The who will you be voting for Poll and Discussion Thread

[Kuya]

You simply could not call it anything other than aggressive. Over 3 different muslims countries are being bombed by drones. Lybia and Afghanistan were invaded. Iran is being threatened with sanctions.

[thetruepandagod]

And your horse shit about it being the "2nd most aggressive blah blah" is as absurd and intentionally misleading as "this is the worst recovery since the last time we had an economic collapse this bad!"

To be fair he's more hawkish than both clinton and reagan.

[Demosthenes11]

You simply could not call it anything other than aggressive. Over 3 different muslims countries are being bombed by drones. Lybia and Afghanistan were invaded. Iran is being threatened with sanctions.

Americans have it in their minds that unless we dock a boat and have thousands of young men run up the beach with .50's flying by their heads, we aren't at war with them

[Lordender]

Lol

Love how defensive people get over Romney or Obama when the fact of the matter is if there is gridlock in congress, it doesn't matter who wins. If Obama wins and the demidonts fail to get majority over congress, he's a lame duck, just as Romney would be if he wins and the Republicants don't get control.

However, I think Obama wins but gets cockblocked big time.

[Dotsudoku]

Justices

[Headspace]

Romney won't get blocked mainly because it's more likely a Dem will sign a Republican bill than GOP signing a Democratic bill.

[Kyte]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...comm_ref=false

Sort of an expansion of the similar article from September. Out of curiosity, why did Obama lose support in Kenya?

[Plow]

If your problem is with the moral judgements attached to the words, then simply cease seeing the word hawkish as bad so it doesn't conflict with your idea of Obama as inherently good.

Why should I stop seeing preferring military action to diplomacy as bad?

What does it have to do with an idea of Obama as inherently good or bad?

It's wrong now to reject claims that a person is bad because you want to turn someone else's argument into semantics over which word he uses rather than what he's actually saying?

Obama's foreign policy with regards to the Middle East has been mostly aggressive.

No, it hasn't.


That's the kind of argument you want, then?

[BaneTheBrawler]

I am really not a fan of the current supreme court. Corporations are not people, money is not speech.

Also, while I'm generally against foreign intervention/war/whatever you want to call it, I'm a big fan of drones. If we're going to intervene, I would rather it be with a piece of machinery and not American lives. Besides, they're just plain cool.

[Kuya]

Why should I stop seeing preferring military action to diplomacy as bad?

What does it have to do with an idea of Obama as inherently good or bad?

It's wrong now to reject claims that a person is bad because you want to turn someone else's argument into semantics over which word he uses rather than what he's actually saying?




No, it hasn't.


That's the kind of argument you want, then?

You can believe what you want.

Other posters on this forum are going to have to decide for themselves whether they think bombings, invasions, and sanctions constitute aggressive foreign policy.

[Xno Kappa]

Home of record is in Colorado so made sure me and the wifey sent out our votes a few weeks ago.

[venikk]

There are numerous organizations and journalistic bodies that have called Obama out on all of these topics. Countless even. On all aspects of the political spectrum.

Google is your friend. Use it.

My point was that romney and obama agree on all of these things, not that people aren't debating on them but that romney and obama aren't.

[Talint]

I genuinely don't know what to say to people who think Obama and Romney are the same.

Like, lay off the Futurama, I guess.

[Talint]

dblpostfail

[venikk]

nobody gave a shit about bush's drones because there were 1/10th as many and 100 times as many soldiers in harm's way


nobody gives a shit about obama's drones because they're extremely successful and making it much easier to get bodies out of harm's way


calling obama hawkish is beyond retarded, to say his foreign policy actively chooses war over diplomacy is just intentionally dishonest

Alot of people gave shits about bush's drones. Also bush never suggested putting them in the states to police-forces TMK, Obama has. Nobody gives shits about obamas aggression because he puts on a facade of happiness and peace to get the peace vote. Any war hawk can sound like a peacekeeper next to a bigger warhawk like Romney. If I was standing next to Saddam huessien during his genocides saying we should put them in prison instead, does that make me not a fan of a police state?

I like drones. I don't like drones used to fight unjust wars, or to use on american citizens without trial.

This is a hawk.






This is not.

Again, have you ever argued with someone that is slightly more extreme on an issue than you are? Picture that argument then put yourself in a third party listening to that debate, you look like you're anti-war standing next to any warhawk. That is obama vs Romney.

why am I not surprised that the guy arguing that "we won't trade with you or give you free money if you don't stop doing this bullshit" is actively choosing war over diplomacy is also going to stand by and repeatedly spew his arguments that fighting a war we were already in, and getting out of another but not instantly the moment he got control with no care for future situation, are hawk moves

You realize obama has been signing harsher and harsher embargoes on Iran? This is an act of war, based on a hunch, in aggression. Iran is going through a hyperinflation event right now, that is no doubt because we are embargoing them and their currency and their central bank.

fine, you want full neo-ism? here ya go


Neither of these implies a desire to go to war. In fact, both are efforts to prevent war, i.e. peacekeeping efforts.

That's exactly why we attacked viet nam, the gulf, korea, germany, japan, iraq, afhanistan, Libya, etc. The problem is that good intentions don't always lead to good consequences. Libya is the most relevant right now, do you think that if we didn't supply the rebellion and drone strike against libyian leaders that our embassy would have been attacked? How about Iran, do you think that if we didn't overthrow their democracy and put in the shaw that the hostage crisis decades ago would have happened. If the CIA hadn't helped Saddam gain power that we would have had the Iraq war? If we didn't have collateral damage in the middle east during the 80's and 90's that Osama would have attacked the twin towers? (which is what he said is why he attacked us).

If a war is fought in aggression the defenders will remember the war far longer than the aggressors.

He didn't start a war here. He's not actively seeking ways to extend a war here. He's fighting a war he was handed. As I said, you're trying the "worst recovery since the last huge collapse" approach. If you want to argue that he hasn't tried diplomacy, or that you think instantly withdrawing all troops and approaching it exclusively through diplomacy would be a more effective means of dealing with Afghanistan, go right ahead.

Libya? I'm fairly certain that was obama's war.

In what way is using an established, thoroughly considered withdrawal "hawkish"? Because it was already ready to go for him?

I won't bother arguing what McCain would have done here, but if he had come in, followed said plan, and gotten us out of Iraq while leaving at least a reasonably stable situation behind, I think we'd all have been pleasantly surprised. We certainly wouldn't have pulled retarded shit like saying following the established pullout process was "hawkish."

McCain vs Obama is like Coke vs Pepsi. They both have the same goal, to make soda. They're both bad for you. And people love to get riled up about which is better. But the fact is still that they both suck ass and you should drink water instead.

Did you know hawkish is in dictionaries now? Feel free to go look it up. It means the same thing it always has-- preferring military action over diplomacy.

You just described literally the exact opposite in attempt to portray Obama as hawkish.

Sorry, I'm sure it sucks when your strategy of "pretend to know what you're talking about, and pretend to be honest and respectful about it, and you can convince BG the sky is purple, or at worst get them to agree it's blurple" doesn't always stand up, but no.

You're outright lying through your teeth here and you know it. Diplomatic action with a war in the background as an absolute last resort is the exact opposite of what you're claiming it to be.

He says one thing and does another, he's a hawk in sheep's clothing.

[venikk]

You simply could not call it anything other than aggressive. Over 3 different muslims countries are being bombed by drones. Lybia and Afghanistan were invaded. Iran is being threatened with sanctions.

They are far more than threatened, sanctions are a way of destroying a country without bloodshed. The blow-back will still be there though.

[archibaldcrane]

This is a hawk.

Oh god. I remember watching this speech live when I was in grad school in florida, at that 6:00 mark I put my head in my hands, completely disgusted.

[Apelila]

Has Obama ever been on camera saying that we need more drones in the US?

I mean, what's the greater likelihood:

Obama, who has more messes to deal with than someone with OCD in a hoarders house, is successfully rolling out drones to the US to spy on ordinary citizens for petty/not so petty crimes, big brother style in an effort to catch domestic drug deals or random citizens that get scanned and tagged by an eye in the sky.

or

The conservative, xenophobic ex-military types who run the majority of law enforcement and border patrol are using drones because they're cheap and require no presence in area's that are traditionally hard to monitor, and therefor more likely to be exploited by law breakers?

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle of the 2 options I postulate: Law enforcement likely saw drones as an effective way to deal with hard to monitor, or area's that traditional methodology made cost prohibitive and Obama said "Yeah, that makes sense. Go for it".

I keep hearing that Obama is infringing on civil liberties and I agree in a lot of cases (Gitmo should have already been closed, for instance). But the drones are easier to explain by how they're useful and who originally wanted to use them vs conspiracy theories with no long term motives. As with anything, the best judge of a persons actions are their intentions and I have never heard of Obama saying he intended for drones to be used on American citizens the way that they're starting to be used. The people who are directly in charge of operating them, however......

[Plow]

Oh god. I remember watching this speech live when I was in grad school in florida, at that 6:00 mark I put my head in my hands, completely disgusted.

I was on spring break in tampa, had to take a flight back home a couple days later.

Was not happy.


Anyway, not going to continue to argue about a president supposedly being a warmonger when literally the only effective diplomatic actions that exist are repeatedly being called acts of war.

[test123]

I genuinely don't know what to say to people who think Obama and Romney are the same.

Like, lay off the Futurama, I guess.

http://targetfreedom.typepad.com/.a/...5c6e970b-800wi