Actually you have to consider 3.5% to be 20%. Alaska produces about 13% of the nation’s oil, but only 3.5% of the nation’s energy.
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/energetically_wrong.html
Perhaps not. But I foolishly supposed that a forum called “Great Debates” might be.
I accept the notion that we need a president who will bring the party and the country back to the conservative principles I consider important: fiscal responsibility, small government, individual rights. Bush was not my candidate of choice in either of the prior Republican primaries–these principles have NOT been the modus operandi of the current administration. This is not the same as saying that Obama is the answer for me. Obama would be another kind of president I’d prefer not to deal with–it’s not the particular change I believe in, thank you. And I reject the notion that the Republican party is fundamentally dishonest or that integrity is the sole province of the Democrats.
Let me word it differently: I don’t even care which party the president belongs to, so long as his administration is in sync with my core beliefs. If Obama, as articulate and charismatic as he is, were for small government; if he respected the fact that people actually own their own wealth, that my money isn’t his to spend because he knows better; if he didn’t have such a propensity to believe that the government’s role is to solve every problem (it isn’t); if he respected the lives of all citizens, including the unborn; and so on–I’d likely vote for him. I don’t care if the Republican party self-immolates tomorrow, so long as I get the kind of government I’d prefer. If Clinton had changed a single position in his platform, I’d likely have voted for him twice. We could have done a lot worse, and he definitely did not spend money like a drunken sailor, unlike the current resident of the White House.
So, when people trot out their overstated beliefs about what liars the Bushies are, I don’t react with a defense so much as apathy, apathy in the sense that I’m not voting for Bush in this election. And when people are shocked and appalled by the sorts of campaign ads and such that they see, I’m amused. I see it from both sides, and it’s all part of the game for me. I don’t have some sort of magic calculator that tells me which side has tripped the dishonesty meter more severely in this campaign. They both have, and I don’t get into a froth over who is worse in that regard. I think they’re both basically honorable men who want what’s best for this country, both playing in a tough game that demands tough tactics if you want to win.
And in the end, I want the president who best serves the interests of the country, as I see them. So, it’s a non sequitur for me when people accuse me of being committed to some monolithic lie machine whose cogs have been turning since the Nixon administration. Ford was a good president. So was Bush 41. As I said, we could have done a lot worse than Clinton. Carter was awful and Bush seems to have made quite a mess. Why do I assess them thusly? It ain’t because of their respective parties. I have been a registered Democrat and a registered Republican at different points in my life–born and raised in Philadelphia where Republicans were (and still are to some extent) as rare as hens’ teeth. I re-registered as a Democrat after the Starr debacle investigating Clinton, something I considered a vile partisan hatchet job. I really don’t operate with Republican DNA; I’m just not that invested in either party in that sense. I just want someone who is committed to the kind of government I want as well.
So I reject out of hand the notion that I’m on the side of lies and evil, in opposition to all that is good and virtuous. That’s a nice, tidy little conflict, easy to conceptualize, but it bears little resemblance to the real world. And, sorry, I don’t get a little “morality twitch” every time someone on this board gets in a lather over an “outrageous lie” such as McCain’s camp saying they heard something, especially with zero evidence that the statement is false.
That’s where we agree to honor the democratic process.
I think we have to take different facets of the arguments at hand and examine them separately. For republican middle income Americans the idea is that they don’t like the government taking the money they worked hard for and giving it to someone the government has decided needs it more. They think people who work hard and make lots of money shouldn’t be penalized by giving an unreasonable percentage of it away while others give little or nothing. Whether we agree or not it’s a valid argument and a necessary discussion. If we blanket attack every republican for the sins of the few in control right now we make that process harder. IMO we must try to find what we have in common with conservative America and stress that. The system is corrupt and we need to try and find a way to fix it together. If we stay divided and try to blame every republican for the sins of the few we only sustain the divide that allows the few to conquer.
Agreed. It also does no good to paint someone as stupid for not agreeing with our assessment of the situation. It stops communication.
One conservative friend says although he doesn’t agree with Bush he thinks he got dealt a very hard historical hand with 9/11 and sincerely did the best he could. I don’t agree at all. I think they’re criminally negligent in their performance of duty and I’ve told him so. What I don’t do is call him a moron for not agreeing with me.
I think lots of republicans have similar ideas.
I told him
“This isn’t a game where we can root for our team and walk away when the game ends. There’s a lot more at stake than that. The future of our nation, our children and grandchildren. Both Democrat’s and Republican’s have to start looking at themselves with the same critical eye they cast on the opposing party and start the process of cleaning up the corruption and dishonesty in Washington.”
We need to convince the average republican that housekeeping is required and sometimes “country first” means voting for the opposition while the housekeeping takes place. We need to show this by being willing to do some housekeeping of our own. If we’re going to decry dishonest republican campaign ads then we must decry the same from our own party.
Really? Cite? I took it as republicans have convinced themselves that the party can correct itself and return to conservative principles without losing the presidency. Again, I don’t agree. McCain will be a continuation of the corrupt few. It’s not a matter of republicans losing. It’s America’s loss, ours and theirs.
Don’t you think the Democrats who abdicated their moral obligation and professional duty so this war could go forward deserve some of the blame? I sure do. I’d like to see every yes vote lose their jobs. That includes Clinton and Biden. I know that’s not realistic but that’s how I feel. Republicans have successfully convinced too many that they are best suited, hard and determined enough, to defend us against the terrorists. Once again I don’t agree , but I realize that the Democrats have done a lousy job of convincing people otherwise. Democratic cowardliness in congress doesn’t help. They have enabled Bush and cronies by their lack of action. They can’t successfully fight corruption while trying to preserve their own.
I just started to do that. I will continue to study it.
No need to drop it. I never said it. I said housecleaning is necessary for both parties, not that it’s the same. The big money game in Washington has to change. That will mean that both democrats and republicans must be willing to support that change or get the fuck out.
That’s where we can find common ground with our conservative neighbors.
When most of the Republicans think that Bush has done a good job, I take that as there being few Republicans with whom I’m ever going to find a reasonable estimation of what is good for America.
Absolutely. But I think that abdication was part and parcel with a gutlessness that prevents them from fully supporting Democratic/liberal ideas. I think this has come about in large measure because Republican voters have supported Republicans no matter what, and the general discussion in this country has gotten to the point of giving the impression that liberal ideas and values are toxic.
You have to be very clear that you are not implying false equivalence. Giving the sense that you feel both parties have done wrong gives Republicans an out.
Do you remember what the big scandal of the Democratically controlled congress in the 1990’s was?
Point taken. IMO we need to acknowledge the emotional aspects of politics since many of the campaign ads seem to try and evoke an emotional response rather than a reasoned one. Once that’s acknowledged perhaps we can try to look at the facts and evidence without all that baggage mucking things up.
So do I. I’d go a step further and say Bush and cronies are republican in name only, for the most part. They represent a different ideology than traditional conservative values. That’s why they and the power brokers that support them need to go. Then we can begin to return to an honest debate about policies and real problem solving. From my other posts you’ll see I recognize some housecleaning is necessary for the Dems as well.
I get this. My take is that you won’t get a return to the principles you support unless we as citizens take steps to reject the dishonesty and corruption in Washington. That may mean rejecting those who give lip service to those principles while their actions oppose them. If we have survived 8 years of Bush we can certainly survive 8 years of an Obama presidency while we clean things up. I don’t think we can have an honest debate on the principles unless we take action to reject the dishonesty and big money influence. I think and/or hope that Obama will be the kind of president who will listen to opposing views in an attempt to find working solutions to problems. These may be compromises you’re not completely happy with but I think they will be superior to the patterns of corruption we’ve been seeing.
I’m very concerned that the power brokers who have supported Bush and steered policy are also supporting McCain and will continue to have too much influence in Washington policy making. I see a pattern of trying to circumvent and dissemble the democratic principles we are supposed to be fighting for. Not by the average republican conservative but by a smaller group that has been controlling the party.
I think the level of dishonesty we’ve defined as acceptable and par for the course in politics is ridiculous. Although both parties have been dishonest, I see a larger pattern of dishonesty and phony image building in the republican party this time around. McCain has changed his position on too many issues for me to have faith in his principles. I welcome an honest debate about social and economic principles but we can’t have it until we insist on a higher level of honesty.
I’ll start with a president who sincerely wants to serve the citizens rather than the small group that supported him economically. I can’t take McCain’s Maverick, straight talk, persona seriously anymore.
btw; the best interests of the country are more than just principles. There’s the reality of how things are right now and how that impacts the lives of real people. Working solutions can be tweaked and improved, but first we need to sincerely address the problems with more than lip service. We are still in the process of finding the right balance of personal responsibility and compassion. That’s an ongoing process.
Then write in Ron Paul. That might help bring some change to the Republican party as well.
I reject those broad generalizations as well. I really don’t think most liberals think that. I do believe they think the differences are stark enough after these last 8 years and polls showing 80% of all Americans think we’re heading in the wrong direction. They wonder, as I do, why Obama seems like a greater risk than the risk of repeating these last 8 years with folks who don’t really support conservative principles anyway.
ftr; that whole “we heard” thing is too trivial to bother with. I agree that that degree of nit picky fault finding isn’t helpful with so many larger issues to address.
It’s not about feeling better to call a politician a liar.
Essentially what you’re asking is why we don’t extend the benefit of the doubt to politicians who tell half-truths. The reason is that we see so many half-truths over the course of a campaign, and so many near-total-falsehoods, that we become intolerant of them. Calling politicians liars for saying things are ever-so-slightly-technically-true-but-mostly-false is a way of demanding that they stop hiding in the grey area between demonstrably true and demonstrably false.
Politicians deliberately use spin and subtle misrepresentations to say two things at once, to attack their opponent deniably, to cause confusion, and because discussion of the misrepresentation itself is an attack.
Look at the recent McCain ad about Obama voting yes in the Illinois legislature on a bill that “would teach kindergarteners about sex before teaching them to read”. The bill’s main thrust was funding education for elementary school students to recognize and avoid sexual predators, and was supposed to be age appropriate. McCain’s ad was in some slight way technically accurate–kindergarteners would learn something about sex. But the intended effect of the ad was to make people think that Obama voted yes on a bill that would have kindergarteners receiving full sex ed, which is manifestly not the case. 1% true, 99% false. And the ad wasn’t trying to seriously make the case, it was merely trying to tar Obama with the charge, and move the discussion onto whether or not he really wants kindergarteners to look at the pictures in the Kama Sutra–rather than discussion of economic policy or McCain’s VP pick.
By your definition of “lie”, we shouldn’t call McCain a liar for that ad, and we should debate his intentions–all of which merely serves the purpose of that attack ad. The way to shut down the attack is to call it a lie–which it is–and turn the attack back on McCain for the gross dishonesty of that attack.
Overall, the more politicians who get tarred with “liar” for using sneaky half-truths to attack their opponents and hide their own positions, the more they’ll be forced to be honest and straightforward. That’s the WHY.
stratocaster, there are two types of voter - the mostly issues voter and the mostly character voter. The issues voter understands what position the candidates take on the issues and votes accordingly. Note that this assumes enough moral fiber on the part of the candidate that you can believe what the candidate is saying about his own intentions; this is what people were saying about Bush 43 - that by running as a moderate, he grossly misrepresented his own intentions wrt many of the issues during the run up to the 2000 election. You are an issues voter. Most of us here are issues voters.
Unfortunately, many issues voters in the wild are either single issue voters (guns, for example), or make their decisions based on extremely low and often mistaken information.
But many voters out in the wild aren’t issues voters. They are character voters, and their evidence for character is very slight. It may come down to something as utterly silly as whether or not a candidate wore a flag lapel pin. Character voting can be a good, sound way to vote, if you’re looking carefully and deeply at the character of each candidate and deciding “this is the kind of person I want to be making critical decisions for my country, such as when to go to war.”
These days, all campaigns work very hard to make both their opponents’ positions on the issues and their characters look as unappealing as possible, while representing their own as shiny golden. But with the advent of Karl Rove and his operatives, the Republicans have in the past ten years gone far beyond what we had been accustomed to in the latter half of the twentieth century. Maybe it’s because the low information voter has become even less critical and thus more gullible, or maybe it’s just the genius and nerve of the man himself, but one thing it’s not is accident. These have been exaggerations, distortions, and outright lies, not errors.
Actually it’s less benign than that. If you go to McCain’s website, the multi-media section, and choose the one called “education,” you’ll see that this program is described as “comprehensive sex education.” That is a lie.
ETA: The voice-over is saying what you describe. But the ‘headline’ quote they’re flashing (which may relate to something completely different, for all I know) is what I’m saying.
Yeah, I can see that. I suppose they are like my friend who justify it by thinking it was just a hard time historically. Whew!! Still, I think we need to make the effort to find some common ground and I’m hoping that stressing a return to more honesty and less money influence in both parties might serve that purpose. I find my conservative friends agree with me on that issue. Even though we may not understand why republicans think that way about Bush {I don’t} we might still find some basics we can agree on. I maintain it’s necessary to establish those in order work together to protect our democracy. Rather than, “I want Democrats to win because we’re great and Republicans suck” I want Democrats to win because at this time in history it’s the change in direction that’s best for all Americans" We need to still honor the democratic process, and in fact root out those who are willing to corrupt it regardless of party.
Sounds a little lame I know, but I think it’s important to make it less about party loyalties and a team sport and make it about the patriotism and love of country we can all identify with.
I think we need to specifically understand what the liberal principles are that conservative moderates object to and address them directly. IMO Democrats stress helping the less fortunate and people who are hurting {that’s a good concept} but they do not directly address the issue of personal responsibility which concerns a lot of people. Obama has begun to do this in some conversations and speeches but doesn’t address it enough IMO.
I don’t believe it does. There is no equivalence and I’m quick to say so. At the same time I don’t present the Dems as blameless because they’re not. I encourage the republicans to get rid of the power brokers who have hijacked their party and return to an honest debate about issues with the goal of real problem solving. To that end I recognize the flaws in the Democrats and am willing to work on correcting those.
If someone is a thief, that doesn’t provide an out for a murderer.
No. You don’t mean Bill’s indiscretion do you?
One of Obama’s primary messages from back when he was a community organizer was and continues to be personal responsibility. He is by no means an advocate of sitting around waiting for rescue; rather the contrary. I think it’s one of the reasons the African American old guard is not all that enamored of him. He’s not angry enough, doesn’t want to punish white America enough, take from them and give to the AA community. He sees the issue as poor vs. rich, rather than black vs. white.
Obama doesn’t want to give people fish. He wants to teach them to fish. He may have to give them a few fish while they’re learning.
(I hate fish!)
In The West Wing, when Bartlett is considering revealing his MS to the electorate, he’s conflicted. Sam Seaborne says about something unrelated “We shouldn’t be casual about the truth.” That cuts through Bartlett’s internal evasions and convinces him to be, not just honest, but open about it.
That really gets at the heart of the matter: politicians are habitually “casual” about the truth. They say things artfully, and for specific (dishonest) effect. They communicate in a way that allows them to say “strictly speaking, I said X; you’re the one who concluded Y” when it was obviously their intention for you to conclude Y.
If the media made a habit of going after politicians for this in general the way they’ve gone after McCain/Palin in the last two weeks, it would improve the political discourse immeasurably. If campaigns had to worry about everything coming out of their mouths being analyzed for how much spin it contains and rated on a Pinocchio meter, the electorate would have far better information on which to make their choices. This is the great failing of the media in the last couple decades: They’ve forsaken their adversarial role with politicians in exchange for access.
Let me ask the OP a question: If a politician says something, knowing that it will likely be misinterpreted to the politician’s benefit, is that a lie, even if the strictest reading of what they said is true?
Ain’t that the truth! It would be great if the media continued to do its job, on both sides!
And what a great question! I’ll add this one to it: if a someone implies something so strongly that a third grader would get it, but doesn’t actually state an untruth, is that a lie? I have to catch myself from tripping over those not infrequently, and I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve used that technique myself.
Myself, I would say that while these are technically not lies, they deserve all the opprobrium associated with lies, and that lie is as good a shorthand term for them as any other. “Intentionally untrue misrepresentation or implication” is a bit cumbersome.
No. The big scandal, which the Republicans gnashed many teeth over, was that a bunch of members of the house overdrew their House checking accounts!
That’s it. Contrast that with what we got over the past decade.
You know, I started to make fun of that as a minor issue, and then stopped, realizing that, dammit, that should be a huge issue! I wish it could be our huge issue, but nowadays I suspect it would meet with yawns. What a difference a decade and a half makes.
Oh yeah. It was a bit more complicated than that wasn’t it? No real comparison at all to what’s been going on though.
I’ve heard several people talk about UNC and other liberal agenda using the term. “He’ll ruin this country” and I wonder where they’ve been for the past eight years. Abuse of power and influence seem rampant and in direct opposition to democratic principles and safeguards.
Where does Chapel Hill come into it? 
Thats UHC I mean :o
And for a second I’m going “University of new Hampshire Concord?” before realizing that a) New Hampsire has an N in there, b) Concord is in Vermont, and c) you meant Universal Health Care. :smack:
cosmodan, we’ll disagree, but yours is certainly a thoughtful position. I simply can’t envision Obama advancing anything but the standard party orthodoxy. It’s what got him to where he is, it’s what he’s running on, and he has no real record of ever voting against his base at his own political risk. I take him at his word, he’s going to try to push through what he said he would.
I’ve thought about this.
Stratocaster, I think you’re right in that Obama will be primarily Democratic in the positions he takes, although the events of this week will change things to an extent - we just don’t know yet what the ramifications are going to be yet. But in hopes of reassuring you as well as honest belief, I’ll tell you that I think you’ll find him to be much more moderate than you expect. Despite all the hullabaloo, I have the idea that he’s really pretty moderate - much more a Bill Clinton without zipper problems than a Walter Mondale. That is probably too far left for your preference, but I hope it relieves your fears of the worst.