Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Top Republicans ready to talk tax compromise with President Obama after reelection
edited 7th Nov '12 8:28:17 PM by DeviantBraeburn
Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016@dp: But his actions have been severely limited due to republicans in congress, which means if he actually had his way, I would be able to get you to assume the opposite. Tell me, if he had been able to get the public option/national healthcare/an actual healthcare system through (which he fully supported, if you remember, but had to make due with republican bullshit and accept a policy that would least save lives by forcing insurance companies to actually accept people with pre-existing conditions) that you wouldn't think differently.
edited 7th Nov '12 8:32:03 PM by Ekuran
Stories like that one (which I linked earlier from a different source) really remind me that if there is one person I'd like to go back in time and turn into a radish, it would be Grover Norquist.
Indeed. The election proves (or should prove) that their obstructionist policy has largely failed to resonate with voters and, more importantly, they will be blamed for the fiscal cliff.
edited 7th Nov '12 8:33:21 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
![]()
![]()
True. But the Tea Party took a beating this election.
edited 7th Nov '12 8:33:36 PM by DeviantBraeburn
Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016@Glenn: I'm going off of his actions, not accomplishments. For example, his entire foreign policy is straight out of the neocon handbook, despite his rhetoric saying otherwise. The healthcare law he made and pushed through was conservative even before he made compromises with it. He has followed a policy of austerity, even in his rhetoric, to a lesser extent. He is in favor of the death penalty. While being in support of gay marriage, he chooses to leave it up to the states, which is basically dooming the majority of gay couples to not being able to get married, a bad idea, and a pretty conservative idea.
@Braeburn: From what I saw (which was The Other Wiki, so not necessarily accurate), Virgil Goode got .003%.
@Ekuran: Not his foreign policy. Plus, Obamacare had it's origins in conservatism as he pulled it right out of a conservative think tank. Plus, his support for austerity appears to only be because of Congress in part since he supported it back when he had control of Congress. Also, when did he support public option healthcare?
@deathpigeon: I don't disagree with your factual assessments; however, I would argue that the state of American politics is such that it would have been impossible for someone farther left than Obama to function as President in 2009-2013.
Maybe in this next cycle Obama will be able to let a bit more of the liberal loose; if nothing else, Latino groups are going to hold his feet to the fire
over immigration reform.
edited 7th Nov '12 8:37:56 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Nevermind, I rechecked The Other Wiki, and oode did indeed get .09%, beating out Barr.
@Braeburn: They are sort of conservatives. Also, States Rights is definitely a much more conservative than liberal outlook.
@Fighteer: ...I sort of agree, and I'm saddened by that.
@Hilarity: ...I question anyone who says that we should use a different political compass for different countries. We should judge everyone by the same metric. If we don't, it prevents any comparison between people of different nations in this regard, and causes confusion when talking to people of different nations. Also, it honestly makes no sense to me.
@Ace: Austerity is the policy of reducing the deficit and the debt by cutting spending. If anything, higher taxes would be seen as good, when seen through the lens of austerity. He has been attempting to cut spending, and, when pressed, given the reduction of deficit/debt as the reasoning.
Obama does not support austerity. He's been forced to negotiate away positions that resulted in de facto austerity, such as cuts in aid to states that resulted in public layoffs. But his jobs package this year (which died in Congress) would have restored a big chunk of that funding. He is no austerity-hawk, that much I am certain.
The problem is that his economic advisers were picked with an eye to appeasing Wall Street concerns that he'd be a hardcore economic liberal, and as such he ignored or discarded as unworkable true Keynesian principles like massive stimulus and ignoring the debt in a recession.
There's no gain to Obama or to liberal politics by proposing a bunch of economic solutions that are inevitably going to fail in Congress and that the media (both right wing and center) will use to paint him as a crazy liberal debt-raiser.
In an ideal world, I'd be screaming "Paul Krugman for President"... or at least Secretary of the Treasury or Fed Chairman or something nerdier than the Oval Office. Hopefully he'll at least be invited to the table in 2013, now that Obama has officially been dumped by Wall Street.
edited 7th Nov '12 8:50:01 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Everything is contextual, death. If you obscure this, you don't learn why certain things operate in certain places. Not to mention, if you don't use context it makes it harder for people to understand you.
But yeah, going with Fighteer on this one. Obama is not a strong supporter of austerity, and it seems ridiculous to claim that he is.

It seems that we have multiple methods of determining a politician's political positions. deathpigeon is using the method of "this is what the politician accomplished", while others here are using the method of "this is what I can infer are the politician's intentions from 'eir rhetoric", or something like that.