Barack Obama 2012 Containment Thread

[lagdonk]

Quick thoughts:

- The mainstream (and Tea Party) Republican alternatives to Obama are grossly unconvincing, as is every argument I've heard made in their favor, as are boilerplate Republican criticisms of Obama, all of which reduce to untenable nonsense about "small government" and "fiscal responsibility" no one ****ing intends -- we'd basically get a close-ish to center dude taking periodic jabs at messing **** up in classical Republican fashion (anti-environment, anti-public-anything, anti-regulation, anti-removal-of-tax-loopholes-for-the-powerful, anti-war-reduction, anti-humane-drug-policy, etc.) Yawn.

- Civil liberties / War On Terror™ critiques of what Obama's administration has done, his seemingly awful negotiation tactics (start at your middle, not highest, demand, then compromise by moving to your lowest), and (to a lesser extent) the status-quo economic advisers and approaches he's employed with respect to the financial sector all strike me as compelling reasons to look elsewhere.

- Blaming him and/or voting him out because of the unemployment rate seems dumb to me, just because I don't see him being personally and directly responsible for or capable of significantly influencing such a thing. I'm sure there are, in theory, measures he could take to give the numbers a better chance of improving, but my guess is that tracing the causality will always be a murky business, and one is better off evaluating the president in more straightforward spheres of political action.

- I would love, I think, for Ron Paul to get the Republican nomination against him, but only in my fantasy world where Paul would smarten up the insane-o portions of his rhetoric such that his platform achieved the peak of its presentability to the general American public, and a genuine contest of ideas would unfold, and magically somehow Paul wouldn't be instantly wafflecrushed, and we'd have ourselves a real horse race.

- I see the election, therefore, as a choice between two evils, so voting for the lesser one seems obvious to me, in addition to the "benefits" of having a Democratic president plus Republican congress, which they tell me has historically yielded better results than homogeneous setups.

[[Phill]]

Originally Posted by sterlinguini

But can you see how staggered, methodical withdrawals intent on not leaving a power vacuum leads to never ending occupations and nation building?

It's not like there is any foreseeable moment when we can all smile proudly and say "We totally made Afghanistan awesome! We can go home now with PRIDE!"

The whole concept of there being a "right way to withdraw" inevitably seems to become an excuse to never withdraw.

Again, something else Ron Paul fans do and sorry if you feel im picking on you on purpose.

We are talking about the withdrawal from Iraq and the planned withdrawal from Afghanistan has come up and yet you are using terms like "never ending occupations and nation building". I think nation building is an international thing through groups like the UN (and by that i mean supporting people to make their own nation), so leave that aside, so we now have "never ending occupations". Which is a nonsense phrase when its used to include having an embassy and a military base within a country.

"Right way to withdraw" is absolutely not the same thing as "never withdraw[ing]".

[SimonStylesTheActo]

It's not like Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen do not give us permission to strike militants there, and it's not like there is anyone in ACland Somalia to give permission or not as it's, well, ACland, where might makes right, which is the whole problem Libertarianism in the first place.

But is that really true?

[FlyWf]

Originally Posted by snagglepuss

suzzer,


AKSpartan: Sure is crazy that Obama claimed he wouldn't sign the NDAA with that language in it, and yet he did? The ACLU sure has some valid points (as glenn greenwald would agree) about how messed up that is. I will now try to understand and come up for reasons for why our president is doing such 'wild things' that sound like they come from the pages of a conspiracy blog only a mere 6 months ago.

But suzzer didn't say AKSpartan, he said Boa and bahbahmickey. Who are making grand statements about Obama destroying the economy and race relations and ****. Amazing stuff.

When we've had birther threads the Obama liberals LOVED that ****. People calling Obama a socialist/Marxist/dictator/Muslim or whatever? Liberals eat it up. That's top post on Wonkette material. We seek it out to lol about it.

suzzer- It's a well known fact that liberals are made of sterner stuff from their lifetimes of making pragmatic and difficult choices. (but seriously, of the regulars in this forum, the primary "liberals" are all on the older side, I'd guess they just don't take the internets so seriously, if we had college age hopey-change Obamaniacs they'd be just as shrill)

[sterlinguini]

Originally Posted by [Phill]

Again, something else Ron Paul fans do and sorry if you feel im picking on you on purpose.

We are talking about the withdrawal from Iraq and the planned withdrawal from Afghanistan has come up and yet you are using terms like "never ending occupations and nation building". I think nation building is an international thing through groups like the UN (and by that i mean supporting people to make their own nation), so leave that aside, so we now have "never ending occupations". Which is a nonsense phrase when its used to include having an embassy and a military base within a country.

"Right way to withdraw" is absolutely not the same thing as "never withdraw[ing]".

No that's fine, so educate me, I'm willing to learn. Is there a right way to leave Afghanistan? It's been more than ten years. What are we waiting for?

Also, did we leave Iraq in good condition? From what I've read the government is more corrupt and will possibly be hostile to US interests in the future. Should we stay longer iyo until X happens and Iraq is no longer corrupt and is friendly to "our interests"? What is X? How do we know when we've achieved it?

Also, the word embassy shouldn't be used to apply to what was built in Iraq. What we built and are maintaining there is more like a new Pentagon/Guantanamo/giant military compound, not a place where people go to get Visas renewed and ****.

[Ineedaride2]

Now I don't know where to put this. LC thread, or Obama thread?

Oh well:

Obama to seek power to merge agencies; first up would be commerce, trade

President Barack Obama will ask Congress on Friday for greater power to shrink the federal government, and his first idea is merging six sprawling trade and commerce agencies whose overlapping programs can be baffling to businesses, a senior administration official told The Associated Press.

OBAMA WANTS TO GIVE HIMSELF UNPRECEDENTED AUTHORITY TO...

Obama will call on Congress to give him a type of reorganizational power last held by a president when Ronald Reagan was in office.

......****!

[[Phill]]

As i understand it Afghanistan was basically forgotten by everyone for like half of those 10 years. But the right way to leave is probably found somewhere between what Obama proposes and what the generals recommended to him. I believe the plan is a near complete withdrawal in 2013 and the generals wanted more forces around until 2015, but thats going off memory.

Im pretty sure the current engagements right now is securing the border region with Pakistan and beating back the militants there whilst training the Afghan forces to fill in the vacuum as withdrawal happens.

As for Iraq i know there are still problems there but we helped rebuild the country as much as we could for as long as they wanted the help and that is fine with me. The end goal isnt necessarily installing a friendly government after leaving.

Pure guesswork, but if Iraq didnt happen (or happened completely different with a full UN and NATO force) and Afghanistan was concentrated on instead then Afghanistan would be rebuilt and withdrawn from at this point.

I never supported the Iraq invasion fwiw.

[Barrin6]

Originally Posted by Ineedaride2

Now I don't know where to put this. LC thread, or Obama thread?

Oh well:

Obama to seek power to merge agencies; first up would be commerce, trade



OBAMA WANTS TO GIVE HIMSELF UNPRECEDENTED AUTHORITY TO...



......****!

It be interesting to hear the excuse as to why the republicans won't let him do that just so they can be on the other aside of Obama

[bahbahmickey]

Originally Posted by lagdonk

Quick thoughts:

- The mainstream (and Tea Party) Republican alternatives to Obama are grossly unconvincing, as is every argument I've heard made in their favor, as are boilerplate Republican criticisms of Obama, all of which reduce to untenable nonsense about "small government" and "fiscal responsibility" no one ****ing intends -- we'd basically get a close-ish to center dude taking periodic jabs at messing **** up in classical Republican fashion (anti-environment, anti-public-anything, anti-regulation, anti-removal-of-tax-loopholes-for-the-powerful, anti-war-reduction, anti-humane-drug-policy, etc.) Yawn.

- Civil liberties / War On Terror™ critiques of what Obama's administration has done, his seemingly awful negotiation tactics (start at your middle, not highest, demand, then compromise by moving to your lowest), and (to a lesser extent) the status-quo economic advisers and approaches he's employed with respect to the financial sector all strike me as compelling reasons to look elsewhere.

- Blaming him and/or voting him out because of the unemployment rate seems dumb to me, just because I don't see him being personally and directly responsible for or capable of significantly influencing such a thing. I'm sure there are, in theory, measures he could take to give the numbers a better chance of improving, but my guess is that tracing the causality will always be a murky business, and one is better off evaluating the president in more straightforward spheres of political action.

- I would love, I think, for Ron Paul to get the Republican nomination against him, but only in my fantasy world where Paul would smarten up the insane-o portions of his rhetoric such that his platform achieved the peak of its presentability to the general American public, and a genuine contest of ideas would unfold, and magically somehow Paul wouldn't be instantly wafflecrushed, and we'd have ourselves a real horse race.

- I see the election, therefore, as a choice between two evils, so voting for the lesser one seems obvious to me, in addition to the "benefits" of having a Democratic president plus Republican congress, which they tell me has historically yielded better results than homogeneous setups.

-Since when are small govt and fiscal responsibility nonsense? I think all of teh non-???? you listed in the paranthesis are a good idea, with the exception of the loophole issue. I think we should get rid of EVERY loophole while we also create a flat tax rate (above std of living), because doing one and not the other is likely going to significantly hurt the econ.

-How can you say he hasn't effected unemployment? Not doing anything to help the numbers doesn't help either. (can we say "end minimum wage")

[bahbahmickey]

Originally Posted by FlyWf

But suzzer didn't say AKSpartan, he said Boa and bahbahmickey. Who are making grand statements about Obama destroying the economy and race relations and ****. Amazing stuff.

When we've had birther threads the Obama liberals LOVED that ****. People calling Obama a socialist/Marxist/dictator/Muslim or whatever? Liberals eat it up. That's top post on Wonkette material. We seek it out to lol about it.

suzzer- It's a well known fact that liberals are made of sterner stuff from their lifetimes of making pragmatic and difficult choices. (but seriously, of the regulars in this forum, the primary "liberals" are all on the older side, I'd guess they just don't take the internets so seriously, if we had college age hopey-change Obamaniacs they'd be just as shrill)

I don't remember directly saying that Obama destroyed the economy, but I would have a tough time arguing that he didn't significantly hurt it. For the record: I don't see race relations (in the way it is being defined ITT) being effected by Obama.

[suzzer99]

Originally Posted by FlyWf

But suzzer didn't say AKSpartan, he said Boa and bahbahmickey. Who are making grand statements about Obama destroying the economy and race relations and ****. Amazing stuff.

When we've had birther threads the Obama liberals LOVED that ****. People calling Obama a socialist/Marxist/dictator/Muslim or whatever? Liberals eat it up. That's top post on Wonkette material. We seek it out to lol about it.

suzzer- It's a well known fact that liberals are made of sterner stuff from their lifetimes of making pragmatic and difficult choices. (but seriously, of the regulars in this forum, the primary "liberals" are all on the older side, I'd guess they just don't take the internets so seriously, if we had college age hopey-change Obamaniacs they'd be just as shrill)

I think liberals are just used to being derided and attacked by 100% cocksure/smug/sanctimonious conservatives/libertarians. We know it's coming and we're used to it. Clearly liberal-bashing is the last acceptable prejudice

For some reason the libertarians in the RP seem to be genuinely hurt when you poke holes in RP or libertarianism, and generally take it like you're attacking them personally when you attack RP.

[bahbahmickey]

Originally Posted by Barrin6

It be interesting to hear the excuse as to why the republicans won't let him do that just so they can be on the other aside of Obama

I like the idea of smaller govt, but giving Pres more power seems scary*.

*would still be scary even if it was a Pres I really liked.

[bahbahmickey]

Originally Posted by suzzer99

I think liberals are just used to being derided and attacked by 100% cocksure/smug/sanctimonious conservatives/libertarians. We know it's coming and we're used to it. Clearly liberal-bashing is the last acceptable prejudice

For some reason the libertarians in the RP seem to be genuinely hurt when you poke holes in RP or libertarianism, and generally take it like you're attacking them personally when you attack RP.

I would think the last and most acceptable prejudice would be the hate for the rich, hard-working, the people who employ us, people who made America so great, most-successful, 1%, or what ever else you want to call them.

[Barrin6]

Originally Posted by bahbahmickey

I like the idea of smaller govt, but giving Pres more power seems scary*.

*would still be scary even if it was a Pres I really liked.

What's wrong with more power? It's not a president is going to abuse it

Edit: What about the NDAA and patriot act? Suddenly giving Obama power to consolidate agency is too much "power"?

[joeyDizzle]

Originally Posted by Ineedaride2

Now I don't know where to put this. LC thread, or Obama thread?

Oh well:

Obama to seek power to merge agencies; first up would be commerce, trade



OBAMA WANTS TO GIVE HIMSELF UNPRECEDENTED AUTHORITY TO...



......****!

Obama is a conservative trojan horse