Facebook Poll:"Should Obama be Killed?" (1 Viewer)

[Taurus]

We've become a nation of people who are so quick to take offense, so quick to find the worst possible interpretation of a statement, and so many reading through their tinted glasses that civilized discourse is nearly impossible to find.

Plus reading comprehension isn't what it used to be.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to V Chip again.

 

[dtc]

Yet another strawman. Who wants mandatory prayer (to God, not Obama)?

Man, you have drunk the Obama koolaid. You said...the fact that the right wing media is instigating violence and subversiveness.

That is an opinion, not a fact. We have an ideologue in the White House moving into all aspects of private industry with government intervention and ownership driving us deeper and deeper into debt while doing nothing to improve the job market. This is your party's gig now. You own it all.
If you believe what you posted, you are far more partisan than me.

I hired 12 people today. My phone is ringing and the price of housing in my area has increased for the 4th straight month. The rate of increase in joblessness has lessened and the only people silly enough to blame Obama for debt without a qualifying clause about the Republicans and their complicity over the past 8 years are people like you who refuse to see both sides of an argument even if they were printed on the same sheet of paper.

So, you just keep on preaching the doom and gloom and listening to Beckhannitylimbaugh and I'll look forward to contiued betterment for our great nation.

Should I post some links to you blaming Bush's recession on the "clinton dot-com bubble?" Just sayin.

 

[Dre]

The rate of increase in joblessness has lessened

I find this interesting. I noticed it on MSNBC.com about a month ago, and never got a chance to bring it up. And one of my friends mentioned it on Facebook... but I am not getting why this is such good news. Joblessness overall is increasing, the unemployment rate is increasing, but we praise the decline in the RATE of increase? I guess that is one way to look at it.

I am not using this (aforementioned) as a statistic to bash Obama, but it reminds me of my last trip to Vegas...I lost $120 on the first night, $80 on the second night, and $40 on the third night...but I wasnt exactly pleased with the decreased rate of my money loss. I was glad to get the hell out of there

 

[dtc]

I find this interesting. I noticed it on MSNBC.com about a month ago, and never got a chance to bring it up. And one of my friends mentioned it on Facebook... but I am not getting why this is such good news. Joblessness overall is increasing, the unemployment rate is increasing, but we praise the decline in the RATE of increase? I guess that is one way to look at it.

I am not using this (aforementioned) as a statistic to bash Obama, but it reminds me of my last trip to Vegas...I lost $120 on the first night, $80 on the second night, and $40 on the third night...but I wasnt exactly pleased with the decreased rate of my money loss. I was glad to get the hell out of there

It's a statistic. I didn't pass it on to bash or praise anyone and its significance is arguable. As one who studied economics, I was taught that rates of change were as significant as rates themselves. Yes, the overall rate of unemployment has continued to rise as has the number of unemployed. The rate at which that rate is increasing has slowed meaning that we are continuing to lose jobs, but at a slower rate.

Imagine you're in a boat that is taking on water. In order not to sink and drown, you must stop the leak or slow it to the point that you can bail or pump out enough to maintain flotation. What we've done is plug the hole so we've got more time before sinking. That decrease alone is enough to refute Barkus's rEdiculous post that the economy is worse now than it was 1 yr ago or that Obama is to blame, but other facts are even more positive.

I'll cite one more example. The DJIA is up 50% since March.

 

[dapperdan]

So today we get the esteemed Thomas Friedman putting in his $.02 worth on the subject:

I hate to write about this, but I have actually been to this play before and it is really disturbing.

I was in Israel interviewing Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin just before he was assassinated in 1995. We had a beer in his office. He needed one. I remember the ugly mood in Israel then — a mood in which extreme right-wing settlers and politicians were doing all they could to delegitimize Rabin, who was committed to trading land for peace as part of the Oslo accords. They questioned his authority. They accused him of treason. They created pictures depicting him as a Nazi SS officer, and they shouted death threats at rallies. His political opponents winked at it all.

Others have already remarked on this analogy, but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach: I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.

What kind of madness is it that someone would create a poll on Facebook asking respondents, “Should Obama be killed?” The choices were: “No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.” The Secret Service is now investigating. I hope they put the jerk in jail and throw away the key because this is exactly what was being done to Rabin.

Even if you are not worried that someone might draw from these vitriolic attacks a license to try to hurt the president, you have to be worried about what is happening to American politics more broadly.

Our leaders, even the president, can no longer utter the word “we” with a straight face. There is no more “we” in American politics at a time when “we” have these huge problems — the deficit, the recession, health care, climate change and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — that “we” can only manage, let alone fix, if there is a collective “we” at work.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/opinion/30friedman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

 

[dapperdan]

And then we get the response to the Friedman column:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/09/024618.php

Pete Wehner amply demonstrates the hypocrisy bit:

I've written before about the importance of civility in public discourse and the need for what has been called the "etiquette of democracy." One question, though: When George W. Bush was being routinely savaged by those on the Left--including prominent Democrats like Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Harry Reid--where were those Friedman columns of ringing condemnation? I don't recall them; perhaps you do.

When there was actually a movie made about the assassination of President Bush (Death of a President), I don't recall Friedman writing about "creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination."

When Hendrik Hertzberg of the New Yorker declared that Bush's "legitimacy is hard to accept," I don't recall Mr. Friedman worrying that Bush was having his legitimacy attacked by a concerted campaign from the Left (adding a mild line of criticism against liberals now, in order to gain the patina of fair-mindedness, simply underscores that Friedman was AWOL when it counted).

I should add that when Jonathan Chait of the New Republic published a piece in 2003 that began, "I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it," one admirable New York Times columnist did speak out. His name is David Brooks. ("The quintessential new warrior scans the Web for confirmation of the president's villainy," Brooks wrote. "The core threat to democracy is not in the White House, it's the haters themselves.")

Most of us struggle with the temptation to employ double standards, to cloak political agendas in the language of moral concern and outrage. Some individuals do an admirable job resisting that temptation. Others, like Tom Friedman, do not. He would have a lot more credibility now if he had actually spoken out before.

Beyond the hypocrisy, Friedman's piece is simply foolish. In a democracy, there will always be enough harshly worded antagonism towards the nation's leader to permit a column like Friedman's. For example, Friedman is old enough that he may recall a play about Lyndon Johnson, called "MacBird," in which Johnson was portrayed as a MacBeth figure who was behind the Kennedy assassination. The play was popular among leftists. Nonetheless, if Johnson had been assassinated only the most foolish partisan would have blamed "MacBird" or the radicals who were fond of chanting "Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids have you killed today"?

 

[dapperdan]

The rate of increase in joblessness has lessened and the only people silly enough to blame Obama for debt without a qualifying clause about the Republicans and their complicity over the past 8 years are people like you who refuse to see both sides of an argument even if they were printed on the same sheet of paper.

The lessening of the rate of decline of joblessness is an incredibly meaningless statistic, especially at this point in the business cycle. It's rather humorous that you would even mention it. It makes no logical sense to look at a second derivative of a lagging indicator when there are so many other indicators available to keep an eye on.

I would say that the Republicans have taken their political hit for submitting to the dark side of power and politics. They are out of power, out of the White House, with minority representation in the House of Representatives and the Senate. They are certainly taking their walk in the desert.

At the same time, the scope of the deficits that Obama has proposed is simply unprecedented. These fresh deficits are worthy of criticism on their own merits.

 

[dtc]

The lessening of the rate of decline of joblessness is an incredibly meaningless statistic, especially at this point in the business cycle. It's rather humorous that you would even mention it. It makes no logical sense to look at a second derivative of a lagging indicator when there are so many other indicators available to keep an eye on.

I would say that the Republicans have taken their political hit for submitting to the dark side of power and politics. They are out of power, out of the White House, with minority representation in the House of Representatives and the Senate. They are certainly taking their walk in the desert.

At the same time, the scope of the deficits that Obama has proposed is simply unprecedented. These fresh deficits are worthy of criticism on their own merits.

Did I not state that the merit of the rate I quoted was "arguable?" Yes, I did. Anyway, I've stated my opinion about the debt and deficit. That is, we are preparing to inflate away our debt. Had we buckled down 9 yrs ago and stayed with the existing tax rate, began saving and spending within our means as a government and as individuals and stopped the craziness of waste that is everywhere in our society then maybe we could have averted the current crisis.

We didn't. And, now we're printing money and paying the piper. Our alternative would have been depression and a complete evaporation of the value of the dollar and our governmental securities.

 

[LafourcheSaint]

Yeah, because Pres. Biden and Vice Pres. Pelosi is better!

But seriously, I would hope no self-respecting American would want the death of their president.

My hope is that he is killed at he polls next election but I do not, obviously, hope for the assasination of Mr. Obama.

Anyone who thinks otherwise should be investigated thoroughly.