Obama wins
- Thread starter Bigdennis52
- Start date
And while I think that is admirable and virtuous of you, you did not elect the man on the power of your single vote.
Do you really believe the same can be said of the majority of voters who cast their ballots as you did? Or for that matter the majority of voters who cast their ballots for the opposing party?
I\'d never say they aren\'t smart enough to vote on their own or even vote on the basis of issues. Whether they are smart enough and whether they actually do are two separate issues.
Indeed he is. And I\'ll respect him and recognize his position as my president.
Dragon Forge Design
New member
Apparently the Stock Market don\'t like Obama either.. down 10% and almost 1000 points in 2 days since his election. Largest post election drop in History!
Hold on to you butts.. it\'s going to get crazy around here!
Hold on to you butts.. it\'s going to get crazy around here!
Yeah, the election played a role in that but largely it had more to do with fear over the jobs report tomorrow. If that report is better than expected tomorrow is going to be fantastic!
And believe me, as someone who works in the market for a living, here\'s hoping tomorrow is fantastic. :yes:
Edit: btw, I keep meaning to place an order with you for some plinths, but I just haven\'t got around to it. Keep an eye out...I\'ll get my act together soon. :beer:
Dragon Forge Design
New member
Yeah I need a fantastic market to..My IRA is now a IR.. Ive lost the A completely.
If your wanting wood plinths the sooner the better as I will be making a batch the end of the week for a couple orders.. they get done faster in batches .
Bigdennis52
New member
lol my thread is still going strong
Well I have been hearing a lot of grumblings around my area about the new president elect... then today\'s news paper shows the statistics of how people in my area voted... LOL Obama won by a HUGE margine... so these idiots grumbling must have been the ONLY mccain supporters in town. I think Obama won our area by 84% lol
Well I have been hearing a lot of grumblings around my area about the new president elect... then today\'s news paper shows the statistics of how people in my area voted... LOL Obama won by a HUGE margine... so these idiots grumbling must have been the ONLY mccain supporters in town. I think Obama won our area by 84% lol
I completely agree - it is walking a tightrope, but using the risk of abuse as an argument of not using it (I know that´s not what youre doing) would be the same as saying that we should have no police because they don´t solve every crime, or saying that we should have no roads because some times people have accidents on them.
If the problem is that the people fon´t know how or when to use the service they should be educated of it.
A note: my wife is a doctor, so I know how stupid people can be from time to time! But the fact the a percentage of the general population are morons shouldn´t mean that the rest should be deprived of free healthcare.
Well I didn´t really mention unempleoyment and that entire can of worms, but now that you brought it up I will say that there are many many studies that show that most people who are unemplyed actually would be willing to work if there were any work. No country in any point in history has had a period where unemployment was zero.
I don´t believe that cutting peoples unemplyment would in any mentionable way motivate that small percentage (that truly doesn´t want to work) to actually go out and get a job - they would just get by for less. Instead you would hit the big group of people who for some reason or another can´t get a job even though they want to. Cutting down on unemployment doesn´t magically create more jobs - it just makes it harder for unemplyed people to get by.
Also I don´t know what the minimum wage in the UK, but judging from people I know who have travelled there for work after school it´s kinda shite - maybe that´s the reason some people don´t want to work?
Now I never said that everybody should have a free university degree - first of all not everybody has the shoalstic aptitudes or general interest. Also a society as a whole wouldn´t be able to function without more \"menial\" workers (no offence intended). So ideally a fixed percentage in every year should get a degree in order to maximize the money spent on education, and the people who have the opportunity to get education should be those with the best abilities in the given field - not those whose parents have the biggest pockets, those who know how to slam dunk or the black kid in a \"white\" state. _basically I agree with you that competing about the places in college is good, but having to pay for them as well rigges the competion against those of lesser financial means.
The \"free health\" - I agree with you (as mentioned above) that it is potentially easy to abuse, but at the same time that I don´t think thats a valid reason to disregard the idea. At the same time I for one wouldn´t be satisfied with a health system where the \"bases are covered\" and I was only guaranteed medical attention in emergency rooms or if I need a vaccination. Those things don´t help me if I need a heart transplant or a similar operation - or if I need long term observation because of complications .
I admit that I´m not really an authority on your HMO, but afaik stuff like this isn´t covered?
- It seems I´ve strayed a bit from the point (if there was any in this thread), but basically I´m happy for the american people because they´ve elected a president who at least has shown to care about these issues.
For me self as a citizen of Denmark I´m glad that Obama has been elected because the american people now seem to have elected a candidate that focuses more on hope than on fear. For as long as I can remember and even before that the dominant feeling coming from America has been fear. Fear of the commies, of the blacks, of the criminals, of the terrorists, of the muslims, of the terrorist, of the middle east, of the Al Qaeda, of weapons of mass destruction, of cuba, of China, of illegal immigrants and the list goes on and on and on. Even though you maybe do not realize this it is HIGHLY noticeable in the world around you, and your fears have lead to a HIGHLy polarized world - the last example would be your war on terror where \"either you are with us or you are against us\".
Now for the first time - since maybe JFK? - you will have a president that is known for hope instead of fear, and who is not afraid of looking to the future and looking at possibilities instead of looking for dark and dangerous clouds.
If for nothing else that would have gotten my vote if I lived in America.
generulpoleaxe
New member
it\'s not the amount that unemployed get mate (and there are plenty of jobs mate, i personaly know a lot of people who expect to get a large wage for doing sweet FA and instead claim their are no jobs suitable for them) it\'s the amount of tax that working people have to pay, it means a lot of lower paid people are actualy better off on benefits!
I´m gonna have to disagree with you that one. In Denmark we have a taxpercantage ranging from 41% up to 76%, and one of the highest paying unemplyment services in the world. The problem is that the people with the \"lowest\" work isn´t getting payed enough for their efforts.
You´re arguing that people should be punished for being unempleyed, I´m arguing that people should be rewarded for working. Allthough it doesn´t seem like it, there is a BIG difference...
PegaZus
Stealth Freak
The only problem with that is the government is then setting what a university gets paid. And if the politicians have some complaint with the university (let\'s say they publish something that goes against the politician\'s political beliefs), they could get punished by having their rates cut. And as an aside, the US government has a huge student loan program. I came out of college with about $25k in personal debt, about the cost of two new cars at the time. I could have easily doubled that, but I had other assistance (a job and parents who chipped in). The only people I\'ve ever heard of being denied a student loan were ones who\'s parents were very able to pay.
Actually, my insurance does cover cancer, heart surgery, and observation. Every time I want to see a doctor, it is $20. That doubled a couple of years ago because too many people were going in for silly things. They said that they were doing it to get the costs down, and indeed, my weekly payment dropped by about 20% the next year. I believe it doesn\'t cover experimental treatments, and if I go to the emergency room and don\'t get admitted, the co-pay sky rockets.
Or, at least he says he\'s concerned. We\'ll see.
And there\'s the problem. I suppose I\'m just too informed on what the people whom we\'re supposed to fear are actually doing and saying. Ever read Osama bin Laden\'s letter to the West, on when they\'ll stop attacking? I have. Read it here. Basically, let them throw Israel into the sea, stop attacking them (Barbary pirates anyone?), become Muslim, ban alcohol, gambling and other immoralities. As of Nov 2007, there were 19 terrorist attacks stopped in the US. The World Trade Center had been attacked by terrorists before 9/11. A President Obama doesn\'t mean that they\'ll stop trying to attack. Some of us don\'t see that as \"fear mongering\", but just reality and the world we live in. And it is frustrating to no end when people say that if we just talked to them the problems would go away.
generulpoleaxe
New member
if you read what i said then you should understand that i said working people should pay less income tax.
how is that punishing the unemployed, it would benefit people who work.
Dragonsreach
Super Moderator
I can state that most working people in the UK will seriously disagree with what you are saying. We don\'t want to penalise people who are unemployed, we just disagreee with the over support of people who live completely off benefits provided by taxpayers.
When you have a situation where teenagers can leave school get Knocked up (Annually) get clothed, fed and housed for the rest of their lives solely on benefit you can understand when people like generulpoleaxe who make the effort to work, become self employed and struggle to make ends meet become disgusted.
Dragon Forge Design
New member
To change the subject, I love how its 3 days post election and every special interest group already has their hands out looking for their reward for getting Obama elected..wanting..no demanding everything form cabinet positions to programs wanting funding..
I wonder who will be the first to be disappointed and lash out.
I wonder who will be the first to be disappointed and lash out.
My apologies - I misread your post and jumped the gun.
However the problem you´re raising (if I´m reading correctly) isn´t whether or not people should be able to get benefits, but more whether or not the tax-system is working correctly. I could make a \"socialist argument\" and say that the logical solution on a problem like that would be to lower the taxes on the minimumwagers thus giving them a netincome raise and keeping them above people on welfare, and then let the people who earn the most finance that taxreduction by adding to their taxes instead.
I get no less disgusted when faced with people like that. Hell in Denamrk we have a TV-show called \"young Mothers\" who is all about teenage moms who clearly have problems rubbing to braincells together, and every time I´m appaled at what I see, and have an urge to shout at them to get of their fat asses - that´s a perfectly human response. They are in fact draining some of the money I pay in taxes, and I would really like to see those money put to better use.
BUT if I want to help all of those people who have genuine problems by no fault of their own I have to accept that no system is perfect and help pay for the rest as well - so I accept it.
9/11 was a horribel horrible crime perpetrated on the american people by religious fanatics, but the american reaction that followed is a prime example of the \"fear-mongering\" for want of a better word. After the assault America had the sympathy of the entire world - there wasn´t a single country who could support what had happened, and you had a historic opportunity to make some changes that would have been felt for decades to come. Instead you Commander In Chief decides to go to war against Afghanistan thereby antonizing the entire region and at the same time antagonizing your \"allies\" by saying that either we are with you or against you - either we invade a foreign country in violation of international law, or we get lumped in the same catagory as the terrorists. then you compound that mistake by invading Iraq this time because of bad intel about weapons of mass destruction - which were never there - thereby dousing that entire region in gasoline and setting it on fire.
As I see it every major decision on this subjct since 9/11 has been fear-motivated - we get hit, we hit back with a bigger stick and hope that stops them from ever hitting back again.
I agree with you that there can never be made peace with people like Osama, but there could have been made peace (or something like it) with a lot of the countrys which are shouting for american blood these years. Fear made that impossible, and my hope is that Obama if nothing else shows the rest of the world that America is about hope now and not fear.
Theomar Pius
New member
While I\'ll agree that the war in Iraq was mis-handled, everybody forgets the truth of the start of that war. The UN was not enforcing it\'s own sanctions and resolutions in that country. President Bush had to go a beg before the UN to get them to do something about the inspections, and they refused. At that point, international law didn\'t really matter, and the UN was no longer a viable organization, because they refused to act. At that point, I can\'t blame Bush one bit for going to war there. The fact that the war was handled poorly doesn\'t mean it wasn\'t justified, at the time.
International law does not allow one country to start a war over noncompliance over weapon inspections.
That means that the war was unjustified and that Iraq was in fact allowed through international law to defend itself by force from the outside aggresso (america - and Denmark as well I´m sad to admit). WE were the ones who unjustified started an unlawful war - NOT Iraq.
Oh Please, this is a matter of interpretation and omissions, by you, mostly. UN didn\'t have to act. The inspectors were there and they didn\'t find anything, mostly because it it very difficult to find a black cat in a dark room, especially when this black cat is not even there.
Now, we went it and... we didn\'t find anything because there was nothing to find.
Yes I am well aware of Fox news 500 chemical ordinance that were found. If you read the declassified summary of a summary, they found ordinance with traces of degraded sarin... considering that sarin even in a airtight container degrades and stop being sarin in a matter of a month you have to have active production base to replace these warheads pretty much every other months. Such a production base was never found (simply because it didn\'t exist after the first gulf war)
I am sorry but how this war was justified? As for Enforcing its own resolution I woulds like YOU to show me a UN resolution that authorized military invasion. \"Consequences\" are not equal to \"invasion\".
ScottRadom
Shogun of Saskatchewan
You guys know the Iraqi Government was using people for rocket target practice, right?
I\'m not saying I have any answers but military intervention into Iraq was neccessary to stop loss of life on an even greater scale then the ensuing invasion of coaltion forces caused. I worked with an Iraqi who was fortunate enough to have emigrated here very shortly before the original occupation and her stories truly are horrific.
As to exit startegies etc. I am at a loss but I personally fully support my government and the US\'s involvement in the military invasion and occupation in Iraq.
Just sayin\' is all.
edit-Again as a credit to the posters here on the forums this is a heated debate with lots of passion about strong feelings that are still handled with more respect then I am used to when talking about \"game\" related issues on other boards. Well done ALL!
I\'m not saying I have any answers but military intervention into Iraq was neccessary to stop loss of life on an even greater scale then the ensuing invasion of coaltion forces caused. I worked with an Iraqi who was fortunate enough to have emigrated here very shortly before the original occupation and her stories truly are horrific.
As to exit startegies etc. I am at a loss but I personally fully support my government and the US\'s involvement in the military invasion and occupation in Iraq.
Just sayin\' is all.
edit-Again as a credit to the posters here on the forums this is a heated debate with lots of passion about strong feelings that are still handled with more respect then I am used to when talking about \"game\" related issues on other boards. Well done ALL!
