CONGRATULATIONS AMERICA!

[Vagrant0]

It is a scary thought that America's citizens might be stripped of their means (and rights) to defend themselves not from just individual burglars and thugs but from their own government if the need arises. If you recall, Hitler disarmed his citizens early in his game plan.

 

LHammonds

Yes, it is rather funny to think that if someone robs your house, you shoot them, and they die outside of your property, you can get charged with murder, but if they die inside you property, it's self defense. Not sure how this relates...

 

Anyway, the guy has been in office less than a week... It took 911 for us to start being particularly critical of Bush... The man hasn't even sneezed yet, and already people are handing him a tissue, and sanitizing the air with Lysol.

[exanimis]

It is a scary thought that America's citizens might be stripped of their means (and rights) to defend themselves not from just individual burglars and thugs but from their own government if the need arises. If you recall, Hitler disarmed his citizens early in his game plan.

 

LHammonds

Yes, it is rather funny to think that if someone robs your house, you shoot them, and they die outside of your property, you can get charged with murder, but if they die inside you property, it's self defense. Not sure how this relates...

 

Anyway, the guy has been in office less than a week... It took 911 for us to start being particularly critical of Bush... The man hasn't even sneezed yet, and already people are handing him a tissue, and sanitizing the air with Lysol.

 

It took 911 for us to start being particularly critical of Bush? Don't you remember the whole, He's not our president because he wasn't elected thing? George bush Vs Al Gore, The Florida ballets? The media hated Bush before he ever took the oath of office and the American public fell into line and went along with it. In each of his terms, Bush sent out a stimulus package giving each taxpayer a break with a few hundred extra dollars in their pockets. Talking with my friends (who are black) I hear them talk about how it was nothing special and that other presidents had done the same thing. Funny that I don't remember any one else doing it. Bush got credit for nothing Obama will get credit for everything. LHammond brought up Hitler and while I'm not defending Hitler or his beliefs, there is something that the American public seems to have forgotten. The German people were living in slums, they were forced to wear arm bands that showed that they were German. The country was controlled by Jews and when the elections came the Jews felt that they were in control and that it wasn't necessary to vote. The Germans did vote and Hitler came into power. Hitler was a failed painter, he couldn't work for Germans because they had no money and he couldn't work for Jews because he was German. Hitler treated the Jews the same way that the Jews had treated the Germans but he carried it to extremes. Hitler wanted to exterminate the Jews, to wipe them from the face of the earth. I am not condoning genocide, I am not defending Hitler. The important thing to remember is that the average German saw Hitler as a great leader, they had no idea that Jews were being slaughtered by the millions. To the average German, the Jews had treated them badly and with a German leader, they could now give a little of it back.

 

Obama could take away our human and constitutional rights and we would hail him for it because the media will tell us to. We the people will do whatever our government and it's propaganda tells us to. When our government takes away our right to bare arms, we will praise them for having the intelligence and courage to change the constitution. Hitler exterminated six million Jews, it's called the holocaust. When the Spaniards and English first came to the America's there were an estimated ten million natives living here. The natives were exterminated and the remainder were forced to live on reservations where they live today. It's called the Great Western Expansion. America dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands of people but we don't see that as a bad thing. It was necessary to end the war right? We think, say and act just as we are told. We hate W and we love Clinton and Obama.

[UnholyShadow]

Exanimis and LHammonds said pretty much everything that I was going to say, they hit it right on the head. As they said, Obama will be hailed as the greatest president we have ever had, no matter what happens, because the media will tell us to. On a side note, Warren G. Harding had black ancestry, so I don't think this election is very "historic".

[Byzantinium]

When the Spaniards and English first came to the America's there were an estimated ten million natives living here. The natives were exterminated and the remainder were forced to live on reservations where they live today. It's called the Great Western Expansion. America dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands of people but we don't see that as a bad thing. It was necessary to end the war right?

 

1. The vast, vast majority of Amerindian deaths (as in 90%)were from the introduction of new diseases, which would have happened even if the Europeans arrived with flowers and love.

 

2. The alternative to the atomic bombs was a full-on invasion of Japan's Home Islands, which would've resulted in a bloodbath to make Iraq look like a stubbed toe. So, yes, it was necessary to end the war.

[myrmaad]

I served in the US Air Force, a legacy of service I carried forward in my family from my uncles; my grandmother was a post master who proudly flew the flag daily in her front yard (in front of the post office) and who I helped painstakingly and lovingly put up and take down the flag properly every morning and night. I flew a flag in my own yard ever since I had a yard of my own, long before 9-11, and you'd be hard pressed to find someone who's truly more patriotic than me. My heart is in it. I have never been so proud of my country as I am now, having come together to elect Barack Obama. It was a dream a long time coming, and he's the right man. He reminds me, personally, of Bobby Kennedy. How different things would have been had that tragedy been avoided. And now we have the opportunity to set things right in the world. At long last, I breathe easy again, with hope in my heart that the responsibility we have as a nation to serve the world as an example of goodness, mercy, and true justice, the kind that truly defeats terrorism, economic justice will be our destiny once again. Our great country has been used and abused by misguided leaders who served economic self-interests to the detriment of not only American citizens but citizens across the world, particularly those who had the most to lose.

 

I went to high school with a guy named Peter. His father was the Ambassador to Chile in the 1970s. Peter was out with friends when he was 15 and was attacked because he was American. Peter had a scar from his neck to his naval from the stabbing. Who's to blame do you think? I know enough now to know the blame led to none other than Nixon himself. I went to a special high school. It is the oldest private college preparatory school in the United States. While I was there, several of my classmates were foreign nationals. Three were from Iran. Things they told me at the time, didn't make much sense to me until much much later. I was lucky that I had such an excellent education, one I never would have received at a public school. Pity.

[dezdimona]

he deserves a chance to at least try and its not going to happen overnight. While I didn't vote for him,and before someone thinks I'm a Republican I am not.I'm an independant, lets at least for once stand as a people and take a wait and see attitude.

To be on the safe side,I bought another Glock!

[exanimis]

I'm sure that everyone has gotten the wrong impression of me by now. I do love my country, I am proud to live in a time when being white isn't a requirement to becoming president and I'm not anti Obama even though I didn't vote for him. My posts aren't about how bad Obama is, they aren't about not giving him a chance or hating him. My posts are about the way we Americans think. There are more than two sides to every coin, there is also an edge. We forget that the coin is three dimensional and only see the two faces. It's not about the office of president, it's not about Barack Obama, It's about control. We will be told that Obama is the greatest president of all time and we will agree with it. What he does as president is of no importance. 100 years from now school children will remember three presidents, George Washington, the first president, Abraham Lincoln who freed the slaves and Barack Obama the first African American president.

 

I'm a smoker and so is Obama. I like that he smokes Marlboro. It costs 0.32 cents to produce, manufacture and distribute each pack of cigarettes. They cost almost $4 a pack here where I live and they are almost $10 a pack in new york. Everything above that 32 cents is taxes. That's ridiculous by any standards but we Americans have been told the dangers of smoking so it's ok to punish the addicted. It's much easier to fine addicts than it is to treat them and help them quit. With over seven billion dollars a year in cigarette taxes going to our government why aren't there free clinics set up everywhere?

 

Obama was asked is he ever smoked marijuana and he admitted it. When asked if he inhaled he said "Of course I did, that's the whole point" To me that was a much better and honest response that that idiot Clinton gave. Clinton didn't inhale? Then he is either a liar or he is too stupid to be president but we were told to love him and we did. My hope is that Obama will end Reagen's idiotic war on drugs. This war on drugs accomplishes only three things. It costs the taxpayer billions, it raises the price of drugs and makes billionaires out of drug dealers. Marijuana should be under government control, it should be bought in liquor stores and the government should be collecting taxes from it. Who would buy a bag of pot from a strange guy off the street if you could buy it at a liquor store? There is no telling what you get from that guy but you would know exactly what you buy from the government.

 

There are many things that I hope for and from this new president. There are many things I hope for this country but people need to think for themselves. We need to stop following the crowd and doing what we are told. If someone doesn't like Obama then leave it at that. Don't attack them, don't call them inbred, raciest, redneck idiots. Respect that they have a right to make their own decisions and that they have a right to their own opinions.

 

I am always amazed by the way Americans think, by the things that we except and believe. Back in the eighties a group of religious scholars got together. They came from many different belief systems. Jewish, Catholic and Arabic beliefs. These religions have been at war with each other since the dawn of time but they got together and translated the bible into modern English. They put aside their differences and agreed on what the passages actually said. We Americans can except that but we know that no matter what, you can't expect a republican and a democrat to agree on the color of poo.

[Michlo]

It is a scary thought that America's citizens might be stripped of their means (and rights) to defend themselves not from just individual burglars and thugs but from their own government if the need arises. If you recall, Hitler disarmed his citizens early in his game plan.

 

LHammonds

Yes, it is rather funny to think that if someone robs your house, you shoot them, and they die outside of your property, you can get charged with murder, but if they die inside you property, it's self defense. Not sure how this relates...

 

Anyway, the guy has been in office less than a week... It took 911 for us to start being particularly critical of Bush... The man hasn't even sneezed yet, and already people are handing him a tissue, and sanitizing the air with Lysol.

 

It took 911 for us to start being particularly critical of Bush? Don't you remember the whole, He's not our president because he wasn't elected thing? George bush Vs Al Gore, The Florida ballets? The media hated Bush before he ever took the oath of office and the American public fell into line and went along with it. In each of his terms, Bush sent out a stimulus package giving each taxpayer a break with a few hundred extra dollars in their pockets. Talking with my friends (who are black) I hear them talk about how it was nothing special and that other presidents had done the same thing. Funny that I don't remember any one else doing it. Bush got credit for nothing Obama will get credit for everything. LHammond brought up Hitler and while I'm not defending Hitler or his beliefs, there is something that the American public seems to have forgotten. The German people were living in slums, they were forced to wear arm bands that showed that they were German. The country was controlled by Jews and when the elections came the Jews felt that they were in control and that it wasn't necessary to vote. The Germans did vote and Hitler came into power. Hitler was a failed painter, he couldn't work for Germans because they had no money and he couldn't work for Jews because he was German. Hitler treated the Jews the same way that the Jews had treated the Germans but he carried it to extremes. Hitler wanted to exterminate the Jews, to wipe them from the face of the earth. I am not condoning genocide, I am not defending Hitler. The important thing to remember is that the average German saw Hitler as a great leader, they had no idea that Jews were being slaughtered by the millions. To the average German, the Jews had treated them badly and with a German leader, they could now give a little of it back.

 

Obama could take away our human and constitutional rights and we would hail him for it because the media will tell us to. We the people will do whatever our government and it's propaganda tells us to. When our government takes away our right to bare arms, we will praise them for having the intelligence and courage to change the constitution. Hitler exterminated six million Jews, it's called the holocaust. When the Spaniards and English first came to the America's there were an estimated ten million natives living here. The natives were exterminated and the remainder were forced to live on reservations where they live today. It's called the Great Western Expansion. America dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands of people but we don't see that as a bad thing. It was necessary to end the war right? We think, say and act just as we are told. We hate W and we love Clinton and Obama.

 

 

Speak for yourself. We're not all sheeple. Bush has proven over his eight years that it was right to hate him. Just because YOU are apparently blind to all of his failings does not give you the right to paint the rest of us as the ones who blindly follow propaganda. Look to your own house.

[exanimis]

My apologies Michlo, I thought this was a debate thread. There isn't any need to say that I am blind to all that Bush said and did. I didn't like him myself but I still feel that a man who has reached for and obtained the office of President of the United States of America deserves a little respect no matter if you like him or not.

 

I don't believe I have made any derogatory or demeaning comments to anyone on this thread and if all you have to add to the debate is to flame me for my opinions or troll for trouble, then please go somewhere else.

 

I haven't attacked you, I haven't attacked anyone. I simply said that people should watch and listen and not just go along with the herd.

 

Edit:

If you had taken the time to read my posts objectively instead of taking offense, you would have noticed that I said We in every instance. I am not above the propaganda any more than anyone else.

[Vagrant0]

Can't we all just get along?

 

Much of the reason why the media has been painting Obama in a positive light (well, except Fox News), is because he is such a contrast to the previous president. Obama is confident and atleast portays himself as a fairly intelligent and quick witted person, Bush on the other hand... It's less about the color of his skin, although that too has meaning for some who have used the justification of race for explaining why they are at a disadvantage, and more about just a drastic difference of policies. The media has a sort of one sided approach because they are trying to display something that most of their viewers agree with. This is why Fox News is almost always on the extremely conservative side, and MSNBC is almost always on the liberal side. CNN is kinda the middle, but they still have a largely liberal audience. It's not about government whitewashing, or forcing a particular story on the public, it's about something far more devious... ratings. Most amercians watch the news and although they may see it as informative, it is also about ratings and advertising dollars. News channels compete with every other channel for their viewers since their viewer numbers mean more exposure, which means more money that advertisers are willing to spend on those commercial timeslots.

 

The real issue behind all this is really that news organizations have been in political high gear with 24/7 coverage, bringing in pundants from all over, and have been getting ratings for it. Now that the election is over, they have been harder pressed for filling their time with content that people want to see. This is why you have all day story of how the Obama's met, or which cabinate position had been filled, or what is happening with Obama's policies. Go watch Fox News some time, not all of it is positive, lately, Huckabee had a program highlighting several things on the whitehouse agenda, and was speaking out against them a "not what people voted for". While it can be argued that most of Fox's audience were those who probably favor the conservative, and voted McCain, or "none of the above", it would be premature to say that there isn't some disagreement with the issues. Obama's stimulus package, and the closing of Gitmo have also had fairly mixed responses in the media.

 

I take the "wait and see" approach not because I'm undecided on any of the issues, or because I particularly agree with the election, but because the job has only started, he has a hell of a big job ahead of him, and because even if things take a turn for the worse, we'll probably still have him around for the length of this term. We didn't impeach Bush afterall, so the limit of how bad a president could be is rather high.