# How would Obama, if elected President, tear this country apart? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 14, 2008, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802 "2008-10-14T00:20:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![KellyM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/57b2e6/32.png) [@KellyM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KellyM)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2008, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/61 "2008-10-14T23:07:24Z")
> [@lucky\_henry](#): > > Perhaps you should do the same. > [http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/responding\_to\_the\_obama\_tax\_ca.php](http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/responding_to_the_obama_tax_ca.php) Perhaps you should. Mr. Binder, and the entire right wing, apparently, is mischaracterizing Obama’s proposed supplemental Social Security tax on personal income in excess of $250,000 as a “payroll tax”. It is not a payroll tax, it’s a personal income tax. It will only affect businesses (small or otherwise) that yield $250,000 or more in personal **profit** to the owner in any one year. In short, you are either lying, or being lied to. Which is it? ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2008, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/62 "2008-10-14T23:57:53Z")
Thanks **KellyM** , you beat me to it! ---
**Author:** ![lucky\_henry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bc8723/32.png) [@lucky\_henry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lucky_henry)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/63 "2008-10-15T01:17:41Z")
> [@KellyM](#): > > Perhaps you should. Mr. Binder, and the entire right wing, apparently, is mischaracterizing Obama’s proposed supplemental Social Security tax on personal income in excess of $250,000 as a “payroll tax”. It is not a payroll tax, it’s a personal income tax. It will only affect businesses (small or otherwise) that yield $250,000 or more in personal **profit** to the owner in any one year. > > In short, you are either lying, or being lied to. Which is it? It is neither. I don’t care whether it’s a payroll tax or an income tax, it’s still a tax. Either way it results in the person earning the money giving more of it to the government for redistribution. I’m honestly not trying to be argumentative, but the mechanism used to “spread the wealth around” should be moot. The fact that he wants to spread it around is (IMHO) the problem. ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/64 "2008-10-15T03:57:50Z")
So, again, how will income redistribution actually tear the country apart? ---
**Author:** ![lucky\_henry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bc8723/32.png) [@lucky\_henry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lucky_henry)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/65 "2008-10-15T12:54:10Z")
> [@lee](#): > > So, again, how will income redistribution actually tear the country apart? Answered here: > [@lucky\_henry](#): > > I envision protests and riots by rightwingers leading to some nutjob attempting to harm him, followed by protests and riots by leftwingers. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/66 "2008-10-15T13:13:36Z")
Protests are the sign of a healthy democracy with citizen action, not a country being torn apart. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/67 "2008-10-15T13:35:22Z")
> [@KellyM](#): > > In short, you are either lying, or being lied to. Which is it? It is well to avoid accusations against other posters that they are lying in this Forum. [/Modding] ---
**Author:** ![papaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@papaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/papaw)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/68 "2008-10-15T13:45:28Z")
> [@](#): > > He’s so far left that a plurality of the country has voted for him? ORLY? When did this vote take place? He won a plurality of sorts of the Democrat Convention votes and I guess the primary votes, but certainly not a plurality. Do the other half of America, the republicans, Independents, etc. not count? It is yet to be seen if he will win the election. ---
**Author:** ![NicePete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ee7513/32.png) [@NicePete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NicePete)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2008, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/69 "2008-10-15T14:10:14Z")
> [@HPL](#): > > For some reason, I was just reminded of [this scene](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2DxyAGzGxM) from Clerks 2. The great big guy standing in line behind Wanda Sykes in that scene is a message board pal of mine. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2008, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/70 "2008-10-18T08:25:54Z")
Well the fact is he’s,well you knowhe’s a coloured boy… And heck !that means he’s not like us,he’s different from us… If he becomes Commander in Chief he’ll be ordering us white folk about thats why we’ve got our fundamentalist militias and our survival vaults! We all know that there aint nothing worse then an uppity…negro… I mean double heck we’d rather have a communist elected rather then one of …those .people… But I’m just an ordinary crittur speaking the truth here cos as god is my witness theres NOBODY could call me a racist,not even my own worst enemy and thats the truth of it! What we do now is for the good of the country and in years to come people will thank us ! God bless America! ---
**Author:** ![BooBoo316](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e0b2c6/32.png) [@BooBoo316](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BooBoo316)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2008, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/71 "2008-10-19T12:38:54Z")
Is it the apocalypse? **Is it the apocalypse?** \* Seriously, who should I shoot at when the “end” comes? Black people who just “got everything handed to them”, or white people who just “got everything taken away from them”? Which group will be rampaging down the street? Hell with it, I’m locking myself in my house Nov 4th and not coming out until this crap is settled. Don’t knock on my door…I mean it. \*[sub]bonus points for anyone who gets it[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2008, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/72 "2008-10-19T12:54:49Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Obama is part of a “sleeper cell” of moslem agents This is very unlikely. But why take chances, you know what I’m saying? ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2008, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/73 "2008-10-19T13:47:47Z")
I have been thinking about this, and it just doesn’t make any sense at all to me. I still don’t understand why there would be “protests and riots by rightwingers” what would they be protesting? Why would people who go on about being patriotic and pro-American protest and the results of a duly held election? Why would people who purport to be for law and order riot over anything? Is this just a threat to take your ball and go home because the game doesn’t end the way you want it too? Do you really think “rightwingers” are so dangerously childish and unpatriotic? And why would an attempted or successful assassination by “a nutjob” be “followed by protests and riots”? I don’t recall any protests and riots after Reagan was shot. There was some confusion, but I don’t recall it leading to violence in the streets. Why do you think violence against Obama would result in riots when violence against Reagan did not. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2008, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/74 "2008-10-19T17:39:27Z")
> [@lee](#): > > I have been thinking about this, and it just doesn’t make any sense at all to me. I still don’t understand why there would be “protests and riots by rightwingers” what would they be protesting? Why would people who go on about being patriotic and pro-American protest and the results of a duly held election? Why would people who purport to be for law and order riot over anything? Is this just a threat to take your ball and go home because the game doesn’t end the way you want it too? Do you really think “rightwingers” are so dangerously childish and unpatriotic? [Some are.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_mcveigh) And according to [_Nixonland,_](http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200805/nixon) by Rick Perlstein, in the '60s there was even more and worse RW than LW mob violence (an underappreciated fact). ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2008, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/75 "2008-10-19T17:57:08Z")
> [@lucky\_henry](#): > > To answer the title question, I’d say that if he makes good on his desire to “spread the wealth around” it would certainly go far towards tearing the country apart. Yep, the top 1 % has more wealth than the bottom 50. The American way is to make the gap bigger. More for the wealthy. Great wealth for bankers who know how to make the system go. Financiers need more money and power. This trend has been so good and so American. ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2008, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/76 "2008-10-29T02:43:19Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > My gf’s grandfather says it will encourage the blacks to rise up and take over. I have a growing suspicion he might be just an itsy bit racist. You win the prize!!! This is really sickening. He forwarded this to me. I told him to read _Dreams of my Father_ in its entirety, I did. > [@](#): > > FORWARD TO ALL YOU CAN > Why is all of this going unnoticed by the media??? They send 1000 reporters to Alaska to dig up something on Sarah palin and they have this right in front of their eyes! > > From Dreams of My Father:‘I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.’ > > From Dreams of My Father : ‘I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race.’ > > From Dreams of My Father:‘There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.’ > > From Dreams of My Father: ‘It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.’ > > From Dreams of My Father:‘I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa , that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself , the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.’ > > And FINALLY the Most Damning one of ALL of them!!! > > From Audacity of Hope:‘I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.’ > > - If you have never forwarded an e-mail, now is the time to Do so!!! We CANNOT have someone with this type of mentality running our GREAT nation!! I don’t care whether you are a Democrat or a Conservative. We CANNOT turn ourselves over to this type of character in a President. PLEASE help spread the word ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2008, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/77 "2008-10-29T02:56:48Z")
If elected, Obama will push the country to Warp 10, thereby tearing it apart. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2008, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/78 "2008-10-29T04:40:07Z")
Och, mon, he’s just a presidential candidate. He’s nae a miracle worker! ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2008, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/79 "2008-10-29T05:58:52Z")
> [@lucky\_henry](#): > > It is neither. I don’t care whether it’s a payroll tax or an income tax, it’s still a tax. Either way it results in the person earning the money giving more of it to the government for redistribution. > > I’m honestly not trying to be argumentative, but the mechanism used to “spread the wealth around” should be moot. The fact that he wants to spread it around is (IMHO) the problem. First, you misconstrue the concept Barack Obama was trying to express. It wasn’t that we should take from the rich and spread it around to the poor, but that we should give tax relief to the middle class so that they might have an opportunity to achieve wealth, thereby “spreading wealth around”. Secondly, you’re clearly unfamiliar with history. Try this on for size: > [@](#): > > [Teddy Roosevelt, “Socialist” Advocate of Progressive Taxation](http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/10/teddy-roosevelt-socialist-advo.html) > > On Good Morning America, Joe the Plumber said that it was unfair for someone to have to pay more just because they make more. He called it “socialist,” as do many conservatives. John McCain objected to this spreading the wealth around as being “class warfare.” > > How did this socialist germ – the idea that wealthier people should pay higher taxes – creep into the American bloodstream? Through John McCain’s hero, Theodore Roosevelt. He championed the idea that the rich should not only pay more money but a higher rate, arguing explicitly that it contradicted the spirit of socialism. > > Speaking about a progressive inheritance tax, Roosevelt said; > > "A heavy progressive tax upon a very large fortune is in no way such a tax upon thrift or industry as a like would be on a small fortune. No advantage comes either to the country as a whole or to the individuals inheriting the money by permitting the transmission in their entirety of the enormous fortunes which would be affected by such a tax; **and as an incident to its function of revenue raising, such a tax would help to preserve a measurable equality of opportunity for the people of the generations growing to manhood.** > > . . . > > “But proposals for legislation such as this herein advocated are directly opposed to this class of socialistic theories. Our aim is to recognize what Lincoln pointed out: The fact that there are some respects in which men are obviously not equal; but also to insist that there should be an equality of self-respect and of mutual respect, an equality of rights before the law, and at least an approximate equality in the conditions under which each man obtains the chance to show the stuff that is in him when compared to his fellows.” > > \*\*Roosevelt later also endorsed a progressive income tax: \*\* > > "At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will. At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to **equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value** both to himself and to the commonwealth… > > "No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar’s worth of service rendered?not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. **The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective, a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate."** Would you like to know the history of the Earned Income Tax Credit – the one thing that really does “redistribute wealth”? Here, let me educate you: > [@](#): > > [http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2008/10/work\_and\_the\_earned\_income\_cre.html](http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2008/10/work_and_the_earned_income_cre.html) > > . . . > > As a tax strategy to reduce poverty and its ill effects on the nation, the **EITC was the idea of Richard Nixon, and was signed into law by Gerald Ford** in March 1975. The program has received **broad bipartisan support from its inception** and has been expanded over the years. > > The EITC provides a tax refund to all workers in poverty, who earn less than a certain amount annually–regardless of whether they pay income taxes. The EITC is designed to move people aware from federal welfare assistance and into lives of work. > > . . . > > \*\*Ronald Reagan referred to the EITC as “the best anti-poverty, the best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of Congress.” He increased funding for the effort, as well as the minimum baseline several times. George H. W. Bush expanded the EITC as well. > \*\* > Senator John McCain has been a consistent supporter of the EITC. Last Saturday (October 18, 2008), the Washington Post reported that, “In fact, in **1999, Mr. McCain opposed efforts to change the earned-income tax credit, which gives payments to the working poor, and called it a ‘much-needed tax credit for working Americans.’ And in this campaign, he has proposed to use the tax code to do more such 'wealth-spreading.** ” > > . . . So, explain to me again, in a way that makes sense in reality and historically, how Barack Obama’s tax plan differs from any of the above-mentioned Republican presidents’ and his current opponent, as well as what qualifies it as earning the label “socialist.” ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2008, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802/80 "2008-10-29T14:20:00Z")
tagos writes: \> Moderately right of centre, right of the Conservative Party in the UK. You know, I’ve heard this claim before, but I’ve never believed it. As far as I can see, there’s no way that the average Democratic congressman is to the right of the average Conservative M. P. Can you give us any sense in which that would be true? Please use examples which are about current plans to change things, not about inertia in the political system. I don’t think, for instance, that the fact that the Conservatives were never able to get rid of the National Health System in the U.K. while so far the Democrats haven’t been able to create one in the U.S. shows that Democrats are to the right of the Conservatives. Start a new thread if you think this is getting too far from the subject of this one. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-obama-if-elected-president-tear-this-country-apart/467802.md?page=5)