Tomorrow belongs, tomorrow belongs, tomorrow belongs to ME!

[fpb]

The morality, responsibility and consistency of those who voted for the winner may be gauged by the statement - which I have already encountered three or four times - that they "hope" that those of us who warned them against him were wrong.

Hope.

They have elected a politician to the most powerful post in the West based on what they hope he will prove.

Such appalling insouciance and irresponsibility is certain to be punished. God may delay His punishment for sin - often to the next world - but He never intermits anything to the punishment for stupidity, which is always paid, and paid strictly and with plenty of interest, here on Earth.

Comments

[curia-regis.livejournal.com]

Well, arguably, you have the same situation every time you vote for a politician. You always hope that their detractors were wrong. You can never be positive that a candidate will always go with everything they promised.

And really, I wouldn't have voted for Palin even if I did agree with her policies. It's not because of what the media has said about her. It's more her reaction to interviews and media questioning. She's not good at standing up to intense media questioning. You need a president who can deal with the media and who can deal with intense media scrutiny. I think she needs a lot more experience.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Which Obama showed... yeah, right.

[curia-regis.livejournal.com]

He might not have a huge amount of experience, but he can answer media questions well. *shrug* I think some people make better politicians than others. You kind of need to have the ability to answer the media well and not say embarrassing things that the media can then twist to their own purposes. This is not to say that she's not smart or that she doesn't have good policies. But it's readily apparent that she needs more experience dealing with the media whereas Obama doesn't.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

He can answer media questions well because the media let him look good. All his interviews have been edited - in his favour. But it's too late now to point it out. When even you take what you see on TV for facts, I think that those of us who know better should just shut up and join the crowd of adorers. It's safer.

[stigandnasty919.livejournal.com]

"All his interviews have been edited - in his favour."

Apart, i'm sure you will agree, from his appearance on Bill O'Reilly. The only interview which I saw all the way through, where the opposite was the case.

Likewise the only detailed coverage of Gov Palin which I saw was on Fox News and i'm afraid to say it consisted of little more than propaganda or softball interviewing. I would not have voted for Mrs Palin, she had views I disagreed with on some issues (mainly around financial regulation and the environment - and for my money she did a worse job of actually answering questions than Obama did with O'Reilly.

That being said, Politics these days appear to have little or no content, being more to do with presentation. My impression is that the leading players in both parties avoided, or were prevented from, saying anything very much of substance in the past few weeks for fear they would lose voters.

So not having seen the rest of the American media it is difficult to judge how biased they were, I did see some figures that demonstrated the bias. A monitoring agency, the name of which escapes for the moment, run by a Mr Brent Brazel (again, I'm working from memory here) showed that one network had stories which were negative towards Sarah Palin 75% of the time, as opposed to a figure in the twenties for Obana.

But then the same group also said that the percentage of negative stories for these two players on Fox News was 40% to 40%. I'm afraid that the evidence of my own eyes and ears was that this was simply not true. It shows that the figures, in the case of Fox News at least, were very subjective and it makes me doubt somewhat some of the more extreme reports of media bias.

What pleases me most about the result is nothing to do with Obama or his policies, the fact that a country which, in my lifetime, had segregation of the races in certain states has come so far as to elect a black President is something I would not have thought possible.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That is what everyone is saying. But you would not want a Jew to become Chancellor of Germany if said Jew were an incompetent or worse.

[stigandnasty919.livejournal.com]

No. But as I said that comment is nothing to do with Obama himself or his policies.

[8bitbard.livejournal.com]

I often wonder if the media does more governing that the actual government does.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Well, arguably, you have the same situation every time you vote for a politician. You always hope that their detractors were wrong. You can never be positive that a candidate will always go with everything they promised.

In Obama's case, we can be positive that he won't, since most of his promises have contradicted other promises he made.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Yeah, right. Try and reason with these people. On another LJ, there was one British idiot who even evoked the hideous disappointment of 1997 and Tony Blair, only to conclude that Obama sounds so much better and therefore will not do the same!

[curia-regis.livejournal.com]

Can I have a few examples? I'm not American so I honestly haven't been following the election that closely.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

For instance, Obama intends to cut the defense budget, totally eliminate ballistic missile defense funding, and force Pakistan to let us go into the Northwest Provinces and win the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. I see an obvious problem with this combined policy.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

And what about his accountancy, which ends up with America having 135% of its own population? You know, the promise to cut income tax for 95% of Americans when 40% of potential taxpayers pay no income tax at all already? If you sum up these two numbers, you will find that Obama's America has 135% of its own population - a logically fascinating concept.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Well, Obama did campaign in 57 out of our 50 states ;-)

[goreism.livejournal.com]

Except he didn't promise to cut income tax for 95% of Americans; he promised to "[c]ut taxes for 95 percent of workers" (emphasis added). All workers pay payroll taxes; giving them a refundable tax credit lowers their net tax burden. (See the explanation from the AEI, hardly a fan of Obama).

The real question here is to whether the tax code should be that progressive. You might think so; I don't. But this is just getting stuff wrong.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Except he didn't promise to cut income tax for 95% of Americans; he promised to "[c]ut taxes for 95 percent of workers" (emphasis added). All workers pay payroll taxes; giving them a refundable tax credit lowers their net tax burden. (See the explanation from the AEI, hardly a fan of Obama).

Unless we define "workers" in some very strange way (such as the Marxist one), the vast majority of Americans are "workers," so the math still doesn't work.

[goreism.livejournal.com]

Where did Obama say he intends to cut the defense budget? You might be thinking of this video, but if you listen carefully, all he says he wants to cut is missile defense (and slow the development of future combat systems). More to the point, Obama's defense adviser says defense spending's not going to decline in the first years of an Obama administration. Obama has certainly made hostile noises over the defense budgeting process, but as the article indicates, so has McCain. (In this video, he says he's "cutting billions and billions out of defense spending which are not earmarks.") Given that defense is a labor-intensive industry that's historically done well under the Democrats, I just don't see it.

On the other hand, take McCain, who announces a spending freeze with exceptions for defense, veterans care, and entitlements. Then his campaign says says he's not going to cut science. Then worker retraining. Finally, NASA.

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Cutting missile defense would be elminating the one class of recently-developed system we would most need in a showdown versus a small nuclear power. In fact, it would make outright atomic war far more likely in such a situation, since it would put us in a situation where we had to choose between launching a pre-emptive strike and accepting damage from nuclear weapons.

Obama has stated that he wants to force Pakistan to stop sheltering Al Qaeda and the Taliban. But if that's what he intends to do, we're very likely to be in a showdown with a small nuclear power in the very near future. Thus, his proposed policy makes no strategic sense.

In fact, the only kind of sense it makes is if one assumes that ballistic missile defense is a bad idea because the Republicans proposed it, and that hence getting rid of it would be delivering a "gotcha" to the Republicans. This is an irresponsible mode of determining defense priorities, to say the least!

[goreism.livejournal.com]

Fine, you think cutting missile defense is unwise and/or dangerous (though note that Obama supports a missile defense system against Iran; he doesn't want to eliminate missile defense spending). But if that's your basis for accusing Obama of making contradictory promises, it seems like an awfully thin reed. By those lights, every candidate would be inconsistent in the eyes of their opponents, since they all promise a strengthened economy, a safer America, and ponies for all, and their opponents don't think their policies will actually achieve that.

Now, this is making contradictory promises.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Excuse me, what on Earth is the point of repeating anti-McCain talking points at this time of day? What we have to be concerned now is what the coming administration will do in terms of international conflict. And Obama has said nothing that reassures me as to his competence and understanding of the issues.

[curia-regis.livejournal.com]

And wouldn't another way of putting that be, some of his promises contradicted the majority of his promises? I'm not arguing politics here, merely semantics. If most of his promises were different to a lesser proportion of them, then one could argue that he meant the majority of what he said, not the lesser proportion.

If that makes any sense. I'm rather tired. :)

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

What frosts me was the free ride he got from his liberals. Not that I'm a fan of marriage, but he said he supported defining marriage as a hetrosexual pairing. Then he was against making that a legal definition. So he won California, but his 'supporters' still voted against gay marriage. A scary demonstration of liberal leadership.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

One person who noticed. Of course you are particularly sensitive to this issue, but how many other women in America are and did not? I know we are on opposite sides of this fence, but I could just *hug* you right now, not because you agree with me - you don't - but because you understand that I have some reason to fear.

[rfachir.livejournal.com]

*Hugs accepted with gratitude* I'd rather disagree with you than agree with a dozen charming cowards who massage words and actions right out of their true meaning.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

*grins* Even if said cowards had attractive smiles, fascinating African backgrounds and an open path to the highest office in the land? Actually, I should have expected that of you.