2012 Presidential Election

[SoCal]

Every time he opens his mouth, he lies.

[KyleEl]

I just saw a photo of Obama's father. He looked like Raj on "What's Happening!" Or, if you watched "Everybody Hates Chris" on The CW, the funeral director whose favorite quote was "Tragic! Tragic!"

[SoCal]

Jul 13, 2012 15:51:22 GMT -5 KyleEl said:

I just saw a photo of Obama's father. He looked like Raj on "What's Happening!" Or, if you watched "Everybody Hates Chris" on The CW, the funeral director whose favorite quote was "Tragic! Tragic!"

I think he was more of a "sperm-donor" than a father. Barry never even met him until he was, what, 10-11? Obama, Sr. also had many wives....some at the same time.

[SoCal]

[Deleted]

Clinton should be re-elected. *runs from scabby Gabby and her Republican crew*

[Deleted]

[Aeryn]

[SoCal]

[SoCal]

[Mistermoonlight]

[SoCal]

“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”
¯ James Madison

[KyleEl]

When I went to Facebook this morning there was a Romney ad that appeared on every page.

This one woman who is a really conservative Christian had some nasty Obama jokes on her page. I suppose they were funny and maybe even he would laugh at them, but it just seems excessive to me.

[KyleEl]

Jul 16, 2012 21:30:07 GMT -5 Mistermoonlight said:

Don't even joke about it. If Romney is our only hope, he cannot make this kind of a mistake.

[SoCal]

[davidhayes1956]

Tina Fey for Mitt Romney's VP?

[SoCal]

....and in so awarding someone so undeserving, the Nobel committee has made their award worthless.

[Watchtower]

I think this is the first year I ever really understood politics, at least a little bit. But I understood that comment very clearly, the one where Obama said that if you made your own business, you didn't do that... something like that. My best friend/sister's family started a business, I saw it made from day one and helped. They made that, I know they did, because I helped in the very beginning and learned a lot about what they did. So, what I don't get, is why Obama said that. I don't know. Yeah, I still never voted, but this is the first presidential election year that I do have an opinion on who to vote for, and it's not Obama.

[davidhayes1956]

A person that starts their own business probably borrowed money from a bank ... which is an institution that lends money put into accounts by other people. Those deposits are there in trust to a degree because the government insures that they are safe. Even if they don't borrow money, that business is probably serviced by people coming to and from it on roads that were built and maintained with government funds that were available due to taxation on the populace. Also, the water lines, the sewer lines and electrical power got there due to the efforts of a lot of people and governed by a lot of people. Any facility built was by constructed by people working for wages that are protected by contracts enforced by a justice system established and regulated by the government and paid in a currency guaranteed by a government. If the business uses the internet or phone lines, those were also established by agencies that couldn't have existed outside of governmental institutions and regulation. Almost anything anyone can do is made possible by an often unseen army of people who have been there before the action was possible. The person starting a business probably was educated in a system supported by tax dollars and everyone working for that person as an employee of contractor probably was to. Anyone that thinks they don't owe someone else a debt for what they have is mistaken.

[SoCal]

And where does the "government" get the money to insure a savings accout?

THE TAXPAYER.

The only money the government can hand out is TAXPAYER money.

[SoCal]

[davidhayes1956]

Taxpayer money or printed money or borrowed money. But how did people get money? A man with a mine bought the land but the original owner was the government (which is us). A man with an oil well bought land but the original owner .... A farmer plants crops, but the original owner was .... No one really owns anything unless by right of law which is given by government. If the government is gone, anyone with the power to exert power over the land can claim the right of ownership. If the government is us, we are the ones collecting money from us to distribute to others. Some make a gain in the process. Some take a loss. But no one makes something from nothing. Even ideas wouldn't come without some degree of education or nurture or nutrition. And implementing ideas involve resources that came from somewhere.

Should roads be privately financed and made and owned? Should every road be a toll road and the rules on that road be determined by the owner? Should every pipeline and power line and river be privately owned? If we have a government and a government builds and regulates the systems we depend on, then the government needs money to do these things. Getting the money from the people who depend on those services is called taxation.

[SoCal]

Wow, David, you really need to re-read your American history. The national government was devised by free men who formed it to have very limited powers. The individual states retained most of the power to regulate, with the people's consent, internal affairs. Ever hear of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution? "Those powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." In other words, the national governments powers were extremely limited. Over the course of 200+ years, the 10th amendment has been severly trampled upon. The federal government has aquired powers never envisiioned by the founders. The Declaration stated, "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." Not the other way around. The people do not live to serve the government, the government is put into place by the consent of the people. And if that government ceases to serve the will of the people it becomes tyrannical and dictatorial.

[Mistermoonlight]

[SoCal]

[davidhayes1956]

A state government is a government. It is only federal governments you have problems with?

[davidhayes1956]

Jul 19, 2012 22:02:46 GMT -5 SoCal said:

And if that government ceases to serve the will of the people it becomes tyrannical and dictatorial.

Which brings up an interesting question, if the majority of a society becomes so immoral as to decide to eliminate a portion of the population that is in the minority, if the government doesn't serve the will of the people, would that government be considered tyrannical and dictatorial? For instance, had the majority of the German people decided that the people who couldn't work (due to birth defects and medical conditions) and the gypsies and the Jewish people who lived in their country should be wiped out, should Hitler be considered a true public servant by initiating programs that accomplished what the majority of the citizens wanted? And if so, what right did other nations have to interfere with policies dictated by the majority of the people in an independent nation? Maybe that would have been the case had Germany stayed within its borders. The US didn't get very involved until Germany's ally Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

[SoCal]

Jul 19, 2012 22:59:13 GMT -5 @davidhayes1956 said:

A state government is a government. It is only federal governments you have problems with?

Mostly. Because the federal government was given extremely limited powers by the Constitution. The individual states were given the majority of the governing powers. And that was so local control was given precedence. The founders feared an all controlling federal power becoming like that they had just declared to be tyrannical and illegitimate. Our current federal government has become just that. As Thomas Jefferson said, "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as in the physical."

[SoCal]

[SoCal]

[davidhayes1956]

Jul 20, 2012 10:43:40 GMT -5 SoCal said:

Mostly. Because the federal government was given extremely limited powers by the Constitution.

The states have some of the most inefficient governments. Cities are even worse. Part of the reason to have state governments is that people needed a government that could respond immediately in a time when travel across country could take months. Now information can span the continent in moments. In most cases, it is inefficient to have 50 individual bureaucracies for the same purpose when one department can handle it. Having individual state governments has been very handy for criminals when agencies in different states didn't talk to each other. We are lucky that we can drive coast to coast without having to get a driver's license for every state we travel through. Thankfully the traffic laws are similar enough that people going from one state to the next don't have to worry too much about violating the laws. Imagine if airline traffic had to stop at all state borders to get permission to keep going. The benefits of having individual state governments are a lot more limited than they used to be. It still gives states the freedom to under-educate their children.