Every day I visit tons of website, forums, and social networks for all types of topics, most of which are technology based in some sort of form. This election cycle has really brought out the best of the liberal “group think” mentality regarding Obama. On just about every social network Obama is praised as “the one” and any hint of disagreement with his policies or ideals is immediately responded with accusations of racism, or just plain insults. Anybody who wants to claim that liberals are tolerant to others, please give me a shout because I can quickly debunk that. Even here on our network of sites, there have been insults tossed at the slightest hint of either supporting McCain, or being against Obama. I’m certainly not saying conservatives don’t dish out their fair share, but the mentality of liberals has once again bordered on the insane and hateful.
It’s tough being a proud conservative, as I will say what I think regardless of what the group and mob mentality is. The real shame is so many people, especially bloggers in the tech area, are afraid to do the same. I have received so many private notes and comments in support of standing up for conservatism, it’s almost crazy. The best comparison I can make is how conservative actors in Hollywood are often ridiculed or turned down for roles because of their conservative beliefs, and the same mentality is going on right now in the blogosphere. Conservative bloggers, some of which can be considered A-list are having to remain silent about their thoughts on Obama and McCain, simply because they are afraid of retribution from their employers or just not being able to pickup work from other sites. It’s a shame, and it’s more telling about liberals than it is anything.
I am a conservative, I don’t like Obama, and I will never let anyone intimidate me because of that.
CarGuy1 ....to people outside of the USA those comments sound quite 'positive'.
Many countries [if not all] are nervous of ANYONE who is pre-occupied with flag-waving and sabre-rattling as it tends to underline a sense of 'might-is-right and we don't effing care what you think anyway so like it or we'll make you like it'.
It doesn't matter what country you are from....YOUR country will always be 'right and noble and just'.
Others may disagree about your opinion...but that won't matter if/when you blast them into the stone-age for their insolence.
Thankfully I don't have to vote for either 'side'...but I'm quite certain if I was American and Palin ended up as Pres I'd emmigrate. 'extreme' opinions re gun-control and abortion would just be unpalatable...
You're right though Island Dog. And as an obvious lefty liberal I can say that no one should ever be afraid to speak for those reasons. Or any quite frankly. And it's retarded to be viewed differently, or treated differently like that. Freedom of speech and beliefs. And civil respect if not agreement.
Doesn't bother me at all.
These are folks that are called Politicians for a good reason. Thye will attempt to say what you want to hear so you will vote for them. It's not as much voting for the person that is better than the other, it's more voting for the one that won't make our life any worse than it is.
I know, I have an attitude. Comes from serveing in the military and being a government employee for about 30 yrs.
Ok, Daiwa take your pick four separate links all confirming what I said.
http://www.ncpssm.org/news/archive/myths/
http://www.aflcio.org/issues/retirementsecurity/socialsecurity/
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=U.S._Social_Security_privatization
http://www.socialsecurity.org/
The last one is to the Cato Institute a right wing conservative organization that characterizes the privatization of the Social Security program as giving the individual ownership of their social security plan.
What they don't mention is who will profit from this new found ownership namely, Wall Street bankers and those who will receive their favors (campaign contributions, executive level jobs in the private sector for family members, board of directors appointments). GWB's cousin sat on the board of Lehman Brothers. I wonder how he got that cushy job, high income and other perqs.
Privatize Social Security, and the "private sector" bankers will find all kinds of ways of making money from the former Social Security Trust Fund. Do not hold your Congress accountable for the legislation they pass, and they will continue to sell legislation to the highest bidder just like they have been doing.
Personally I have never cared for "labels"...conservative...lliberal...democrat...republican...rightwing...leftwing...leftofcenter...whatever...I'm pretty sure I left quite a few labels out here...but it just kinda mocks the idea of a "United States"...just seems to me there is nothing "united" about it...since it seems the one thing we all agree on is to not agree on anything. It's no wonder we can't get anything realistic accomplished in this country with so much labeling and division. When it comes time to vote...just close your eyes a push a button...the results will be the same anyway...but it will make you feel as though you actually made a difference. But the jokes on you.
Wow. Optomism. That really doesn't seem like the best way to ever achieve anything it seems to me. Even if you think progress is not a reality, is passive inactiveness the good opposition?
Here's a link to the 60 Minutes report I mentioned on credit default swaps.
CBS 60 Minutes credit default swaps link
All of which argue against privatizing all of Social Security, something 'GWB and the Replicans' never advocated. And none of which confirm what you said.
The links I posted speak for themselves and any rational person who reads them will agree they do confirm what I said and are a greater source of independent corroboration then anything you've posted.
I expected this sort of denial response from you. That's the only thing I've known you to do, no evidence and backup for what you say and denials to others in the face of facts presented.
Nah...old age and been through these election lies long enough to smell the bull. But knock yourself out if you think you can make a difference...doesn't seem to be working these days since apathy has moved in and people don't care enough anymore to actually protest. I blame the people of this country for this economy situation more than the politicians.
Glad you agree. McCain started talking about that 1.5-2 years ago then went completely silent on the topic. I wonder why. Right.
The biggest source of the current financial meltdown that caused huge problems was credit default swaps. Take a look at the 60 Minutes story I posted Web if you have the time. This is why banking credit froze, wall st firms collapsed and why such a large bailout was needed. It was also a result of a Commodities Modernization Bill pass unanimously by the Senate and the last legislation signed into law by Bill Clinton as part of the Omnibus Spending Authorization of December 20, 2000. Had Clinton not signed the entire bill government would have stopped functioning (gone unfunded) until a new Spending Bill was passed and signed into law under Bush.
Reagan said he needed a line item veto power to curb excesses by the Congress. Bill Clinton sure could have used that as well.
Daiwa, GWB anchored his entire run for President in 2004 on the "ownership society" which included letting this subprime mess go utterly unregulated, even though the warning signs were everywhered, AND, most directly to the point, the push to move people's social security from low return but ultra safe financial vehicles to stock market and mutual fund derivative vehicles.
So when you let ideology and spin trump even the basic facts as agreed on by ALL political parties, you do yourself a grave disservice. It is clear you would like to have your opinion heard here, or else why bother posting? But if it's obvious to us that you can't even acknowledge the common ground of well established facts, then those of us who would really like to hear what you have to say have no choice but to dismiss EVERYTHING you say as pure unadultered ideology.
Politics isn't a religion, nor should it be.
BDBF: Just what we need. LOL. Give the Wall Streeters more gas for the fire...this time they'll so wipe us out that 95 year olds will be flipping burgers to stay alive. [What? Don't the Corporations have enough poor illegals?]
The 'golden parachuted' executives have already skimmed $20 million from the $700 billion designed to ease the credit crunch and get banks back to loaning. Which they haven't. They're using the money to buy up other banks!
Where are the President and the candidates? Doing nothing and being noisey about it!
Where to Jafo? We're stuck on this mud ball!
For those complaining about social security, do you realize that democrats want to take your 401K's and transfer them to government control?
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-commerce/2008/10/23/would-obama-dems-kill-401k-plans.html
Anybody who thinks raising taxes during this time in the economy is a good idea, really has no grasp of the economy.
Obama wants to give more welfare to non-productive people of society, this is his 90% tax cut plan. 90% of people don't pay taxes, so them getting money back is nothing but welfare.
Deregulation was not the cause of this problem. That is just a talking point, pure and simple.
You talk about warning signs, then why did people like Barney Frank tell us that these organizations were fine and didn't need any type of action taken. Do you realize that Bush and republcians did try to overhaul these insititutions and was knocked down by democrats (and ACORN)?
I want to put the last of my 2 cents in, I guess I’ll be centsless now? I think this thread was great! I laughed most of the way through it. I think both sides made excellent points and the global community as well. IMHO debates like these make our country that much stronger. For my part I think BigDogBigFeet was completely correct, I should have stated that it was meant as humor and intended for the conservatives in the group. Sorry, my bad, I’ll try to do better
Note that there were two steps required for the current issues. The 1999 law was not the sole root of the problem, though it did open the door (for example, it allowed Phil Gramm's wife, a director at Enron, to help famously tank that company). This is because as long as the regulations regarding amount of capital vs. assets were maintained for financial institutions, there was sufficient real liquidity in the market to absorb the usual amounts of "companies gone bad" - like Enron.
However, in 2002, those very safety regulations were overturned by the GOP (who had legislative and executive control) - laws that had existed since the Great Depression and had kept the country solvent since then. Combined with Bush's decapitation of every government agency for purely political purposes (hence the FEMA, FDA, SEC, DoJ, etc. debacles), this let the door opened in 1999 become amplified to the point we see today.
Our system works best when it's all about checks and balances*.
*PS That's the reason the line item veto is unconstitutional as it strips financial authority from the legislative branch and hands it effectively to the executive branch. It makes for good political rhetoric every 2-4 years, but it will never hold up.
Please stop quoting obviously self-serving Op-Ed BLOGS as factual. You lose all credibility when you base a discussion of facts, which can be debated as far as their impact, on the rantings of some paid for politico spin/hack - from EITHER side of the fence.
Please see my note above about this. The combination of both laws, in 1999 and 2002, allowed Enron and the current state of affairs to come to pass...period.
For the same reasons that all of the Republicans sponsored this legislation during the years they had complete control of both houses of congress and the executive branch, ahem. Their campaign contributions, Democrat AND Republican, were coming from those people.
No one wanted to rock the boat as long as everyone was making money. And we all assumed that the safeguards put into place after the Great Depression would protect us, as it had over 70 years. Unfortunately, the politicians that we the people entrusted with this didn't understand the problem any better than we did (politicians are dumb humans too haha) and the agencies whose job it was to police this had been strategically gutted/lobotomized by Cheney/Bush in 2000.
So, no oversight + no regulation + no safeguards = CORRUPTION BUBBLE that's gonna burst one day. And it did.
ROFL. You're going to try and stretch a grass roots get out the vote organization supported by ALL Republicans and Democrats (including Obama AND McCain) into this conversation?! Puh-lease. Ignoring that utter ridiculousness...
No, the Republicans nor the Democrats did NOT try to re-regulate these agencies. Their personal friends and campaign contributors were all making too much money off of this. Regardless, the Democrats only gained control of one house of Congress in 2006...long after the Credit Default Swap horses had stampeded out of their Wall Street barns.
And I remember 2000-2008 where NOTHING got done or passed in the interests of the American people because Bush vetoed or threatened to veto anything and everything, at a time when neither house of congress had veto-proof majorities. This was the past 8 years of GRID LOCK, and no amount of revisionist ideological spin is going to erase that historical truth.
Gosh ID "there you go again", to borrow a phrase, apparently (according to you) ACORN is a terrorist organization of thugs who want to expand welfare and must be closely associated with the Democrats.
Why do you complain about Obama's plan to return federal Income Tax rates on the wealthiest members of our society to the pre-Bush era levels of the late 1990's? Obama wants to rollback the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy so what? He also says he will lower the Icome tax rates of the middle class. So where is the harm? It doesn't exist.
I hear Australia is nice....particularly since we got rid of that Little Johnny Brown-nose...
Ya you've got to wonder how the plan as sold to the Congress by Bernacke was to buy up the "toxic debt" from the Banks who were shaky and part of the credit freeze and within 1 week of approval it got switched to direct infusions of Capital (money) into Banks that they could then use in any manner they wanted. No Restrictions.
Probably the only problem Bernacke has had to face with the Banks is making sure there is enough to go around for all the sharks in this ocean of thieves. Notice how there is no plan anymore to buy up the toxic debt and then assist Home Owners to stay in their homes with re-negotiated mortgages thus reducing the size of the bailout to taxpayers and helping some little guys. The only people Bush and the Republicans want to help are the Fat Cats that's for sure.
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