Thread: Obama won re election

I was reading recently that many young people in foreign countries including Canada are getting involved in politics, perhaps that would be a new approach here and get them old farts out of office and get somebody with new idea other then to smile and shake your hand and then completely ignore everybody.

Originally Posted by HNSB

Until the republican party stops making abortion and gay marriage major issues in their platform, they don't have a chance to win a presidential election, IMO.
Stick to the economy, small government, and individual rights (basically, be more libertarian) and they win in a landslide.

Bingo !!! The social issues have become the talking points

The Idiocracy Predicted BTW if Romney won I am sure we would have seen it the other way

Originally Posted by HNSB

Unit, your mom is probably an Obama voter.

If you only knew. She is VERY strong minded about politics.

I'll give you a pass on this one, but be careful, my friend.

Originally Posted by DaveW

One of the boards I read is a bash board, where anything goes. Except bringing other peoples families into it, that'll you your posts deleted and username banned. I'm all for bashing anyone, and I know you were engaging in some piss taking by mentioning it, but I think the bash forum draws the line at the right place.

I disagree. And as luck would have it, I'm the guy drawing the lines

We operate this board on the premise that everyone here can behave like a grown up. We like to have a place where we can talk to each other without people trolling and screaming along the way. Take Glen and me. I am from Belgium, and he is from Idaho. There is probably very, very little common ground between us in the realm of politics. That doesn't prevent us from discussing things without being abusive or hateful or deceitful.

This way, everyone wins.
Everybody except the trolls of course, but there are plenty of other habitats for them on the internet

Originally Posted by mapleleafalumnus

This was done for the purposes of representation and taxation in the lower house of Congress, not presidential elections.

Not, according to the quote I linked, here's a link with the context, it is about the Presidency. Certainly the same formula applied to the house of representatives. Small states didn't gain anything from the electoral college - check where the presidents for the first 40 years came from - either the largest southern state (VA) or the largest northern state (Mass). For that matter check how many of all 44 presidents so far come from small states.

Originally Posted by mapleleafalumnus

The FF's did not create the E.C. to solve the problem of how to count slaves towards presidential elections. The FF's failed to predict the rise of political parties.

The basic problem is not counting slaves, that itself is a derived problem from the actual one that has been going for years - how to balance the power between the sides. The same exact issue about counting slaves had come up earlier when deciding taxes, but with the opposite stance by the two sides.
The south said that if slaves are counted for tax purposes, it is very unjust for the south to be taxed based on their people *and* their property, while the north is only taxed based on people.
When it became matter of representation, of course, the south wanted to count the slaves as people.

So, at the end, taxation and representation go together.

Originally Posted by Bruno

I disagree. And as luck would have it, I'm the guy drawing the lines

We operate this board on the premise that everyone here can behave like a grown up. We like to have a place where we can talk to each other without people trolling and screaming along the way. Take Glen and me. I am from Belgium, and he is from Idaho. There is probably very, very little common ground between us in the realm of politics. That doesn't prevent us from discussing things without being abusive or hateful or deceitful.

This way, everyone wins.
Everybody except the trolls of course, but there are plenty of other habitats for them on the internet

No no, that's not what I meant. i wasn't advocating bash rules for SRP, I was commenting that I think no matter how far a discussion is allowed to go (and on the bash board, they are allowed to go far), a good universal rule for any forum is that if people who are not actually participating in the discussions are brought in (family, etc), it's a good reason for a time out. Said people are, of course, never brought into the discussion for a good reason, they're brought in by malicious posters to get at someone's throat. Not cool.

it's not intended to be the only rule, just one that can and should result in automatic time in the cooler in any forum, possibly permanent.

You're the mods on here, I have no interest in even providing an opinion about what's OK and what's not OK above and beyond that. I don't mind a good political discussion like we've had, as long as it doesn't degenerate into personal insults when someone gets frustrated.

Gugi --
Re: presidential elections, "In case of a tie, or the failure of any one man to get a majority, the House of Representatives was then to select the President from among the leaders. It was expected that once George Washington ceased to be President, the returns would normally be so scattered that the House would normally do the electing."
-Government: It's Structure and Interpretation, Williams, Irving G., p.60

"The odd method of choosing a President was the result of several compromises. It was assumed that Washington would be the first President, and the number of terms was not limited;, but the Convention, not anticipating the rise of a two-party system, expected a free-for-all after the General (Washington), each state voting for a 'favorite son,' and none obtaining a majority of electoral votes. Hence it provided for a final election by the House of Representatives where the voting would be by states, a majority of states being necessary to elect."
-The Oxford History Of The American People, Morrison, Samuel Eliot, p. 309.
I reiterate: slavery had nothing to do with the formation of the E.C. as it was expected that all presidential elections (after Washington stepped down) would be decided in the House of Representatives, where each state gets one vote.

I just realized that I'm starting to get carried away with this stuff. I'm outta here. Apologies to Gugi and peace out, guys.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Please don't take this the wrong way

It does amaze me that so many of you guys that are not Americans are so involved and concerned with our politics, and our way of life, so much so that you are offering your opinions...

Honestly I couldn't tell most of you who your leaders are, what their stances are, what your Health systems are, or Tax systems are or Welfare systems, and better yet I don't really care, unless I lived there, it really isn't my business...

You shouldn't be that surprised how people outside USA really have opinions on your elections. If it were just about your way of life or how you are doing there i really couldn't care less. I do know personally (from my work) many US citizen and they are great. Individual citizen are not always the same as the country goes. It's the same with russians or whatever.

The world is built these days the way that what happens somewhere else might have and does have effects here too. Both in good and bad. US have a strong influence on what goes on, even here, 'Shire of the middle earth'.
Not only on gas prices and such everyday things but major issues also. When doing my time in Kosova i found myself usually thinking about what the f### i'm doing there, away from my family. My wannabe-son-in-law recently, eh five months ago, came back from his 6 month service in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afg. Without a decision, made by GWB that would have never happened. I have friends who lost their lives. You see, you have a strong influence, both in good and bad.

So what can we do when all media is full, up to our neck, of US presidential elections, except to compare your candidates on the politicians we have here. What effect would they have on my daily life?
Of course it's not only US, but what happens in EU, China or whatever have their influences too. They are under discussion also, but maybe not in SRP.

So, as an outsider i think i do not have the need or right to tell my opinions about your candidates, but based on the facts i would say that the ones with opinions on rape like Romney would go down here forever.

in some strange way the world and specially the western world is linked to each other, more or less. When your economy goes well, it has positive influences here too, and vice-versa. You are not an isolated island away from the big bad world.
I'm not even try to argue about the health care system, as we've already done that in other threads.

As your president said: you have a best country in the world. Personally i think that every man in every country should think like that, about their own country. I do.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

BTW Birnando I saw the the Progress Party that is popular as being anti-immigration lost about 6 percentage points in the last cycle... How is that going to effect the laws in the next 3 years ????

Also doesn't that pretty much make it a 2 party system for Norway between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party ??

Yes, you are right, they have lost a fair bit of potential voters lately.
I think it is a case of not being the one setting the agenda.

The conservatives seems to be the one doing that on that side of the political spectrum these days.

Our election is one year away, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out for sure.

As to a two-party system per se, that would be a bit of a simplification to say we have a battle of those two parties only, but the main opponents are, as you said, the conservatives vs the labour party.
The difference is that none of them are remotely close to majority in the Parliament and relies heavily on support from other parties on their side of the whole Left/Right spectrum.

Today, the Labour party is the bigger part of our current 3-party Government.
The other 2 are the Socialistic left and a centrum oriented party that focuses on rural Norway.
From the looks of it, our conservative party will take power next year, but only with the support and participation of 2 or 3 more parties of the right wing. (The Christian Democrats and the Progress party. Possibly also a party called The Left, who are based pretty much in the centre of the spectrum)

To further complicate matters, some of the parties close to the centrum of the political spectrum can, and have, joined governments form both sides.
Messy stuff, I know