Obama Ultra Leftist or Centrist?

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
21

[quote]Zeppelin795 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
He was the furthermost left senator while in office there. On what planet could that be centrist?[/quote]
Not sure of his Senate record but he is The President now and if one takes a look at his nominies for political positions which surround him it is easy to conclude those “leftest days” are far behind him.

BTW, what leftest ideas and bills did he support in his “leftest days?”[/quote]

AHAHAAAA! yeah, he got promoted and power and miraculously changed. Try Google, there were several survey organizations that had him ranked farthest left of any senator.

You do realize he was appointing admitted Marxists to positions, right?

I would even argue that since elected and continuing to consolidate power in the federal government, he’s gone even farther left. Extending the patriot act, taking over medical care, attempting to dictate that people have to buy product he wants them to, using public money to take over corporations even to the point of essentially running them.

22

Obama isn’t a socialist. He’s something much worse, a nihilist.

23

I don’t understand your problem with the term “paying for tax cuts”.

To cut taxes creates a deficit, which has to be “paid for” either from debt, taxation, or cuts.

Seems like a seriously fucking long stretch to assume the Obama correlates “paying for tax cuts” to state ownership of all wealth.

-PTD

24

[quote]PAINTRAINDave wrote:
I don’t understand your problem with the term “paying for tax cuts”.

To cut taxes creates a deficit, which has to be “paid for” either from debt, taxation, or cuts.

Seems like a seriously fucking long stretch to assume the Obama correlates “paying for tax cuts” to state ownership of all wealth.

-PTD [/quote]

Dept is delaying payment, not paying something. And even then you go into dept because you spend too much, not because you didnâ??t take enough. Not taking money cannot by definition put you in dept.

If I earn 100,000 a year and spend 200,000, I in dept because I didn’t make than 200,000 or because I spent too damn much?

Increasing taxation isn’t paying for cutting taxation, that just doesn’t make sense. That’s shifting taxes, not cutting them.

Not spending money you don’t have is an odd form of payment.

So, you think the government pays for every cent of money you earn that you get to keep?

If you take a pay cut at work, do you “pay” for your pay cut? Do you “pay” for all the money that your company has but they don’t give to you?

Not to mention the fact that the terminology is used again and again when referring to keeping tax rates THE SAME. How do we “pay” for not taking more money from people? (keeping tax cuts)

Not spending money and allowing people to keep what they make is only payment if it’s the governments in the first place.

You are referring to not spending as a form of expenditure. You are calling not taking money from people an “expense”.

If you don’t see how messed up that is, I cannot explain it any better. It is fundamentally the opposite of everything it is supposed to mean to be American.

And my accusation went far beyond just the president.

25

You need to have real reform on spending and/or revenue.

If you want to live in fantasy-land, and think that you can invent money (something that California legislators think they can do), you will not get anywhere.

Our state budget included $4 Billion on “unexpected revenue.” LOL ! No joke, they actually wrote it that way. I mean, come on, dudes, fucking claiming that you will pay expenses with “money coming from Lord-knows-where” in completely insane.

26

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Zeppelin795 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
He was the furthermost left senator while in office there. On what planet could that be centrist?[/quote]
Not sure of his Senate record but he is The President now and if one takes a look at his nominies for political positions which surround him it is easy to conclude those “leftest days” are far behind him.

BTW, what leftest ideas and bills did he support in his “leftest days?”[/quote]

AHAHAAAA! yeah, he got promoted and power and miraculously changed. Try Google, there were several survey organizations that had him ranked farthest left of any senator.

You do realize he was appointing admitted Marxists to positions, right?

I would even argue that since elected and continuing to consolidate power in the federal government, he’s gone even farther left. Extending the patriot act, taking over medical care, attempting to dictate that people have to buy product he wants them to, using public money to take over corporations even to the point of essentially running them.[/quote]

What survey organizations? The ones who are funded by the far right?

Yes. All those bad ass marxists like Geitner, Bernake et al.

He has continued that Marxist tradition of consolidating the Fed and the Patriot Act started by that far leftist Bush?

Taking over corporations using publice money is Marxist? Your definition would fit much nicer if control of those corporations were given to the public who bailed out those white collar crimminals. Those corporations are making massive profits at the expense of the public. This is Fascism not Marxism which is usually identified with the far right. Your nonmenclenture leaves alot to be desired.

Obama is bought and paid for by the financial sector.

Why in the hell would the crooks at Goldman Sachs donate more money to his campaign than McCain if he was trying to redistibute what they believe is theirs?

I can see the headlines now - “Wall Street goes socialist” Absolutely laughable!!!

27

Left - Right scale doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone anyways…

He’s really economically on the right side of things… Definitely nowhere near Socialism or Communism. And socially, I’d say still to the right…

If you’re interested in what might be a better visual representation of political policy, http://www.politicalcompass.org/ Gives the left - right scale a top - bottom component to better illustrate differences in social and economic ideas. Obama is probably in there somewhere.

28

The simple answer to the OP’s question is that people are ignorant/uneducated about the actual meaning of political terminology.

What many “liberals” identify as “conservative” tenancies are a mix centrist economic policy (Keynesian paradigm with pro-large-institution ‘modern market’ positions) and his general authoritarian bent (pro-secrecy, didn’t close Guantanamo, end wars, exe). What’s interesting about the authoritarian-end, is that self-described liberals tend to see themselves as anti-authoritarian, yet consistently elect people who are (just like the Republicans). The bottom line seems to be that people in the US like authoritarians, as long as they are their kind of authoritarians.

What many ‘conservatives’ identify as ‘liberal’ in Obama are social policy: not strong on the war on drugs, ending DADT, exe. They also tend to site things like his healthcare plan… which really isn’t ‘liberal’ and is nearly identical to a number of plans a number of people accepted as conservative has proposed a number of times.

At the end of the day, Obama is (like most of our elected leaders these days) an authoritarian. This means that MOST Americans can’t really put their finger on what ‘he is’ and they fall into the typical pattern of labeling whatever aspects of his policy they don’t like as liberal/conservative.

29

[quote]carbiduis wrote:
I voted for McCain.

The healthcare bill was the single worst piece of legislature passed by the US Gov. (this is why I* would call him a leftist)

Other than that Obama has been very similar to Bush (I’m not talking about what is said, I’m talking about what has been done!). National security is my #1 issue, and we have been safe the whole time Barry has been in the white house so I’m fine with it for now.

Whether or not he had much to do with it, I’m all for the pat-downs that they do at the airport…you don’t like it? THEN DON’T FLY! IT’S NOT A RIGHT TO FLY IT’S A PRIVELAGE!

[/quote]

Ya, we only had that one nigerian dude being seconds away from blowing himself up. Oh and that times square thing. And that thing at fort hood. Other than that, no problems.

30

[quote]MaximusB wrote:
You need to have real reform on spending and/or revenue.

If you want to live in fantasy-land, and think that you can invent money (something that California legislators think they can do), you will not get anywhere.

Our state budget included $4 Billion on “unexpected revenue.” LOL ! No joke, they actually wrote it that way. I mean, come on, dudes, fucking claiming that you will pay expenses with “money coming from Lord-knows-where” in completely insane. [/quote]

There can be no real reform on spending without a balanced budget amendment. Every new Congress has the right/duty/obligation to determine a new budget. They cannot legally be constrained by the previous budget.

All this talk of spending reform is a bunch of hot air and everyone knows it.

Prepare yourself because we are past the point of no return. The takers outnumber the makers and both parties are going to ride it as long as they can before it all falls apart and then retreat behind walls with armed guards.

Whoever wrote $4 Billion of “unexpected revenue” into a budget should be jailed or shot.