I would say the Democrats WILL enact the Assault Weapons Ban again. Obama’s own site says he and Biden want to make it permanent, and with a Democratic Congress, it will probably happen: http://origin.barackobama.com/issues/urban_policy/#crime-and-law-enforcement
Thank god we’ll have the Clinton gun ban back again so the rash of bayonettings will stop.
Most telling is that Bricker writes ‘could’.
I agree with shodan and Bricker. It’s one to say “I think you are wrong” It’s another thing to say “No reasonable person could possibly think as you do” or “there is absolutely no evidence supporting your position”
For the most part, I see this second attitude coming from what I call the “Religious Left.”
Do you honestly not see that a country full of idiots that voted for GWB twice would not vote for McCain? Seriously!
Probably a point about Buckley, though I should point out that the editors of the National Review have a right to control the content of their magazine. And while they are tolerant of a pretty wide diversity of opinion within the conservative movement, that probably doesn’t extend to endorsement of a liberal for president.
Hitchens, though, has never been a conservative - he started out on the far left and while his views have become somewhat iconoclastic over the years, he still calls himself a socialist. To see him slamming McCain and Palin isn’t a particular shock - especially since his favorite targets are those of a religious bent.
Anyone who votes for a personality gets what they deserve.
Votes should be provided to the candidate whose platform shares their core beliefs.
Democrats core beliefs:
Higher taxation
More government oversight
Increased business taxes & oversight burden.
Higher payments in entitlement programs
Void the 2nd amendment-right to bare arms
Life begins at birth
Immigrants? The more the merrier!
Socialization of government
Republicans core beliefs:
Less taxation
Less government oversight
Decreased business taxes & oversight burden
Decreased payments in entitlement programs
Support the 2nd amendment-right to bare arms
Life begins at conception
Immigrants? Let’s get our people to work first!
Capitalism over Socialization
In summation, if I own a small business or work for a living I would support the republicans.
If I was retired, too lazy to work or disabled and counted on a mail box income I would support the democratic candidate.
Neither candidate says anything prior to the election: Obama says ‘Change’ Change what? A dictatorship is a change? Fascism is change?
McCain says he is a Maverick. Hitler was a maverick.
The point is these politicians say nothing that can offend anyone prior to the election. Obama is a gifted orator. Listen to him hold people spellbound for an hour and say nothing of substance. McCain likes to attack. But what he says about his opponent says little about himself.
About the war. Who likes war? Lincoln was abhorred by many in the North and he was so afraid of being voted out of office that he told his generals to ignore casualties and take riskier engagements just to accelerate the end of the war so that a successor would not negotiate a settlement that would divide the country.
Ask any school child and they’ll tell you that today Lincoln is regarded as one of Americas greatest heroes. Far cry from when he sent armed soldiers firing down the streets of New York – plunging his approval rating lower than Bush’s.
Whatever you want to believe the war in Iraq is being won. The streets of Detroit hold more risk now. If in twenty years we have a solid democracy dead center in the Middle East instead of a dictatorship offering a sanctuary for terrorist training camps, perhaps Bush will be seen in a different light by your grandchildren.
The true sign of a hero is adhering to your core beliefs even when it is not popular.
Pesse (Vote your conscious.) Mist
What does “winning” the Iraq war even mean, Pessemist? At what point is it OK to leave? We got Saddam. Iraq has a government. Iraq is safer than Detroit now, so why can’t we go home yet?
While this is kind of true, Hitchens’ relentlessly trenchant and oblique position over the last 8 years expresses a clear and unambigous apologia for the Iraq war and neo-conservative foreign policy. He is the ultimate single issue voter, as he freely admits, and as such has been prepared to underwrite just about any quasi-theocratic conservative bedfellow as long they confirm his own narrative of recent history and take the most outwardly muscular stance against Islamism.
At the core, he may be a broader anti-theist, but his contemporary attacks on the right amount to tokenism compared to his overwhelmingly one-eyed view of the unbridled moral certainty of the war on terror. That his new single-issue approach happens to align with some past Marxian affinities, like his solidarity with the Kurds, is just icing on the cake of his solipsist slide into the moral narcissism and triumphalism of neo-conservatism.
Given this, he is a natural fit for McCain camp. Indeed, were he not almost completely isolated and continually caught out at a complete loss as to how to explain the current trajectory of American politics, going from the victory of the Democratic Congress to the Obama Presidency, which completely contradicts his visceral rejection of their critiques of the war, I very much doubt he would have endorsed Obama. Palin is just a convenient excuse to not to be caught naked again, and his latest column reeks of that shallowness.
Well, golly gee whiz, I can’t for the life of me figure out where on the political spectrum you fall. :rolleyes:
The answer is obvious. The war in Afghanistan has not been won yet.
If we left today the insurgents would roll back over the border tomorrow.
Even Lincoln left forces in the south for quite some time to organize rebuilding.
There is also the threat of Iran who covets Iraq’s land.
There is also the very real concern that it is extremely hard, if almost impossible, to ‘bestow’ a working democracy instantly on a population accustomed to authoritarian rule.
Democracy (or, more precisely, a representative republic) allows power to flow upward FROM the people. This is precisely opposite of what Saddam’s people are accustomed to.
It will take some time and oversight to make sure they are well on their way to understanding the checks and balances necessary for a functioning democratic government.
Will they succeed? I dunno but Iraq is the seat of the very first city state ever to form in history. It seems a shame that their political system has not evolved further than it has by this point in time.
There is also the concern that another war between Israel and Iran is almost a certainty. This complicates the immediate future.
Pesse (We’ll see) mist
For the record I’m a liberal, and I have no problem with bare arms.
Well put.
I third this. I found Cecil many years ago, did some lurking here over the years, and paid my membership dues last year. I love debate, and was hopeful that I had found a decent place to discuss the things that are important to me politically - everything from great issues like the role of government in a democracy to the problems with Hilary’s pantsuits.
Oh well - the level of American political discourse on the Dope at this time is a joke, with maybe two or three people on the left interested in discussing anything. The rest just want to score points. For Christ’s sake - the debate threads should be in Cafe Society, as they are devoid of anything but random jabs at McCain and general shrill comments. Imagine me - the first person to start a debate about policitics and/or religion at the drop of a hat - staying out of political threads!
Way to fight ignorance, Dopers. I’m disappointed in you…
Thankfully, there’s only a few weeks to go.
You haven’t started a single thread in Great Debates. If you want to debate a political issue, that’s usually how to start.
“Telling” of what?
Pray tell.
I think it’s a reasonable question to ask why one should vote for McCain, given the high percentage of the McCain campaign consisting of “Vote for McCain because Obama is a bad person”.
I was hoping for some positive reasons to consider why I should vote for McCain in this thread but apart from a reasonable discussion of nuclear power the rest of it seems to be:
So. If I can get back to the letter of the OP (if not its alleged spirit), can someone please give me a reason to vote for McCain.
Not a reason not to vote for Obama. Not a reason why other, dumber people might vote for McCain. No, I want a reason why I, a registered independent, should seriously consider giving my vote to McCain. What is he offering?
For one, McCain won’t increase taxes on business as much as Obama seems to want to. It’s already hard enough for US companies to compete, since salaries are so high in the US. Corporate tax rates are already about 35%. IMO, taxing companies more will have a “trickle down” effect of higher prices and less jobs.
And it always amuses me to see criticism of oil companies making record profits. What hardly anyone mentions is the oil companies are also paying record taxes, and that many many Americans own a piece of oil companies through their investments and/or retirement accounts. When Obama criticizes McCain for giving oil companies tax breaks, I wish McCain would mention this, and the fact that probably a lot of the tax breaks Obama are mentioning are general tax breaks, not specifically for oil companies.
Obama wanting to “spread the wealth” scares me quite a bit.
The reason McCain’s tax plan will not work is because it is not fixing the larger economic problem we have in this country, which is nearly unregulated spending and growth. I don’t have a cite for that, but McCain is not thinking in the larger scheme of things, Obama says some of his programs will sting a little, but it’s like hydrogen peroxide on a wound, it stings a little, cleans the wound and promotes healing. Which is why Obama will be raising some of the taxes for some of the businesses.
Oh, someone who believes passionately in the ‘right to bare arms’ certainly has an opinion that concerns me.
-Joe
Which of those businesses are healthy enough to take on a higher tax load at this time? Utilities and healthcare, maybe.