The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Because everything is racism. Yawn. Offensive.

And it wasn't one office. It was five offices. If only one office, yeah, some people screwed up and were fired, case closed. Five offices is a completely different problem.

But, if I read this correctly, only ONE out of the five offices did anything wrong. At the other four, the sting didn't work, yes? Am I wrong here? (I haven't got any research time available to me at the moment.) If that is the case, then sca, your response here makes no sense. (I'm happy to be updated with further data about those other four.)

Anyway, sca, you yourself said that what happened here would not meet Obama's approval (duh), so, it's pretty irrelevant to the topic of Obama's politics or integrity. Even in the campaign, his much-touted "connections" with Acorn amounted to nothing, and hey, didn't McCain speak at Acorn functions too? The whole Acorn deal was beyond a nontroversy.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by flippyshark

But, if I read this correctly, only ONE out of the five offices did anything wrong. At the other four, the sting didn't work, yes? Am I wrong here? (I haven't got any research time available to me at the moment.)

I haven't watched this one closely but I believe Jon Stewart the other night showed clips of it happening in three offices.

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by Alex

I haven't watched this one closely but I believe Jon Stewart the other night showed clips of it happening in three offices.

Hmm, then it may indeed be a problem. Yeesh. Pretty appalling even once.

But still, neither Obama's fault, nor relevant to his performance as pres.

[JWBear]

Originally Posted by Alex

I haven't watched this one closely but I believe Jon Stewart the other night showed clips of it happening in three offices.

One or three, still doesn't make the whole orginization corrupt. Again, should we close down an entire company for the mistakes made in a few offices?

[Alex]

Originally Posted by JWBear

One or three, still doesn't make the whole orginization corrupt. Again, should we close down an entire company for the mistakes made in a few offices?

Congratulations! You've successfully refuted something unsaid by me. You even knocked senseless an argument I didn't even attempt to slyly imply. And in the process you assume that which is (though not by me) being argued--which is just an empty rhetorical trick.

Let me see how this works.

Originally Posted by JWBear

One or three, still doesn't make the whole orginization corrupt. Again, should we close down an entire company for the mistakes made in a few offices?

Surely you'd agree that raping young girls is not nearly so fun as it sounds! And should we allow a thoroughly corrupt organization continue unpunished and unblemished access to the government teat?

Nah, I just don't have the knack for it.

[Gemini Cricket]

Oh yes. There is a reason why I love this man in so many ways.

CNN: President Carter said he thinks that a lot of the animosity directed toward President Obama is race related.

Dave Matthews: Of course it is! I found there's a fairly blatant racism in America that's already there, and I don't think I noticed it when I lived here as a kid. But when I went back to South Africa, and then it's sort of thrust in your face, and then came back here -- I just see it everywhere. There's a good population of people in this country that are terrified of the president only because he's black, even if they don't say it. And I think a lot of them, behind closed doors, do say it.

Maybe I'm paranoid about it, but I don't think someone who disagreed as strongly as they do with Obama -- if it was Clinton -- would have stood up and screamed at him during his speech. (Shakes his head) I don't think so.

CNN: Everything has gone to such a frenzied pitch.

Matthews: I think a lot of it has to be on the press. We give the podium to a lot of people who shouldn't have the podium. The message that's delivered the loudest and in the most entertaining way is the one that we're going to put on because that's what we want. We want ratings more than we want to deliver information. That's just where the culture's gotten.
There's no way that Walter Cronkite, as a young journalist, no way Ed Murrow would be hired to do news today. Not a chance.

CNN: Because they're too low-key? Because they're not bombastic?

Matthews: Because they're thoughtful, and they're patient, and they're tying to tell you a truly balanced story. They're trying to impart information. I don't think that's the goal [now] because it's not a good business plan. ...
Everyone's outraged all the time. Why are you outraged? There's war -- there's always been war, as long as most of us have been alive. There have always been people being abused, there's always been horrible things in the world. Why are we outraged? We should just be quiet and figure it out, and work it out together. ... There's no solution in Washington as long as people are shouting like that.

Source

[innerSpaceman]

So when Michael Moore's movie comes out next week (no less a partisan filmmaker than those who stung ACORN), and he catches and illustrates all sorts of unethical and loathsome shenanigans at Wall Street investment banks, what will you recommend Congress do, sceagles?

[scaeagles]

Well, hopefully they aren't funding those banks. Right now all that is happening is removing the funding from ACORN, which I think is appropriate.

Also, Congress is already in process of throwing more regulations at the industry. The problem is, that for the unscrupulous (of which there are many on Wall Street), there is always some creative way around regulations. OI've heard wise financial advisors say the biggest problem with regulation is they are always regulating the last problem, with not real way to anticipate the next one.

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Well, hopefully they aren't funding those banks. Right now all that is happening is removing the funding from ACORN, which I think is appropriate.

Also, Congress is already in process of throwing more regulations at the industry. The problem is, that for the unscrupulous (of which there are many on Wall Street), there is always some creative way around regulations. OI've heard wise financial advisors say the biggest problem with regulation is they are always regulating the last problem, with not real way to anticipate the next one.

Depressing but I bet you're on to something here.

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Well, hopefully they aren't funding those banks. Right now all that is happening is removing the funding from ACORN, which I think is appropriate.

Not funding those banks?!?!? How would you define handing them $750 billion dollars such that they have gone from brim-of-bankruptcy to healthily-profitable? Is that not "funding?" It's not grants, yeah. But it was voted by Congress just the same.