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According to Jack Cafferty:
http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2008/ ... /#comments

I all I can say is what horse shit. I'm not voting for Obama because he's very liberal and I don't agree with his policies. I would of voted for Colin Powell in a heartbeat. So, race baiting is o.k. if it comes from the left? Again the media shows it's ugly biased face.

Patrick wrote:So, race baiting is o.k. if it comes from the left? Again the media shows it's ugly biased face.

I'd humbly like to ask for a small clarification here, so I can know whether to take offence or not. Pat, when you say left, do you just mean left-oriented people in the USA or in general?

I find it amazingly hilarious to say the least, when people (Primarily nut-jobs on digg and YouTube) say Obama is a socialist or leftist or whatever, because I am about a billion times more "leftist" than he (And yet I am not a communist, by the way). In Denmark, and Europe in general, he'd be seen as a centrist pretty much.

Tsuroerusu wrote:

Patrick wrote:So, race baiting is o.k. if it comes from the left? Again the media shows it's ugly biased face.

I'd humbly like to ask for a small clarification here, so I can know whether to take offence or not. Pat, when you say left, do you just mean left-oriented people in the USA or in general?

I find it amazingly hilarious to say the least, when people (Primarily nut-jobs on digg and YouTube) say Obama is a socialist or leftist or whatever, because I am about a billion times more "leftist" than he. In Denmark, and Europe in general, he'd be seen as a centrist pretty much.

I think he's a left wing nut job. Race should not be an issue. Like MLK said it's the content of ones charachter that matters. Nothing else. We're all Americans regardless of what our color or nation of origin. Obama's polotics are more fitting for Europe, I agree. But the success of our young country is due to our capitolist government. And we need to continue to preserve a capitolist structure. Or we'll end up driving tiny cars. And I for one don't want to drive a tiny car. Not so much because they're silly. But because I would be uncomfortable.

Tsuroerusu wrote: I'd humbly like to ask for a small clarification here, so I can know whether to take offence or not. Pat, when you say left, do you just mean left-oriented people in the USA or in general?

The left in the U.S. media.

Tsuroerusu wrote: I find it amazingly hilarious to say the least, when people (Primarily nut-jobs on digg and YouTube) say Obama is a socialist or leftist or whatever, because I am about a billion times more "leftist" than he. In Denmark, and Europe in general, he'd be seen as a centrist pretty much.

Yeah, you Euros are a bunch of Socialists.

MattKingUSA wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote:

Patrick wrote:So, race baiting is o.k. if it comes from the left? Again the media shows it's ugly biased face.

I'd humbly like to ask for a small clarification here, so I can know whether to take offence or not. Pat, when you say left, do you just mean left-oriented people in the USA or in general?

I find it amazingly hilarious to say the least, when people (Primarily nut-jobs on digg and YouTube) say Obama is a socialist or leftist or whatever, because I am about a billion times more "leftist" than he. In Denmark, and Europe in general, he'd be seen as a centrist pretty much.

I think he's a left wing nut job.

I'm sorry, but I have to seriously laugh now. You clearly don't know what socialism is. Please take five minutes, go to Wikipedia, look it up, and come back. I have heard Obama say something like "... replaced communism with the efficiency of capitalism" when referring to the US's "victory" in the cold war, and all kinds of other things that either put him in the middle of the political sphere or on the right. How can a liberal ever be left-wing? Is your political spectrum somehow radically different from mine?

MattKingUSA wrote:Race should not be an issue. Like MLK said it's the content of ones charachter that matters. Nothing else.

I fully agree.

MattKingUSA wrote:Obama's polotics are more fitting for Europe, I agree.

I can mention quite a few who would seriously disagree with you, but that's another story.

MattKingUSA wrote:But the success of our young country is due to our capitolist government. And we need to continue to preserve a capitolist structure. Or we'll end up driving tiny cars. And I for one don't want to drive a tiny car. Not so much because they're silly. But because I would be uncomfortable.

If you think Obama is gonna turn the United States of America into "the United Soviet Republics of America" in terms of economics (Centrally planned-economy and such) or something that looks like Venezuela (Nationalization of entire industries), I think you're confused about what left-wing policies actually are. A guy (Obama) who thinks it's fine for one person to own seven houses (I seen a video where Obama says he doesn't think there's anything wrong with it), when some poor people live on the street, is not a socialist or leftist in any sort of fashion, unless you have some mysterious and alternative political spectrum. By the way if you do, please show me, or put it on Wikipedia (Where I cruise around a lot), that'd be nice, then I can enable a "American-compatibility mode" when speaking to an American about anything related to politics, because in any country in Europe, and I guess Asia too since Russia and Turkey is mostly located in Asia, your opinion that Obama is a "left-wing nut job" would be put on TV for people to laugh at, not because people might disagree with whatever political stance you take, but because it's simple wrong. I know a guy, who's a hardcore liberal, he's like "Anyone who votes for the red bloc is stupid", the party he votes for is located on the right in the political spectrum, we have here in Europe.

By the way, I happen to disagree with you politically, but I don't bring this discussion up because of that, but because I don't agree with Obama either on a lot of things, in fact my stances are quite different, and I don't want to be put in a group with him. Which I feel Pat essentially did with the sentence I quoted in my original reply. I can't name any person here in Europe, who identify with socialism or left-wing politics, who would vote for Obama and the Democratic Party of the USA over a social democratic party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy).

Atleast we agree on MLK. MLK was a great person.

MattKingUSA wrote:Atleast we agree on MLK. MLK was a great person.

I think we agree on a lot more than that. In your earlier post you said the US was successful was because of your "capitalist government", I frankly think it's more fundamental than that, I think the reason the US won the cold war, is because it is a free and democratic country (Now, I think your democracy is not without it's shortcomings, but it's certainly not dictatorship or totalitarian). Prosperity and success starts with democracy. I don't disagree with Reagan's description of the Soviet Union as "an evil empire". Socialism speaks of how the people should be in power, not some elite (Like a kingdom or only rich people), well that's what democracy according to Wiktionary (Wikipedia's dictionary), "rule by the people". People like Lenin or Mao (And their supporters) who saw themselves as socialists, but were against democracy I think are the exact opposite of socialists, in other words, evil dictators.

Tsuroerusu wrote:

MattKingUSA wrote:Atleast we agree on MLK. MLK was a great person.

I think we agree on a lot more than that. In your earlier post you said the US was successful was because of your "capitalist government", I frankly think it's more fundamental than that, I think the reason the US won the cold war, is because it is a free and democratic country (Now, I think your democracy is not without it's shortcomings, but it's certainly not dictatorship or totalitarian). Prosperity and success starts with democracy. I don't disagree with Reagan's description of the Soviet Union as "an evil empire". Socialism speaks of how the people should be in power, not some elite (Like a kingdom or only rich people), well that's what democracy according to Wiktionary (Wikipedia's dictionary), "rule by the people". People like Lenin or Mao (And their supporters) who saw themselves as socialists, but were against democracy I think are the exact opposite of socialists, in other words, evil dictators.

Yeah, I agree with all but the socialist stuff. I think that you should get what you work for. And be able to profit from your work. As to weather your prices or profits are reasonable will be decided by the buyers. Unless your intentionally screwing your customers by making the depend on you as a sole provider. That's not cool. And imoral. But uh, I think that the goverment needs to, for the most part, be as small as possible. I think Georgia is a good example, the country. I think that individuals should decide what they will do with their cash. And as far as I understand socialist they give control of their money to the mostly to the government. When our country was really really young we had kind of a socialist thing going but quickly replaced it with a capitolist system. As far as I understand. But um, yeah, we're free people. We even have the right to keep guns so that we can fight our own military. We would win too. Just look at Iraq. We get screwed a lot by those sneeky people. They're just individuals and sure they're our enemy because they've plans for our destruction. But none the less a good example of civilians taking on huge military forces. But Americans have our Freadom and we'll kill people for it. That's a sick statement...anyway. I've kind of gone off track.

I am a libertarian, my first choice was Ron Paul...since he ain't running ...I guess I will have to vote for McCain. If Obama was a libertarian or conservative...I'd vote for him. Gun rights, less taxes, less government are important for my voting choices.

MattKingUSA wrote:

Tsuroerusu wrote:

MattKingUSA wrote:Atleast we agree on MLK. MLK was a great person.

I think we agree on a lot more than that. In your earlier post you said the US was successful was because of your "capitalist government", I frankly think it's more fundamental than that, I think the reason the US won the cold war, is because it is a free and democratic country (Now, I think your democracy is not without it's shortcomings, but it's certainly not dictatorship or totalitarian). Prosperity and success starts with democracy. I don't disagree with Reagan's description of the Soviet Union as "an evil empire". Socialism speaks of how the people should be in power, not some elite (Like a kingdom or only rich people), well that's what democracy according to Wiktionary (Wikipedia's dictionary), "rule by the people". People like Lenin or Mao (And their supporters) who saw themselves as socialists, but were against democracy I think are the exact opposite of socialists, in other words, evil dictators.

Yeah, I agree with all but the socialist stuff. I think that you should get what you work for. And be able to profit from your work. As to weather your prices or profits are reasonable will be decided by the buyers.

First of all, I agree with you here, that people should be paid according to their work, although I am sure Bill Gates and Larry Ellison would object as they don't do shit these days, while a teacher who works their asses off often gets a cruddy wage. What you're talking about is communism. There's a classic line that goes "All communists are socialists, but not all socialists are communists". Communism is a utopian and outdated ideology designed for the pre- or early industrial world. The market economy has shown itself to be waaay superior to a centrally planned economy, and by the way, more democratic since people who might not have voted for a ruling socialist party, have no say in it's economic policies if things were centrally planned. I think the system my country has, is good. We have very high taxation, the minimum is 40% and increases depending a person's wage, and the maximum is 63% (This level is called top tax, only people with really high wage pay this much), and very high VAT, which is 25%. What does all that get used for? Well, it's used to run our public healthcare system, our public schools, public childcare, unemployment support and lots of other things. In Denmark we literally have ZERO people with no health insurance, every citizen has access to the public healthcare system (Which currently has serious issues, because of our current liberal+conservative coalition government). By the way, our high taxes doesn't make people poor, in case you wanted to know, our system has quite the opposite effect.

MattKingUSA wrote:Unless your intentionally screwing your customers by making the depend on you as a sole provider. That's not cool. And imoral.

Vender lock-in in any context is a bad idea, if you ask me.

MattKingUSA wrote:But uh, I think that the goverment needs to, for the most part, be as small as possible. I think Georgia is a good example, the country.

In what sense?

MattKingUSA wrote:I think that individuals should decide what they will do with their cash. And as far as I understand socialist they give control of their money to the mostly to the government.

I think it varies on who you talk to. My own opinion is that while I certainly believe people should be rewarded for their work (A teacher who does a crappy job, obviously don't deserve as high a wage as a teacher who does a kick-ass job), I also think there's a social responsibility of everyone to ensure that this natural "inequality" in wages, doesn't run wild and drive some people into poverty or force them to not have healthcare or education. For example, in Denmark, even though a parent might have a very low wage, a child can still go to school, gymnasium (This is a European term, it's what people go to after 9 or 10 years in public school) or university. Some hardcore liberals see the fact that people don't have to directly pay (Although indirectly do through taxes) to get an education as a "free ride", I see it differently, we give people an education so that they can work and contribute to society. A person without an education are not all that "useful", in the sense that a person who dropped out of school in 7th grade won't be able to be a nurse or a doctor and be good at it (The knowledge needed to be a doctor is quite big, human anatomy is not simple at all).

MattKingUSA wrote:When our country was really really young we had kind of a socialist thing going but quickly replaced it with a capitolist system. As far as I understand.

I don't know the history of the United States in that level of detail, but I can tell you that the socialism of that time very different from what I call 21st century socialism, which in-fact does involve a market economy.

Deng Xiaoping, former General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, said something which I actually agree with, and that is substantial by the way, because I don't agree with this man on pretty much everything, expect this:

"Planning and market forces are not the essential difference between socialism and capitalism. A planned economy is not the definition of socialism, because there is planning under capitalism; the market economy happens under socialism, too. Planning and market forces are both ways of controlling economic activity."

"Socialism is not the same as shared poverty."

Of course, his difference of socialism is quite different from mine, but nonetheless I do agree with him that a market economy is not the opposite of socialism, and that socialism of course is not he same as shared poverty. Because even in capitalism there's something level of planning, albeit extremely de-central planning. Let's take Nintendo as an example. Despite the fact that Microsoft is now cheaper than they are with the Xbox 360, and other things make it almost a no-brainer for Nintendo to lower the price of the Wii, there is still some people in Kyoto, Japan at Nintendo's headquarters who sits down and say "This is what it is gonna cost".

MattKingUSA wrote:But um, yeah, we're free people. We even have the right to keep guns so that we can fight our own military. We would win too.

If you ask me, if you need that, there's a bug in your democracy, but that's a whole other can of worms of a discussion.

It has been alledged that mlk was a womanizer even after being marrried. It is also alleged that mlk copied other people's work as his own for his master's degree. I have no respect for that kind of man. The democrats know that mccain made a smart move in having mrs palin as a running mate. The democrats were caught with their pants down. McCain was smart to wait to announce his running mate. I bet if it had been announced earlier hillary clinton would be the vice presidential democratic candidate. I am surprised the news media has not gone after the alleged connecton obama has with the middle east. Obama does have some skeletons in his closet that have not been exploited yet. The only reason everyone is going after Palin, they afraid to admit the democrats have loser candidates. Having grown up in the south and seen the worst of it, I would imagine that if Obama became president he would need to have a large security force when visiting the south. I do not consider myself to be a racist (my daughter is part chinese), but I would not vote for the democrats now running black or white. Obama picked an old school partner for a running mate. So much for his bs about change. He is so two faced. I consider the democrats more as communists more than socialists.

eddie wrote:It has been alledged that mlk was a womanizer even after being marrried. It is also alleged that mlk copied other people's work as his own for his master's degree. I have no respect for that kind of man. The democrats know that mccain made a smart move in having mrs palin as a running mate. The democrats were caught with their pants down. McCain was smart to wait to announce his running mate. I bet if it had been announced earlier hillary clinton would be the vice presidential democratic candidate. I am surprised the news media has not gone after the alleged connecton obama has with the middle east. Obama does have some skeletons in his closet that have not been exploited yet. The only reason everyone is going after Palin, they afraid to admit the democrats have loser candidates. Having grown up in the south and seen the worst of it, I would imaging that if Obama became president he would need to have a large security force when visiting the south. I do not consider myself to be a racist, but I would not vote for the democrats now running black or white. Obama picked an old school partner for a running mate. So much for his bs about change. He is so two faced.

Are you joking about MLK? I have never heard those things about him. And, I think it would be worth your time to read over a few transcripts from his speaches. It's clear to me that he was an absolutely amazing person and we should all hope to be able to clearly see humanity as he described us. He was a truly good man. And inspiring. His speaches inspired people of all races. And I agree with you assement of Obama what the heck was talking about change for when he selected that loser? What on earth...bad advisors.

You are the one who needs to do the research. The allegations have been well documented in the news over the years. MLK had a wet dream. Most the of intelligent black people I know are not that hip on him except that he pushed their movement. I have heard rumors that the black community was allegedly behind the death of mlk. If you do some research, you will understand why. There has allways been infighting between the black factions. Do some research on Malcom X and you might be surprised what you find.

eddie wrote:You are the one who needs to do the research. The allegations have been well documented in the news over the years. MLK had a wet dream. Most the of intelligent black people I know are not that hip on him except that he pushed their movement. I have heard rumors that the black community was allegedly behind the death of mlk. If you do some research, you will understand why. There has allways been infighting between the black factions. Do some research on Malcom X and you might be surprised what you find.

I know about Malcom X and I know what he stands for. But the degradation of MLKs charachter is propaganda for a cause and is completely unfounded. That's why it is an allegation. Not a fact.

What we can both agree on is that the democrats have a lot of unfaithfuls in their camp. Clinton/s, edwards, hollywood haha. Anyway, let's not argue. I respect your opinion of MLK. But I will always admire and look to his words as a source of encouragement and humanity at it's best.

EDIT: Just one more quick note. I live in Texas too and MLK isn't popular here so I understand why you feel the way that you do. And, I think it's bad to look at x vs mlk as infighting in a race. But to look at it more of a differance in ideas and beliefs. That's what it really comes down to. It has nothing to do with race.

MattKingUSA wrote:I think that you should get what you work for. And be able to profit from your work.

I know that you think that you are making a defense of Capitalism here, but what you are really doing is attacking it, without even realizing it. Capitalism is a system in which the worker doesn't get what he works to produce. The Capitalist does. The worker doesn't get the profits of what he works for. The Capitalist does. Capitalism is, by it's very nature, the alienation of the worker from what he works to produce. It's alway nice to meet a fellow evolving Anarchist (Libertarian Socialist), even if he doesn't know he is one yet. Hello.