The world has turned upside down!!! (Re: McCain vs. Obama for President)

If all you are doing is watching the news, you will likely get a very distorted picture that plays into the stereotypes such as Obama being weak on national security.I would highly recommend to anyone who is sitting on the fence on this issue to read Obama's book "Audacity of Hope". I picked it up and it was more than I thought it would be. I sort of had an impression that it would be an uplifting rhetoric about his life, similar to some of his speeches that get so much play, but I found out that it was actually a very detailed window into this guy's head.I was very interested in McCain before 2006 but the way he has shifted his positions made him very bitter for me. He is now EXTREMELY hawkish on foreign relations. He absolutly intends to continue not paying for the war or the tax cuts that he wants.The absolute kicker for me was when he voted AGAINST the ban on so called "enhanced interrogation" techniques even after he fought for so long against them. This to me is the ultimate betrayal and the most serious mismanagement of our government over the last 8 years. Our torture policy a losing game for us. It diminishes our standing in the world, it provides NO worthwhile intelligence, it puts our soldiers on foreign soil at extreme risk, and quite frankly it is one of the most immoral practices that could ever be sanctioned by a government short of genocide.Even in the darkest day of the Revolutionary War our first president made the very specific decision to ban torture against the enemy to send a message to the world that we were civilized people who stood for morality and freedom. This was in spite of the fact that his fighters and even some citizens who were captured were frequently tortured by the British.America in its birth stood for something important. Allowing torture to occur to people we capture is one of the darkest stains on our legacy and if we do not stop it these practices will come back to haunt us for generations.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

I am curious about your characterization of this election. Rather than sit out, why don't you do the non-intellectually-lazy thing and actually make a fair judgement of the canidates on their policies and approaches to governing AFTER you have examined them.I mean its not like you have to do much work to find them. Their policies are displayed on their websites and many other sites have summaries. Its just reading, you probably do heavier lifting reading some of the threads on this forum that it would take to convince you of a canidate.If you are not voting, then who are you electing?

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Except we are at least somewhat liked in Europe and Japan. Most Iraqis want us out including many in government. Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US controlNot to mention the fact that in Germany and Japan, US soldiers and contractors are not provided immunity from law OR allowed to arrest German and Japanese citizen at a whim.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

The big difference back then is that when a country surrendered it meant something MUCH different. In that kind of war the REASON that countries surrendered was entirely because the populace was so war torn that it gave up. Becase our position was that we were going to be, "greeted as liberators" by the Iraqi people, we bascially relegated ourselves to playing Iraqi politics which is also the reason we are entirely unable to take out Sadr. That is one of the most foolish things we could possibly do. We would make him a martyr, another leader would spring up who is more hawkish, and Iraq would truly be in a civil war. Sadr is using his power to leverage the government. When he doesn't have Malaki death squads out hunting his people Sadr is actually quite content to simply protest.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Your last comment underscores another big reason I believe McCain is the wrong choice. In fact this was tried by Malaki and it failed. Just as our pre-emptive war failed to achieve stability.What Malaki ended up doing is flying some diplomats over to Iran to negotiate a truce with Sadr which is why the streets are slightly more peaceful today.This is in STARK contrast to Bush and McCain who got up on their high horse and said that it is useless to engage in diplomacy with the likes of Iran or Syria. Everyone got all up in a tizzy over it and this was AFTER the news had reported that Malaki had negotiated peace with Sadr via Iran.Even more heinous was that Bush made this proclamation from Israel which McCain endorsed fully, only to find out a few days later that Israel had been negotiating with Syria for months!So these guys, Bush and McCain, stood up there on a stage and railed against a foreign policy, sandwiched in time between two modern and in context examples of that policy actually working.Its not just that they are on the wrong side of the fence, they can't even see the fence.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

I must have read a different book than you did because what I got out of it was that he does take a firm stance. He just happens to take a firm stance on being sensible.It sort of a difficult position to take because the people who make noise on the far ends of certain policies often get the attention. They are the ones who have PACs and protesters and loud mouths. You will be hard pressed to find anybody standing in front of a government building holding up a sign saying, "LETS BE REASONABLE".I also think you are reading the book without the proper expectations. This was not a policy book, this is a personal philosophy book.I'll repeat what another poster said on this thread, if you want his exact plans and policies, he does in fact have a website.The Office of Barack and Michelle Obama

Do you have anything to discuss or do you just want to ask stupid questions?I didn't say anything about believing it. I said that if you are reading the book expecting him to outline exactly what he plans to do, that is not what the book is about.Its like reading Lord of the Rings and complaining about the lack of realism. If you go into a book with unreasonable expectations, of course you are going to come out disappointed. Don't need your vote anyway. Good riddance. Illinois is going for him in a landslide anyway.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

I don't think that freedom for narrow minded partisans constitutes isolation.Also he certainly isn't for everybody. If you are against basic civil rights, social justice, and the American way of life before it was hijacked by neo-con fascists, then Obama certainly isn't for you and I would recommend you stick to your party of whom only 30% of the American public admit to being a member of. Good luck with that! And even if you succeed, enjoy your 2 democratic senators and ever increasing progressive population.Maybe with that avatar of yours you might just be better of seceding instead. Or didn't anyone tell you that the North won?Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

I'm here every Thursday! Don't forget to tip your waitress!I laugh too when I think about how more and more each day Republicans are embarrassed to admit how they are registered to pollsters. I thought that was the funniest part. Man on man, kneeslapper the whole mess is isn't it? Seems like I was talking about Virginians not Presidents...but then again, for Republicans, when someone doesn't agree with you that automatically gives you the right to twist their words however you please. It makes it easier to seem like you have something important to say. Too bad it doesn't change the fact that your state is getting more blue every day. It sure is too bad that you have to look back into different centuries to find examples of when the Republican party stood for morals and civil rights. They abandoned that though during the Civil Rights movement.yea..you know, since they openly despise that whole Civil Rights thing.Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Yea, its been in the news for many months now. The demographics in Virginia are shifting toward the Democratic party. Same story, New Mexico is getting more and more Democratic every day. We will have the same situation as Virginia after this election. A Governor(D) and 2 Senators (D).In fact, the entire nation is shifting blue. Have you not been paying attention? Racist much? What does that have anything to do with the facts? Apparently you prefer hyperbole to debate. NM has a lot of rural voters. We are a mix of California and Texas. Perfect mixture for a battleground state.RE: The Civil Rights Movement.Feel free to correct me because I am going on memory here. But after that happened, under a Democratic president, there was a mass exodus from the democratic party to the republican party of all our segregationists.That was when the polarization happened. If you were a racist democrat from the south, you were more likely than not to jump ship.You can show me votes all day, but the fact of the matter is that the south used to be a democratic stronghold until the Civil Rights Act signed by LBJ. If it was Republicans that were the champions of Civil Rights then why did the backlash target the Democrats?Should be a simple question. Lets see if we get debate or more hyperbole.Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Unless you are Native American, someone in your family history was an immigrant into this country. And for that matter, New Mexico was settled and civilized plenty before the 13 colonies. Your right. I shouldn't have called you a racist. I got too fired up and the fact that you pick a racist symbol for your avatar doesn't help. That still doesn't change the fact that you comment was dismissive of my state for no reason. New Mexico has about as much to do with Mexico as Texas does.You brought it up to try to dismiss the fact that your state is trending Democratic. Hence the, "so!!! what about your stupid state!!!" comment that you made. You baited my into a mudslinging contest that I should have been wise enough to avoid.Its funny because of the fact that NM and VA are so similar in their political alignments this season. An increase of youth and new economic growth are pushing both states blue. You don't have to trust them, go look up registration numbers and electoral history yourself.For the first time in a very long time Virgina has a democratic governor. They got rid of a blatant racist when they ousted George Allen for Jim Webb. And this election cycle Warner was been consistently leading in the polls, is highly expected to win, even by the GOPs own analysis.If you are a betting man, I would not recommend taking odds that you will have ANY Republican representation in the Senate next year. What you are doing is only presenting some of the evidence and totally dismissing the larger picture of the history surrounding the Civil Rights movement. Thats why I take your roll calls showing the voting on civil rights legislation and raise you the fact that since then the south has been staunch republican. And the fact that as a result of the CRA of '64, many democrats jumped ship to your party precisely because they supported segregation.Those are also facts, you just seem to like to hold on to your facts, and completely dismiss mine. Fair enough. I retract my claims of racism and pose to you the question again.1. Why is that if your party was the champion of Civil Rights did so many of the bigots flock to the rolls of the GOP?2. If it was Republicans that were the champions of Civil Rights then why did the backlash target the Democrats?

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Yea the Republicans used to be the party of the Constitution. I don't know why they voted the way they did for the CRA. But this is what LBJ had to say after it was signed into law: I would prefer that both political parties stand up for the Constitution first and leave their differences for other things like economic policy, education, etc. The danger of only having 1 party who stands up for civil rights (most of the time) is that they could potentially be corrupted also and we could have a situation where no one is guarding the Constitution. See the LBJ quote above. After the CRA was signed, the southern states, which had been staunchly blue, shifted red.My question is, if the Republicans were to "blame" for the Civil Rights Act, why is it that the southern states rejected the Democrats after it passed? Shouldn't they have been pissed off at all those Republicans who voted for it?

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

That is a whole bucketfull of fearmongering right there! There were actually many AA voters who were concerned with that as well in the early days of the primary.I find it disgusting that in our country this is something that we can have a dinnertable conversation about."Don't put that ethic person in office, for his own good!"

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

One of the reasons that we need to elect someone like Obama is to prove to ourselves and the rest of the world that this type of ignorant, backward thinking nonsense in America can be overcome.People like you need to have your ideas marginalized by the forces and voices of reasonable people. This kind of insanity needs to be the stingy minority drowned out by the masses who are proclaiming that this is not what we stand for as a nation.And if your voice prevails, if we choose based on ignorance and bigotry, then it is all of us that will be marginalized by the rest of the world. Rather than strive toward our ideals of freedom, equality, and the American dream, we will only continue to be seen for what we are and have been; a self-centered bastion for corporatism propped up by our industrial might and the "fear sells" ideology of our minority class of leaders.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

You pretty much entirely misunderstood what I was saying.I didn't say anything about electing Obama because he was black.I was saying that it would be a stain on our nation if the main reason that Obama was not elected turned out to be people like Buzsaw who lie and propagate hateful propaganda.I can tell that you didn't get it because you said: Which has nothing to do with what I was responding too. If you are voting against Obama because you don't believe in progressive values then thats fine. I think you are wrong and foolish but thats another discussion.Thats not what Buz is doing though. He is spreading lies. He is lying.12% of people think that Obama is a MuslimDouble that think that he was a Muslim at some point.First of all, that shouldn't matter. Second, it is a lie with the deliberate attempt to make him seem different/scary. Yea you do unless you vote entirely based on domestic issues. If foreign policy positions affect your decision then you do care because our economy, our national security, and our prosperity depends on how other nations are willing to continue to be good allies, good trade partners, etc. I don't know but apparrently Buzsaw does. I was replying to him.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)