Sarah Palin's death panel a reality

You said "any white president."- Oni

Right, but the criticism that Bush isn't a "real liberal" is incoherent.

ANY progressive agenda will be met with initial resistence. That's the hallmark of conservatism, even Obama recognizes that. It is, as I said, what makes him very Burkean.- Oni

I am simply showing the inaccuracies you are using in your gish gallop. You are the one that brought up the Spanish American War and completely misrepresented historical facts.You tried to make the Spanish-American war analogous to Iraq and Afghanistan. I am giving evidence, you like that word you might want to try some, that you are using a false analogy. You are the one that is trying to turn this into a Barack Obama thread. It seems you do not like being corrected and will not acknowledge your numerous distortions of fact. Ok this is evidence that you are losing it. When have I called Obama a monster? On the whole he isn't a bad president. He isn't a great one, but he isn't bad compared to some other losers we have had. Then again the office had certainly hit its nadir with the last guy.All I have said is that he is not a liberal and he did not live up to the progressive promises he made in his campaign. You are the one that continues to make race allegations and has equated criticism to hatred.When GW was president many people on the left were very critical of the uncritical adoration of GW. You are doing the same with Obama. It is not just my right, it is my duty as a US citizen to be critical of my government (that includes the President, no matter what his race) when I disagree with its actions. I was critical of Reagan, Bush, Clinton and GW. According to your way of thinking I should not be critical of Obama BECAUSE he is mix raced.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

Did you mean Obama isn't a real liberal? Or that Bush isn't a real conservative?- Oni

That's not what I mean. The government structurally favors conservativism - it favors not doing things, in one sense of "conservativism", and it favors policies that benefit wealthy and powerful interests, in the other sense of "conservativism."Because there are hardly any wealthy and powerful progressive interests, the government is structurally biased against them. That's why so much progressive legislation has passed the House and died in the Senate. The Senate, particularly, doesn't operate by majority rules.

I didn't mean either. I meant that it's incoherent to complain that Bush isn't a "real liberal", because Bush isn't even a fake liberal. Bush is just not liberal.

I think I pointed this out before -- there are different kinds of conservatives.Bush was a social conservative, but definitely not a fiscal conservative.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

So because the National Geographic Channel concluded the Maine was sunk by a mine, that proves Obama isn't a liberal?Because Hearst was only mostlya monster, that proves Obama isn't a liberal?The things you're arguing make no sense, Theodoric, and again it's because your deep and abiding anger towards the President and towards me make you sloppy. And you are absolutely wrong about that, as I've proved over and over again. You've not once even attempted to address my overriding point that our government structurally allows only conservative outcomes. Not at all. My support for Obama is not in any way uncritical.It's just that, unlike you I'm not inflamed by his race into making incredibly boneheaded "complaints" about his inability to deliver blowjobs and ponies. Public option health care never had 60 votes in the senate. Medicare bulk drug negotiation and reimportation never had 60 votes in the senate. If I was wrong about that, you would have provided the names of the 60 senators who were prepared to vote for these things.But you didn't. You've utterly ignored the structural obstacles to the progressive agenda and just blamed the failure on your Big Black Daddy who couldn't give you everything you wanted. The proof of your inability to grapple with that point is how insistent you are on pursuing these matters of etymological and historical trivia.

Well of course, the government is ran by the elites, both on the Dem side and the Rep side. You would enjoy listening to Chomsky talking about that, if you haven't already. The elite are bias against them, not because they are not progressives, but because they are of no concern. Every now and again they throw a group a bone, usually around election time, just to motivate and guild voting.But in the case of Iraq/Afghan and the Healthcare Bill, Obama supported the interests of the elites. He wouldn't have become president if he didn't. - OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

Oh, ok. I just thought it was a typo.No way, Bush is NOT a liberal. I would lean toward facist as Drone put it.- Oni

That's not what I mean, though. For instance it doesn't matter how many progressive voters there are, because the Senate doesn't operate by majority rule. Progressives are clustered into urban areas; even if every single liberal in the country voted for liberal senators, you still couldn't get 60 progressive votes in the Senate because it's not a representative body. And it only takes a single senator to put a hold on legislation or on appointments.It's not just who wins the elections. It's what they're permitted to do, or not do, once they get in. The structure of government - not just the people in government - profoundly privileges conservative outcomes. As I said a few pages back, a 50:50 Dem/Republican split of the election results in a significant Republican majority in the House, just based on population density and distribution combined with the way districts are drawn. I think I've made a pretty good case that that's just not true. The ACA is pretty good. And there were never 60 votes for the public option in the senate. That's a fact Theodoric and Dronester just can't come to terms with.

Anyone reading this thread can easily see that none of this was said or implied. Your gish gallop continues. As I have said. You are spouting historical inadequacies. Anytime anyone spouts a historical inaccuracy I will correct them. With evidence. No anger here. I knew he wasn't a progressive or a liberal before I voted for him. You seem to have lots of anger toward any criticism of him. I believe I have. That is where the whole "bully pulpit" sidetrack came from. Yes our government and any government is going to be structurally more conducive to a conservative agenda. That is because progressivism requires change.The reason I do not feel a need to address this is because it is a non-sequitur. That the government has a structural bias toward conservatism does not impact whether Obama is a liberal or not. Why do you keep coming back to this? I am not inflamed by his race at all. You do realize I am a minority too don't you. As a Hispanic I know a little bit about discrimination so maybe you shouldn't play the race card here.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

But again - the President's "bully pulpit" is nothing more than a microphone. The President can't dictate even a single vote by any senator. The "bully pulpit" is a red herring and always has been."Bully pulpit" doesn't give me a list of the 60 senators who were prepared to vote for the public option or for Medicare-negotiated bulk drug buys. "Bully pulpit" doesn't address any aspect of the argument I'm making. If you're judging Obama's liberalism by the policy outcomes of his administration, then yes, it impacts greatly. If the government allows only conservative outcomes, which I've proved and you've not refuted, then Obama could be the black Noam Chomsky (sorry, Oni!) and we'd still see the same policy outcomes - no public option in the ACA, continued commitments in Afghanistan, no GITMO closure, and so on. Oh, come on. Is everyone going to play the "I'm a minority, I can't possibly be a racist" excuse? That's only slightly less hackneyed than "but some of my best friends are black."

But now we can all see that that is a sham. Obama has been to the right of center, regardless of how many times folks on the right bring up the term "the majority of America".

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- xongsmith, 5.7d