the most important election of your lifetime: 2012 american general election thread

iatee!

Our job as liberals -- in the same way the so-called Tea Party operates -- isn't to worry about "clusterfucks." Our job is to push and push and push and push a Democratic administration into doing as much as we want as possible. "Political clusterfucks" are irrelevant to me -- that's Barack Obama's problem.

― a regina spektor is haunting europe (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, June 10, 2012 3:24 AM (18 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is OTM. Why are we always playing political Fantasy Football, trying to out-Rahm Rahm, or out-Axelrod Axelrod when the right has proved that the most effective tactic is to demand 100% of what you want all the time?

the right has proven the costs of overreach almost as often as they've proven its benefits

we're not talking about "asking for what you want," anyway. We're talking about criminal investigations of a former President, soldiers and CIA agents going to prison etc. Saying it would be a very ugly, massive clusterfuck isn't Chuck Todd armchair quarterbacking, it's just obviously what would happen.

It's odd to me how man, with real respect & love, I have such a hard time understanding this. this is "something I get" = "people who got tortured can go fuck themselves." morally I cannot understand this.

― decrepit but free (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, June 10, 2012 11:25 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

both things would be nice, one is nicer.

I mean it's a pretty conservative estimate that the number of lives that will be saved by HCR>number of people who were tortured, right?

Anyone read this morning's WaPo story about Obama's fraught relationships with gay and Hispanic lobbying groups?

I mean it's a pretty conservative estimate that the number of lives that will be saved by HCR>number of people who were tortured, right?

― Matt Armstrong, Sunday, June 10, 2012 8:50 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Obama chose one of these things to prioritize over the other. Why does that mean that we have to shut up about the one he neglected? are we on his payroll? he's not actually our friend.

Just seems a bit silly is all

Obama chose one of these things to prioritize over the other. Why does that mean that we have to shut up about the one he neglected? are we on his payroll? he's not actually our friend.

― Hauntingly Unemployed American (President Keyes), Monday, June 11, 2012 1:47 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's not what aero's saying, he's saying that prioritizing healthcare reform over torture prosecutions is morally repugnant.

it's a much bigger problem that Obama actively does horrible shit than that he doesn't prosecute people for horrible shit they did in the previous administration.

man, with real respect & love, I have such a hard time understanding this. this is "something I get" = "people who got tortured can go fuck themselves." morally I cannot understand this.

― decrepit but free (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, June 10, 2012 6:25 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the thing is, you have health care, you do not have some horrible condition - afaik you are not one of the millions of americans being fucked by our health care system. so you don't actually have some unbiased philosopher's view of the subject and you can't pretend to.

if my little brother, who has a horrible case of arthritis and cannot really...walk around without horrible pain, was also like "yeah, you know, I think we really shoulda gone after the bush guys, it's worth it, I don't care if health care reform never passes even though its existence is the difference between living my entire life in pain and not living my entire life in pain" - if my little brother said that or really, anyone in that kinda situation, you can go look for one and bring them to ilx, if someone in that situation does the philosopher math and agrees with you, then maybe it's a shame-obama path worth exploring.

until then all I see is 'person with health care decides giving millions of people health care not more important than putting some people in jail'

Obama didn't WANT to prosecute the Bushites, that's clear. Even if it was easy.

Let's get back to the bullshit election now.

i think the rich guy is gonna win

but really, is this our moment? is this -our american moment-? you know? like the last past 8 years belongded to those redneck bushies. now is it a time for us fruity npr listening, tea drinking little turds? what kind-of messes do you think this administration will get into? donating more money than they remember having to pbs, npr, and wfmu? "sorry guys w'ell have to raise taxe,s but at least we get to see John adams - dr. atomic livebroundcast courtesy of the met and trhe chubb group. '

― burt_stanton groove machine (burt_stanton), Tuesday, November 4, 2008

it turned out that tea drinking little turds more or less were cool with bombing countries w/ complicated spellings too. who knew??

i think the rich guy is gonna win

more importantly, romney is 6'2" to obama's 6'1"

yeah but can romney ball

it doesn't matter, he's rich AND tall!

it's the unstoppable combo of american politics! we're all fucked!

Ryan Lizza speculating on Obama's second term.

Lizza talking about Reagan in that article with no mention of Iran-Contra. I guess that's how most people remember or are being taught Reagan's legacy.

Digby has been speculating that Obama if re-elected, he is planning on doing a grand bargain deficit and entitlements deal that will take from the middle class and the poor more than from the rich

sounds about right, which is why I despise the term 'entitlement reform.'

Pretty obvious the legacy of Obama's second term, if he gets one, will be a defense of the health care reforms of his first terms against a non-stop barrage of bullshitery, both after the Supreme Court soon weakens it and also once it is fully implemented in 2014. That, and the usual wars and stuff.

my God, the New Yorker uses an umlaut in "reelection."

I thought, though with too great a certainty, Taibbi called a Dem/Bam win properly after the mid-terms: "And then the Democrats will do nothing for four years again."

As Dick Morris, of Fox News, put it in March, “A second term for Obama would bring on a socialist nightmare hellscape as he moves further to the left.”

Socialist nightmare hellscape!

Socialist Nightmare Hellscape landed just outside my Top 35 in the horror-film poll.

i'd like to see a movie with a Zombie Ceausescu or a Vampire Stalin, now that i think of it.

my God, the New Yorker uses an umlaut in "reelection."

It's a diaeresis, fool.

Socialist Nightmare Hellscape landed just outside my Top 35 in the horror-film poll.

iirc it was sponsored by the swedish tourist board

I think that would sing well to Robyn Hitchcock's "Tropical Flesh Mandala"

The famous Statue of Liberty scene:

http://rossrightangle.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/obama-vampire-275x300.jpg?w=632

"In British English this usage has been obsolete for many years, and in US English, although it persisted for longer, it is also now considered archaic. Nevertheless, it is still used by the US magazine The New Yorker."

my God, the New Yorker uses an umlaut in "reelection."

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/04/the-curse-of-the-diaeresis.html

yes, jaymc beat ya to it

fancy puncts give me diaeresis

Drink a big glass of warm salty water. (/Lord Julius)

I'm guessing most of you didn't get laïd in high school.
Posted 5/10/2012, 2:49:15pm by bweinstein1

reerection

it is not at all hard to fault anyone for their wrongdoing, no matter how common it may seem. millions are imprisoned for crimes that tens of millions commit. it is only by demanding extraordinarily honorable behavior, and by being genuinely shocked and outraged by anything less, that we can exert pressure against the typical criminality of those who rule us.

― contenderizer, Sunday, June 10, 2012 8:16 PM (Yesterday)

this is so OTM. i get so weary of that 'ah well, they all do it, it's tough being king dontcha know' cynical long-view bullshit.

that said, i blame congress for not impeaching bush back in 06/07 way more than i blame obama for not prosecuting anyone.

i think it's interesting that (on these forums at least) optimistic short-viewers couch their ideology in practically deontological ethics, and cynical long-viewers do so in more consequentialist (almost mohist) ones

http://ericwongmma.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/confused-monkey.jpg

eh, i don't know that that's so. my optimistic short-view argument is almost entirely consequentialist: we should reject the cynical long-view because accepting it undercuts our ability to manufacture the moral shock and outrage necessary to effectively fight that which we oppose.

like, if you had these two arguments:

1. Criminals should always be prosecuted bc that's what it right to do.
or
2. Some criminals should not be prosecuted bc you need to overlook some crimes to preserve a society. (which I think is a slightly more active version of 'you can't expect all crimes to be prosecuted, and other things are more important to pursue, like healthcare')

they aren't just shortview/longview or cynical/optimist, they are actually arguments about how we should evaluate ethics. should they be deontological (actions are themselves right or wrong) or consequential (what matters is the outcome)?

contenderizer seems to be some double-cynical argument where we should prosecute every criminal, not necessarily bc it's a fundamental right but bc ppl think it is and if we want to convince them and stir them to fight, we have to make them feel righteous.

why is it a choice

Consequentialism tends towards bullshit, but deontological ethics start off as bullshit, the only non-bullshit approach is to be a moral anti-realist and admit that we only say things are right or wrong because we just happen to feel that way. </notarealphilosopher>

how well is society doing now by not prosecuting approvers of torture? We've reenforced the suspicion that Scooter Libbys and Dick Cheneys get sentences commuted or not charged entirely because we need Solid Citizens like them in government.

obv there's a whole school of reconciling the two but i'm talking in broad generalities (maybe what piece is emphasized more) xxp

well, i think some ppl here argue that society is better off now that it didn't prosecute them than if we had. it's a counterfactual that suggests if the prosecutions would have happened, the healthcare bill wouldn't have been passed.