Thread: Obamas' Night Out

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Most of you guys should get a life.

Obama has done nothing that any other president has done including presidents of both parties during good times and bad times.

Exactly, and I thought I'd voted for change, oh well, same old same old.

Originally Posted by sparq

I do not care about Obama's personal spending habits.

What worries me deeply about him is the lack of fiscal discipline of his government (among other things that will enslave this nation).

If you're worried about the lack of fiscal discipline of this government, you should take a look at the last administration. I worry about the fiscal discipline of every administration, and quite frankly, our departing administration left quite an ugly hole in our national cookie jar, so I wouldn't be so quick to blame Obama for the financial state of affairs. It took a lot of doing for both parties to get us here, and there's plenty of blame to go around.

PS: Envy in the hearts of the poor is a left activist's best friend!

Getting talking points from Rush? I'm sorry, but I take umbrage at that remark, and I consider myself pretty conservative.

I think you missed the entire point of this thread. Do you really think this is about envy in the hearts of poor people? When you are forced to pay taxes for the "common good", don't you think that the people entrusted with your money owe you a certain measure of thrift?

Painting the left with that broad brush doesn't advance political discourse in any way. It's little more than name calling. Nor does it address the real problems in our government.

Originally Posted by joesixpack

If you're worried about the lack of fiscal discipline of this government, you should take a look at the last administration. I worry about the fiscal discipline of every administration, and quite frankly, our departing administration left quite an ugly hole in our national cookie jar, so I wouldn't be so quick to blame Obama for the financial state of affairs. It's took a lot of doing for both parties to get us here, and there's plenty of blame to go around.

Sorry, I do not see the relevance of your comment. I can be as concerned about our current fiscal discipline as much as I want to be and you have no business telling me not to based on what happened in the past (which I never said I was happy with).

Originally Posted by joesixpack

Getting talking points from Rush? I'm sorry, but I take umbrage at that remark, and I consider myself pretty conservative.

I think you missed the entire point of this thread. Do you really think this is about envy in the hearts of poor people? When you are forced to pay taxes for the "common good", don't you think that the people entrusted with your money owe you a certain measure of thrift?

Painting the left with that broad brush doesn't advance political discourse in any way. It's little more than name calling. Nor does it address the real problems in our government.

Sir, this thread is nothing but venting of (ill) sentiment with a lot of drama going on. Envy being one of the major ingredients of the sentiment c0cktail served here (at least that's what my nose is telling me), I was aiming at some of the participants in the discussion, not Obama or the government.

QUOTE: "What worries me deeply about [Obama]is the lack of fiscal discipline of his government (among other things that will enslave this nation)."

QUOTE: "... I was aiming at some of the participants in the discussion, not Obama or the government."

You contend Obama's policies will "enslave the nation" and you claim you're not "aiming" at Obama?? --You've got to be kidding!!

Originally Posted by billyjeff2

QUOTE: "What worries me deeply about [Obama]is the lack of fiscal discipline of his government (among other things that will enslave this nation)."

QUOTE: "... I was aiming at some of the participants in the discussion, not Obama or the government."

You contend Obama's policies will "enslave the nation" and you claim you're not "aiming" at Obama?? --You've got to be kidding!!

No I am not; but you are quoting me out of context. Common, you can do better than that!

I merely quoted your exact words. Look: posting that the policies of the president will "enslave a nation" isn't exactly putting things in a balanced or measured way. Perhaps you had a different meaning in mind when you chose your words, but those words, combined with your "PS" about the left certainly doesn't suggest otherwise...

Originally Posted by sparq

Sorry, I do not see the relevance of your comment. I can be as concerned about our current fiscal discipline as much as I want to be and you have no business telling me not to based on what happened in the past (which I never said I was happy with).

Your indignation seems misplaced. If you want to enter a political discussion, you should expect that people will express views differing from your own. No one is telling you what to worry about or not to worry about. In the post to which I was answering, you clearly stated,

...What worries me deeply about him is the lack of fiscal discipline of his government ...

Now, I can only take the pronouns "him" and "his" to mean the current president. If you had said, "all the recent presidents" or "government, in general", it would have expressed a very different sentiment. But that's not what you said, you expressed concern about this particular president, so naturally, the implication seemed to be that he was somehow different from others. I simply wanted to point out that the Obama administration is not exceptional in their putitive fiscal irresponsability. I hope I've established the relavence of my remark in regards to the post (your post) on which I was commenting.

Sir, this thread is nothing but venting of (ill) sentiment with a lot of drama going on. Envy being one of the major ingredients of the sentiment c0cktail served here (at least that's what my nose is telling me), I was aiming at some of the participants in the discussion, not Obama or the government.

Let me just state for the record here that neither I nor anyone else here is begrudging the President his salary or his right to spend it anyway he wishes. What we are complaining about is the use of public money for the presidents own entertainment. As I said before (and very clearly too, I thought) was that when I entrust people to spend my money for the common good, I take a pretty narrow view as to what the common good is. I would have rather seen an unemployed autoworker get unemployment benifits for a few more weeks than seeing that money go to nothing more than the entertainment of the first couple. Like I said, if he was in NY already for some actual business, I wouldn't have a problem with it, but the extravagant of his use of public money should certainly raise some eyebrows. Envy doesn't even enter into it, and to continue to insist that it does tells me that you probably don't understand the issue fully.

Sorry if you took offense to my post. I try to stay civil, but sometimes I might sound caustic. I don't mean to.

Originally Posted by Hillie

Interesting, some countries had a pretty significant attendance. I know Belgium has mandatory voting, but I read a news article saying there won't be active prosecution for people not showing up in the future, so mandatory, but in the future not really.

So far, there is no prosecution for no voting, though you will get some administrative hassle. However, if you fail to show up for booth duty (which is randomly assigned in an eligible age bracket) then you -will- be prosecuted and fined. Last time it was 200 euro I think.

Atm the percentage of no-show voters is low enough that no action is needed. It's 9% in total, but that includes people who are abroad (for which you need proof) or sick (for which you need proof) or who have lost their civil rights (for which you need proof)...
The amount of people who willfully don't show is probably somewhere in the 2 - 6 % range.

Oh Well. Whad'ya gonna do? Here in DC,nobody cares. I see the point, but ho humm. Life as usual in the district.

Originally Posted by Bruno

So far, there is no prosecution for no voting, though you will get some administrative hassle. However, if you fail to show up for booth duty (which is randomly assigned in an eligible age bracket) then you -will- be prosecuted and fined. Last time it was 200 euro I think.

Atm the percentage of no-show voters is low enough that no action is needed. It's 9% in total, but that includes people who are abroad (for which you need proof) or sick (for which you need proof) or who have lost their civil rights (for which you need proof)...
The amount of people who willfully don't show is probably somewhere in the 2 - 6 % range.

Thank you for the background info Bruno, I'm always interested in learning a bit from my friendly (former) neighbours in the south. Once you've heard some good Flemish, you've heard one of the more pleasant ways of speaking Dutch. And of course you guys have Herman Brusselmans!

Today talks about the EU voting at work here in Sweden. Apparently a pretty decent amount of people showed up, 45 to 50% if I'm not mistaken, which is pretty good if you keep in mind that some research showed that about a quarter or a third of the interviewed didn't even know that there'd be an election.