When the Government takes away a right or a civil liberty no matter how justified or how urgent the need they almost never give it back. It doesnt matter if its a Democratic or Republican or Libertarian.
It doesnt matter if its a Democratic or Republican or Libertarian.
We have not had anything close to a libertarian leader for over 100 years, with the arguable exception of Barry Goldwater. I don't see how you could justify that. Besides, supporting increasing government powers is 100% opposed to everything libertarian, making it inexcusable. Such powers are not inherently anti-Democratic (party) or anti-Republican, so they are excusable. Excusable meaning that a leader could justify his power grab without changing his political philosophy.
I don't know about the rest of salon.com, but Glenn Greenwald is a Civil Libertarian (sort of, that's just the best way I can think of describing him), and he hated Bush just as much as he hates Obama now. I very much doubt that the last administration was more repressive, very very few of the policies from the last administration have been changed, and others (such as this one) have been greatly expanded.
As far as I know the secret prisons and torture policies are being changed, there were several articles in the news about that already. As for the patriot act and repressive policies in general I agree with Anlushac: Their removal is always more problematic than their implemantation. From a political point of view it would be stupid for Obama to reverse all those policies as he can profit from them with relatively little PR fallout.
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Originally Posted by Von Mudra
Exactly what I was pointing out. Bush's economic policies in his 2nd term reeked of the Democrats, the bailouts especially. As for rampant military spending, I agree military should def be a major budget, but even that went overboard. However, I think there are many other areas that need to be cut as well....
Either way, what you said there does nothing more then reinforce my argument that Bush was not an actual republican, but simply a RINO.
Anyways, I'm going to bed, don't expect a response to any comments till tomorrow sometime...>__< I always hate it when I go to bed and I wake up to 100 comments and people wondering if I wandered off or am ignoring the debate...and I get the feeling this will be a fun one.
All this makes perfect sense if it weren´t for the fact that the "Bush isn´t really one of us"-argumentation is relatively new. Of course now everyone claims that they never agreed with any of Bush´s policies, but I can´t remember seeing much of such criticism from Republicans while Bush was still president.
As for big government, it isn´t only Bush who likes to spend money on the military. I think all Republicans like to do that. And even though you may consider the military to be more important than other aspects of government (which is questionable in any case) you´re still advocating a BIG government if you vote for someone who wants to give even more money to the biggest military complex on this planet.
Yes, yes they are. Obama not only supports Bush's "state secrets" justifications, but (and this is the change part) has actually one upped Bush. Now, he argues, the government is immune to any and all lawsuits pertaining to illegal surveillance. Now, even if the surveillance is undeniably illegal, no lawsuit can be filed unless the government willfully discloses the information allowing you to file a lawsuit. This is a pretty big expansion of the theories put forth by Bush on the subject.
So what do you guys think of this? Is this the kind of change you can believe in?
I'm not suprised. The change he brings will be rather limited. It's rather easy to keep some laws you "should" oppose in place as they have some small benefits. The various anti terror laws that take away way too much privacy and freedom to slightly increase the cost of catching a terrorist at the cost of violating he privacy ad freedom of millions of people.
I don't expect him to change more then a few laws, keeping a whole bunch of others in place or only toning them down a little bit as a "compromise". That are politicians for you. As others said, once a law is in place it's very hard to take it down. Especially if certain laws are "forgotten" about (not known by the general public). It's mostly about adding new laws.
It also has to do with strategy, removing a whole bunch of laws might make you loose the benefit of the doubt of people who don't really support or trust you or that are on the fence. Removing only a handfull, tweaking some others etc. might keep some the benefit of the doubt of those people for your actions while also somewhat pleasing your own strong supporters that will say "Well he didn't do X but he did do Y so I guess I should be pleased". And this might apply even stronger to a country were you effectively have two parties instead of a large variety of parties to cross the "entire" spectrum from the far left to the far right.
A puppet politician lies about his campaign and bows to the will of his mastersbenefactors constituents? I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING!!
I can't wait until the next fraudulent election. Rinse, repeat, remain clueless.
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Originally Posted by Von Mudra
He's a Chicago style politician, one of the most politically corrupt areas of the country, who rode on a wave of ignorant and uninformed people who didn't so much as listen to his words as listen to the sound of his voice, and duly has had his ego so inflated that he feels that he shits gold bricks.
Heh. Reminds me of the Bush crowd via the 2000 and 2004 elections. It's the same malleable douchebags shouting rhetoric for their corrupt party, but on the opposite side of the spectrum.
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Finally, an important point that most people have forgotten with the term of Bush...Democrats are PRO-big government, and Republicans are ANTI-big government.
You should add a footnote besides "Republicans are ANTI-big government" stating: Not valid after 1980.
As much as you drool over the presidency of Reagan, his War on Drugs was/is incredibly pro-government. Just look how many people have been thrown in jail (and still are in jail) for mere possession. Now, we have the largest prison population in the world. A society frightened and criminalized. And it's not just Reagan either. Clinton even created a friggin drug czar! It's all a gargantuan cocksuck.
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Sorry to go on a bit of a aimless rant, but its hard to get my thoughts on the matter condensed to something readable, and especially at 1AM with a couple White Russians down my gullet :P
White Russian? Why don't you just move to Siberia, commie.
Meh, mostly just a measure to keep about 20 million people from arbitrarily suing the government NOW over a program put in place during the last administration. The government is protecting itself from litigation.
CANNON, n. An instrument employed in the rectification of national boundaries. - Ambrose Bierce
I don't know a single republican, myself included, who is even proud to call ourselves republican after the party went south with this sudden neo-con revolution bs, sparked by Reagan and Bush. Yeah, I voted for Bush, but I did so because I prefered him over Kerry, and no other reason.
Mr.Fancypants, the problem is more or less the "silent majority" syndrome in the USA. The radical minorities ALWAYS have more voice then the majority, in both parties, because the silent majority is just that...silent. Its people like me, who yeah, I'd love to change the republican party, but I'm more worried about getting through college, getting through grad school, and teaching history, then dealing with soul sucking politics.
Also, as for the war on drugs, a true republican (ie, a more or less moderate libertarian) is very much against illegalization :P
Me and a couple friends made a bet that in 6 months to a year of his presidency, he would be a total washout, and the american public would have turned against him. His latest polls numbers show him dropping into the 50th percentile, from his inauguration of 80% or so. And that's not even in his first 100 days. So far, so good.
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Re: Change We Can Believe In...Right? 
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