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.
“prosperity” isn’t simply wealth. It’s opportunity, and safety, and “happiness” however it’s defined by people around the country. That is what economic policy is aimed at - creating more jobs, more opportunity - whether it’s through tax cuts that favor small businesses - or public projects that create jobs building infrastructure and new industries - among a the vast multitude of policy initiatives in the spectrum from right-to-left. But nobody says “How can we keep the prosperity out of the hands of THOSE guys?”
And I meant “good economic policy”
More evidence of how uninformed you are. It was sold to Canada and shipped to Canada. The U.S. had no part in the sale or transfer.
But see this: "When you choose to serve -- whether it's your nation, your community or simply your neighborhood -- you are connected to that fundamental American ideal that we want life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness not just for ourselves, but for all Americans. That's why it's called the American dream."
The American Dream isn't really about a bunch of us getting together in a collective to solve problems. It's about living in a country where through hard work and individual responsibility we realize our own dreams. I can't dream your dreams, and you can't dream mine. And from what I've read of your posts, I don't want to dream your dreams, either.
D@mn, you got me started!
Actually, those that HAVE more don't pay squat.
The Federal Government taxes EARNERS and not the wealth of the truly rich.
Thus, John Kerry lived a $500 million lifestyle the year he ran for President but paid less income taxes to the Federal Government that year than I did.
I never HAD more because I never got to KEEP it.
Or Barry Sotero. Reading the naturalization law, I always thought the BC was a red herring. The real question was, since his citizenship is clearly established by having an American mother, what is he hiding? I agree with you: it’s the fact that his name is not Barack 0bama. I don’t know what else might cause him “embarassment” that might be on as neutral a document as a birth certificate.
You totally nailed it - I mean, think about it. Who do you know got hauled off to prison under the Patriot Act? Who do you know had their doors kicked in by federal agents under Bush (aside from the Drug War)?
All of this is going to happen under Obama, just like it happened under Clinton. When the Left calls Bush Hitler, they are projecting.
Mentally ill. Raving loon.
Don’t you guys ever check on what’s going on the other side? Like at Kos or Huffington or wherever else it is that liberals gather online. For 8 years it was wherever you could find the largest collection of “:(” emoticons.
We did.
Could be that the birth certificate shows that his parents were never actually married. Don't know why that would embarrass him particularly (there are no illegitimate children, just illegitimate parents) but he may have feared it would cost him some votes.
Born and raised in San Francisco. Have more accts at Leftist sites than I can possibly remember.
Still waiting for you to defend involuntary servitude. :)
In order to believe that public works projects can actually create wealth (forget about intangibles like happiness or satisfaction -- which you cannot quantify in support of any economics argument), you have to buy into the New Deal myth that public works create jobs. They don't. The current economic thinking on this has been growing for decades, and now it's not just the Chicago school of economists who think it: the Depression was MUCH worse in the United States than anywhere else in the world. It was deeper and longer. Why? Because of the New Deal.
Two UCLA profs are just the latest (a few days ago) of a growing body of economists who've published research on this. In Europe, the "Great Depression" was just called the "Depression before the War." It wasn't "Great" in Europe. It was shallow, and it was over. And it ended here because of the war. Not because of FDR's silly theories on economics.
If you're old enough to remember Carter, then you should remember the CETA jobs. $300,000 per job to create what were $40,000/year jobs in the 1980s.
In order to believe that public jobs programs can work, you have to believe that you can actually rob capital from the most productive side of the economy and transfer it through the meat grinder of various taxing agencies -- which have their own monetary friction -- and then turn that money over to the least productive part of the economy. How in the world do you think that giving money to unproductive people by robbing productive people can "create wealth?" It doesn't It reduces our national productivity as a whole, it destroys capital, and it destroys jobs.
Like all your liberal "compassion" this is a false compassion. It makes you feel good because "you've tried." Meanwhile, it has had devastating consequences on several generations of America's poor.
But, hey, as long as you feel good about yourself, that's the main thing.
For example: Marines find underground nuke complex
There is nothing in the link you provided that shows, or even suggests, that the reports were false. It in fact says there was a nuke complex.
I think his birth certficate says Barry Dunham parents unwed. He’s spent so much time covering it up, beginning back in the days when being born out of wedlock would have mattered, and also in an attempt to fix his own story (who wants to accept the fact your father abandoned you?) that he can’t come clean now. His books, his whole “story” is based on the lies he told in the books he wrote. Coming clean now, even on this which is a nonissue for so many in our culture, would lead to other questions about his integrity. What else did he lie about?
Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. One lie leads to another and then another and so and so on....
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.