Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

[Milmo]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

More appropriate here than Score Updates where it started:

"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion." - Stephen Weinberg

Originally Posted by Milmo
Your tag line is really ignorant.

A Nobel prizewinner is ignorant? Wrong? Possibly. Misguided? Perhaps. Ignorant? Nope..

Soviet Union, Communist China, Nazi regime in Germany, Khymer Rouge: athiests all. Responsible for the killing of at least 150 million civilians, all their own citizens (see RJ Rummel, "Death by Government"). So yes, I'd say Weinberg is ignorant, or worse, dismissive of the facts.

 

[Handyman]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Yes and how many died in the name of some God? At least that many if not more...and that is the point.

Weinberg is saying people can be good or evil with or without religion...which i defy you to prove it wrong.

Oh and Major, I love your little spin job...nice work. Ya see back when some of us ripped you for the stock market stuff you were acting like all Obama had to do was talk and the economy was just improving. I am sure you will come up with some lame explanation how we all misread you saying that and unlike you I dont much care to look back through old threads to find it but that was the reasoning. If you want to get technical then yes you are right a speech by Obama can have an effect, and just like any other meaningless blip on the radar the market will correct itself.

If things were how you were implying we would be back to The Great society instead of watching the economy stagnate at best.

But you go on with your bad self!

 

[LynahFan]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

More appropriate here than Score Updates where it started:

I can't wait to hear you explain why it's appropriate to discuss this in the Obama thread. Whatcha got?

And which category do you think the Khmer Rouge, Nazis, etc fall into? Are you actually arguing that they were basically good people but they did evil? Good luck finding someone to convince of that. They were bad people who did evil without religion, just like Weinberg expects, so those are not counterexamples.

 

[5mn_Major]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Obama comes out against the banks and the market has its worst 3 days in over a year. We'll see how much good news it takes to get us back up to 10,800.

Ya see back when some of us ripped you for the stock market stuff you were acting like all Obama had to do was talk and the economy was just improving. I am sure you will come up with some lame explanation how we all misread you saying that...

I said exactly that when 'guy speaks, the stock market goes up' as he was assembling his economic team...I said nothing about the economy improving. In fact in the same post, I went on to say that the stock market would go back down on its own.

MNS saw exactly what my point was and reiterated it as "So, just by Obama making a speech, the stock market moves. He's controlling it by speech? That's what you're going with?"

If you want to get technical then yes you are right a speech by Obama can have an effect, and just like any other meaningless blip on the radar the market will correct itself.

...and so now you agree with me word for word.

If things were how you were implying we would be back to The Great society instead of watching the economy stagnate at best.

Explain.

Now this is where Handy finds himself over his head.

 

[geezer]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Interestingly, Martin Luther thought organized religion was the worst thing to ever happen:

Truly there has been no greater tribulation on the earth,and none will come that goes farther, endures longer and rages more fiercely than the abomination of Mohamed and the Pope, for they have destroyed the world temporally with ceaseless blood and murder, but have seduced and murdered souls much more terribly.

or you could say he was specifically condemning the crusades and inquisitions, along with Islamic terrorism (as a secondary evil to conversion to their sponsors' religions).
Of course, 80% of the writing credited to Luther wasn't his (much of it created by people who later started their own bloody little wars in his name), so who knows who really said that... but it seems he could have.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Dr. John Lott, an economist, wrote about campaign contributions in his book Freedomnomics. While in the book he only gave a brief synopsis of his research, he states that voting records in Washington don't change after receiving donations from specific entities.

This could be interpretted in two ways. Either the money follows the votes, or the money is promised prior to the vote cast. I'd be curious to know more about that.

 

[pirate]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

More appropriate here than Score Updates where it started:



Originally Posted by Milmo
Your tag line is really ignorant.



Soviet Union, Communist China, Nazi regime in Germany, Khymer Rouge: athiests all. Responsible for the killing of at least 150 million civilians, all their own citizens (see RJ Rummel, "Death by Government"). So yes, I'd say Weinberg is ignorant, or worse, dismissive of the facts.

So, are you saying Atheists have killed more people than religious people? Trying to quickly understand your point...if I'm missing it, then I'm reading it too quickly or there is a previous point I'm not aware of.

Of course, several of the events you mention are within the last 60 years or so, we'd have to normalize for total global population to come up with a comparison.

To LF's point, there is more than one reason for people to do evil, but...when do GOOD people resort to evil?...that is the message in the quote.

 

[huskyfan]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

good people who do evil = evil people

 

[Handyman]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Ya know I wasnt going to watch the State of the Union speech because frankly I am sick of listening to Obama talk but I might have to now just to see how he handles the clusterfrack he let happen in his big push for Health Care Reform. If I was him I would turn around, point to Pelosi and say "If it wasn't for spineless, worthless hacks like you and Harry Reid we might actually be on the verge of history..."

And Major, my Great Society comment was about how the guy is on TV like every other day. It was a joke playing off that.

And BTW no I dont agree with you, I still maintain you think what he says has any lasting effect on the market, whereas I say it has about as much effect as when Tim Geithner wipes his butt with his left hand and not his right. (it is the old Alan Greenspan joke I used to hear...if the market fell 100 points he obviously had a cold and people freaked out and SOLD SOLD SOLD!) It is just like when people whine about the PWR every day towards the end of the season because comparisons flip due to some AHA game being played. Yes, technically that game is the straw that broke the back but it wasnt the cause, the cause was your team obviously lost a game that made that game relevant. Win more games and make it less of an issue. Obama speaking may make investors run for cover for a few days in the current climate (or invest more depending) but in the end it is the fact that the economy is not improving that is the real issue so sooner or later the drop would have happened anyways. And guess what, in a few weeks things will correct themselves again.

I think his affect is an anomaly, you think it is the cause. No matter what though if things dont turn around we are all screwed

 

[The Sicatoka]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

http://www.politico.com/blogs/glenn...d_big_difference_between_10_and_94_is_me.html

Rep. Marion Berry's parting shot, published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette [no link, subscription only] offers a warning to moderate Democrats and border state moderates — warning of a midterm bloodbath comparable to the 54-seat D-to-R swing in 1994.

But the jaw-dropper is Berry's claim that President Obama personally dismissed any comparison between Democrats now and under Bill Clinton 16 years ago — by saying his personal popularity would bail everybody out.

And with that, fire up the band ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTjKWq9Gges

 

[The Sicatoka]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Sure politicians use teleprompters, ... but at an elementary school?

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//100119/480/9131bc77c7534185bdbf267bb4ab8497/

 

[SteveP]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

But the jaw-dropper is Berry's claim that President Obama personally dismissed any comparison between Democrats now and under Bill Clinton 16 years ago — by saying his personal popularity would bail everybody out.

Me, me, me -- it's all about me!

Sure politicians use teleprompters, ... but at an elementary school?

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//100119/480/9131bc77c7534185bdbf267bb4ab8497/

Wonder if he's 'Smarter than a 5th grader"?

<object width="445" height="364"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/F7usRipLlVg&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/F7usRipLlVg&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="445" height="364"></embed></object>

 

[rufus]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Ya know I wasnt going to watch the State of the Union speech because frankly I am sick of listening to Obama talk but I might have to now just to see how he handles the clusterfrack he let happen in his big push for Health Care Reform. If I was him I would turn around, point to Pelosi and say "If it wasn't for spineless, worthless hacks like you and Harry Reid we might actually be on the verge of history..."

Obama bears as much of the blame as they do. He has absolutely refused to lead on the issue, to lay out what he wants and then fight and twist arms to make it happen. Similarly, he hasn't come out in any speeches and said straightforward, this is what we stand for, and this is what we're gonna do.

He's abdicated any sort of leadership or stewardship of the proposal to the likes of Max Baucus, Olympia Snowe, and Joe Lieberman. And he's been incredibly wishy washy in comments about the legislation they've come up with, giving it lukewarm, if any, support, and often turning his back on things he advocated during the campaign.

 

[Handyman]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Obama bears as much of the blame as they do. He has absolutely refused to lead on the issue, to lay out what he wants and then fight and twist arms to make it happen. Similarly, he hasn't come out in any speeches and said straightforward, this is what we stand for, and this is what we're gonna do.

He's abdicated any sort of leadership or stewardship of the proposal to the likes of Max Baucus, Olympia Snowe, and Joe Lieberman. And he's been incredibly wishy washy in comments about the legislation they've come up with, giving it lukewarm, if any, support, and often turning his back on things he advocated during the campaign.

I know but I was going for comedy not truthfullness...the Obama of the Primaries would have told Congress to shut up and get to work...President Obama seems to have been neutered...sad really.

I am watching the movie Truman right now...if Obama had his balls I think things would be very different.

 

[SPIN CONTROL]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Gee, who would have thought that "Mr. Hope and Change" would turn out to be just another politician. Shocking I tell ya.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

The next politician that says they are the politician of change in front of me, I'm gonna brain 'em.

 

[SteveP]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Hey, didn't yo momma teach you about keeping your feet off the furniture?

 

[Patman]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

I know but I was going for comedy not truthfullness...the Obama of the Primaries would have told Congress to shut up and get to work...President Obama seems to have been neutered...sad really.

That was the strategy... let them beat each other up and use Obama's personalty to strong arm... the problem for them is it didn't work but that was their plan. Notice that Obama tries to be there only for the golden successful moments... that's on purpose so that he gets positive events attached to him. He's always been about a magical image... but that didn't work out.

He has never been a leader, he's just good at gathering followers who believe as he does.

edit: the problem for Obama is that he doesn't reach out because that's not what he believes. He believes in the inevitable righteousness of what he wants so compromise falls out of the lexicon. He doesn't reach out because he is an ideologue... he and the rest of his team thought they could use his personality and presence on the mantle of "good" to squeeze the republicans into giving him what he wanted... but something happened between point A and point B... and so they're stuck. Either he'll have to turn into somebody he doesn't want to be or double-down and go out swinging.

The problem for Obama is he sees himself as a agent of mass-social change. If he goes down swinging on this one issue he'll end up as a single-term president achieving only a small part of his entire goal... he doesn't do that he can probably get two terms but may not achieve any of his lofty transformational goals. This is the situation they are in. He intended to achieve a lot of things that he thought he could do and he believes these ideas are righteous... but now he can't do it and they've yet to decide where to go next.

Remember what Obama wants... he wants a lot of hard ideological items... and he can't do that without perfect legislative victory. I think right now they'll stumble along until they can find a thread to pull and then they'll go hard on that. It probably won't work, but these guys are going to need one hell of a gambit so they'll try at various things.

 

[pirate]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

good people who do evil = evil people

right.

ostensibly, religious people start out on a track of 'good', golden rule and all of that stuff, but many times they somehow go from worshiping somebody that tells you to love your neighbor, to wanting to obliterate their neighbor for not believing in the same god...good people, evil activity...unlike many of the examples earlier where there was no 'good period', they went straight to hell, did not collect $200.

 

[huskyfan]

Re: Obama 9 -- Its Been a Whole Year Now

Hey, didn't yo momma teach you about keeping your feet off the furniture?

please tell me this is a doctored photo.