Elections 2012 [third-party candidate option added]

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Who should be President of the United States in 2013?

Poll ended at Sat Sep 29, 2012 10:59 am

Obama
19
54%
Romney
6
17%
A third-party candidate
7
20%
Nobody of the above, I don't vote.
3
9%
 
Total votes: 35

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Lucifer
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Re: Elections 2012 [third-party candidate option added]

Post by Lucifer »

Kijutsu wrote:I agree with compguygene, you know almost nothing about your president's history and people are scared to question it because "ooh it might come across as racist because he's black!" (phyto already said something was racist about cpg's post even though it's not.)
Um, no. His history was thoroughly questioned during a very exciting primary season when he managed to defeat Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. What we don't know is how many kooky alternate histories have been invented for him and then passed off as fact. Here's a fact: Hillary Clinton was so determined to win the nomination that she even managed to get Obama's grades in school out in public. All this stuff about what colleges he went to and who his father is or isn't is just cooked up for some purpose I can't even imagine.
Kijutsu wrote:The joke will be on you once your reptillian president will eat you, Phyto.
I would gladly support any member of any sentient species that can meet the constitutional requirements for the presidency and is competent and capable of doing the job.
Overrated wrote:Regardless, I still don't believe the President has much true power and the candidate that ends up getting chosen (unless it's a third party candidate I don't know much about) won't really do much to "help" us. I think all the power comes from Congress, but it's bleh to me.
You should learn more about how the government works, then. The President has the most power that any individual in government has. He is so powerful all by himself that it takes 400+ congresspeople to counter it. When people talk about the administration, they're talking about all the underlings that answer to him. Congress makes laws, that's it. That's all they do. Well, they have a few other miscellaneous things. But when you file your taxes, you're filing to an agency that answers to the President, not Congress. When you file for social security, the SSA answers to the President. Federal-level law enforcement all answer to the President. The military answers to the President. The President is very powerful. He has the power to nullify a law with an executive order by simply refusing to enforce it. No matter what congress does, they rely on the President to make it actually happen in the real world.
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Re: Elections 2012 [third-party candidate option added]

Post by Cody »

I don't care about seeing Obama's birth certificate.

I care about seeing Mitt Romney's tax returns.

Anyways my vote goes for the man I voted for in 08, Obama.
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Re: Elections 2012 [third-party candidate option added]

Post by Nelhybel »

From Kyle's link, my result:
Ron Paul 98%, Gary Johnson 97%, Mitt Romney 80%, Barack Obama 17%
Party leaning is 98% Libertarian, 80% Republican, 19% Democratic, 18% Green

Most important issue, by far: repeal Obamacare.
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Re: Elections 2012 [third-party candidate option added]

Post by epsy »

Nelhybel wrote:Most important issue, by far: repeal Obamacare.
I don't understand why. Please explain.
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Re: Elections 2012 [third-party candidate option added]

Post by Lucifer »

epsy wrote:
Nelhybel wrote:Most important issue, by far: repeal Obamacare.
I don't understand why. Please explain.
Don't you mean RomneyCare? Since, you know, it is just the federal implementation of the health care law that Romney pushed through in Massachussetts when he was governor there.
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Re: Elections 2012 [third-party candidate option added]

Post by compguygene »

And for those who believe Romney's promises to repeal Obamacare (Romneycare), you need to look into Romney's record of "flip flopping" and broken campaign promises. The way to know Romney is lying, is to know when his lips are moving, not that President Obama is any better.
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Re: Elections 2012 [third-party candidate option added]

Post by Cody »

Nelhybel wrote: Most important issue, by far: repeal Obamacare.
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfi ... it/c530lfx

educate yourself.
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Re: Elections 2012 [third-party candidate option added]

Post by Ratchet »

Cody wrote:
Nelhybel wrote: Most important issue, by far: repeal Obamacare.
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfi ... it/c530lfx

educate yourself.
That was interesting... so why exactly are some/many people against it? The good seem to far outweigh any drawbacks of it, at least from what I gathered.
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Re: Elections 2012

Post by Phytotron »

Phytotron wrote:Sigh. This thread is bound to be stupid as hell. Wait, too late. Rather, bound to continue to be stupid as hell.
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Re: Elections 2012 [third-party candidate option added]

Post by compguygene »

Cody wrote:
Nelhybel wrote: Most important issue, by far: repeal Obamacare.
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfi ... it/c530lfx

educate yourself.
That is such a simplistic, oversimplification of the true scope of the legislation mentioned here. Let me state some of the pieces of this that are not mentioned on the above reddit page that are a real cause for concern for many people. Before even going there, you need to understand that the full scope of this legislation is not just the bill in question. The "ObamaCare" bill creates numerous panels with very loosely defined responsibilities and references about another 12,000 pages of other relevant, new legislation.
There are many provisions that have nothing to do with healthcare. For instance, effective at the signing of the bill, any transactions where gold is purchased in an amount greater than $500 USD must be registered with the Federal Government by the Gold dealer.
States, which are the ones that have to implement this, are left holding the bag to come up with a significant amount of funding for this and have sued about it http://www.newsmax.com/Murdock/healthca ... /id/386576, although it appears that this lawsuit has been dismissed.
The Surgeon General of the United States has openly admitted that the only way to make this work is to deny senior citizen's much of the care that would extend their lives. This lead to the Time Magazine and NewsWeek articles "The Case for Killing Grandma" which I am unable to get the full text of but although it appears that a copy of the NewsWeek Article is here. Don't get me wrong, I am all for at the appropriate time people having the right conversations about the end of life. But we are talking about government bureaucrats, whose primary motivation will be costs, determining who lives or dies.
Many people insist that the new Healthcare Law will help hospitals. My wife, who is a nurse certainly doesn't agree. As many others have pointed out, this law's writing was very much influenced by the insurance companies who are the main beneficiaries of it. They now have more ways to deny paying hospital's the money they are due.
Oh, and let's talk about all these uninsured people. Many of them are working at places like McDonald's and WalMart, which have exemptions that have been granted to them to not have to offer insurance coverage to their employees. However, under the new law, these employees must purchase medical insurance. At this point in excess of 50 large corporations like McDonald's and WalMart have been granted these exemptions. So who benefits and who gets screwed?
As to funding the Federal Government's financial obligations...well both the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) and GAO (Government Accounting Office) have expressed concerns about how this can possibly be funded.
I do agree there are bigger issues than killing Obamacare, for instance getting us out of the overly expensive and needless wars we are in and dealing with the crimes of the bankers that have committed massive fraud and are killing our economy for their gain. But, I agree with Cody, you should educate yourself about Obamacare. Don't just read one article or one side of the issue. Check out both sides and decide for yourself if it is a good thing or not.
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Re: Elections 2012 [third-party candidate option added]

Post by sinewav »

compguygene wrote:Check out both sides and decide for yourself if it is a good thing or not.
A "good thing" would be universal health insurance, like civilized nations have. Obamacare doesn't go far enough.
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Re: Elections 2012 [third-party candidate option added]

Post by Phytotron »

Ratchet wrote:That was interesting... so why exactly are some/many people against it? The good seem to far outweigh any drawbacks of it, at least from what I gathered.
OK, here's how it works. We begin with a little history, to which I already alluded earlier. The "individual mandate," including the tax/penalty, portion of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (so-called "Obamacare")—the part to which the right wing so objects—actually had its genesis with conservatives/Republicans. Specifically, it originated with The Heritage Foundation, a bona-fide conservative think tank, in 1989 as an alternative to the single-payer and employer mandate plans that Democrats favored. Even the renowned (to some extent deified) conservative-libertarian economist Milton Friedman proposed an individual mandate in 1991. This plan was then officially adopted by the Republican Party in 1992 as its alternative to the universal health care plan being proposed by the Clintons (so-called "Hillarycare"—don't ask me why they do that). This, in turn, is what Rmoney's Massachusetts plan was based on. And it remained a part of the Republican platform and legislative agenda until as recently as 2006.

Then Obama comes along in 2008. He has stated that ideally he'd support a single-payer system, but he didn't believe that the country's political landscape was prepared for it, it was too divisive, and he didn't want to have that battle, with nothing ultimately getting accomplished as occurred in 1992. (Basically, much of Obama's Presidency, at least initially, was based on a) being overly "post-partisan", and b) trying to redo the Clinton Presidency without making the same mistakes early on. Which, of course, totally backfired. But I digress.) So, seeing that a third of the population was uninsured or underinsured, and that the rest were subject to high and rising premiums and denials of coverage and all the rest, he decided we needed to stop fighting and get something done. So fine, let's go with the Republican plan. No big jumps, nothing radical, a conservative piecemeal approach based on individual responsibility (something Republicans used to stand for; now they're all about shirking it). Surely the Republicans can't object to a portion of their own platform, right?

Well, the Republicans, who entered 2009 with Mitch McConnell declaring on the Senate floor that their #1 priority will be to make Obama a one-term President (you know, rather than actually doing any business for the country), saw this and said, "wait a minute, he's going to co-opt our idea and take all the credit for it and its success. Just like Clinton did with Welfare Reform, the Balanced Budget Act, DOMA, all those trade deals, etc. We can't allow this to happen again!"

So how does a party now oppose a plan for which it has advocated for nearly 20 years, and voted in favor of within just the last few, without coming off as petty and vindictive? Well, first they rely on the fact that most of the public are either too busy, turned-off, lazy, or otherwise uninterested to even be aware in the first place that the Republicans previously stood for that plan—that they're now doing a 180, effectively opposing themselves—or to read the journalism that points out this fact.

Then, they get Karl Rovian, completely reversing and concocting a new reality. Employ every logical fallacy they can, accuse the opposition of everything for which you yourself are guilty, and up it. Create and exploit a phony grass roots movement comprised of a bunch of spiteful, know-nothing rubes who will believe anything they're told, especially if it reinforces their prejudices. Start screaming with hysterical vitriol and making completely bogus claims and Chicken Little-esque warnings about creeping socialism, death panels, rationing, denial of choice, etc. Take it to court, call it unconstitutional, get Republican governors to threaten and even erect blockades, put on a big show about how it's a tyrannical overstep.

This massive dog and pony show accomplishes three things. First, it incites and propagandizes to those who live in the alternate reality of FOX News, talk radio, and right-wing websites. "Well, my favored demagogues said it, it must be true." That's a bloc automatically on their side, carrying their water, spreading the lies. For everyone else, it first serves as a distraction, taking all the focus off of the Republicans and placing it all on the other, the opposition, the enemy. And secondly, it plays a mind game with the casual observer. They hear all this hyperbole, superlative, and extreme vitriol and viciousness coming from the right—issuing accusations and leveling insults that traditionally would be considered absurd and even beyond the pale. Casual observer thinks, "wow, I may not know much, but if they're that worked up, then there must really be something to it! Maybe Obama and this Obamacare really is radical and unAmerican! Oh no! Hide the children!"

The fact is, surveys consistently demonstrate that when broken down into its component pieces (the pieces Cody linked to), a majority of Americans support everything in the PPACA, except the mandate. And that's largely because the GOP machine has successfully lied about what exactly the mandate is. They have also successfully conflated the mandate with the bill as a whole, and made up a whole lot of other falsehood garbage to throw in, which has resulted in the overall lack of support for the PPACA, despite the overwhelming support for its components.
sinewav wrote:A "good thing" would be universal health insurance, like civilized nations have. Obamacare doesn't go far enough.
Agreed. The most rational, efficient, affordable, ethical program to have would be Medicare for All. And the thing is, most Americans would support it, if honestly presented. Again, surveys have consistently shown this. America is not the conservative/right-wing country that the propagandists at FOX News would have people believe, or that Europeans do believe.

One of the main criticisms people on the left have had of Obama is that he's begun all his negotiations with the compromise with which he would ultimately be comfortable. Everyone knows you don't do that. Dude, WTF. Well, duh, the Republicans see that, laugh, and just start further right than they would have otherwise. Obama should have begun with "Medicare for All." If he had, what would the Republicans have offered as an alternative? I guarantee you it would have been something like the PPACA, including an individual mandate with penalty/tax. I f'ing guarantee it.

compguygene wrote:There are many provisions that have nothing to do with [the main subject of the legislation in question].
While being annoying and objectionable, you do realize that this is totally typical of how it goes, especially where really large bills are concerned, right? Not only on the Federal level, but all the way down to your city council as well. They're called riders, usually in the pejorative as in the description there, though they can also be more uncontroversial/benign. I hope you don't think that's something exceptional about the PPACA in particular.
For instance, effective at the signing of the bill, any transactions where gold is purchased in an amount greater than $500 USD must be registered with the Federal Government by the Gold dealer.
Source, in the bill itself. Same for the rest of your claims. All bills are available in their totality online. Indeed, notice that the page Cody provided directly cites the sections in the bill itself.
But we are talking about government bureaucrats, whose primary motivation will be costs, determining who lives or dies.
Lies. Goddamnit, man, get a clue.

I do agree there are bigger issues than killing Obamacare, for instance getting us out of the overly expensive and needless wars we are in and dealing with the crimes of the bankers that have committed massive fraud and are killing our economy for their gain.
Another moment of clarity. Too bad you won't support Obama or others in actually pursuing these actions. You'd rather blame specters.

Lucifer wrote:The President has the most power that any individual in government has.
Bit of a quibble with that paragraph. "President" should be replaced with "Executive Branch." The President himself actually handles very little (relatively speaking) hands-on, directly. There's just way too much to deal with; it would be impossible. And that's not even counting all that goes on with the various agencies that fall under the Executive Branch.


EDIT: No, I really did mean their diatribes have a thick viscosity!
Last edited by Phytotron on Wed Aug 29, 2012 3:09 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Elections 2012 [third-party candidate option added]

Post by Lucifer »

Phytotron wrote:Bit of a quibble with that paragraph.
Well, since you quibbled with me, I'll quibble with you.
Phytotron wrote:viscousness
I believe the word you wanted was "viciousness". I don't believe you intended to relate the rate at which liquids flow in your post.

Other than that one obvious, totally glaring mistake, that was a great post with which I agree 99.9% (.1% reserved for the bad use of a science word).
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Re: Elections 2012 [third-party candidate option added]

Post by Phytotron »

Heh, spellcheck got me. I lopped off about a quarter of my fingernail on my left index finger, the thumb-side corner of it, and am typing with a big ol' bandage on it; more fumbles than usual. And/or, I may have spelled it "visciousness" at first and just went with the first spellcheck suggestion. Doh! :oops:
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Re: Elections 2012 [third-party candidate option added]

Post by -*inS*- »

How about legalizing weed and prostitution while getting rid of the minimum wage.
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