21 Comments Add your own

• 1. Debunked  |  July 9th, 2011 at 10:36 am

  

  …which is the problem with Democrats in general. When Republicans get elected, they fuck things up worse than they already were. When Democrats get elected, they simply maintain the status quo.

  Obama does get small amounts of props for attempting to close Guantanamo. But like many of his other policies, he’s caved into the right-wing pressure far too quickly and with too many concessions (eg. the crap that Health Care Reform ended up being instead of the original vision for it, the expiring Bush and now Obama tax cuts, and so on).

  But if it comes back to voting for the party that enacted those policies in the first place – or voting for the policy that simply doesn’t have the will to get rid of them, I’d rather keep the party that doesn’t get rid of them instead of risking even worse policies getting implemented.

  Of course, it would be nice if there was actually a viable non-conservative party to vote for. But the simple truth is, Democrats have become conservatives and Republicans have become bat-shit crazy.

• 2. David Casper  |  July 9th, 2011 at 10:41 am

  

  I’m not sure the word “debunked” means what you think it means.

• 3. Debunked  |  July 9th, 2011 at 10:47 am

  

  My, what a clever one liner. I shall jot it down in my book of 3rd grade passive aggressive responses for latter use. Much appreciated!

• 4. Rustmeister  |  July 9th, 2011 at 10:58 am

  

  I don’t see how the President “caved” to anything, seeing as he had a majority in both the House and Senate when he took over.

  More likely, once he got in, he saw how necessary these things were and opted to be smart and keep them.

  Except for the Patriot Act. That needs to go.

• 5. David Casper  |  July 9th, 2011 at 11:27 am

  

  Thanks.

• 6. Aaron  |  July 9th, 2011 at 11:50 am

  

  He ended capitalism, American prosperity, and the incentive to succeed.

  He also ended the wars in Ira.. Afgh… Lib… Closed Guantan…. Damn!

  Whatever, asshole, he killed Osama… with his bare hands. Like, Chuck Norris style!!!

• 7. Aaron  |  July 9th, 2011 at 11:52 am

  

  He also ended the space program. Probably because he needed the money for more useless stimulus.

• 8. Jeff  |  July 9th, 2011 at 12:43 pm

  

  So in reading the response “debunked” posted, we can infer from his words that “Republicans effed things up, and Obama is simply maintaining the status quo”.

  I’ll help “debunked” by answering the question that was actually asked (and he failed to answer), based on his response

  Debunked: There isn’t a single program those damned Republicans started that Teh Smrtst President of all 57 states has ended. I hated those damned Republicans and all their asinine ideas, but thankfully we got someone in the White House who had complete control of both houses of Congress who sat on his hands and did nothing to end what I now claim is a constant fuck-up.

  You DO realize, don’t you, that you’re admitting that you’re FINE with all these supposed “fuck-ups”, since you clearly absolve him of his apathy?

  p.s. there’s no need to reach higher than the 3rd grade primer on responses when you don’t challenge others on any higher level than that.

• 9. David Casper  |  July 9th, 2011 at 2:03 pm

  

  Why just give him small amounts of props for attempting to close Guantanamo? Why not give him a Peace Prize for all the things he wants to do?

  Oh…wait…

• 10. deaninwaukesha  |  July 9th, 2011 at 2:31 pm

  

  ObamaCare, whatever that is…

• 11. Debunked  |  July 9th, 2011 at 7:24 pm

  

  He ended capitalism, American prosperity, and the incentive to succeed.

  Really? Capitalism ended? Sweet. I guess I’ll quit my job and enjoy the utopian society we now live in since I don’t have to worry about bills, buying food or paying for clothing or shelter.

  Seriously, the claim that Obama has “ended capitalism, American prosperity, and the incentive to succeed” is a shining example of what I mean by the right-wing has become bat-shit crazy. Thanks for the demonstration!

  
  He also ended the space program. Probably because he needed the money for more useless stimulus.

  Actually, the ending of the space shuttle program occurred under Bush when Republicans had control. Obama simply changed the Orion program to instead force NASA to assist with the design of and then rely on private sector space craft projects for low orbit missions.

  I admit, I disagree with the transfer from NASA to private sector. But I am shocked to find right-wingers disagree with the transfer of government to private sector reliance on what (used to be) solid government sector only jobs. Or maybe that’s just because right-wingers flip-flop like a fish out of water on anything Obama does – simply to disagree with Obama. Again, bat-shit crazy is as bat-shit crazy does.

• 12. Elliot  |  July 9th, 2011 at 7:53 pm

  

  Hi guys,

  Some of these comments are a little too personal.

  Please remember that at From Where I Sit, destroying a person’s arguments is highly encouraged, attacking the person making the argument is respectfully discouraged.

  Thanks, folks.

• 13. Roland Melnick  |  July 9th, 2011 at 8:43 pm

  

  “Or maybe that’s just because right-wingers flip-flop like a fish out of water on anything Obama does – simply to disagree with Obama. Again, bat-shit crazy is as bat-shit crazy does.”

  D, you don’t have to misrepresent your opponent to win an argument…or do you? Very few Conservatives and even fewer Republicans advocate for no government or no taxes. Yet here and elsewhere you say this is their position.

  Yes, sometimes we advocate for private sector solutions to things…that doesn’t mean we advocate private sector for everything…nor does it make us hypocrites when we want government to run something.

  Boiling down everything to such absolutes may make your game of “Gotcha” easier, but it doesn’t lend itself to honest discussion. OTOH, if you want to just insult folks…by all means…continue.

• 14. deaninwaukesha  |  July 9th, 2011 at 8:58 pm

  

  OK, brain freeze. Ignore previous post…

• 15. Debunked  |  July 10th, 2011 at 1:17 am

  

  So in reading the response “debunked” posted, we can infer from his words that “Republicans effed things up, and Obama is simply maintaining the status quo”.
  I’ll help “debunked” by answering the question that was actually asked (and he failed to answer), based on his response
  

  Looks like a hidden or moderated post popped in late, so I’ll respond to it first by saying yes, that’s exactly what I was saying. So no, I did not fail to answer the question – I basically responded with agreement that I do not fully agree with what Obama has done, but then I went on to reiterate that the problems he should have focused on resolving were not created by him. I wasn’t aware there was some unseen rule that every response had to be an absolute and complete rebuttal to the topic at hand. I guess that invalidates 99% of the responses on this blog and others out there where the comments are purely agreement with the original poster.

  but thankfully we got someone in the White House who had complete control of both houses of Congress who sat on his hands and did nothing to end what I now claim is a constant fuck-up.

  A majority in both houses is great – but, despite what the media may have claimed in late 2009, he never had a true solid “60-vote super-majority.” Between Ted Kennedy being in the hospital, the Al Franken Minnesota recount, and finally Ted Kennedy’s replacement of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, the Democrats were never able to actually field a 60-vote filibuster breaker in the Senate. So, he could not have done anything he wanted (not that I personally think he would’ve enacted solid left wing policies even if he did have the solid filibuster proof support anyway). Which, again, fits in with what I was stating about Democrats simply maintaining the status quo or, at the very least, tending to move slower than their Republican counterparts in advancing their agenda.

  You DO realize, don’t you, that you’re admitting that you’re FINE with all these supposed “fuck-ups”, since you clearly absolve him of his apathy?

  And I said this.. where? Actually, I said it would be nice if we had a viable left wing party to vote for. I will and do vote for 3rd party candidates as the opportunity arises. But that doesn’t make them viable.

  D, you don’t have to misrepresent your opponent to win an argument…or do you? Very few Conservatives and even fewer Republicans advocate for no government or no taxes. Yet here and elsewhere you say this is their position.

  I wasn’t aware making the claim that right-wingers support privatization of government programs was a misrepresentation of my opponent. But whatever, go ahead and ignore the entire paragraph I posted above that quote that basically stated that NASA wasn’t shut down nor was the space program ended as well as explaining why it is incorrect to even remotely hold Obama or the Democrats responsible for the end of the shuttle program in the first place (though I did go on to state it is fair to hold him responsible for the end of the Orion program – which I said I disagreed with).

  OTOH, if you want to just insult folks…by all means…continue.

  Yes, all I did was insult folks. Yup, that’s it. Because the claim that “[Obama] ended capitalism, American prosperity, and the incentive to succeed” has so much merit that it actually deserves a proper debate.

• 16. Jeff  |  July 10th, 2011 at 1:43 pm

  

  You parsed my response so as to ignore the part where I answered FOR you the question as it was posed. You claim your non-answer of the question as it was posed WAS your answer, and further imply that I, in some form or other, was demanding an “absolute and complete rebuttal to the topic at hand”.

  You still have yet to answer the question posed to us, and instead are pretending that your dancing around the issue IS an answer. Is there ANYTHING you will stand up to say you disagreed with Bush on a policy that Obama has ended…y’know, the original question?

  You followed up with the cute southern batting of your eyes and the “why, WHEREVER did I say such a thing?”, pretending to be incredulous that your non-answer of the question and subsequent response could EEEEVVVVVER be interpreted in such a way.

  That MIGHT fly as actual astonishment if you didn’t actually post what Melnick quoted you as saying.

  I must thank you. My wife finds it hard to follow the switches and misdirections in conversations so as to avoid answering direct questions or questions someone wouldn’t want to answer so as to appear to agree, even one small iota, with those they vehemently disagree with. You make it crystal clear and while not necessarily easy, it’s quite easy to go back to how the conversation started and see where it gets derailed.

  Kudos.

• 17. Debunked  |  July 10th, 2011 at 2:48 pm

  

  Seeing as Obama hasn’t closed Guantanamo, ended the wars, or repealed the Patriot Act, then obviously the answer is simple. Obama has largely kept the policies of Bush intact, which makes the original question pointless on the large issues and, indeed, is exactly what I was stating in my first first statement in this thread – Obama has “maintained the status quo.”

  So, to put it in layman’s terms just for you, my original paragraph in my original post in this thread basically said Obama has largely continued Bush’s policies. And that is a huge disappointment to me.

  However, I will indulge your continued request that I name just one policy that I disliked under Bush that Obama has not continued, just to satisfy your curiosity.

  1. Repeal of DADT
  2. Obama’s repeal of Bush’s stem cell research policies
  3. Obama’s willingness to work with the U.N. (eg. Libyan affair) rather than largely ignoring the U.N (eg. the original invasion of Iraq / weapons inspectors).

  There, I gave you three policies in which Obama has varied from Bush which I approve of. Does it mean I think Obama’s overall policies have been vastly different than Bush? No. Indeed, they have been largely very similar in the grand scheme of things. Which is exactly what I said in my first post, you reiterated as “your answer to the original question”, then claimed I did not say.

• 18. Roland Melnick  |  July 10th, 2011 at 5:39 pm

  

  “Obama’s willingness to work with the U.N. (eg. Libyan affair) rather than largely ignoring the U.N (eg. the original invasion of Iraq / weapons inspectors).”

  This example of rewriting history that Libs love oh so much is really tiresome.

  http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/05/international/middleeast/05shell-dipl.html

  Yep…Bush sure did ignore the hell out of the UN.

  Bush did show respect to the UN, he just wasn’t willing to let the UN dictate the terms of our own national security.

  John Kerry, Bill Clinton and numerous others who wouldn’t exactly qualify as Bush-backers publicly stated how dangerous Saddam was and how it was generally accepted that he was stockpiling/hiding WMDs. Why did the UN impose sanctions in the first place? How many UN resolutions would have been enough? We had like 12 or 13 condemning Saddam before we went in…was 15 the magic number? 30?

  DADT wasn’t a Bush creation…wasn’t that Clinton?

• 19. BobG  |  July 10th, 2011 at 6:20 pm

  

  “Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right.”
  – H. L. Mencken

• 20. Elliot has a question… &hellip  |  July 11th, 2011 at 4:28 pm

  

  […] …I was unable to answer. […]

• 21. Debunked  |  July 11th, 2011 at 10:22 pm

  

  And how many WMD did we find in Iraq again, Roland? So how well did Bush’s “rushing into Iraq with guns blazing, despite the UN’s desire to wait for the weapon inspectors to finish their investigation” work out again? How well did the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians aid our national security?

  And yes, DADT was signed by Clinton, but Elliot did not specifically state policies Bush signed into law. Simply Bush policies. And DADT was as much a Bush policy as Guantanamo Bay and the Iraq war are now Obama policies. But if you want to remove that one from my list, then that still leaves my other two points.

  Oh, and I’m not sure on this one, but didn’t Obama order the end of waterboarding and other forms of torture interrogation? That would be another policy I support.

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