Obama: I'm not 'particularly ideological'
Source: USA Today
President Obama, headlining a string of fundraisers this week, told one group of Democratic donors that "I'm not a particularly ideological person."
Obama said during a fundraiser Sunday in the Seattle area that "there are some things, some values I feel passionately about," and many of them are at stake in next year's congressional elections.
They include making sure that everyone "gets a fair shake," providing a strong national defense, and "leaving a planet that is as spectacular as the one we inherited from our parents and our grandparents," Obama said.
"So there are values I care about, but I'm pretty pragmatic when it comes to how do we get there," Obama said.
Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2013/11/25/obama-ideological-democratic-fundraiser-seattle/3696687/
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)Which is why no one was prosecuted for war crimes, why we are still in Afghanistan (and will be until 2024), and why no one has been prosecuted on Wall Street for fraud.
jsr
(7,712 posts)lumpy
(13,704 posts)Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)to investigate war crimes and corporate crimes is now a "dictatorial" power?
Who knew....
lumpy
(13,704 posts)I believe some on Wall St. have been prosecuted for fraud. We have been given reasons for continuing in Afghanistan. Prosecution for war crimes has been kicked around.
Instant satisfaction for everyone is not going to happen any time soon. When we think if the things we believe should be accomplished, they cannot be solved with the snap of the fingers from one person. Although, maybe a dictator would have better success, still wouldn't satisfy everyone.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)I didn't realize 4-5 years was "instant".
Could you please link to a story involving a Wall Street CEO being brought up on criminal charges by the current administration for his illegal actions?
Cosmocat
(14,565 posts)but, he has faced the most united, off the hilt, deranged partisan opposition we have seen in DC in my nearly 50 years, and that is saying a lot given what the asshats did to Clinton.
At the same time, he has worked with a party that has at best one gonad.
A man alone going against an entire political party with the singular goal of destroying him, and pretty darn committed to that goal at pretty much any cost, with no VERY FEW people willing to stand next to him and battle.
He took on health care reform out of the gates, and did what Clinton failed to do in that regard. Of course they got some other things, but that chewed up the two years he actually had a majority in congress.
Since then, he has been drawing dead legislatively.
I also agree, catch 22 on Bushco. IDEALLY they would have been held accountable, but there was literally a choice between that and getting ANYTHING done. We would not have had health care reform had they chose to take that on.
Not his fault ...
IF the country was a better place, IF he had a party with any fight in it, IF the people of this country weren't collectively morons to fall for the bullshit the republicans put forward, he would have done A LOT more.
Man simply is working with the limitations at hand.
on point
(2,506 posts)and the repukes were reeling and on their heels.
Prosecuted for war crimes, torture, malfeasance for the government officials
And corruption, rico and fraud for the banksters
Instead he wanted to play nice and gave them time to get back on their feet to form the opposition.
He has no one but himself to blame if he is in a corner and poweerless
Oh by the way, he also should have let the bush tax cuts expire
He has lost his n dimensional chess game
You nailed it!
First, I agree on the Bush tax cuts for sure.
That was simple, you just do NOTHING.
That said, again, you aren't getting it.
If he had gone after Bush, he would have had no presidency.
The Rs would have found another level of lunacy and the media would have WILLINGLY got behind them for not letting it go and "being policial" or whatever. There would have been no health care reform, there would have been no Frank/Dodd, there would have been no second terms and Mitt Romney would be President right now.
HTF is it HIS fault republicans are jackasses?
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)However, I just think he made the right move on not prosecuting for War Crimes. Had he done this, that is all his term would have been about. We would not have gotten ACA or even Marriage Equality. The Supreme Court would be busy with various rulings with war crimes and the Nation would have been caught up with discussing the war crimes year after year. During Watergate nothing was done except discussion of watergate. If Bush had been in the Presidency and THEN the House prosecuted him for War Crimes, I might think that a better idea. I know I am going to get some hits but think about what I mean first.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)but answer this question for me, honestly please.
If Bush had tortured you, if you, an innocent person found yourself being waterboarded, beaten, attacked by dogs, kept awake for days at a time, stripped naked and smeared with human feces, if this had happened to YOU; how valid would that argument be to you? Would YOU sit back and think, "Well, as long as Americans got health care and/or marriage equality, I can give them a pass on what they did to me and thousands of others."
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)Wow. You have made me think. Justice for those innocent would be better. Wow. I am kinda speechless. lol.
RC
(25,592 posts)Because then we could have enacted Single Payer, Universal Health Care, instead of a Republican/health insurance company hatch plan, designed to keep the health insurance companies, not only in business, but also keep them between the you and you doctor.
24601
(3,962 posts)States, crosses the war crimes threshold? So why would he go there and expose himself?
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)against anyone not a member of a uniformed service, is a war crime. That seems pretty clear to me. As would the use against anyone who has never been charged, tried and convicted of a crime in open court, with legal representation and by a jury of his/her peers.
Drone strikes opens up an entire moral grave yard for humanity to become mired in.
24601
(3,962 posts)battlefield? What are the battlefield geographical limits with respect to Al Qaeda?
Uniforms are just part of what distinguishes lawful vs unlawful combatants under international law. So how do you define a uniform because not everyone has ACUs. How about everyone with the same kind of hat and beard? How do you stop an irregular force that is massacring non-combatants if they don't respond to a restraining order?
When FDR & Churchill bombed German Industrial sites, that was a war crime?
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)Is it permissible for the police to attack your house with drones on the say-so of an informant? If the informant is lying for money and the police kill your children, do you say "Hey, mistakes happen, carry on."? Or do you say "I will hunt down your children and kill them. I will inflict the pain on you, that you have inflicted on me."?
Any time you attack civilians directly it is a war crime. Unfortunately, only the loser of the war has to pay the penalty, the winner skates. So, yes, what Churchill and FDR did in Germany and Japan were war crimes. And before you tell me about how much more evil the Nazis and Japanese were than us because "death camps" (they were, but that is hardly a defensible moral stance) I would remind you that we were perfectly willing to look the other way and employ those very same Nazis and Japanese when it suited our purpose (See Operation: Paperclip and Unit 731).
If the US would restrain its imperial agenda, rein in its exploitative corporations and stop interfering with people's governments, stop backing dictators who use brutal and lethal methods on their own people to stay in power, then we would have fewer problems.
Your question to me is "How would you deal with the people who want to kill us?" My question is "What did we do to piss these people off so much that they are willing to commit suicide just to hurt us?"
Answer my question, and your question has a self-evident answer.
24601
(3,962 posts)be a legitimate target and a uniformed person may be a non-combatant and therefore not a legitimate target.
For example, Hitler was a civilian - he had a uniform but was not himself a member of the German armed forces. Are you really saying FDR would have been a war criminal if he ordered an attack that included Hitler as a target.
I'd recommend that the element is better defined as to whether you are targeting a combatant or a non-combatant. There are plenty of people that fit the non-combatant category. Chaplains and most military medical personnel, despite being members of the armed forces and wearing uniforms, are non-combatants so if they are captured, they are not prisoners of war but instead have the status of detainees.
Combatants come in two different categories, lawful and unlawful. International laws of Armed Conflict (commonly referred to as the Geneva Convention) provides a greater degree of protection to lawful combatants, presumably to deter unlawful combatants (essentially one who lacks legal standing to engage in the fight) and to provide lawful combatants positive incentive to comply with the conventions (there are more than one).
You may not intentionally target non-combatants. That doesn't mean that attacks, even those that are certain to have non-combatant casualties, are illegal. It means that the intended target is legitimate.
If you wish to quote me, please have the decency to not misquote me. I've reviewed my comments in this thread and "How would you deal with the people who want to kill us?" are not my words.
In my two posts, in order, I asked the following questions (These are not quotes but are re-stated)
1. How many drone strikes does it take before a [US] President commits a war crime? Included in this question, does it matter that a target is a US citizen?
2. Why would President Obama expose himself to war crimes scrutiny?
3. Does the location of a terrorist matter if he/she is planning attacks against you. (not you personally but implied that it's a terrorist attack, meaning [intent] a deliberate attack against non-combatants for the purpose [motive] intimidate or coerce. Normally the attack target differs from the victim)
4. Does the Congressional Authorization For Military Force applicable Al Qaeda exclude any territory?
5. Can clothes that don't look like modern US military uniforms determined to be uniforms?
6. How do you engage terrorists who will not comply with the laws of armed conflict?
7. Was it a war crime for FDR and/or Churchill to order the bombing German Industry?
The fallacy of your question is that it presumes an adversarial rank and file (you don't see AQSL blowing themselves up) viewing murder-suicide as a bad thing done as a response to being pissed off. Successful indoctrination that murder-suicides results in an eternity of bliss in paradise doesn't require to require the individual to be angry?
If you are implying that the response to terrorism is a sincere apology, you need to find a different buyer. If I've misread you implication, feel free to clarify. And feel free to address what I really asked.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)For example, Hitler was a civilian - he had a uniform but was not himself a member of the German armed forces. Are you really saying FDR would have been a war criminal if he ordered an attack that included Hitler as a target.
Both Hitler and FDR were military leaders, whether they wore a uniform or not. By law FDR was the commander-in-chief of the armed forces (as is EVERY president).
Military leaders are certainly fair game in a war. Trying to kill the other guy's leader is pretty much the default setting of war.
If you are trying to kill him and you kill civilians, that is an unfortunate consequence of war.
However, when you deliberately target civilians, or act with complete disregard for civilian casualties then you cross the line into war crimes. Using incendiaries, NBC agents, "bomblet munitions" etc, against civilian targets is morally and ethically wrong.
Now the elephant in the room is "traditional" military versus "unconventional" military operations, i.e. Regular army versus insurgent/terrorist/rebel elements. People seem to see a bright line as to what does, or does not, constitute a war crime when dealing with "regular" armies (yet still look the other way when those lines are crossed. Abu Ghraib was a war crime that reached all the way up to the White House, yet only a handful of peons were punished for war crimes).
Yet, when it comes to "unconventional" forces, rules go out the window along with the civilians caught in the crossfire.
That said, let me address your questions. My answers are based on ethical/moral criteria, not the law, as legal doctrine has already been twisted to "legalize" specific actions:
1. How many drone strikes does it take before a President commits a war crime? Included in this question, does it matter that a target is a US citizen? .
I will answer with a question: How many drones strikes may the leader of another nation launch against a fugitive criminal reported to be in your neighborhood before they commit a war crime?
If the house next door to you suddenly explodes, and kills your wife pulling into the garage and your children playing in the yard, does the fact that a "dangerous" criminal was stopped before he could commit another crime (up to and including murder) make a difference to how you view the strike? If a representative of the foreign government shows up and pays you $10,000 cash for each lost relation and pays for the repairs to your property, is it now OK? Does it matter to you if the target of the strike was a citizen of the country launching the attack?
2. Why would President Obama expose himself to war crimes scrutiny?
Because no political leader ever sees themselves as a war criminal while committing war crimes. And if you are on the "winning" side of a conflict, you NEVER face the consequences of the crimes you commit. Many Nazi and Japanese war criminals certainly took exception to be called war criminals. In any honest analysis of their actions the only difference between Adolph Eichmann and Henry Kissinger was Eichmann was on the losing side of a conflict whereas Kissinger wasn't.
Are you guilty of a war crime when your own lawyers and judges tell you your actions are legal? During the Iraq/Afghan War, "enhanced interrogations" and "drone strikes" were declared legal by lawyers, judges and politicians. Lawyers, judges and politicians who declared the actions of the Third Reich legal were sent to prison when their side lost.
3. Does the location of a terrorist matter if he/she is planning attacks against you. (not you personally but implied that it's a terrorist attack, meaning a deliberate attack against non-combatants for the purpose intimidate or coerce. Normally the attack target differs from the victim)
Does the location of anyone engaged in a criminal conspiracy matter to the victims? Not really. Your murder planned on the moon by a stranger is just as relevant to you as the murder planned by your spouse in the bed beside you while watching The Daily Show (Although to be fair, someone planning on murdering you while in bed with you is probably watching a lot of "true crime" porn on Court TV).
The only interest that arises from location is what the authorities plan to do about it when they act upon the conspiracy. I am all for any legal/military agency stopping your murder, provided they act is a responsible, legal and humane manner. I VERY much object to a drone strike in my living room when I am not involved in any plot against you, but which was ordered because someone who either didn't like me, or saw it as a way to make a few bucks, reported me as part of a "conspiracy" to kill you.
4. Does the Congressional Authorization For Military Force applicable Al Qaeda exclude any territory?
The AUMF is one of those cute little bits of law that lawyers love to argue about while OTHER people suffer. It was a way to declare war, without having to actually declare war. It was the legal justification to illegally invade another country. Congress abdicated its Constitutional oversight of the military and the president. A more truthful name for the "law" would be The Pontius Pilate Act of 2002. To discuss in a moral context what the AUMF does, or does not, permit, is null and void from the outset because the AUMF is a deeply immoral document drafted as legal cover for deeply immoral acts.
Even if you accept the AUMF as a moral law (and I cannot stress enough that this is simply NOT true) how does one determine if someone is a member of Al Qaeda? Do they carry membership cards? Bear distinctive tattoos? Have a secret handshake? Someone told someone, who told someone else, who told a CIA informant that Joe-Bob Kareem Smedly is the Waterboy Sans Portfolio of the Al Qaeda Local 172?
Do we accept a forth-hand source as a basis for an assassination, or do we demand more evidence, such as making the CIA informant double-pinky swear?
5. Can clothes that don't look like modern US military uniforms determined to be uniforms?
This seems to be one of those legalistic questions which attempts to determine between conventional and unconventional military operations, or military versus criminal operations. It seems to me that once you have to ask it, you have already lost control of the situation and should not be making life or death decisions based on such subjective opinions.
6. How do you engage terrorists who will not comply with the laws of armed conflict?
Ceasing to act illegally yourself will generally do it, or at least it is a start. Terrorists do not simply spring into existence from Zeus' forehead, fully grown and royally pissed off. They are generally the products of YEARS of legalized oppression at the hands of various imperial governments, their proxies and/or policies.
The American Indian Movement occupation of Wounded Knee didn't just happen one day in 1973 for shits and giggles, it was predicated by the Wounded Knee Massacre 83 year earlier, and was built upon daily, injustice by injustice, indignity by indignity.
The Taliban didn't just decide to come into existence like a bunch of Twilight fangirls setting up a webring to trade fanfic; it came into being as the successor to mujahideen, which came into being to fight the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in the 80s.
Apparently, the Soviets hadn't learned from the British the folly of invading Afghanistan 100 years before (to be fair, the British still haven't learned that lesson 120 years later).
Who provided financial and military support to the mujahideen in their struggle against the Soviet invaders?
Why, the U.S. government.
We gave money, weapons and training to a group of people who, according to the Soviets, engaged in terrorist actions against Soviet troops (Later, members of these U.S. taxpayer-funded social clubs and their descendants would go on to cause grief for the Russians in Chechnya).
In CIA circles, nasty tactics used against the enemy that are then used against you are called "blowback".
7. Was it a war crime for FDR and/or Churchill to order the bombing German Industry?
Again, answering a question with a question: Was it a war crime to kill partisans and members of the "underground resistance"? The answer to that question is, yes it was, since people were tried, convicted and executed for exactly those actions. If the Axis had won, medals would have been handed out for killing "traitors and saboteurs" and Allied officials would have been on trial for "war crimes" such as "terror bombing" (a term coined by us, by the way) and other tactics the winner gets to decide are "crimes".
American history so far has declared that "war crimes" are what the "other side" does. Since we have won (on paper at least) all the conflicts so far, we have never committed any war crimes that required the kind of accountability that we have inflicted on other governments. In essence, "might makes right".
The fallacy of your question is that it presumes an adversarial rank and file (you don't see AQSL blowing themselves up) viewing murder-suicide as a bad thing done as a response to being pissed off. Successful indoctrination that murder-suicides results in an eternity of bliss in paradise doesn't require to require the individual to be angry?
Not quite sure what you are saying here. Please clarify.
If you are saying that terrorism occurs because one group of people promises paradise and seventy virgins, then you must also accept that we indoctrinate our soldiers with similar religious nonsense. "Kill them all and let God sort them out" is a concept I have heard voiced by American soldiers in the past (Vietnam) and recently (Iraq/Afghanistan).
The historical recipe for terrorism is to put people in an oppressive, untenable position, deny them any say in their situation, inflict indignity upon injustice, and remove all hope of things ever getting better, and voila, terrorism.
I speak from some familial experience having family on my mother's side from Ireland. While I have no family members involved in terrorism (and do not condone violence except in the strictest terms of self-defense and even then with least violence possible), I have followed the politics there all my life.
I find it sad that Britain could give Hong Kong back to the Chinese, but will not TO THIS DAY give Ireland back to the Irish. Things are much calmer today than they were 30 years ago, but change ONLY happened when Britain started to TALK to the IRA, and when it gave Irish Catholics more say in the government in Northern Ireland. Once people were negotiated with, rather than dictated to, progress was made.
If you are implying that the response to terrorism is a sincere apology, you need to find a different buyer. If I've misread you implication, feel free to clarify. And feel free to address what I really asked.
If peace is your aspiration, then a sincere apology should probably be on the table. Don't take my word for it, ask the British government and the IRA.
However, my point was much simpler than an apology. If we expect people to stop planning to kill us and ours, then we should probably stop killing them and theirs. If we don't want people planting bombs in our buildings, then we should probably refrain from dropping bombs on theirs.
Somebody has to be the adult first and stop the killing and start the talking. Killing is simple, peace is hard.
If we want peace in the world, we should STOP selling weapons all over the planet. We should STOP propping up dictators. We should STOP invading other countries simply to further our own greed.
If we cannot restore life to those from whom it was unjustly taken, we shouldn't be dealing out death to those we THINK deserve it.
Remember that the people spoken of as "patriots" and the "Founding Fathers of a great nation" in our history books were, in fact, invaders who stole the land from the people already living here, and who enslaved an entire race for profit for 250 years, then continued to exploit and mistreat the same race for the next 150 years (and counting).
We murder and mistreat people different from ourselves, then we are shocked, SHOCKED, that they fight back.
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)Iliyah
(25,111 posts)dilute Pres. O's standing 24/7. Every negative anything is coming forth non-stop including mag's articles and with all that still be will able to raise money mainly from people like, $1.00 and up donations, unlike GOPers who soley depends on the 1-2%er's donations. So with all the bullshit negativity ummmmm kinda like when Clinton was pres is garage.
Go Obama!
IDemo
(16,926 posts)Because I'm not. He states that there are "values I feel passionately about", many of them at stake in next year's congressional elections. He claims to be a pragmatist, meaning "dealing with things sensibly and realistically in a way that is based on practical rather than theoretical considerations." That can hardly be considered a minus, unless you're somebody who feels every issue should become an unbending ideological pursuit.
passiveporcupine
(8,175 posts)I agree 100%
lumpy
(13,704 posts)cause or ideolog, i.e socialism, communism, or religion etc.
yurbud
(39,405 posts)and we ain't them.
Skittles
(153,169 posts)grasswire
(50,130 posts)It simply takes someone who truly believes in equal justice.
dflprincess
(28,079 posts)I take he will not be supporting the TPP?
Maybe he'll start pushing about income inequality?
Push for financial regulations to protect the working and middle classes? Maybe, finally, go after a few banksters?
Or woudn't that be "pragmatic"?
lumpy
(13,704 posts)Bradical79
(4,490 posts)What is it that was named in that post you replied to that you think President Obama does not have the time and power for? And why?
MisterP
(23,730 posts)struggle4progress
(118,294 posts)suddenly seemed impossible due to a change in the weather? Hell, no! one presses bravely ahead, heroically determined to move up! up! up! regardless of the likely outcome!
Does a real general ever modify his plans in the middle of a war, due to some shifting of the conditions in the field, motivated perhaps by some desire to save his troops for another day? No! no! no! a thousand times no! We should remember the grand examples of the Western front in the Great War, where generals never once deviated from their brilliant plans but again and again marched thousands! then tens of thousands! and finally hundreds of thousands of men into the enemy's machine gun fire at enormous cost! refusing to be discouraged by their defeats! showing remarkable resolve from their command posts far behind the lines! Now those people were real leaders!
And when a real man jumps boldly into his truck and heads for his destination, does he ever adjust his speed and direction to take into account other traffic on the road? Or does he lift his foot from the gas pedal if smoke pours from the hood, followed by flames? Never! never! never, Mr President! One must remain strong and determined to head where one intended originally to go, without any regard for consequences!
Pragmatists are lily-livered folk, the sort of people who say things like This old can of meat was rusty and bulging, and when I started to open it, some foul-smelling foamy stuff spewed all over the room, so I decided not to eat it. It shows no consistency! It shows no ability to follow-through on one's intentions! Pragmatists say things like I was going to go to the grocery store but the six inches of inch on the road is starting to melt, TV news is reporting full gasoline tanker just overturned in the grocery store parking lot and seems to be leaking, and all ten vehicles that have driven by my house in the last hour have skidded off the road and are stuck in the drainage ditch, so I think I'll just have some peanut butter and crackers tonight. Yeah? Well, what kind of example does that set for our children? Nobody respects pragmatists.
ElboRuum
(4,717 posts)Pragmatists value substance over spectacle. They're no fun at parties.
RobinA
(9,893 posts)value today over tomorrow. We need both. No pragmatist ever got us to the moon, he can't see that far. No ideologue ever designed the spaceship to take us there.
Personally, I would prefer a little more ideology in a President, as I think the vision thing is important in that office.
And for the poster mentioning the western front as an example of ideology run amok - anything taken to its extreme turns bad because the extreme rules out flexibility.
pscot
(21,024 posts)ElboRuum
(4,717 posts)Never mistake pragmatism for having lack of vision. Pragmatism encompasses the future. That you think that pragmatism is equitable with preoccupation with the now at the expense of the future is probably why you are dressing it as a limitation. What, pragmatists don't envision the future? It takes a pragmatist, in every case, to realize a dream to reality. Why? Because an ideologue is content to dream. A pragmatist believes that if an idea is good, it is worth the time and effort to bring it into being. They don't fret over imperfection, either. They realize that the desire of the perfect should ever be the enemy of realizing the good.
We would never have gone to the moon if ideologues had their druthers. Our moon shots were precisely and exactly a practical application of technology done in response, not to some grand vision of space exploration and boldly going where no one has gone before, but to perceived propagandized Soviet technical superiority during the height of the Cold War.
U4ikLefty
(4,012 posts)Pragmatism brought us to the moon??? FAIL!!!
ElboRuum
(4,717 posts)And it was full of win.
lumpy
(13,704 posts)yurbud
(39,405 posts)the truck will crash, and the can of meat will kill his kids, but does it anyway to get his next star, a promotion at work from a boss who wants to collect the insurance money, or the life insurance policy on his kids.
In other words, their pragmatism is not about what works best, but what works best for them and their wealthy patrons.
In theory, the kind of pragmatism you describe would be great, but politicians mostly seem to be incapable of that.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)yurbud
(39,405 posts)but there are as few ideologues in Washington as there are "pragmatists"
treestar
(82,383 posts)Those pragmatists! They come in out of the rain, too!
Brigid
(17,621 posts)When Rick Perry was mouthing off about Texas seceding from the Union? That's ideology. Remember Keith Olbermann going off on a ten-minute tirade, complete with facts and figures, about what that would really mean, in practical terms, for Texas? That's pragmatism.
Cha
(297,290 posts)glad we have him for President. He pisses off the right people.
Ash_F
(5,861 posts)Myrina
(12,296 posts).... our gov't doesn't seem interested in, or capable of, feeding the people AND feeding the MIC - the MIC takes precedence and the people are hungry.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)Blueprint for failure.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)Ted Cruz doesn't need a fair shake. And we saw what this president does with Dem majorities, in 2009-2010. This article and this president are just plain bizarre. Edit: Also realize this is fundraiser Obama, not president Obama. Different beings.
Xyzse
(8,217 posts)However, I wish he would negotiate in a position of strength more.
He does so more often now, but... Well, a guy can wish.
Capt. Obvious
(9,002 posts)Post the latest news from reputable mainstream news websites and blogs. Important news of national interest only. No analysis or opinion pieces. No duplicates. News stories must have been published within the last 12 hours. Use the published title of the story as the title of the discussion thread.
tblue
(16,350 posts)Would've made some campaign slogan:
"Vote for me. I'm not particularly ideological."
So enough of the telling me our POTUS is really a liberal at heart. He just said he's not. I never thought he was. Expediency is the order of the day.
yurbud
(39,405 posts)ingredients--or if they do, it's a crapshoot whether they are accurate or not.
lumpy
(13,704 posts)political, economic or social aspects are based, socialist etc. Liberal is an inclusive term and can be applied to members of the GOP, religious groups, or my method of raising children.
lumpy
(13,704 posts)lumpy
(13,704 posts)JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Ideological liberals are the ones on the internet complaining about the pace.
yurbud
(39,405 posts)So in reality, in 2008, we voted for the skinny black college professor over the elderly albino former POW because he seemed more likable, and in 2012, he seemed more likable than the mormon guy who beat up a gay kid at his private school and cannibalized companies as an adult.
RobinA
(9,893 posts)But then, he never claimed to have a particular ideology, so this shouldn't be a surprise.
yurbud
(39,405 posts)If someone says they are non or post-partisan, that means they are post-democracy as well
lumpy
(13,704 posts)he could be elected to the White House".
BeyondGeography
(39,374 posts)lumpy
(13,704 posts)Pterodactyl
(1,687 posts)Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)Pterodactyl
(1,687 posts)Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)Pterodactyl
(1,687 posts)WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)Lobbing insults? That's all you've got?
Enrique
(27,461 posts)it's like people that don't think they have an accent because everyone they know sounds like they do.
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)That's what he should have said (based on his time in office).
DCBob
(24,689 posts)I always considered him that way since the first campaign... and I am ok with it. I am more or less the same.
There are certain issues that I am very passionate about but most are in the gray area territory.
Smarmie Doofus
(14,498 posts)former9thward
(32,020 posts)People with ideology are not particularly welcome in that group.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)whereas, the ideological liberals are the ones who complain endlessly during the process.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Just the opposite in fact and I think you're smart enough to know you have that effect.
The longer I listen to the Dems self described strongest supporters the less I want to do with things political, I know I'm not the only one.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)does not mean I am trying to get YOU to do anything.
See, I know that around 80% of those who engage online forums never post anything.
And I am responding so as to get others to question your effort to get them to abandon this party.
It's easy to be ideological from behind the keyboard.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)The only one I've put up recently is this one..
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024353051
I'm puzzled as to how you find that post doing anything of the sort you accuse me of.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)... thought you were the OP. Not a critical point.
The key point has to do with "inducing" people to engage the Democratic party. There is a group who IS actively discouraging participation, and its not the pragmatic members of the party.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Reading your posts and those of the other "pragmatists" depresses the hell out of me and in no way makes me want to get further engaged in politics, Democratic or otherwise. Again I know I'm not alone in this and also again I think you're smart enough to know your effect on the people you claim you want to be engaged.
I like the way you throw around accusations and then when they turn out to be false you say those accusations don't really matter, if they didn't matter you wouldn't have made them in the first place.
joshcryer
(62,276 posts)Fortunately internet armchair warriors don't represent the majority of progressives in the United States.
rock
(13,218 posts)Followed by, "Give me your blood."
Pterodactyl
(1,687 posts)DerekG
(2,935 posts)n/t
truthisfreedom
(23,148 posts)TBF
(32,064 posts)Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)when he was on the campaign trail.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)That he wasn't an ideological warrior and wanted results no matter what the means of getting there were.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)~ Alexander Hamilton