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Re: OT: US President (US Dom Players only)
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Seriously, everyone knows both sides cheat, and while that doesn't excuse any of the behavior pretending that one side actually holds some kind of moral high ground is simply not based in reality. Obama and McCain are both qualified to be president, but neither seemingly brings what this country actually needs to pull it out of the funk it is in. Leave aside the foreign policy concerns and focus on the internal issues, and explain how either of them actually address anything in a substantiative way. McCain is no Bush, he is no continuation of the past administration, honestly, Obamas tax plans are actually closer to Bushes, but that's neither here nor their, since neither of them have what it takes to actually fix the system, all they do is pander to the public with useless band aid type fixes when a tourniquet is needed. Obama tells you he will give you a tax break... never mind that the people he is promising this tax break to already pay zero income tax (not all of them, but the majority), so the claim that he is redistributing wealth is accurate. McCain is telling you that the wealthy and corporations need a tax break to keep job growth strong, never mind the evidence which suggests that this economy has more serious issues with the credit market in the first place making these tax cuts meaningless and likely damaging. Yep, neither one is preaching any kind of sanity when it comes to the economy or the budget. Both are trying to scare you into thinking the other one will be worse, when the clear facts are that neither is going to be good. So keep on voting for bad and pretend that that because your less bad is better than the more bad somehow you are doing good. Or take the step and actually vote for a party or candidate who is not beholden to the existing power structure, vote for real change, vote for something actually good. |
Re: OT: US President (US Dom Players only)
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Ingenunity... you mean by sticking next to religious figures until those individuals start making him look bad and thus he distances himself from them. Both good career moves, but nothing which shows the nation strong character and strong experience. Quote:
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Re: OT: US President (US Dom Players only)
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You were asking people to investigate the candidates, thinking perhaps that if people did they would find Palin an absolutely unsuitable candidate. Arguing qualifications for a moment - obviously, she met the qualifications. Our founding fathers put their faith in the common folk - specifically did not *want* a ruling elite, recall? As for why palin is suitable - lets see. Renegotiated deal with the oil companies to extract HIGHER royalties from oil companies. Broke with her own party to get a corrupt party official indicted. And before you start spouting untruths about her, lets just lay to rest some internet fallacies, as debunked by snopes: -Palin has never sought to have books banned, or burned. -Has been praised by *many* of her political opponents for *not* advancing a prolife agenda. -Did not cut funding for special needs kids - or education at all. Finally, you seem to think that being popular is not germane. To the contrary, the ability to satisfy people across the political spectrum means that you address their common concerns and needs. It means that people believe you effectively address their concerns. It is not the sole criteria for judging a political candidate -but how your opponents view you (favorably) is a pretty good indicator. Now.. since you bring up the question of qualifications.... Palin has been mayor for something like 7 years, and governor for two or three. Obama has.... good speeches - and exactly zero executive experience. So if you believe Palin is not qualified to be Vice President.. exactly how do you believe Barry Sotuero (you know, Baracks real name, before he changed it (as he admits in his book dreams of my father) to appeal to minorities) is qualified to be President? |
Re: OT: US President (US Dom Players only)
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I completely agree |
Re: OT: US President (US Dom Players only)
Let me clarify, NTJedi. I don't believe that income taxes are in actuality the means to solve anything, flat or not. The system is much less abusable if we designate a specific point in the flow of currency in which to tax it.
Since I believe that this is not the individual, but rather the business, then we still come to the same point - McCain wants to reduce taxes on large businesses. I believe the true answer to taxation, is to only tax the execution of business transactions - and never from the side of the individual. Therefore, income taxes and sales taxes would be removed. Taxes on the corporate side would be increased to balance the equation. Stated wages would obviously decrease, however we would no longer have this smokescreen of saying "didn't you know the top earners pay 65% taxes??", when obviously many of us know that those people pay much less than that (and supposedly, sometimes none at all). To extrapolate from this, if all taxes were shifted to the business side of the economy, and few if any loopholes or deductions were left in place, then the average American should see their tax burden lightened, because if the stated relative balance between high/low income remains the same, the rich will be getting less than they did in the previous system. In effect, you will have a flat tax as far as the individual is concerned, because unless everyone is willing to watch the disparity in stated earnings grow even wider, with more and more billionaires, and more and more people at and below the poverty line - then the system will simply be measurably better than it was before. We enacted income taxes in 1913. At that time, the bottom tax bracket (and it was easy to even still be exempt, at that time, due to low earnings) paid 1% in income taxes. The top bracket, paid 7%. Many would agree that sounded like a somewhat sane idea. However, considering how badly abused the system has become, and imagining that the same effect could have been handled by simply balancing existing taxes, rather than creating new ones - I am hard pressed to argue for anything other than an abolishment of federal taxes on the individual at all. |
Re: OT: US President (US Dom Players only)
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Obama was a civil rights attorney that graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School, and was president of the Harvard Law Review. Palin was a sports reporter, went to a number of schools and graduated with a degree in communications from the University of Idaho. If I had those two resumes in front of me, I know who I would chose to be president. |
Re: OT: US President (US Dom Players only)
And here I thought Obama and McCain were the candidates. How silly of me. :D
But really, it's funny how everybody is writing off McCain already. "He's gonna die from a heart attack immediately after being elected", hilarious. |
Re: OT: US President (US Dom Players only)
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Juan Domingo Perón was president of Argentina, not Brazil. And he was democratically elected too. AFAIK the current president of Argentina subscribes to Peronism (which, AFAIK, has a fairly loose definition, but still...) For the record, from my outsider POV I hope that McCain doesn´t get elected because he has an ambiguous stance over embryonic stem cell research (and no, I don´t think that pursuing only adult stem cell research to avoid polemics is the way to go. Science doesn´t work like that). I dont think that *anyone* is able to hurt progress significatively, but everything helps. Better to have all avenues of research being pursued everywhere. Besides, you don´t want all those biotech companies in Singapore potentially monopolizing the techniçue, do you? Other than that, I dont think there will be big differences. I doubt either of them will reform your healthcare system, or sweep off income ineçualities. For good or ill. I doubt that foerign policy will change significatively, either. I dont think that either of them will hurry into another Irak fiasco. |
Re: OT: US President (US Dom Players only)
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Originally taxes were suppose to exist only during times of war, unfortunately government corruption/greed existed even during these early years. Government today is so bad I have government letters arriving in the the mail telling me to only expect 70% of my social security and I hear its worse for younger generations. The country does need change, but we'll see less change from someone with a strong history of avoiding issues by voting "present", instead of making a choice. |
Re: OT: US President (US Dom Players only)
McCain and his supporters are constantly touting his superior experience as a primary foundation of his qualifications to be President. I'm going to address "experience".
Fact: He was an officier in the US Navy. Does that mean that all former officers are superior tacticians, leaders of armed forces and an expert in all matters military? For the answer pick up any military history book and realize that in almost every battle, both sides had a leader with long experience and exposure to matters military. And one of them always loses! (I am not saying Obama is/would be a better supreme commander, merely pointing out the thin validity of the experience claim.) Another example regarding experience regards football head coaches. Just about every year, after a team wins the Super Bowl, the offensive and/or defensive coordinators are annointed as the next great head coaches. To be specific, look at the New England Patriots. A couple of years ago, both the offensive and defensive head coaches, Charlies Weiss and Romeo Crennel, went to Notre Dame and the Cleveland Browns, respectively, as head coaches. What happened then? Well, the Partriots, after losing these two "Great" coaches, never missed a beat and have been as successful as ever. Whereas the two teams with "Can't miss, gotta-be-great" head coaches have disappointed, to put it kindly. The obvious conclusion is that the Patriots head coach, Bill Belichek, is the actual source of leadership on the team and both assistants, while technically superior, relied on his leadership to get the players to do what they wanted them to do. Thus they were replaced by two other technically competent cogs and the equation for the Patriots remained unchanged. My point is that time and proximity to a position has no relationship to an individuals skills and cannot serve as a predictor of success at the next position of responsibility. This is very true when a primary component of a position requires leadership. True leadership ability is an extremely rare talent. There are countless definitions of leadership, but in my opinion, it comes down to one simple thing: the ability to get people to do what you want them to do. There are many ways that a person can achieve real leadership, the most common is fear; there are other and better methods, but they require better and more versitile skills to achieve success. Think about your job. How many bosses are real leaders? How many meetings have you left and later enjoyed a laugh with your fellow co-workers at the absurdity of the next "plan-of-the-week", or received an e-mail detailing some poorly concieved and poorly executed program? Those are examples of failures in leadership and they are destined for failure because they will be only half-hearted supported by the staff. For another example, I take you back to your jobs. How many times have you seen someone promoted beyond his/her level of competance? Most of the time you are unaware that the person will be beyond their level of competance until they actually get there. (Pride makes me refuse to even count the number of times I have made the mistake of promoting someone beyond their competance level.) My point is that leadership is an elusive and impossible to predict asset. Experience and exposure in a lesser position is no guarantee of success. Of course, experience and exposure is infinitely better than absolutely zero experience, for the vast majority of people. Talented people will succeed without the experience and exposure, I cite Alexander the Great for one, but talented people are few and far between. I am not touting Obama in this missive. His leadership is also still unknown and unproven. All I am intending to do is plant the seed that time and exposure is universally over-rated. One of my favoite expressions is "He does not have 20 years experience, he has had one years experience twenty times". And I would hope that you reflect on leadership at the same time. |
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