Couldn't Help But Notice

[Ivan]

Had you seen the speech he gave when the teleprompters fizzled, you would realize he cant talk, just read.

He does not represent us well over seas, as witnessed by his act of subserviance to the Arabian King. No leader of the greatest free nation in the world should EVER bow to a terrorist sympathizer.

Now is the time to get involved. Those who would have your freedom stripped are relying on the apathy of the populace.

As far as Obama being a "mixed race" he has never referred to himself as such. He has denied his caucation half at every turn.

As far as the president being powerless, that is not true. He has great influence, power of veto, he selects supreme court nominees, and is the sole individual that can declare war. How is that powerless? His power is magnified now that there are no balance of powers in the congress, or the supreme court. A sad situation indeed..

[Big Daddy Funk]

Very Interesting...

Enlightening to say the least. It would appear that all of North America (and likely most of the world) has a very real mistrust of politicians as a whole. I know that Canadians are so apathetic voter turnouts have dropped steadily for years. The problem with that is it gives special interest groups who can be mobilized to get out and vote, the ability to heavily influence government policy.
It is every political parties #1 objective to get elected or re-elected. Their platforms and policies will be based on getting elected, not by what is best for the country as a whole.
The democratic system really does work but every citizen must vote to make the majority rules numbers work. The theory is that if everyone votes the majority of people will make the correct decision in the best interests of the country. Anything less than 100% turnout can cause the numbers to be skewed and mistakes are made.
How about some political reforms like throwing out the political party system? No elected officials forced to vote along party lines.
Any Ideas?
Rick

[DJinNH]

I'm just glad I don't live in Iran...."Vote for me or you and your family will be put to death."

Don

[CatatonicBug]

Had you seen the speech he gave when the teleprompters fizzled, you would realize he cant talk, just read.

He does not represent us well over seas, as witnessed by his act of subserviance to the Arabian King. No leader of the greatest free nation in the world should EVER bow to a terrorist sympathizer.

Now is the time to get involved. Those who would have your freedom stripped are relying on the apathy of the populace.

As far as Obama being a "mixed race" he has never referred to himself as such. He has denied his caucation half at every turn.

As far as the president being powerless, that is not true. He has great influence, power of veto, he selects supreme court nominees, and is the sole individual that can declare war. How is that powerless? His power is magnified now that there are no balance of powers in the congress, or the supreme court. A sad situation indeed..

Obama is definitely a bit too reliant on the teleprompters. However, I have to say that if I was up in front of that many people, saying things that will be recorded and quoted forever, I think I would rely on them too (it IS pretty cool technology). I know I am a much better writer than a talker, so I really don't have a problem with that. Maybe he should keep a copy of his speech on paper with him too, but it's still his speech, and he is very good at delivering them.

Any national dignitary, "leader of the free world" or not, should be willing to be respectful of the hosting national dignitary. If bowing is how they show respect, I don't see anything wrong with showing respect to anyone who runs any country, regardless of their political views. It becomes difficult to gain trust and rapport with people if you don't first show them respect.

Though Obama's "mixed race" status does tend to lean toward the black side for obvious, visual reasons, I have never heard him "deny" his heritage, or any portion thereof. It's the media, not Obama or his administration, who have latched onto the fact that we have a man in office who is "African American". He never used his heritage as part of his campaign - it was the media and the general population who decided his heritage was a good thing, and ran with it.

As far as power goes, he does make appontments, but those appointments must be approved by Congress. He can veto, but Congress can over-rule that veto if they can get enough people behind an issue to do so. He can declare war, but only AFTER gaining permission from Congress to do so (the reason Vietnam was never a declared war). So yes, he has a lot of influence, but his "power" is very limited.

[DJinNH]

Like I said before, I didn't vote for Obama. I do have to say that my opinion of him went up a whole lot higher after (I imagine) him saying to some Navy Admiral in reference to that Pirate/Freighter Captain hostage issue, "If the opportunity arises.....take 'em out."

Don

[b.walker5]

An outsiders perspective

It doesnt matter where you are in the world, elected representives, and self appointed ones for that matter, are always going to be blamed for the ill's of the world. Our recently elected new Govt is suffering the same thing. Fact is that greed and dishonesty on Wall street, and a seriously flawed sub prime mortgage system is why we are where we are today and it started way before Obama was elected, it was on Bush's watch but even he cant be blamed for it, even though he's an idiot. True, Obama spent a whole sh*t load of money baling out some big players but doing nothing was going to hurt your, and our, ecomony way more, unfortunately it seems not to have worked in GM's case. Someone mentioned that Obama was not representing the US well on the international stage. Untrue, he comes across as very competent and reassuring to the outside world, as did Clinton but you maybe need to see news from outside the US, instead of the spoon fed negative stuff your media seems to delight in providing, to fully appreciate this. Not meaning to be disparaging but it seems that the most popular presidents within the US seem to be the war-mongers, in the name of freedom, while the unpopular ones prefer to solve problems with dimplomacy. Someone mentioned the race angle, insofar as it's almost politically incorrect to promote anything white without being referred to as racist, we too have that issue. There are that many grants, handouts, gov't assistance, freebees etc available to our minority Moari population that even the gov't has lost track, but god forbid you ask for anything special for the white guy. They even want guaranteed seats on city councils etc and start crying foul when told that they can stand for election like everybody else, apparantely thats being racist. One last comment, someone talked about your president being the leader of the free world. For a lot of people outside the US that's a little insulting, it's like telling other countries that they dont have the capacity to run their own affairs. It's one of the reasons that Clinton was more poular outside the US than within, he didnt openly promote or subscribe to that notion. In the 80's our Labour govt of the day, led by David lange, refused to allow US warships into our ports, because we had decided we didnt want nuclear energy and it's potential dangers, and your navy would neither confirm nor deny their power source. We didnt see the US as the leader of the free world, and still dont, and announced to rest of the world that we were perfectly cabable of making our own decisions, and were getting along nicely thankyou. We still dont allow US warships into our ports.

[Big Daddy Funk]

Now What?

So folks, How can all this be fixed? I think we all can agree that Democracy is the way to go. Socialism, Communism, Facism, and Dictatorships have shown fatal flaws in a short period of time. Democracy has at least tried to remain loyal to the original ideals. There are a few places where democracy has failed it's citizens though.
The United states original constition is a remarkable document and could serve as a solid base for democratic success.
Basic rights of ALL a countries citizens should never be ammended.
Separation of church and state must be vigorously supported.
Government, military and police operations should be overseen by elected civilians.
The "Party" system has to go. all elected officials are responsible to their constituants.

With some work I really think the democratic system could be the ultimate form of government for any country.
As for unchecked capitalism, that will require more thought. As well as some nooses.

[DGXSER]

Big Daddy, I think you have hit the nail on the head, nut only nicked the edge of it. The parties exist because like minded folks want their money to go into a bigger pool to support a group. From that group they pick one person to represent them as the person to be elected. That elected person DOES represent the folks who put them in office, that just happens to be the folks with the money and not the ones who went in and marked a ballot.

So just like these bail outs we are seeing, which yes, may have killed alot of economies without them, are still just more people who have to much money being given passes on facing the ramifications of their actions. Nothing new really, the "Gold"en rule at work. And the idea of puting more money out to the little folks so they can afford the dream, when they still can not afford it, it just gives them enough push to go further into debt than they can get out of.

Yep, eliminate the parties but by more than just the names. And then you have to get folks to put the good of the country ahead of the good of themselves which will NEVER happen in my opinion, not a large scale.

[trbig]

We didnt see the US as the leader of the free world, and still dont, and announced to rest of the world that we were perfectly cabable of making our own decisions, and were getting along nicely thankyou. We still dont allow US warships into our ports.

Be assured though.. that were you ever attacked by another country.. your government and people would surely change it's tune. Countries like to trash talk the U.S., but guess who they all turn to in times of need or conflict.

Tod

[oseaghdha]

Don't get me started

The "Panderer in Chief" is a BS artist, enabled by an adoring press that cares nothing for the traditional role of watching over the government. Unless it's Palin's daughter's sex life, that is.

Obama has spent more money than all previous presidents combined. The government ran out of cash in April! And spent on what? ACORN, ESL programs, Polar Bears. How is that stimulating anything except his pals?

He took a problem, and made it much much worse.

Yeah, he is great on the world scene, sure. How did that work out with the Brits? DVDs and Ipods for all!
Hugo Chavez told him to "vaya a lavarse ese palto.” , then gave him a swell book to read. "Thanks Hugo, how about a picture!"
Americans bow to no one, except for.........?
Putin, Lil Kim, Ahmadinnerjacket, they all see him for a fool, because he is a fool.

He is now engaged in State Corporatism with the banks and auto industry. One step removed from fascism, if you study these things. National Health Care is next. Our friends in Canada and the UK can tell us all the great points of that wonderful program. All the efficiency of the Post Office, with the compassion of the IRS. What could go wrong? VA anyone?

Maybe he can make the trains run on time.

I do not like him, Sam I am.

[EricHa]

Be assured though.. that were you ever attacked by another country.. your government and people would surely change it's tune. Countries like to trash talk the U.S., but guess who they all turn to in times of need or conflict.

Tod

Agreed. America is often scorned, but has done more good for this world than ANY other country in history. FACT.

[DJinNH]

Be assured though.. that were you ever attacked by another country.. your government and people would surely change it's tune. Countries like to trash talk the U.S., but guess who they all turn to in times of need or conflict.

Tod

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of Evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

Don

[The Lorax]

I did not vote for our sitting president, however, when I was recently polled about his job performance thus far, I asked how can I judge a 4 year job in the first three months. do I like his philosophies? no, do I agree with everything he says or does? no, the fact of the matter is that we the people elected him, and we the people are going to have to live with him for the remainder of his time in office, could be four years, could be eight, I don't know. I did find it kind of funny that when he was asked about renewing some "assault weapons ban" or something after it expired, he basically quoted the NRA with the whole "lets just enforce the laws currently on the books" I do believe he would like to ban all firearms, it's easier to govern how you want when you have a captive audience after all. but the general jist of this verbose post is We elected him, We will live with it for good or bad, and We will continue to debate all subjects political while he is serving and after he has left office. and the next guy will either be a savior or evil incarnate depending on which side of the political landscape you stand. have a nice day and ride safe

[oseaghdha]

............ I did find it kind of funny that when he was asked about renewing some "assault weapons ban" or something after it expired, he basically quoted the NRA with the whole "lets just enforce the laws currently on the books" .................
have a nice day and ride safe

Yeah, about that.

Yet one more in what will be an epic list of say one thing, do another.

[Jerry]

People get to tied up n the moment. Congress passes the budget, not the President. We are still running on Bush's last budget, the fiscal year does not expire until September of this year. Obama has proposed a lot of spending, but he does not yet have a budget passed by both chambers.

The President can recommend, but cannot appropriate funds. Personally I think Obama has a Pelosi problem.

By the way, we don't have a democracy; we have a democratic republic. A true democracy would have elected Gore in 2000; he received around 500,000 more votes than Bush did. People gloss over the differences, but they are important.

The political pendulum swings back and forth, conservative - liberal and back. Right now the political mood is swinging left, but there are signs it won't swing to far. Special interests and big business will see to that. After all, the major beneficiaries of the bail out are banks and big business which are typically (not exclusively) Republican; I find it hypocritical for the Republicans to yell when it is their portfolios that have been saved.

I personally find Obama's approach better suited to running the country than Bush's; the former is pragmatic and the later was based on unproven assumptions that fit an ideology. For example:

"Mr Rumsfeld is in Europe to try to gain backing for possible military action against Iraq.

"It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months," he said, speaking at the American air base at Aviano, in northern Italy."
Full article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2738089.stm

As for the "socalist" arguments; what about Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program? Government running the schools, determining who gets money and who does not, based on tests it devised. I didn't hear a lot of Republicans yelling about socialism when this bill came out; they passed it overwhelmingly, but government dictating school curriculums is more a socialist move to the left than anything Obama has proposed. Socialist governments control the schools in their countries, democratic governments don't.

The US suffers from "cognitive dissodence"; a condition where belief is expressed in 2 or more opposing positions. Goverenment run schools is not socialism, but goverenment intervention in business is. A nation based on rule of law can hold indefinitly prisoners without charging them with a crime. All life is worth preserving but people killed as "collateral damage" is acceptable. Torture is not OK, but "enhanced interrogation" is just fine, even desireable.

Until or unless we come to grips with these disparate beliefs the country will continue to spiral down, regardless of who or which party is in power.