Brainwashing our youth!

[Tev]

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

....
Only free in that you are free to choose whether the dude who shits on you wears a red or a blue hat.

Or any of the other nine choices that were on my ballot last year. Hell, there was even a front runner from the communist party running. In the despot shit-hole these people are talking about, we'd not even get a choice between red and blue, let alone the option to freely vote for people whose political views run counter to everything this country has done for the last...200+ years?

Hell I'm not even afraid to vote for these people (I didn't). Nor do I fear some government secret police will show up to cart me away if I ever did.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by grthwllms

Regardless of what the population consistently decides to choose, you're still free to choose whatever you want.

No, because the system is loaded so that the population will continue to choose the 2 major parties and no other person outside the political elite can ever get a look in. The system is rigged that way. It is not the fault of the US population.

Originally Posted by Tev

Or any of the other nine choices that were on my ballot last year. Hell, there was even a front runner from the communist party running. In the despot shit-hole these people are talking about, we'd not even get a choice between red and blue, let alone the option to freely vote for people whose political views run counter to everything this country has done for the last...200+ years?

Hell I'm not even afraid to vote for these people (I didn't). Nor do I fear some government secret police will show up to cart me away if I ever did.

Firstly red and blue isn't a choice.
And secondly, they don't need to arrest people who vote wrong because the system is rigged before the poll, before anybody even votes. Their appearance on the ballot is irrelevant.
You might as well live in a despotic country. The US is no more democratic than, say, Iran.

[Marc v4.0]

Originally Posted by Smarty McBarrelpants

No, because the system is loaded so that the population will continue to choose the 2 major parties and no other person outside the political elite can ever get a look in. The system is rigged that way. It is not the fault of the US population.


Firstly red and blue isn't a choice.
And secondly, they don't need to arrest people who vote wrong because the system is rigged before the poll, before anybody even votes. Their appearance on the ballot is irrelevant.

You can still choose whoever you want.

And you won't get shot for it, either.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

That is irrevelant. Votes are still effectively rigged, it's just done in a much more sophisticated way.
You could choose whoever you wanted in Soviet elections too.

[krogothwolf]

Don't you actually vote for an Elector who for the most part casts their vote for the winner of the popular vote? Yet they can vote for someone else if they want and only something like 25 states have laws against that?

[Marc v4.0]

Originally Posted by krogothwolf

Don't you actually vote for an Elector who for the most part casts their vote for the winner of the popular vote? Yet they can vote for someone else if they want and only something like 25 states have laws against that?

Yeah, but I don't recall an Elector NOT voting the way the popular vote swung for their area.

It would be kind of a bad call.



and still, we don't get put on lists, recorded, noted, fucking -looked at funny- no matter who we vote for.

[Tev]

I think we're starting to get off track here. The point of all of this was that Bush couldn't completely wreck this country in eight years and Obama can't in four....or eight (we'll see). The people who are all up in arms about how this nation is going to fall because of him are being silly.

We've honestly had worse presidents than either of them. We're still here.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by Marc v1.0

and still, we don't get put on lists, recorded, noted, fucking -looked at funny- no matter who we vote for.

But that is because it is rigged before you vote. They don't care who vote for because the only parties that can possibly win are ok for them. If you cast your vote for an indepedent party it won't matter so they don't care.


But yeah we are totally way off topic here.
Obama couldn't crash the country even if he wanted to. 4 years is not a long time in government and the US has plenty of safeguards and checks and balances in the constitution so change is slow and measured.

[BitVyper]

You can still choose whoever you want.

Not really. That's like saying "you can buy whatever fruit you want" when the grocery store only ever has apples and oranges because they're all that sells. Only in this case, the apples and oranges are also both rotten. And you can tell the manager you'd like a grape, but he's not going to bother stocking them for you.

[bluestarultor]

Originally Posted by Tev

I think we're starting to get off track here. The point of all of this was that Bush couldn't completely wreck this country in eight years and Obama can't in four....or eight (we'll see). The people who are all up in arms about how this nation is going to fall because of him are being silly.

We've honestly had worse presidents than either of them. We're still here.

I'd go so far as to say Bush has been the most Imperialist president we've had since Teddy Roosevelt. Not in the sense that he particularly grabbed up any land so much as he was willing to do whatever the heck he wanted with countries outside our borders. While Roosevelt was the one who decided we should be the world police, I can't think of any other president before Dubya who not only got us into a military conflict, but also had the audacity to get us into another unrelated one at the same time and make plans for a third.

That said, Obama would have to work pretty hard to make things much worse without it being more of the same. Actually, I believe that his presidency is going to have minimal historical impact, all things considered. Yes, he's the first black president, but all told, he's not going to be the guy known as the one who fixed America after the Bush years. I wouldn't even be surprised if he didn't get a second term. The main importance he's going to have is probably going to be to serve as a springboard for whoever comes after him. He's going to provide a base in his term, or terms, which other people are going to be able to build from, but he's ultimately not going to be able to do it all himself, especially if he only gets four years.