I want to get this to you before Sandy sizzles the northeast grid. I expect that from sometime Tuesday evening until Who-Knows, we'll be living on tree bark and rainwater run-off.
---
I'm confident that President Obama will, if by a hair, win re-election. I know there are no guarantees; I expect the electoral firewall* will hold. I also know that his maddening habit of backing himself against the ropes in order to be able to act with otherwise atypical ferocity (e.g., in the health care debate, last December's economic rolling over the House, the Denver debate) could betray him. Again, save another pre-vote setback, I see a win.
I want briefly to address those ex-patriate voices here (and many more at other venues) who tell us incessantly that a vote for re-election is a vote for immorality.
They suggest that those of us who would actually live here
. with the consequences of a stark rollback of women's and LGBT rights,
. with a depraved reversal of our slow economic justice gains,
. with the resurgence of neo-Conservative foreign and tax policies,
. with the calcification of the federal courts throughout the young adulthoods of our children and grandchildren...
these voices demand we find it ethically sound not simply to live with but to help guarantee the re-institutionalization of these reactionary and unjust conditions.
I'll fast say that, as a former ex-patriate (China) and as one who believes in and works for freedom of thought and speech, this is not for me an issue about who has the right to say or write what s/he likes.
This is a matter of who, ethically, gets to tell those here and intending to be here and intending to vote for the president about our allegedly wanting morality.
. I have respect for (even in serious disagreement) say, Jill Stein/Green Party voters who are content to live with the consequences of a Republican Party win.
. I haven't a jot of respect for American expats who, from remarkably safe distances, have been for over a year now lobing incendiary screeds at those in favor of the president's re-election.
I read this morning one such diatribe -- not even the intellectually lazy ex-pat's own piece but one quoted-in-full from another -- scoring those of us who would vote for Mr. Obama. In addition to the arguments against re-electing the president, the poster pulled from his threadbare pocket of non-ideas the very tired and at-best specious idea that a Republican administration's evil would cause a voter-uprising, an ethical American revolution, on and on.
I heard this a-historical, self-serving, solipsistic nonsense in 1980. The Reagan win, far from resulting in an outrage-inspired ethical political and economic revolution, helped buy us over a generation of regressive, vicious, selfish policies here and overseas. I heard it again in 2000; I needn't remind you where that led.
Again, while I diverge from those who will vote here for Ms. Stein (or, as a protest, not vote), I can in some measure respect the move. I cannot summon a shred for holier-than, incessant rants from those who will never ever have to live with the results of their decision-cum-harangues.
And no, I don't buy for a ridiculous hands-across-the-waters second the foolishness that says everything that occurs here "affects us all, the world-over".... Sell that silly song on a play-date after an arduous day at pre-school.
I am voting for President Obama. My vote is not an ethical game, not fantastical, not that of an overseas, to-hell-with-the-consequences dabbler. My son cannot afford it to be.
--
* Firewall:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/author/nate-silver/
While hardly a guarantee and just one model, 538 is a rather unique one. Mr. Silver's model runs the state and national poll numbers up to 40,000 times each day for a variety of reasons. The November 6 forecast as of late Sunday night gives President Obama a 74.6% chance of winning re-election. If the election were held today, Mr. Silver says, Mr. Obama's chances would be 80.1%. The president's November 6th chances have increased steadily for over a week. No guarantees but a good shot.
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Comments
There could be any number of reasons for this, including I suppose an improved persective from distance, but that is really a two-way street because the reason could just as easily be a lack of familiarity with day-to-day politics here, either in terms of what's happening in Washington (like how unusual the opposition is that this President has faced since he arrived in office) or what reaction on the street looks like (Occupy aside, it doesn't exactly feel like a revolution is about to start under any circumstances).
Thanks, Matt!
Take just one example. The 1988 election probably offered the two most similar candidates - Dukakis and Bush Sr. But one act of Bush Sr. was the appointment of Thomas to the Supreme Court. That wouldn't have happened with Dukakis. Now look at those 5-4 votes like Citizens United. Expect even worse under Romney.
I made clear my argument above (an argument that no one need accept):
They have no cred w me, those who will never have to live w the consequences of a potential Tea Party-driven Republican take-over have no cred w me (certainly perhaps w others) when they in effect aid those who'll harm the US in the ways I believe they will, if in power again and when they score those here who plan to vote for the president.
I'm not going to continue this w you further today; I cannot make myself clearer and I'm content that we wholly disagree. I want many others involved here if possible (regardless of their take on the merits of this piece).
I also am curious about other's commenting.
since everything that the govt does is only enforcable in the end by military,i'm always curious as to their current stand....
R
Thanks!
All I can say is: I hope O. wins, because he is sane.
The Republicans are not. From the Head down:
Those uncanny lily white monsters, that RomneyRyan thing.
~
But here is my least favorite ex pat, T.S. Eliot, aka Frogface, with an unpleasant sentiment that I utterly disagree with, having spent a considerable amount of time talking and living with the Unfortunate of America, so called…
“The majority of mankind is lazy-minded, incurious, absorbed in vanities,
and tepid in emotion, and is therefore incapable of either much doubt or much faith;
and when the ordinary man calls himself a sceptic or an unbeliever,
that is ordinarily a simple pose, cloaking a disinclination
to think anything out to a conclusion.”
He is talking about HIS GODDAMN acquaintances.
I want O. for my people.
The true similarity is between the right-wing and our left-leftie equivocators. Both rely on slogan-as-reality and the thoughts of other people as substitutes for their own. Instead of being able to say something that shows insight, we get:
"______ says blap-blap blap..."
SNIP
"And whappa-whappa ding-dang unconstitutional.."
SNIP
"Fascist regime oppressors obeying their benefactors.."
ETC...
It's like listening to a kid that overheard the adults talking and misinterprets nuance for a Great Truth Singularity. I think part of the ignorance is due to 3rd party identity--pitching the BS spin as expressions of support, same as the 2 main parties. The rest of the ignorance is due to ignorance. Press any of the Posters of Others Thoughts on the details of their accusations and they can't back up the hype with anything resembling comprehensive understanding. What you get is, of course, Postings of More of Others Thoughts.
While the Rage-Against-Machine accusations aren't totally without merit, those people don't really know what they're talking about. Like our OS Rwingers, they want to parlay a very limited shtick into a Real Argument based on contrived self-righteousness and screeching condemnations.
If you like to argue, as I do, you always have the option of responding to the fringe fanatics, or not. The left-lefties are a drip in the ocean of All Things Political, so the response should always recognize that and avoid improper indications that suggest you take them seriously. Like any fanatic, they aren't interested in what you say, for they are in possession of The Great Truths.
SNIP!
I am not American but I feel the same as Jan on the subject of being affected by the outcome of the election in the US.
If Romney plays out his strategy to bring the mideast to reason,that will involve military involvement in this sensitive region,and definitely will have an effect on international operations.
There are other complications like the reduction of negotiations with Russia.We all know what that means.This much to international affairs.
Jan,I do not have the impression about you being a non-American.You above all are very well informed about politics in the whole world and in the USA in particular.Jonathan knows this.
He is most likely referring to those who spread poison, or blow bubbles.
This...patriates_smugly_lobbing_bombs_from_abroad...does not apply to you.
Jonathan,keep safe.I hope all goes well.
Rated
Okay. However, by this thinking, I never again expect you to comment about the murder of gays in Africa, the abuses of the Catholic Church in Rome or anything at all regarding the Israelis.
After all, you won't have to live "with the results of their decision-cum-harangues", so you have no right to speak out either. Right????
Expect as you wish. :)
The suggested equivalency(ies) you make aren't ones with which I hold and so I'll continue on.
And to be specific, nearly all, if not all of my posts on the trampling of LGBT rights in Africa have to w US Pastors' direct, face-to-face/in-Africa multi-year involvement at the governmental level in the promotion of life-imprisonment and death penalty laws that harm Tanzanian and Ugandan LGBT and the raising of funds here to promote that insanity.
Thanks!
How hypocritically Romney-esque of you to condemn others for doing EXACTLY what you do yourself.
However, there are a handful of OS writers who, regardless of location, seem to make a hobby of political diatribes designed solely to belittle those whose conclusions differ from theirs. They can be annoying, but they can also ignored.
Lezlie
Thanks!
I will say that I wish Eugene Debs were running again.
That's novel -- I thought the Green Party supporters here have opposed Obama precisely because he, along with Romney, represents the further "institutionalization of reactionary and unjust conditions."
As to whether or not people outside the US have any right to express an opinion on political trends in the US, there are indeed US developments, including changes in abortion rights and marriage rights, that effect primarily people living in the US. It's equally true that the effects of the US fossil-fuel lobby's war on the environment affects poor regions of the globe far more than it affects people inside the US. And of course the military-industrial complex, while it has many victims in the US, still kills far more people outside the US than inside.
By the way, is it more or less despicable to smugly lob word-bombs from within the US or to do so from outside the US? Or is that just a silly way of framing difficult questions?
As for ex-pat posts on politics, or non-ex-pat 'Obama is evil' posts, for that matter, I have no words other than to say that I am just frightened to paralysis, practically, when I read them and have no sense of how to proceed in life after I'm done: get my passport and run to another country just to be farther from those I love and to interact with Americans anyway online, or start digging the bomb shelter and ordering the lead roof while stockpiling, or just go crazy and wild and go ahead and see if I'd be a fabulous jewel thief, as I suspect I would, because we're all doomed anyway...????
Apocalypse now.All the best for you all.
There is that kind of person who absolutely must take a different path, who get their entire identity from being against something. By always being against the prevailing current, they never have to take responsibility for the group that actually has responsibility for doing anything.
We see it routinely here as people cling to singularly hopeless causes and take the chance of doing damage, because it is easier to claim to stand on 'principles' than to actually be part of the only possible sensible route.
There are those who dart in to call names and never actually participate except to swagger and yell and make accusations.
I guess we should feel sorry for them, as damaged as they are, but it is like feeling sorry for a dog with the mange; I just don't want it close.
Lew
Those of us who have decided, for whatever reason, to live overseas still have a reason to want to protect and promote this country. I assume some still have family over here and some will come back some day. I would live to live overseas for a few years, but I would come back before I die.
You accuse them of throwing bombs. I say they are giving their reasons for voting as they wish. You may not under stand them as I don't understand you or some of your readers.
One said, "All I can say is: I hope O. wins, because he is sane." You say you are going to lose some of your "rights". I don't know how either one of those compare to to re-electing someone who has a "kill list" or who watch our citizens being attacked and killed then lied about it. People here on OS complain about Bush as a war criminal but praise Obama while he sends drones to attack weddings and funerals.
You will vote for someone you know, and has proved, is evil but you condemn those who express their displeasure and state they will vote for someone who you are projecting you preconceived notions on.
BTW, your son can't afford an administration who will tell rescue teams to "stand down" while he is under attack and they watch in real time.
I posted recently on why I intended to vote for Obama, and the core reason was that the consequences to the general public under Romney would likely be an obvious deterioration compared to under Obama in a variety of areas. I requested, repeatedly, that whoever argued with me address that concern, either by arguing that those differences were exaggerated or that those differences were of less consequence than the gesture of voting against Obama would be. I got neither, and yes, I absolutely include Jan in the people I'm talking about. What I got was talk about how awful Obama was and some glossed over mentions of alledgedly insignificant differences.
What could lead a person to gloss over the bad things that could happen to millions of Americans in the event of a Romney victory? I kept posing that question and kept getting it ignored. I can only speculate. However, one of the areas of speculation is a lack of close enough observation of the people who would bear the burden of the "insignificant" differences I'm talking about. Distance could affect that.
This isn't a blanket condemnation of those who aren't here. However, it is a blanket condemnation of those who, rather than addressing issues, merely dismiss them as unimportant, regardless of their consequences. When I found such a puzzling phenomenon, I went looking for a source. I found that about half of the people who virulently objected to what I was suggesting and who (at least initially) didn't bother to actually address my case at all happened to be out of the country. Again, small sample size, but I have to wonder.
Jonathan is not condemning those who express their opinions from outside the US, nor is he condemning those who disagree with him and are outside the US. He is condeming those who disagree with him outside the US and treat the consequences to millions of Americans of a Romney victory as insignificant. That is, as he points out, a luxury most of us don't have.
I've heard the argument that we should make things awful enough here for the American people to go into open revolution. That's a very convenient argument to make from thousands of miles away.
In that respect, I agree fully with this post. The behavior Jonathan describes is fundamentally irresponsible.
My objection is to those who have from a very safe distance used ongoing invective against those who have made one choice in this election w. a cavalier attitude to the effects of a right-wing government on those who live here and will be living here.
I honestly think I made the distinctions clear in the post.
Also, in some cases, there is no reason to worry. If somebody wants Romney type people handling our nation's affairs, they will vote for him. The same goes with Obama. SOme ex-pats are more concerned with other ideals and have been too buy focused elsewhere on issues that can't have struck them before. Sure, there is some fine news coverage overseas of this country, perhaps much more than there is here about anywhere overseas. But the real human feelings connected with such an election cannot have true force except through secondhand means. Let's not fault them for it.
I disagree with many things the Obama administration has done, yet I disagree more strongly with the misogyny I see within his thinking and that of his followers. They frighten me, to be quite honest. Two Bushies nearly killed me at one point. I'd prefer to trust I am going to be allowed to feel safe, not further challenged. My health situation challenges me enough already. That's my personal view.
Most Romney voters don't even know who I am, let alone that I was honorable throughout my life and now just want to be left in peace to grow old with dignity. They must not be faulted for thinking in generalized terms, even if they have yet to think things through fully.
patience, perseverance with dignity, and speaking calmly if others may be mistaken often konks them awake sooner than anger and more upset.
I once convinced a die-hard conservative that I had to be looked after not through any fault of my own, and that i do not deserve to be looked down on by using that very technique mentioned. He was astonished, even embarrassed, at himself, and stammered an answer which made me realize he'd never SEEN me before, truly.
Patience, perseverance, and honorable intent may turn heads in Washington as well. Getting angry, using bombs in a metaphorical context, hasn't done a bit of good that I can see, not in Congress, not at the state level.
Peace to you
Thanks!
1. There has been expressed the notion that ex patriots are in an unfair position since they would not have to live under a rather horrible Republican regime.
2. It is presented, without permitting disagreement, that Obama's second term will undeniably be better and more in line with the ideals proclaimed for US government.
3. There is something unacceptable in the assumption that ex pats should be explicit in clearly laying out how Obama is formulating an agenda to destroy the underlying legal civil rights guaranteed in the US constitution which is totally explicit in moving the country towards a totalitarian dictatorship.
In general there is the implication that ex patriots do not have the privilege of vigorously participating in discussions about the nature of the differences between the main political parties and how they both equally provide a plan of disaster for the country. It is taken as obvious and undeniable that Obama represents a better prospect for the country than Romney and denials of this with documentation are insufferable.
I disagree with these points and this disagreement is considered insulting.
I have little issue w ex-pats who don't agree w my sense of who oughta be president/why.
The ramped up attacks on individuals by a number of them on specific people here and elsewhere from people who have chosen to absent themselves from many of the consequences of the vote is disgraceful.
That some commenters choose not to see the distinctions I am making...it's too cute for credibility, as most of them are bright people.
As PJO would say,
SNIP
r./
Jan,
What I'm saying is redundant, but I'll say it anyway.
Jonathan is NOT saying that those out of the country have no right to speak, nor is he saying that those out of the country have no right to disagree with him.
Jonathan IS saying that denying that the consequences of the considerable differences between the candidates (over and above their considerable similarities, which are not the issue at the moment) are significant without bothering to refute them is unacceptable, and that simply asserting the insignificance of those consequences is a luxury we who live here can't afford because those consequences pertain to our neighbors and to us.
If you have a rationale other than absence for ignoring those consequences, present it. If you believe that the consequences are of less significance than Jonathan portrays them (or than Tom Cordle or Abrawang or Dr. Spudman or L in the Southeast or Frank Apisa or Paul O'Rourke or I portray them, and this is far from an exhaustive list), make your case. On my last post on the subject, I begged you to make your case, either that I was exaggerating the consequences or that I was exaggerating their importance. You didn't. You don't get to refuse to make your case, then complain that you haven't gotten to make your case. Jonathan reads my blog; that's one reason he wrote this post.
So you find the idea that we theorize that your living overseas might have something to do with your views insulting? Give us an alternative explanation. We can't figure out why you think that Americans should just live with these consequences (in order to, of all things, vote for a candidate that has zero shot of getting anywhere). The idea that we should make things bad enough here to foment a revolution suggests that you're willing for us to bear the brunt of that upheaval, which is very easy to do from a few thousand miles away.
So, if you want us to draw another conclusion, make your case.
You won't, though. You'll do what you always do. You'll give us another comment about how Obama is leading us down the road to Hell and you'll either gloss over the differences between the candidates or deny that they exist, with no substantiation. You'll talk about how the similarities between the candidates dwarf the differences. This last point may be true but it's fundamentally irrelevant because the scope of the similarities doesn't make the consequences of the differences insignificant.
You won't explain how the consequences of the differences are insignificant; you'll just assert that they are. With no substantiation, acting like it's just supposed to be obvious, probably backed up with quite a bit of sarcasm.
That doesn't cut it.
By the way, Heidi is incorrect. Jonathan does mean you.
Still, I'll speak for myself here, even though I very much doubt Jonathan would object if I spoke for him further than I already have:
If you say the same thing over and over and don't address the difference in cost to my countrymen and me between the candidates with specificity, and you're insulted that I could reach the conclusion that your living overseas might have something to do with that - in Your case, as there are people living overseas who do not ignore those consequences to Americans, then
I mean the insult.
Jan,
What I'm saying is redundant, but I'll say it anyway.
Jonathan is NOT saying that those out of the country have no right to speak, nor is he saying that those out of the country have no right to disagree with him.
Jonathan IS saying that denying that the consequences of the considerable differences between the candidates (over and above their considerable similarities, which are not the issue at the moment) are significant without bothering to refute them is unacceptable, and that simply asserting the insignificance of those consequences is a luxury we who live here can't afford because those consequences pertain to our neighbors and to us.
If you have a rationale other than absence for ignoring those consequences, present it. If you believe that the consequences are of less significance than Jonathan portrays them (or than Tom Cordle or Abrawang or Dr. Spudman or L in the Southeast or Frank Apisa or Paul O'Rourke or I portray them, and this is far from an exhaustive list), make your case. On my last post on the subject, I begged you to make your case, either that I was exaggerating the consequences or that I was exaggerating their importance. You didn't. You don't get to refuse to make your case, then complain that you haven't gotten to make your case. Jonathan reads my blog; that's one reason he wrote this post.
So you find the idea that we theorize that your living overseas might have something to do with your views insulting? Give us an alternative explanation. We can't figure out why you think that Americans should just live with these consequences (in order to, of all things, vote for a candidate that has zero shot of getting anywhere). The idea that we should make things bad enough here to foment a revolution suggests that you're willing for us to bear the brunt of that upheaval, which is very easy to do from a few thousand miles away.
So, if you want us to draw another conclusion, make your case.
You won't, though. You'll do what you always do. You'll give us another comment about how Obama is leading us down the road to Hell and you'll either gloss over the differences between the candidates or deny that they exist, with no substantiation. You'll talk about how the similarities between the candidates dwarf the differences. This last point may be true but it's fundamentally irrelevant because the scope of the similarities doesn't make the consequences of the differences insignificant.
You won't explain how the consequences of the differences are insignificant; you'll just assert that they are. With no substantiation, acting like it's just supposed to be obvious, probably backed up with quite a bit of sarcasm.
That doesn't cut it.
By the way, Heidi is incorrect. Jonathan does mean you.
Still, I'll speak for myself here, even though I very much doubt Jonathan would object if I spoke for him further than I already have:
If you say the same thing over and over and don't address the difference in cost to my countrymen and me between the candidates with specificity, and you're insulted that I could reach the conclusion that your living overseas might have something to do with that - in Your case, as there are people living overseas who do not ignore those consequences to Americans, then
I mean the insult.
There is, implied in this whole conversation, the implication that I fled the USA to avoid living under the oppressive insanity of a Republican agenda. You have a long acquaintance with my history and are well aware that my necessity of living outside the USA began in 1967 when I was forced to accept the extremely generous lifelong care for my quadriplegic son, a US citizen born in Tennessee, was offered by Finland when his return to the USA would have placed him into totally inferior circumstances for the rest of his life.
There is further the implication that I care not at all for the suffering people of the country where I grew up and spent much of my life and my attitude towards this election is merely a snotty reprisal over my inherent disdain. That, I find, immensely callous and highly insulting.
I have watched, over these many years, the immense transfer of whatever power the populace had over their destiny from the electoral process into the hands of the corporate and financial elite so that whatever benefits gained under the administration of FDR for social concern for the people in their civil rights, their work regulation, their labor power, their access to free lower and higher education, their health facilities, their opportunities to advance from lower to higher financial status, the general maintenance of the total infrastructure of the country, the basic governmental services such as police and fire protection and even the fundamental civil and legal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution gradually whittled away by the overwhelming power of the financial elite to rape the country of its wealth and the people's community concern for each other. What emotion do you think I should have for this development? From Reagan through Clinton through the two Bushes and finally the current Obama this process has thoroughly corrupted and rotted the best aspects of the country and to indicate I am joyful at the creation of this monstrous Frankensteinian military corporate monster that now freely strides the world blasting helpless people everywhere with no conscience whatsoever is nauseating. Obama has trumpeted this vicious power as one of his high accomplishments and I am supposed to applaud this bloody monster and support him? Surely the alternative Republicans are probably a bit worse and the inherent anger you should feel at no sensible alternative must (or should) be tearing you apart but do not blame me for being uninfected by whatever psychopathy drives you to Obama's side.
I am implying no such thing. To reach such a conclusion you'd have to ignore at least as much of what I've written as you accuse me of ignoring what you've written. Not that I don't see such a trend here.
You seem to think that a vote for Obama means support for his policies. Let me be quite clear about that: It doesn't. I've made no secret of the fact that I am using a vote for Obama not to support Obama but to stop Romney because there is no other effective Stop Romney option available. You could claim, as PhilT does on my blog, that a vote for Obama is by definition a vote for Obama and will be interpreted as such, but that argument is undermined by Obama's own advertising. The ads of neither candidate state "I am great," the ads state "be afraid of the other guy and vote for me for that reason." Please stop pretending that this vote means we all support Obama. It does not. It means we think that a vote for Stein is guaranteed to be completely ineffective in stopping Romney but a vote for Obama may not be.
You are addressing the wrong question over and over and over, no matter how many times it is presented to you. This response was no exception. The issue as far as we're concerned is
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE TWO CANDIDATES.
THE ISSUE IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE TWO CANDIDATES.
THE ISSUE IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE TWO CANDIDATES.
THE ISSUE IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE TWO CANDIDATES.
You are ignoring that difference, but it is that difference that is driving this election. We are saying over and over and over that regardless of the similarities between the candidates, the differences will result in serious harm to millions of people. You are ignoring that harm. We find that callous BECAUSE IT IS.
I don't want to resort to shouting, but you haven't answered when I don't. My wife chided me this morning for trying to teach pigs to sing. I'm hearing altogether too much oinking from your direction.
I appreciate your motivation, but it's like supporting Hitler to oppose Stalin. You propose that Romney is incredibly worse than Obama. My point is that Obama is so incredibly bad that Romney could not be worse. We seem to have a difference of opinion.
Great conjecture.
Jan,
The entire point of what at least half a dozen people on OS (very conservative estimate) are writing about multiple times, including both me and Jonathan, is that he could be a LOT worse. This is exactly the question you aren't addressing. Saying "he couldn't be any worse" when many of us are giving you lists of the ways he is likely to be worse is the problem. Ignoring how much worse he could be will not invalidate the argument, no matter how many parallels you draw between Hitler and Stalin.
Never ask "How much worse could things get?" because you'll get the answer. Many years ago, that's what I think Cambodians were asking when they got sick of their current government. How bad could things get? Then Pol Pot took over and they found out. The same thing happened in Germany in 1933 - there was the Depression, the payments to WWI enemies, how depraved the arts seemed to be getting, so the Germans elected someone who could put a stop to all of that. Well, he did, but........
Usually it's a choice between the corrupt and the zealots. Here, it's more a choice between the corrupt and the unbelievably corrupt.
Romney is so much worse on all fronts -- the healthcare now in place by Obama saved my (ex) sister-in-law's life! She is poor, had no previous way to get the operations that saved her from her pre-existing condition, the one that was slowly was killing her.
She lives in Tennessee -- a state where she now gets excellent care, thanks to Obama's pushing through healthcare.
I'm voting for Obama.
Where X = shared evils between Obama and Romney and
Y= additional evils introduced by Romney
Argument by Jan et al:
X + Y = X
because Y is dismissed as insignificant.
The assertion that Y is insignificant is, firstly, unsupported, and, secondly, based on the idea that the scope of X makes it insignificant
But
It doesn't matter how big X is; X + Y = X is false.
All that matters here in terms of how large an inequality we're looking at is the size of Y, not the size of X.
If you don't look at Y, you can't determine how big it is.
We here (northwest of the District) appear to have been really fortunate.
I must add this one thought:
The "Hitler Go-To', as a way of discussing why we support or do not support any contemporary American candidate betrays a remarkable lack of political, if not also emotional sophistication (no matter how bright or well-read the person may be).
It also, clear-as-a-bell, is a signal that I have no reason to further engage anyone resorting to that, regardless of his/her politics.
Such comments are thoroughly unworthy of adult conversation.
Expats by choice or necessity find themselves in a position to see more clearly what the people at home cannot.
Anna like myself is an Australian, but that doesn't mean we don't have a dog in this fight either.
What we see from here is a clear enough choice between a person with Kenyan roots, Indonesian roots, who has an experience of the rest of the world and a certain empathy for the needs of disenfranchised people in his own country, and a corporate goon.
Australians don't share your dilemma ~ a recent poll suggests nearly 85% of us want to see Obama re-elected.
When it comes to the rest of the world believe me we count.
If Obama were 20 points ahead in the polls, maybe a protest vote could be forgiven, but he's not, he's far from it. I cannot forgive, not under present circumstances, not with the consequences so potentially dire for the poor and not with the potential packing of the Supreme Court with Neanderthals like Scalia -- that consequence alone could resound terribly -- especially to women and minorities -- unto seven generations.
And to add to their perfidy, the Greens have the temerity to claim the "holy high moral ground" for themselves with their pyrrhicism, while relegating those of us who are reasonable enough to compromise in the slightest as "war-criminals".
Since no quarter is given, none will be granted in return.
Thank goodness it is only the benighted electorate of the United States of America that is voting in this election on touch screen voting machines manufactured by corporations run by right wing zealots. It would otherwise be a complete yawner if the rest of the world could vote, too, with everyone filling out a paper ballot. In the way that it is, it will be grand spectator sport from afar.
The point is that some are repeatedly ignoring the extra bad consequences a Romney win would bring, simply asserting that it would make no difference which candidate is elected.
Well, here, mainly one is. He's giving us a fairly thorough evaluation of Obama (whether or not we agree with all of it) but not of Romney, and without a similar evaluation of him we can't possibly reach a valid conclusion. But I'm repeating myself. and repeating myself. and repeating myself. and there's no point.
To reference an earlier comment, all I hear is oinking.
The world is a wider place.
Especially if you're a 'foreigner.'
Good on 'yer, Canadians and Aussies... happy green days Kiwis.... and hold hands while the ship goes down Germans: I don't believe either that expats have any more clouded views than residents, only that they sometimes sound a bit smug.