Who are you supporting in the upcoming American election

[Hoovie]

Due to the wonderful electorial college, it doesn't matter who I vote for, because McCain WILL win my state. So I'll be voting third party.

Every once in a while it's nice to throw a dog a bone.

[victoryredchevy]

First off, I'm definately backing and have already voted for McCain/Palin. Secondly, I know both Senators McCain and Obama have less than perfect backgrounds. I've had an uneasy feeling about Barack Obama from the word go, though. I'm am one of those "rednecks, clinging to their guns and religion". And I'm sorry if I fear an America lead by the most radical and liberal President ever. Forgive me for not just bowing at the feet of Obama literally weeping for "Change". And this whole redistributing the wealth thing? Really? A Mass welfare system is all that is. It completely undermines the point of the forefathers hopping on the Mayflower and establishing this nation. He can deny it all he wants. His plan embraces and actually puts into action Socialist and Marxist ideology right here in America. I'll have to pass, thank you. An Obama, Biden, Pelosi and Reid run administration will be the most left minded, liberal leadership America has seen and they will not yield to any conservative leaning ideas. They will surely try to choke out conservatism for good, I'd almost guarantee you they would and I'm am a conservative thinker. I'm not republican. I'm conservative. In my opinion, Obama's ability to speak to the masses beautifully has gotten him where he is. I think his promises are hollow and his ambition is all personal. I doubt he gives a crap about America. The media has sucked up to him so much and has covered up some pretty important information about him. Information that Americans should be able to count on the media to for. CBS is too busy gawking at how omnipetent he is, instead of playing his 2001 interview where he calls the Constitution and The Bill of Rights " a negative charter of liberties" because they limit the government so much on what it can and can't DO TO THE PEOPLE. An Obama administration will also push the stinkin' pansy ass Fairness Doctorine, too. Anyway, I know I sound extremely way too conservative, but I'm absolutely unapollogetic for that. Where I'm from, believing like I believe is the normal. I don't need a big government to wipe my ass for me and tell me everything's gonna be just peachy keen. I'm doing fine. You know why? Because I get my ass outta bed every morning and go to work and earn my money. I buy what I need and if I don't need it I don't buy it. Also, I don't need a government that's going to dip their hands into my 401k. I could go on and on and on. All I can say is if you vote for Senator Obama and long for that beautifully sugar coated Change he promises, you get Change all right. I don't believe it will be a pleasant Change, though.

[Snusophile]

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[spirit72]

And I'm sorry if I fear an America lead by the most radical and liberal President ever.

Yeahhhh, but they said much of the same stuff about both FDR and Kennedy too.

I have reservations about Obama too(I'm voting 3rd party, myself). But I'm glad that our country was founded by people who had something like this in mind. Three seperate but equal branches of government, and a bicameral legislature. Even if Obama were a Marxist, most congressional Democrats aren't, and no one sitting on the Supreme Court is.

So it's not like Obama would have any chance of transforming the nation like that or negating the Bill of Rights(even Bush and Cheney didn't manage it in 8 years, remember), even with a vastly larger Democratic majority in the Congress.

That's why I love the U.S. Constitution so much. It takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'.

[Premium Parrots]

very interesting posts my friends........................ So what do ya all think about peoples claims that Obama is the Anti-Christ? Its a simple question. It may or may not be my beliefs, its simply a question. If I heard the same thing about McCain I would still ask the question simply because I want to know your thoughts. I have heard this idea lately and I decided to google obama-anti-christ. Wow theres alot there. So what do you all think? Again, its just a question that I am putting out there. Come on educate me......... :?:

[lxskllr]

It's nonsense of course...

[Ainkor]

very interesting posts my friends........................ So what do ya all think about peoples claims that Obama is the Anti-Christ? Its a simple question. It may or may not be my beliefs, its simply a question. If I heard the same thing about McCain I would still ask the question simply because I want to know your thoughts. I have heard this idea lately and I decided to google obama-anti-christ. Wow theres alot there. So what do you all think? Again, its just a question that I am putting out there. Come on educate me......... :?:

Until the day he dies and is ressurected publicly, I pass on the anti-christ bit.

Interesting thing Revelations is. Now, if there is an assasination attempt and he litterly lives through it and probably should have died, I am taking my family and moving to the hills. And yes, I will cling to my guns and my religion :P

-Ainkor

[sentry103]

Well, the antichrist is going to be a hell of a nice guy and an outrageously good speaker. Obama posseses these qualities. Anitchrist though... probably not. The good book says watch, watch and watch. I'll stick to my binoculars presently. For now he's just setting the stage.

[Slydel]

I have currently talked to my best friend that is a ****-nutted lawyer that is also a professor at a law school. Anything that I pose to him is an outrageous slander of Obama that can not be contested because it is too "outrageous". I will not vote for Obama because:

1) He has been a follower of a religious zealot for 20 years and has not found fault with any of his teachings (ohh..until recently). This is flim-flam to the highest extent. Will he change his mind when the wind starts blowing in a different direction?

2) We need to have health insurance for everyone except babies that have survived partial birth abortions. Shall we not kill the mothers too for having abortions for babies that can feel pain and are past the point of being able to survive outside the womb? This could save the US a lot of $ in welfare too!!! If people don't know how babies are conceived they should be caned like they do in Singapore and have the babies taken away so they would have to work. I know this is a little rough but I know men that go from one house to the next. Visit their one girlfriend, smoke a little pot, get a some food, play a little PS2, and then go to their next girlfriends house to do the same thing all over again. WITHOUT HAVING TO MAKE AMENDS for their actions. **** 'em

3) Will not tax the rich, ie above 250,000. Yet this # seem to be dropping from 250k to 150k to 120k. Still not bad I suppose, yet he is not even elected. Suppose this drops to $80k? People making $80k a year are not rich. They have to worry where their money goes especially in higher cost of living areas of our country.

4) Mr. O is a socialist. He was a member of the New Party. Please refute this if you will. I really would like to know. When Mr. O. was elected to the IL senate, he was congratulated in the New Party newsletter, as a member, for obtaining a senatorial post for Illinois. The NP is a socialist political group. Is it defunct now or just named differently?

5) He has been a U.S. Senator since 2004. Not long enough to know if he is worth a shit since his campaign started in 2006 or earlier. Now, I think I am qualified to run for President. How does someone that has not been around very long raise over $1 Billion U.S. for his campaign? Mother 'Effer, crooked if you ask me. Go George Soronson from MOVEON.org to help defeat the GOP! The ****er made his money in our captalistic system, but does not support it. Like the pot calling the kettle black.

6) The Democratic party caused the housing crisis and supported the bailout of wall street. Barney and Dodd are the biggest receivers of contributions because they supported the loaning of money to people that could not afford it. This happened during the Cliton administration. A New York Times article predicted the bailout of these quasi federal banks.The article is currently in the NYT archive and can be viewed. I bring this up because Pisslosi blames it on the GOP. Yet Barney and Dodd received the largest campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie. I bring this up because people are being brain-washed by the Dems as it being the fault of the GOP. The GOP tried to stop the nonsense with Fannie and Freddie, yet are being blamed for it. How the hell does a quasi federal program get away with supporting candidates when they are bankrupt?

A final note-I will not being voting for the Dems or the GOP candidate. They are both socialists. McCain is a middle-of-the-road candidate that does not deserve my respect. I will be voting 3rd party. We need an abolishment of the party system so everyone will be on par. Something needs to be done with main stream media too. The GOP debates were a joke. The Communist News Network, also known as CNN, were terribly biased. This may have been the same for the Dem debates. I can not comment about them because I did not watch them.

Don't let anyone tell you anyone different, The US is in big trouble, we are going the way of the socialistic Europe that we now see unemployment up the ass. Yet everyone is happy in Europe, right?

[holnrew]

I'm happy in Europe.

In fact the countries with the most Socialistic governments (The Netherlands, Sweden etc.) are actually listed as being the happiest in the world.

Anyway, different systems work for different people. I'm presently very happy with my government.

There's loads more I could go on about... but I think I've already made my points.

Oh, and I'm the anti-christ

[Premium Parrots]

..........Oh, and I'm the anti-christ

I thought you looked familiar...........

[chainsnuser]

People making $80k a year are not rich.

People making $80k a year ARE rich. Keep in mind, that the whole American economy is living on the nod at the moment and on a degree that is anything else but sustainable. 90% of all bank-deposits around the world are actually used to back up U.S.-American debts.

Apart of that, I'm absolutely not anti-American, but the current American Way of Life will not work much longer. A change is long overdue. Socialist countries in Europe are too a much lesser degree behaving socialistic than the current U.S. administration and sadly the election will not change much, whoever wins.

Cheers!

[KarlvB]

I find the the argument made by McCain slightly baffling. Why is it such a bad thing for someone to want a more fair distribution of wealth in a time of economic hardship?

And why are so many people opposed to it?????

It's not like the average American has been getting a fair deal until now.

You need proof?

The US has been experiencing wage stagnation since 2006 despite US economy expanding by 18 percent.

This means that the real income for the median working household (those favoured by Obama's tax plan) dropped by 1.1 percent in real terms, or about USD2,000.

In contrast the top tenth of the society (or those affected by the Obama tax cuts - the >USD250k crowd) saw an improvement of 32 percent in their incomes. The top one percent did even better with a rise of 203 percent and the top 0.1 percent really creamed it with a gain of 425 percent.

This was due to a number of factors

- Less jobs being created
- Lower number of people in work

and crucially

- Economic growth benefiting the wealthy

So the way I see it is that anyone arguing against a redistribution of wealth is happy with the status quo

Just my two cents.......


Ps: You can get more data at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_..._United_States

http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/answer-WSJreynolds.pdf

http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/piketty-saezAEAPP06.pdf

http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-...s-2006prel.pdf

[Zero]

I suppose the intellectual argument against wealth redistribution is rooted in the tenets of free-market economics. I'll be first in line to say that McCain is a nutcase, but on wealth redistribution I, at least in principle, agree that it's a bad idea.

The problem is that socialist measures like wealth redistribution schemes completely ignore several uncomfortable economic realities. The problem with declining wages in the US has nothing to do with rich people screwing over poor people - at least not directly. It's not as though everyone continued in their job from the year before but suddenly made less money. The reason that wages are dropping in the US is that employment in the US is shifting to lower-skill, lower-value work. People are losing "good" jobs - high-paying jobs - and are ending up working in places like WalMart or as mobile phone contract hockers, etc.

So the rich in America continue to get rich because their business is generally big-ticket stuff and because, increasingly, a lot of their money is made overseas. Big infrastructure consultants and contractors, the military-industrial complex, bankers, and other global/corporate type entities are doing more and more business on overseas contracts, and even smaller consumer-level companies are moving their manufacturing to cheaper shores.

The bottom line is that middle-class America is simply not producing what it used to, now being generally employed in lower-skill, lower productivity jobs. To suggest that the way to fix this is for successful and large businesses to subsidise the living of the nation is a bit silly because it doesn't fix the underlying problem of underproduction. All it does is make the cost of doing business in America proportionately higher to pay for the wages that the populace "feels they deserve" for the work they are doing. This may succeed in making the rich poorer, and may even drive them away from America, but it certainly can't make the poor richer. At least not in any meaningful and lasting way.

Essentially, unskilled labour, which was a LOT of what the US was built on, has been cheapened by competition from developing countries. In an ideal world, where market access was universal and where living conditions were relatively uniform, a Chinese worker and an American worker would be paid essentially the same thing for doing the same job because they would be competing with the same skills. Their physical requirements for living - a house/space, food, education for kids, car, etc, would all be similar, and so they would command similar salaries. With the global market opening to labour competition, though, this is far from the case. This is because a Chinese man is content to live with a lot less than an American man is willing to live on. So long as there is someone willing to do a shitty job for cheaper than you, then he will get the job. There's no logical or fair reason to say that an American man who has a low skill level should have his income supplemented by local enterprise to some arbitrary level. What of the Chinese man, then? Why does he not deserve more money? Surely if we are happy to buy a product made by a man paid such low wages, we should be equally ok with buying the same product made by an American for equally low wages. Where do we justify paying the American more? How does he deserve more? The Chinese have been working their arses off, en-masse, for years now making products for the US market. That money has to come from somewhere - someone had to pay them. The US, conversely, has been producing less because China has been doing it for them. They've paid the Chinese, but sacked their own workforce doing it. To me it's not a problem to be solved, but simply a matter of cause and effect. The US is making what it deserves to make - less - because they have been producing less. This is economics working correctly.

The economics have to add up. Globalisation is causing growing pains. People who have profited passively behind aggresive empires are now having to face the reality that the developing world is growing up and that they won't just roll over and be slaves any more. This increases the price of goods and labour everywhere it was artificially low (somewhere like China) while reducing the price of labour in places where it was artificially high (like the US). For the sake of a healthy future global economy, it is imperative that this process of correction be allowed to happen. Being fair doesn't mean being nice to everyone, it means paying people for what they do and not paying people for what they don't do. If middle-class america wants more money, then they need to find new ways to make it. They need to start producing again. So long as there are continued government interventions to keep people well-paid when there is a production crisis going on, then the problem will never be solved. Correctly low wages, on the other hand, as determined by market forces, can be a powerful motivator to the establishment of new investment and new industry.

...my two bits

[Zero]

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