Obama may be liberal, but he’s also willing to listen to the other side. That’s why I like him.
As for the Constitution, it should not be discarded, but it’s important that it be allowed to evolve - it is not perfect just because it is THE CONSTITUTION, and although the men who wrote it were absolutely brilliant, and it is remarkably balanced, it was written 220 years ago this summer, and things that they never considered need to be addressed - Freedom of Speech in the Information Age. Freedom of Religion in a multi- or non-religious country. Freedom to Bear Arms in the context of assault rifles, anti-tank weaponry, tanks, jet fighters, and atomic bombs. Habeas Corpus when dealing with Fourth Generational (irregular, terrorist, etc.) insurgents. The list goes on.
It’s a living document. It needs to be protected so we don’t have a tyranny of the courts, or tyranny of the majority, but it also needs to be adapted, because what was right for America in 1789 is not necessarily what is right for America in 2009.
What I AM paranoid about is that Obama is VERY anti-gun. And if he decides that there is no longer a need for them and enacts a gun ban such as in England and Australia…well…hello civil war.
That’s ridiculous for a bizarre number of reasons.
(1) The Congress would never pass it, because it would be political suicide for any Congressmen who voted for it from a moderate/toss-up district.
(2) Obama would not sign it into law, since it would be political suicide for himself and the Democratic party.
(3) If they did pass it, there would be an immediate court challenge. It would go before the Supreme Court and set a new record time for being tossed out as unconstitutional.
(4) If someone were considering passing it, lobbying groups for gun makers and the NRA would have a field day and would buy votes back before you could blink.
(5) Obama is not anti-gun enough to ban all guns, even if he could. Also, he was a Constitutional Law professor at one of the top law schools in the country. He knows what the Constitution says.
(6) America would not have a Civil War, even if the Congress passed it, the President signed it, AND the Courts upheld it, because people wouldn’t obey the law. People would get arrested, sure, but the people who are really attached would keep their guns, and the people who were not would give them up.
I voted for Obama and I own a gun, I’m not worried in the least of him taking my gun, or making them illegal. I also don’t understand why you think he is so anti-gun? I don’t remember reading him involved in major anti-gun legislation other than he wants to try and reinstate an assault weapons ban. Which a lot of democrats support so that doesn’t exactly single him out.
If it wasn’t for the fact that our Constitution can be changed you would not have a second AMENDMENT to worry about losing ground on in the first place!!!
I don’t remember the details, but he did support some inner city gun ban legislation in the Illinois senate. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some sort of new gun legislation during his presidency.
yeah but he had nothing to do with the strong economy. So I guess ya just lose some. He also passed NAFTA which lost thousands of good paying American jobs to forign countries. :picard:
But helped the economy. Free trade is good for everyone involved, except irrationally overpaid production workers who can be doing something more productive. But hey, nobody wants to hear that we created more jobs than we lost, or that it was a net economic benefit.
Yeah we made all sorts of minimum wage jobs so we can buy cars made in mexico that cost the company 1/5th the cost to make but still sell at the same price. NAFTA FUCKED us hard!
Its amazing how the Dems ballance the budget. They said Freddy Mac and Fanny May were doing great too just before they destroyed the economy.
I hate to say it but I agree with Jeg, NAFTA def was bad for the US. And as far as overpaid production workers are concerned, not everyone in this country can be a professional and you need to be able to raise a family and buy a home on a blue collar salary.
Not if doing so artificially raises prices because a job that could be automated or outsourced is kept on shores because of a belief that there are a limited number of jobs, and that changing jobs is bad.
What’s going to happen as the economy progresses? If we’re able to automate jobs like production and cleaning, in order to save on worker salaries, should we not, because it destroys a job? We absolutely should, because the goal of the economy as a whole is to produce the most goods and services in the least expensive, most efficient way possible. If we could automate all the jobs in the economy, leaving almost everyone out of work, we should, if it would save on costs. Jobs are not an end; they are a means to an end.
NAFTA is good because it outsourced jobs with limited value to our economy, and brought in jobs that are worth more. One thing I would like to see the government devote a massive amount of the stimulus package to is supporting entrepreneurs. If we have people out of work, and someone sees a niche for a business, they should be able to make their case to the rest of the people (as expressed through the government), and get low interest loans or even grants if a person or group of people agree that it is a valuable idea and that the business plan is solid. Especially when the economy is in hard times. If we’re going to spend the money, we should not merely focus on creating jobs - we should focus on creating products and valuable services that actually add value to the economy.
That’s why I’m not against NAFTA. It made our economy, and the world economy, more rational.
Politicians who don’t lie, lose. On a national level, if you want to win, you have to tell people what they want to hear. People would rather vote for a liar and complain when he does things that don’t match what he said, than to vote for someone who tells the truth and tells them that their desires are bad for the country as a whole. (See the ethanol pledge in Iowa.) Thus, even good, otherwise honest men, have to lie if they want to serve. It’s a sad condition, but we bring it on ourselves.
Automation is not my big concern because that is making a process more efficient as well as giving the company that created the machine a job.
Outsourceing positions for the sake of skimming past many of the labor laws that have been in place since the early 1900’s is somthing I’m not fond of.
Henry Ford gave his employees good salaries because he knew it was good for the economy as a whole. I think the government should in some way tax or punish companies that layoff thier American workforce for the sake of hireing cheaper labor in third world countries. Take away some of the incentive for doing so in the first place.
I understand that a companies main goal is to make money, but if the cost of that is to layoff the American workforce then I don’t have much sympathy for them. If they can turn a profit in the states then they should stay in the states. If thier greed makes them want to leave then they should be punished for trying to continue to make a buck from America without providing America with a job.
I don’t understand the argument that its good to loose manufactoring jobs or production jobs. What job is replacing these?
And what jobs came into the US as a result of NAFTA?
If I hear one more fucking conservative that doesn’t know jack shit about macroeconomics spout off the line that the economic boom under clinton was because of reagan I am going to partial-birth abort them. That was a bullshit line fabricated by Rush Limbaugh et al as a sound byte and they ate it up to the tune of still repeating it 15 years later.