Thread: Astroturf Grows

Originally Posted by [SWC

Erik Thorsen ]Fovezer, I do differentiate between Americans and other people when I deem it appropriate. In other words, I wasn't calling Obama a leftist in the broad (IE world) spectrum, I was calling him a leftist by American standards. But the point of my post was to clear up that I didn't think you would say he is centrist within the small scale of American politics, but you would say he is in the broad spectrum. I do agree with you that in the broad spectrum Obama is fairly near the middle. If in fact you do consider him a centrist even within the magnified arena of American politics, then I respectfully disagree.

What justification are you going to try so you can use the word "socialist" next? "Well, he is not a socialist in the broad political spectrum, but he is an American socialist." You have to understand that "leftism" has a definition, it does not just mean "anything even slightly to the left of center, regardless of how I define that center." Obama is not a leftist even by American standards. The best I'll give you is maybe left-leaning. People on the "American left" aren't happy with everything he's doing or how he is doing it. The only people who call him a leftist are people who are so far to the right that even people in the center become "leftists." And this what makes the teabaggers so funny when they call Obama a socialist, a communist, or a Marxist. They put their ignorance of politics on full display and betray how far right-wing they are.

I know you are not using this in an insulting manner, I just really disagree with how you are describing him. I also don't want you to think I am trying to distance myself from Obama. I do support him, and like what he is doing so far, but coming from the left of him, I would have done a number of things differently or proposed more left wing policies.

If he is a centrist why are his poll numbers dropping ?
If he is a centrist, why is only the Democrats, and not even all of them, supporting his program ?
More bullshit and distraction.

He is to the left of the American "center" despite what he says.
I was always told "actions speak louder than words" and Obama's actions are not those of a centrist.

Don't you think a centrist would have ignored the fringe elements of the TEA PARTY movement and focused on the real concerns that most of the people have about more taxes and runaway deficits ?
But he didn't do that nor did his party.
They followed the strategy that we see here, attack everyone who doesn't agree with the "plan".

It's not working.
Poll numbers keep dropping.

You want to cry about lobbyist supporting the TEA PARTY movement but you are blind to the money Moron.Org put into the anti-war movement.
You can look at thousands of expensive multi-color pre-printed signs in an anti-war protest and equate them with the thousands of handmade, obviously amateur signs at a TEA PARTY protest and come to the conclusion that the anti-war protest had no support while the TEA PARTY was entirely manufactured by lobbyists.

But you have no problem with the President making the promise to keep lobbyists out of the White House and then staffing the whole place with lobbyists.

You apparently had such trust in your representatives that you found no problem whatsoever with them attempting to pass a huge bill costing trillions without reading it.
Did you trust them as much in '03 ?

You also have no problem with CBO saying the President's numbers are false, or in other words, he is lying through his teeth about how it will be paid for and how much it will cost.

But let us keep examining the real meaning of what the word socialist means because that is more important.

Originally Posted by [SWC

Erik Thorsen ]I'm not looking for a justification to call someone socialist. I honestly think Obama is on the left in American politics. Is he far left? No. I mean what the hell; left leaning sounds good to me too if that's how you wanna call it. I don't try to get too hung up on labels. Again, I don't consider calling someone a leftist to be a good argument. I wasn't trying to insult or defame Obama by calling him leftist. I was just telling you what he looked like to me. Mostly this stemmed from me trying to figure out in what realm of politics you considered Obama to be centrist.

I understand you weren't trying to insult him by calling him a leftist like some here, and I never took it that way. I just disagree that there are different "realms" of political spectrums where you shift the center so that those who are centrists become "leftists." Even from an American-centric point of view, he is not what I would consider left-wing.

Originally Posted by [SWC

Erik Thorsen ]I also get upset at people who want to argue but can't come up with anything better than an ad hominem like "Socialist!" Or "Nazi!" etc. I think the key is to introduce more statistics, precedents, and studies into debate to clear out emotional baggage where appropriate.

I definitely agree here.

Originally Posted by CallousDisregard

If he is a centrist why are his poll numbers dropping ?
If he is a centrist, why is only the Democrats, and not even all of them, supporting his program ?
More bullshit and distraction.

He is to the left of the American "center" despite what he says.
I was always told "actions speak louder than words" and Obama's actions are not those of a centrist.

Don't you think a centrist would have ignored the fringe elements of the TEA PARTY movement and focused on the real concerns that most of the people have about more taxes and runaway deficits ?
But he didn't do that nor did his party.
They followed the strategy that we see here, attack everyone who doesn't agree with the "plan".

It's not working.
Poll numbers keep dropping.

Are you really this ignorant? Poll numbers are not indicative of a person's ideology. The Democrats who do not support this are CONSERVATIVE Democrats. The right-wing ones. Unlike the Republican party, the Democrats are not a monolithic block of thought. And calling Obama left of center displays your clear lack of understanding about political ideology.

And you obviously haven't been paying attention to polls lately, because his numbers and numbers for health care reform have been going UP.

Originally Posted by CallousDisregard

You want to cry about lobbyist supporting the TEA PARTY movement but you are blind to the money Moron.Org put into the anti-war movement.
You can look at thousands of expensive multi-color pre-printed signs in an anti-war protest and equate them with the thousands of handmade, obviously amateur signs at a TEA PARTY protest and come to the conclusion that the anti-war protest had no support while the TEA PARTY was entirely manufactured by lobbyists.

Moveon.org and the other sponsors of the anti-war movement were not funded by corporations who have something to gain by funding that movement. Here, you have fake grassroots organizations organized and funded by the health care industry. And I don't know what the hell kind of anti-war protest you were looking at, but there were many more homemade signs.

Originally Posted by CallousDisregard

But you have no problem with the President making the promise to keep lobbyists out of the White House and then staffing the whole place with lobbyists.

You apparently had such trust in your representatives that you found no problem whatsoever with them attempting to pass a huge bill costing trillions without reading it.
Did you trust them as much in '03 ?

You also have no problem with CBO saying the President's numbers are false, or in other words, he is lying through his teeth about how it will be paid for and how much it will cost.

Blah, blah, blah. None of this is relevant to the topic at hand.

Originally Posted by CallousDisregard

But let us keep examining the real meaning of what the word socialist means because that is more important.

Seeing as that's what we are talking about, yeah, it's more important than all the bullshit you are trying to bring up.

Originally Posted by [SWC

Erik Thorsen ]
Well it isn't so much an issue of whether their are or are not different realms of politics. I was just trying to get us on the same page. So from now on I will know that when you describe someone's politics, you mean based off of the politics of the entire world. It was more of a definition matter, and oddly un-important considering the time we've spent on it

Took us almost a whole page of posts to get on the same page, but I think we managed to.