If Obama win the election we are doomed!

[Mark Gambo]

Barack Obama won’t wear an American flag on his lapel, but on the wall of his Houston campaign office: a Cuban flag with a picture of Communist mass murderer Che Guevara.



And that flag is no fluke. Here’s another one.

[crptcblade]

I'd be more concerned with interstellar space debris

[lintz]

I'd be more concerned with interstellar space debris

It must have been a slow news day to compare Obama to 'movie presidents'!

[capsulecorpjx]

Got a link?
Otherwise, I assume those are shooped.

[capsulecorpjx]

http://reason.com/blog/show/124924.html

Ok, see the site above.

Excerpt:

Sadly, the Fox affiliate has robbed most of the juice from this one by noting on its website: "The office featured in this video is funded by volunteers of the Barack Obama Campaign and is not an official headquarters for his campaign."

Ok, stop and think about it. EVEN IF Obama was a communist sympathizer, do you really think he's stupid enough to do something like this that would lose the election for him?

No it's another "Swift-Boat" hit job by the Conservative rabble.

[crptcblade]

It must have been a slow news day to compare Obama to 'movie presidents'!

Am I going to have to slap you silly?

[SurfDemon]

Oh, the photo's are from Fox. For a moment I thought they were from a news show....

[Tom Sawyer]

Wow, so FOX compares Obama to Hitler and calls him a communist on the same day.

I guess being "fair and balanced" means slandering him from both sides of the political spectrum.

[timeshifter]

From what I've heard, Obama claims he'll actually enforce net neutrality, which would be wonderful. ISP's are locking down more and more for things they *think* may be mallicious... even without proof.

[homer13j]

it's another "Swift-Boat" hit job by the Conservative rabble

FOX compares Obama to Hitler and calls him a communist

You guys need to lighten up. Seriously. It isn't healthy to carry around that much hatred... Life's too short as it is.

It's like riding on a long-distance train. When the train stops, your brain is so used to seeing moving scenery that it actually feels like you are going backwards. You guys have gotten so used to being spoon-fed DNC talking points in the form of news that any other viewpoint seems like right-wing propaganda. It literally makes you feel like you are moving backward when really you should know better.

There's a real good reason why Fox News is #1 in cable news ratings and has owned CNN from day one.

[System_Error]

Those pictures look staged, but I don't care one way or another. I'm focused more on bashing McCain right now.

[SurfDemon]

There's a real good reason why Fox News is #1 in cable news ratings and has owned CNN from day one.

They make the news up so that it's more interesting? Is that the right answer?

[Shaggy Hiker]

You guys need to lighten up. Seriously. It isn't healthy to carry around that much hatred... Life's too short as it is.

I'm up against a wall with a programming issue at the moment, so I guess I'll speculate on this statement. If you know about network programming, get out of here and go answer my post in the networking section, otherwise, read on, and I'll try to be semi-coherent, though it's a difficult concept to put into words:

I've stated several times that all network news is crap, so arguing about one being better than the other is like arguing just how bad the crap smells: You shouldn't eat it regardless. However, is it really hatred? Both sides would prefer that the other "just go away". The liberal viewpoint is generally to think about all sides of an issue on the principle that everybodies view has merit, hence the charge that they are philosophically anemic. The conservative view is to allow for no dissent, hence the charge that they are morally bereft.

Anybody who is reasonably well informed has encountered this discussion in various forms. I've heard it stated at least three different ways in various public forums (not internet forums, I mean lectures, broadcasts, etc.). One version that got a fair amount of press (a year or so back, and I don't remember who said it) compared the concept of patriotism from the two views, where the conservatives felt that loving your country meant that you could tolerate no criticism of the country, regardless of what the country does (or it's leaders, actually), while the liberal view was that loving your country means acknowledging faults so that we can try to correct them. You see plenty of this comparison, including in this forum, since conservatives (and ONLY conservatives) will occasionally respond to criticism by asking why do you hate America so much.

This has spilled over into other debates, or maybe it was always there. At this point, conservatives are painting pictures that simply aren't true, but call it hatred or bias if somebody points out the fallacy of whatever they assert. Nobody ever thinks of Fox as fair and balanced unless it's a conservative trying to bash a liberal. Conservatives watch Fox News because it's conservative, and it was deliberately created that way. It's loaded with conservative talking heads, such as O'Reilley and Hannity. However, conservatives (and ONLY conservatives) make a fuss about it being main stream, or not liberal, or some such, whenever anybody points out that it's conservative. Why is that? It's certainly disingenuous, since the same folks complain bitterly about the liberal slant of other media. Presumably, when it comes to television news they don't watch other channels, or else they'd know that it's all tripe, and tripe has no affiliation.

So where are we? Do conservatives really feel that the rest of the media has a liberal slant, or are they just saying that because that's been the conservative line for decades? Do they really believe there is such a thing as neutral? When both sides tend to see that which is not inline with their beliefs as belonging to the other camp, then if Fox is not liberal, it HAS to be conservative. On the other hand, since conservatives have a better defined set of beliefs, they are far more likely to punish a person for not fitting their views. Look at the current race. Everyone (including W) is pointing out that the conservatives are likely to punish McCain for not being conservative enough, yet nobody is saying the same thing about any of the Dems running, even though neither of them is particularly liberal. McCain is more conservative than Hillary or Obama is liberal, yet only McCain is getting pushback from his own party for not being sufficiently conforming.

So why is it hatred to call a spade a spade? Why is it hatred to decry conservative tactics, yet perfectly reasonable for conservatives to decry "liberal bias" in the rest of media. It's obviously disingenuous, is it done just to annoy, or are conservatives lying to themselves as well?

[Shaggy Hiker]

Those pictures look staged, but I don't care one way or another. I'm focused more on bashing McCain right now.

Why, do you support someone else, or is it just for fun?

Very few of us ever get to vote for a candidate that we actually are enthusiastic about. We end up with a choice or two that really aren't that far apart, and who really don't represent OUR beliefs (whoever that is). Then they do whatever, and we grumble about it and head into the next election.

There are far better voting systems than the one we have (one person one vote, that is), but even if we adopted one of the better voting systems, we'd end up with a bland compromise candidate. The country has so many strong viewpoints tugging in all different directions that you can't find a person who totally represents one group unless you are willing to run right over some other group.

Is there any democracy now or ever that is not this way? None that I know of, so the key is not that you will get who you want, but to keep pulling in the direction you want. There will be others pulling in other directions, and you won't get everything you want, but if you stop pulling, then you will certainly get none of what you want.

[System_Error]

Why, do you support someone else, or is it just for fun?

I must admit, Obama is the one I hate the least, but I like to criticize everyone (out of fun, mostly). I've never voted and probably never will. It's just not something I really care to waste my time with.

[Shaggy Hiker]

With the current slate, which consists of two people who are vaguely left vs one who is vaguely right, there is not all that much distinction.

[homer13j]

...

Wow... My comment about "hatred" was regarding the consistently negative posts in this sub-forum from a few select individuals, not about the liberal hatred of all things Fox... I threw in a comment about Fox's ratings as simple flame bait. I guess it worked, huh?

Damn, y'all need to lighten up. Seriously.

[System_Error]

With the current slate, which consists of two people who are vaguely left vs one who is vaguely right, there is not all that much distinction.

Considering the crowds the candidates are winning, age might be a big difference.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Wow... My comment about "hatred" was regarding the consistently negative posts in this sub-forum from a few select individuals, not about the liberal hatred of all things Fox... I threw in a comment about Fox's ratings as simple flame bait. I guess it worked, huh?

Damn, y'all need to lighten up. Seriously.

Explain to me how a simple UDP class can start behaving erratically on one system when another example of the same class on the same system is working tolerably well, and I'll be considerably less annoyed.

As for the post, I wasn't really talking to you, or anybody in particular, but commenting on a general trend that seems to be increasingly true in the country at large, though maybe that's just a fallacy of perception.

Compare the level of discourse on this forum to just about any other forum out there and this one is generally smarter, which I would expect to be a reflection of the fact that programmers are generally people who like to think the heck out of something, but even here there are appeals that are more based on emotion than really thinking something through. Pretty nearly any position I have, if I have reached the position through serious thought rather than snap judgement, is so loaded with nuance that it couldn't be written in a single page.

My point there was that disagreement is not hatred, it's debate, but it seems to be increasingly framed in absolutes. My personal view is rarely absolute, yet when somebody frames an argument such that dislike is equated with hatred, then that pushes people to the poles (though not the polls), because it divides the argument into binary absolute choices, just as we have divided the country into R or D. The truth is that there is a broad spectrum of views and a binary dichotomy is a harmful distortion. Though doing such simplification makes decisions easier to make, it should be strongly discouraged wherever it appears.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Considering the crowds the candidates are winning, age might be a big difference.

Unfortunately, the older set is the most politicaly motivated. Anything and anybody that gets the younger generations motivated and engaged is a good thing. Apathy will kill democracy.

[System_Error]

Unfortunately, the older set is the most politicaly motivated. Anything and anybody that gets the younger generations motivated and engaged is a good thing. Apathy will kill democracy.

I was speaking more along the lines of the candidates age being the major difference, but that's true also. McCain is like 71 years old and Obama 46. I don't see McCain ever attracting a young crowd.

[FunkyDexter]

We end up with a choice or two that really aren't that far apart,

The problem is that human nature is based more strongly on negative reactions than positive. We'll vote against the guy we don't like before we'll vote for someone we do. It's no accident reality TV shows are all about eliminating losers rather than picking winners (when was the last time a show asked you to vote for who you wanted to keep in?), it's because it's far easier to appeal to peoples negativity.

The effect of this in politics is that the guys who get pushed to the front aren't the one ones with radical ideas and ideals, they're the ones who offend the fewest people, the grey men) They all sit in the nice inoffensive middle ground doing their best to avoid voicing an opinion on any topic until the market researches have exhaustively proved that middle [insert your contry of choice] has already made up their minds and they will then voice which ever opinion the polls indicate was best. Since they're both reacting to the same public opinion (albeit measured through different polls), they end up expressing the same views.

The major exception to this is any issue which has at one time been hugely popular and has since become unpopular. The obvious example of this is (and I hope I don't derail the thread - I'm not going to argue whether it was right or wrong, merely the way politicians have reacted to it), of course, Iraq. On your side of the pond both Republicans and Democrats were right behind it at first and on our side both the Tories and Labour were. As both the reasons for and conduct of the war has become increasingly questionable, the opposition parties (Dems and Tories) have distanced themselves as far as possible from the decision they originally suported. "No honestly, I was just going on the facts I had at the time, I believed what the government/security services were telling me, no really, had I known I'd have voted against... honest". The fact that at least one top statesman resigned from cabinet on this side of the pond (I'm not aware of anything similar in the US but it wouldn't surprise me if there was) shows that the alternative view point was available at the time but none of them took it, not for idealogical reasons, but simply because that would have flown in the face of public opinion. Indeed, I'm willing to bet that the respective government parties would be equally keen to distance themselves from the issue (certainly Gordon Brown is notoriously reluctant to mention it) if that didn't involve a massive climb-down and that's even worse.

So we're left with two choices which are so close the gap is practically airtight occupying the same, safe middle ground and ignoring any issue that smacks remotely of controversy. On the other hand, history shows that when a nation chooses to embrace a more radical point of view from a political party it's usually when things have gone badly wrong and it tends not to end well.