Obama's Election Seals Our Fate

[_ajax18]

You should read more ajax posts to understand why that is a racial dog whistle.

As if I'm not 1 in a million. My views represent that of the Republican party? What a joke! I suppose all Mormons think like me because I once was one? It's like the idea that Todd Aiken's views are Mitt Romney's views as well. Mitt Romney was not even a true conservative. He was plenty far enough to the center to win this election. I think being Mormon hurt him, even if it wasn't said out loud. I saw many gay people on Facebook harping about Mormonism even if it was not mentioned out loud in the campaigns.

None of the White Nationalist movement supported Romney either. They hated Obama but they hated Romney too. Most either set out the election or wrote in obscure candidates that even I'm not familiar with. Truly racist people are their own small faction. I'm not sure what the left is trying to accomplish by painting people who aren't really racist as racist. True white racists love it though, because it bolsters their movement.

[_moksha]

Let's make damn sure that Romney washes his hands before Obama seals our fate.

When Romney sneaks up on me and says, "Please to meet you Lil' Penguin, can't you guess my name?", I want to be able to answer, "Aren't you that guy from the Grey Poupon commercial?".

Republicans did run a race baiting campaign. If you don't understand why harping on "Food Stamp president" is meant to carry a racially charged undertone, you are being obtuse.

This might not be race baiting at all. Republicans simply cannot abide poor people and do not wish their money (which could be earning interest and dividends) to be used for any charitable purposes.

[_Brackite]

It was Newt Gingrich who called Obama the "Food Stamp president", Not Mitt Romney.

Romney used Gingrich as a surrogate. If Romney had wanted Gingrich to avoid race-baiting, he would have conveyed that to him.

Gingrich said that back during the GOP Primary when he was running against Romney for the GOP Nomination.

[_moksha]

The Republicans will learn their lesson and adapt, they'll eventually find the right candidates and things will cycle back and it will be the Democrats feeling angst about the end of the world. Hopefully quickly.

They tried their hand at a smart candidate this time around and look where it got them. The lesson is to abandon Mitt and Mia Love types and go back to Jeb Bush and Sarah Palin. They might also consider abandoning the hyper super extra ultra right-wing thing as well.

[_beastie]

Gingrich said that back during the GOP Primary when he was running against Romney for the GOP Nomination.

How about a sister souljah moment?

[_MeDotOrg]

Ludwig von Mises pointed out that the progress of the West was achieved on a simple idea:

The essential characteristic of Western civilization that distinguishes it from the arrested and petrified civilizations of the East was and is its concern for freedom from the state.

Too much government is bad, therefore less government is good. Seems simple.

But this is analogous to saying that because hunger is bad, food is good and ergo more food is better. Eventually you start building shrines to bacon chili-cheeseburgers, and obesity becomes a problem. Or conversely, saying that since being overweight is bad, dieting must be good. You can end of being an anorexic.

I don't think this is an equation where if one is good, ten is better, or if ten is bad, one is better.

I am not against freedom. My argument with objectivists, free-marketers and libertarians is that societies require balance.

Are we individuals or members of society? I don't think most people think of this as an either/or question. We are both individuals and members of our church, our communities and our country. We have to balance the individual with the group. We do so in our families, we should do so in our country.

Just because someone believes in universal health care doesn't mean you're going to get re-located to a Stalinist archipelago because you drive an SUV. And if you rip out all the smog devices and go back to leaded gas, you will breathe in freedom, but after a while you'll be choking.

[Tator]

Too much government is bad, therefore less government is good. Seems simple.

But this is analogous to saying that because hunger is bad, food is good and ergo more food is better. Eventually you start building shrines to bacon chili-cheeseburgers, and obesity becomes a problem. Or conversely, saying that since being overweight is bad, dieting must be good. You can end of being an anorexic.

I don't think this is an equation where if one is good, ten is better, or if ten is bad, one is better.

I am not against freedom. My argument with objectivists, free-marketers and libertarians is that societies require balance.

Are we individuals or members of society? I don't think most people think of this as an either/or question. We are both individuals and members of our church, our communities and our country. We have to balance the individual with the group. We do so in our families, we should do so in our country.

Just because someone believes in universal health care doesn't mean you're going to get re-located to a Stalinist archipelago because you drive an SUV. And if you rip out all the smog devices and go back to leaded gas, you will breathe in freedom, but after a while you'll be choking.

Well said.

Here's an example of a regulation that not only protected the health of all people, but notably children, but eventually contributed to a lower crime rate.

http://science.slashdot.org/story/07/10 ... e-gasoline

"Even low levels of lead can cause brain damage, increasing the likelihood of behavioral and cognitive traits such as impulsivity, aggressiveness, and low IQ that are strongly linked with criminal behavior. The NYTimes has a story on how the phasing out of leaded gasoline starting with the Clean Air Act in 1973 may have led to a 56% drop in violent crime in the US in the 1990s. An economics professor at Amherst College, Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, discovered the connection and wrote a paper comparing the reduction of lead from gasoline between states (PDF) and the reduction of violent crime. She constructed a table linking crime rates in every state to childhood lead exposure in that state 20 or 30 years earlier. If lead poisoning is a factor in the development of criminal behavior, then countries that didn't switch to unleaded fuel until the 1980s, like Britain and Australia, should soon see a dip in crime as the last lead-damaged children outgrow their most violent years."

No man is an island. Admitting that the circumstances of others can, and does, have a real impact on our own lives and thereby sometimes it is not only in society's best interest to intervene, but in our own personal self interest as well, does not make us socialists.

Ajax has argued on this board that the government has no moral right to use some of his capital to help raise poor (brown) children. I argued in return that the reality is that there will be poor (brown and white) children, and if government does not provide some assistance in terms of health and education to those same children, the chances are much higher they will grow up undereducated and angry. And what do undereducated and angry adults do in a society? Often they engage in behavior that is destructive to the rest of us. So which is more in my own personal self-interest? Paying some taxes to attempt to intervene with those children so they have a better chance of being productive adults one day who are easier to live with, or, out of some self-righteous pique, refusing to help and then enduring the consequences of angry and undereducated adults who often see that the only way they can survive is through crime?

And keep in mind that I'll still have to pay taxes to now support these criminals in prison. So it seems to me that paying taxes to, instead, attempt to intervene in the lives of these children so maybe one day I won't have to support them in prison makes a whole lot more sense.

[_aussieguy55]

BIG BIRD LIVES

[_aussieguy55]

Mitt Romney's campaign got its first hint something was wrong on the afternoon of Election Day, when state campaign workers on the ground began reporting huge turnout in areas favorable to President Obama: northeastern Ohio, northern Virginia, central Florida and Miami-Dade.

Then came the early exit polls that also were favorable to the president.

But it wasn't until the polls closed that concern turned into alarm. They expected North Carolina to be called early. It wasn't. They expected Pennsylvania to be up in the air all night; it went early for the President.

After Ohio went for Mr. Obama, it was over, but senior advisers say no one could process it.

"We went into the evening confident we had a good path to victory," said one senior adviser. "I don't think there was one person who saw this coming."

They just couldn't believe they had been so wrong. And maybe they weren't: There was Karl Rove on Fox saying Ohio wasn't settled, so campaign aides decided to wait. They didn't want to have to withdraw their concession, like Al Gore did in 2000, and they thought maybe the suburbs of Columbus and Cincinnati, which hadn't been reported, could make a difference.

Big GOP donors see small return on investment
2012 Election results

But then came Colorado for the president and Florida also was looking tougher than anyone had imagined.

"We just felt, 'where's our path?'" said a senior adviser. "There wasn't one."

Romney then said what they knew: it was over.

His personal assistant, Garrett Jackson, called his counterpart on Mr. Obama's staff, Marvin Nicholson. "Is your boss available?" Jackson asked.

Romney was stoic as he talked to the president, an aide said, but his wife Ann cried. Running mate Paul Ryan seemed genuinely shocked, the adviser said. Ryan's wife Janna also was shaken and cried softly.

"There's nothing worse than when you think you're going to win, and you don't," said another adviser. "It was like a sucker punch."


Their emotion was visible on their faces when they walked on stage after Romney finished his remarks, which Romney had hastily composed, knowing he had to say something.

Both wives looked stricken, and Ryan himself seemed grim. They all were thrust on that stage without understanding what had just happened.

"He was shellshocked," one adviser said of Romney.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-575 ... mostShared