Sen. Barack Obama

Okay, I have to say this, my number one gripe with Barack Obama is that while so many are calling him a uniter, and a bringer of hope, all I see is the opposite. He damages the gains that have been made in race relations. He embodies a double standard that isn't acceptable. If someone wants me to look to them as "bringing people together" then they damn well should be doing it and not just when a camera is pointed at them. For all those excuses about his church and Rev. Wright I have to ask why it is excusable to preach blame and hate just because he is african american? How can excuses be made for a man who could have been a leader in his community and stood up and said it was time to move on and change the world instead of pointing fingers and being bitter but who instead sat and did nothing? How can I be expected to believe that he is honest or reliable when he either didn't notice the hate being spewed by Rev. Wright or he didn't care? How can he represent healing if he is part of the segment of society that believes that children are responsible for their ancestors actions? He certainly didn't care to preach his message of hope and healing to his own community until it would get him votes. There are people all over the country and the world who spend their days repairing the damage that prejudice and inequality have caused. This man didn't. Sitting idly by while a new generation listens to a man who influences them by making them angry at entire generations of people over injustices that weren't started, continued or approved of by them does as much damage as the original injustices did. I can't believe that people just buy into the rhetoric. Actions really do speak louder than words. There's more to healing than getting people registered to vote. Barack Obama never put his money where his mouth was until he had a horse in the race. I'll vote for a healer when a healer actually comes along. I can see the difference between a healer and a snake oil salesman, the healer heals even when nobody is looking regardless of skin color and the salesman only pushes his product with promises of great reward when there is something to gain. I know which Barack Obama is, why don't you?

McCain/Palin sign in our yard has been attacked several times

I fear an Obama loss and the inevitable race riots but I fear a win even more. Here's another who feels as I do and is not willing to continue taking abuse for availing himself of the free speech he's supposed to be entitled to, you know, unless it isn't always in agreement with the liberal point of view.

Days of rage: There's something happening here
by David Reinhard, The Oregonian
Saturday October 25, 2008, 11:00 AM

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
-- Buffalo Springfield

What is happening to us? What explains the boorishness, hate and even violence that increasingly mark our politics?

No, this isn't another prissy commentary on "negative" ads -- another high-sounding homily on how we ought to focus on "the issues," by which the writer means "the issues that I think voters should focus on." Nor is this a screed against demonstrations, however boisterous, or some young fools' lawn-sign stealing. There's no interest here in trampling on free-speech rights or spitting into the wind of what must be a rite of passage.

What troubles me -- what should trouble us all -- is the outbreak of largely liberal intolerance we've seen over the last few elections, and especially this one.

Something's happening here, and it's getting scary.

We've had two 23-year-old males here tossing Molotov cocktails to burn down Gene Scrutton's John McCain sign in the Sellwood neighborhood.

In Minnesota, graffiti messages ("u r a criminal resign or else") were spray-painted on the garage of U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman's St. Paul home.

A 23-year-old Michigan man, a Democrat, has admitted to plotting to detonate a homemade bomb in the tunnels near the Republican convention.

In the Washington, D.C., suburbs, a motel with a McCain sign on its lawn received threatening calls and a McCain-signed pumpkin patch was vandalized.

In central Florida, the Republican headquarters manager told police he believed that his home with two McCain signs was shot up because of his support for McCain.

It doesn't involve physical violence, threatened or real, but "The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart's "[expletive] you" to Sarah Palin in a recent comedy (?) act suggests how far we've gone in the age of the unhinged.

Yes, I know this stuff runs both ways. Here in Oregon, we had the hanging of an Obama cut-out at Newberg's George Fox University. The Washington Post reports that Obama signs in Alexandria, Va., were painted with racist epithets. We learned Friday that a McCain campaign worker's claim that she was beaten up and had the letter "B" cut into her face because her car had a McCain sticker was a hoax. Such deranged doings are just as appalling when it comes from the right, though my sense is that this hate-filled intolerance more often comes out of left field.

I also know we're a big country, and a few goof-balls do not a national trend make. But I don't think I'm committing sociology based on a few incidents. We're talking about more than a few beer-addled goofballs here.

A young friend of mine was working for the Bush campaign in 2004. One weekend he left his car outside a friend's Eugene house for safekeeping while he was out of town. Upon returning, he noticed the "W" sticker had been removed from his car. Hey, buddy, you were supposed to take care of my car, he said to his friend. Oh, yeah, his friend said, my father did that when he was here this weekend. He couldn't stand a student having a Bush sticker on his car.

Now, mind you, this wasn't a practical joke. The father was dead serious, and he wasn't some ne'er-do-well with a six-pack of beer aboard. He was an immaculately credentialed Portland professional who also headed a major community organization.

I love politics and public policy, but the ugliness, the anger, the coarseness and even the threats of violence I've experienced as a conservative opinion-writer in achingly "tolerant" Portland have contributed to my decision to leave the business after this election. My heart was starting to harden -- do we conservatives not have hearts, do we not bleed? -- and I didn't want that to happen.

I joked at first about some of it. When a reader sent me my column covered with dried feces, I looked on the bright side. He could have said he wouldn't .... on my column. I took comfort in the fact law officers visited the Iraq War foe (a peace advocate!) and the liberal critic (a Portland public school teacher!) who threatened my family. But the constant expletive-laced rants, the nifty Nazi-Hitler-German references, the holier-than-thou hate for any opposing view from the half-informed -- well, it's not what our public discourse should be about. It wasn't in a better age. If I sometimes responded in kind (and I did), forgive me.

What accounts for this rage? Maybe it's that so many feel the White House was stolen from them eight years ago. Maybe they just feel entitled to rule. (Dude, where's my country?) Maybe it's the Iraq War. Or George Bush, though many lefties have worked themselves into the same derangement syndrome over Palin. Maybe the cause is deeper. I don't know. I only know it's not a good thing for civil society.

Obama's not my candidate -- McCain is -- but, if he's elected on Nov. 4, Obama will be my president and I'll be happy to cheer two things. One, the fact that the United States has, at long last, elected an African-American president. Two, the possibility that Obama's election might deliver us from this nastiness. I think it's called the audacity of hope.

Alek's Views

Paul asked Alek who he'd vote for and this is what he said:

McCain because he tells good jokes and Hillary Clinton was defeated.

Obviously he's listening to what we watch and talk about and FYI, he came up with that joke thing all on his own. He must have seen the Alfred E. Smith dinner or if he's a secret Obama supporter he could be basing it on any speech.

Well, I thought it was worth a shot but there doesn't seem to be any real discussion about policy. Can't even get people to answer all the questions once so I guess I'll continue on the way I have been, assuming that the idea of a free and fair discussion is as unlikely as a free and fair election.

School House Rock has been around a long time and my boys are HUGE in to it. We have one or another playing almost constantly since they found them at the library (which I vote to fund on every initiative that appears on a ballot FYI). Lately, they've been watching two that are relevant. The first is Three Ring Government, fitting name regardless but one part says:

******

Step right up and visit ring number one.
The show's just begun.
Meet the President.
I am here to see that the laws get done.
The ringmaster of the government.

On with the show!

Hurry, hurry, hurry to ring number two.
See what they do in the Congress.
Passin' laws and juggling bills,
Oh, it's quite a thrill in the Congress.
Focus your attention on ring number three.
The Judiciary's in the spotlight.
The courts take the law and they tame the crimes
Balancing the wrongs with your rights.

No one part can be
more powerful than any other is.
Each controls the other you see,
and that's what we call checks and balances.

*******

Even grade schoolers are learning about "checks and balances" and we'll be losing them all in this election, free reign for a Democratic congress to spend our country into a black hole of debt that our children will never climb out of. And the idea that Supreme Court Justices should be picked based on their empathy is ludicrous. They are supposed to interpret law not hand out finding based on feelings. The laws can be changed by Congress if some disagree but appointing people who will make rulings based on their feelings scares me more than anything Obama has suggested.

The other School House Rock I really love, Tyrannosaurus Debt, explains in a way even Alek understands:

*******

There's something huge
Red, white, and blue
That's grazing in D.C.
It's gobbling up the taxes
That are paid by you and me
It doesn't seem to notice
We really can't afford
The billions that it's costing us
To pay its room and board

It doesn't roam
But seems content
To dwell on Capitol Hill
As long as trucks keep pulling up
With tons of green-back bills
We've got to feed the big guy
We really can't forget
It has an awesome appetite
Tyrannosaurus Debt ....

We're spending money we don't have
Or so it would appear
The deficit is that amount we overspend each year
Though congressmen and senators
Make vows to cut its size
Despite their honest efforts
The debt just seems to rise

******

A Dem president and majorities in both houses and there won't be any check and balances anymore. Another point that people can't seem to get past. Why do we want to leave our kids worse off than we were? There'll come a breaking point when the US can't pay it's debt and then what? Isn't it our responsibility to make sure our kids don't end up living in a bankrupt nation?

Let's Get It On !!!!

No hold barred, except the ones that were barred of course. Anything goes unless ... well, you get the picture.

Question 1: Of course I'll respect you in the morning

Trust. Who do you trust, or not, and why? No getting mad, trust is a very personal issue and there aren't any irrelevant points of view. You can't control who you trust, you can only control who you let swindle you.

Question 2: What matters most ...

What is the most important issue in the 2008 Presidential race and who addresses it best?

Question 3: The Big Money-sucking-black-hole issue

What is the biggest money waste your candidate proposes? What about the opposition? Not talking about spending you believe in, this would be money down the drain.

Question 4: H.G. Wells meets Journalism

Has the MSM (main stream media) been fair and unbiased in their portrayal and reporting of the candidates in the 2008 election? Give an honest answer, it's easy, just pretend you AREN'T a journalist.

Question 5: Raaaarrrggghh !

Strengths, list the major strength, the strongest strength, if you will, for BOTH candidates, mine and the wrong one. Make something up if you have to.

Question 6: Kryptonite, Garlic and loose women

What is your candidates weak point, greatest failing, Achilles heel? What about that other guy's?

Question 7: $1 + $1 = more taxes

Tax policy and economic plans. Why is your candidate right and is it fair to do either :

a. Take money from people who earned it and "spread it around"

or

b. let the rich get richer and the poor get poorer

Middle ground anyone?

Question 8: I want a good clean fight, back to your corners and come out swinging !

No questions. /Rant on . A summary of views. Preferably a paragraph or two, not a book (Gary and Mike). Sorry to target you, I'd be that kind of candidate, mud slinging, spitballs, an odd poke in the eye, badly spelt hate mail sent with taxpayer money.