Presidential Debate #2

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Honey Boo Boo endorsed President Barack Obama last night on Jimmy Kimmel’s TV show. I guess the election is over now (sigh). 🙂
 
simple_soul said:
*I hear this argument thrown out there so many times and I have had my own round about arguments in my head about it and the problem that I always come up with in using this for an argument is this: A lot of people believe murdering someone just walking down the street minding their own business is ok. But a lot more people believe it is not ok. We as a nation do not allow murder and will be brought to justice and found guilty of it in different degrees. I believe these degrees are referred to as manslaughter. So my question always is why is it ok to enforce that murdering someone is wrong in many different degrees but we are not supposed to enforce this belief on anyone. The argument it’s self is like an oxymoron. If we take the argument of not enforcing “our” beliefs on “anyone” then one would have to apply it to everything and then there would be no laws what-so-ever. But wait…there would still be the law of “not enforcing a law.”

Hope that came out right and makes some sense…*
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I do not see the comparison as the same.
 
Tampa_Dave said:
Luigi, any of my CA friends:

I traveled to Florida yesterday and caught the debate, but I am just now signing on to the forum for the first time this morning. It would take forever to read all the previous pages in this thread, not to mention the other threads.

What is the general consensus on the results of the debate?
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I do not believe it was a tie, but most people probably believe it was, but I think many are saying that just because Obama did better in style then in the 1st debate
 
Tampa_Dave said:
Luigi, any of my CA friends:

I traveled to Florida yesterday and caught the debate, but I am just now signing on to the forum for the first time this morning. It would take forever to read all the previous pages in this thread, not to mention the other threads.

What is the general consensus on the results of the debate?
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Hello Tampa Dave,

I don’t know what the consensus is: yahoo news has the unqualified headline: “Obama wins debate” - based on, get ready, the opinion of Jeff Greenfield. I don’t know what the polls are saying.

My take: at first, listing to the debate on the radio, I got the impression that Obama did much better than before and maybe had the edge this time. Then I watched it later on TV. I have changed my mind - I think it was a draw or possibly the edge to Romney. I also noticed that on two occasions when Romney was making a good point - the first being about Fast and Furious - the moderator jumped in and cut him off. She did not do that to Obama as much, imo. Obama is in a tough position: how do you defend four years of failure?

Ishii
 
Prodigal_Son1 said:
I didn’t read it all. It’s clearly a biased opinion piece that helps drive a wedge between Americans, and for the sake of partisanship.

As I said in a another post, events have and will occur under various administrations. Those with strong political ties, stronger than any affiliation through citizenship, will cry foul even at the risk of the collective citizenry.

United we stand, divided we fall…
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In case you missed the memo we are falling hard…from the article you didn’t finish.

When it comes to a flailing, blundering superpower, I am generally wary of ascribing to malevolence what is more often sheer stupidity and incompetence. For example, we’re told that, because the consulate in Benghazi was designated as an “interim facility,” it did not warrant the level of security and protection that, say, an embassy in Scandinavia would have. This seems all too plausible – that security decisions are made not by individual human judgment but according to whichever rule-book sub-clause at the Federal Agency of Bureaucratic Facilities Regulation it happens to fall under. However, the very next day the embassy in Yemen, which is a permanent facility, was also overrun, as was the embassy in Tunisia the day after. Look, these are tough crowds, as the president might say at Caesar’s Palace. But we spend more money on these joints than anybody else, and they’re as easy to overrun as the Belgian Consulate.

As I say, I’m inclined to be generous, and put some of this down to the natural torpor and ineptitude of government. But Hillary Clinton and Gen. Martin Dempsey are guilty of something worse, in the Secretary of State’s weirdly obsessive remarks about an obscure film supposedly disrespectful of Mohammed and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs’ telephone call to a private citizen, asking him if he could please ease up on the old Islamophobia.

Forget the free-speech arguments. In this case, as Secretary Clinton and Gen. Dempsey well know, the film has even less to do with anything than did the Danish cartoons or the schoolteacher’s teddy bear or any of the other innumerable grievances of Islam. The 400-strong assault force in Benghazi showed up with RPGs and mortars: that’s not a spontaneous movie protest; that’s an act of war, and better planned and executed than the dying superpower’s response to it. Secretary Clinton and Gen. Dempsey are, to put it mildly, misleading the American people when they suggest otherwise.
 
I’m finally getting around to listening to the whole debate and I am just amazed at how Obama sounds like HE is the one looking to become President. Does he not know that he is the President? And from the start he is very defensive as opposed to Romney.

It’s really hard to ignore their styles to really get to their answers. If I could just merge the two…pick and choose the ideas that I think will work and get rid of the qualities I don’t like.
 
Prodigal_Son1 said:
Events have, and will, happen under various administrations. Partisanship is driving force behind the disdain being displayed. I’m not so sure it’s even about safety of citizens anymore. If it is, it’s hidden in the smokescreen.
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Partisanship is as old as Athenian democracy, and probably is as old as earliest tribal organizations. People have points of view and promote them. Doing it for the sake of doing it when there is no real difference of opinion or approach is, of course, inappropriate.

And, I would add that it’s tough in a political system like ours, to minimize hostility if one side adamantly refuses to allow the other to participate in the decisionmaking process, just because it can. Possibly the most dramatic instance of that I have ever seen was when, prior to passage of Obamacare, Obama announced to John McCain that, in effect, he had nothing to say about any healthcare measures because he lost the 2008 election. Where does one go from there, and particularly when one is not even allowed to see what’s being passed before its passage?

But even before the 2008 election, there have been division lines that really can’t be overcome. Certain things can be compromised, e.g., how much to spend on food stamps, or whether this weapons system or research project is worthwhile. But not all issues are capable of compromise. A perfect example of that is the HHS mandate. It came out, and is obviously a moral impossibility for Catholic institutions and Catholic employers who wish to remain faithful to the teachings of the Church. It was protested, and a “compromise” that was no compromise was offered as a “take it or fight” proposition.

So, among those who care about being forced to support contraceptive and abortifacient distribution, there’s no place to go other than total opposition. And, since it was entirely unnecessary to any reasonable societal objective, but is a purely ideological objective, that opposition is met with total opposition on the other side as well.

It’s probably fair to say that litigation is even a more drastic method of resolution than is political polemic, because it’s formal and total adversarial positioning. But, in the example of the Lutheran ministers, it came to that because it had to come to it. Fortunately, the Supreme Court ruled that the government could not dictate to the Lutheran church who its ministers are and are not. One can wonder how it came to that, but certainly from the Lutheran church’s point of view there really was no room to compromise and total opposition was the only route available. Total defeat or total victory were the only avenues for the Lutheran church because the government was adamant.

With the HHS mandate it’s the same. It will be resolved in the courts precisely because the government has decided there can be no resolution other than the Catholic Church’s rejection of its own tenets and obedience to the government’s dictates. Failing a change in the presidency, the Catholic church has no avenues other than total victory or total defeat, just as the Lutheran church had, and for the same reason; this government allows no alternatives.

I will agree that such things ought not to be in a civil society. But I suggest that, at least in some things, one side can create an atmosphere of “fight or die”. This administration has a way of doing that all the time, and it really began with the “We won, so we get everything and you get nothing” announcement made to McCain.

It isn’t right to say “oh, both sides lay it on too thickly”, as if this was some parlor game among Edwardian gentlemen. Very serious issues are at stake in this election precisely because the current administration has insisted that those who oppose its will have no alternative but to “fight or die”. I’ll admit that I, who have even praised McGovern in some things, have nothing good to say about this administration. It has told me and other Catholics we must go against our faith, and for that, I refuse to pretend that it is anything other than an ideological enemy that forces me, in a political sense, to either fight or die. I, like many others who understand that acquiescing to conscientious collapse is not a successful strategy, am simply taking the only avenues it has allowed me.
 
I could not get myself to watch the debate last night because I knew I would be unable to separate my emotions from what was presented. Obama upsets me so much and much of the media is a safety net for him, or perhaps a shield. I do not buy into Obama’s Christian sales pitch, but then it is not my place to judge what is in the heart of another.

I think back to when Obama spoke at Notre Dame and his emphasis for dialogue between opposing views on abortion, but then he throws out the HHS mandate and I ask “Where is the dialogue?”

Ryan had asked a good question to Biden about the HHS mandate (along the lines of “If the HHS mandate was not going to impact religious institutions why were there so many lawsuits filed by the Catholic Church?”), but Biden never replied. Biden, the staunch Catholic who refuses to allow his personal views (against abortion) to impact his political (i.e. job security) views makes me angrier.

I am just scared to death that we will have four more years of Obama-Biden because so many people are drinking the Obama-Biden Kool-Aid. With a substantial majority of the media on the Obama-Biden side, I ssut feel it is an uphill battle to vote both out of office.

And once Obama defeats the Catholic Church in her lawsuits against the HHS mandate all of the other religious institutions will stand no chance whatsoever against Obama because of their absence of unification.

Pray for our country.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Partisanship is as old as Athenian democracy, and probably is as old as earliest tribal organizations. People have points of view and promote them. Doing it for the sake of doing it when there is no real difference of opinion or approach is, of course, inappropriate.

And, I would add that it’s tough in a political system like ours, to minimize hostility if one side adamantly refuses to allow the other to participate in the decisionmaking process, just because it can. Possibly the most dramatic instance of that I have ever seen was when, prior to passage of Obamacare, Obama announced to John McCain that, in effect, he had nothing to say about any healthcare measures because he lost the 2008 election. Where does one go from there, and particularly when one is not even allowed to see what’s being passed before its passage?

But even before the 2008 election, there have been division lines that really can’t be overcome. Certain things can be compromised, e.g., how much to spend on food stamps, or whether this weapons system or research project is worthwhile. But not all issues are capable of compromise. A perfect example of that is the HHS mandate. It came out, and is obviously a moral impossibility for Catholic institutions and Catholic employers who wish to remain faithful to the teachings of the Church. It was protested, and a “compromise” that was no compromise was offered as a “take it or fight” proposition.

So, among those who care about being forced to support contraceptive and abortifacient distribution, there’s no place to go other than total opposition. And, since it was entirely unnecessary to any reasonable societal objective, but is a purely ideological objective, that opposition is met with total opposition on the other side as well.

It’s probably fair to say that litigation is even a more drastic method of resolution than is political polemic, because it’s formal and total adversarial positioning. But, in the example of the Lutheran ministers, it came to that because it had to come to it. Fortunately, the Supreme Court ruled that the government could not dictate to the Lutheran church who its ministers are and are not. One can wonder how it came to that, but certainly from the Lutheran church’s point of view there really was no room to compromise and total opposition was the only route available. Total defeat or total victory were the only avenues for the Lutheran church because the government was adamant.

With the HHS mandate it’s the same. It will be resolved in the courts precisely because the government has decided there can be no resolution other than the Catholic Church’s rejection of its own tenets and obedience to the government’s dictates. Failing a change in the presidency, the Catholic church has no avenues other than total victory or total defeat, just as the Lutheran church had, and for the same reason; this government allows no alternatives.

I will agree that such things ought not to be in a civil society. But I suggest that, at least in some things, one side can create an atmosphere of “fight or die”. This administration has a way of doing that all the time, and it really began with the “We won, so we get everything and you get nothing” announcement made to McCain.

It isn’t right to say “oh, both sides lay it on too thickly”, as if this was some parlor game among Edwardian gentlemen. Very serious issues are at stake in this election precisely because the current administration has insisted that those who oppose its will have no alternative but to “fight or die”. I’ll admit that I, who have even praised McGovern in some things, have nothing good to say about this administration. It has told me and other Catholics we must go against our faith, and for that, I refuse to pretend that it is anything other than an ideological enemy that forces me, in a political sense, to either fight or die. I, like many others who understand that acquiescing to conscientious collapse is not a successful strategy, am simply taking the only avenues it has allowed me.
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They are only ‘very serious’ when there is an ability to use them against the other side.

I’m not defending either side. I’ve seen how it works for a long time now. No matter who gets control, they will blame the other side for blocking any genuine progress.

Our problem is that the majority of Americans have bought into the system.
 
Prodigal_Son1 said:
So now it’s fair game to go ahead and jump, even before an investigation can take place. Gotcha. 😉
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No further nvestigation is needed to know that the administration deliberately misled the american people for over two weeks, that the administration refused to provide needed security for the ambassador and his staff and that the administration sent their ambassador to the UN to go on national tv to blatantly lie about what happened in Benganzi.

The real story here is that the obama foreign-policyapperaseand apologize foreign-policyhas fallen apart. The real story here is that the obama claim that they have crippled Al-Qaida is false.
 
Spoiler alert, I cannot say who won the presidential beauty contest because not all the candidates were on stage. The political class and their enablers in the chattering class only allowed the two establishment candidates on stage. (Hint: they need to maintain the illusion there is a real difference in the governance of the country, like your vote counts.) Despite my own misgivings, I can say I will not support Obama because of his incessant attacks on private/religious conscience. I will vote for his opponent with only the hope that maybe he will undo this illegitimate action of this bumbling administration.
 
estesbob said:
No further nvestigation is needed to know that the administration deliberately misled the american people for over two weeks, that the administration refused to provide needed security for the ambassador and his staff and that the administration sent their ambassador to the UN to go on national tv to blatantly lie about what happened in Benganzi.

The real story here is that the obama foreign-policyapperaseand apologize foreign-policyhas fallen apart. The real story here is that the obama claim that they have crippled Al-Qaida is false.
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Kind of like we went after Iraq for the WMDs?
 
Prodigal_Son1 said:
So now it’s fair game to go ahead and jump, even before an investigation can take place. Gotcha. 😉
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Not a “gotcha” at all. Its not jumping ahead unfairly to point out the inconsistencies with Obama’s response to the Bengazi attack, and its entirely appropriate to question why the consulate wasn’t more secure? If no one was asking questions, then nothing would improve and no one would be held accountable for failure. Obama’s policy in the middeast - once his biggest supposed “accomplishment” is shown to be a collosal failure, like his other policies.

Ishii
 
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