DId Obama keep us from being involved in Libya? No? And he probably wouldnt either if things with Iran dictated the need for a war.
He might not, you are correct. I am almost certain Mitt would not, however. Neither choice is good in this case, or any other.
And you voting for a their party isnt ever, EVER going to change that. EVER. All you are going to do is suceed in helping get a man elected that is directly opposed to your every political belief. Period.
That would happen regardless of who we elected this election. I support a free market, isolationism, and a government that leaves us alone rather than regulating our lives further. Mitt Romney didn't do any of those things in Massachusettes when he had the power. He didn't even try moving in that direction. Neither did Obama of course. But that's why I say four is less than eight.
Then you dont really have any point voting in this election imho, 'cause pretty much everyone else (except maybe Ron Paul koolaid drinkers) see a ton o' differences.
I'm not, because I can't. Two and a half months or so too young (I'll turn 18 the day after President Romney would be inaugurated if he won). If I could, I absolutely would make my voice heard, and it would not be by voting for Mitt Romney OR Obama.
In the few differences I see, this is the rare case when I'd say the Democrat candidate is actually close to even with the GOP candidate, rather than the Republican clearly being better, as I would normally say is the case.
Obama supports Obamacare, obviously. But so does Mitt, in fact, he came up with it first. That Romney's rhetoric is now dedicated to saying "He's going to repeal Obamacare" doesn't matter. He's not going to, because that's the LAW HE FREAKING SUPPORTED in Massachusettes.
Mitt Romney is at least as anti-gun rights as Obama is. Both supported the Federal Assault Weapons ban. Romney says he now disagrees with this, but in Massachusettes he claimed "These weapons are designed solely for killing (Forgetting Jefferson a bit much, Mitt?) and have no place in our society." Obama to my knowledge has more or less stayed the same, but has not restricted the right to bear arms more than the status quo (Which in itself is pretty pathetic, we SHOULD be able to own automatic weapons according to the 2nd, but Mitt is not interested in this, nor is Obama interested in banning semi automatic weapons. Its a wash.)
Both want the Patriot Act, as well as the unconstitutional searches the TSA is currently participating in. Obama is slightly better on the former, while I don't know if either candidate is any better on the latter. Both of these men are supporting unacceptable positions though. The amount of surveilance powers the government has should be considered not only radical, but utterly unthinkable. Instead, they are policy. I'm not voting for it. But Romney is even worse than Obama here (Obama at least got rid of PART of the USA Patriot Act.)
Both support an unaffordable and frankly immoral foreign policy in the Middle East. Iran would be even more difficult to defeat in combat than Iraq. However, Obama is a bit softer in his rhetoric against them. I don't trust either of these men to not start another war, but on this particular issue, I would trust Obama more if I had to make a call. At least he didn't claim that nuking Iran was on the table.
Both support the drug war.
Both support high taxes, while continuing to support loopholes that will force even more IRS involvement to make the rich pay a thing, while Paul Ryan's fiscal policy is about as anti-poor as it gets. Neither one is interested in cutting the red tape. Romney is just a sellout to the rich while Obama is a social democrat.
On abortion Romney has flip flopped so many times that the word "Pro life" has lost all meaning if he is allowed to use it.
What differences DO they have? Gay marriage? Good, I'm not particularly passionate about that issue anyways. Foreign policy? Romney/Ryan have no experience there, and are even more imperialist than Obama/Biden. Taxes? Barely. Anything?
I can't find one thing that I support in either platform. So screw it. I can't support either one.
Then you deserve the government you get, and at days end your're not any different than any other losertarian that just throws their vote away.
I'm conservative in some ways, but I am not a Republican, nor will I ever be a Republican except perhaps in order to manipulate their primaries toward libertarian ideas.
Mitt Romney isn't really more favorable to what I believe than Obama is. Obama talks like a liberal, but he acts like a conservative when it suits his cause of expanding the government. Mitt Romney will too.
The thing is, you believe what Romney is saying now rather than what he did when he had power. I don't. It was obvious, pure political manipulation.
As for your attitude in that last sentence, no wonder Ron Paul supporters are falling away from the GOP. They have proven they don't really want us anyway. So let them win without us, if they can.
Obama is unquestionably going to win in 2012. Let's see if they do something decent in 2016.
You're absolutely correct.
I think the shortest path to equality continues to be expanding marriage to include gay marriage and then dissolving the legal idea of marriage. Getting the gov't out of marriage is going to be much, much harder to do, and (as a result) the inequality will continue for longer than it needs to.
You are probably right, if you are assuming that we have the same goals. We ultimately don't, even if our thinking is similar.
I can admit, based on purely secular, rational reasoning, that the gay marriage ban doesn't necessarily make emprical sense.
Even still, really, the legal word is "Civil Union." Marriage is broader than a legal institution. Its a social one.
That someone mentioned "Social equality" is kind of my point. My expectation is that government will limit its involvement in moral concerns to the NAP. Not so much that social mores will similarly be limited. Nor do I really want them to be. I still hold to my personal morality, and I wish everyone else would too. I think its immoral to force them to do so, hence why I usually lean libertarian (This, interestingly enough, does affect my fiscal policy as well. I believe it is moral and right to give heavily to charity. I don't think the government should force charity, however, as liberals more or less do support through redistributive taxation techniques.)
Gay marriage is different though. I don't even think the word "Ban" is accurate to describe it. It hasn't been "Banned" anywhere in the country since Lawrence VS Texas. What it really is is that the government is not RECOGNIZING a relationship, not that they are banning it.
I'll be honest, I don't really want them to recognize it. In doing so they are taking sides in the culture war, which I'd rather they didn't. I know its going to happen, and when it does, I'll probably be able to live with it, unlike a lot of people who will probably start vocally complaining about it.
Still, if the government is going to choose which relationships to recognize as "Marriage" and which aren't, I want them to do so according to my convictions. My libertarian side says they probably shouldn't be doing it, but my conservative side says that if they are going to do it, they'd darn right better do it correctly, or it would be even worse.
Civil unions are really my personal compromise between these two lines of thinking. I wouldn't have voted for NC's amendment 1 (Whatever it was called, I thnik that was what it was called) since it would have banned civil unions, but I would have voted for California's prop 8, which does not outlaw civil unions.
Its just according to my convictions. I wouldn't reject a candidate based on that issue, heck, Gary Johnson supports a Federal Marriage Amendment ALLOWING gay marriage and yet I still support him over Romney (Because of everything else other than that and abortion). But if it came down to a referrendum, I would vote according to my convictions, and that is that gay marriage should not be recognized. I don't want government regulating immoral behavior (At least usually) but I don't want them subsidizing it either.
My own thinking is admittedly a bit clouded on the issue. I think every other issue on the planet is more important, and I wish politicians would just shut up about it , but at the same time, my being rasied in the religious right is not something that I've totally shaken off on the issue. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that my opinion will never change. It might. But not at the moment.
