gcc/egcs. In the last 90s, the FSF officially abandoned gcc (gnu c compiler) development and turned it over to the egcs team, which renamed their compiler gcc (gnu compiler collection).
This money is used by the universities/colleges to keep tuition lower than if students had to take on the full costs themselves.
Check out Chapter 4 (Academic Facts and Fallacies) of Economic Facts and Fallacies by Thomas Sowell. He goes into a brief explanation of why government subsidation of higher education raises the price of college and how few students see a good return on their education. The tuition costs being reduced by subsidies is exactly one of the fallacies he points out, as is people that go to college to get a pointless degree even if their field shouldn't naturally require one (who needlessly drive up demand, forcing colleges to expand and thus, increasing the overall cost of running a university).
and I've spent the last 12 years (from 21-33 and going) of my life doing just that after my dad had a series of brain injuries... Is it easy? Hell no. But I do it because it is the right thing to do. It's rather sad that we've lost all respect for our elders in much of western society. When someone ceases to be productive, we throw them in a nursing home where they wait to die, so we can selfishly do all of the things we want without the bother of, you know, actually caring for other people. The same is true when it comes to spouses (they grow apart because they never do anything together anymore, so they tend to abandon the marriage), kids (sorry, gotta work overtime to pay for our lavish lifestyle, can't teach you to read tonight!), etc.
Sure, you get freedom, but you lose your humanity in the process. The typical state of mind these days is to put ourselves first at the expense of everyone else because, you know, "the government" will take care of them anyway. Hey, who needs to feel guilty that your parent sits alone drooling on themselves in chronic pain, tortured and remembering the days when they felt like they were loved, you paid your share!
I really don't like comments like this as they are completely unproductive. Why, Fred over there got robbed for all the good the laws and cops did! Guess we shouldn't have any laws or cops at all, giving the folks a false sense of security that they can leave their homes without being armed to the teeth.
Point is, we should consider the possible side effects before enacting new legislation. Look at the way government corrupt almost everything they touch and keep that in mind as you ask for them to regulate what amounts to free speech in a public accommodation (ie, telling you that if you run a restaurant and you allow one of your friends who is running for office to campaign there, you must be neutral in allowing his opponents to also use your space).
Lyndon Johnson, once said, "One should not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harm it would cause if improperly administered." Mind you, he also gave us welfare, Medicare, Medicaid and the law that began siphoning off the Social Security Trust Fund because the US already couldn't pay for his social programs nor the escalation in Vietnam just a couple years in.
*sigh* The idea is not to abolish something when it fails, the idea is to see where something failed and improve upon it.
As of yet, the internet hasn't failed. How about we wait until it does before we start getting all paranoid about what may or may not happen and then stepping in with the heavy hand of government. How often to bad laws get repealed? How often do they even get adequately fixed?
This fails in a number of ways. First of all, you are just replacing a bunch of local monopolies with one big centralized one. With your suggestion of just regulating THEM, you end up really regulating the Internet. Welcome back to square one. Worse yet, your "centralized non-profit" would likely be a Government Sponsored Enterprise. As you say about the Health Department, GSEs don't have a great track record of providing great service, because they have little motivation to do so.
Who says it has to be one centralized one? There can be competing ones in regions that can support them, community cooperatives can be started, etc. It's a starting point for a practical solution, not a fully fledged out plan.
Lastly, the end-point "provider" companies in your scheme would struggle to find some way to differentiate their product from others. Price can only go so far, so then you'll get into network segmentation, walled gardens, "premium content", etc.... Net Neutrality effectively done for.
I want an ISP that gives me some static IP addresses, prioritizes latency over bandwidth, and I'll run all of my own services, thank you. Someone else may want an ISP that priotizes bandwidth, peers directly with Hulu/Netflix/whatever. Someone else may want an ISP that provides USENET and web space for them to share pictures with their friends but doesn't really care about the sustained bandwidth or latency. The options are virtually unlimited and if you don't like your provider, there are dozens of others out there because the barriers to entry have been significantly lowered.
The solution to speech (service) you don't like isn't regulated speech, it's more free speech (competition).
So, with your scheme you get the worst of both worlds -- you get a huge centralized (and probably government run) monopoly AND no net neutrality to boot.
So what's your definition of Net Neutrality? Because the independently operated network provider in my example is totally neutral - they don't care who is using their pipe because everyone pays the same rates for different types of connections (a connection fee based on max bandwidth, desired maximum latency, guaranteed bandwidth, etc that the subscriber desires). If you don't like your service provider's options and peering arrangements, pick another one that you do like and your network provider isn't going to give a hoot since they're making the same money.
They are against government doing things for other people. Note that they blaim Obama for the rescue plan, that was enacted by Bush and the result of republican policies, the neo-conservative movement started with Reagan.
First, the name calling makes you sound like a five year old... I know you think you're being funny, but it just comes off as snarky, at best, every time it gets used.
Second, learn some history. The neo-con movement didn't start with Reagan, it started in the 1950s and 60s, as international interventionalist Democrats split with their own party and joined in with the Republicans. In fact, that's where the whole "neo" part about them being conservatives comes in... they were a "new kind of conservative."
Third, I'm sure you're up on your talking points, but most Tea Party people are as just as opposed to Bush's role in the bailouts as they are Obama's. In fact, many Republicans who voted for TARP are facing a similar backlash to incumbant Democrats (see McCain getting a serious challenge from Hayworth, Bob Bennett getting the boot in the Utah Republican primary last week, Crist leaving the GOP in Florida when it became apparent that Republicans wouldn't support him in the primary, etc).
But also, let's not forget that Obama voted for TARP himself (which makes him as bad as Bush), and then he went on to create even more bailouts and a giant new entitlement that we obviously can't afford (CBO projections continue to increase as of this week/shock), which, yeah, pissed off fiscally conservative people even further. The last few years of Bush pushed them over the edge, causing them to turn on Bush... but where are the Bush fiscal policy bashers from the left now that Obama is in power? Seems as though they disappeared when their side "won" even though Obama is exacerbating Bush's bad fiscal policies that they supposedly disagreed with. For as much as the left criticizes the Tea Party people for being, uh, late to the party, it seems as though the left has completely abandoned it once they gained the White House.
It is like financial regulation, the banks are dead against that, but want very strict laws that enable them to collect on debts. Freedom is me telling you what I can do and you can't.
Big banks are all FOR financial regulation. It raises the bar on new competition trying to get their foot in the door. You don't think the big banks actually suffer, do you? It's kinda like how Microsoft is all for software patents (which are another type of government regulation) - it makes it harder for the little guy to compete and does absolutely nothing to hinder the big guys, whom generally take a Mutally Assured Destruction approach with each other (I won't sue you for violating my software patents if you don't sue me for violating yours).
Look at the SEC and what good their regulation did. They totally ignored Bernie Madoff (under Bush) and Enron (under Clinton), giving regular folks a false sense of security in the market. If there was no SEC, people wouldn't have a default assumption that the market isn't rigged and they would invest more carefully. Likewise, that FDA stamp on your meat doesn't mean the FDA inspected that piece, just that the facillities met requirements the day the FDA showed up. Ditto for your local health departments inspections of restaurants. In fact, "crappy" chain restaurants like McDonalds are FAR more rigorous than your local Dept of Health when it comes to food safety inspections (at least back when I was a manager in the mid 90s, corporate inspects 4 times a year, one of which is a surprise inspection, compared to once a year for the state, which notifies you that you'll be inspected "sometime this month" before showing up). BigChainFood wants to protect its brand from bad franchisees, the Health Department wants to do the minimum to meet their job requirement.
Back to the topic of Net Neutrality, I've never seen a single definition th
To be fair, Rochester itself is only about 191k people and most of the jobs are out in the suburbs, which is why the mayor is going to great lengths (read spending tens of millions of taxpayers dollars) to move businesses back downtown (see PaeTec and Midtown). Most of the suburbanites and outliers in that population NEVER go downtown during business hours. Further, of the 837k people 16 and older, 287k (34%) don't work.
Is the mean commute time 21 minutes? You bet... but Rochester is a long dead city, a hollow shell of its former self when it peaked in the 1950s, and most people are commuting around the city, not in or through it: Greece to Penfield, Webster to Pittsford, Chili to Henrietta. It's all highway miles and despite them generally only being only 2-3 lanes wide, there just isn't any appreciable traffic most of the time.
Don't get me wrong, the greater Rochester area can be a great place to live, but we're the textbook definition of how NOT to manage a city and its metro region. A lot of that comes down to a state government controlled by a distant, narcissistic, totalitarian city and local governments (especially Rochester and Monroe County) whose dreams of living big are only rivaled by their history of failures and bad decisions.
48,886,597 Bush to 41,809,476. 426 electoral votes to 111. That's "barely won" to you? It was one of the most lopsided victories in electoral history.
In 1992, Bush lost to Clinton, and many believe it was because he refused to identify himself as a "born again" Christian.
Read my lips, you can't ignore a key principle that you campaign on, that your base vehemently supports, and maintain the base's happiness, especially when you have a well funded third party spearheading a campaign directly on that point. Bush promised not to raise taxes and did anyway, which prompted fiscal conservatives to move to Perot. That provided the opportunity for Clinton take the victory and, he too, famously went after Bush on "the economy, stupid."
Those of us who live within the state have learned that there are a few enclaves of urban liberalism, surrounded by by vast areas of rural conservatism rivaling those of Kansas or Texas.
In reality, NY State is more liberal than the state of CA.
The same thing is true in NY State. If you take away the downstate region (from Albany to NYC along the Hudson corridor and Long Island), you end up with 1,237,159 Democrats, 1,276,389 Republicans, and 726,909 no affiliation in the rest of the state. The cities lean blue, though many of the counties the cities are in go red, and the rest of the state is pretty red. In statewide/national elections, the downstate region's 4,594,286 Democrats, 1,778,131 Republicans, and 1,796,785 NA give an impression that isn't really the reality for the rest of the state.
Simple fact is, NYC and its metro region completely dominates the rest of the state. For my entire life, there have been murmurs of people wishing to split the state in two because they're tired of not having any real representation (though someone from NYC will complain that they send tax money upstate... sure, in exchange for having to follow NYC's mandates). NYC doesn't like sending money to the rest of the state, but having control over that many more people is just too enticing for the politicians to give the rest of the state up.
We can cherry pick all the statistics we want to meet our agenda.
The Bush tax cuts RAISED GDP and federal revenue. Deficits increased because spending increased faster than the revenue gain. If I earn more money but I spend twice as much as I take in, I'm going to go deeper in debt. Likewise, my debt to income ratio will increase.
As for debt numbers, they don't tell the full story. There are trillions of dollars worth of obligations we owe but don't have the money for. Right now, a portion of Social Security benefits is coming out of the general fund (8 years earlier than predicted) because the Social Security Trust Fund has been raided since the Johnson era to pay for the Great Society and Vietnam war to pretend that we weren't spending so deep into the red.
In the future, we owe $14.2 trillion in Social Security, $18.8 trillion in Medicare-D and $74.8 trillion in Medicare and the funds to pay for them don't currently exist. As we run trillion dollar deficits, how exactly do you propose that a surplus will magically appear in the budget to pay for them? Ignoring this years "glitch" in Social Security, Medicare goes bankrupt in 2017 and Social Security in 2018. We owe an additional $108 trillion in obligations on top of the $12.5 trillion debt. But let's keep focusing solely on what we owe today and ignore what comes due tomorrow. It's all sunshine and lollipops. Let's spend some more.
Oh.. and Keynesian economics says to deficit spend in the bad times and make it up with a surplus savings in the good times. We NEVER make surpluses (and even the "surpluses" of the late 90s were an Enron accounting trick, debt continually grew every year).
In the same way that Republicans are (generally) anti-abortion but are pro-capital punishment. How does that make sense?
Pro-life folks argue that the unborn are a human life and thus have the inalienable right to life.
Most folks can reasonably agree that by committing crimes against society, people can forfeit their rights and freedoms through due process. That is, if you commit a crime, you can my tried by a jury of your peers and imprisoned, where you lose many protected freedoms (such as your right to move freely, speak on the phone or visit with people without being recorded, etc). In some jurisdictions, in particularly heinous cases, your right to continue living can be stripped through due process just like other rights.
Thus, the two are different... because in the case of the unborn, they haven't done anything to forfeit their rights via due process, whereas in the case of criminals given the death penalty, they've had their rights rescinded via due process because of the heinousness of their crimes.
Don't forget about the ~$60 billion annually in Medicare fraud, which adds another 14% onto your Medicare overhead. You can't just count administrative costs.
That puts Medicare right into the same range as private insurance in terms of total overhead.
That'll work, until someone in Congress decides that they need to censor the federal network using the boogeyman of the day (think of the children, we need to implement this ban to stop the terrorists, we're filtering to stop piracy, etc).
The federal government is no less prone to creating abuse than privately owned entities. When the government is the sole provider in town and they screw you over, it's a bit harder to get a new provider. There won't even be a duopoly to switch to since nobody can compete with a tax subsidized option.
Split the system into an independently owned, neutral company (or companies) that are regulated to maintain the network(s) and allow completely unfettered access to any ISP, cable provider, telephony provider, etc wishing to use that network. Let the ISPs compete on services while we're guaranteed a completely neutral pipe to all of them. The ISP can pay a per-customer fee for access to the network (based on max speed, guaranteed throughput, latency, etc) to keep the regulated network company doing their thing. Real competition and real options.
Did I say that the Constitution was unambiguous on its own?
I said that we need to read it as the writers intended, using their definitions for words, which we can find by looking at their other, more broad writings, since meanings tend to change over time. The meaning of "general welfare" has changed in the public consciousness the same way the meaning of "hacker" has changed. If Linus calls himself a kernel hacker, does that mean he should be arrested for breaking into computer systems, just because lay people think that's what the word means? Of course not, we have to look at Linus' definition of the word.
In fact, think of terms like "general welfare" as defines. They're a form of shorthand so that extraneous paragraphs don't need to be repeatedly inserted, making the document unreadable.
I agree with you on all but one point, the Founding Fathers saw a need for a permanent navy to reduce piracy (real piracy) to let the United States trade with Europe and other areas.
Article I, Section 8 says
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that
Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and
naval Forces;
the debate was had... by the framers of the Constitution. See the Federalist Papers and it pretty clearly lays out that "general welfare" means the overall health of the government and its ability to ensure our rights.
The modern welfare state has absolutely nothing to do with what they meant by welfare there. Of course, modern welfare proponents would like to pretend it does, so in the early 1900s, they, then called progressives, started a campaign to rewrite history and that's where the whole notion of the Constitution being a "living document" came into fruition. They wanted to get around the Constitution but it was too hard to amend it, so they figured they would make it relatively meaningless by allowing for a constant reinterpretation until they could completely turn the terms on their head (see also the commerce clause, making commerce regular meant making it so it could easily happen, not creating bureaucratic regulations governing every aspect of even intra-state commerce).
I mean, all of that was covered in your history books, right? Or did they already rewrite them, ensuring you, and most other Americans, whom don't probe any deeper than the surface, wouldn't realize such things?
yeah, lots of seniors. That's why they buy Medigap or Medicare Advantage plans which convert their standard Medicare into an HMO run by one of the private HMOs around the country, usually at an extra cost to themselves. My dad pays an extra $1212 a year on top of his Medicare A and B premiums for it. Medicare A covers basic hospitalization and is paid for through taxes during your working years. Medicare B covers things like durable medical equipment, doctor visits, physical/occupational therapists, etc and costs extra on top of Medicare A ($1157 a year in my dad's case).
Now, you can't have Medicare AND private insurance. So, if you opt for Medicare A, which you've already spent decades paying your premiums for, you'd better opt for Medicare B. And Medicare B is woefully inadequate, with LOTS of extra expenses that kick in if you use it too much (the notion that it is single payer is a joke), so you convert A and B, usually picking up D (prescription drugs) and end up in a private HMO that is regulatd by CMS (Center for Medicare Services).
The government basically locks you into Medicare by forcing you to pay for it. It further restricts your access to buy other insurance, so you either forgo the premiums you've paid for decades to opt for private insurance or you have to double down on what you were already forced to pay for to get hospitalization coverage. On top of that, you have to double down again if you want prescription drugs and/or the extra services provided by the HMO (including reduced hospitalization fees). On the other hand, if you go the HMO route, you no longer have nationwide coverage but are restricted to coverage in a region like a traditional HMO.
Medicare is a HUGE mess, deliberately constructed to force people into it and make them dependent upon the government. Every time the Democrats (today) or the Republicans (back in the 90s) try to modernize Medicare and cut out the huge fraud (as much as 25% annually), you get the other party going "look, they're trying to kill the old people!" Thus, the system will NEVER get fixed... and yet, this is your ideal? You should really investigate Medicare before you advocate it as anything really beneficial.
I was in Nebraska last year with my 7 year old nephew who needed medical assistance. They billed his mother stating that they do not accept out of state insurance.
And there is the case for insurance portability across state lines. We can do that easily with private insurance by simply passing a law that lets them compete across state lines.
A couple of years ago I was in charge of distributing my mother's money. I made the mistake of giving my niece her money. The government seeing that she had a little bit of money(just $10,000) stripped her of medical and food benefits. While she had that money she had a $2,000 medical expense so they took her state income tax refund to pay for it. Why didn't I just give the money to the government instead? I did have to pay the federal and state governments over $15,000 in taxes. The gross national income is around $50,000 per person in this country and yet we have to take away money from the people who make less than the poverty level.
Government programs aren't free, someone has to pay for them. Every time you advocate for a government program, you are advocating raising taxes on more people. The wealthy literally can't afford to pay for all the government programs various peoples want. You can confiscate 100% of their income and 100% of their wealth and it would barely dent the current national debt.
If you want to reduce taxes on the poor, advocate less governemnt spending. As an anecdote, I've taken care of my dad for the last decade+ ever since he had a brain aneurysm and stroke in the late 90s. I had to give up finishing college and spent the majority of that time managing a small family restaurant for a whopping $9/hr since they let me bring him to work with me. I haven't worked in a little over 3 years now because I need a job where I can either bring him to work or I can get home on a moment's notice. He makes less than half of your per capita average, I make nothing. We both still have to pay taxes, lots of taxes, especially when you factor in property taxes (they alone consume 10% of our income and we live in a very modest 100+ year old home).
I had to drop my health insurance when I lost my job. I don't qualify for Medicaid (see, I worked for a while so I own a home, vehicle, etc and thus, I have too many assets). So, I went to the doctor yesterday for an eye infection. It cost $69 with no insurance, compared to $15 (BCBS Medicare advantage co-pay) + $120 (insurance's part) when I take my dad. It's roughly half the cost without the insurance. The antibiotics were another $40 (it is a more expensive antibiotic, pen-vk pills are dirt cheap and some places like Wegmans give them out free). I'm dirt poor, but it's a HELL of a lot more efficient for me to pay my own routine medical bills than pass the cost onto third parties that pass the cost onto you. I'd love to buy catastrophic insurance (which would be cheap since it doesn't cover everyday booboos), but my state won't let me because they want to either force me into a high cost health management plan (with mandatory coverage for stuff I don't want or need) or onto the state plan. They force you to choose between two horrible options in an effort to control your life. It's a false dichotomy.
I sure hope the tea party members are enjoying themselves while on their expensive cruise and while they are listening to the $100,000 speech by Sarah Palin. I am sure they can justify taking from the poor so they can spend all that money.
I'm part of the tea party movement myself, have helped organize 3 protests and have given several speeches. I don't advocate taking from the poor OR taking from the rich. I advocate a smaller government that lets people make their own choices by getting out of their way and letting them keep their own money, rather than forcing them to benefact an unjust duopoly.
We're $12 trillion in debt with another $100 trillion in obligations hanging over our head. M
Most TWO parent families have two vehicles... there are a whole lot of single parent families these days, not to mention single people that can't afford two cars. You're also excluding the two parent families that drive two $2000 cars because they can't afford a $40k car. In fact, that car might be worth more than their home.
For upper middle class and higher families, it might not be a bad idea. Then again, most of them already spend more than they earn, so it is wise to buy an even more expensive vehicle, especially if they aren't going to drive it long enough for the fuel savings to pay for the difference?
Does that mean electric cars don't have a place? Absolutely not... there definitely is a market for such cars. It's just not as broad as many of the promoters of electric vehicles want to portray it as.
Do you remember ABC/CBS/NBC/MSNBC/CNN/NYT/LAT/WaPo etc running stories front and center on their flagships about, say, Obama's admitted drug use? I can remember those same outlets attacking GWB the weekend before the 2000 election front and center. I can remember Dan Rather using phony evidence to push a story about GWB's National Guard years (again, remember, Obama's actions during the same time are irrelevant per you).
A blog doesn't get millions of nightly viewers like a 6:30pm newscast does and those that do read the blogs aren't the ones being spoonfed the news at 6:30, so to say it's the equivalent is hogwash.
Regardless of the reaction or fallout from looking into his personal life, to try and say it wasn't widely scrutinized is an outright lie.
Are you honestly going to tell me that the same amount of reporting went into Obama's past by the mainstream media as went into Palin's past? If so, defend the statement by Tom Brokaw, one of the most entrenched national news anchors, that we didn't get to know Obama before the election.
Sadly, the foreign mainstream press, especially in Great Britain, did more digging into who Obama was/is than the domestic press did.
People were complaining about his birth certificate.
And were derided as birthers for wanting to make sure he was in compliance with the Constitution.
They were complaining about who he hung out with in college.
So we should never investigate a candidate's friends and associates when they run for office? The left questioned GWB being in the Skull and Bones society in college before the 2000 election. They questioned Palin's college career. But somehow, Obama's college years were off limits and, in fact, still are. We knew about Al Gore flunking out of divinity school and GWB barely passing at Yale, but Obama's college transcripts were never released.
They were complaining about his parents.
Nobody complained about GWB's dad before election or during his time in office?
They were complaining about his fucking pastor.
Someone chooses to associate with someone for 20 years, someone they call their spiritual adviser, and now that person is off limits too?
It's fair to say Obama was never really pushed, but to claim people didn't rifle through his personal life is unmitigated bullshit.
Fox News did some digging on him, they are the lone "they" from the media as far as your statements above go. Where were the other media outlets? Virtually all of them gave him a pass as far as investigating just who he was. Why else would Tom Brokaw feel the need to say that we don't really know who Obama is AFTER he was elected if he was fully vetted beforehand?
Anyone that did attempt to dig through his history was excoriated for it. Look at what people did to Joe the Plumber just for asking him a question that exposed more of Obama's real views than the Obama campaign really wanted the public to know. The media ran cover for him, even going so far as to completely make up stories that would make him more sympathetic (like the one about someone publicly threatening to harm/kill Obama at a McCain rally. The Secret Service investigated and found no such threat).
6) people that simply disagreed with his politics...
See Jeanane Garafalo and her rant about "this is about hating a black man in the White House, it's racism straight up."
You see, a LOT of people were unfairly tarred just because they don't believe in the things Obama was campaigning on. A lot of Obama's supporters wanted him to win so badly that they dragged out the race card even in cases were it wasn't warranted. The left in America plays the race card as often, maybe even moreso, than the right plays the unamerican card.
I've been called a racist long before anyone ever heard of Obama simply because I don't agree with the left nor identity politics and the discrimination based upon them. In fact, a good number of people on the right have been called every name in the book. Many of us have grown thick skins and learned not to care, noting that it is a childish tactics of last resort to result to namecalling (see the left's obsession with "teabagging" because they don't want to listen to what the people are protesting about). Others learn to just keep their mouth shut to avoid the expected attacks (cue the black comedians like Chris Rock that note white people don't like to talk politics around black people).
I think it was Tom Brokaw whom proclaimed, after the election, on the Charlie Rose show "now we'll get to know who Obama is." The media dug through Palin's neighbor's trash to see what they could dig up on her but they never really asked the same questions of Obama and anyone that did try to ask questions, legitimate questions, was ignored or attacked for doing so.
We need to get over this blind allegiance to a party, candidate, skin color, gender, etc and have some honest and open discussions about things rather than simply attacking people for not holding identical beliefs to our own. However, it's not going to happen because we're too busy shouting down the other team(s) before they can get a word in since it might make us reconsider our own views. Cognitive dissonance is a bitch.
Being a governor first gives you the executive experience that comes with being responsible for running a large government bureaucracy. While nobody is 100% prepared to step into the Oval Office, including Vice Presidents, there's a big difference in having no experience in the field and having some.
Nobody is going to hire the intern to run the show, but they may promote a VP for another CxO to do it since they have some type of managerial experience.
I certainly wasn't happy with any of the choices we had back in 2008. It came down to picking the candidate which would be the least bad for anyone that was willing to actually look into what the candidates were saying rather than simply accepting the brands they were selling. I couldn't support either major party candidate in good faith, so I voted third party.
I'm somewhat of a mix between libertarian and conservative (as in the "I believe in the Constitution" sense, not the neo-con sense), so the goals of both candidates were pretty far off from where I believe our government should be heading. Obama's goals would have required a reality that doesn't exist for them to ever be fair and just and, as Thomas Jefferson said, any expansion of government is a contraction of the liberty of the people. I'm fine with states wanting to pass his initiatives if that's what they desire, but they don't belong at the federal level. In fact, most of what our federal government does these days doesn't belong at the federal level and I oppose anyone that wants to expand it further. Before someone quips I oppose fire departments, the local government has a different purpose than the federal government, be reasonable, not a demagogue.
Who knows, I could be wrong...but I didn't see malice in Obama, just ignorance.
And those of us that, all along, tried pointing out his ignorance and lack of experience were called racists and every other name in the book. It is perfectly possible to disagree with someone because of their politics, lack of experience, etc and not care one lick about their race (or gender, age, etc). I've been called a racist more times than I can count, because it's easier to attack someone for disagreeing with you than it is to defend your own opinions. It's especially funny when the accusations of racism comes from someone that "forgets he was black for an hour" (but just for an hour).
Slashdot Mirror
gcc/egcs. In the last 90s, the FSF officially abandoned gcc (gnu c compiler) development and turned it over to the egcs team, which renamed their compiler gcc (gnu compiler collection).
This money is used by the universities/colleges to keep tuition lower than if students had to take on the full costs themselves.
Check out Chapter 4 (Academic Facts and Fallacies) of Economic Facts and Fallacies by Thomas Sowell. He goes into a brief explanation of why government subsidation of higher education raises the price of college and how few students see a good return on their education. The tuition costs being reduced by subsidies is exactly one of the fallacies he points out, as is people that go to college to get a pointless degree even if their field shouldn't naturally require one (who needlessly drive up demand, forcing colleges to expand and thus, increasing the overall cost of running a university).
and I've spent the last 12 years (from 21-33 and going) of my life doing just that after my dad had a series of brain injuries... Is it easy? Hell no. But I do it because it is the right thing to do. It's rather sad that we've lost all respect for our elders in much of western society. When someone ceases to be productive, we throw them in a nursing home where they wait to die, so we can selfishly do all of the things we want without the bother of, you know, actually caring for other people. The same is true when it comes to spouses (they grow apart because they never do anything together anymore, so they tend to abandon the marriage), kids (sorry, gotta work overtime to pay for our lavish lifestyle, can't teach you to read tonight!), etc.
Sure, you get freedom, but you lose your humanity in the process. The typical state of mind these days is to put ourselves first at the expense of everyone else because, you know, "the government" will take care of them anyway. Hey, who needs to feel guilty that your parent sits alone drooling on themselves in chronic pain, tortured and remembering the days when they felt like they were loved, you paid your share!
I really don't like comments like this as they are completely unproductive. Why, Fred over there got robbed for all the good the laws and cops did! Guess we shouldn't have any laws or cops at all, giving the folks a false sense of security that they can leave their homes without being armed to the teeth.
Point is, we should consider the possible side effects before enacting new legislation. Look at the way government corrupt almost everything they touch and keep that in mind as you ask for them to regulate what amounts to free speech in a public accommodation (ie, telling you that if you run a restaurant and you allow one of your friends who is running for office to campaign there, you must be neutral in allowing his opponents to also use your space).
Lyndon Johnson, once said, "One should not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harm it would cause if improperly administered." Mind you, he also gave us welfare, Medicare, Medicaid and the law that began siphoning off the Social Security Trust Fund because the US already couldn't pay for his social programs nor the escalation in Vietnam just a couple years in.
*sigh* The idea is not to abolish something when it fails, the idea is to see where something failed and improve upon it.
As of yet, the internet hasn't failed. How about we wait until it does before we start getting all paranoid about what may or may not happen and then stepping in with the heavy hand of government. How often to bad laws get repealed? How often do they even get adequately fixed?
This fails in a number of ways. First of all, you are just replacing a bunch of local monopolies with one big centralized one. With your suggestion of just regulating THEM, you end up really regulating the Internet. Welcome back to square one. Worse yet, your "centralized non-profit" would likely be a Government Sponsored Enterprise. As you say about the Health Department, GSEs don't have a great track record of providing great service, because they have little motivation to do so.
Who says it has to be one centralized one? There can be competing ones in regions that can support them, community cooperatives can be started, etc. It's a starting point for a practical solution, not a fully fledged out plan.
Lastly, the end-point "provider" companies in your scheme would struggle to find some way to differentiate their product from others. Price can only go so far, so then you'll get into network segmentation, walled gardens, "premium content", etc.... Net Neutrality effectively done for.
I want an ISP that gives me some static IP addresses, prioritizes latency over bandwidth, and I'll run all of my own services, thank you. Someone else may want an ISP that priotizes bandwidth, peers directly with Hulu/Netflix/whatever. Someone else may want an ISP that provides USENET and web space for them to share pictures with their friends but doesn't really care about the sustained bandwidth or latency. The options are virtually unlimited and if you don't like your provider, there are dozens of others out there because the barriers to entry have been significantly lowered.
The solution to speech (service) you don't like isn't regulated speech, it's more free speech (competition).
So, with your scheme you get the worst of both worlds -- you get a huge centralized (and probably government run) monopoly AND no net neutrality to boot.
So what's your definition of Net Neutrality? Because the independently operated network provider in my example is totally neutral - they don't care who is using their pipe because everyone pays the same rates for different types of connections (a connection fee based on max bandwidth, desired maximum latency, guaranteed bandwidth, etc that the subscriber desires). If you don't like your service provider's options and peering arrangements, pick another one that you do like and your network provider isn't going to give a hoot since they're making the same money.
They are against government doing things for other people. Note that they blaim Obama for the rescue plan, that was enacted by Bush and the result of republican policies, the neo-conservative movement started with Reagan.
First, the name calling makes you sound like a five year old... I know you think you're being funny, but it just comes off as snarky, at best, every time it gets used.
/shock), which, yeah, pissed off fiscally conservative people even further. The last few years of Bush pushed them over the edge, causing them to turn on Bush... but where are the Bush fiscal policy bashers from the left now that Obama is in power? Seems as though they disappeared when their side "won" even though Obama is exacerbating Bush's bad fiscal policies that they supposedly disagreed with. For as much as the left criticizes the Tea Party people for being, uh, late to the party, it seems as though the left has completely abandoned it once they gained the White House.
Second, learn some history. The neo-con movement didn't start with Reagan, it started in the 1950s and 60s, as international interventionalist Democrats split with their own party and joined in with the Republicans. In fact, that's where the whole "neo" part about them being conservatives comes in... they were a "new kind of conservative."
Third, I'm sure you're up on your talking points, but most Tea Party people are as just as opposed to Bush's role in the bailouts as they are Obama's. In fact, many Republicans who voted for TARP are facing a similar backlash to incumbant Democrats (see McCain getting a serious challenge from Hayworth, Bob Bennett getting the boot in the Utah Republican primary last week, Crist leaving the GOP in Florida when it became apparent that Republicans wouldn't support him in the primary, etc).
But also, let's not forget that Obama voted for TARP himself (which makes him as bad as Bush), and then he went on to create even more bailouts and a giant new entitlement that we obviously can't afford (CBO projections continue to increase as of this week
It is like financial regulation, the banks are dead against that, but want very strict laws that enable them to collect on debts. Freedom is me telling you what I can do and you can't.
Big banks are all FOR financial regulation. It raises the bar on new competition trying to get their foot in the door. You don't think the big banks actually suffer, do you? It's kinda like how Microsoft is all for software patents (which are another type of government regulation) - it makes it harder for the little guy to compete and does absolutely nothing to hinder the big guys, whom generally take a Mutally Assured Destruction approach with each other (I won't sue you for violating my software patents if you don't sue me for violating yours).
Look at the SEC and what good their regulation did. They totally ignored Bernie Madoff (under Bush) and Enron (under Clinton), giving regular folks a false sense of security in the market. If there was no SEC, people wouldn't have a default assumption that the market isn't rigged and they would invest more carefully. Likewise, that FDA stamp on your meat doesn't mean the FDA inspected that piece, just that the facillities met requirements the day the FDA showed up. Ditto for your local health departments inspections of restaurants. In fact, "crappy" chain restaurants like McDonalds are FAR more rigorous than your local Dept of Health when it comes to food safety inspections (at least back when I was a manager in the mid 90s, corporate inspects 4 times a year, one of which is a surprise inspection, compared to once a year for the state, which notifies you that you'll be inspected "sometime this month" before showing up). BigChainFood wants to protect its brand from bad franchisees, the Health Department wants to do the minimum to meet their job requirement.
Back to the topic of Net Neutrality, I've never seen a single definition th
To be fair, Rochester itself is only about 191k people and most of the jobs are out in the suburbs, which is why the mayor is going to great lengths (read spending tens of millions of taxpayers dollars) to move businesses back downtown (see PaeTec and Midtown). Most of the suburbanites and outliers in that population NEVER go downtown during business hours. Further, of the 837k people 16 and older, 287k (34%) don't work.
Is the mean commute time 21 minutes? You bet... but Rochester is a long dead city, a hollow shell of its former self when it peaked in the 1950s, and most people are commuting around the city, not in or through it: Greece to Penfield, Webster to Pittsford, Chili to Henrietta. It's all highway miles and despite them generally only being only 2-3 lanes wide, there just isn't any appreciable traffic most of the time.
Don't get me wrong, the greater Rochester area can be a great place to live, but we're the textbook definition of how NOT to manage a city and its metro region. A lot of that comes down to a state government controlled by a distant, narcissistic, totalitarian city and local governments (especially Rochester and Monroe County) whose dreams of living big are only rivaled by their history of failures and bad decisions.
Bush I barely won against Dukakis.
48,886,597 Bush to 41,809,476. 426 electoral votes to 111. That's "barely won" to you? It was one of the most lopsided victories in electoral history.
In 1992, Bush lost to Clinton, and many believe it was because he refused to identify himself as a "born again" Christian.
Read my lips, you can't ignore a key principle that you campaign on, that your base vehemently supports, and maintain the base's happiness, especially when you have a well funded third party spearheading a campaign directly on that point. Bush promised not to raise taxes and did anyway, which prompted fiscal conservatives to move to Perot. That provided the opportunity for Clinton take the victory and, he too, famously went after Bush on "the economy, stupid."
Those of us who live within the state have learned that there are a few enclaves of urban liberalism, surrounded by by vast areas of rural conservatism rivaling those of Kansas or Texas.
In reality, NY State is more liberal than the state of CA.
The same thing is true in NY State. If you take away the downstate region (from Albany to NYC along the Hudson corridor and Long Island), you end up with 1,237,159 Democrats, 1,276,389 Republicans, and 726,909 no affiliation in the rest of the state. The cities lean blue, though many of the counties the cities are in go red, and the rest of the state is pretty red. In statewide/national elections, the downstate region's 4,594,286 Democrats, 1,778,131 Republicans, and 1,796,785 NA give an impression that isn't really the reality for the rest of the state.
Simple fact is, NYC and its metro region completely dominates the rest of the state. For my entire life, there have been murmurs of people wishing to split the state in two because they're tired of not having any real representation (though someone from NYC will complain that they send tax money upstate... sure, in exchange for having to follow NYC's mandates). NYC doesn't like sending money to the rest of the state, but having control over that many more people is just too enticing for the politicians to give the rest of the state up.
We can cherry pick all the statistics we want to meet our agenda.
The Bush tax cuts RAISED GDP and federal revenue. Deficits increased because spending increased faster than the revenue gain. If I earn more money but I spend twice as much as I take in, I'm going to go deeper in debt. Likewise, my debt to income ratio will increase.
As for debt numbers, they don't tell the full story. There are trillions of dollars worth of obligations we owe but don't have the money for. Right now, a portion of Social Security benefits is coming out of the general fund (8 years earlier than predicted) because the Social Security Trust Fund has been raided since the Johnson era to pay for the Great Society and Vietnam war to pretend that we weren't spending so deep into the red.
In the future, we owe $14.2 trillion in Social Security, $18.8 trillion in Medicare-D and $74.8 trillion in Medicare and the funds to pay for them don't currently exist. As we run trillion dollar deficits, how exactly do you propose that a surplus will magically appear in the budget to pay for them? Ignoring this years "glitch" in Social Security, Medicare goes bankrupt in 2017 and Social Security in 2018. We owe an additional $108 trillion in obligations on top of the $12.5 trillion debt. But let's keep focusing solely on what we owe today and ignore what comes due tomorrow. It's all sunshine and lollipops. Let's spend some more.
Oh.. and Keynesian economics says to deficit spend in the bad times and make it up with a surplus savings in the good times. We NEVER make surpluses (and even the "surpluses" of the late 90s were an Enron accounting trick, debt continually grew every year).
In the same way that Republicans are (generally) anti-abortion but are pro-capital punishment. How does that make sense?
Pro-life folks argue that the unborn are a human life and thus have the inalienable right to life.
Most folks can reasonably agree that by committing crimes against society, people can forfeit their rights and freedoms through due process. That is, if you commit a crime, you can my tried by a jury of your peers and imprisoned, where you lose many protected freedoms (such as your right to move freely, speak on the phone or visit with people without being recorded, etc). In some jurisdictions, in particularly heinous cases, your right to continue living can be stripped through due process just like other rights.
Thus, the two are different... because in the case of the unborn, they haven't done anything to forfeit their rights via due process, whereas in the case of criminals given the death penalty, they've had their rights rescinded via due process because of the heinousness of their crimes.
Don't forget about the ~$60 billion annually in Medicare fraud, which adds another 14% onto your Medicare overhead. You can't just count administrative costs.
That puts Medicare right into the same range as private insurance in terms of total overhead.
That'll work, until someone in Congress decides that they need to censor the federal network using the boogeyman of the day (think of the children, we need to implement this ban to stop the terrorists, we're filtering to stop piracy, etc).
The federal government is no less prone to creating abuse than privately owned entities. When the government is the sole provider in town and they screw you over, it's a bit harder to get a new provider. There won't even be a duopoly to switch to since nobody can compete with a tax subsidized option.
Split the system into an independently owned, neutral company (or companies) that are regulated to maintain the network(s) and allow completely unfettered access to any ISP, cable provider, telephony provider, etc wishing to use that network. Let the ISPs compete on services while we're guaranteed a completely neutral pipe to all of them. The ISP can pay a per-customer fee for access to the network (based on max speed, guaranteed throughput, latency, etc) to keep the regulated network company doing their thing. Real competition and real options.
Did I say that the Constitution was unambiguous on its own?
I said that we need to read it as the writers intended, using their definitions for words, which we can find by looking at their other, more broad writings, since meanings tend to change over time. The meaning of "general welfare" has changed in the public consciousness the same way the meaning of "hacker" has changed. If Linus calls himself a kernel hacker, does that mean he should be arrested for breaking into computer systems, just because lay people think that's what the word means? Of course not, we have to look at Linus' definition of the word.
In fact, think of terms like "general welfare" as defines. They're a form of shorthand so that extraneous paragraphs don't need to be repeatedly inserted, making the document unreadable.
Article I, Section 8 says
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
So no permanent armies, but a permanent navy.
the debate was had... by the framers of the Constitution. See the Federalist Papers and it pretty clearly lays out that "general welfare" means the overall health of the government and its ability to ensure our rights.
The modern welfare state has absolutely nothing to do with what they meant by welfare there. Of course, modern welfare proponents would like to pretend it does, so in the early 1900s, they, then called progressives, started a campaign to rewrite history and that's where the whole notion of the Constitution being a "living document" came into fruition. They wanted to get around the Constitution but it was too hard to amend it, so they figured they would make it relatively meaningless by allowing for a constant reinterpretation until they could completely turn the terms on their head (see also the commerce clause, making commerce regular meant making it so it could easily happen, not creating bureaucratic regulations governing every aspect of even intra-state commerce).
I mean, all of that was covered in your history books, right? Or did they already rewrite them, ensuring you, and most other Americans, whom don't probe any deeper than the surface, wouldn't realize such things?
and I forgot to add, on top of all of that, Medicare is due to go broke in 2017. Again, that program is a real winner...
yeah, lots of seniors. That's why they buy Medigap or Medicare Advantage plans which convert their standard Medicare into an HMO run by one of the private HMOs around the country, usually at an extra cost to themselves. My dad pays an extra $1212 a year on top of his Medicare A and B premiums for it. Medicare A covers basic hospitalization and is paid for through taxes during your working years. Medicare B covers things like durable medical equipment, doctor visits, physical/occupational therapists, etc and costs extra on top of Medicare A ($1157 a year in my dad's case).
Now, you can't have Medicare AND private insurance. So, if you opt for Medicare A, which you've already spent decades paying your premiums for, you'd better opt for Medicare B. And Medicare B is woefully inadequate, with LOTS of extra expenses that kick in if you use it too much (the notion that it is single payer is a joke), so you convert A and B, usually picking up D (prescription drugs) and end up in a private HMO that is regulatd by CMS (Center for Medicare Services).
The government basically locks you into Medicare by forcing you to pay for it. It further restricts your access to buy other insurance, so you either forgo the premiums you've paid for decades to opt for private insurance or you have to double down on what you were already forced to pay for to get hospitalization coverage. On top of that, you have to double down again if you want prescription drugs and/or the extra services provided by the HMO (including reduced hospitalization fees). On the other hand, if you go the HMO route, you no longer have nationwide coverage but are restricted to coverage in a region like a traditional HMO.
Medicare is a HUGE mess, deliberately constructed to force people into it and make them dependent upon the government. Every time the Democrats (today) or the Republicans (back in the 90s) try to modernize Medicare and cut out the huge fraud (as much as 25% annually), you get the other party going "look, they're trying to kill the old people!" Thus, the system will NEVER get fixed... and yet, this is your ideal? You should really investigate Medicare before you advocate it as anything really beneficial.
I was in Nebraska last year with my 7 year old nephew who needed medical assistance. They billed his mother stating that they do not accept out of state insurance.
And there is the case for insurance portability across state lines. We can do that easily with private insurance by simply passing a law that lets them compete across state lines.
A couple of years ago I was in charge of distributing my mother's money. I made the mistake of giving my niece her money. The government seeing that she had a little bit of money(just $10,000) stripped her of medical and food benefits. While she had that money she had a $2,000 medical expense so they took her state income tax refund to pay for it. Why didn't I just give the money to the government instead? I did have to pay the federal and state governments over $15,000 in taxes. The gross national income is around $50,000 per person in this country and yet we have to take away money from the people who make less than the poverty level.
Government programs aren't free, someone has to pay for them. Every time you advocate for a government program, you are advocating raising taxes on more people. The wealthy literally can't afford to pay for all the government programs various peoples want. You can confiscate 100% of their income and 100% of their wealth and it would barely dent the current national debt.
If you want to reduce taxes on the poor, advocate less governemnt spending. As an anecdote, I've taken care of my dad for the last decade+ ever since he had a brain aneurysm and stroke in the late 90s. I had to give up finishing college and spent the majority of that time managing a small family restaurant for a whopping $9/hr since they let me bring him to work with me. I haven't worked in a little over 3 years now because I need a job where I can either bring him to work or I can get home on a moment's notice. He makes less than half of your per capita average, I make nothing. We both still have to pay taxes, lots of taxes, especially when you factor in property taxes (they alone consume 10% of our income and we live in a very modest 100+ year old home).
I had to drop my health insurance when I lost my job. I don't qualify for Medicaid (see, I worked for a while so I own a home, vehicle, etc and thus, I have too many assets). So, I went to the doctor yesterday for an eye infection. It cost $69 with no insurance, compared to $15 (BCBS Medicare advantage co-pay) + $120 (insurance's part) when I take my dad. It's roughly half the cost without the insurance. The antibiotics were another $40 (it is a more expensive antibiotic, pen-vk pills are dirt cheap and some places like Wegmans give them out free). I'm dirt poor, but it's a HELL of a lot more efficient for me to pay my own routine medical bills than pass the cost onto third parties that pass the cost onto you. I'd love to buy catastrophic insurance (which would be cheap since it doesn't cover everyday booboos), but my state won't let me because they want to either force me into a high cost health management plan (with mandatory coverage for stuff I don't want or need) or onto the state plan. They force you to choose between two horrible options in an effort to control your life. It's a false dichotomy.
I sure hope the tea party members are enjoying themselves while on their expensive cruise and while they are listening to the $100,000 speech by Sarah Palin. I am sure they can justify taking from the poor so they can spend all that money.
I'm part of the tea party movement myself, have helped organize 3 protests and have given several speeches. I don't advocate taking from the poor OR taking from the rich. I advocate a smaller government that lets people make their own choices by getting out of their way and letting them keep their own money, rather than forcing them to benefact an unjust duopoly.
We're $12 trillion in debt with another $100 trillion in obligations hanging over our head. M
Most TWO parent families have two vehicles... there are a whole lot of single parent families these days, not to mention single people that can't afford two cars. You're also excluding the two parent families that drive two $2000 cars because they can't afford a $40k car. In fact, that car might be worth more than their home.
For upper middle class and higher families, it might not be a bad idea. Then again, most of them already spend more than they earn, so it is wise to buy an even more expensive vehicle, especially if they aren't going to drive it long enough for the fuel savings to pay for the difference?
Does that mean electric cars don't have a place? Absolutely not... there definitely is a market for such cars. It's just not as broad as many of the promoters of electric vehicles want to portray it as.
Irrelevant. You made a claim which essentially said his personal life was ignored. That is false.
I said the media never really asked the same questions of Obama and vetted him the same way they've done other candidates.
Here's a clue from your own references
http://thecaucus./ blogs.nytimes.com/
http:/// blog.washingtonpost.com/
http://latimes/ blogs.latimes.com
http://latimes/ blogs.latimes.com
Do you remember ABC/CBS/NBC/MSNBC/CNN/NYT/LAT/WaPo etc running stories front and center on their flagships about, say, Obama's admitted drug use? I can remember those same outlets attacking GWB the weekend before the 2000 election front and center. I can remember Dan Rather using phony evidence to push a story about GWB's National Guard years (again, remember, Obama's actions during the same time are irrelevant per you).
A blog doesn't get millions of nightly viewers like a 6:30pm newscast does and those that do read the blogs aren't the ones being spoonfed the news at 6:30, so to say it's the equivalent is hogwash.
Regardless of the reaction or fallout from looking into his personal life, to try and say it wasn't widely scrutinized is an outright lie.
Are you honestly going to tell me that the same amount of reporting went into Obama's past by the mainstream media as went into Palin's past? If so, defend the statement by Tom Brokaw, one of the most entrenched national news anchors, that we didn't get to know Obama before the election.
Sadly, the foreign mainstream press, especially in Great Britain, did more digging into who Obama was/is than the domestic press did.
People were complaining about his birth certificate.
And were derided as birthers for wanting to make sure he was in compliance with the Constitution.
They were complaining about who he hung out with in college.
So we should never investigate a candidate's friends and associates when they run for office? The left questioned GWB being in the Skull and Bones society in college before the 2000 election. They questioned Palin's college career. But somehow, Obama's college years were off limits and, in fact, still are. We knew about Al Gore flunking out of divinity school and GWB barely passing at Yale, but Obama's college transcripts were never released.
They were complaining about his parents.
Nobody complained about GWB's dad before election or during his time in office?
They were complaining about his fucking pastor.
Someone chooses to associate with someone for 20 years, someone they call their spiritual adviser, and now that person is off limits too?
It's fair to say Obama was never really pushed, but to claim people didn't rifle through his personal life is unmitigated bullshit.
Fox News did some digging on him, they are the lone "they" from the media as far as your statements above go. Where were the other media outlets? Virtually all of them gave him a pass as far as investigating just who he was. Why else would Tom Brokaw feel the need to say that we don't really know who Obama is AFTER he was elected if he was fully vetted beforehand?
Anyone that did attempt to dig through his history was excoriated for it. Look at what people did to Joe the Plumber just for asking him a question that exposed more of Obama's real views than the Obama campaign really wanted the public to know. The media ran cover for him, even going so far as to completely make up stories that would make him more sympathetic (like the one about someone publicly threatening to harm/kill Obama at a McCain rally. The Secret Service investigated and found no such threat).
6) people that simply disagreed with his politics...
See Jeanane Garafalo and her rant about "this is about hating a black man in the White House, it's racism straight up."
You see, a LOT of people were unfairly tarred just because they don't believe in the things Obama was campaigning on. A lot of Obama's supporters wanted him to win so badly that they dragged out the race card even in cases were it wasn't warranted. The left in America plays the race card as often, maybe even moreso, than the right plays the unamerican card.
I've been called a racist long before anyone ever heard of Obama simply because I don't agree with the left nor identity politics and the discrimination based upon them. In fact, a good number of people on the right have been called every name in the book. Many of us have grown thick skins and learned not to care, noting that it is a childish tactics of last resort to result to namecalling (see the left's obsession with "teabagging" because they don't want to listen to what the people are protesting about). Others learn to just keep their mouth shut to avoid the expected attacks (cue the black comedians like Chris Rock that note white people don't like to talk politics around black people).
I think it was Tom Brokaw whom proclaimed, after the election, on the Charlie Rose show "now we'll get to know who Obama is." The media dug through Palin's neighbor's trash to see what they could dig up on her but they never really asked the same questions of Obama and anyone that did try to ask questions, legitimate questions, was ignored or attacked for doing so.
We need to get over this blind allegiance to a party, candidate, skin color, gender, etc and have some honest and open discussions about things rather than simply attacking people for not holding identical beliefs to our own. However, it's not going to happen because we're too busy shouting down the other team(s) before they can get a word in since it might make us reconsider our own views. Cognitive dissonance is a bitch.
Being a governor first gives you the executive experience that comes with being responsible for running a large government bureaucracy. While nobody is 100% prepared to step into the Oval Office, including Vice Presidents, there's a big difference in having no experience in the field and having some.
Nobody is going to hire the intern to run the show, but they may promote a VP for another CxO to do it since they have some type of managerial experience.
I certainly wasn't happy with any of the choices we had back in 2008. It came down to picking the candidate which would be the least bad for anyone that was willing to actually look into what the candidates were saying rather than simply accepting the brands they were selling. I couldn't support either major party candidate in good faith, so I voted third party.
I'm somewhat of a mix between libertarian and conservative (as in the "I believe in the Constitution" sense, not the neo-con sense), so the goals of both candidates were pretty far off from where I believe our government should be heading. Obama's goals would have required a reality that doesn't exist for them to ever be fair and just and, as Thomas Jefferson said, any expansion of government is a contraction of the liberty of the people. I'm fine with states wanting to pass his initiatives if that's what they desire, but they don't belong at the federal level. In fact, most of what our federal government does these days doesn't belong at the federal level and I oppose anyone that wants to expand it further. Before someone quips I oppose fire departments, the local government has a different purpose than the federal government, be reasonable, not a demagogue.
Who knows, I could be wrong...but I didn't see malice in Obama, just ignorance.
And those of us that, all along, tried pointing out his ignorance and lack of experience were called racists and every other name in the book. It is perfectly possible to disagree with someone because of their politics, lack of experience, etc and not care one lick about their race (or gender, age, etc). I've been called a racist more times than I can count, because it's easier to attack someone for disagreeing with you than it is to defend your own opinions. It's especially funny when the accusations of racism comes from someone that "forgets he was black for an hour" (but just for an hour).