DNC Debate

[Lyion]

Wow, Obama is tearing Hillary a new asshole tonight.

Sucky, since I'd prefer her to win, but she is probably going to lose Ohio, too, after tonight.

[Lyion]

Obama debates like Kerry. On point, on message. Unflappable.

Hillary looked flustered and had a rough time, in my view.

[Gypsiyee]

I forgot about it and missed it >< poop.

I guess I could always youtube it ~

[Jay]

Told you that man can't be shaken. That's a leadership characteristic. Not only being able to outtalk an opponent but being quick minded enough to get solutions, which so far is what Hilary's campaign is about although she has very little of to beat Obama.

[Kramer]

hillary just can't seem not to come off as whining... i mean that whole comment about having to go first and SNL..... i mean that is just weak sauce. when you have to overshadow someone like Obama you better bring that "A" game.... which involves no fussing, but simply answering questions in a persuasive manner....

i too think she is probably the better candidate, but unfortuneately i think others are a bit mesmerized by Obama. and he is impressive, dont' get me wrong.

[Harrison]

Anyone on Hillary's side needs their head checked.

Personally, I think any president without having served prior military in some form is fucking ludicrous.

[Tossica]

Anyone on Hillary's side needs their head checked.

Personally, I think any president without having served prior military in some form is fucking ludicrous.

Not as long as they pick a strong cabinet.

[Arlos]

*nod* Tapping someone like Gen. Wesley Clark for Secretary of Defense would pretty much negate most personal lack of experience with the military, I'd think.


-Arlos

[Harrison]

That's a good point that I never really put into consideration before.

[Evermore]

*nod* Tapping someone like Gen. Wesley Clark for Secretary of Defense would pretty much negate most personal lack of experience with the military, I'd think.


-Arlos

imo this would depend on if they actually LISTENED to them

[Arlos]

Well, sure. The theory is though, if you respect someone enough to put them on your Cabinet as an expert in whatever field they're secretary of, that you will also respect them enough to LISTEN to them.

-Arlos

[Lyion]

Plus, not listen to them too much, as Clinton did with Clark in Bosnia, and Bush did with the rank and file brass regarding Iraq & Afghanistan.

Clark would be a terrible choice for SecDef or VP. He'd be a better Secretary of State.
Somehow I doubt Obama will pick someone who endorsed and campaigned for Hillary Clinton, anyways.

The President's primary job is to be commander in chief and to protect the nation. This is something many are missing during the current campaign season while their candidates keep promising legislative changes.

[Diekan]

It boils down to power. Neither the republicans nor the democrats really give a rat’s ass about you as an individual. What they want is power, power over you. They’re both the exact same in this regard, where they differ is the avenue which they take to garner this power.

The worst enemy of a liberal democrat is a person with a good paying job. Why you ask? Because high paying jobs undermine the means by with they strive to obtain power. Liberal democrats want you dependent on them for your needs. That is how they get their power. Their power comes from making you more dependent on them through entitlements, high taxes and legislation mandating that you have this or that. High paying jobs means you don’t need them to take care of you. This is partly why single women love to vote liberal democrat – they want to be taken care of. They, like many minorities, don’t WANT to ‘do it themselves.’ They want the government to provide for them, everything from education to even their food. This why most single women and minorities are liberal democrats.

Now, the GOP is just as power hungry, but the method by which the take power over your individual life is by simply just that…. Taking it under the guise of protecting you from the big bad terrorists.

We need less government.

Hey, look at this home mortgage crisis... why is the government stepping in and telling private lenders what to do? Why is no blame being put on the fucking retards who SIGNED for loans they KNEW they couldn't afford in the first place? Who's at fault here?

[Naethyn]

Hey, look at this home mortgage crisis... why is the government stepping in and telling private lenders what to do? Why is no blame being put on the fucking retards who SIGNED for loans they KNEW they couldn't afford in the first place? Who's at fault here?

It's easy to place the blame on people who signed loans when their money was worth double what it is today. Like it or not, government does have a hand in the market.

[Lyion]

Hey, look at this home mortgage crisis... why is the government stepping in and telling private lenders what to do? Why is no blame being put on the fucking retards who SIGNED for loans they KNEW they couldn't afford in the first place? Who's at fault here?

It's easy to place the blame on people who signed loans when their money was worth double what it is today. Like it or not, government does have a hand in the market.

Likewise, the loans are worth half, so it's relative. The government has a hand in markets, but should not be responsible for people making stupid loans, or frivolously running up massive credit card debt.

The problem is people who signed ARMs or other types of adjustable rate mortgages without being responsible in planning for when those loans would skyrocket.

If you are stupid with your money, it is not the government's fault.

[Arlos]

Well, to be fair, they're finding in many cases that the loan agents acted in a completely shady fashion and did not disclose or explain how the loan really worked. They only told the customer the upside and didn't get into the potential problems. So, the people taking out the loan literally didn't know how badly they were going to get reamed when the terms changed 2-3 years down the line.

Plus, many of them were told that it would be a 100% slam dunk to re-fi their loan once the terms changed, because their home value would do nothing but continue to go up. Of course, that didn't happen, people got turned down for their supposedly 100% certain re-fi, then couldn't make the payments, etc. etc. etc.

So while there was certainly an element of deceptive borrowers here, taking out loans they never should have or never could have afforded, by lying on their applications etc, there were significant numbers of dishonest lenders operating as well, making loans that never should have been made.

Now, on to something else:

The worst enemy of a liberal democrat is a person with a good paying job. Why you ask? Because high paying jobs undermine the means by with they strive to obtain power. Liberal democrats want you dependent on them for your needs. That is how they get their power. Their power comes from making you more dependent on them through entitlements, high taxes and legislation mandating that you have this or that. High paying jobs means you don’t need them to take care of you. This is partly why single women love to vote liberal democrat – they want to be taken care of. They, like many minorities, don’t WANT to ‘do it themselves.’ They want the government to provide for them, everything from education to even their food. This why most single women and minorities are liberal democrats.

This is probably the single biggest steaming pile of rancid bullshit I've seen on this board in a long time. Not only is it incredibly misogynistic, it is 100% utterly inaccurate as well. The ideal and dream would be for EVERYONE in the country to be able to get a job that allows them to provide for themselves and their family, and well enough to not have to live in a roach-infested shithole, or work 80+ hours a week just to begin to make ends meet. Since that is never going to happen in the real world, we simply feel that for those that cannot do so, there needs to be some kind of societal safety net so you don't have people and families forced to live under freeway bridges or starving to death.

Also, since offering health care is not economically viable for small business or by any business to part time workers, health insurance should be handled on the national public level and extended to everyone. Not only would it actually save money in the long run due to people getting seen early on when things are more treatable rather than later when they've become major medical issues, but if it were handled publicly, we would be removing one of the biggest costs from the books of all businesses in the country. I firmly believe that even with extra taxes to pay for universal health care, that businesses would actually come out ahead, due to no longer needing to pay for workman's comp or personal health care.

Not that it is surprising, but yeah, Diekan was so far off base there he'd completely left the stadium. Plus we onc more got an example of his rabid misogyny. Not that Diekan being misogynistic is a SURPRISE to anyone at this point, but that was pretty bad, even for him.

-Arlos

[Gypsiyee]

Diekan, out of sheer curiosity - do you work in the private sector or did you go into civil service after you got out of the military?

[Eziekial]

I don't know Arlos, I think as far as conspiracy theory goes, Diekan's the milder I've seen out there. Granted, the message my be lost in the method of delivery so you and others take offense to it but the subtle implication is still interesting to discuss. We all know that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely (can't remember who to give credit to for that one) so it's not a stretch to think of those in high level positions in our government as suffering from the intoxicating power of those positions. We're painfully aware how "human" our leaders are. There is no shortage on these very boards on the foibles of our current President. "The most powerful man on Earth" is often used to describe his position and even you, Arlos, have spoken of the dangers in giving him sweeping powers over the other branches of government. The Patriot Act and the warrentless wiretapping are just two examples of many on how our government, regardless of who is in power, is usurping your rights in the name of safety or security. If you honestly look at how our government has grown in size and scope; if you step back and impartially analyze the growing role our federal government has taken and it's effect on our everyday lives then you must come to the conclusion that Diekan has. Our government is taking over more and more of our responsibilities and rights and is growing into a bigger and bigger element of our lives. With that grow in power comes the inevitable human desire that we all share and that is to be in control. So the argument that we must be wary of those in power looking to maintain that power is valid. The argument that those in power may promote or inhibit certain behavior in our society to better maintain and expand their control is valid.
To dismiss it in an attempt to psycho-analyze his personally I think misses the bigger and much more important point.

[Arlos]

I don't dispute that we need to make sure that the government doesn't attempt to take away more of our rights. If you've noticed, I've argued here rather vociferously on that very subject. Indeed, I don't believe government has any business whatsoever dictating anything at all regarding a consenting adult's personal life, as long as what he or she is doing effects only themselves and/or other equally freely consenting adults.

My argument there with Diekan was SOLELY on what he's claiming is the goal of "liberal democrats". The idea that it is the goal of liberals to stop everyone from working and to force them to depend solely on government handouts is ludicrous to the extreme. We liberals want to see as many people working as possible, the same as anyone else. There can never be an end to unemployment though, it's simply not possible, nor even necessarily desirable, if you believe certain aspects of economic theory. (Look up something called the Phillips curve). It is simply that I (and I would assume other liberals) believe that as part of a civilized society there needs to be a socio-economic safety net for the truly needy, and that universal health care not only benefits all of society, but saves money in the long run. So, as a result, Diekan's claims are utterly inaccurate.

Likewise, to claim that women vote democrat because they are somehow inherently incapable of directing their own lives and want the government to run it for them is not only utterly inaccurate, it is extraordinarily misogynistic. Given that this is hardly the first time Diekan's posted something incredibly derogatory towards women, I was hardly surprised, but still, it was worth noting.

Lastly, as I posted in the start of my last post; yes, there are stupid people that took out loans they could never afford. There are also, however, victims of shady lenders, who were never told of the risks and issues their loans faced, and believed their brokers when they were told there'd be nothing to worry about. So, the problem is HARDLY one-sided. Hell, a friend of mine got offered a job trying to sell people refinanced mortgages at the height of the boom. The company trying to hire him was completely shady; they had 50 "agents" calling people, yet only 1 licensed person int he entire outfit. Everything went out under his name, so it looked legal, but he just sat in an office and signed stuff, people with only a couple hours of mostly sales training were the ones putting together the loans. Hell, they even admitted it internally, and took a perverse pride in it, and compared themselves to the stock firm in Boiler Room. So, given that sort of "lender", is it any wonder that some people ended up with bad loans without it being fully their fault? Shouldn't the government do SOMETHING to rectify that sort of situation?

-Arlos

[Martrae]

Well, to be fair, they're finding in many cases that the loan agents acted in a completely shady fashion and did not disclose or explain how the loan really worked. They only told the customer the upside and didn't get into the potential problems. So, the people taking out the loan literally didn't know how badly they were going to get reamed when the terms changed 2-3 years down the line.

-Arlos

Honestly, if you haven't done your homework on such a HUGE item WTF are you doing buying anything. Seriously, how stupid do you have to be to sign a paper that put you in hock for up to 30 years without understanding all the ins and outs?

[Arlos]

Cause you're supposedly working with an expert? Because you trust that they're required to warn you if there are issues you need to know about, and would do so?

Again, I'm not saying that the borrowers are entirely blameless here. Nor were all lenders shady or misleading. But there WERE some that were, and there was very little regulation forcing them into good business practices, as evidenced by the fact that the lenders signed off on so many loans that should never have been made. So even the less-shady lenders were guilty of letting greed get in the way of good business sense, if not guilty of the outright malfeasance that the fly-by-nights committed.

So, just laying all the blame at the feet of stupid buyers is inaccurate and mistargeted. Certainly some, and even much blame can be laid there in a lot of cases, but as they say, it takes 2 to tango, and the hands of the lenders are far from clean.

-Arlos

[Martrae]

You don't have to be an expert to know you read the terms of any loan your taking out. You also should understand at bare minimum what ARM actually means.

It's sad how many people don't know budgeting or how credit works.

[Lyion]

Yup, it boils down to personal responsibility.

Many think the government should take care of you in all cases. What's even more interesting is they want freedom bordering to the level of anarchy, but also the government to be almost a pure nanny state in how they take care of people. These are mutually exclusive points, but a big reason why our generation is so fucked up.

[Diekan]

Oh for the love of God – it has NOTHING to do with hating/loving/disliking/liking women in the least. It’s about a cultural environment that programs women (from childhood) to be dependent for support.

You all know exactly what I’m talking about too… How many of you women, here on this very board, were raised hearing things like “my little princess is going to marry a doctor….” Not, “my little princess is going to BE a doctor…”

See what I’m getting at here? It has nothing to with women being evil/good and has everything to do with how they are brought up. I don’t give a damn what you say, single women in the United States are MUCH more likely to vote for security than they are for any other issue… ESPECIALLY single mothers. And, by security I don’t mean boarder lock downs or hunting down terrorists. I mean social entitlement programs.

If we’d do a better job of raising our daughters to think and do for themselves and that they don’t need an asshole male to take care of them, we wouldn’t have this problem.

[Tossica]

Dumb shit.

Here's a clue. Have some of your own kids before you tell others how to raise theirs. Until you are a parent, shut the fuck up on the parenting issue because you don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

Thanks.