whether a man is a good president or a bad one, the campaign promises he makes and the promises he keeps. Nobody can really say what promises he has made, to each and every one of his supporters he gave a clean sheet of paper and a pencil, they wrote their own set of promises he made. It would seem a tall order to keep the unwritten promises he made.
I voted for McCain because he was the candidate that represented easily the least reprehensible of the choices. I see that a larger percentage of people voted against McCain in the shadow of Bush more than for Obama and what he stood for. And also that a very large percentage of people did absolutely no more research on Obama than they did on the next movie they would watch or book they would read. Not that many people know what Obama stands for, he is at the head of the line himself, waiting to find out.
I say, let Obama take office and let us make our determination of the way the man will govern once he actually does something. So far we have nothing to go by for that determination. I will bet that he does not govern as badly as I think he will nor as well as might be needed in this time of our great challenges. The difference being that it doesn’t really matter what I think of his abilities, the final determination will be written by the facts of history. I, for one, will treat him with all the respect the Democrats showed Bush during his eight years.
The Republican party lost because it has become the Yang to the liberal Ying, answering each liberal position as if each of their planks required answering. The Republicans have lost their moral and political compass, and this is not recent. It went wrong just after Reagan and never adjusted for the times since then. The Republicans became a party catering to the lowest common denominator, and in the end that became politics as usual. If we get a chance to vote again in 2012, the republicans need to reconsider what the party stood for, and select a candidate that portrays that position in everyday life, not just on the campaign trail. The republican party is not just the political inverse of the Democrats, it is a way of governing that limits government and hence needs less in taxes, it lets the market determine the course and stays out of either the consequences or the profits. The Republicans lets government do what it needs to do only when vitally necessary and demurs when it is no longer needed. Abortion, education, gay marriage, war on drugs; the government needs to cede those responsibilities to the states and let each state decide what is necessary.
I can only be made more optimistic by the pending demise of the New York Times, the LA Times and the major players in the MSM. Their contribution to the situation has been negative for the longest time. I intend to wait and see what the blogosphere has to say about the end of the print media.
@Craig:
Read what I originally wrote:
It was a nice way of me pointing out what I think of your train of thought regarding “governing to the center”.
It’s not about diluting and abandoning your own ideology. It’s not about being the same as the other side by coming to the middle. There’s a strong difference between appeasement, surrender, and diplomacy to work toward your goals of pushing conservatism.
If fringies such as yourself kicked everyone out of the club who didn’t share in your ideological purity, you’d lose every election.
When I read your comments, the delivery needs a lot of work if you are to win converts. And that’s my ultimate goal. To win more converts. With your blustering intolerance for any diverging point of view, all you do is alienate, Craig. The only ones in agreement are the amen chorus of fringe fanatics.
Tax cuts for ‘95%’ of the people are now on the back burner, or maybe put back in the freezer. Tax increases for every working person is on the front burner and the heat turned up to max. You bought it on credit and you will have to live with it. Boot camp instead of the spring break beach trip is on tap, front and center, for all college students. I’m going to sit on the sidelines and laugh.
Many of you may not know me, so I’ll start with a quick introduction. I am a 31-year-old engineer, who lives in Alabama, and I voted for Obama. I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself to be a “liberal” per se, but I do find myself agreeing more with Democrats than Republicans. Much of my dissatisfaction with Bush has to do with the war in Iraq and our huge national debt, brought on mostly by war-time tax cuts. However, I will also say that I consider myself to be a critical thinker, and so I can be convinced of the opposing view, if the argument is sound. Therefore, please don’t respond to me with conjecture and hate-filled vitriol, as that will not convince anyone of anything. I can see that many of you are very upset over the election, and I understand that, but please understand that name-calling and bad-mouthing will get you nowhere.
That being said, I’d like to point out a common theme I’ve noticed in these comments, which I think points to a potential problem in the conservative response to this election — and I’ll use a sentence from Moody Deep Thinker as an example:
I think this idea that “I’m right and they’re idiots” is not helpful to your cause. It blocks any real attempt at introspection. As I said earlier, I consider my self to be a relatively intelligent person, and I voted for Obama strictly BECAUSE of my understanding of the issues and his policies, rather than the opposite, and I actually know many others who are in the same situation. When you assume that we are all idiots, you are not allowing yourself the opportunity to open up and objectively consider what it was about Obama that attracted so many voters. Sure, some may have acted for wrong or misguided reasons, but there were many more who were attracted by his ideals — and I’m not talking about a desire to have “something for nothing”. That is not my understanding of Obama’s policies at all.
So, please first fully consider the option that there is something there to be desired, and let’s discuss what it is that one of us is missing. If you have a truly convincing argument that he’s offering “something for nothing”, I’d love to hear it, but I would hope that you’ve been objective in your search of his views, searching all sources including his own books. Otherwise, you may have filled your heads with a very biased, and potentially incorrect, view of what Obama is truly about. If so, the bright side is that maybe you’ll be pleasantly surprised when he actually doesn’t offer “something for nothing”, and instead, works to reward hard work and delayed gratification, which is what I look forward to.
Thanks, and I look forward to your responses.
I find it interesting that there are four comments posted after mine, which is still “awaiting moderation” – I would love an explanation for this. I have never been abusive, off topic, or disrespectful. I have merely disagreed with polite diplomacy. So why are my comments flagged for moderation?
Dammit….there’s nothing for me to really chew up and spit out from that, Reasic. I think it’s a very reasonable comment.
Although….
Didn’t Bush’s tax cuts bring in more revenue?
I think criticism should be on not cutting back spending.
@Cary: Cary, I took a look and someone else must have fished you out because I saw nothing that awaited moderation publishing. Sometimes it has nothing at all to do with who you are. Nothing at all personal. Just ask Yonason.
Or maybe you needed to simply refresh your browser?
I did refresh my browser. I even left the site and came back. Not sure how this site works these things out, but thank you for clarifying that it’s nothing personal.
Thanks, Wordsmith.
You know, I think a case could be made for both, although I’m not sure that there were enough spending cuts available to be made, such that we could have climbed out of this mountain of debt.
Your comment on tax cuts bringing in more revenue is interesting, given the fact that tax cuts, by definition, decrease revenue. I would say that they spurred the economy, but I don’t know that they really increased revenue, at least not to the point that the increase surpassed the decrease that first resulted from the initial cuts. I would definitely like to see some figures on that.
Reasic;
I base my comments on talking with Obama supporters who time and again could not answer basic questions about Obama or his positions, and who, to a person and then some, spouted the same criticisms of Bush and the war in Iraq as the MSM told them to, yet none could name Obama’s mother, what she did, or when she died.
Now why is that important? Because these are the same people who went berserk with negative judgments over Palin’s pregnant unmarried seventeen year old daughter. Stanley Ann Dunham was pregnant, unmarried, and seventeen with Barack Huessein Obama. There is liikely no record she ever married his fatehr though there is a record of a divorce. They also missed the part about Stanley Ann being a bit of a socialist idealist and the part about Frank being Obama’s Communist Mentor during his adolescent years. Obama dismissed all of his long time associates as soon as they became a political liability. Then they also overlooked all of his other questionable associations just as quickly. Had McCain been a crony of say Ho Chi Minh, rather than a prisoner, he would have been pilloried for it. Not so Obama, he was still in childhood, and apparently didn’t read much growing up. To have those associations shows a lack of judgment, to toss them aside like an old salad is to show a lack of character. Neither of which seemed to affect the adulation from people who saw in him only what they projected onto his seemingly blank screen.
They also missed parts about the reasons for the Iraq war that were first uttered by the entire Clinton Administration years before Bush started his unpopular war. The same people just went with the flow and accepted any and all (or more accurately only the worst because that was all the MSM reported) reports about the war. They conveniently forgot about the U.N. Resolutions concerning the necessity of war when Saddam ignored all the other harsh letters the U.N. sent him. The Obama supporters were operating without a net of knowledge and never questioned their allegiances. An act of oversight that will come to haunt them very soon.
In short, most Obama supporters never read past the headlines before they moved on to the sports page.
To this day I still see daily reminders that people in this country filled out the blank sheet of campaign promises Obama handed them. Those now scribbled on sheets will likely come back to haunt him in his presidency. Nobody can be all things to all people. And certainly an uninformed public is described as one that relies on the popular media to be informed.
Finally, I never accused anybody of being idiots, uniformed is one thing, idiots quite another. One is reconcilable, the other is not. I would appreciate an apology for your insinuations. Or do you not consider your extrapolation of my words an insult?
Reasic, the tax cuts did not contribute to the deficit. Spending like drunken sailors did. You have helped put the kings of insane spending in charge. In fact, when the dems took over Congress 2 years ago spending went even higher thanks to them. If you are agreeing with a lot of things they say, you are basically a liberal. Either that or you don’t really understand what their true positions are. You will find out though.
As for the deficit, raising taxes is not the answer. How about Congress acting responsibly for once rather than punishing me for their lack of self control? They waste BILLIONS of dollars. There is no need to raise taxes. They need to spend less.
I agree with bigpapa. For those of us who were news and blog junkies during this election, it is inconceivable that people could be uninformed. I think we all know someone who voted for Obama, who was smart, but in regard to the economy, seemed to not know basic math. Obama supposedly won because of the economy. If folks had just taken a little time to figure out how Obama was going to accomplish all his campaign promises, they would have seen it just couldn’t be done.
The sad thing is, all these who have so many expectations, will be sorely disappointed.
I have been a patriotic person my whole life. I have always loved my country, and will still love my country. However, I can not, with good conscience, support a President Obama. It is not about being bitter because my candidate lost.
The general election was very emotional, and divisive. Family and friends are going to need a cooling off period. My own daugher, who voted from Obama, hasn’t spoken to me since October 23rd because I refused to listen to her bash Bush one more time.
I will stand by my beliefs in this country. I will become involved, informed and do whatever I can to advance Conservatism. Most of all, I will pray for my country.
From the conservative think tank, Heritage Foundation: 10 Myths About the Bush Tax Cuts:
Of course, there’s always counter arguments which just leads my head to start spinning.
i think if you are new to the site, you might be under a period of awaiting moderation as they verify the registration…I know that it happened with me.
Another myth. The Myth of the Clinton Surplus
http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16
A very worthwhile site.
Laffer Curve.
@Aye Chihuahua:
Caution, your spelling may be attacked.
@Moody Deep Thinker:
Actually, no. If you go back and read my comment again, you’ll notice that I was addressing a common theme, and only used a sentence from one of your comments as an example. The comment was not aimed specifically at you, but rather at any of you who hold this view that you’re right and Obama voters were wrong, uninformed, or even stupid. When I mentioned the view that “they’re idiots”, I was referring to a comment made by bigpapa, in which he stated that “Nobabama was elected because so many people are stupid… lazy and want something for nothing”, and which also represented the theme I was addressing.
Reasic;
I can only conclude then that if the Obama supporters were not idiots and actually did do their research then they knowingly and willfully voted for a man who is a socialist, for a man who, willingly and with forethought, by design and purpose, consorted with socialists, communists and domestic terrorists. And on the odd occasion he also had dealings with a man convicted of bribing politicians.
I’m glad you made that distinction clear to me. I feel so much better knowing they did that with full knowledge.
Wow. I come here to have an honest, civil discussion with people who think differently than I do, whom I happen to perceive as intelligent and informed, in order for us to understand each other, and it seems that others have done so, as well – but I find that, in not all but quite a few cases, any intelligent opposing view is either ignored, twisted, or diverted into an offense over one word to shift away from the point.
Moody, your concerns were already addressed in Reasic’s original post, which I agree with. We are informed and intelligent, we just happen to see things differently than you do. We can either be passive aggressive with each other, in which case I’ll give up and spend my spare time trying to improve my chess game instead, or we can make an honest effort to understand each other, while accepting that we may not totally agree on much, if anything. I guess the nature of the following responses will let me know what I should do.
Go practice your chess.
The answer you got was both honest and civil. If you doubt that, then perhaps a visit to Huffington or DailyKOS with a dissenting view might help you appreciate the difference.
We are not here to coddle you and your weak tea ideas. This is a place where ideas and opinion come to do battle and to be sharpened for use in the real world. If your ideas can’t hold an edge, and your views are so brittle, then they aren’t serviceable in the real world. deal with it.
@Moody:
No, Moody, this should not be all that you can conclude. What I asked you for in my original comment was your reasoning for thinking that Obama is offering something for nothing, or that he is socialist. I also already explained that I understand his policies, and I don’t consider him to be offering something for nothing, which is why I asked you for your reasoning for thinking that Obama is socialist. That way we could talk about it, since there seems to be a disconnect.
Now, you also seem to be concerned about Obama’s past associations. So, if by “uninformed”, you mean that voters didn’t play your little game of guilt by association, then I think you may have your priorities out of wack. I am well aware of his past relationships with the people that you’ve mentioned, and I didn’t see anything to be concerned about. So, no, I don’t think he’s a terrorist, socialist, communist, Muslim, etc., and if you do, I’m afraid you’re misinformed. I suppose we could talk about this as well, if you felt it necessary, but I think a much more fruitful discussion would focus on the President-elect’s policies.
This is exactly what I was talking about when I said that you’re blocking any potential attempt at introspection. By assuming that you’re right in all of the junk you’ve filled your head with, and that all of the voters who voted for Obama are wrong for not being knowledgeable about or concerned about these things, you’re not allowing yourself the opportunity to evaluate your position and make sure you didn’t go wrong somewhere. It happens to the best of us. So, as I said earlier, first, please consider the option that either of us could be wrong — odds are, one of us is, right? 😛 Then, let’s calmly and clearly discuss our differences, and see where we end up.
However, if you’re going to continue to be stubborn and believe that I, and other Obama supporters, are uninformed for not thinking that Obama is a radical socialist and a terrorist sympathizer, then this would go nowhere anyway. It’s your choice, and I hope you choose the former.
Guilt by association? This is not a case of blaming Barack for something someone he already knew and was close to, and then they went and did something unexpected. This is a case of Obama developing a relationship AFTER these other people had proven themselves to be poor choices as associates. And as such, it is a measure of someone’s character and judgment. Everyone may, or likely has, at one time or another encounter someone of less than desirable stature, and may have had to have a sort of association either professionally or through others acquaintances . That is what would be a case of guilt by association.
Voluntarily CHOOSING to have a long term close relationship with someone, even citing that person as a mentor, or praising them in their books promotions,,, those things are NOT guilt by association, they are indicators of poor judgment and character. The fact that Obama glossed over these poor choices with the willing blindness of the Main stream Media and the eager to adore public, is an indictment of their poor judgment.
In order for Obama to prove the conservative perceptions of him wrong, he will have to do what he has never done up to this point, and surround himself with people who hold views completely different than anyone he has chosen before.
Simply put, I look at every person of any significance in Obama’s life, and not one of them could be me. And worse than that, not one of them is anyone I would allow into my home.
That is not a casual innocent case of guilt by association. Such as blaming you for what your coworker did when you had no choice of his working with you, and your relationship began when he had not done anything. This is a case of Obama associating with the guilty, intentionally and exclusively, well after they had clearly shown their true nature.
You are either well disinformed or a selective idiot. Be that as it may.
I draw your somewhat less than selective attention to the next few months. I learned one thing from old gun slinger movies. You don’t know nothin till the guy draws his gun.
When the One does, one or the other of us will crap or go blind.
You have less of an idea of what he will do than I do, or not. It remains an open guess.
My bet is against your idea.
We will meet on either this blog or the field of battle. Either way, fine with me.
Yeah, I think it will come to that over this next few years. We have two wars going against Islamists, and they just saw Lord Chamberlain go home with a proclamation of “Peace in our time!” We are so screwed.
Chess it is. Thanks for trying, Diego. Let it be noted which side reciprocated the effort. Good luck.
@ Bill C:
Actually, guilt by association doesn’t hinge on when the event in question occurred. The point is that Obama’s associations with Ayers do not make him guilty of what Ayers did in the past. What is your purpose of stressing over and exaggerating the extent of this relationship? Do you really think that Obama is somehow a terrorist, or that he’s going to try to ruin this country? The insinuation that follows your logical fallacy is ludicrous. If you really think that Obama or his supporters are not just as patriotic and just as concerned about the direction of this country, then YOU are the one who is misinformed.
@ Moody:
For someone who is so concerned about Obama’s voters being “uninformed”, I sure expected a much more intellectual argument on policy issues. I thought maybe you would enlighten me on what policy issues you disagree with, or what exactly makes him a “socialist”. I see now that I was mistaken. I’ve asked you several times now for a substantive argument that we could discuss, and time and again, you’ve failed to provide it. This is just par for the course. Let me know when you’re ready to have an intelligent conversation, and I’ll be glad to join in. Until then, I’ll leave you to your doomsday nonsense.
I was remiss not to also thank Wordsmith for your effort, as well. Perhaps we can try this again after a reasonable “cooling off” period. For now, take care.
“I can see that many of you are very upset over the election, and I understand that, but please understand that name-calling and bad-mouthing will get you nowhere.”
I continue to see people say this, yet I have watched the Democrat Party and the Left participate in nothing but name-calling, bad-mouthing and vitriolic hate for the past 5 years and it seems to have gotten them majorities in the House, Senate and the White House.
So the problem is not “name calling and bad mouthing”, it is hypocrisy. The Left, the mass media and the Democrats can participate in this stuff to their hearts desire, with absolutely no repurcussions. In fact, they are greatly rewarded for being hateful, vitriolic a**holes.
Meanwhile, a Republican says “macaca”, had a “wide stance” in a bathroom, or exchanges e-mails with a male Congressional page and the entire GOP is smeared and tainted.
In addition, the Left, the mass media and the Democrat Party can spend the last 5 years smearing the entire military on anything and everything, while the President and the Right do their best to successfully win a war in the heart of the Middle East, and what happens… the President and the Right are smeared and get no credit, while the Left and the Democrats and the mass media are rewarded handsomely for their despicable actions.
So, please, stop with the “name calling and bad mouthing will get you nowhere” crap. Because the Left, the Democrats and the mass media have been doing it for years to great reward and success.
Am I going to now participate in this kind of hateful nonsense? No, because I actually have some integrity and class. But let’s stop with the nonsense that name-calling and bad-mouthing does not work. It worked marvelously for the Left, Democrats and mass media for the past 5 years.
If you can find a single example, ever, where I have participated in what you claim, then I will concede your point. Yes, I’m the same Cary who was a regular at Froggy Ruminations, so you can start looking there. The fact is, I made some Conservative friends there, whom I am still in contact with. So, if your point is that it’s okay to punish me for what some others on my side of political perspective did, then I guess were heading towards cyclical reasoning.
“I can only conclude then that if the Obama supporters were not idiots and actually did do their research then they knowingly and willfully voted for a man who is a socialist, for a man who, willingly and with forethought, by design and purpose, consorted with socialists, communists and domestic terrorists. And on the odd occasion he also had dealings with a man convicted of bribing politicians.”
Exactly.
I had a conversation with a pen pal who said she was voting for Obama and I flat out told her that anyone supporting Obama was either (1) a socialist/racist/Marxist/communist like Obama or (2) simply lacked character, because they dismissed his relationships with socialists, racists, Marxists, communists and terrorists in his decades long political career or (3) they were naive and ignorant to not know about his background.
I told her I could deal with someone being (3) considering I had talked with some Obama supporters in my office and shared with them the info on Obama’s background that was not being covered in the news (Rev Wright, Weather Underground, Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Bill Ayers, his support of infanticide and rolling back every regulation of abortion and making it publicly funded), but to think that a majority of people fall into categories (1) and (2) was simply depressing. She responded by saying “we just differ in our values” and “I’m not naive and ignorant”. She then told me after the election that she was now proud of our country, and that she hasn’t been able to say that very much in her life.
I was hoping that she fell into category (1), but her responses proved that she fell into (1) and (2). That was very discouraging, to say the least.
But I agree with you that it is much more comforting to think that 60+ million people voted for Obama out of sheer ignorance than to think that 60+ million people agree with socialism, Marxism, communism, racism of the likes of Rev Wright and Bill Ayers and have no problem with the anti-America, Black Supremacist ideologies of Wright and Ayers and knowing their President spent his entire two+ decade political career with these ideologies as his core.
If Obama supporters are now going to tell us that they were not ignorant, but very well informed and voted for Obama anyway, that is an even worse than being ignorant.
Yep, big circle! Do you honestly think that such a retort, putting someone in the position to defend themselves personally, is really a great way to persuade them to see your point of view? Did you even read what was written in the early part of this comment section by someone on your own side of the issues?
Forgive me, I’ve allowed myself to be pulled back in when I said I was leaving. And it’s my move in the Chess game.