What Is Your Main Grievance with Obama's Presidency?
This question is mainly aimed at conservatives although moderates and liberals have concerns of their own. The poll options tend to reflect common conservative criticisms over the last three years.
- President Barack Obama lacks legitimacy for the office of President. In a narrow sense, this represents criticisms that Barack Obama does not meet the Constitutional requirements for the office (e.g., birtherism) but also represents the feeling that Barack Obama does not qualify as authentically American or whose loyalties lie elsewhere (e.g., slurs and racially insensitive caricatures like "secret Kenyan Muslim").
- President Obama is incompetent or lacks executive experience. This one assumes President Obama has the right intentions and loyalties, but he is tragically unable to execute the duties of the office effectively.
- Obama puts too much faith in government and does not understand decentralized, market-driven dynamics. In this view, a hubristic Obama entrusts too much power to federal rules and regulations and government bureaucrats to engineer desired outcomes by fiat rather than relying on the states, individual initiative, and the private sector. Social engineering is seen as a pipedream of a coalition of academics in the social sciences, power-hungry regulators, and left-wing political activists.
- Obama hates the wealthy, business, and capitalism. In this view, it's not so much that Obama doesn't understand economics and naively/hubristically trusts centralized power but that he has a visceral hatred of the capitalist class in society: for-profit corporations, wealthy individuals, entrepreneurship, and the norms and implicit risks and rewards of capitalism. He'd rather eliminate the bourgeoisie altogether, taxing them to death, seizing their property and businesses for the government, and showering rewards on the proletariat in exchange for Democratic votes. In this view, if Obama had the political capital (heh), he'd do away with the Constitution and establish a socialist dictatorship.
- He's bad for my self-interest. His policies would have a negative impact on your material self-interest, narrowly defined: taxes on your income and investments, your business, etc. This could extend to your immediate family as well but does not include a generalized angst about business interests as a whole, family values, etc.
- His administration is corrupt. Republicans typically cite government investment and Obama's touting of Solara and other green-energy investments.
- He doesn't support traditional family values. This includes the usual laundry list of social-conservative complaints about the erosion of our culture.
I dislike him because he hasn't stuck it to people like you hard enough.. the first two years of his presidency should have hit the United States like a Hydrochloric acid Enema.. but instead the spineless election obsessed democrats in congress hamstrung him every bit as much as they facilitated Bush.
WHAT THE F*CK??! !! You included ZERO leftwing criticisms of Obama, which shouldn't have been that hard to find since certain left-progressives were skeptical or critical of him since before he was the Democratic nominee.
I'll bite. None of the above.
My main points of contention with our current president? Doubled down in Afghanistan. Initiated a war in Libya to topple a petty dictator. Signed an extension of the PATRIOT Act. Signed the NDAA of 2012 into law with the harsh detainee provisions rider intact.
There are some other things I take issue with him on, but they're subject to debate which I'm quite certain is neither the intent nor the focus of the OP.
Wow. This is my first post on Wrong Planet. And what better way to say "Hello, I'm new here!" than to throw myself into the fray of contentious and potentially hostile discussions?
My main points of contention with our current president? Doubled down in Afghanistan. Initiated a war in Libya to topple a petty dictator. Signed an extension of the PATRIOT Act. Signed the NDAA of 2012 into law with the harsh detainee provisions rider intact.
There are some other things I take issue with him on, but they're subject to debate which I'm quite certain is neither the intent nor the focus of the OP.
Wow. This is my first post on Wrong Planet. And what better way to say "Hello, I'm new here!" than to throw myself into the fray of contentious and potentially hostile discussions?
These are the best discussions, as long as you don't take it personally.
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Obama's a conservative's wet dream. Bailing out banks with no strings attached, backing down on public health care, executing American citizens without a trial and generally trampling on civil liberties. What more do you right-wingers want?
As for me, I'd like an actual liberal to vote for. This next election, will be between two Republicans.
As for me, I'd like an actual liberal to vote for. This next election, will be between two Republicans.
I personally have no issue with taking out Anwar Al-Aliki or however name was spelled... I think one of the best things Obama has done is his judicious use of the Special Forces Services and Drones to take out some trash.
So long as it doesn't happen INSIDE the USA.. then I'd have an issue with it.. but simply fragging him from 20,000 feet was far more cost effective than sending in the seals to Rendition him and drag him kicking and screaming back to the US so some activist judge could throw the case out, or the ACLU could clog the system with appeals for 20 years.
As for me, I'd like an actual liberal to vote for. This next election, will be between two Republicans.
I personally have no issue with taking out Anwar Al-Aliki or however name was spelled... I think one of the best things Obama has done is his judicious use of the Special Forces Services and Drones to take out some trash.
So long as it doesn't happen INSIDE the USA.. then I'd have an issue with it.. but simply fragging him from 20,000 feet was far more cost effective than sending in the seals to Rendition him and drag him kicking and screaming back to the US so some activist judge could throw the case out, or the ACLU could clog the system with appeals for 20 years.
All men (and women) are endowed with equal rights, unless they reside outside the US, eh?
Don't do to foreigners what you wouldn't want done to you - especially since Defense Authorization Act demonstrates that tactics used against foreign alleged terrorists (since a lot of counter-terrorism activities occur without a trial and there's been a few cases of innocent people ending up at Gitmo, "alleged" is the best word to use) will eventually be imported to the US homeland.
As for me, I'd like an actual liberal to vote for. This next election, will be between two Republicans.
I personally have no issue with taking out Anwar Al-Aliki or however name was spelled... I think one of the best things Obama has done is his judicious use of the Special Forces Services and Drones to take out some trash.
So long as it doesn't happen INSIDE the USA.. then I'd have an issue with it.. but simply fragging him from 20,000 feet was far more cost effective than sending in the seals to Rendition him and drag him kicking and screaming back to the US so some activist judge could throw the case out, or the ACLU could clog the system with appeals for 20 years.
All men (and women) are endowed with equal rights, unless they reside outside the US, eh?
Don't do to foreigners what you wouldn't want done to you - especially since Defense Authorization Act demonstrates that tactics used against foreign alleged terrorists (since a lot of counter-terrorism activities occur without a trial and there's been a few cases of innocent people ending up at Gitmo, "alleged" is the best word to use) will eventually be imported to the US homeland.
meh.
Just curious, but can you cite any irrefutable evidence that al-Awlaki was an accomplice to acts of terrorism against the United States?
Hint: Inflammatory videos praising hostile acts after the fact don't count.
Just curious, but can you cite any irrefutable evidence that al-Awlaki was an accomplice to acts of terrorism against the United States?
Hint: Inflammatory videos praising hostile acts after the fact don't count.
Nope. Don't care enough to.
X2
I have a lot of issues with Obama, but none my major ones seem to have made the list. As a non-doctrinaire libertarian I have my qualms with Obama's economic programs, but my biggest problems are things like civil liberties encroachments and doubling down on the worst of the Bush era GWOT policies.
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“The totally convinced and the totally stupid have too much in common for the resemblance to be accidental.”
-- Robert Anton Wilson