NilObject Blog: Biden a good choice? - Jonathan Johnson's Blog
David Steinbrunner
· 1 year ago
Jonathan,
We have met on a couple occasions at MacHack/ADHOC. Your Blog was the first place I was exposed to Ron Paul and I am thankful for that. Seeing a conservative against the war made me smile while looking for more information. Before that I had sworn off politics but since I have been in political meetup groups and gone door to door campaigning. I just went to an all day conservative grassroots campaigning course yesterday and will be going to the Rally for the Republic in a weeks time.
I guess it took a small government candidate to get me excited but now that we are down to two big government candidates I'm left back in apathy when it comes to the presidential race. I feel my vote is worth more than what either candidate offers. While you thought Bush was bad here comes McCain as if he is Bush's crazy Uncle.... and then there is Obama.
People like Obama especially in contrast to McCain. He is a good speaker, he wants change, what is not to like. Well, both he and Biden have voted to have fund the war. Obama voted to grant immunity to telecoms for unconstitutional wiretapping. He has reneged on promising not to use tax payer money to fund his campaign. Many of the people that like him have this weird amnesia hit them when you ask them for details on why they support him.
Then there are the people that don't like Obama for all the wrong reasons. All the religious BS being sent all over about him being the anti christ and all that jazz, him being unpatriotic and then there is the color of his skin. It is as if McCain supporters know they can't point out good things bout their candidate so they have spread FUD about his opponent. I do my best to help people get away from those bad reasons not to like Obama but do my best to give them legitimate reasons not to like him.
At one time my wife was kind of keen on Obama but decided to actually look into him based on the issues rather than the person and came out that other end realizing he was no different than Hilary Clinton.
The Biden videos you posted are nice but having actually watched most of the debates he was in I know that even though he seems to be well intentioned, he is still for a foreign policy of intervention. The first video actually shows that he says we need to physically separate people. How do you do that? With lives of Americans in between.
There is your mention that Obama recently decided he wanted to transition troops into Afghanistan from Iraq. What happened to bring them home? Now that he is in general election territory he is changing his tune. A reason to like him is fading. The longer our defense is off in the middle east being offensive the less secure I feel. For every Middle Easterner that dies at the hands of Americans two more "Terrorist" come into being to avenge the death of their friend or family member. For every American that comes home dead or wounded the $$$ incentives to recruit future veterans increase as the current veterans and their families have a new fight to get the respect an benefits they deserve. It is just a sad state of affairs that seems to be ok with most people.
I want "Change" but I don't want change for changes sake because the change could end up being no better than we have today. We are always getting change from government, it just happens to be bigger government. Sometimes it is in the form of war, or invasion of privacy, other times it is in the form of higher taxes and more programs to allow people to become dependent on the government in yet another way. Typically though we get both since the Democrats and Republicans compromise so that they both win and we all lose.
Having just reread the end of your post is became clearer to me that it sounds like your not voting for Obama or McCain which makes me feel better on one hand but on the other I wish you would have made it a bit clearer what the other options are and not make Obama/Biden sound like it is actually a solution to our problems.
With that, I guess I'll close my responding rant by saying that the conventual wisdom of only having two candidates in this presidential race is not correct. People should look into Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin. Both want us out of this war now and both are small government candidates. Even thought no one wants to talk about the libertarian and constitutional party candidates it is likely that at least one of them will be on ballots come voting time for most. I live in Ohio that is a "Swing" state and I don't care, voting for the lesser of two evils still means I would be voting for an evil I and I refuse to stoop that low. If only other would do the same...
Jonathan Johnson
· 1 year ago
Wow, thank you for the thoughtful response. I'm glad I was able to spread the word about Paul to at least one person. Let me reiterate: my wife and I are Paul supporters, and I will be watching congressmen and women here for their views, and voting with my heart there.
On the national level, the two party system is a joke. I already know about Barr (not about Baldwin though) and Nader. However, Barr and Nader will not be in the debates, and I don't think any of them will have any bearing on the national election except to disrupt people who are normally republican to not vote for McCain.
The election system needs major reform. Candidates should be able to debate if they can meet a criteria that is enough to show a possibility of being popular (ie, let's say a petition with 100,000 signatures, although that's an arbitrary number). Unfortunately, the news stations have no interest in supporting third parties, and so no national debates will include the third parties for the foreseeable future. Without another debate forum happening that is an independent source, we can't get national coverage that is needed.
Additionally, the two candidates have no interest in including third parties: why dilute the vote further?
Basically, I'm fed up with the electoral system as it is today, and I feel it needs reform. However, I don't see any hope for getting anyone except McCain or Obama elected. Essentially, I'm anit-McCain, which leaves me slightly for Obama in the sense that I feel he's the only route to not having McCain elected.
It's sad that it's come to this. I know people who say they are just going to write in someone, Hillary for example, and I applaud them for doing it. But until the nation as a whole is exposed to the idea that you can vote for people who aren't listed on the ticket, or until we can get national coverage for the third parties that actually do get on the tickets, we're stuck. I will do whatever I can to see election reform take place, by voting for congressmen and women that believe in liberty and freedom, and not for strictly voting party lines.
I signed up for Campaign for Liberty, and should probably dedicate a post to it to spread the word. To this date, my only contributions have been to Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich. I most likely will not donate to Obama, unless the poll numbers are actually very close.
I'm starting to lose track of this post, as it's really long also. The basic conclusion is that I have no hope for third parties (except on a local and state level) during this election, simply because the reform needs to take place to get the information out about them. This isn't happening on a national level with the most common form of media: TV. Because of my hopelessness of the situation with third parties, I do feel it's only a race between Obama and McCain, and I feel so strongly about McCain being a horrible choice for president, I would try to help Obama out if I could.
Isn't that just sad?
mattskee
· 1 year ago
I agree that Obama is more appealing than McCain by far since McCain is pretty much an idiot in my book, - i wonder if he is a sleepy agent :) - but Obama is still a politician and you know what that means. Say whatever you have to in order to get a vote. I know first hand what this looks like when i attended the Missouri district caucus and the republican state convention in MO. They all talked the talk like "good republicans" with "christian" values, but did not walk the walk.
I highly recommend this recent Ron Paul video that explains a lot in just a few minutes. Ron Paul isn't perfect, but he sure is a truth teller like no other. He says it like it is and votes the same way. I just wished everyone in America did that! I wished the politicians acted like real christians for that matter, but as the old guy on grumpy old men says, "you can wish in one hand and crap in the other." it does no good.
That is a good clip. I'm anxious to see how the Rally for the Republic comes out next week. From what I gather, there's a chance more people will be attending that than the convention itself.
Re: Obama being another politician. I would agree with that somewhat, but I haven't seen anything to really counteract that what he speaks about he truly cares about. I've seen a few compromises, but not without what I feel is a pretty reasonable explanation.
I don't quite agree with Paul in saying that their foreign policies are the same. I genuinely believe that Obama will use force as a last resort. Obama is not advocating being aggressive with Iran or Russia. He has repeatedly stated we need to talk with them and let them know how we feel and try to come to an understanding. Obama supported putting 12k troops back into Afghanistan, which I can see both sides. It's our fault for not quite finishing the job we set out to originally because we focused on Iraq. However, the other part of me wants to pull everyone back.
While in theory I agree with no troops anywhere, we need to do it carefully and with cooperation with the governments abroad. If we pull out quickly in an area that their government and people truly want us and need us to help stabilize (peace keeping only), we should comply and help build them up so that we can leave. If we just jet out of every area, some foreign people will hate that (others will love it), and we must take caution not to cause any further conflicts because they felt we wronged them by leaving.
Foreign policy is a hard subject, and even though I want our troops here at home, I also foresee that we can cause blowback by pulling everyone back quickly in areas that may genuinely want us to continue helping out. We are so influential in the world that if we pulled everyone back, there would be significant changes happening nearly overnight.
Comparing to McCain's "I need a draft to have enough troops to operate my foreign policy", Obama's is much more sensible. Paul's is the most idealistic, but even he wouldn't be able to just pull the plug overnight without causing a lot of grief.
mattskee
· 1 year ago
Thanks for the reply Jonathan.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." Proverbs 14:12
There are so many things in life that seem to be a good idea or make sense, but ultimately are either not good at all, or may even be good things, but not the best.
I like your approach, which is to say that you do not make assumptions or superficial arguments against candidates. I agree with this kind of approach. More people need to become educated about the details, such as voting records, history of defending constitution or not, and so on.
It is important to research these people and see who they associate with and what they really represent. I try to do that, but i tend to be less conservative with my criticisms of politicians, because i absolutely hate the injustices they commit. I mean, if congress was worth its salt, things would be much different today.
I think I can see what you mean about Obama regarding his approach with our troops and foreign policy. It sounds good and seems right, at least to the casual observer and many who are unaware of the truth in Iraq and other nations. But it is hard to know the truth as you probably know and it takes continual research and how many Americans really have time or energy or interest for that matter.
Obama is probably sincere about some of his positions. But in the end, it is all just rhetoric. I believe that Obama is more interested in power and prestige than to truly serve the American people. Kind of like Oprah. Same thing goes for McCain obviously.
Even if Obama truly had our nation's best interest in mind, there is no solid proof that he will actually defend the constitution. That is the oath the president takes of course and that is one of the major differences between someone like Ron Paul and a politician.
Paul is not idealistic, he is realistic. He understands the media propaganda machine that has deceived the American people into believing that America can do no wrong. And though it is true, that America does do a lot of good things, compartmentalization and cover up keep the public from knowing many of the atrocities being committed by our own government on a daily basis. But people find that hard to swallow.
I think Ron Paul was correct in what he says about the McBama foreign policy because he was talking big picture, not details. Overall, their policies are not much different and the results are more of the same.
Nobody ever talks about the real problems that Paul and a few others address like the Federal Reserve (google fed. reserve), an illegal fed. income tax, trillions of dollars in debt and growing, nation building, economic hit men such as john perkins, the American global military empire with thousands of bases all over the world, the patriot act that pretty much destroyed 9 out of 10 of the bill of rights. Oh and did i forget to mention the war in Iraq and possible future war in Iran in the name of "democracy".
Wow, that makes me depressed.
No matter how many times senator Barrack Hussein Obama goes to other nations like Germany to deliver speeches or how many times he goes to Iraq to show how he can shoot a basketball and show how "cool" he is, he still continues to say nothing. If he is great at anything, it is his ability to say absolutely nothing and smile. If he ever addressed the real issues, and no i am not talking about "global warming", then i would respect him, but until then, he is a false hope for so called "change".
Too bad people wait until the general election to vote. The primaries and caucuses are where the real fight for power is and believe me, it is a dirty fight. The old guard brings out all the tricks to manipulate control of the system to their advantage.
Sorry, but i am not very optimistic about real change in this nation. That doesn't mean i won't continue to stand for truth and hope for the best, but i am a realist. Thanks for letting me rant a little. Oh and nice website btw.
in case your interested, here are some other videos that merely touch the tip of the iceburg called corruption:
You don't have to convince me that the Iraq war is and was a huge mistake, and that we step closer and closer to a police state and fascism everyday. That was a good link you posted with that person's testimony about the situation in Iraq.
When I said that Paul's vision was the most idealistic, I was not saying that as a negative: I meant that his vision is ideal. All I was trying to make a point in saying is that even if Paul was president and could pull the troops out, he would have to do it gradually and with sensitivity to various regions around the world, as we are in some places as humanitarian forces and those people benefit our presence and desire it. I'm sure that's the minority, but all things considered, *all foreign relations* need to be carefully conducted otherwise we always risk blowback.
I saw what Clinton accomplished, although I do agree with Paul's assessment that it's not all Clinton's doing. What I'm even more positive of is that McCain will continue to drag us in the wrong direction, while Obama appears to desire to bring us back in the right direction. Ideally, we'd have Paul who would attempt to tear to shreds so much of our tax code that it would hardly be recognizable when he was done with it. Unfortunately, Paul isn't close to having a majority.
I must admit, I have some faith in Barack's genuineness, which cannot be described by facts alone. I have read both of his books, and discussed him with other people before I had even heard him speak. What can't be argued is that he possesses that similar ability as Paul to unite for an ideal. Barack's ideal is a step towards balancing programs to be more like how they were originally meant to be. Paul's ideal is to strip us of unneeded cruft and get us back to the roots of what our government truly needs to run.
Overall, Paul is my ideal candidate. Obama sits quite a bit below him, and McCain, while better than some other Republicans, sits even further below.
I didn't wait until the main election -- I voted in the primaries for Paul. What I think the real fight is, is to attempt to get people to realize who the candidates for congress are, and what *they* believe in. The President has a lot of power, no doubt, but congress is just as important. I'm going to be doing my due diligence this year and make sure I find the Paulites to support.
Thanks for the in-depth conversation. I wish most people could discuss politics in this tone, rather than resorting to ugliness. While I generally want to write about tech stuff on this blog, my main SDK of choice is under NDA, and I've been doing a lot of political pondering, and am always looking for an outlet.
matt
· 1 year ago
Yeah, i know you are already aware of these things. I just post links for other readers. Enjoyed reading your thoughts. Thanks for sharing!
mattskee
· 1 year ago
Hello Jonathan. Here is a video that i had not seen before about infanticide and obama. I will not vote for either obama or mccain because they both represent more of the same overall, so this is not about me trying to bash one candidate. But i just watched this and wanted to pass it along for informational purposes.
It's propaganda as usual. If you research the bills (all public through the Illinois government site), you can see what was proposed, and see that he is telling the truth.
Interesting. Yeah, i wouldn't doubt it, because i remember reading a "family values" website back when Huckabee was still in the race, that was suggesting that ron paul was some how not pro-life, which is of course a joke after you know that he has delivered 4,000+ babies. But that doesn't surprise me when you look at all the past elections where the evangelical christians are voting based on one or two issues such as abortion or gay-marriage. Don't get me wrong, i am a definitely pro-life and believe God created marriage for man and woman, but sadly, as you know, many people don't look any further than the surface before voting, instead of the facts. So, i will definitely check that link out. Thanks for the info.
All Comments
We have met on a couple occasions at MacHack/ADHOC. Your Blog was the first place I was exposed to Ron Paul and I am thankful for that. Seeing a conservative against the war made me smile while looking for more information. Before that I had sworn off politics but since I have been in political meetup groups and gone door to door campaigning. I just went to an all day conservative grassroots campaigning course yesterday and will be going to the Rally for the Republic in a weeks time.
I guess it took a small government candidate to get me excited but now that we are down to two big government candidates I'm left back in apathy when it comes to the presidential race. I feel my vote is worth more than what either candidate offers. While you thought Bush was bad here comes McCain as if he is Bush's crazy Uncle.... and then there is Obama.
People like Obama especially in contrast to McCain. He is a good speaker, he wants change, what is not to like. Well, both he and Biden have voted to have fund the war. Obama voted to grant immunity to telecoms for unconstitutional wiretapping. He has reneged on promising not to use tax payer money to fund his campaign. Many of the people that like him have this weird amnesia hit them when you ask them for details on why they support him.
Then there are the people that don't like Obama for all the wrong reasons. All the religious BS being sent all over about him being the anti christ and all that jazz, him being unpatriotic and then there is the color of his skin. It is as if McCain supporters know they can't point out good things bout their candidate so they have spread FUD about his opponent. I do my best to help people get away from those bad reasons not to like Obama but do my best to give them legitimate reasons not to like him.
At one time my wife was kind of keen on Obama but decided to actually look into him based on the issues rather than the person and came out that other end realizing he was no different than Hilary Clinton.
The Biden videos you posted are nice but having actually watched most of the debates he was in I know that even though he seems to be well intentioned, he is still for a foreign policy of intervention. The first video actually shows that he says we need to physically separate people. How do you do that? With lives of Americans in between.
There is your mention that Obama recently decided he wanted to transition troops into Afghanistan from Iraq. What happened to bring them home? Now that he is in general election territory he is changing his tune. A reason to like him is fading. The longer our defense is off in the middle east being offensive the less secure I feel. For every Middle Easterner that dies at the hands of Americans two more "Terrorist" come into being to avenge the death of their friend or family member. For every American that comes home dead or wounded the $$$ incentives to recruit future veterans increase as the current veterans and their families have a new fight to get the respect an benefits they deserve. It is just a sad state of affairs that seems to be ok with most people.
I want "Change" but I don't want change for changes sake because the change could end up being no better than we have today. We are always getting change from government, it just happens to be bigger government. Sometimes it is in the form of war, or invasion of privacy, other times it is in the form of higher taxes and more programs to allow people to become dependent on the government in yet another way. Typically though we get both since the Democrats and Republicans compromise so that they both win and we all lose.
Having just reread the end of your post is became clearer to me that it sounds like your not voting for Obama or McCain which makes me feel better on one hand but on the other I wish you would have made it a bit clearer what the other options are and not make Obama/Biden sound like it is actually a solution to our problems.
With that, I guess I'll close my responding rant by saying that the conventual wisdom of only having two candidates in this presidential race is not correct. People should look into Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin. Both want us out of this war now and both are small government candidates. Even thought no one wants to talk about the libertarian and constitutional party candidates it is likely that at least one of them will be on ballots come voting time for most. I live in Ohio that is a "Swing" state and I don't care, voting for the lesser of two evils still means
I would be voting for an evil I and I refuse to stoop that low. If only other would do the same...
On the national level, the two party system is a joke. I already know about Barr (not about Baldwin though) and Nader. However, Barr and Nader will not be in the debates, and I don't think any of them will have any bearing on the national election except to disrupt people who are normally republican to not vote for McCain.
The election system needs major reform. Candidates should be able to debate if they can meet a criteria that is enough to show a possibility of being popular (ie, let's say a petition with 100,000 signatures, although that's an arbitrary number). Unfortunately, the news stations have no interest in supporting third parties, and so no national debates will include the third parties for the foreseeable future. Without another debate forum happening that is an independent source, we can't get national coverage that is needed.
Additionally, the two candidates have no interest in including third parties: why dilute the vote further?
Basically, I'm fed up with the electoral system as it is today, and I feel it needs reform. However, I don't see any hope for getting anyone except McCain or Obama elected. Essentially, I'm anit-McCain, which leaves me slightly for Obama in the sense that I feel he's the only route to not having McCain elected.
It's sad that it's come to this. I know people who say they are just going to write in someone, Hillary for example, and I applaud them for doing it. But until the nation as a whole is exposed to the idea that you can vote for people who aren't listed on the ticket, or until we can get national coverage for the third parties that actually do get on the tickets, we're stuck. I will do whatever I can to see election reform take place, by voting for congressmen and women that believe in liberty and freedom, and not for strictly voting party lines.
I signed up for Campaign for Liberty, and should probably dedicate a post to it to spread the word. To this date, my only contributions have been to Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich. I most likely will not donate to Obama, unless the poll numbers are actually very close.
I'm starting to lose track of this post, as it's really long also. The basic conclusion is that I have no hope for third parties (except on a local and state level) during this election, simply because the reform needs to take place to get the information out about them. This isn't happening on a national level with the most common form of media: TV. Because of my hopelessness of the situation with third parties, I do feel it's only a race between Obama and McCain, and I feel so strongly about McCain being a horrible choice for president, I would try to help Obama out if I could.
Isn't that just sad?
I highly recommend this recent Ron Paul video that explains a lot in just a few minutes. Ron Paul isn't perfect, but he sure is a truth teller like no other. He says it like it is and votes the same way. I just wished everyone in America did that! I wished the politicians acted like real christians for that matter, but as the old guy on grumpy old men says, "you can wish in one hand and crap in the other." it does no good.
WATCH THIS VIDEO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOhk0JeoZtE
Re: Obama being another politician. I would agree with that somewhat, but I haven't seen anything to really counteract that what he speaks about he truly cares about. I've seen a few compromises, but not without what I feel is a pretty reasonable explanation.
I don't quite agree with Paul in saying that their foreign policies are the same. I genuinely believe that Obama will use force as a last resort. Obama is not advocating being aggressive with Iran or Russia. He has repeatedly stated we need to talk with them and let them know how we feel and try to come to an understanding. Obama supported putting 12k troops back into Afghanistan, which I can see both sides. It's our fault for not quite finishing the job we set out to originally because we focused on Iraq. However, the other part of me wants to pull everyone back.
While in theory I agree with no troops anywhere, we need to do it carefully and with cooperation with the governments abroad. If we pull out quickly in an area that their government and people truly want us and need us to help stabilize (peace keeping only), we should comply and help build them up so that we can leave. If we just jet out of every area, some foreign people will hate that (others will love it), and we must take caution not to cause any further conflicts because they felt we wronged them by leaving.
Foreign policy is a hard subject, and even though I want our troops here at home, I also foresee that we can cause blowback by pulling everyone back quickly in areas that may genuinely want us to continue helping out. We are so influential in the world that if we pulled everyone back, there would be significant changes happening nearly overnight.
Comparing to McCain's "I need a draft to have enough troops to operate my foreign policy", Obama's is much more sensible. Paul's is the most idealistic, but even he wouldn't be able to just pull the plug overnight without causing a lot of grief.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." Proverbs 14:12
There are so many things in life that seem to be a good idea or make sense, but ultimately are either not good at all, or may even be good things, but not the best.
I like your approach, which is to say that you do not make assumptions or superficial arguments against candidates. I agree with this kind of approach. More people need to become educated about the details, such as voting records, history of defending constitution or not, and so on.
It is important to research these people and see who they associate with and what they really represent. I try to do that, but i tend to be less conservative with my criticisms of politicians, because i absolutely hate the injustices they commit. I mean, if congress was worth its salt, things would be much different today.
I think I can see what you mean about Obama regarding his approach with our troops and foreign policy. It sounds good and seems right, at least to the casual observer and many who are unaware of the truth in Iraq and other nations. But it is hard to know the truth as you probably know and it takes continual research and how many Americans really have time or energy or interest for that matter.
Btw, here is a different perspective on iraq that you won't see much on the news. Just a different perspective.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELjgVq6GtPA
Obama is probably sincere about some of his positions. But in the end, it is all just rhetoric. I believe that Obama is more interested in power and prestige than to truly serve the American people. Kind of like Oprah. Same thing goes for McCain obviously.
Even if Obama truly had our nation's best interest in mind, there is no solid proof that he will actually defend the constitution. That is the oath the president takes of course and that is one of the major differences between someone like Ron Paul and a politician.
Paul is not idealistic, he is realistic. He understands the media propaganda machine that has deceived the American people into believing that America can do no wrong. And though it is true, that America does do a lot of good things, compartmentalization and cover up keep the public from knowing many of the atrocities being committed by our own government on a daily basis. But people find that hard to swallow.
I think Ron Paul was correct in what he says about the McBama foreign policy because he was talking big picture, not details. Overall, their policies are not much different and the results are more of the same.
Nobody ever talks about the real problems that Paul and a few others address like the Federal Reserve (google fed. reserve), an illegal fed. income tax, trillions of dollars in debt and growing, nation building, economic hit men such as john perkins, the American global military empire with thousands of bases all over the world, the patriot act that pretty much destroyed 9 out of 10 of the bill of rights. Oh and did i forget to mention the war in Iraq and possible future war in Iran in the name of "democracy".
Wow, that makes me depressed.
No matter how many times senator Barrack Hussein Obama goes to other nations like Germany to deliver speeches or how many times he goes to Iraq to show how he can shoot a basketball and show how "cool" he is, he still continues to say nothing. If he is great at anything, it is his ability to say absolutely nothing and smile. If he ever addressed the real issues, and no i am not talking about "global warming", then i would respect him, but until then, he is a false hope for so called "change".
Too bad people wait until the general election to vote. The primaries and caucuses are where the real fight for power is and believe me, it is a dirty fight. The old guard brings out all the tricks to manipulate control of the system to their advantage.
Sorry, but i am not very optimistic about real change in this nation. That doesn't mean i won't continue to stand for truth and hope for the best, but i am a realist. Thanks for letting me rant a little. Oh and nice website btw.
in case your interested, here are some other videos that merely touch the tip of the iceburg called corruption:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDAFozFn4kU
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=from+free...
When I said that Paul's vision was the most idealistic, I was not saying that as a negative: I meant that his vision is ideal. All I was trying to make a point in saying is that even if Paul was president and could pull the troops out, he would have to do it gradually and with sensitivity to various regions around the world, as we are in some places as humanitarian forces and those people benefit our presence and desire it. I'm sure that's the minority, but all things considered, *all foreign relations* need to be carefully conducted otherwise we always risk blowback.
I saw what Clinton accomplished, although I do agree with Paul's assessment that it's not all Clinton's doing. What I'm even more positive of is that McCain will continue to drag us in the wrong direction, while Obama appears to desire to bring us back in the right direction. Ideally, we'd have Paul who would attempt to tear to shreds so much of our tax code that it would hardly be recognizable when he was done with it. Unfortunately, Paul isn't close to having a majority.
I must admit, I have some faith in Barack's genuineness, which cannot be described by facts alone. I have read both of his books, and discussed him with other people before I had even heard him speak. What can't be argued is that he possesses that similar ability as Paul to unite for an ideal. Barack's ideal is a step towards balancing programs to be more like how they were originally meant to be. Paul's ideal is to strip us of unneeded cruft and get us back to the roots of what our government truly needs to run.
Overall, Paul is my ideal candidate. Obama sits quite a bit below him, and McCain, while better than some other Republicans, sits even further below.
I didn't wait until the main election -- I voted in the primaries for Paul. What I think the real fight is, is to attempt to get people to realize who the candidates for congress are, and what *they* believe in. The President has a lot of power, no doubt, but congress is just as important. I'm going to be doing my due diligence this year and make sure I find the Paulites to support.
Thanks for the in-depth conversation. I wish most people could discuss politics in this tone, rather than resorting to ugliness. While I generally want to write about tech stuff on this blog, my main SDK of choice is under NDA, and I've been doing a lot of political pondering, and am always looking for an outlet.
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=VIdbYjmbFzo
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/429328.aspx
Check out http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/ and let me know what you think. I really like this guy so far. He really hits the nail on the head i think with his take on Sarah Palin for instance (sept. 3rd article) and this article: http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2008/cbarchive...
Here is a google video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-580871...
Sincerely,
matt