How Bout That Election?

[granda080]

IMHO the presidential election isn't the one we as a country should be focused upon. It is the house and senate and all the represenatives that really controls the direction our country goes.

Voting for the president is just deciding upon which face you want to be upset with. Sure the prez wants new pop machines in the staff lounge and students to get an hour lunch and an extra study hall. Prez can't just do it, rather the house and senate must be convinced these are all good ideas.

Cross the aisles and see how easy it is to convince the health nut that we need a machine full of high fructose corn syrup. Sure he may eventually agree, but only after prez agrees that it will be controlled to one soda a day and that healthily drinks must be included and that a percentage of the money must go to diabetes research.

A mess.

[jbot]

nachos

[Tpoppa]

I'm too lazy too find the actual quote or propely attribute it, but the gist is that Democracy always fails once people realize that they can vote for the government to give them things.

It's the beginning of the end of democracy. Not the end of America, but certainly a transition. Candidates are winning by promising to take care of us, and for whatever misguided reason, many Americans are viewing that as a good thing. What I think they fail to fully understand is that, on a scale of 1-10, the government can only provide us with a "3 or 4" level of existence, but we're all free to achieve a 10 on our own.

Things start to look a lot like communism when the government is providing for everyone. Everyone will be more equal. Equally poor. yay?

Is this the quote?

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

[Cheech]

It's the under 30 (millennials),women, and minority voters. The millennial generation is going to screw up everything because they don't want to work hard and are used to everything handed to them. Of course touring around with Jay Z doesn't hurt. I don't think people want to make their own decisions anymore.

I'm not looking forward to the next four years.

Ah yes, the "you meddling kids!" excuse. I never get tired of that. Have you stopped to consider that the millenial generation doesn't share the Republican ideals of clinging to God, Guns, and Israel? Granted, I know I'm oversimplifying, but it's time to face facts that the GOP will be running after the elderly demographic right into their graves. Sooner or later, you have to start acknowledging the younger generations and changing your party platform accordingly.

I was pretty indifferent to who won - they both have ideas that i like/dislike. I am disappointed that we're going to have to choose between the same 2 parties at the next election.

I am genuinely confused about why 3rd parties don't get more votes. Is it the 'wasting my vote' mentality? Is it because people don't know what the 3rd parties stand for? Is it because they don't spend enough money???

You asked a legitimate question, you deserve a legitimate answer. I honestly think at this point it's a mix between exposure and money. The D/R's have their own set of rules, and media outlets, in order to get exposure themselves, play by those rules to host the debates, get access, things like that. At that point, it just becomes a matter of writing in as a condition of the debate that the debating parties have > x% of polling, otherwise they are barred from that forum. When you're in control of what "x" is, you control the debate, and therefore you control exposure. If you don't have a exposed candidate with viewpoints and policy positions that are known to the world, it becomes that much harder to fundraise and do all the things that a standard campaign does. Citizens United upped the ante on this, so you don't even get a PAC to fund you on the back-end as well.

At the end of the day, after 200+ years of varying degrees of two-party-ness, the system is pretty well rigged in favor of the duopoly. At this point, it would take someone with the charisma of Clinton and JFK and the net worth of Bill Gates to self-fund a campaign that could rival the current duopoly system.

[redkow97]

Is this the quote?

"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." -- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

"The American republic will endure until congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." Alexis De Tocqueville

[shadyone]

This is my thoughts. Obama screwed up a lot last term. I actually don't like mitt that much either. although I think the country should be run like a business and I think Mitt is the best for that. His views on Guns is very likable also. I honestly don't get all hung up on Pro life Pro choice BS because it takes way more then the president to change it. I'm also pro choice if that were a determining factor. I am 26 and never had anything handed to me and I voted for Gary Johnson. there are too many people that want the government or someone else to take care of them. my older Sister is on of them she is a dead beat drug addict thats never had a job more serious than McDs. it's disgusting. the fact that she voted for Romney but couldn't tell me why other than she doesn't like Obama pisses me off the worst.

Edited November 7, 2012 by shadyone
Sorry for the ramble.

[Pokey]

The bipartisan system is broken and no longer works as intended. George Washington even said it would only lead to problems in the future and that old wooden toothed bastard was right!

I truly believe things need to be shaken up in that regard

Ditto....

[Pokey]

one year, a 100% of americans should just vote in a non-dem non-rep in a landslide just to piss the 2 big parties off. that'll show em.

I would be all for that, be a Patriot not an elephant or a jackass.

[mattm]

"The American republic will endure until congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." Alexis De Tocqueville

That sounds great except that Alexis de Tocqueville never said that.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2012/11/sorry-conservatives-de-tocqueville-did-not-call-2012-election/58839/

Looks like some crazy in Oklahoma in 1951 thought that Eisenhower was a communist and penned at least some of those words.

[Big Chief201]

I have not heard many people actually say they liked Mitt Romney for president. I myself think he would have been one of the best presidents we could have ever had in these times but that's here-nor-there. The impacts of this election are going to change business models and consumer spending dramatically in my opinion. I base this off the face that employers will begin decreasing hours for part time employees to <= 30 hours to avoid the healthcare penalty and employing less than 50 employees. When the 2% payroll tax come back into play Jan 1st this will further have an impact on consumer spending which will further slow the economy. Its simple to see how the election was won, Obama got >80% of the African American vote, 70% of the hispanic vote, ~59% of the millenia vote, etc. The republican need to broaden the changing demographic of voters in this country in order to win. This is hard to do when we have people looking for a hand out everywhere you turn and there's no honor in the working man these days. I will say it wasn't all Bush's fault and I'm not a racist.

my statistics come from http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/Journal2 but theres other sources that will show you the same information like http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/08/us/politics/obama-was-not-as-strong-as-in-2008-but-strong-enough.html

Thanks America!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzspsovNvII

Edited November 10, 2012 by Big Chief201

[4DAIVI PAI2K5]

I don't know what to say to that video....

[magley64]

Its simple to see how the election was won, Obama got >80% of the African American vote, 70% of the hispanic vote, ~59% of the millenia vote, etc. The republican need to broaden the changing demographic of voters in this country in order to win. This is hard to do when we have people looking for a hand out everywhere you turn and there's no honor in the working man these days. I will say it wasn't all Bush's fault and I'm not a racist.

Chief...

I don't think it's about handouts, it's not the reason Romney was at the absolute bottom of my list and obama was somewhere near the middle bottom. It's about freedom, foreign policy, and math.

Math: you can't cut taxes across the board, and have a positive impact on our deficit... it doesn't work.

Foreign Policy: we need a level-headed, principled person in charge of the military, not a flip flopping war mongerer who will piss off our allies, and taunt our opponents into attacking us. That's just bad news.

Freedom: the GOP is opposed to gay rights, opposed to women's rights, opposed to freedom of religion for any non-christian, and support legislation which has the effect of forcing citizens of this country who look a certain way to constantly prove that they are citizens.

I don't get these handouts you're talking about, that's people like mitt romney, and big oil executives, wall street traders who pay less in taxes than most of the rest of us.

[Big Chief201]

Chief...

I don't think it's about handouts, it's not the reason Romney was at the absolute bottom of my list and obama was somewhere near the middle bottom. It's about freedom, foreign policy, and math.

Math: you can't cut taxes across the board, and have a positive impact on our deficit... it doesn't work.

Foreign Policy: we need a level-headed, principled person in charge of the military, not a flip flopping war mongerer who will piss off our allies, and taunt our opponents into attacking us. That's just bad news.

Freedom: the GOP is opposed to gay rights, opposed to women's rights, opposed to freedom of religion for any non-christian, and support legislation which has the effect of forcing citizens of this country who look a certain way to constantly prove that they are citizens.

I don't get these handouts you're talking about, that's people like mitt romney, and big oil executives, wall street traders who pay less in taxes than most of the rest of us.

I can debate all day long about this but its just not worth it. My political opinion is based off my personal beliefs, values, research, education, etc. I would suspect yours are the same. Our argument would be like debating where does space end? Because no matter what you say my opinion won't be swayed.

On to tax rates wall street traders actually pay the same tax as you an I, we are all taxed by the federal income standards set in place. Your argument would be against long term capital gains taxes which if you invest in the stock market or capital markets you could take advantage of these lower tax rates on long term capital investments. For credentials sake I know this since, I'm a series 7, series 3, series 66 licensed stock broker and carefully calculate these rates when considering investments.

As far as handouts the youtube video I added in my earlier post explains it all.

[twowheelsnake]

Personally I don't blame the youth of America for looking for a handout. It's sad and pathetic but I understand. Let me explain. I'm 42, when I graduated high school I had a lot of options. I could join the workforce immediately and get a manufacturing job somewhere OR if I wanted a better paying job I could go to college and get my money making piece of paper. (I'm oversimplifying to save space). Kids today don't have that, thanks to our government they've made it easy and sometimes even encouraged big business to move their industry overseas. Less jobs for us, less opportunities for our youth. I don't know about you but I wouldn't want to spend 4 years or more at college with the slim hope of landing a decent job with your huge college debt piled on top of that. Not everyone will be able to work at Wal Mart no matter how many they open. We need to stop spending huge amounts of money on being able to blow shit up, we need to stop spending money on social programs to aid the lower income baby making machines and we need to stop spending money giving aid to large corporations only to have them move their corporations overseas. Our current economy will eat itself. You can't have the people in the middle support everyone else at either end. The rich because they don't need it and the poor because they don't deserve it. There! I think that should successfully piss everyone off.

[magley64]

I can debate all day long about this but its just not worth it. My political opinion is based off my personal beliefs, values, research, education, etc. I would suspect yours are the same. Our argument would be like debating where does space end? Because no matter what you say my opinion won't be swayed.

As far as handouts the youtube video I added in my earlier post explains it all.

I'm not trying to sway anybody, but to rebut your claim that the only reason anyone would support the president over romney is because they want free stuff...That's the kind of bloviating that comes from "the no spin zone"

I preferred Obama to romney for reasons that had nothing to do with me getting free stuff.

[Scruit]

I preferred Obama to romney for reasons that had nothing to do with me getting free stuff.

This.

I have never taken a dime of public money (welfare, socsec, medicare/medicaid, disability etc)

[Helmutt]

No matter who is elected, there will be problems/issues with them and their decisions at some point. So, it really just comes down to electing the least retarded asshole of the bunch and hoping for the best

[Cdubyah]

I agree with your first point, there will always be problems.

I don't agree with replacing a polished turd, with another polished turd. End of the day its still a turd.

The lesser of two evils is bull when electing officials. When 'merica realizes that, and can work together is when things will turn around. Until then, expect the same bullshit from D.C.

Just my $.02.

[twowheelsnake]

^^Ayup

[Disclaimer]

http://disappearingromney.com/

[shadyone]

if that sight is based off Facebook, Im sure they all fell like that. I got rid of all the liked political things too just so I didn't have to read about them on my feed for the next 4 years.