Shiang's take on the debates: No knockout punches but Obama beat himself.

Conservative · Oct 8, 2012

shiang;1060997303]Here's the "indefensible record"

Policies take a year to two to take effect so judge Obama by the change in trend from 2010 to 2011

US GDP:

Nominal GDP went up about 10% from under 14 Trillion to over 15 Trillion

"Real" GDP (inflation adjusted) went from 12.8 to 13.5 Trillion

Keep in mind we were nearly headed into a depression 4 years ago

I have to give you credit for trying, but the reality is our GDP growth went from 2.4% in 2010 to 1.8% in 2011 to 1.3% in 2012. That is heading us back into a recession and we would be in a recession today without govt. spending. This country wasn't built on govt. spending, but rather the private sector growth

Unemployment:

over 10% to 7.8% - US Bureau of Labor Statistics

Unemployment in the U.S. - Google Public Data Explorer

Employment:

See the drop in 2008 and 2009 and see the recovery from 2010.

10% increase in employment - US Bureau of Labor Statistics

Top Picks (Most Requested Statistics) : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Notice: Data not available: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Do you realize that there are 14.7% unemployed/under employed/discouraged workers? Of that number 9.9% are under employed so do you know what that means?

You think that the labor force growing insignificantly is a booming economy. You think the U-6 remaining the same is a good thing? You think that judging Bush on 2008 is fair?

Debt:

Reduction in Deficit spending every year from when Obama took office.

Look at inflation adjusted deficit spending

Obama inherited a 1.5 trillion deficit in 2009, down to 1.3 Trillion in 2011.

We actually pay LESS in interest, not just in % but nominal, than we did four years ago

History of Deficits and Surpluses In The United States

As I have stated many times in this forum far too many buy the rhetoric and ignore reality. The fiscal year of the United States runs from October to September. Bush was in Office from October to January and you don't inherit deficits you inherit a deficit PROJECTION which included that TARP LOAN which was mostly paid back so tell me where that credit appears in the Bush column? Where did the cost of the Obama stimulus, GM/Chrysler takeover, Afghanistan surge supplemental, AIG bailout show up in the 2009 budget deficit?

Every year Obama has been in office we have had trillion dollar deficits and fiscal year 2012 was 1.3 trillion dollars. I don't see any improvement at all.

Stocks:

Dow Jones: 6.5k to 13.5k Dow Jones Industrial Average (2000 - Present Daily) - Charting Tools - StockCharts.com
Nasdaq: 1.3k- to 3.1k+ NASDAQ (1978 - Present weekly) - Charting Tools - StockCharts.com
S&P: 700- to 1.4k+ NASDAQ (1978 - Present weekly) - Charting Tools - StockCharts.com

Every stock more than doubled

Were you this excited when Bush had a stock market over 14000? I find it quite interesting how a party that hates big business now celebrates big business stock prices.

Health Care:

Ok here's the key things that Obamacare really does:
1. It requires insurance companies to spend 85% of their revenue on actual health care costs.
2. It shifts the focus from ER and specialists to primary care (family doctors), focusing on prevention to increase efficiency and cut cost.
3. It expands coverage from 21 to 26 for dependants, so college students are covered through their parents.
4. By 2018 "Cadillac" insurance, extremely expensive (27.5k+ family, 10.2k+ individual) insurance that have no co-pay, gets a 40% tax. - Sorry Romney free foot massage at John Hopkins went up 40%.

Don't take my word for it just ask all your doctors what they think of Obamacare.

I have asked my doctor what he thinks of Obamacare as he hates it just like most people hate being dictated as to what they can make in a free enterprise economy. Absolutely amazing how you can ignore history of the govt. running anything so poorly and driving up the debt to over 16 trillion dollars. Oh, yes, I know this time it will be different. How can that be when people control what they eat, drink, or put into their body?

Healthcare is a personal responsibilty just like so many other issues that liberals want to ignore. If your ER provides service for the uninsured who pays for that loss-federal or state taxpayers?

I am amazed at how you expect a bureaucrat in D.C. to solve a problem in your local community

Foreign relations have improved

We are no longer at odds with France and Germany
China has adjusted it's currency from 8:1 to 6:1
Hostilities with Russia has subsided
Osama Bin Laden is dead

.

What you continue to ignore are results and continue to buy what the DNC tells you. If you think things are better in foreign affairs then you are as poorly informed on that issue as all others. By the way, don't forget the open microphone comment by Obama to the Russian President. Then there is the following

http://www.youtube.com/v/X-Xfti7qtT0?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0

Romney on the other hand does have an indefensible record, especially his private sector experience at Bain which he likes to brag about.

Skipping all the smaller companies he crashed. Here's 3 big ones

Staples: Romney was not CEO Bain was
Domino's: Cut cost if ingredients to increase short term revenue while ruining company reputation
Sealy: Company was moved from Cleveland Ohio, where the company was located and profited for more than 80 years, to North Carolina to cut cost (and the quality of the mattresses)
Toys R' Us: tell me if you find one

See the pattern? Cut costs, cash in on profit, drive companies to the ground? Want him doing that to this country too? Not on my watch. Bain capital is not about growing a business it's about how best to stuff the pockets of executives and it's stockholders.

Don't ever tell me again I don't back up statements with facts.

Congratulations, at least you tried. Just goes to show however that brainwashing works

Masada · Oct 8, 2012

joko104 said:
Nice message and appreciate your effort with it.

I'm going to bypass debating abortion however, there is an abortion board with about 1,000,000 messages and I finally tired of going round and round. Our home/location is also a shelter for women - including minors - on occasion backed up by a blanket court order. Some of those are seeking our shelter due to intense pressure and threats by others trying to force her to abortion or not abort - either way against her wishes or that she has not decided yet.

I will, however, only give personal life perspective. I am the adoptive father of two children. One was "conceived" by an exceptionally violent rape. The woman, a virgin, was "pro-life" but saw no reason to explain herself nor tell anyone what her intentions were. She struggled internally of course.

Her silence mobilized pro-lifers, her being the most well known popular teen in town and a known very Christian person. Her refusing to declare she was having the child - thus disallowing making her some cover-girl for their crusade, sent them into a frenzie. It became so intense, so raiding on her life, it was spinning out of control - literally protestors at her home and even trying to force their way in. At one point, she grabbed a 30 round 12 gauge shotgun, loaded it with bean bags (which they didn't know) and ran out opening fire on them screaming GO AWAY! GO AWAY! as she seemingly was killing them all and they running for their lives not knowing people were being knocked down by bean bags and not 00 buck shot.

What so outraged her was that they wanted to TAKE AWAY all her rights of decision and join forces with the rapist (who likely will never get out of prison being caught) to force her to give up all her power like he did and let them take it away from her giving to themselves. And she was also truly outraged at their declaring her child was the child of rape in materials - a truly terrible harm to the child and to her - that none of this was their business or decision.

So while some would think she is the poster teen for pro-life as was softly pro-life before this, I know of NO ONE who MORE despises pro-life and is pro-choice than she is. She doesn't mind a person disagreeing with her, but if the person becomes aggressive at all she becomes intensely openly hostile and threatening. No child ever had a finer mother than her.

What leads to it, telling a woman "I have power to make you have that baby whether you want to or not" infuriates many woman and understand why.

Of all the spiritual, biological etc issues? Those are endlessly argued and put simply, I think it is the woman's decision. Maybe if she aborts she's going to hell or maybe a "murderer" or maybe not. But until I'm able to go thru pregnancy and labor I think it is here decision. However, on many things I am a government minimalist.

Yes, I do oppose "partial birth" abortion and no I do not agree with the stand Obama did/didn't take. But I also am not a single-issue voter. Anything this comment just leads to the 10 trillion words and slogans of the abortion debate. I also believe it impossible for government to stop abortions, only make it criminally punishable.

Of the word "marriage" and gay unions?

I will concede that historically the word "marriage" meant a man and a woman (or a man and women as polygamy is very old historically.)

Yet, "all men are created equal" really did mean just mean males and more specifically only white men. In this country, in our Bill of Rights, "men" meant men who are not slaves. Yet that word has evolved to also include women and African-Americans. Thus, the almost ageless word "men" now means men and women. Society didn't collaspe because of it.

Personally, I don't think government should ever have gotten into the "marriage" business and should get out of it. Maybe the government should or should not get into the "civil union" business, but not "marriage" because "marriage" has such a diverse set of meanings even among heterosexual couples. If people wanted a "marriage" ceremony or "marriage license," they should obtain it outside of government (church or whatever.)

Here is why gays oppose you position. "Marriage" is NOT just a secular word. It also is a non-secular word. Many if not most people put "God" into the word "Marriage." Thus they argue how can the government in marriage licenses (also sold for a fee and thus "taxation"), declare they can not have spirituality in the government recognition of their "union," while heterosexual couples can? To many people, that is the government saying that while they can have equal legal rights, the government declares God does not approve.

Personally, I'm not all that fired up over gays battling for the government to recognize they may institutionally use the word "marriage." I do know many, many gays and radical gay activists can be extremely annoying and even ordered to get out of our house - including by real legitimate (and reasonable) gay activists.

Society evolves. Interracial marriages were illegal or refused including by government officials are recently as within the last decade. "Man" meant only men or only white men far longer than it became gender neutral.

To you, this "marriage word" is an ideological and philosphical question about others. But to gay couples, it is not an abstraction about "them," but about themselves. Its like telling blacks to go sit at the back of the bus. The bus still gets them going where they are going identical to the people in the front seats, costs no more and none are denied a bus ride. Rather, it is about one group declaring they have special rights, higher status, or special words only they get to have - making some rationalization for that special right only they get to have.

Your argument would be maybe more persuasive if you were debating on behalf of a right or word that you would be losing, rather than debating how people "like you" have a special right other people can't have and a special "word" people not like you can't, because only people like you have always had that word.

Only if you think gay unions/marriages harm society can I see why your really care if gay couples may use the word marriage too.

And here's a curious twist. I also know bisexuals - and they see homosexuals and heterosexuals as identical. Both exclude half the population who they can fall in love with - and that only they are the true non-prejudiced ones. Curious, huh?

eace

I'm very read on the Western definitions of generally ancient issues. The Western philosophy dominates, understandably so. But that doesn't mean that it's 1. Correct, or 2. Legitimate.

I completely understand how most Americans are like, "the term marriage has evolved", or "definitions change over time". I get what they are saying, and they truly DO BELIEVE that things ALWAYS "change" or "evolve" for the better. There lies their misunderstanding and ignorance. When the definition of a word is "changed" or "evolves" into a different meaning, does that mean the traditional definition was wrong? Not necessarily. Take the example you used about the term "men". I get what you are saying, and certainly in that instance, the inclusion of society into the term "men" is understandable. But that same philosophical concept DOES NOT apply to the term "marriage".

Completely changing a definition is different than a traditional definintion "evolving" into something similar.

This all started with a man named St. Augustine. He was a Latin philosopher, that was very influential in Western philosophy and theology. He was responsible for changing the way people thought about religion, philosophy, government, and a whole host of things. His philosophy was a pretty sharp departure from ancient philosophy. After Augustine, times began to be classified as "modern". Philosophy was now called "modern philosophy". Culture shifted from ancient traditions to "modern" traditions. But was he right? In some ways yes, in other ways no.

He taught that ALL aspects of culture, religion, and philosophy WOULD AND SHOULD change. This was a huge departure from classical philosophy and the understanding of "UNIVERSAL LAW". For Augustine, all concrete philosophy, theology, and religion could, and should "change" or "evolve" over time. This is also a major departure from the teachings of the Apostles and Jesus Christ himself, who once said, "God is the same yesterday, today, and unto the ages of ages."

Western thinkers seized this cult of personality, and transformed it into something that is unrecognizable today. Let's use Christianity for an example. Do you honestly think God has 2700 different minds? Do you think it's possible for God to completely contradict himself? However, there are 2700 different "denominations" of Christian churches who all profess different creeds and doctrines, many of which completely contradict one another. But for almost 1000 years, there was but ONE Church in the world, all of them adhering to the same doctrines, and submitting to the same Apostolic leadership. So what happened?

Schisms. Men like Augustine planted the seeds of rebellion and heresy. Western philosophy was a stark departure from ancient philosophy. Which leads you back to the question, are all changes good changes? Are all changes factually correct? Are all changes morally acceptable? What so many people try to do is answer that question in the context of "secular society". But marriage was never a "secular" union, it was a "religious sacrament" that had a specific purpose, and no, it wasn't just having children, although that was a big part.

Slavery is a good example. Ancient philosophy DID NOT teach that slavery was morally or socially acceptable. Go read Socrates, and philosophers before his time. They understood the God given "freedom" granted to humanity by God. Not all of them believed it was true, but most of them did. Socrates NEVER wrote a single word, but he spoke, and people recorded his philosophies. He was of the "ancient" school of thought, and he honored mankind.

So what am I really saying? That while our modern society of today may describe itself as "enlightened" and "right", I argue the opposite. I believe overall, our society is dumbed down to the point they cannot even classify a fetus as a living being. Try talking philosophy with most people, and it's like talking quantum physics or something. Anything "traditional" is deemed "incorrect" or "wrong". That illustrates their level of enlightenment. The ancient philosophers weren't stupid, they weren't racist, they weren't sexist, they had fundamentally different understandings of our universe, and the laws of nature, and a fundamental understanding that natural law DOESN'T change over time, it doesn't "evolve".

Americans will argue with that til they're blue in the face, because Western philosophy is what shaped our society. I understand. But in typical American fashion, we believe we are right, and everyone else is wrong. In many cases, that's true. But in the case of philosophy, America is still a "baby" nation. They have thrown off ALL traditional philosophy. Even today, no one really gives reverence to the philosophies of our Founding Fathers even, and that was less than 300 years ago. Yes, the Tea Partiers, and some Libertarians come pretty close to revering our traditional philosophies of Founding, but not completely. So, it's not a shock that our society completely ignores the ancient philosophies that literally saved the world from barbarism.

Marriage, as we understand it today, HAS morphed into something it never was. Even the way most heterosexuals define "marriage", it's not the traditional definition. To understand "marriage", one would need to have an understanding of "sacraments", what they are, and what a "sacrament" actually is. It's not a "right", it's not a "law", it's a GIFT. Not just an ordinary gift, but a gift from God himself. It's mysterious, and it's special. It's not something to take lightly, and it certainly isn't something to seize domain over and start changing the definition of. It's not just about love, or children. There's something "mysterious" about marriage that even relates to our salvation....(read up on that one). The Bible talks about "marriage" in the same context of Christ's relationship with His Church on Earth. The Church being the "bridegroom" of Christ. It's a really interesting perspective on both marriage AND the Church.

Understanding that Western philosophy was a steep departure from ancient philosophy is crucial in understanding MY thoughts on "marriage" and "abortion". The West began changing the definitions of traditionally understood principles. But for the last time, who said "change" was always "right"???

Shiang's take on the debates: No knockout punches but Obama beat himself.

Conservative

Masada