electoral-vote.com

[Storm]

taking away women's right to birth control, etc.

Is this some particular statement I haven't heard about?  Or is this just a colorful way of describing the position that insurers shouldn't be mandated to pay for contraception?

If so, I'm at a loss as to why I want government forcing my insurance company to pay for anything that's not a catastrophic expense.  That's not what "insurance" is for.  (I of course like this being an option, but a mandate is just more meddling that I don't need.)  Casting this as a "women's issue" seems like just one more way that big government justifies itself, whether it be in the "War on Terror", the "War on Drugs", or opposing the "War on Women".

Birth control is just a prescription medication.  If we allow the government to come in and tell us which prescription drugs we may or may not take based on one political party's religious preference, we might as well give up a lot of other freedoms as well.  It's a pretty slippery slope - you start by saying "no 16 year old girls should get free contraception from the government," which some reasonable people might agree with, and then you end up with your health insurance denying coverage to your wife that just suffered from miscarriage.

In the end, a bunch of old white men really have no business making healthcare decisions for women, and it's pretty shocking to me that this subject is even up for debate in 2012.

[Pointedstick]

Birth control is just a prescription medication.  If we allow the government to come in and tell us which prescription drugs we may or may not take based on one political party's religious preference, we might as well give up a lot of other freedoms as well.  It's a pretty slippery slope - you start by saying "no 16 year old girls should get free contraception from the government," which some reasonable people might agree with, and then you end up with your health insurance denying coverage to your wife that just suffered from miscarriage.

But that's not what was actually happening. The whole manufactured brouhaha came from Obama attempting to force insurers to add birth control to the list of medications they were required by law to cover under their prescription drug plans. Nobody was trying to deny anyone anything. This was NOT an example of the government saying, "okay, now birth control is illegal", or "okay, now you insurers CAN'T cover birth control", or even "okay, now you can't use Medicaid to get birth control" or anything like that at all.

Birth control is generally so cheap that simply purchasing it yourself is an option for anyone. Condoms are like a buck apiece, and Planned Parenthood gives 'em out for free by the bucketload. When my wife was using The Pill--without insurance I might add, purchasing it on the free market--it cost between 10 and 15 dollars a month. What I find amazing is that there was a push in the first place to make insurers cover the cost of these inexpensive, easily available products. There was no market failure here!

[Ad Orientem]

The issue is not whether someone has a right to buy birth control. The issue is whether that someone has the right to demand that we all pay for their birth control and in particular a church that believes BC is immoral. I happen to disagree with the Roman Church's hardcore position on BC. But it is their position and presumably anyone going to work for them would know this. If you go to work for the Southern Baptist Convention no one is going to tell you that you can't have a beer in your home. But don't expect the SBC to pay for your liquor stash.

Same principal.

[Pointedstick]

Reub, Perhaps that individual poll is biased, but it is really possible that ALL of them are biased in the same way? When you aggregate hundreds of polls together, the picture still doesn't point to a big Romney win.



http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pol ... y-vs-obama

I don't think Romney can't win. He may very well win, and the trend in that graph is actually positive for him, in general. He could also get a big boost if the economy keeps crumbling. But if the election were held today, it's hard to find a lot of data that point to a Romney presidency.

[MediumTex]

I'm sticking to my guns here. I think that Romney can win and win big.   

Washington Post's latest poll (also a biased source) now has Obama/Romney at 49/48 among likely voters so I guess Romney has gained 4 or 5 points in the last 4 days, assuming he ever was behind. I believe that Romney is probably up by about 3 points in reality. I think that Florida, N. Carolina, Virginia, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Iowa are all within his grasp. Obama had a look of desperation about him at the Convention. Expect his cronies to pull out all of the dirty tricks possible very soon.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ ... story.html

You may be right.

This might be a Republican version of Truman in 1948.

[MediumTex]

Or a Democratic version of Jimmy Carter.

What do you mean?

Are you just talking about a one-term President?

If Obama loses I would say he is more like a Democratic version of George H.W. Bush--"It's the economy stupid."

[MediumTex]

You may be right.

This might be a Republican version of Truman in 1948.

Also, alot can happen/change in two months.  Have a look at electoral-vote.com's graph of electoral vote count in 2008.

Absolutely.

With Mitt Romney, though, I just haven't detected much of a killer political instinct.  Maybe we will see it in the debates.

[Pointedstick]

You may be right.

This might be a Republican version of Truman in 1948.

Also, alot can happen/change in two months.  Have a look at electoral-vote.com's graph of electoral vote count in 2008.

Absolutely.

With Mitt Romney, though, I just haven't detected much of a killer political instinct.  Maybe we will see it in the debates.

I think that's his biggest problem. He just can't pander in a convincing way.

[D1984]

Obama is like Carter in many ways. Radical, unabashedly leftist. Gasoline crisis. Iran situation unhandled. Economy in shambles. However Carter was a harder worker and less deceitful. He was also much further ahead in the polls at this time of the race, if you believe them.

I'm not sure whether Obama will win or lose (I still consider it too close too call....a lot can change in two months) regardless of what the polls say but I don't see how you can call Obama OR Carter "radical and unabashedly leftist." Obama's actions (many of which were decidedly non-leftist) have already been dealt with earlier in this thread but how exactly was Carter some wild-eyed radical lefty? He cut capital gains taxes, appointed Volcker to the Fed, signed legislation that deregulated airlines, trucking, bank interest rates, and railroads (and begin the process of deregulating natural gas prices), initiated many non-lefty, non-peacenik military policies (bringing back draft registration, the MX missile, Trident SLBM, aiding the mujahideen in their fight with the Soviets, sending aid to the Contras, the beginnings of the armed forced buildup that Reagan got credit for, the Carter doctrine that all but stated we would go to war in the middle east to protect our oil supplies, etc....he did in all fairness cancel the B-1A but its mission profile was already nearly obsolete by that point in time and in hindsight the B-52 with cruise missiles or even iron bombs was and is probably more cost effective for most of our bombing missions since then), boycotted the 1980 Olympics and and ended what was left of detente in protest of what the USSR did in Afghanistan, and sent military forces in an (admittedly failed) attempt to rescue the hostages.

What do you think he (or alternatively, a President Ford or President Reagan had they been in office at the time) should have done? A full scale invasion of Iran? If that is the case and Carter was a "lefty" for not doing so in response to their taking Americans hostage, then what does that make Reagan for "cutting and running" by withdrawing almost all of our ground troops (and letting the French of all people carry out most of the air strikes in response! ) from Lebanon after the 1983 bombing?

Look, I'm not arguing that Carter was a great or even good President (although much of the economic problems he had to contend with were inherited or made worse by actions-or inactions-that had happened under Johnson, Nixon, and Ford) but he was NOT the radical leftist socialist you seem to imply he was and neither is Obama. Do you get any of your news or information from places besides Fox and WorldNetDaily?

[Ad Orientem]

I'll stick with Obama because it is so fresh. Would you consider pitting the "middle class" (proletariat) against the "rich" (bourgeoisie) sort of leftist? What about railing against business and capitalism? What about adding tens of millions to government dependency? Do any of these sound like leftist themes?

The Obama administration's policies would be considered very right-wing in almost any other developed country. The problem is not that the Democrats are radical leftists, it's that the GOP has fallen into the hands of the radical right. And they are attempting to redefine left-wing extremism. It is worth recalling that Obamacare is just the GOP's health care plan from the early 90's with a few minor tweeks.

But rhetoric aside I see no real differences between this president and his predecessor. Back in '08 my liberal friends gravely warned me that if I voted for John McCain that we would end up with George Bush's third term.

They were right. I did, and we did.

[D1984]

I'll stick with Obama because it is so fresh. Would you consider pitting the "middle class" (proletariat) against the "rich" (bourgeoisie) sort of leftist? What about railing against business and capitalism? What about adding tens of millions to government dependency? Do any of these sound like leftist themes?

Reub, EVERY politician (at least in recent memory) to some extent pits one group against another one as an electoral strategy. That's classic in-group/out-group characterization designed to rally one's own people and make the "other side" look bad. From an electoral standpoint, why not pit the "middle class" against the "rich" (the Republicans use class too.....they just do it in a cultural rather than economic manner)? The middle/lower class has (sat least since the late 70's) in fact been getting a lesser share of our economy's gains while the top 1% and 0.1% have gotten a greater share. Wages have failed to keep pace with productivity increases for roughly the same amount of time. The Federal tax rate paid by many who make millions or billions is less than what quite a few in the lower-middle class pay. While the causes of and solutions to this may be seen rather differently by different people (mine would differ from yours and I'm pretty sure both of ours would differ from President Obama's) the fact that this has happened is pretty inescapable so I don't consider it leftism per se as much as simply pointing out reality.

As far as "railing against business and capitalism" what has Mr. Obama said besides the "you didn't build that" remark (which IMO was as unfairly interpreted by the mainstream media as was Mitt Romney's "I like to fire people" comment....I don't believe either meant it as they were accused of meaning it) and the occasional chastising of Wall Street? What he has SAID to them pales in comparison to how little he has actually DONE to them.

Finally, why exactly does Obama deserve all or even most of the "credit" for adding millions to food stamps/UIC/TANF/Medicaid etc? The proximate reason most of these people are on benefits is because they have no job. Well, the reason for THAT is because the economic crash which Obama did NOT cause (to be fair, he hasn't really helped SOLVE it either but how much of that is his fault vs the "hell no you can't" obstruction of the opposition is debatable). He also did not create these programs; they were all in place for years/decades before he even took office and were designed (in "automatic economic stabilizer" fashion) so that as the economy slumped and unemployment mounted more people would be on them. If you want to blame someone for that, blame those who created these programs in the first place.

Just to be clear, I won't be voting for Obama (or Romney, for that matter...although since I live in a non-swing state that is a pretty solid Republican lockdown in the Electoral college it wouldn't matter anyway) but I fail to see how so many on the right can blame him for everything under the sun whether or not it was clearly his fault, perhaps his fault, not his fault, or no way in hell it even could have been his fault. I just don't get it.

[MediumTex]

I think that some people just have an intense personal dislike for Obama, just like people have had intense personal dislikes for the two presidents who came before him.

This personal dislike seems to make it impossible to see anything good in anything that these men do.  

My own perspective is that I have a mild dislike for all major party politicians, and this mild dislike helps me to see that most of what politicians do is hypocritical, dishonest and self-serving, but occasionally politicians from both parties do things that are useful, helpful and occasionally insightful.

I don't like Obama, but I think that extending the Bush tax cuts and adding the payroll tax cuts on top of those tax cuts were pretty good policy moves to make in our current economic situation.  Similarly, I think that the bin Laden raid was a gutsy call that turned out well and Obama probably deserves a little credit for that decision.

If I knew more about Romney's tenure as governor of Massachusetts I might be able to form a more nuanced opinion of him.  As it is, I am aware that he supported the Massachusetts health care reform plan, which makes it hard to understand how he can object to Obamacare now with a straight face.  I am also aware that he is unlikely to carry Massachusetts in November, which is (IMHO) a bad sign.  If the people from your home state don't think enough of the job you did as Governor to vote for you as President, what would make the rest of the country think that it should vote for you?

I really wish that Santorum or Gingrich was the nominee.  I feel like one of those guys could give Obama a better challenge.

Reub, are you really that big a fan of Romney, or do you just dislike Obama that much?  As I have said before, I just don't think that Romney does that much for people either way.  He is neither especially likeable nor especially unlikeable.  He just has a pleasant blandness about him that makes me sort of sleepy.

As bland candidates go, I think that Dole in 1996 was better than Romney in 2012.  

If I had my personal preference I would probably want to see Romney elected, but given how George W. Bush did almost the exact opposite of what he campaigned on once in office, there is a part of me that thinks that the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know.  The fact that the Republicans are basically in control of Congress also makes me less uneasy about an Obama re-election and more uneasy about the prospects for a Romney election.  I don't like the same party controlling the White House and Congress.

[Ad Orientem]

Bob Dole is high on my list of "shoulda been" presidents along with Bob Taft and Tom Dewey.

[Storm]

I really appreciate all of the nuanced opinions here.  It is frankly, quite remarkable that most people who have admittedly voted R for many years can appreciate the benefit of having a split government across the 3 branches.

Now, my personal opinions must come out - I believe that in 20 years or less, we will look back on this time and wonder why one party wanted to discriminate against a class of people; gays and lesbians.  This will be the civil rights march of our generation.  I also believe that healthcare and education (through college even) should be a universal right, and that countries that do not offer these services will fall behind the rest of the world in GDP and economic growth.

What I think we are seeing in the US is a demographic change... The voting population is increasingly non-white, non heterosexual, and younger and more likely to believe in the same principles I believe in.

The greedy part of me thinks that a 0% capital gains tax would be a nice thing, however, the pragmatic part of me realizes that if we extinguish the middle class and only rich and poor remain, nobody will be able to buy the products that drive the economy of the US.  Even Henry Ford understood that he needed to pay his auto workers enough to afford the cars he made, or else he wouldn't have much of a market to sell his products to.  Our capitalist race to the bottom fails to acknowledge that if you do succeed in lowering wages enough to effectively kill the middle class, you've also killed your customer base and your business has a limited time to live.

[Pointedstick]

Why do you think that Obama is the devil you know? I believe that you haven't seen the real Obama unleashed yet.Just remember what he promised Putin about having more flexibility after the election.  I think it is easily possible that we will not recognize this country four years from now if he is reelected. And it will not be for the better.

If the Reub of 2008 had been able to peer forward to today, do you think he would not recognize the country four years from when Obama was elected?

[MediumTex]

Why do you think that Obama is the devil you know? I believe that you haven't seen the real Obama unleashed yet.Just remember what he promised Putin about having more flexibility after the election.  I think it is easily possible that we will not recognize this country four years from now if he is reelected. And it will not be for the better.

You don't think that a Republican Congress would have something to say about that?

Congress controls everything, if they want to.

A President can sign all the executive orders he wants, but if Congress doesn't appropriate money to pay for it, nothing will happen.

I appreciate your concern, but I just don't think that Obama II would be that different from Obama I, except that he will have a harder time with Congress during a second term than he did during his first term.

[MediumTex]

Why do you think that Obama is the devil you know? I believe that you haven't seen the real Obama unleashed yet.Just remember what he promised Putin about having more flexibility after the election.  I think it is easily possible that we will not recognize this country four years from now if he is reelected. And it will not be for the better.

If the Reub of 2008 had been able to peer forward to today, do you think he would not recognize the country four years from when Obama was elected?

From my perspective, healthcare reform is the only one that Obama got by the goalie.  Everything else has been pretty predictable.

The payroll tax cut was a nice surprise that I hadn't expected.

I was also very impressed that we actually left Iraq.  I figured that would be another Korea-type arrangement where we stayed more or less permanently.

[Pointedstick]

I also believe that healthcare and education (through college even) should be a universal right, and that countries that do not offer these services will fall behind the rest of the world in GDP and economic growth.

The underlying principle that I'm hearing is that you believe that our antiquated and failing health care and education systems will disadvantage us going forward. Honestly, I don't think you'll find much objection! But I must be contrarian and ask you whether it's just a coincidence that the systems that always seem most urgently in need of reform are the ones wholly or partially controlled by the government.

I wonder if health care and education were as inexpensive and available as food, whether people would petition the government to provide them for free to everyone. In other worse, isn't this "health care and higher education are universal rights" argument just another way of saying that those goods and services are too expensive? If the market provided them at reasonable prices to all, would there really still be a problem for the government to attempt to solve?

Here's a plan: let's all try to work together to make education and health care better, cheaper, and more widely available, and then once we've done that, then we can revisit it and see how important is is for the government to provide it for free to everyone.

[Storm]

Healthcare and private education in our country are largely privatized.  In other industrialized countries, healthcare and education are much less expensive and have better outcomes (in medical results and test scores).

So, actually, I would have to disagree and say that this is a failure of the private market.

We need to acknowledge that there are some things, such as healthcare for seniors and education for K-12, that will never turn a profit.  In that case, private for-profit industry simply will not provide the same level of service as we can get through government spending.  If you doubt this, simply look at healthcare outcomes and math/reading/science scores for students in the US vs. those in Europe and Asia.

[Pointedstick]

Healthcare and private education in our country are largely privatized.  In other industrialized countries, healthcare and education are much less expensive and have better outcomes (in medical results and test scores).

So, actually, I would have to disagree and say that this is a failure of the private market.

This doctor sees it differently: http://www.truecostofhealthcare.org/

You also might ask WiseOne sometime. She is a doctor and has expressed very similar views. The health care and insurance industries are largely hobbled, crippled markets. The government forbids insurers to compete across state lines, tells them what they can and cannot sell and to whom, and dictates their maximum profit margin. Doctors must become licensed by a private agency with a government-granted monopoly, which chronically keeps the supply of doctors low relative to demand. Let's not pretend that health care is some kind of shining beacon of the free market.

Same goes for education, where K-12 is nationalized, and higher education is half nationalized, half extensively subsidized and regulated! Again, this is not a healthy market we're talking about.

We need to acknowledge that there are some things, such as healthcare for seniors and education for K-12, that will never turn a profit.

Never? It's impossible? Nobody will ever figure out a way?

[Ad Orientem]

Does this sound more like Jimmy Carter?

9/11/2012: American Killed, Consulate Burned, Embassy Overrun; U.S. Apologizes

This actually happened today in the country where Obama led from behind.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012 ... ate-Attack

IMHO it's remotely possible that these people would not hate us quite so much if we did not spend so much time invading their countries, dropping bombs on them or propping up corrupt dictators. I read today that Israel is demanding the US issue an ultimatum to Iran. I have little doubt how that would be answered if Romney or any of the other GOP candidates were in office. The bombs would probably already be raining down. Most of them expressed dismay during their GOP debates that we had not already attacked Iran.

God save us from these neo-con war mongers.

I think the whole left vs right paradigm is beginning to crumble, the true axis is toward liberty or toward tyranny and both the left and the right can go in either direction! government is the prime mover toward tyranny, why does government always lead to more government "because it is in it's nature" (like the scorpion hitching a ride on the frog, the frog will get stung). Individuals are the prime mover toward liberty (i desperately hope that it is in our nature), so regardless of your left/right views.. as an individual you must ask your self not whether the left view/solutions or the right view/solutions are superior.... but do the views and solutions i propose and i hold - lead toward liberty or tyranny..

[MediumTex]

Can we turn it down a notch?

I like the discussion.  I just don't want it to get too noisy.

Thanks.

[MediumTex]

Does this sound more like Jimmy Carter?

9/11/2012: American Killed, Consulate Burned, Embassy Overrun; U.S. Apologizes

This actually happened today in the country where Obama led from behind.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012 ... ate-Attack

IMHO it's remotely possible that these people would not hate us quite so much if we did not spend so much time invading their countries, dropping bombs on them or propping up corrupt dictators. I read today that Israel is demanding the US issue an ultimatum to Iran. I have little doubt how that would be answered if Romney or any of the other GOP candidates were in office. The bombs would probably already be raining down. Most of them expressed dismay during their GOP debates that we had not already attacked Iran.

God save us from these neo-con war mongers.

One of the things that has surprised me about Obama is the extent to which he basically picked up where Bush left off in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It's sort of like Nixon did in running against Vietnam in 1968 and then basically increasing the U.S. commitment after he was elected.  Isn't that what Obama did in Afghanistan?

Between the drone strikes, the action in Libya and other stuff in northeast Africa that we don't even know about (we just know that it's generating a lot of U.S. casualties, whatever it is), and his willingness to invade other countries to assassinate certain individuals (e.g., Osama bin Laden in Pakistan) I would say that Obama has quite a neo-conish flavor to his foreign policy.  Does anyone disagree?

When it comes to Iran, don't forget that the Stuxnet virus was almost certainly a joint U.S./Israel action and that was a very aggressive act.  There was also the targeted assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, which must have had U.S. approval.  Those are just a couple of things that we know about.  I don't think Obama is any slouch when it comes to Iran or to killing undesirables in general.

Contrast Obama's foreign policy to Jimmy Carter's, under which no U.S. troops were deployed anywhere to do anything of a hostile nature (other than the failed hostage rescue mission in 1980).

All I'm saying is that I'm having trouble fitting Obama into a lefty/liberal/pacifist/socialist box.

[Pointedstick]

I guess my reaction to all of that is, What business is it of ours if a bunch of backward lunatics want to mess up their own countries? It sucks that most of the middle-eastern countries are oppressive hellholes, but so are a lot of south American, Asian, and African countries. Why should it be any business of ours what angry foreigners do to their own neighbors? I sure wouldn't want Syria or Egypt to send troops into L.A. the next time there's a big riot.

[MediumTex]

This was the statement issued by the US embassy after Islamists breached our embassy in Egypt, burned our flag, and put up a black Islamist one on 9/11/2012:

"The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.”?

On the very same day, Libyans burned our embassy to the ground and killed an American staff member in the very country that Obama "saved" from Qaddhafi. Here is a nice picture of it:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/11/world/mea ... index.html

The people were apparently burning down these buildings and killing people because they were offended by an online film that has been making the rounds.

This reminds me of what Salman Rushdie said about being condemned to death by the Iranian supreme leader in 1989.  It was something to the effect of: "Maybe a religion whose leaders act this way could use a little criticism."