2008 United States election

[cr2]

John McCain or Barack Obama?

[piranha]

How could anyone vote republican after the last 8 years with that R **** faced *******!?

Plus, Palin.....is....she doesn't know ANYTHING! She has no idea how to run a country, what so ever. Seriously, in interviews she has used that Alaska is bordered by Russia (wtf) as credentils for foreign policy. She hasn't been outside of the country.

If you consider republican as a suitable choice, I need to talk to you.

-JL

[Alboin]

You either get more war or more socialism. It's bad at both ends.

[01000101]

I voted McCain as we need a strong leader with experience. And as far as Palin goes, I'm almost 100% sure she will only be used to allow drilling in Alaska (which I am for).

[piranha]

A strong leader with experience who might die resulting in Palin as president? Great. Just great.

We are in a large economic problem, and McCain has said that economics isn't his strong point. Obama will be much btter at fixing these problems, even with his less experience.

-JL

[cr2]

I think John McCain will hold in for 4 years.

And besides, Barack Obama wont be able to claim having experience as "Vice President" (which Sarah Palin will if John McCain dies and she becomes president)

[piranha]

But she has no real experience now!

Seriously, how could anyone vote republican after 8 years from Bush?

I don't know, maybe I don't get you people...
Just It would seem to me that anyone who was at all informed, and smart, would vote democratic this time.

-JL

[cr2]

Define "real experience".

and seriously...Please give the leader of your nation, the president, the respect he deserves, even if you disagree with him and you think he made this country a big mess.

[Alboin]

Seriously, how could anyone vote republican after 8 years from Bush?

I don't know, maybe I don't get you people...
Just It would seem to me that anyone who was at all informed, and smart, would vote democratic this time.

Ah, bliss. Isn't this why our glorious American fathers tried to avoid having political parties to begin with? "Vote democrat! Vote republican!"

My God man, simply vote for the individual who is best suited for the job.

[piranha]

So, after hearing policies, it's still Obama.

-JL

[Cognition]

I'm going Obama/Biden this time. Personally I don't really have anything against McCain, and I think he's a good guy. Honestly if the country was in better condition I'd probably vote for him as a sure thing. The problem is we're in a bad position currently that I personally believe is going to require some creative solutions, which I honestly don't see as McCain's strong point. I think the guy has intergrity himself, but he's surrounded himself with advisors and a VP who represent everything he's been against his entire career. I also wasn't a big fan of him claiming that earmarks were "corrupting" politicians. It's not a great practice don't get me wrong here, but most of the guys in prison over these things are there from their own greed.

I like Obama because I think he has the best plans for revitalizing the economy and energy independence in the long term. Likewise I think it's apparent at this point that we need more corporate regulation in general, and I'm going to stick with a canidate who's actually voted in favor of that. Perhaps most importantly I think we need todo a lot of work when it comes to foriegn policy and international relations, I just don't see McCain being the negogiating/self restraining type. He's also the only one to actually talk about addressing our trade/debt relations with China which I think needs to happen.

At anyrate it's been a good race so far, I felt like the debate stuck to the issues and showed they're both serious about trying to fix things. I also feel like both canidates are ready and willing to lead with some idea of what todo, the past 2 elections really hadn't given me that same feeling. All things considered we could be doing a lot worse when it comes to canidates.

[cr2]

Cognition, what are these plans that you speak of?

[babylon2233]

The United States


1. I wonder what is happening to the United States of America. It used to lay down the laws and rules which the whole world must abide. If any country refuses then blacklisting, sanctions and even invasions by the US forces might ensue.

2. It set the forms and standards for everything; systems of Government, human rights, economic transparency etc etc. Now it seems to be breaking or ignoring its own rules, regulations and laws.

3. It had condemned the Internal Security Act as unjust and a violation of human rights. Following the shock and awe invasion of Iraq, it has detained alleged terrorists without trial and without rights and habeas corpus proceedings. Some detainees have been there for five years.

4. Then in Abu Ghraib detention camp detainees have been tortured and humiliated. They were treated like animals. If it had happened in some weak Asian country, the US would demand for all kinds of punishment which the US is ever ready to inflict. But no one can drag Americans to court and punish them. If at all American courts would try these miscreants and the punishment would be very light.

5. Because of the extraordinary greed of American financiers and businessmen, they invent all kinds of ways to make huge sums of money. We cannot forget how in 1997-98 American hedge funds destroyed the economies of poor countries by manipulating their national currencies.

6. When as a result of the so-called trade in currencies the companies in the poor countries faced bankruptcy, the Governments were told not to bail out any company or bank which was in deep trouble. The Americans claimed that these companies or banks were inefficient and they should be allowed to go bankrupt and perish. Better still they should be sold at fire-sale price to American investors.

7. Yet today we see the US Government readying US700 billion to brazenly bail out banks, mortgage companies and insurance companies.

8. Where does the money come from? From thin air as no real money in cash or bullion or anything tangible are moved into the bankrupt banks. The money is just in the form of loan papers and entries in the books of the banks or companies.

9. The US 700 billion has no backing whatsoever. No gold reserves, no foreign currency reserves as required for other countries. Without such backing the US Dollar is actually useless. Only the military power of the US is forcing the world to give value to the US Dollar.

10. Desperate to avoid a serious recession the US has abandoned all its principles. It has now banned short selling, limited currency trading and insist that the accounts of hedge funds and currency traders to be open for inspection and be published.

11. In the final spasm of fear, the Government has given itself the right to resolve the problem of bankrupt banks and companies by the Government taking over i.e. the great capitalist country has accepted what is nothing more than nationalization which it had condemned so much before.

12. The US now owes the world US 14 trillion. There is no way it can ever settle this debt. If other countries fail to repay or service their debts, the US would demand that they be made bankrupt. Now the US is literally bankrupt but it still insists that the pieces of paper, the famous or infamous greenbacks have some value. It actually has no value. Certainly it cannot be used to finance wars of aggression against Iraq and Afghanistan, to finance the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) activities in undermining Governments and countries. But still the US' ability to threaten countries is undiminished.

[Solar]

You either get more war or more socialism.

Obama - Socialist?

*cough*...

Dudes, your "Democrats", which you like to label "liberal" at best and "communist" at worst, would probably rank among the conservative-right in most other countries...

Anyway, what's the poll about? Do I vote "who will win", "who would I vote for", or "who would I want to see winning"? That's three very different things, seeing how any vote not "Obama" would effectively mean "McCain" no matter whom you vote for. (Hooray for a two-party political system... )

[Cognition]

Cognition, what are these plans that you speak of?

Pretty much building an economy based on alternative energy. Including domestic production and retooling/rebuilding of the auto industry so they'll be the primary producers of newer cars for different sources of fuel. McCain in a sense has a similar plan but it focuses more on just household energy through increased nuclear power use, which I'm not against either, but I think it's easier/quicker to build a biodisiel plant than it is to get a nuclear plant zoned and built.

Likewise part of it is actually investing in research to make existing technologies more afforable or to perfect them, which we haven't been doing very well lately. This is an area where I'm unsure with McCain, he hasn't really mentioned investing in research for these things and at the debate he stressed a spending freeze on everything but essentially the bare essentials to keep the government running. While I understand the point of this, I'm curious if that would impact government sponsored research budgets and so forth, if it did I feel that we would really fall behind on the tecnology front as it would necessitate basically all such funding to come from the private sector.

As Solar has said most of our Democrats aren't socialists either, even then I think Obama was a more moderate canidate than Hillary would have been. At most he'll probably look to offer some subsidized healthcare, which we really need at this point because the entire system is a mess. I'd rather we just create a new government corporation to provide competition make sure the industry as a whole keeps it's rates fair, but I doubt that'll happen regardless of who gets elected.