President Barack Obama

[Galaxy Turbo]

i really wanted barack to come out with a 40 oz and a blunt in his ear and say "bitches and hoes for everyone" and do the crip walk :<

Looooooooooool.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

[Summa]

Last night I could hear people screaming and honking horns a block away in downtown until 4 in the morning. It was incredible to hear so many people be so excited about politics. First time in my life (except maybe 9/11 but for diff reasons) that this many people are tuned in to the future of the nation.

You think Bellingham was off the hook? You should have been here in downtown Seattle. Went down to Pike and Broadway, and holy shit was it a party zone. Cars couldn't drive down the street because people were dancing and screaming in them. Some people were honking out of bliss, others were honking at people to get the fuck out of the road. Capital Hill didn't quiet down until about 4 or 5 in the morning. The highlight of my night last night was not the election though (close 2nd), it was watching the retard who started firing off roman candles in the heart of the party get his shit rocked by the police. PRICELESS!

[genocidal]

Wow where to start in a thread full of horseshit that retarded people believe?

Whether you think Obama's election is a good or bad thing just about everyone has an opinion that they frame in opposition to another opinion rather than forming it on its own. This is because of a few things:

1) The media: why make an opinion yourself when they're all spoon-fed so nicely? Everyone is guilty of it (me included) because the media and politicians rig the game - it's their game. Therefore, you enter on their premises.

But there is a point at which it's important to realize that the instance of an idea is separate from that same idea's place in a structure. That is to say, an issue like gun control or abortion has its place in the political structure that dictates what will come out of it: in both cases, not a whole hell of a lot because nobody wants to touch it. Then in the social structure, both are very important to segments of the population who believe strongly one way or another for them and thus they frame their political-mindedness around these issues, despite the fact that their relative importance in the political structure does not correlate.

Further, both of these issues are generally viewed in the metaphorical frame of pregnancy: you either are or you aren't. Sure people impose benchmarks like partial-birth abortion or handgun control in order to qualify their position to some degree, but this only essentially changes the rules of the game rather finding some sort of middle ground. For example, no politician is going to be in favor of partial-birth abortions anymore - the debate is now about no abortion or early-term abortions. Rape and incest exceptions have changed the rules on the other side of the debate to the point where anti-abortionists, in general (Palin excepted), will allow abortion in these special cases. This point leads me into my next one about human nature.

2) Human nature is to view things dialectically as win/lose. Not to get too philosophical about why this is the case, I'll just say that it's completely natural because life is framed by living and by death and humans are defined by male or by female. Sure there is gray area in those examples, but the gray area is negligible and unimportant. It's part of how we're hardwired for this to be the case. By extension, it's easier for people to say Obama is bad because socialism is bad or that Obama is good because responsible government is good than to qualify anything they believe in.

Distilling what I've written into a sentence that people will actually read: the issues on which politics are based are part and parcel of politics, not a causal factor in the existence of politics; ideas are reduced to either/or frameworks and those same ideas exist in separate structures whereby their relative importance is determined on arbitrary bases. All that said, bad news for everyone in this thread: the winner of the election doesn't matter that fucking much.

Gall- There are huge differences between us and Europe, Conservative people left Europe to move here. Noone wants socialism in the usa (except liberals)

More TW forums historical revisions - and it's also a great example of what I described above as far as the "either/or" framework. Socialism doesn't mean anything the way people in this thread use it. It's use as a scary word to be avoided. Saying universal affordable health care is socialist is flat-out wrong. Saying universal government-imposed health care is socialist is more correct because it is a facet of socialism but it hardly means government=socialist. Plus, nobody in America is calling for that anyway (Obama campaigned for the first example).

Great...now were are all fk'd obama prolly supports terrorist...Obama's aunt is a illegal immigrant living in US from Mexico...is she going to get deporter? Of course not...im about to move to isreal :fear:

Retarded, a base example of a media drone.

There are a lot of things that the liberal media has kept from us and refused to report on this election, and I believe (again, my own personal opinion) that a lot of people had the wool pulled over their eyes under the premise of hope and change.

The media doesn't have an agenda, they are disciples of politics and support the system they criticize and praise because that's how they make money. Petty ideological differences between networks mean nothing: FoxNews is not all that different from CNN or MSNBC. One may give more coverage to a certain candidate than another or more coverage to one fringe issue over another but they all make their money on wowing people, scaring people, and entertaining people.

The President has negligible control over the economy so 90% of the bullshit people voted on doesn't matter. The President doesn't have line-item veto ability so the budget it take-it-or-leave-it (Clinton only had this power briefly). This means that the President doesn't really have control over pork, tax codes, health care spending, etc. He can threaten a veto unless a provision or two he is interested in is included but these are always the result of compromise. It's bad politics for a President to forestall government by vetoing budget after budget (see: FY 1997 budget process, addendum: Bill Clinton came out a head but due to strange circumstances, more on this if anyone wants to argue with me).

All that said, substantively it doesn't matter. I think we can all see how similar the foreign policies of the two candidates are without me explaining why that doesn't matter.

That being said, I do not believe the presidency will be "that bad" because either of the 2 candidates has done soemthing right to get to the point they are at, and they both inevitably want to help America.

This is true: they both participated in the system. Don't get me wrong, I had my own preference as far as who was going to be President goes I'm just not under the impression that either one is all that different. Obama is probably better for the country right now because he's a more inspiring figure and confidence has a lot to do with economic, and otherwise, success but substantively they're not that different.

Where the candidates do matter is in judgment - and that's what I based most of decision for President on (also a factor in my decision in voting was on which figurehead has the perception of being better for America).

So I hate to ruin everyone's fun "politics matter" party that happens every 4 years but it doesn't.

[DankNuggets]

Liars!

c'mon there couldn't have been too many people who bought that shit. After the fireworks at the olympics, and the smirks on wolf's face, i knew that shit couldn't be real. "CNN reveals first hologram interview" I think not.

[Rhino_haha]

seriously, the more i think about it... yeah, i really, really like the fact that obama is going to be in office.

i like this because the republicans are fucked, and they are going to have to re-think their shit. hopefully this means they will have to come to terms with solving the paradox of, how does one provide for the people and support 'free-market' and 'small government' ideals? i listened to that palin prank call and it was horrifying, she did not sound anything like what i have come to consider 'republican', though i have to remember that the modern 'conservative' movement is actually the tail-end of a new movement in the 50's that really climaxed with reagan: a president who vastly expanded the government and its power while managing to get away with calling it 'free market' / 'small government'.

palin being considered so highly amongst republicans really signals the end of that train, in my opinion, and it will be interesting to see how this election shakes the republican party - more specifically, how this will affect people like izor and kthx.

obama's election was, in a way, a big middle finger to that authoritarian, old white dude bullshit. in that sense i am pleased, but that's about where it ends. because even though he will probably bring real change, people forget that 'change' doesn't have an inherent 'good' or 'bad' value inherent in its meaning - change for it's own sake, in a sense. it will be up to the people to see to it that obama stays true to his words, and that he will continue to lead on behalf of the people and not for the people.

like i said earlier, people of our generation, in america, probably don't have a good grasp on how democracy works because we've had a piss-poor example to learn by. seeing a real president would be refreshing - let's hope obama gets rid of the bush influence in washington.

if he manages to do that, then hell yeah i'll support him. i'm not going to call him jesus christ or the anti-christ until he's actually done things worth judging.

fuck i meant to tag you, jerome, read the note stompa and i just posted on facebook

[Vykromond]

im about to move to isreal :fear:

speed the day

[Pandagirl!]

Sigh

[Galleleo]

What I was saying was:

Obama is not that liberal, or that socialistic if you compare him to, for instance, the politicians in the Netherlands. So all you right wingers screaming liberal and socialist, he really isn't.

[Cops]

seriously, the more i think about it... yeah, i really, really like the fact that obama is going to be in office.

where the fuck has this person been for the past year?

[Salubrious]

where the fuck has this person been for the past year?

He's been straddling the midway line unlike this country's many bandwagonning prepubescent airheads and senile rednecked shitsticks.

For me personally, I was still undecided between McCain and Obama. Obama has the ideologies, but McCain's character is also top-notch. You could tell even in his concession speech (ironically negated out by the idiots in his audience). But I voted Obama in the end, because god forbid (lol irony) we have a Creationist who doesn't know when to close her cunthole as our president in two years.

[HateTheFake]

LOL THEN WHY DID U USED TO SAY U WERE BLACK AND OFFENDED WHEN SOMEONE SAID THE N WORD

never said i was black, and im offended when someone like mango. spams the n word, gets ignored and comes back again on another name to spam it again.

[Cops]

His character? I'll concede that before this election I considered McCain to be an upstanding Republican who got shit on from George Bush and his party. He seemed to have the ability to cut through party lines and do what is necessary... and then he started one of the worst smear campaigns I have ever seen. Barack has been called everything from a socialist to a terrorist.

McCain ran a shit campaign and didn't convince anyone he and George Bush had separate policies. Instead of separating himself from Bush he embraced his support. McCain also lost this election heavily by choosing Sarah Palin as his VP. I've seen McCain's character, which is to change himself from being a moderate republican to appeal to the Neo-Conservative base in the Republican party. He probably wouldn't have been as bad as Bush but the McCain I like changed himself to appeal to the extreme right.

edit: As much as I'm happy I'm also in somewhat agreeance with Izor that the Democratic party has way too much power right now. It's fucked that they control all branches of government.

[Summa]

edit: As much as I'm happy I'm also in somewhat agreeance with Izor that the Democratic party has way too much power right now. It's fucked that they control all branches of government.

Last I checked the Supreme court is currently 5-4 in a conservative favor (save for on the issue of abortion). THAT'S ONE BRANCH THEY DON'T CONTROL!!!!!...................................... .....................yet

[HateTheFake]

abortion, gay marriage, border control all going to go to crap

[Cops]

Maybe it'll be easier for Canadians and Americans to travel between the two countries? Not saying anything about the Mexican border but It'd be nice if it was a lot easier to get to and from America.

Last I checked the Supreme court is currently 5-4 in a conservative favor (save for on the issue of abortion). THAT'S ONE BRANCH THEY DON'T CONTROL!!!!!...................................... .....................yet

one dies, problem solved.