Interesting take on Obama's elitism controversy

You know what, part of me hopes Obama loses the election, and that you people get the leader you deserve.

Then maybe it will be your children who go off to fight a sham of a war. Maybe it will be your children who receive an educationthat teaches them how to take standardized tests, but not how to think. Maybe it will be your grandchildren who are saddled with the debt as the grandchildren of your owners sit in their gated communities with armed guards. Maybe it will be your children and grandchildren who are left with no breathable air or potable water.

Good luck with that.

It's no less than you deserve if you elect someone like McCain.

You're right, Johnson. My argument fails because it is predicated upon the right seeing the children and grandchildren of other Americans as having value. It depends on them seeing clean air and water as something other than resources to be wasted and exploited.

It's never going to happen.

I despair of there ever being middle ground in this nation.

The first rule of politics was stated by Richard Nixon 40 years ago. You can't do anything unless you win. The problem with the Democrats is that they don't know how to read a map and count electoral votes. They look at national opinion polls and forget that in presidential electoral terms those polls mean nothing. In 1972 the public had no love for Nixon but it hated McGovern, or rather McGovern's supporters because George himself was not that bad.

If George Bush were running again the Democrats could run Castro's dog and win. But W ain't running, he can't and McCain is not merely teflon, he's kevlar and nothing the Democrats can come up with against him is going to hit. And as a presidential election, in the end, comes down to personality and gut reaction, not issues, McCain has the advantage.

Obama needs the "Reagan Democrats" to win and he has never been able to crack that demographic. McCain wins them hands down. He carries older voters, he is competitative among Hispanics to the point that if he does not carry a majority of them he will get a large enough minority to make Obama a non issue. That leaves Obama without enough votes to win in all but a few states (remember that there are 9 white voters for every black voter and the youth vote is neither large, nor monolithic, nor likely to turn it in significant numbers). In other words, Obama, at this point, does not seem to be merely unelectable, he may be McGovern unelectable for much the same reasons. If present trends hold, on the night of the election, McCain could carry California, but by the time the polls close in California it could already be decided.

Barring some dramatic shift, this election may already be decided now.

Can you guys HAVE an independent thought, or do you just ape the editorial page of NY Times?

Coming from a ditto-head, I'll take that as a compliment.

The lates poll shows that only 25% of American feel offended about the bitter comment,and 75% are not offended. This rhetoric will not affect the election. Obama'08.

I'm sure Lj's crying in his coffee because some full-of-himself republibot won't take a throwaway message board comment seriously.

You really have an inflated sense of self-worth, don't you?

Obama'08 McCain: ": He's tooo old". Obama is the people's choice. Conserativism is dead as we know it. Only conseratism in Christ really matters. Have'nt you all learned a lesson from the last seven years. A war monger in the White House? Get a grip saints.

"Conserativism is dead as we know it"

A conservative is just a liberal with a teenage daughter. Once you people get old enough to have kids and actually make enough money to pay taxes, you'll be singing a different tune.

Once you people get old enough to have kids and actually make enough money to pay taxes, you'll be singing a different tune.

I've heard this line of thinking before.

I'm old enough to have kids. My partner *does* have kids. I make more money than my parents ever did - put together.

Strangely enough, I'm still a liberal.

Like most of rightist memes, it's dreck, nonsense, sheer drivvel.

"i could never hate my fellow human enough"

Oh, yeah, conservatives hate their fellow humans just because we don't want The State to take our money at gunpoint and use it to pay for abortions and saving snail darters.

"I pay taxes"

I paid EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS in taxes this year, and I bet I gave more to charity than all of your people combined.

Meh - it was good enough for the founding fathers.

It's not like it's taxation without representation ;)

I paid EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS in taxes this year, and I bet I gave more to charity than all of your people combined.

How proud you must be.

Deadly sins much?

Michele - it's all about economies of scale.

Our collective tax dollars put to work can do far more than individual contributions can.

Capitalism: where everyone wins, unless they lose.

The problem with capitalism is it rewards the basest of man's instincts: greed, duplicity, backstabbing, dog-eat-dog profit no matter what the cost.

Corporations aren't inherently evil; they're merely inherently sociopathic. Which is fine, of course...

...if you're a sociopath.

Yeah, and communism has worked so well hasn't it, meh?

ZZ, consider yourself blessed :-)

Wow - cry much?

Why should I trust private enterprise to provide basic needs for all citizens? if it was left up to people like ZZ, poor folks would be feudal serfs or sweat-shop slaves.

No, it's much more equitable this way.

The needs of the many outweigh the whines of the few.

Our elected representatives take care of that business. They appoint people more qualified to make the decisions about how those social programs are run than you are. Them's the breaks. If you wanted to have such a say in how those tax dollars were spent, maybe you would have been better served going to school for public administration?

In the meantime...

I hear that Costa Rica, Indonesia and the Philippines would be right in line with your idea of a "fair" society. You could live like the king you think you deserve to be, there.

"Oh, yeah, conservatives hate their fellow humans just because we don't want The State to take our money at gunpoint and use it to pay for abortions and saving snail darters."

you forgot, there won't be any guns and they'll just rip the fetus from between your legs without even asking! talk about freakishly whacked mindsets, man you need help back into the really real world.

"I paid EIGHT THOUSAND DOLLARS in taxes this year, and I bet I gave more to charity than all of your people combined."

oooh, i love contests! but, what's your point? are you thinking that your $8K or $19K is more than what i paid in taxes and you're proud that you still managed to squeak out a penny for charity? well, sir, you're still behind.

"They have no accountability and suffer no consequences for being wrong."

it would help if you paid attention to what your elected representatives are doing, write to them, talk to them, be involved instead of just sitting around pissin' and moanin' about them, and vote. of course they suffer consequences, that's how our system of government is supposed to work, except when you get a wannabe dictator like bush with his rubber-stamp congressional republicans.

communism? you people are way off the deep end. nobody here is promoting communism.

"you owe every aspect of your comfortable life to capitalism"

hardly. unlike some, i didn't purchase my spouse and capitalism didn't build this beautiful land that i live upon.

i do have issues with unregulated capitalism, but what you're suggesting is nothing close to what i said. you're an illiterate boob.

michele:
"No, you just would put your trust in politicians to do the right thing with your money. Who has more faith?"

faith in politicians? no, i have faith in the men and women that i vote for. if they let me down, i let them know. if they continue to fail, then i either don't vote for them, or i take it to the next level. the difference is that i remain engaged with these people, which is impossible to do with closed corporations.

"And who hates their fellow man more? Those who lack the compassion to help their neighbor unless the government does it? And when the government screws it up, who hates their fellowman enough not to fix the problem? (Social services, comes to mind -- how many kids have to die in the system before it's fixed -- yeah so much for compassion)."

my neighbor, michele? i donate food, clothing, and time to help my neighbors, literally, when i'm not giving cold cash, and i do so happily without complaint. so apparently you don't know jack about liberals, oh omniscient one.

you've got your conservative blinders on, so let me point out the obvious, that there were rampant problems with domestic abuse, incest, abandonment, etc before there were tax-funded child social services. why didn't you conservatives step up then and eliminate the need? why don't you step up now to save those children before they enter the system, or the 15,000 children who die every year due to abuse before social welfare can even locate them?

and since you brought it up, why must it be up to just liberals to save the lives of the unfortunate kids in a broken system? why don't you step up to the plate, sister, and bring your compassionate conservative minions with you? why not march in the save-the-social-services-kids army and abort your save-the-sperm-and-egg crusade?

is it conservatives who are looking out for the victims of corporations who treat employees as liabilities and not assets? of course not, they have faith that corporations will take care of the little guy. are conservatives more likely to speak out against the torture of prisoners? not. was it conservatives who made the move to raise minimum wages to help the hard working poor? nope. was it conservatives in congress who moved to take care of our war veterans? no, they barely care for them while they're "of use" on the front lines of war.

between you and me, who is more in support of pushing that remote button to indiscriminately butcher iraqis or other people unfortunate enough to live in a country with resources that we need? yeah, you already answered that one. no thanks, we don't need your style of compassion, we'll all live longer without it.

Why in the world would you begrudge people their own money, meh? They work hard for it and deserve to keep as much as possible. Would you prefer that the government get it all and eek out a little to everyone? Sounds like you might want to move to Cuba and China it would be right in line with your idea of a "fair" society :-)

How "hard" do CEOs work? Do they work 2000 times harder than the guy on the assembly line busting his ass for a pittance? Without that worker, said CEO would have nothing - he sure as hell isn't going to sully his manicure or dirty his Armani suit doing any actual - you know - WORK.

How hard do you "work?" Are you breaking your back? Seems to me you have time enough on your hands to blog about how horrible you have it, so you must have it pretty good.

Of course, in the land of "God's Frozen Chosen," those people who weren't fortunate enough to have the breaks you had deserve their fate. If they were "chosen," they'd be in a much better position in life, right? And as much as you wish you could, you cannot deny your privilege - your skin color is only one of a myriad - like your access to good safe schools, good recent textbooks, good safe neighborhoods in which to raise your good white kids who go to their good safe schools etc. etc. etc. world without end, amen.

Do you like using roads? How about buying food? Do you like water coming from the tap? How about turning on the lights? Do you like living in a land where you, as a woman, get to go to seminary school?

Why would you deny the duty you have to pay for the upkeep of the "Greatest Country on the Planet (tm)?" Pay your taxes.

Or whine more. Your choice.