Page 4 of 7 FirstFirst ... 23456 ... LastLast
Results 37 to 48 of 79
  1. #37
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Posts
    21,926
    Blog Entries
    1

    Re: New dem ad smears/lies about mitt killing woman

    Quote Originally Posted by TheExtraPoint View Post
    It's funny. I come to this thread CRITICAL of the ad in question and yet you won't quit until you prove some vacuous point about how the President himself or his campaign as a whole is somehow any worse than his counterpart in this regard. It's nonsense.
    Can you point to an ad from Romney or a Romney supporting Super PAC that is as equally disgusting?

    Quote Originally Posted by TheExtraPoint View Post
    What exactly is it you are trying to prove? That political surrogates are mean-spirited, biased and/or disingenuous? If you needed this situation to affirm that for you, you're the one who is late to the party.
    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    I am saying his staff coordinated with Priorities USA or at the very least made them aware of this story
    Quote Originally Posted by TheExtraPoint View Post
    That you are trying to use this to somehow frame the President as complicit, yet are somehow willing to look the way when Romney surrogates for example say that they wish the President would "learn how to be an American", is beyond me. I'm not sure I can help you.
    Possibly, his staff damn sure knew about it.

    What I was "trying to prove" is what you were wrong here:
    Quote Originally Posted by TheExtraPoint View Post
    Except the President didn't call Mitt anything.

    As Mitt has pointed out when ads from SuperPACs supporting him have been disingenuous in the past, candidates can't have influence over or relationships with these groups..





  2. #38
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Houston, TX Y'all
    Posts
    34,414

    Re: New dem ad smears/lies about mitt killing woman

    Quote Originally Posted by TheExtraPoint View Post
    When you said "both sides" I assumed you were talking about parties, no?

    FWIW, there really isn't a candidate for my positions. Like many Americans, my vote will generally be for who I perceive to be the lesser of two evils among the candidates of the only relevant parties in modern American politics.

    Either way I think the system as it stands is unfair because it corrupts the ideal of a representative democracy on the basis of money-bought influence. That's true both in campaigns and in broader governance. I don't have the same influence as Sheldon Adelson because I don't have as much money as he does. I'm asking honestly: Is that how you think it's supposed to work?

    Maybe you think it's fair. I don't think it's at all what was intended for our country by the founders the right so often claims to revere.

    And I happen to think that's something efficient regulation (otherwise known as reform) can fix.
    I was speaking Left v. Right in strict political spectrum terms, not political parties.

    And we're not a Democracy or a Representative Democracy, ergo you cannot corrupt something that does not exist. We're a Representative Republic. Semantics maybe, but there IS a distinct, important difference -- the right to form coalitions (i.e. groups) to represent us and our interests. They are very much what the Framers intended (Federalist 58 I believe). They viewed Democracy as mob rule and rightly so, given what they knew of past, pure Democracies. Now granted, they may not have envisioned the level of funding we see today, but both sides enjoy their deep-pocket people, then and now. The Federalists, the Anti-Federalists, the Whigs, etc all had their money-men. Just like now.

    So yes, that's precisely how it's supposed to work. Every person having an equal chance, rich or poor, famous or destitute. You versus Mr. Adelson is a straw man comparison. No, you cannot compete with Mr. Adelson and you're not supposed to. For every Mr. Adelson, there is a Mr. Soros. For every Koch brother, there is a Jeffrey Katzenberg.

    The Roberts court simply reaffirmed the status-qua.





  3. #39

    Re: New dem ad smears/lies about mitt killing woman

    Quote Originally Posted by TheExtraPoint View Post

    First of all, the argument that this particular ad is unprecedented in its nastiness is not mine, and I don't agree with it. It was made elsewhere in the thread.
    I never claimed you thought the ad was unprecedented. I was just pointing out that the tone changed long before Citizens United.

    Quote Originally Posted by TheExtraPoint View Post
    I do however support the notion that the overall political climate in this country has taken a precipitous downward fall in recent years, and that can be attributed at least in part to the lack of accountability and proliferation of anonymous, corporate, and/or special interest money in campaigns. Citizens United in my view made this far worse. If you choose to argue that it does not, that's your prerogative and we'll have to agree to disagree. These things are not easily quantifiable.
    The 'proliferation' is greatly exaggerated, and as I metioned the civility decline predates Citizen United. The big change was Bush v Gore when the left truly became unhinged. To the extent things have continued to get worse over time, I don't see how allowing more and freer speech would necessarily demand that the speech become more uncivil. So agree to disagree it is.

    Quote Originally Posted by TheExtraPoint View Post
    But in addition to free speech - an important individual right that is nevertheless in my view appropriately limited in a variety of ways ie. slander, libel, hate speech, incitement, and in other circumstantial instances - our founders also advocated for a representative democracy. An environment in which all engaged citizens collectively determine our fate on the strength of one vote per person and equal influence across the American voting landscape. That's evaporated and this ruling has taken us even further away from that ideal.
    Citizen United did not loosen any of the speech restrictions you mentioned, and in my opinion "hate speech" doesn't belong in that list as it is merely a trendy new leftist catchall used in a nebulous and often-nefarious 'social justice' crusade.

    As for our 'representative democracy,' it is the same as it ever was; everyone gets one vote, States and districts are weighted for population.

    In terms of your concerns about "equal influence," it simply not the case that this has ever existed. Wealthy individuals and talented pols have always been allowed to produce quantities and qualities of speech that may carry a disproportionate influence (to the average citizen). But it has always been the case (and still is) that the voter is trusted to evaluate this speech, debate it, and decide for oneself how to vote.

    To the extent that corporate or union monied interests are now able to extert more influence than before, I would say that history and economics have proven that powerful monied interests operating under an extensive regulatory state will always find a way exert a strong influence over politicians/politics. The best way to limit this 'problem,' if indeed it is/becomes serious, is not to tread on free speech rights, but rather to limit the size and scope of the government's power over industry. The more favors there are to buy, the more money will be spent on lobbying/influencing/buying politicians for the favors.

    Quote Originally Posted by TheExtraPoint View Post
    Call me idealistic. That's fine. I am. But when one individual, corporation OR special interest group can contribute countless millions of dollars directly to or indirectly in support of political campaigns, irrespective of their particular motives, intentions, nationality or background, it suggest to me that my influence is not directly equal to that of my peers, and begets the type of mess in terms of leadership and divisive rhetoric (as seen in this ad and elsewhere) we see today. I think that's a HUGE problem for our country that was only worsened by the ruling.
    I wouldn't call you idealistic, but maybe naive and perhaps paranoid. You seem to fail to understand that the campaign finance restrictions you seem to be championing (as they were) had many harmful impacts of their own. The first is that they imposed huge legal costs on those wishing to participate in the political process, effectively shutting out smaller voices who could not afford to pay campaign lawyers and risk legal trouble in getting their messages across. In short, the "little guy" couldn't be heard due to the legal burden. The second is that campaign-expenditure limits had the effect of driving corporate/union money away from public dialogue and into channels that are more corrosive and less transparent (lobbyists, lawsuits, and regulatory capture).

    Quote Originally Posted by TheExtraPoint View Post
    As for all of the conservative buzzwords you tossed out there, you'd be both flat wrong and totally unfair to view the nastiness or sleaziness of today's climate as exclusive to either political party or a given individual. That's just intellectually dishonest and I suspect as a smart person, you know it to be the case.
    On the contrary, the nastiness and sleaziness has been disproportionally seen on the left. And there are many explanations for it, from a sycophantic MSM that lets them get away with it (moreso than their opponents), to the not-so-common prolonged war (where such vitriol always has existed), to the continuing 'liberalization' of our colleges and universities (where biased, pseudo-scientific studies are now routinely conducted that show conservatives are predisposed to be stupid or racist or...<fill in your baseless smear> thereby giving some kind of intellectual veneer to a vapid argument).

    But the most important explanation is one that has existed for decades now, and that is, the left ascribes to a philosophy of "by any means necessary" whereby civility is not even remotely close to as important as "winning." If you need to paint/label your critics as racists (homophobes, islamophobes, backwards morons, etc) despite a total dearth of evidence, go ahead and do it, the MSM won't call you on it, it is for a 'good cause,' and this is 'total war.' And when the odds you can win on the merits of reasoned arguments or your record diminish, the likelihood of using uncivil attacks increases (they are in a sense an always-available option which will be chosen more as other options are removed).

    Since Obama's record is completely indefensible, and since "by any means necessary" is in full effect, the left is currently heavily relying on uncivil tactics. We are seeing the classic case of that right now between meek, milquetoast, Mormon Mitt and his "hey fella, c'mon, that was uncalled for, can't we all be civil" politics and bare-knuckle, gutter Daley/Alinsky/Axelrod/Obama and his "F*ck you, you felon, bigot, murderer" politics. And if Mitt doesn't take the gloves off (no pun intended), and I am not sure he has it in him to do it, he will lose.
    Last edited by Haloti92; 08-10-2012 at 03:35 PM.





  4. #40
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Posts
    21,926
    Blog Entries
    1

    Re: New dem ad smears/lies about mitt killing woman

    Great post Haloti.

    One thing I disagree on and only slightly, is Mitt himself doesn't necessarily have to fight back as much has his campaign team, ads, surrogates VP etc. do, and then he has to in the debates.

    Right now, I think he is (or could be) getting under Obama's skin by not getting pissed about it. I actually kind of liked his response when asked about this ad "it doesn't bother me, I've come to expect anything from a campaign that can't run on their record" (paraphrasing). Which IMO, is all this ad is - a distraction from the issues and BHO's record.





  5. #41

    Re: New dem ad smears/lies about mitt killing woman

    Quote Originally Posted by NCRAVEN View Post
    Great post Haloti.

    One thing I disagree on and only slightly, is Mitt himself doesn't necessarily have to fight back as much has his campaign team, ads, surrogates VP etc. do, and then he has to in the debates.

    Right now, I think he is (or could be) getting under Obama's skin by not getting pissed about it. I actually kind of liked his response when asked about this ad "it doesn't bother me, I've come to expect anything from a campaign that can't run on their record" (paraphrasing). Which IMO, is all this ad is - a distraction from the issues and BHO's record.
    Mitt doesn't have to fight back himself, but the problem is that Mitt will be asked (hypocritically, obviously) to disavow any attack ads made by his surrogates (or anyone). He will be asked repeatedly by the in-the-tank-for-Obama MSM. And he has set a precedent in previous campaigns and previously in this campaign of actually doing that (he disavowed some ads linking Obama to Jeremiah Wright, for example) and indicating he would always take the high road. So while I agree he doesn't have to fully engage in the low-down fighting required, he will have to change his stance (get a bit more aggressive) a bit regarding such ads in general.





  6. #42
    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Location
    Frederick, MD
    Posts
    61,215
    Blog Entries
    4

    Re: New dem ad smears/lies about mitt killing woman

    Disclaimer: The content posted is of my own opinion.





  7. #43
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Posts
    13,453
    Blog Entries
    5

    Re: New dem ad smears/lies about mitt killing woman

    The ads, I mean attacks are working.

    The people don't like them but they dislike Mitt even more.





  8. #44

    Re: New dem ad smears/lies about mitt killing woman

    Please, the Republican party are the master of lies. I know it sucks when you guys have to take a taste of your own medicine, but welcome to dirty politics. "Independent" news sources such as Fox News have done a GREAT job of smearing Obama for the past 4 years, and very little of it is actually factual.





  9. #45
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Location
    Houston, TX Y'all
    Posts
    34,414

    Re: New dem ad smears/lies about mitt killing woman

    Quote Originally Posted by CptJesus View Post
    Please, the Republican party are the master of lies. I know it sucks when you guys have to take a taste of your own medicine, but welcome to dirty politics. "Independent" news sources such as Fox News have done a GREAT job of smearing Obama for the past 4 years, and very little of it is actually factual.
    So are you saying the GOP is lying? Because even the President's press secretary and the DNC Chair say they knew the story was false before it was aired.





  10. #46
    Both parties have been lying through their teeth. It's hypocritical to point out one and not the other

    Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2





  11. #47
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Posts
    21,926
    Blog Entries
    1

    Re: New dem ad smears/lies about mitt killing woman

    Quote Originally Posted by CptJesus View Post
    Both parties have been lying through their teeth. It's hypocritical to point out one and not the other

    Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2
    Yes it is. Which is funny since you didn't seem to have a problem with the ad...

    Two wrongs don't make a right. However two Wright's make an airplane.

    Or do they...






  12. #48
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Hiding in Tommy Tallarico's bushes
    Posts
    10,420
    I stop listening to anyone who throws out the ol' Fox News bullshit that can never be backed up.

    Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2





Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
Link To Mobile Site
var infolinks_pid = 3297965; var infolinks_wsid = 0; //—->