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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
So basically Romney is supported by people who have a raging-patriotic-boner who wants to go to war against everyone to prove America is number one. Correct?
Also, they want to spread their (obviously) superior democracy to everyone unfortunate enough to not be in glorious America.
I am getting this right?
I'm probably "11 out of 10"ing it a bit, but that's what it boils down to. Romney is backed by a lot of the people who were involved with George Dubya's foreign policy. They basically don't want "U.S.S.R. 2: Electric Bugaloo" to happen. And they think smashing Authoritarian regimes and setting up democratic elections are a really cool and neat idea.
The inherent idea, like most inherent ideas, isn't exactly terrible and makes some form of sense. The main problem is uh. The Middle East has centuries and centuries of issues, a lot of the more recent ones within the last century being the result of western interference in the region.
It also failed to grasp Saddam was basically keeping the various religious-insurgent whack jobs out of the way in Iraq (Man was still a bastard), and that the guys we replaced the Taliban with were equally if not worse than the Taliban. At least the Taliban were after some form of social stability, even if it was extremely religiously intolerant and heavily misogynistic.
edited 23rd Oct '12 7:25:57 AM by PotatoesRock
Also, they want to spread their (obviously) superior democracy to everyone unfortunate enough to not be in glorious America.
That is one of his sources of electoral support, yes. Not the only one, mind you.
The idea of spreading democracy is not that we have a superior democracy, but rather, it is a combination of two desires:
- a moralistic desire to bring good things to others, based on the assumption that democracy is better than (what's assumed to be) tyranny.
- a national-interest desire to make countries more like the United States in their political systems, based on the assumption that democracies are more friendly to the United States.
Go ahead and challenge those as you wish.
To the people we are talking about, America is both the epitome of what it is to be a nation and the only nation worth being concerned about. The more like us you are, the better we like you. Except Israel, which is sort of like our little adopted brother that we have to protect from the bullies, even if he looks different and talks funny.
edited 23rd Oct '12 8:15:34 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Also, this is one of the two big, big disagreements between the libertarian wing and the conservative wing of the Republican Party.
These two points are:
- foreign policy: conservatives want a strong military presence and strong force projection, while libertarians want a return to minding one's own business (if you agree) or isolationist weakness (if you disagree). A big disagreement on Israel is contained within this point.
- civil liberties: conservatives, generally fueled here more by Christian conservatives, are strongly against things like gay marriage, abortions, etc., while libertarians are wholeheartedly for it.
Obama seems to be more left on economy, center on social issues, and more right on foreign policy.
This is evident from yesterday's debate. The foreign policy differences for Obama and Romney weren't that big. But their interpretation of the situation were divergent - Obama upheld the achievements while Romney pointed out the shortcomings or mistakes. And both pointed out that for US to be a role model, it needs to fix things at home, such as the economy. And once they get into economy, they can't reconcile anymore.
Socially he is definitely an opposite,but economically he's a lighter shade of grey. But in this country it's nigh-impossible to be a fiscal leftist.
We haven't had that kind since before Carter was president,because Carter caved,Reagan started this fiscal-Con voodoo and beat out the last New Deal guy in 1984.
Obama is a centrist. That is, he intentionally attempts to straddle the line between liberal and conservative politics and build a consensus. To most Europeans, this makes him look conservative, because the center in Europe is much farther to the left than in the United States.
On foreign policy, he has had numerous military successes and has been much better at building trust (rather than fear) of America than George W. Bush was. One thing that many analysts noted in the debate last night was that Romney and Obama mainly agree on the broad points. This marks Obama as fairly conservative from a global perspective. He most certainly does believe in a strong U.S. military and the ability to intervene in foreign conflicts where needed, which is starkly opposed to many in the Democratic party as well as most Libertarians. Indeed, one of Romney's biggest weaknesses on the foreign policy front is that Obama is being a better Republican than the Republicans.
Economically, Obama is also center-right. As others have noted, it's almost impossible to get nominated for President in the U.S. with a strongly liberal economic policy, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican. This is because the big money interests that fuel both parties are starkly opposed to liberal economics. Obama has come out in favor of reducing the income inequality in the U.S., which is a broadly liberal move, but his policies have been unable to gain traction with his own party (who want him to go much farther in most cases) or with the Republican party, which has been stonewalling them in Congress.
Socially, Obama is slightly left of center. He finally came out in favor of full rights for gays; the first U.S. President to openly do so. He's in favor of women's reproductive rights and has passed comprehensive healthcare reform — that started as a Republican idea and is still far away from the single payer system that most other First World nations use. However, he's said and done nothing about gun control laws and has not moved U.S. drug policy one iota.
edited 23rd Oct '12 8:42:29 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Yes, the biggest promoter of the War on Drugs is the private prison industry, which earns profits by incarcerating as many people as possible for as long as possible. Until we can kill that, we're basically fucked.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Obama is pro Banking/Wall Street regulation. Basically he's not against Capitalism, but wants laws in place that prevent predatory businesses from causing 2008's financial meltdown. This is opposed because the general Republican standard is Laissez-faire economics (Invisible hand of the Market). Regulation is generally seen as a very leftist view in America.
Obama's also pro-Taxing the rich since America has REALLY low final tax rates on our millionaires and billionaires, who generally object that they can't control how their taxed income is used unlike how their money donated to charity is used (or some of the more sleazy sorts, they're upset they don't get to keep their money 100%).
He's also pro-Stimulus and Infrastructure maintenance (we have really bad roads and most of our internet infrastructure REALLY needs a huge overhaul). The GOP is generally against this on the grounds that we have a huge deficit from the last administration, where George W. Bush basically cut taxes, instead of raising them, when he decided to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, leaving Obama with a huge deficit. And the right's government debt and deficit hawks are basically afraid of a massive collapse on our currency and China raping us with bought debt.
Socially he's basically for LGBT marriage and anti-discrimination (The right's social conservatives doesn't think the LGBT counts as a valid minority for varying reasons, or the really nastier parts of our right-wing religious folks think the LGBT community are godless damned people.).
Immigration reform (There's sort of a Tan Peril in the U.S. that people who cross the border from Latin America, especially Mexico, is an illegal immigrant out to steal jobs, though those jobs most Americans wouldn't dare do.), as our immigration system is really really kind of difficult at the moment and could use a reasonable overhaul.
Women's rights regarding equalized pay and healthcare (Basically in the U.S., we have issues with income inequality between the sexes for varying reasons. Healthcare wise, our right insists abortion is murder of innocent human lives, some are heavily against any sex-ed other than abstinence for religious reasons, and is again contraceptive aids to prevent pregnancy.)
He's pro-Healthcare reform. The US basically has spiraling health care costs and most of our insurers refuse to take people with pre-existing conditions. However the political climate in the US makes Single Payer Healthcare unfeasible, from concerns with the above mentioned debts, to believes it infringes on various freedoms. The result is that the President and a Democratic Congress could only pass a modified 90s Republican Healthcare Plan that essentially requires people buy private insurance, whether by government aid or by their own money.
He's pro Social Programs such as Affirmative Action (that gives minorities greater aid to get into colleges, as the education system has/had a bias towards middle class Caucasians.), Food Stamps (Government funds to allow the poor and needy to buy food), Social Security (Basically government money for the disabled and elderly), and Medicare (Government backed medical aid for the elderly and disabled). He wants to keep most of these programs running. The right either wants to cut funding due to the deficit/debt, or insists they're immoral and/or none of the Government's business.
Foreign Policy? He's sort of weird. I guess the most basic definition is he's pragmatic and realistic about the world. The president's been forced to wind down wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that he inherited from George. As noted previously, he's rather fond of Drones, but pragmatically, that's to lessen deaths for U.S. Servicemen and women, as there's a LOT of negative backlash in the general populace with having thousands of our servicemen and women die in Afghanistan and Iraq and the wars being seen as endless.
He's against Iran getting a nuclear weapon, but would prefer to do it through negotiations and crippling sanctions. He's pro Israel, but generally leery against dragging us into another war 'cuz of the currently pro-war Israel leadership.
He's pro-Syrian war ending, but against reckless arming of people, as that behavior ultimately resulted in groups like Al-Qaeda, who we trained in some previous incarnation.
He's sort of ambulant on Russia. It's clear he'd prefer peaceful terms with the nation and for Russia to PLEASE STOP ARMING ASSAD, but. Well. Russia's a difficult nation.
As far as China goes, he's pretty pro-Chinese relations, but is against any book cooking and currency manipulation by the Chinese government, and would like to punish American corporations that outsource and offshore American jobs to China by giving tax breaks and benefits to companies that keep jobs in the U.S.
I might be wrong here, so someone feel free to beat me up.
I hope we don't have/get those in Canada.
You're not alone - and for the record, I always though Canada was above shit like what's happoening in the US for some time now. Shame; I want to move to Canada someday...
Just one more reason for me to move to Canada and help get the crazies out of there, too...

edited 23rd Oct '12 6:49:15 AM by Euodiachloris