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Yeah we do. We all think we're better-informed than other people, and that if someone disagrees with us, there's a flaw in their reasoing or we possess facts of which they're ignorant.

I hope Obama win because I agree with more of his policies. I think the way he's handled foreign policy has been pretty dead-on, and his social policies are almost entirely in accord with my views. Domestic and economic is more debateable, but I still think he's more on the right track than not.

He disappoints me in a bunch of areas too, and IMO the Dems and Reps are still way too similar too each other on a lot of important stuff, like corporate welfare, civil rights, domestic spying and Patriot Act-style crap, drug policy...

After the consequences of the 2000 election, though, I can't write off the differences as unimportant. I know a lot of centrist liberals who supported McCain in 2000.

Kilkrazy wrote:For starters there is no language barrier.

Isn't there?

Mannahnin wrote:IChongara's echoing my thoughts (though I'm white).

Lacist

Mannahnin wrote: I know a lot of centrist liberals who supported McCain in 2000.

If I had to guess I'd say that's because McCain is more of a classic Republican than the strain of Religious Right we are becoming used to. All things considered he's probably more liberal than some Democrats, certainly more liberal than the party elites would like.

AustonT wrote:If I had to guess I'd say that's because McCain is more of a classic Republican than the strain of Religious Right we are becoming used to. All things considered he's probably more liberal than some Democrats, certainly more liberal than the party elites would like.

You've got your tenses all messed up there. McCain was more liberal. Not anymore. He wanted to be president so badly that he sold his own beliefs over to the Liars for Jesus camp; and now he's just an ultra-conservative, cranky old man that wants those gay kids to keep off his lawn.

 azazel the cat wrote:

AustonT wrote:If I had to guess I'd say that's because McCain is more of a classic Republican than the strain of Religious Right we are becoming used to. All things considered he's probably more liberal than some Democrats, certainly more liberal than the party elites would like.

You've got your tenses all messed up there. McCain was more liberal. Not anymore. He wanted to be president so badly that he sold his own beliefs over to the Liars for Jesus camp; and now he's just an ultra-conservative, cranky old man that wants those gay kids to keep off his lawn.

lolwut?

He's the embodiment of a RINO sometimes...

Sheesh...

 Seaward wrote:
There's only so many times I can tell you how wrong you are before it starts to become repetitive. Protection of US commercial assets and related targets is, in fact, among the Navy's many duties. It simply is. In a full-scale conventional war, you're absolutely wrong if you believe merchant shipping would not be targeted. You're absolutely wrong if you believe GOPLATS would not be targeted. You're absolutely wrong if you believe various navigable passages would not be targeted.

And the police will stop a highway man from robbing a stage coach, but pretending that it's a major part of the present mission of the police is just crazy pants.

Just stop doing this. Your absolute refusal to take a back step on anything results in you dragging out the stupidest arguments for page after page after page. And it's the same nonsense everytime, you deny some simple, common sense point that mildly contradicts one slight element of your overall argument, and you just will not back down.

Instead you just make up stupid nonsense about the other person's argument, in this case claiming that I believe that merchant shipping would not be targeted. We both know I never said such a thing, but between 'concede the common sense point that protection fo commercial shipping is not a present operational priority of the US navy, nor is its protection likely to be a critical point of success in a future war', and 'fight to the bitter end by making up stupid stuff' you pick the latter everytime.

Stop it, it's boring.


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 d-usa wrote:
U-boats sinking US ships got us dragged into one of the wars didn't it?

Yeah, the Lusitania. Years later it was revealed the vessel was carrying military supplies.

But it's not really relevant to this discussion, as WWI simply was a technological and military situation unlike today. You just won't get attritional war grinding away at supply convoys like you did.


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 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
Well one of the major incidents that got us into WW1 was the sinking of the RMS Lusitania with 135 American passengers on board by a German U-boat. Hitler's wolf packs during the Battle of the North Atlantic also found great combat success throughout the course of the war, 3,500 merchant ships and 175 warships were sunk for the loss of 783 U-boats.

Yes. As I explained already the UK is a different situation entirely, being a small island with noted acute shortages in many major resources. That is not the US. You can't stop US industry by stopping shipping.

So instead you'd have to look at attritional attacks on US shipping. Impacting the overall impact on shipping over months or even years. Ramping the cost in lives and dollars up. But that doesn't make any sense given the destructive power and speed of modern militaries.

Anyone with ports and other conventional assets is going to be looking for the same win condition as the US - rapid and complete destruction of their major military assets before they do the same to yours. Sending out subs or surface raiders to plink a couple of freighters makes as much sense in that environment as a cavalry charge.


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 Seaward wrote:
In other semi-debate-related news, Romney hit 50% for the first time in the newly-released Washington Post/ABC News poll. Obama's at 47 percent.

Other national polls showing Romney with the lead:

Rasmussen: 50/47
AP: 47/45
Gallup: 50/47
Politico: 49/47
Monmouth: 48/45

There's a lot of polls. In any somewhat close election you can pick out the best results for one person and declare them winning. But it's useless. Even with no cherry picking it's useless, as New York picking up another point for Obama moves the national polls but means gak in terms of him winning, because New York is going Obama no matter what.

Here's the list of polls from the last couple of days for Ohio;
PPP 10/28 51.0 47.0 Obama +4.0
Gravis Marketing 10/27 50.0 49.0 Obama +1.0
CNN/Opinion Research * 10/25 48.0 44.0 Obama +4.0
Purple Strategies 10/25 46.0 44.0 Obama +2.0
American Research Group 10/25 49.0 47.0 Obama +2.0

That's giving Obama a 2.6 lead in Ohio. It's not insurmountable, but it means a lot more than there being some national level polls giving the race to Romney.


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 Chongara wrote:

 Mannahnin wrote:
If only. If Romney pulls it out my wife will use that as more leverage to get me to move to Europe.

Seriously. I'm a straight male who can pass for white pretty easily, lives well above the poverty line and is in a (comparatively), safe career. I am pretty well insulated from the damage that could be done with president Romney + republican congress. Tons of other people though, have their rights on the line. For those folks a Romney win could be something they're going to remember and feel the impact from for decades.

Admittedly the Senate is a bugger to predict, but it's looking more and more like the Democrats will keep the Senate.

Which means they'll be fillibustering and everyone gets to argue the opposite of what they were arguing in 2009. Fun times ahead.

Vote for Obama, or else:

 d-usa wrote:
Vote for Obama, or else:

While I love Joss; I'm really more interested in the post war Deco styling of his house than his message. Something something parkour.
I really want to know if he has an original Roos or Lane waterfall chest in his den.

That was funny.

Win.

Tuesday can't come soon enough.

Because time passes slower in election season.

Interesting / good that they both stopped campaigning during the hurricane.

I think that could help Obama, if he shows strength in handling anything that needs doing after.

Oh, and for what it's worth... I have likely swung back to Obama. Honestly, if Romney had been saying what he said the last month all along, he would've had my vote for sure. But I just can't believe it, even though I do think this is closer to his actual views than the far right rhetoric used to get the nomination.

What bothers me is people in the middle-left arguing against what he's been saying recently, just because he said it (in some cases). It was dead-on for me as a moderate. But, he just hasn't said it long enough... and obviously, the fact that it is pretty much indisputably different from what he was saying recently during the primaries bothers me quite a bit.

I know that's our system (the more conservative for Republicans, more liberal for Democrats, candidate will win the primary) but it sucks :-/

Sandy didn't have the same effect as Katrina. So there's not much of a role for the gov't to throw their full weight behind. Obama already declared one disaster area but I can't remember where....anyone know off hand how many he declared and where already?

 Jihadin wrote:
Sandy didn't have the same effect as Katrina. So there's not much of a role for the gov't to throw their full weight behind. Obama already declared one disaster area but I can't remember where....anyone know off hand how many he declared and where already?

I thought he covered most the states before it actually hit.

I expect that he declared pretty much wherever the Governors asked him to. Lynch asked up here, and he complied. NH was hit relatively lightly; I think about a third of folks whose power went out are back on, and they're hoping to have all the power back by the end of the week, and all the roads passable in the next 24-48hrs.