Posted on 11/07/2008 10:40:35 AM PST by Traviswf
Hi there. I voted for Obama, but have been reading a lot of Freerepublic lately to see how the other side is reacting. I'm not trying to troll here - honestly - but if you feel I am, that's understandable. I just wanted to offer a perspective on this that I think may be interesting to some of you. Oh, and this is much longer than I intended. And I'm fairly certain I'm not posting this the right way...for which I apologize.
When Bush was elected in 2000, I was upset. And yes, I whined about him "stealing" the election. I don't really think that's true anymore - it was just a painful way to lose. Sure, we can whine about the popular vote vs. the electoral vote, but you can't change the rules in the middle of the game. Then I watched the movie Recount and realized just how awful the democrats were at trying to win the damn thing. Gore seemed like he didn't really want it.
When Bush won in 2004, I was absolutely devastated. I thought the world was going to end. I didn't think we should be in Iraq, I agreed with Kerry that we had to finish the fight in Afganistan. I was worried about the courts. And frankly - I just didn't like Bush. I didn't like the way he governed, the way he spoke, and the way he talked as if we on the left were less American.
On 9/11 I happened to be in Toronto on business. When the towers fell, I knew I had to get home. A colleague and I wanted to go to New York, to help in some way. But we were told nobody was getting anywhere close. Our next instinct was to get home - to California. We didn't just want to be with our families, we desperately wanted to be in our country. That day was rough because my colleague thought his wife might have been on one of the planes - her travel plans were very similar. It took hours of agony before we, thank God, found out she was safe.
So we rented a car in Toronto and drove across the country. It took a couple hours to get across the border in the middle of the night. We stopped in Omaha, and then Colorado. I can't even tell you how much I loved my country driving across its beauty in those days after the attacks. And there were no jokes about "we're in enemy territory" because we were in "red states." We were in America. Everywhere we went people said "How are you? Is everyone safe?"
I know everyone has similar stories of those days. And certainly many, many people have stories of real loss - not just "we thought we lost someone, but it was a happy ending." Then, fairly quickly, I felt my patriotism coming under attack because I had a difference of opinion about how to fight back. I didn't think Iraq was the right choice - it made no sense to me, and I certainly wasn't alone. But people questioned my love of my country. And that was very, very hard to forgive.
When 2008 came up, more than anything, I wanted to win the White House back. I wanted to punish the Bush administration for what I felt was not just a failure to be competent, but a failure to keep the country united. I inititally supported Hilary, but I had this feeling in my gut that she was just going to be Bush - but for our side. She'd be a partisan warrior, a polarizing figure (which Bush wasn't when he started, but Hilary already was...). It made me sick to my stomach.
I wanted to go back to feeling like an American in those days after the attack - where our disagreements were things we laughed about over a beer and the real threat was far, far more serious.
I'd written Obama's candidacy off as a dry run for 2016 or later. Or maybe he was running for VP. I thought - hey, dude, at least finish a term in the Senate. Then when he said "we're not a collection of red states and blue states, we're the United States of America" it hit me like lightning. It had nothing to do with him - it had to do with the country, and my love for it and this feeling deep down in my gut that we were fighting over the placement of the deck chairs while the ship was sinking.
Wow, this got really rambly. Sorry about that. Here's why I posted initially. I saw this thing on here about Obama's "national defense force" and some posters commenting about the coming civil war or some such. I'm pretty sure Obama was just talking about funding for police. I mean - are you guys really worried he's going to do this? There was a rumor on the left that Bush was bringing a military brigade trained in "riot control" home from Iraq before the elections. People were convinced Bush was going to take over the country in a military coup. I'm sure you think that's laughable - as do I. Obama is not going to raise a civilian force of brown coats. First of all there's no money for it, nobody would go for it, and he'd be laughed out of the White House.
He's also not a socialist. And he's not coming for your guns. If he did either of this things, he can basically just go home now. Those are not realistic positions for any president to have. He will likely appoint liberals - at least too liberal for you guys - to the courts.
But here's the thing. He's going to try and be a good president. I think they all do. And Obama ran on uniting the country, on being bipartisan. That's sort of ALL he ran on. It's how he won 60% of independent and brought home so many of the Clinton voters. So if he doesn't deliver on this - I imagine he'll be fairly easy to beat in 2012.
So that's my two cents. Obama was always going to get my vote as the nominee because I'm a lifelong democrat and a liberal. But I'm not a socialist or a pacifist. I believe in the 2nd amendment and favor the idea of most issues being decided by the states. I'm not a religious man, but I respect those who are and I think the Dems over reach in pushing religion out of the public square. I believe global warming is a serious problem, but I also think Al Gore enjoys it WAY too much.
And here's another caveat. I know it's easier to be bipartisan and talk about "togetherness" when my guy won. I was where you guys are now in 2000 and 2004. I mean, my party ALMOST ran Howard Dean and then said "No wait! John Kerry is a much better idea!" Or in this election to have a friend say "You've GOT to read Alec Baldwin's latest piece on HuffPo." I mean...really? He doesn't count as an "Obamacon" you know, he only plays a republican on TV...(you guys ever notice that our most annoying Hollywood liberals end up playing republicans? what's with that?)
So yeah - we've all spent some time in the woods. I just hope we can all agree that we're just as American as the other, and we're passionate about what we believe to be the right path to take. There are real problems with the economy, and Islamic Terrorists aren't going to take a vacation for four years.
That's about it I guess. Sorry you guys lost.
What exactly is a “zot”? Is that just having my post deleted?
Boy, I never knew Kool Aid made one ramble so. If ol’ Traviswf believes Obama’s not a socialist, then ol’ Traviswf must be a communist. Or he hasn’t a clue about Obama’s record or Obama’s statements over the years.
Sorry, Traviswf, but if that’s what you believe, you are going to be severely shocked in a short period of time.
The change Obama seeks is the implementation of plain old socialism.
Nothing new. No real change. Just retread policies that haven’t worked anywhere they’ve been tried.
This thread was kitty-deficient
Obama released a copy of his birth certificate. And isn’t he a citizen because his mother was anyway? I read the same thing about McCain - that even if he wasn’t born on a base (which I think he was) - his parents are citizens abroad, which makes him an American citizen.
I always thought that was a non-issue. Though it was interesting that one candidate was born in Panama, one in Hawaii, and one in Alaska. Oh, and Delaware...snooze.
It's a non-military draft. It's evil. All forms of involuntary servitude are.
Doesn't matter if the person proposing it has a R, D, S, or an I next to their name.
It is evil.
It's good to know y'all are A-O-K with a draft... so long as the person in charge is a Democrat.
One of the main pillars of the Just War Doctrine is that a war — in order to be just — must address a rea; threat (there were no WMDs or Al Qeada in Iraq) and must do more good than harm (so far, that's not the case). And a note to the peanut gallery: I don't get this from DailyKos, I get it from the Vatican, so if you want to call the Pope a "liberal troll" please be my guest.
What's sadly been washed over in all the chestbeating about Saddam and his mythical WMDs is the fault that lays at the feet of the Clinton Administration. I'll never forget when someone asked Madeline Albright whether the ineffectual sanctions had been worth the cost of starving 500,000 Iraqi children and she says, "Yes." What a monster. When the Bush Administration started flogging this bogus case for war, I thought, "Well, at least they're going to do something." Then I started to find out how little they knew about Iraq and I became worried that they were going to screw up, so I turned into an opponent of the war.
Frankly, I would love to have been proved an idiot. I would love it if Iraq was now a peaceful, democratic, secular country, like Israel, or the US. But it isn't. It's a huge, bloody, mess with a corrupt and powerless government. That was worth the cost?
No, all good policy is NOT about “spreading prosperity”. It is about fostering personal responsibility and protecting the freedoms described in the Bill of Rights.
“Spreading prosperity” means SOCIALISM. You don’t know how to think.
Can someone please post a link to this “private civilian police force” that Obama wants to start? The only “evidence” of this I’ve seen is a youtube clip of a speech where Obama is talking about putting more cops on the street and better funding for first responders. And he said something like “civilian defense force” - because I believe he, and others, have referred to cops and first responders as the frontline of Homeland security.
That’s not what he’s talking about with America Serves at all. That’s AmericaCorps and Peace Corps.
And, now that I’ve actually looked into it at http://change.gov/americaserves/
Where is the language that says anything about requiring or drafting or any of that? I see the thing about setting goals for middle school and high school kids - which I think is interesting and I’d love to know how they’ll go about enforcing THAT. But I doubt any of this will ever be mandatory.
And am I crazy - or did the language at this link change from a few hours ago? I do think earlier I saw “required” when I wrote about this before. Clerical error? Is Biden in charge of the site? Crap...
Travis, you have two problems, or maybe three:
1. You don’t know how to think clearly and rationally. If you smoke dope, you need to stop. I used to smoke dope many, many years ago it is really destroys mental acuity. It will come back if you stop now, there are herbs that help clear the nervous system. If you don’t smoke dope, disregard the advice.
2. You mind is full of total nonsense from reading and hearing propaganda. In order to clear your mind, you need to stop hearing and reading it.
3. You need to educate yourself, the best way is to read FR for several hours a day, starting now, and not post anything unless it is a question helping you learn more.
There is no other cure for you.
No, it's having YOU deleted.
But, you are gracious, open minded and fair and, with a sign up date of 2005, you even have seniority, so, don't worry too much about that. :-)
Oops surely you meant Osama, not Obama ;o)
You obviously don't know how the Chicago machine works. Obama himself is not going to come out for gun control or socialism - he's going to let Congressional Democrats draft the legislation, then he's going to criticize the legislation as "going to far," and then he'll "compromise" (dragging RINOs with him) to make the bill "more responsible" and he'll sign it.
The difference is this:
Yes, we have a progressive tax (don’t get me started on that.) Those who have more, give more. It goes to the government kitty, where it is spent on various government services including, unfortunately, entitlement programs.
What Obama proposes to do is take money from those who have been successful, then turn around and give it DIRECTLY to those who have been less successful.
That’s what we object to. He wants a direct transfer of money to those who did not earn it for the sole purpose of “evening things up.” We vehemently disagree with that.
And frankly, it doesn’t matter whether he said $250, $200K, or $50K. Taking from any one person the money they have worked hard to earn and giving it to another is theft in my book.
The real question is why is he really here? Is he mentally ill? Canvassing? Looking for people to convert? Or just sowing doubt? If actually purposeful and not just somebody looking for attention, the next question is: why? Why now? What is the point? Is there even a point, or is it just misdirection?
It's going to be an interesting four years.
Obama has never authorized a release of his original birth certificate.
To be honest, I seriously doubt that he was born outside of Hawaii. So, why not release the original?
My guess is that the original birth certificate has him listed as "Barry Obama" and that would be embarrassing to the "Dreams of My Father" image he has created.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.