2001 Obama Interview

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
81

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
Tiribulus wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
<<< Roosevelt ushered in a fundamental change, and its doubtful it would’ve been supported by even the Founding Fathers who advocated a strong, centralized federal government (of which there were many) >>>

Hold on a second. Are you saying here that not even the early leaders at that time who advocated the strongest federal government would’ve supported Roosevelt’s policies?

Yeah, probably. I think that’s fair to say.[/quote]

That’s what I’m saying

82

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
Tiribulus wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
<<< Roosevelt ushered in a fundamental change, and its doubtful it would’ve been supported by even the Founding Fathers who advocated a strong, centralized federal government (of which there were many) >>>

Hold on a second. Are you saying here that not even the early leaders at that time who advocated the strongest federal government would’ve supported Roosevelt’s policies?

Yeah, probably. I think that’s fair to say.

That’s what I’m saying[/quote]

Ok. We’re in agreement then.

83

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
Tiribulus wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
Tiribulus wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
<<< Roosevelt ushered in a fundamental change, and its doubtful it would’ve been supported by even the Founding Fathers who advocated a strong, centralized federal government (of which there were many) >>>

Hold on a second. Are you saying here that not even the early leaders at that time who advocated the strongest federal government would’ve supported Roosevelt’s policies?

Yeah, probably. I think that’s fair to say.

That’s what I’m saying

Ok. We’re in agreement then.[/quote]

My typo. I meant to ask if you were saying that they would not have supported Roosevelt’s ploicies.

EDIT: Nevermind. I’m trying to work and have this conversation at the same time. I didn’t typo it after all.

84

OK, it’s morning and I have this rebellious computer out of the way.

Look, here’s my foundational contention. People in this country have a curious tendency these days to simply redefine an institution or religion etc. into whatever is convenient for contemporary discourse.

Hence we have people calling themselves Christians who don’t believe anything of substance taught in the Bible or held by historic Christianity. We have alleged Muslims who deny the roots and historic goals of Islam. We have people claiming to love this country, but who hate almost everything it was founded to be.

Certainly any of these topics is a huge discussion and exactly how much government in what areas was intended in the prevailing thought of those who brought this nation into existence is not exempt.

All that said, what simply cannot be denied by anybody not requiring that somebody else feed them and having an ounce of honesty is that whatever they intended this ain’t it. We have adopted major principles of ideologies antagonistic to our own defining founding principles and are careening headlong into becoming a cartoonish caricature of our once mighty selves at breakneck speed as a result.

We the people of the United States of America will soon no longer be, except in name only, and are actually practically there already. Unless we just continue the trend to call anything and everything “American”, constitution and founding principles be damned. That’s why I say if we really no longer believe in those principles then why don’t we just have a constitutional convention and expunge them once and for all by formally adopting this eclectic, mutli-cultural anything goes non ideology that we are clearly embracing anyway.

85

[quote]100meters wrote:
tom63 wrote:
100meters wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Oh, he wants to redistribute wealth using political means. Well, that’s better!

Meaningless.
McCain redistributes up, Obama down.
We have a progressive tax system for good reasons. A tax system of any sort redistributes wealth. Moving on…

You’re really an idiot, aren’t you? As Tribulus said, who owns what I make? Me or the government?

Tribulus wasn’t able to read Obama’s comments nor grasp what they meant. And you don’t seem to understand the concept of taxes or government. It’s an odd bunch of double digit IQ’ers in here these days.[/quote]

Let’s try this another way.

You say we are misrepresenting what Obama believes. Are we to assume from this that you are opposed to those positions as we have stated them? In other words IF Barack Obama actually does hold the views we say he does you would agree that he is a bad idea for this country?

86

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
When I posted the “Obama’s Racialism” thread, liberals became unglued that I would read Obama and take his words at face value, so I think I know the answer to my question. Liberals are experts at mental semantics. “Wipe Israel off the map” really doesn’t mean “wipe Israel off the map,”[/quote]

I do not consider myself a liberal, but I don’t believe that Ahmadinejad actually meant “wipe Israel off the map”. I mostly think this because of the fact that the speech it was inaccurately quoted from did not contain any of the words wipe, Israel or map.

87

[quote]Regular Gonzalez wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
When I posted the “Obama’s Racialism” thread, liberals became unglued that I would read Obama and take his words at face value, so I think I know the answer to my question. Liberals are experts at mental semantics. “Wipe Israel off the map” really doesn’t mean “wipe Israel off the map,”

I do not consider myself a liberal, but I don’t believe that Ahmadinejad actually meant “wipe Israel off the map”. I mostly think this because of the fact that the speech it was inaccurately quoted from did not contain any of the words wipe, Israel or map.

[/quote]

He has a paranoid Jew obsession akin to that of Mohammed. He’s a Holocaust denier. He belongs to a KHomeinist sect of twelver apocalyptic Shi’ism that believes there needs to be a huge war to bring back the Imam Mahdi and Issa (the Muslim Jesus). He’s building nukes. He was the guy who came up with the idea for Iranian boys to run through Iraqi minefields.

If he has his way, the Jews of Israel will end up like the Jews of Khaibar or worse.

88

[quote]100meters wrote:

So stupid. Returning the tax rate to Clinton levels is not socialist at all. Just dumb. We aren’t going back to the Nixon levels or even Ike rates. It’s the Clinton rates. Clinton was a centrist. Obama’s team is full of Clintonites. They are all centrist thinking and inline with almost all legitimate economists. Just look at the advisers for gosh sakes![/quote]

We aren’t discussing the tax plan Obama is trying to sell for a general election - the tax plan that keeps getting adjusted and comes with the caveat that “the next President may not get what he wants” - we are discussing Obama’s broader policy thoughts on the relationship between government, its people, and the Constitution, as evidenced by his NPR interview. Try and keep up, or go back to your fingerpainting.

This interview gets down into what Obama thinks about the fundamental principles of government - the very substance of an up-to-now substance-less candidate. It’s good stuff, and there is little wonder his glassy-eyed cultists want to change the subject - they have been trying to put out the brushfires of his radicalism since someone other than the mainstream media began trying to decipher the cipher.

90

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
100meters wrote:

So stupid. Returning the tax rate to Clinton levels is not socialist at all. Just dumb. We aren’t going back to the Nixon levels or even Ike rates. It’s the Clinton rates. Clinton was a centrist. Obama’s team is full of Clintonites. They are all centrist thinking and inline with almost all legitimate economists. Just look at the advisers for gosh sakes!

We aren’t discussing the tax plan Obama is trying to sell for a general election - the tax plan that keeps getting adjusted and comes with the caveat that “the next President may not get what he wants” - we are discussing Obama’s broader policy thoughts on the relationship between government, its people, and the Constitution, as evidenced by his NPR interview. Try and keep up, or go back to your fingerpainting.

This interview gets down into what Obama thinks about the fundamental principles of government - the very substance of an up-to-now substance-less candidate. It’s good stuff, and there is little wonder his glassy-eyed cultists want to change the subject - they have been trying to put out the brushfires of his radicalism since someone other than the mainstream media began trying to decipher the cipher.

[/quote]

So we’re not discussing reality, just the persona you’ve made up. Got it.

91

[quote]Regular Gonzalez wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
When I posted the “Obama’s Racialism” thread, liberals became unglued that I would read Obama and take his words at face value, so I think I know the answer to my question. Liberals are experts at mental semantics. “Wipe Israel off the map” really doesn’t mean “wipe Israel off the map,”

I do not consider myself a liberal, but I don’t believe that Ahmadinejad actually meant “wipe Israel off the map”. I mostly think this because of the fact that the speech it was inaccurately quoted from did not contain any of the words wipe, Israel or map.

[/quote]

Gimme a break. Ahmadinejad would love to wipe Israel off the map. If he could do it with no consequences, it would be gone tomorrow.

92

[quote]100meters wrote:
thunderbolt23 wrote:
100meters wrote:

So stupid. Returning the tax rate to Clinton levels is not socialist at all. Just dumb. We aren’t going back to the Nixon levels or even Ike rates. It’s the Clinton rates. Clinton was a centrist. Obama’s team is full of Clintonites. They are all centrist thinking and inline with almost all legitimate economists. Just look at the advisers for gosh sakes!

We aren’t discussing the tax plan Obama is trying to sell for a general election - the tax plan that keeps getting adjusted and comes with the caveat that “the next President may not get what he wants” - we are discussing Obama’s broader policy thoughts on the relationship between government, its people, and the Constitution, as evidenced by his NPR interview. Try and keep up, or go back to your fingerpainting.

This interview gets down into what Obama thinks about the fundamental principles of government - the very substance of an up-to-now substance-less candidate. It’s good stuff, and there is little wonder his glassy-eyed cultists want to change the subject - they have been trying to put out the brushfires of his radicalism since someone other than the mainstream media began trying to decipher the cipher.

So we’re not discussing reality, just the persona you’ve made up. Got it.[/quote]

I guess I’m not gonna get an answer to my question above huh?

93

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
Regular Gonzalez wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
When I posted the “Obama’s Racialism” thread, liberals became unglued that I would read Obama and take his words at face value, so I think I know the answer to my question. Liberals are experts at mental semantics. “Wipe Israel off the map” really doesn’t mean “wipe Israel off the map,”

I do not consider myself a liberal, but I don’t believe that Ahmadinejad actually meant “wipe Israel off the map”. I mostly think this because of the fact that the speech it was inaccurately quoted from did not contain any of the words wipe, Israel or map.

He has a paranoid Jew obsession akin to that of Mohammed. He’s a Holocaust denier. He belongs to a KHomeinist sect of twelver apocalyptic Shi’ism that believes there needs to be a huge war to bring back the Imam Mahdi and Issa (the Muslim Jesus). He’s building nukes. He was the guy who came up with the idea for Iranian boys to run through Iraqi minefields.

If he has his way, the Jews of Israel will end up like the Jews of Khaibar or worse. [/quote]

I was simply pointing out the irony in the example you chose to use.

94

[quote]Regular Gonzalez wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
When I posted the “Obama’s Racialism” thread, liberals became unglued that I would read Obama and take his words at face value, so I think I know the answer to my question. Liberals are experts at mental semantics. “Wipe Israel off the map” really doesn’t mean “wipe Israel off the map,”

I do not consider myself a liberal, but I don’t believe that Ahmadinejad actually meant “wipe Israel off the map”. I mostly think this because of the fact that the speech it was inaccurately quoted from did not contain any of the words wipe, Israel or map.

[/quote]

Only because that idiom doesn’t exist in Persian. What he actually said was ‘vanish from the pages of time.’ And this is basically understood to mean to cause a place to stop existing. “Wipe off the map” captures the idea well enough in English. Put into the context of other statements and his general view of Israel, it’s pretty clear.

It’s true that he has not actually threatened overt war, but that is no doubt because of the consequences of such action. Not because he doesn’t believe Israel doesn’t deserve to exist whatsoever in any form. He does think that.

95

[quote]jsbrook wrote:
Regular Gonzalez wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
When I posted the “Obama’s Racialism” thread, liberals became unglued that I would read Obama and take his words at face value, so I think I know the answer to my question. Liberals are experts at mental semantics. “Wipe Israel off the map” really doesn’t mean “wipe Israel off the map,”

I do not consider myself a liberal, but I don’t believe that Ahmadinejad actually meant “wipe Israel off the map”. I mostly think this because of the fact that the speech it was inaccurately quoted from did not contain any of the words wipe, Israel or map.

Only because that idiom doesn’t exist in Persian. What he actually said was ‘vanish from the pages of time.’ And this is basically understood to mean to cause a place to stop existing. “Wipe off the map” captures the idea well enough in English. Put into the context of other statements and his general view of Israel, it’s pretty clear.

It’s true that he has not actually threatened overt war, but that is no doubt because of the consequences of such action. Not because he doesn’t believe Israel doesn’t deserve to exist whatsoever in any form. He does think that. [/quote]

I wasn’t even looking to debate the issue. I just found PRCalDude’s example amusing.

Now that you have raised it, he was referring to the collapse of the Zionist regime. The guy is certainly a piece of shit, but it simply isn’t true that he wants to physically “wipe Israel off the map”.

96

This sums it up pretty well.

97

[quote]Mikeyali wrote:
This sums it up pretty well.[/quote]

Bravo!

98

[quote]Regular Gonzalez wrote:
jsbrook wrote:
Regular Gonzalez wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
When I posted the “Obama’s Racialism” thread, liberals became unglued that I would read Obama and take his words at face value, so I think I know the answer to my question. Liberals are experts at mental semantics. “Wipe Israel off the map” really doesn’t mean “wipe Israel off the map,”

I do not consider myself a liberal, but I don’t believe that Ahmadinejad actually meant “wipe Israel off the map”. I mostly think this because of the fact that the speech it was inaccurately quoted from did not contain any of the words wipe, Israel or map.

Only because that idiom doesn’t exist in Persian. What he actually said was ‘vanish from the pages of time.’ And this is basically understood to mean to cause a place to stop existing. “Wipe off the map” captures the idea well enough in English. Put into the context of other statements and his general view of Israel, it’s pretty clear.

It’s true that he has not actually threatened overt war, but that is no doubt because of the consequences of such action. Not because he doesn’t believe Israel doesn’t deserve to exist whatsoever in any form. He does think that.

I wasn’t even looking to debate the issue. I just found PRCalDude’s example amusing.

Now that you have raised it, he was referring to the collapse of the Zionist regime. The guy is certainly a piece of shit, but it simply isn’t true that he wants to physically “wipe Israel off the map”.

[/quote]

Well, he’s not willing to wage an overt war to accomplish that goal. Fair enough. Anyhow, back to the topic at hand, though there’s not much left to say on that front either.

99

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Demiajax wrote:
Tiribulus wrote:
Demiajax wrote:
<< The “tragedy” is, in part, referring to Civil Rights Movement’s reliance on the courts instead of building “coalitions of power.” >>>

Do want a socialist scheme of redistribution of previously private assets or not?

Define redistribution of wealth. All forms of wealth redistribution are not fundamentally socialist.

Since you’ve studied the constitution, what’s your opinion on the Equal Protection clause?

Don’t play asinine games with me. I know and so do you that what we’ve seen especially since the 60’s was no part of the views of the vast majority of early American thinkers. What is so difficult about just declaring your dismay with that and your desire to see a very large, intrusive, babysitting federal government?

The liberal democrats do not in any way, even accidentally, represent the original intent of our founders. The GOP ain’t far behind before I hear that.

Do you or do you not want to see the limitations of government undeniably expressed by our founders abandoned?

[/quote]

Why since the 60s? There hasn’t been an adherence to the constitution since the 16th amendment. Since nobody on this forum has ever lived in an America where the limitations of government expressed by our founders was actually adhered to and respected, I think it’s an exercise in futility to discuss the idea of an America without any form of wealth redistribution. Whatever Obama ends up doing will be a drop in the bucket relative to 1913. And I see no empirical way of knowing whether that’s a good or a bad thing.

It’s not about what I want or what I don’t want. I just realize that property laws, and the distribution of property, are much more complicated now than they were in 1776. In part, we can all thank the industrial revolution and stock markets for that. Our founding fathers’ idea of property rights hasn’t been sacrosanct since America’s modernization, why do people still think it is?

A lot of people here like to imagine agrarian utopias, but that’s not America anymore. Nor will it ever be. Thanks to the 20th century, America is now a country of cities and immigrants, and if wealth redistribution were actually abolished, the real consequence would be the slow death of rural America and the expansion of metropolises. That’s the dirty secret of taxes and wealth redistribution, they keep Sarah Palin’s “real” America afloat.

100

[quote]Demiajax wrote:
<<< Why since the 60s? There hasn’t been an adherence to the constitution since the 16th amendment. Since nobody on this forum has ever lived in an America where the limitations of government expressed by our founders was actually adhered to and respected, I think it’s an exercise in futility to discuss the idea of an America without any form of wealth redistribution. Whatever Obama ends up doing will be a drop in the bucket relative to 1913. And I see no empirical way of knowing whether that’s a good or a bad thing.

It’s not about what I want or what I don’t want. I just realize that property laws, and the distribution of property, are much more complicated now than they were in 1776. In part, we can all thank the industrial revolution and stock markets for that. Our founding fathers’ idea of property rights hasn’t been sacrosanct since America’s modernization, why do people still think it is?

A lot of people here like to imagine agrarian utopias, but that’s not America anymore. Nor will it ever be. Thanks to the 20th century, America is now a country of cities and immigrants, and if wealth redistribution were actually abolished, the real consequence would be the slow death of rural America and the expansion of metropolises. That’s the dirty secret of taxes and wealth redistribution, they keep Sarah Palin’s “real” America afloat.[/quote]

You make some substantive points worthy of consideration, but it doesn’t matter any more.