Hi Mike,
I think some of the rhetoric in your recent commentary on US National Government might fit the sort of hyperbolic rhetoric I was lamenting over in my most recent commentary. I think you might do well to heed the advice I mentioned in the last sentence of my commentary: "By striving to not define each other in terms of hyperbolic extremes, Americans can gain a much greater appreciation of political disagreement and engage in meaningful discussion about important issues rather than throwing distorted rhetoric back and forth."
The idea that a large population of voters voted for Obama in the general elections due soely to his race is preposterous. I would invite you to prove me wrong using actual statistics. You mention a sort of informal poll among some acquaintances, but anecdotal evidence is really of little value since it is especially vulnerable to a bias in selection and so easily disputed by other anecdotal evidence. A prime example of the latter: I can't say I know a single person who voted for Obama soely because he was black. I wonder which one of us is taking creative liberties with our anecdotes?
Here is an example of a scientifically conducted poll where voting aged citizens are asked to give the most important reason they supported a particular presidential candidate for the 2008 general election.
This was an open ended poll-- people could say whatever they wanted to say. "Because he's black," surprisingly enough, didn't make the list. This is perhaps 2nd in disappointment only to the omission of "Because Obama Girl is a foxy lady."
Of course, there are SOME individuals within a voting population of 132,618,580 that probably voted for Obama solely because he was Black just as there are SOME individuals within that ~133 million who voted for McCain solely because he was white. In either case, those individuals make up a relatively small group, and to project the beliefs of a fringe group onto a disproportionate amount of the entire population (specifically onto a party that you disagree with) is the same sort of partisan hackery that you are damning the Clinton era democrats for: caring more about party lines than an honest evaluation of the facts.
And it's funny you mentioned the Clinton Impeachment trial as an example of partisan hackery. I don't think you're on the right side to be playing that card. You mentioned that any other person would have been indicted under the same circumstance, but nothing could be further from the truth. Prosecutions for perjury committed in a civil trial are extremely rare. The particular perjury charge brought against Clinton arose in a civil trial that was dismissed and the actual perjury that occurred was only tangentially related to the case that was being heard. No ordinary citizen would have EVER been prosecuted under these circumstances. The charges brought up against Clinton were a fine example of Republicans tossing out common sense for the sake of scoring some partisan points. When the most important crisis of that era revolves around a blow job, something is wrong with our priorities. Let's not forget that Clinton balanced the budget. In retrospect, I think Americans would have overwhelmingly welcomed another budget-balancing blow job enthusiast like Clinton in place of the two Bush terms that followed.
I would encourage you to focus more on substantive platform disagreements and philosophic differences rather than distorted stereotypes and hyperboles. Your last sentence (which I can only guess is alluding to the Obama administration's policies) especially captures the essence of the hyperbolic sentiment I discussed in my commentary: the Obama administrations would like to increase certain aspects of government involvement pertaining to the economy and social services, ipso facto, the Obama administration envisions eliminating democracy and creating a socialist government. I guess it's fortunate we have social services like publicly funded schools so that people can have a platform to preach against the idea of a government providing publicly funded social services.
I think some of the rhetoric in your recent commentary on US National Government might fit the sort of hyperbolic rhetoric I was lamenting over in my most recent commentary. I think you might do well to heed the advice I mentioned in the last sentence of my commentary: "By striving to not define each other in terms of hyperbolic extremes, Americans can gain a much greater appreciation of political disagreement and engage in meaningful discussion about important issues rather than throwing distorted rhetoric back and forth."
The idea that a large population of voters voted for Obama in the general elections due soely to his race is preposterous. I would invite you to prove me wrong using actual statistics. You mention a sort of informal poll among some acquaintances, but anecdotal evidence is really of little value since it is especially vulnerable to a bias in selection and so easily disputed by other anecdotal evidence. A prime example of the latter: I can't say I know a single person who voted for Obama soely because he was black. I wonder which one of us is taking creative liberties with our anecdotes?
Here is an example of a scientifically conducted poll where voting aged citizens are asked to give the most important reason they supported a particular presidential candidate for the 2008 general election.
This was an open ended poll-- people could say whatever they wanted to say. "Because he's black," surprisingly enough, didn't make the list. This is perhaps 2nd in disappointment only to the omission of "Because Obama Girl is a foxy lady."
Of course, there are SOME individuals within a voting population of 132,618,580 that probably voted for Obama solely because he was Black just as there are SOME individuals within that ~133 million who voted for McCain solely because he was white. In either case, those individuals make up a relatively small group, and to project the beliefs of a fringe group onto a disproportionate amount of the entire population (specifically onto a party that you disagree with) is the same sort of partisan hackery that you are damning the Clinton era democrats for: caring more about party lines than an honest evaluation of the facts.
And it's funny you mentioned the Clinton Impeachment trial as an example of partisan hackery. I don't think you're on the right side to be playing that card. You mentioned that any other person would have been indicted under the same circumstance, but nothing could be further from the truth. Prosecutions for perjury committed in a civil trial are extremely rare. The particular perjury charge brought against Clinton arose in a civil trial that was dismissed and the actual perjury that occurred was only tangentially related to the case that was being heard. No ordinary citizen would have EVER been prosecuted under these circumstances. The charges brought up against Clinton were a fine example of Republicans tossing out common sense for the sake of scoring some partisan points. When the most important crisis of that era revolves around a blow job, something is wrong with our priorities. Let's not forget that Clinton balanced the budget. In retrospect, I think Americans would have overwhelmingly welcomed another budget-balancing blow job enthusiast like Clinton in place of the two Bush terms that followed.
I would encourage you to focus more on substantive platform disagreements and philosophic differences rather than distorted stereotypes and hyperboles. Your last sentence (which I can only guess is alluding to the Obama administration's policies) especially captures the essence of the hyperbolic sentiment I discussed in my commentary: the Obama administrations would like to increase certain aspects of government involvement pertaining to the economy and social services, ipso facto, the Obama administration envisions eliminating democracy and creating a socialist government. I guess it's fortunate we have social services like publicly funded schools so that people can have a platform to preach against the idea of a government providing publicly funded social services.
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