Thread: Obama camp furious!

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

Don't distort my view and the views of countless liberals and progressives like me. Government does not force teamwork, but it clears the ground so such collective enterprises can get off the ground in the first place. When social support systems fail or are incomplete, and they invariably always fail and are always incomplete, the role of government is to assess what's going wrong and implement rules and regulations to mitigate or eliminate the causes of that failure, or clear the way for resources to be made available to build new and different social support systems and expand those systems to support every greater numbers of our population. In this way, individual achievement continues to be made possible, and through the improvement of these support systems, allows ever greater achievements to occur.

I'm sorry!

All I can say is HUH!

What!!!

I can't even identify with any of that or find within myself any way to possibly view the role of government in this way. Either historically or speculatively. Any time The government even tries to touch social problems it fubars the whole thing. So obviously this is not its role.


Joe, that was just beautiful I have never seen it put so well.

If a person is determined to not do for themselves, and depend solely on others to do it for them, they should be left behind, and not even considered. The liberal agenda is to eliminate the possibility of failure, which absolutely guarantees mediocrity.

My God Joe... seriously,

I could have done with out the turd sandwich, but thank you none the less.
If government is going to help someone, why should it help those who just want a hand out?
I say help those who are willing to work for it, those who want to better themselves, and society as a whole.
The idiots being left behind will get the picture soon enough, and things will start to function once again.
If High school students were given the opportunity to succeed and the same opportunity to fail, they would soon see the disparity between their choices, and would learn to succeed, instead of being handed worthless degrees and sent into the world where they learn to get more handouts.

This will be my last post in this thread, but I want to be clear that I'm not picking up my ball and going home. I genuinely appreciate the discussion we've had so far, at least when it's been an honest one. But there are too many old prejudices and this discussion has gone too far afield for me to adequately address you all. Suffice it to say that I understand where all your feelings are coming from, and that once, not so long ago, I believed very similar things. But even then, when I too was disgusted and demoralized with the state of political affairs, I felt that I was missing an important piece of the picture. And as I depart from this thread, I simply ask you to consider whether you too are missing something important in your easy demonizations and broad brush strokes. Ask yourselves whether the easy cynicism and self-satisfying retreat from serious political inquiry is too easy. Read the works I mentioned upthread by John Dewey. Watch Obama's speech with an open mind and notice how he speaks, competently and maturely, to the frustrations and attitudes so many of you have expressed here. Read some of the more obscure works from the philosopher after whom I chose my username, particularly Perpetual Peace. Research the reasons so many very intelligent people have for so long been committed liberals and progressives. I'm not asking you to dismiss the real failures that have occurred on both side, nor forget those politicians who have so let us down. But don't let a few spoiled apples, even a majority of spoiled apples, ruin your taste for them. Most importantly, don't let your preconceptions of what I am trying to say overrun what I am trying to say. Nowhere do I imply that we as individuals or as a government should try to eliminate failure, for this is impossible for finite beings like ourselves. Rather, I believe that we should continue to give people the opportunities to succeed after they have failed, and after they have failed, and after they have failed again. Remember that some of our greatest individual achievements have occurred after a lifetime of failure.

Now you have a choice. You can do the easy thing and dismiss what I have said and go back to your comfortable prejudices and familiar misrepresentations. And then you will have gained nothing of value. Or you can do the hard thing and do what I have suggested, and perhaps you will gain something invaluable: a better and more complete understanding of our place in history, the destiny of our species and our individual role in attaining that destiny.

Its been fun it really has. I love actually finding a way to discus politics without it falling to name calling. Thanks for indulging me.

I look at todays politicians and the do leave a foul taste. But it mostly stems from me cutting my teeth on the writings of our founders and the philosophers the espoused. This has taught me that this country is like a great soufflé. If everyone is conscious of the effort that goes into preparing it and keeps quiet it comes out really well . But todays politicians have banged the oven door, made it fall then tossed sugar on it a presented it to me as perfect. Thats why it is such a foul taste, because I can so clearly see what it should be and could be if we were all willing to chose it.

This is a bit off topic, I know, but to me, it's one of the most telling symptoms of our current national crisis:
I have to take a drug test to work and pay taxes, but it's somehow a violation of their rights to have to take one to get free money? WTF?!?

KP, thank you for a lively debate. I don't agree with your personal philosophy, but neither do you agree with mine. C'est la vie. That's what makes the world go round.

Ok, I lied about the above post being my last one in this thread, but I just wanted to say that I also enjoy these sorts of political discussions. If someone wants to open up a general politics discussion thread, I will gladly participate, but I must insist on some few allies, who can catch up the slack I might leave behind.
Surely, I cannot be the only straight razor user on this forum who holds liberal political views.

Your not but the rest of them tend to be Canadian. They all know better than to get involved in American elections

And we'll ask you to do the same... Watch McCain's speeches, and Hillary's... look at the promises being made by all of the candidates, their similarities, and differences, the contradictions and lies purveyed as hope to the american people, and maybe then you can see we are simply being realists, and maybe there is some truth about the dogma and lies spewed forth by all politicians.


Although I must say you have avoided the one serious question I've put in front of you. The one question that doesn't involve philosophy or conjecture...

NAFTA... Is Obama telling the truth? is the Canadian government telling the truth..? This simple question over a single issue is paramount in it's ability to demonstrate one's honesty. Either Obama lied to the American people when he said he would overhaul NAFTA, and then lied again about sending an emisary to the Canadian consulate to reassure them it wasn't going to happen...

Or our closest neighbor, and consistent ally made the whole thing up in order to? destabilize american politics? get their kicks?

"Of two competing theories or explanations, all other things being equal, the simpler one is to be preferred." or Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem or "Entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily ...WilliamOfOccam c. 1285–1349

Far be it from me to avoid a serious question put to me.

NAFTA... Is Obama telling the truth? is the Canadian government telling the truth..? This simple question over a single issue is paramount in it's ability to demonstrate one's honesty. Either Obama lied to the American people when he said he would overhaul NAFTA, and then lied again about sending an emisary to the Canadian consulate to reassure them it wasn't going to happen...

Or our closest neighbor, and consistent ally made the whole thing up in order to? destabilize american politics? get their kicks?

The evidence in this case is quite clear, and as a supporter of Obama, I have followed this particular "scandal" quite closely, so I hope you believe me as I lay out the timeline of what occurred and why. I offer you as decent a summary as I have found, and a link to the CBC so you can verify the story for yourself.

Austan Goolsbee agreed to accept an invitation from Canadians, who pressed him for answers about protectionist sentiments emerging in the US Presidential election. He tried to reassure them that Obama did not want to do away with the agreement, but wanted to add labor and environmental protections. Someone in the Harper government - Prime Minister of Canada and a member of their Conservative Party - apparently decided to leak a sensational lie that bears a very loose resemblance of the truth. A source leaked to CTV that the Obama campaign had called Michael Wilson, Canadian Ambassador to the US, and warned them that Obama was going to talk tough on NAFTA, but it would be just talk.
According to CBC, all the details were wrong. Canada contacted the campaigns. Michael Wilson was not involved. And, most damning, they are now admitting that the memo at the heart of the controversy "may not accurately reflect what they were told".
In other words, according to CBC, this scandal was manufactured out of whole cloth. Goolsbee said something consistent with Obama's official position - that he wanted protections added, but it wasn't going to be a fundamental change or revocation of NAFTA, and that Obama was not a protectionist. This was morphed somewhat going into the memo, and now the embassy admits they "may have misrepresented the Obama advisor". Even after the memo misrepresented Obama, the Harper government took it a step further and then leaked a completely fantastic version of the story to the press, in order to maximize the bloodletting.

You can find the CBC program online here:
http://www.cbc.ca/mrl3/8752/vsu/wmv-...memo080303.wmv
Why might they do this? Well, considering that they also floated rumors that the Clinton camp has done the same thing, I find it likely that they were attempting to spoil the American elections and improve McCain's abysmal chances of winning in November. Prime Minister Harper (who gets to make diplomatic and consular appointments after all) is a conservative, and birds of a feather....

With this, I am truly done, as I feel I have addressed all the spurious rumors levied at Obama with either reasoned argument or solid evidence. You can choose to be satisfied with this or not

Seems like the thread is getting a little too high brow,in an effort to bring it down a bit I offer the latest add that is making the Dalai Obama camp furious(mods feel free to delete if this is politically incorrect)