Well done, President Clinton. Well done.

[troyguitar]

Free speech yo, people can lie all they want. I'm sure these things are checked beforehand, then they make a calculated decision as to whether they're better off telling the truth or saying whatever sounds good.

 

[Konfyouzd]

Seems like a gross misuse of free speech.

A great deal of the voters probably aren't going to check the facts and will listen ONLY to what is said. That + the electoral college makes me sad. With that sort of thing in mind it kind of DOES feel like it might be pointless to vote as they effectively taint the voting well every election.

 

[groph]

TRENCHLORD (as well as a lot of the Republican ilk) have what I call 'Sean Hannity Disorder' where, as soon as somebody sympathizes with the 'other' party, instantly nothing they say is credible, nothing they do is right and you can expect everything they will do is equally stupid/dishonest. Don't disagree with them; hate them because they're the enemy and they're wrong in every way.

That's one of the things I loved about Clinton's speech that I thought 'hit it on the nose'. He gave credit to former Republican presidents and things they did right, as well as nodding to some of the Republicans who had 'a hit put out on them' by the Tea Party for willingness to compromise "with the enemy". You can recognize that, in your opinion, your political ideology produces better results but you don't need to paint everyone the devil.

That's the genetic fallacy and that's one of the things that is poisoning American politics right now. Trench's first post is an example. Yes, Trench I am calling you out but I'm not going to jump on a Trench-hating bandwagon. Though I disagree with you I'll respect an alternative point of view (within reasonable limits).

"Tu quoque" or "You too" is another, it's pretty much a spin-off of the genetic fallacy. It's also a mistake seemingly everybody makes when they argue. Hypocrisy does not override fact in terms of importance.

"Clinton had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky so he can't be credible"

Bullshit. Yeah he did (probably), and that was probably not the smartest thing to do, YES he is a hypocrite but that doesn't mean he is no longer capable of forming a sentence which is factually correct. Doesn't mean he can't accurately or effectively comment on the situation of politics today (I didn't watch the video and I'm not talking about the video) because Monica blew him. If politician X derides politician Y for starting a war, and politician Y counters with "Yeah, well politician X was caught in a tax fraud scandal last year." So what? Politician X's criticism is still totally valid; it doesn't matter who makes the criticism and that's where the genetic fallacy (genetic = origin) comes in.

Republicans and conservatives blame liberals for using ad hominem attacks only which is a giant fucking crock, anybody in politics uses ad hominem and it waters down political discussion into a childish argument. Both sides do it - this is NOT condoning ad hominem because both parties partake in it, lest I fall prey to the ethical fallacy I'm talking about - but turning debate into what it's become just destroys any facade of democracy that was there in the first place. Nobody gives a fuck about politics anymore, the "corrupt, clueless idiot" politician is basically a cultural archetype and that's kind of terrifying. We expect our leaders to be incompetent, childish idiots who point fingers at each other. It's a game.

 

[Painhawg]

Why even bother fussing about Democrats or Republicans? They are one in the same. Every one of them. They all do the same crap and have the same goals. Some are dumber than others and get caught, so what. They rely on the devisiveness that is in the country today. They rely on the party faithful to carry the water and preach to the choir and keeps folks stirred up. They rely on you to hate Bush, and you to hate Obama.

They have no fucking idea how to DO anything. Except to pander. And they troll you guys all the time, and you DON"T EVEN KNOW IT. Wow. THis country sucks because the thoughtless, mindless, shit tossing morons are allowed to vote. Enjoy the fruits of whatever party you support. They saw you coming along time ago.

 

[TemjinStrife]

Why even bother fussing about Democrats or Republicans? They are one in the same. Every one of them. They all do the same crap and have the same goals. Some are dumber than others and get caught, so what. They rely on the devisiveness that is in the country today. They rely on the party faithful to carry the water and preach to the choir and keeps folks stirred up. They rely on you to hate Bush, and you to hate Obama.

They have no fucking idea how to DO anything. Except to pander. And they troll you guys all the time, and you DON"T EVEN KNOW IT. Wow. THis country sucks because the thoughtless, mindless, shit tossing morons are allowed to vote. Enjoy the fruits of whatever party you support. They saw you coming along time ago.

So what do you recommend we do to change this?

After all, while their positions on the political spectrum are similar, the constituencies they represent are dramatically different. Therefore, I would much rather have someone NOT beholden to the Tea Party or anti-choice groups running the country.

 

[renzoip]

So what do you recommend we do to change this?

An American spring, perhaps?

I know it seems unlikely for the time begin, due to the high level of consumerism (killing people's class consciousness), and due to the great level of middle class reaction. But I just think the both factions of the ruling class (Dems and Reps) part of the problem, not part of the solution.

 

[The Reverend]

Explain to me how Democrats and Republicans are similar, please.

I am fucking sick of these claims, mostly heralded by Paul-tards, that there is no difference between both parties. I would like to see an itemized goddamned-fucking list that supports this claim. I see a stark contrast between the two in every key issue, and it seems that there's a lot of people implying or just directly stating that they are very close on some kind of spectrum. Hell, if you removed the fringe element from the aforementioned spectrum, I bet it'd throw off all your B.S.

 

[TemjinStrife]

Well, Obama is center-right in terms of his policy and Romney is far-right in terms of his platform. So, they're not as far apart as one might like.

However, you have pinpointed the fact that most of the Ron Paul supporters (I like to call them Radical Libertarians) are complaining about how they're the same because they don't want to burn the whole system down and let social darwinism govern what remains.

 

[AxeHappy]

They are actually pretty damn close.

The Political Compass - US Presidential Election 2012




Edit: The differences are pretty important though.

 

[The Reverend]

They are actually pretty damn close.

The Political Compass - US Presidential Election 2012




Edit: The differences are pretty important though.

Both links take me to the same bias-heavy article. That article seems to be parading facts without taking into account the context those facts should be backdropped with.

 

[renzoip]

Well, I for one, am not at all into ron paul, or right wing libertarianism for that matter.

For another, both parties are right wing parties, so while they may not have the same exact views on social issues like abortion/gay rights/immigration, both parties do support the one system that allows for the corporate ruling elite (who funds them) to exercise an extremely disproportionate amount of power over government and over workers.

I see that neither party has taken the time to address poverty as a serious issue. Both write it off as just a personal issue that may happen to unlucky or lazy people. Also, I don't see any party discussing the war in Afghanistan. While parties may have different views on the welfare system, they don't address the underlying issue of inequality and how wages are not keeping up with cost of living. Both parties support US military intervention (when/where/how is what they mainly discuss). Both parties unconditionally support the Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain regimes. Both parties try to sell us their own versions of "the war on terror" and "the wart on drugs". Both parties rely on the reactionary ideas like "the american way of life" and nationalists appeal such as "America, the best country in the world" and imperialist propaganda about how the US is a model democracy for the world and how it should go around democratizing every other country. And of course, they both support their two party monopoly over politics.

Granted, this is an opinion of mine, not something I looked up on any other website.

 

[flint757]

Guise, srsly. Getting a blowjob from an intern in the oval office negates any and all good you've ever done as a president. I thought you all knew this.

Trench, please. Stop with the ad hominem attacks. WE GET IT. He got a hummer from a hooker in a business suit. Doesn't change that the vast majority of his time in office was spent doing actual good other than starting pointless, needless wars and causing bloodshed and chaos. Sorry if the lack of death and destruction of actual innocent people displeases you, but for once just admit that you're wrong already. It's okay. Nobody will think less of you if you admit that you're wrong on this. Hell, people might actually respect you more for it.

I do believe we had a war (battle?)during Clinton era. I don't remember to what extent, it certainly isn't to the extent of the last decade, but it existed nonetheless.

Well I know, but I was more concerned with why it's necessary.

The way I envisioned it is this... Someone should check the speech before it's aired and if it's not factual it can't be aired. Allowing it to be aired beforehand allows for unnecessary confusion.

But then they couldn't lie to deceive the masses.

Well, I for one, am not at all into ron paul, or right wing libertarianism for that matter.

For another, both parties are right wing parties, so while they may not have the same exact views on social issues like abortion/gay rights/immigration, both parties do support the one system that allows for the corporate ruling elite (who funds them) to exercise an extremely disproportionate amount of power over government and over workers.

I see that neither party has taken the time to address poverty as a serious issue. Both write it off as just a personal issue that may happen to unlucky or lazy people. Also, I don't see any party discussing the war in Afghanistan. While parties may have different views on the welfare system, they don't address the underlying issue of inequality and how wages are not keeping up with cost of living. Both parties support US military intervention (when/where/how is what they mainly discuss). Both parties unconditionally support the Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain regimes. Both parties try to sell us their own versions of "the war on terror" and "the wart on drugs". Both parties rely on the reactionary ideas like "the american way of life" and nationalists appeal such as "America, the best country in the world" and imperialist propaganda about how the US is a model democracy for the world and how it should go around democratizing every other country. And of course, they both support their two party monopoly over politics.

Granted, this is an opinion of mine, not something I looked up on any other website.

Unlike the republican convention the DNC actually brought up the war and plan for removing the troops, veterans, etc.


There are major policy differences that shouldn't be overlooked. Don't ask, don't tell, affordable healthcare act, just to name a couple things, would have never happened under a republican banner.

 

[Konfyouzd]

I feel like there are too many fundamental flaws in the system before you even get to splitting up ideologies. If they're allowed to lie the way they do publicly then how do we know they even represent the ideals--let alone the ideology--they say?

What if they're all just like Anne Coulter on the Boondocks?

If you haven't seen the episode, essentially Anne Coulter was on some show giving this black guy a really hard time (apparently she's a kinda stuck up lady; I don't know much about her, honestly) and making a lot of borderline offensive ethnic comments.

At the end of it she runs to her black boyfriend and yells at him for looking at "some white bitch..." After that, she goes up to the black guy with whom she was just arguing on national TV and hugs him. They rejoiced in how much they both helped each other's <whatever-the-fuck-they-had-going-on>, so really all the bickering was just some facade to keep people stirred up. In our case it will keep people voting. I wonder if they feel like ppl won't vote unless they think every election is life or death.

 

[hairychris]

Anne Coulter is a malignant, hateful, witch. Uurgh. Yeah, Coulter, invade other countries and convert them to Christianity. I'm sure they'll like that.

Anyway, from outside the US it looks like the Republican party has gone completely BUGFUCK insane at national, state and local level.

I really think that Obama, gasp a non-white man, being elected actually caused a strain of mental illness - or, at least, damaging cognative dissonance - across a whole swathe of the population.

I mean... magic-underwear Romney and lie-about-everything:marathon-times-and-up Ryan as presidential candidate team, the Tea Party (my how we laughed at their many references to Urban Dictionary: teabagging), the whole birther thing, anti-science madness.

If the US wasn't such an influential and powerful country I'd be thinking that it's all the funniest thing ever. It isn't. Fuck.

 

[vampiregenocide]

Why even bother fussing about Democrats or Republicans? They are one in the same. Every one of them. They all do the same crap and have the same goals. Some are dumber than others and get caught, so what. They rely on the devisiveness that is in the country today. They rely on the party faithful to carry the water and preach to the choir and keeps folks stirred up. They rely on you to hate Bush, and you to hate Obama.

They have no fucking idea how to DO anything. Except to pander. And they troll you guys all the time, and you DON"T EVEN KNOW IT. Wow. THis country sucks because the thoughtless, mindless, shit tossing morons are allowed to vote. Enjoy the fruits of whatever party you support. They saw you coming along time ago.

As an outsider, I see there are drastically different fundamental qualities that separate Republicans and Democrats. If I were American, it wouldn't be a difficult choice for me. It sounds like me to be a cop out. 'Oh everyone is bad so I'm not going to get involved'. How about analysing their policies because once you do you'll realise these people have very different ideas that will affect your life in different ways, and it's up to you to decide what is best. Neither might be great, but progress was never made by simply allowing shit to happen.

 

[synrgy]

These candidates could hardly be more different, let alone the parties they represent. There are differences great and small, so numerous we could never list them all here.

Only one candidate has a plan. For anything. The other attacks him for "not having a plan", says he has one, but repeatedly refuses to detail what it could be. One candidate believes that Citizens United should be overturned, the other does not. One believes in women's rights, the other does not. One brews his own beer in The White House, the other can't even drink it.

One party believes that health care is a right, the other thinks it's a privilege. One party supports labor unions, the other subverts them. One is trying to get our troops home, the other seeks to profit from placing them in harm's way..

I could go on for hours, but I'm out of time. ;-)

 

[flint757]

^^Exactly, at the end of the day if your truly independent (or dependent still living with parents) you may not notice, but that is because things don't happen over night and the things that have happened are subtle. One big example for me (as I'm in college and have a pre-existing condition) is that I can be on my parents health care until I'm 26, I believe, and with the affordable health care act even if I lost my insurance it wouldn't matter, as far as the pre-existing condition goes.

Romney has said he wants to appeal these laws and has said that he believes in a continuous coverage pre-existing condition plan (It is what we had before). This is where it is only a problem if you get a lapse in coverage, if it is like it was before you have a month between a lapse in coverage or it goes on your record as pre-existing. This includes cancer patients who are probably having trouble paying their bills and once the coverage is gone there cancer is now officially pre-existing.

It is stuff like this that are truly different and will happen pending on party alignment. This election (with the exception of abortion talk) has a whole lot less BS as far as what they actually intend to do/undo or at least at seems so. Again if you aren't struggling, white, male, independent or still a kid, not gay, healthy etc. you may not notice the things going on, but they are happening. Hell I think if Gore won things would have turned out different from Bush, I don't understand where this idea that it doesn't matter comes from. Even if we pretend they will pass the same laws (and in a perfect world they would actually, compromise) the president has power of appointment which means he can pick people to influence other areas of the government like the Supreme Court. That in itself is a big deal as there is a big difference from a Democratic SCOTUS and a Republican SCOTUS.

 

[AxeHappy]

I don't think anybody is saying they're the exact same, I sure hope not anyways, but from an, "outside the US," viewpoint there are a lot of similarities.

Like I said before, I personally think, the differences that do exist are a pretty huge deal, but there are plenty of similarities. Especially when compared to other countries opposing parties.

 

[Semichastny]

Trying to discrediting each other with insults rather then factual assertion and rational explanations is unhelpful regardless of whether you're trying to undermine someone by calling them a "Liberal", "Socialist", or a "Paul-tard". No one person owns a monopoly on knowledge and treating people with opposing view points as mentally incompetent when you don't have a complete understanding of a situation undermines our democracy. We know there are some people who have no basis to their claims and are spouting hot air. There will always be nuts who wave their signs because our constitutional freedoms allow them to. Nobody with the ability to think critically even in the slightest believes the UN is coming to get us. We know this because there is a lack of factual proof and the story they spout just doesn't add up. However targeting and launching ad hominem attacks against a person who's opinion falls outside of the current discourse enforces a monopoly on knowledge by not just excluding and ignoring the person but by excluding and ignoring their ideas. The process by which someone came up with an idea or answer has no bearing on the answer's legitimacy. Someone saying that 2+2=4 because aliens control the TV doesn't mean 2+2 does not equal 4. We step out of bounds when we refuse to apply critical thinking to ideas that oppose our own or make us uncomfortable for whatever reason. We have no problem pointing out how many of the people who throw the term "Socialist" around don't know what their taking about because we can look at the definition and see it's used out of context, but when we attempt to discredit people by vague references without a firm factual basis we lower themselves to their level because we never really seek to understand what they are saying and the real reasons they believe it. Not everyone who believes 9/11 didn't happen exactly as specified is a crazy conspiracy theorist just the same as not everyone who believes in socialism wants an authoritarian dictatorship with no freedoms.

 

[Varcolac]

Not everyone who believes 9/11 didn't happen exactly as specified is a crazy conspiracy theorist just the same as not everyone who believes in socialism wants an authoritarian dictatorship with no freedoms.

At the risk of invoking the "no true Scotsman" fallacy, I don't think anyone in the modern era who believes in socialism as a political doctrine wants an authoritarian dictatorship. We're kinda past that whole Stalin/Mao thing...