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Romney vs. Obama

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who will/would you vote for?

  • Barack Obama

    Votes: 158 76.0%

  • Mitt Romney

    Votes: 50 24.0%
  • Total voters
    208
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I think that bradx's point is that Obama's "high spending rate" displayed by his previous term was the result of him fixing the mistakes made by the previous administration.

I personally think it's a tad excessive and recession is not the perfect time to work with social reform and that he should focus on how to improve the financial situation of the country rather than on projects like Obamacare which by proxy are all about giving the nation a service which has zero chances of a "financial return". I'd know - Poland has free healthcare and guess what? It's a bottomless pit, mainly because no matter how much you spend on healthcare, people will always be sick. Even if every single citizen is insured, the treasury still has to chip in and in the grand scheme of things, it merely improves the morale, not the situation.

Now, don't get me wrong - free healthcare is *great*, every citizen should be taken care of by the country, the citizen's well-being is one of the administration's duties, it's simply not the best time to introduce such a system. Social reform should be introduced in times of prosperity, not crisis.
 
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Foxi4 said:
I think that bradx's point is that Obama's "high spending rate" displayed by his previous term was the result of him fixing the mistakes made by the previous administration.

I personally think it's a tad excessive and recession is not the perfect time to work with social reform and that he should focus on how to improve the financial situation of the country rather than on projects like Obamacare which by proxy are all about giving the nation a service which has zero chances of a "financial return". I'd know - Poland has free healthcare and guess what? It's a bottomless pot, mainly because no matter how much you spend on healthcare, people will always be sick. Even if every single citizen in insured, the treasury still has to chip in and in the grand scheme of things, it merely improves the morale, not the situation.

Now, don't get me wrong - free healthcare is *great*, every citizen should be taken care of by the country, the citizen's well-being is one of the administration's duties, it's simply not the best time to introduce such a system. Social reform should be introduced in times of prosperity, not crisis.
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My sentiments exactly. The timing for Obamacare is atrocious to say the least.
 
Peps said:
Like I mentioned already, laws are determined by the morality of the citizens in that country/state. Laws are merely there to enforce what people feel so strongly about. Some morals never make it into law, because citizens never feel like it's not necessary to have authorities enforce it. Determining right/wrong will always be a matter of opinion, and not fact. Sure, the majority of stuff we can easily determine, but ultimately it's down to what the citizens feel like. Ireland feels like abortion is disgusting and threatens the right of the child. Other people feel like anti-abortion laws hurt the rights of the mother. Both sides are perfectly logical, so how do we decide what should be the "right" answer? We can't, thus we let the majority of people decide based on their morals to determine what should be the law.

The issues of 150 years ago, are the issues of 150 years ago, and have little to no relevance to modern issues or modern morals. Just because some people made a stupid mistake 150 years ago, or were slow to modernise, doesn't mean you should continue punishing innocent states who are better than that. It's disgusting. It's guilty until proven innocent, and it's highly logical to let the states experiment with their laws and policies so that they can come up with a real solution to the country's problems. You want to promote innovation, and restricting the states abilities to do what they please is not a good idea at all. Give them room, let innovation flourish, and what the federal government should do after that, is promote those good innovation to other states.

How do you determine what a bad decision is these days? In your opinion, it's a bad decision, to the citizens of that country, it's probably a great decision, and if the majority of them are happy with it, then so be it. You're implying that you hate democracy, and you'd rather have a dictatorship. You'd rather a higher up authority determine what's right and wrong, as opposed to letting democracy decide what it wants. Sometimes I want the same thing, sometimes I think it's better to have a single highly logical person to take control over things, rather than letting ill-informed voters voting for the guy who's able to advertise the most. But obviously I respect the right of a citizen to have their voice heard.
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Yes, issues of the past are issues of the past, and that's what I was asking you: did the federal government do the wrong thing intervening the slavery issue in the past? Yes, or no?

I'll show you how your reasoning is flawed and address every single one of your points, once I have your own answer to that question, but I need a straight answer from you first.
 
ByUIq.jpg
 
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Densetsu said:
Oh, those silly Chinese and their condom ads :P
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And after that, I think I understand the picture...
ShadowSoldier said:
I think I speak for everyone when I say, the best part of Obama winning is tomorrow's episode of South Park.
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Haven't watch it for a while, but this episode was pretty entertaining.
 
leic7 said:
Yes, issues of the past are issues of the past, and that's what I was asking you: did the federal government do the wrong thing intervening the slavery issue in the past? Yes, or no?

I'll show you how your reasoning is flawed and address every single one of your points, once I have your own answer to that question, but I need a straight answer from you first.
Click to expand...

That question is not answerable, because our moral values are different from the moral values of the people back then. In my moral view, obviously slavery is wrong, and if I was a citizen of that state, I would have voted against slavery. However, I still believe it's immoral for the federal government to force states to follow its own morals. 100 years from now, perhaps citizens will be calling you idiots for wanting the federal government to have full control over your laws. Do I believe it's moral for a human being to kill another human being for survival a few thousand years ago? Do I believe it's moral for a human to kill wild dogs for food? If I was a citizen back then, perhaps I could give you a more suitable answer. Regardless however, I still believe that state would have modernised and removed the slavery laws itself, just like the rest of the world has.

Like I said earlier, it would be immoral for the EU to force Ireland to change its abortion laws. You keep using the slavery example, when it's a highly outdated dark age concept. Use a modern debatable concept such as abortion if you want to prove your point. Why should the EU force Ireland to change its abortion laws to meet the abortion laws of the rest of the EU member states? Why should the EU force Ireland to change its corporation tax when keeping our corporation tax at a very competitive rate has helped our economy grow strongly? We keep getting pressured by the EU to change it, but we believe it's better for our economy to keep the rate we have, so we're refusing to budge on it.

So let's rephrase your question and pose a hypothetical here: "did the federal government do the wrong thing intervening the abortion issue in the past?"

I would answer yes, that's immoral. Let's pose more hypothetical questions here:

"Did the federal government do the wrong thing allowing slavery?"
"Did the federal government do the wrong thing by banning gay marriage?"
"Did the federal government do the wrong thing by banning medical use of drugs?"
"Did the federal government do the wrong thing by banning drug usage in the privacy of homes?"
"Did the federal government do the wrong thing by implementing SOPA?"
"Did the federal government do the wrong thing by killing innocent civilians in Iraq?"
"Did the federal government do the wrong thing allowing the killing of innocent US civilians via the NDAA?"
"Did the federal government do the wrong thing by banning cigarettes?"
"Did the federal government do the wrong thing by banning alcohol?"

You're only looking at the bright side of the federal government, while completely ignoring the downsides. While the states share similar downsides, the fact of the matter is, their power is on a far smaller scale, and that makes it easier for the citizens to get what they want from their states, and to promote changes. If the citizens are not trustworthy to vote for suitable representatives for their local state government, then citizens are not trustworthy to vote for suitable representatives on a federal level. However, at least by providing more opportunities, you're promoting innovation, which is a great thing.
 
I voted for Romney, but I am happy Obama won. I wasn't completely happy with both of the choices.
 
Peps said:
That question is not answerable, because our moral values are different from the moral values of the people back then. In my moral view, obviously slavery is wrong, and if I was a citizen of that state, I would have voted against slavery. However, I still believe it's immoral for the federal government to force states to follow its own morals. 100 years from now, perhaps citizens will be calling you idiots for wanting the federal government to have full control over your laws. Do I believe it's moral for a human being to kill another human being for survival a few thousand years ago? Do I believe it's moral for a human to kill wild dogs for food? If I was a citizen back then, perhaps I could give you a more suitable answer. Regardless however, I still believe that state would have modernised and removed the slavery laws itself, just like the rest of the world has.

Like I said earlier, it would be immoral for the EU to force Ireland to change its abortion laws. You keep using the slavery example, when it's a highly outdated dark age concept. Use a modern debatable concept such as abortion if you want to prove your point. Why should the EU force Ireland to change its abortion laws to meet the abortion laws of the rest of the EU member states? Why should the EU force Ireland to change its corporation tax when keeping our corporation tax at a very competitive rate has helped our economy grow strongly? We keep getting pressured by the EU to change it, but we believe it's better for our economy to keep the rate we have, so we're refusing to budge on it.

So let's rephrase your question and pose a hypothetical here: "did the federal government do the wrong thing intervening the abortion issue in the past?"

I would answer yes, that's immoral. Let's pose more hypothetical questions here:

"Did the federal government do the wrong thing allowing slavery?"
"Did the federal government do the wrong thing by banning gay marriage?"
"Did the federal government do the wrong thing by banning medical use of drugs?"
"Did the federal government do the wrong thing by banning drug usage in the privacy of homes?"
"Did the federal government do the wrong thing by implementing SOPA?"
"Did the federal government do the wrong thing by killing innocent civilians in Iraq?"
"Did the federal government do the wrong thing allowing the killing of innocent US civilians via the NDAA?"
"Did the federal government do the wrong thing by banning cigarettes?"
"Did the federal government do the wrong thing by banning alcohol?"

You're only looking at the bright side of the federal government, while completely ignoring the downsides. While the states share similar downsides, the fact of the matter is, their power is on a far smaller scale, and that makes it easier for the citizens to get what they want from their states, and to promote changes. If the citizens are not trustworthy to vote for suitable representatives for their local state government, then citizens are not trustworthy to vote for suitable representatives on a federal level. However, at least by providing more opportunities, you're promoting innovation, which is a great thing.
Click to expand...
Since the question I posed is "not answerable" because moral views of today are different from those of the past, let me re-frame my question under the context of the moral views of today:

IF a state in present-day America has a law sanctioning slavery, supported by the majority of citizens in that state. The federal government steps in and strikes down that law. Did the federal government do the wrong thing intervening the slavery issue, in 2012?

A hypothetical question, and one that I'm hoping would be more "answerable".

The reason I keep using the slavery example is because it's a clear example with few confounding factors. It's easier to expose the flaws in our own reasoning with clear examples, because we're not distracted by other confounding variables at the same time when we're trying to pick apart the arguments that matter. I'm trying to help you see the flaw in your reasoning, and I need you to work with me.
 
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