Go Ahead ! Tell me I'm wrong if you think so, but have the courage to stand by your beliefs. If you believe something it shouldn't matter that I believe something else. Make your point.
Okay, I really want to try this. In my opinion, discussion and debate are essential to keep the USA free and informed. It's what makes us who we are, the ability to disagree and present opposing viewpoints. I want to see if we can get everyone to respond to these questions WITHOUT any of the typical crap we hear day in and day out through media sources. Just your (hopefully informed) opinions. Maybe we can air it out since I'm getting more and more angry and think maybe if I talk to people about the issues, without all the idiotic stuff I have to dig through on most sites, I'll understand what the other side sees, a perspective I'm missing completely at the moment. Oh, and if you want to add questions we can add anything you want to talk about.
The Rules:
1. You are not allowed to use "candidate speak" (ie. maverick, devisive, distraction, ginning up, caribou barbie, etc.)
2. NO RHETORIC! Use your words not theirs and if you give info back it up, don't just say the candidate said so because they have both lied and been caught and while one claims he isn't a politician, they both are.
3. NO NAME CALLING!! Of candidates or each other, and most of all not of me.
4. Answer based on the PRES candidate, unless/until one of them dies we're stuck with these two.
5. I'm right !!! Just kidding, well ... mostly kidding.
7 comments:
I personally think that Obama is way to liberal to be the President. i think you have to have a more conservative stance to succeed in running the country. You dont to be a strict conservative, which I don't believe McCain is but a little more moderate. Obama is not the least bit moderate and is in fact about as far left as you can get, I never did care for Biden long before he every became the VP candidate. If Obama wins we are in a world of shit fellow citizens!
I believe we are in a bigger world of shit if McCain gets in, and God forbid something happens and Palin is left in charge. I truly believe Obama is best of the two ( I would prefer Hillary/Biden), I find Joe Boden informed and capable, too. I believe McCain is all military and forget diplomacy and I, for one, don't agree with that stand. I believe we will be in Iraq and Afghanistan and maybe even Iran if we elect McCain.
No basis to believe McCain won't use diplomacy mom, he fought for diplomatic channels to help POW's.
I wrote a big long answer and PJ hit my keyboard so now I'm grouchy.
Obama is too liberal. He doesn't represent the majority of Americans. He wants to tax some more to help others and that's just not fair.
Policy shouldn't be a wish list, it should be a realistic agenda to improve the country. Everyone who lives in the US should contribute. They don't have to contribute equally but they shouldn't be getting something for nothing. Part of what makes people care about something is working for it. I believe that. Too many people do absolutely nothing for themselves. I'm not suggesting that we abandon those that can't help themselves, I'm suggesting we stop making it easy for those who WON'T.
If someone works hard we punish them. What kind of message is that? We have a friend who makes over $300,000 a year. He, since before I met him 10 years ago, has worked upwards of 60-80 hour weeks. He travels away from his family often. He has 4 children now and busts his ass to give them everything he possibly can. For all that work, giving up all he gives up with his family, Obama proposes we punish him so that somebody who didn't bust their ass can have something they didn't work to earn. If you see something fair in that then you aren't the people I thought you were.
I stand by my convictions. My own son was taught that if he is helping himself then he can come to me for help but that if he's slacking he can live with what he gets. I've stood by that. I believe that. I refuse to believe that if we continue to take away from those that earn something to give it to someone else that we improve the world.
What if we just tax everyone, every single person and if you are being taxed then you qualify for training or education. If you get training you get better jobs and earn more. Then you can live on your own earnings. We've all heard the give a guy a fish he eats for a day but teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime bit. What's wrong with that?
And what makes everyone think that everyone should have the same amount for things to be fair? Someone who digs ditches should make more money than someone who sprays perfume on people in a store. Someone who works 60 hours a week should make more than someone who doesn't. If we want to be fair then how about being fair to everyone, including those that Obama proposes to "fine" for being successful. We already have 40% who pay nothing in federal taxes. How can it do anything but cause more problems to keep making it easier to do nothing?
That's my biggest gripe about policy. I'd rather leave the money with people and let them decide how to spend it.
I am over caring what the international community thinks while they all sit on their asses doing nothing while watching the US make all the difficult decisions and provide the finances and manpower for every international disaster or conflict that comes along. Maybe if they'd shut up and do something they'd find out that it's hard to please everyone all the time.
I don't care if the guy going in to the white house knows every foriegn and domestic policy by heart. That's the point of surrounding yourself with experts. What concerns me is judgement. I trust McCain (and Palin) to act responsibly and I don't feel that way about Obama. Every decision doesn't come with days or months to ponder, consider or mull over what you might do. Hard decisions are usually hard because you don't know what the outcome will be. In the event my family's safety comes down to a decision about national security I do not believe obama to be the person most able to protect us. I can't and won't give him my vote.
And Mom, I'm surprised you support Obama and his plan to change the way people vote to form unions. He wants to eliminate secret ballots for unionization. Under the current law, once a majority of workers submit cards requesting union certification, an election is held in which workers vote by secret ballot on whether to ratify unionization.
Obama fully supports making them vote publicly. The last Congress tried to pass the grossly misnamed "Employee Free Choice Act," also known as "Card Check." This act claimed to promote democracy in the workplace by taking away the secret ballot when voting on unionization. With the ballots open for view, union leaders would know how everyone is voting. You have to know how that that would allow union organizers to "strongly encourage" or intimidate employees into signing something they may not want to. Or the reverse, people being intimidated into not signing. Either way, what good would come of it and why does he not only support it but he and Biden plan to fight for it and have made it one of their big issues. Can you imagine the treatment people would get from pro-union folks? you really think that would promote any freedom to vote with what you believed?
When it last came up for vote it passed in the House but fell nine votes short in the Senate to defeat the Republican filibuster. If there is a supermajority in Congress, there will be no filibuster to stop this act from becoming law. What is fair about making people vote with no protection from abuse and coersion?
Oh, one of my favorites, Obama suggested allowing bankruptcy judges to decrease the principle on mortgages. So, let me get this straight, if you buy a house you can't afford, then file bankruptcy, you get a discount and the banks are just shit out of luck, or the goverment pays the difference. While those of us who buy homes responsibly have to pay full dollar. Yes, that's fair. I always wanted to buy other peoples homes instead of getting a nicer one that my family fits in. People shouldn't have to pay for their own homes, that would be unfair, they should be given my tax money or banks should just have to eat the cost cause that would be good for the economy. Seriously? I mean, seriously? How can anyone, with two brain cells to rub together think that would be a good plan?
Ok, here's one strong disagreement I have with McCain; "John McCain believes Roe vs Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned. Obama opposes any constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's decision in that case.
I also believe Obama has a better plan for health care than MCCain, and Obama seems more committed to education than McCain. Lastly, I really do not believe McCain thought through his choice of a runnung mate.
The Court and Constitutional Interpretation
"Equal Justice Under Law" These words, written above the main entrance to the Supreme Court Building, express the ultimate responsibility of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Court is the highest tribunal in the Nation for all cases and
controversies arising under the Constitution or the laws of the United States. As the final arbiter of the law, the Court is charged with ensuring the American people the promise of equal justice under law and, thereby, also functions as guardian and interpreter of the Constitution.
The complex role of the Supreme Court in this system derives from its authority to invalidate legislation or executive actions which, in the Court’s considered judgment, conflict with the Constitution. This power of “judicial review” has given the Court a crucial responsibility in assuring individual rights, as well as in maintaining a “living Constitution” whose broad provisions are continually applied to complicated new situations. While the function of judicial review is not explicitly provided in the Constitution, it had been anticipated before the adoption of that document. Prior to 1789, state courts had already overturned legislative acts which conflicted with state constitutions. Moreover, many of the Founding Fathers expected the Supreme Court to assume this role in regard to the Constitution; Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, for example, had underlined the importance of judicial review in the Federalist Papers, which urged adoption of the Constitution.
Hamilton had written that through the practice of judicial review the Court ensured that the will of the whole people, as expressed in their Constitution, would be supreme over the will of a legislature, whose statutes might express only the temporary will of part of the people. And Madison had written that constitutional interpretation must be left to the reasoned judgment of independent judges, rather than to the tumult and conflict of the political process. If every constitutional question were to be decided by public political bargaining, Madison argued, the Constitution would be reduced to a battleground of competing factions, political passion and partisan spirit.
Despite this background the Court’s power of judicial review was not confirmed until 1803, when it was invoked by Chief Justice
John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison. In this decision, the Chief Justice asserted that the Supreme Court’s responsibility to overturn unconstitutional legislation was a necessary consequence of its sworn duty to uphold the Constitution. That oath could not be fulfilled any other way. “It is emphatically the province of the judicial department to say what the law is,” he declared.
In retrospect, it is evident that constitutional interpretation and application were made necessary by the very nature of the
Constitution. The Founding Fathers had wisely worded that document in rather general terms leaving it open to future elaboration
to meet changing conditions. As Chief Justice Marshall noted in McCulloch v. Maryland, a constitution that attempted to detail every aspect of its own application “would partake of the prolixity of a legal code, and could scarcely be embraced by the human mind. . . . Its nature, therefore, requires that only its great outlines should be marked, its important objects designated, and the minor ingredients which compose those objects be deduced from the nature of the objects themselves.”
The Constitution limits the Court to dealing with “Cases” and “Controversies.” John Jay, the first Chief Justice, clarified this restraint early in the Court’s history by declining to advise President George Washington on the constitutional implications of a proposed foreign policy decision. The Court does not give advisory opinions; rather, its function is limited only to deciding specific cases.
The John McCain Judicial Philosophy
"Our freedom is curtailed no less by an act of arbitrary judicial power as it is by an act of an arbitrary executive, or legislative, or state power. For that reason, a judge's decisions must rest on more than his subjective conviction that he is right, or his eagerness to address a perceived social ill."
-John McCain November 16, 2006
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/b8529d0e-381e-4a29-9c39-6a57c7e182c9.htm
I won't post it all but this is directly from the text of his website given above.
As President, John McCain will nominate judges who understand that their role is to faithfully apply the law as written, not impose their opinions through judicial fiat.
We are a free people. This means that the rules we have agreed to live by are those made by the people themselves, not a small elite that claims to be wiser than everybody else. Our laws are legitimate precisely because they reflect decisions solemnly made by the people - in the case of Constitutional law, through the process of ratification and periodic amendment; in the case of statutory law, through their elected representatives in the legislative process. When applying the law, the role of judges is not to impose their own view as to the best policy choices for society but to faithfully and accurately determine the policy choices already made by the people and embodied in the law. .....
John McCain believes that shaping the judiciary through the appointment power is one of the most important and solemn responsibilities a President has, and certainly one that has a profound and lasting impact. When he was running for President in 1999, he promised that, in appointing judges, he would not only insist on persons who were faithful to the Constitution, but persons who had a record that demonstrated that fidelity.
This is not a new position for John McCain. He has long held it. It is reflected in his consistent opposition to the agenda of liberal judicial activists who have usurped the role of state legislatures in such matters as dealing with abortion and the definition of marriage.
John McCain's judicial nominees will be men and women of experience, wisdom and humility who do their work with impartiality and honor. They will have an alert conscience but be immune to flattery and fashionable theory. They will be faithful in all things to the Constitution and understand there are clear limits to the scope of judicial power and federal power.
These are jurists of the highest caliber who know the difference between their own minds and the law. John McCain believes the federal courts are charged with applying the constitution and the laws of our country to each case at hand.
For decades now, some federal judges have taken it upon themselves to pronounce and rule on matters never intended for the courts. Federal judges today issue rulings and opinions on policy questions that should be decided democratically. There is little regard for the authority of the President, Congress, and states. There is even less interest in the people's will.
Activist lawyers and activist judges seek to be spared the inconvenience of campaigns, elections and legislative votes. They do not seek to win debates on the merits of their argument, but by court order. Even in courtrooms, they apply a double standard when some federal judges operate by fiat, shrug off generations of legal wisdom and precedent while expecting their own opinions to go unquestioned. Only their favorite precedents are to be considered "settled law," and everything else is fair game.
The Barack Obama Judicial Philosophy
This one is harder because he doesn't actually lay it out anywhere, in my opinion because then he can claim all views depending on who he speaks to. That being said, July 17th 2008 at a Planned Parenthood conference in DC he said this:
"We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that's the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."
From an interview earlier this year with Wolf Blitzer, Obama says:
"Now there’s going to be those 5 percent of cases or 1 percent of cases where the law isn’t clear. And the judge then has to bring in his or her own perspectives, his ethics, his or her moral bearings. And in those circumstances, what I do want is a judge who is sympathetic enough to those who are on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless, those who can’t have access to political power and as a consequence can’t protect themselves from being — from being dealt with sometimes unfairly. That the courts become a refuge for justice. That’s been its historic role. That was its role in Brown v. Board of Education."
From a primary debate November 2007, Obama says:
"I would not appoint somebody who doesn't believe in the right to privacy. But you're right, Wolf, I taught constitutional law for 10 years, and I -- when you look at what makes a great Supreme Court justice, it's not just the particular issue and how they rule, but it's their conception of the court. And part of the role of the court is that it is going to protect people who may be vulnerable in the political process, the outsider, the minority, those who are vulnerable, those who don't have a lot of clout.
And part of what I want to find in a Supreme Court justice -- and Joe's exactly right, sometimes we're only looking at academics or people who've been in the court. If we can find people who have life experience and they understand what it means to be on the outside, what it means to have the system not work for them, that's the kind of person I want on the Supreme Court."
And since Obama has said little on the matter:
"I'm troubled by Sen. Obama's comments that he would look for judges who would look to their heart and sense of fairness in deciding cases instead of looking to the law," said Rachel Brand, a former assistant attorney general, "There's something fundamentally undemocratic about that. The people decide what the law is. Judges should apply it."
This is true of many views and certainly of mine. If you don't like the law change it, don't expect judges to rule based on their soft hearts. There's a reason we have laws. If the law is flawed change the law. The Supreme Court isn't supposed to make law, that power was specifically give to Congress in the Constitution. Their job is only to enforce the law already legislated, interpret it and point out when it specifically contradicts the constitution. I want judges who follow the law, not judges who decide which crimes are "understandable" or whatever.
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