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Dean 
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
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Points: 37575
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 Posted: November 04 2012 at 01:17 |
 thellama73 wrote:
AlexDOM wrote:
What determines a lie, we all have our biases, so where is the standard to call something false, not truth? Is a lie subjective to each individual and their interpretation? |
This is an easy one.
A lie is a statement that the speaker believes to be untrue uttered with the intent to deceive.
Some people call any untruth a lie, but this is wrong. A person can be mistaken without being a liar. Similarly, a person can say something hey know to be untrue, but not attempt to deceive and this is not a lie. "A horse walks into a bar, and the bartender says 'why the long face?'" Everyone knows that didn't really happen, but since you're not trying to convince anyone, it is not a lie.
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So, by that definition are Obama and Romney liars or people who said what they believed to be true at the time?
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What?
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Epignosis
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Joined: December 30 2007
Location: Raeford, NC
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 05:29 |
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I've been asked by many Democrats why Romney has not explained his plan for the economy. "Where's his plan?"
Yet when I ask them what Obama's plan is, they cannot answer.
Funny, no?
Edited by Epignosis - November 04 2012 at 05:29
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Epignosis
Special Collaborator
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Joined: December 30 2007
Location: Raeford, NC
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 05:31 |
HackettFan wrote:
thellama73 wrote:
I have a question for the Democrats in this thread, and I assure you I ask not to be antagonistic but because I am legitimately confused about this.What political principles does the Democratic party stand for (besides "Democrats in power")?Do they stand for peace?-Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan, attacked Libya and uses drone attakcs that blow up civilians more aggressively than any other president.-He has authorized the execution of an American citizen without a trialDo they stand for civil liberties?-Obama campaigned on a platform of being against gay marriage, and has not lifted a finger to legalize drugs or offer illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship-The man who made the youtube video that didn't start riots in Libya is now in jail on trumped up charges, but really because his exercise of free speech offended Muslims.Do they stand for social justice?-Obama used your money to bail out big banks and the auto industry-He extended the Bush tax cutsI understand the "meh, he's better than the other guy" mentality, but the deafening silence of criticism of these policies by Democrats who are supposed to steadfastly opposed them makes it seem like those on the left don't really care about anything except political power.
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Good observations. I said it before and I'll say it again. Obama is not a liberal. |
Then why are liberals so enamored with our incumbent? It doesn't make sense.
Were George W. Bush doing what Barack Obama has done in office, the liberals and the media would have been crucifying Bush daily.
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HarbouringTheSoul
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 21 2010
Status: Offline
Points: 1199
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 05:34 |
Epignosis wrote:
Then why are liberals so enamored with our incumbent? It doesn't make sense. |
Because partisanship makes blind. It's not like it doesn't happen to the other side regularly.
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HarbouringTheSoul
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 21 2010
Status: Offline
Points: 1199
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 05:49 |
thellama73 wrote:
If they couldn't learn what ordinary Americans already knew after a week of investigating, they are incompetent at levels which strain belief. The Occam's Razor solution is that they were simply afraid of damaging Obama's reelection campaign and tried to use a convenient scapegoat instead.
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No, the Occam's Razor solution is that the initial investigations made the wrong conclusion and that they were reluctant to acknowledge this at first because it always sucks to admit you were wrong. What you say is that they made the whole 'protest' story up to begin with, which I find kind of unlikely since all news coverage I saw in the first few days was along the same lines. Being wrong and failing to acknowledge it is not the same as lying. (For the record, I also don't believe that the Bush administration knowingly lied about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but there's a big difference between invading a country based on false reports and believing a false report and correcting your position a week later. The former has tremendous consequences, the latter... does it even have any?)
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Epignosis
Special Collaborator
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Joined: December 30 2007
Location: Raeford, NC
Status: Online
Points: 32553
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 06:01 |
HarbouringTheSoul wrote:
Epignosis wrote:
Then why are liberals so enamored with our incumbent? It doesn't make sense. |
Because partisanship makes blind. It's not like it doesn't happen to the other side regularly.
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In other words, they don't mind what a guy does so long as its their guy.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
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Points: 37575
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 06:13 |
Epignosis wrote:
HarbouringTheSoul wrote:
Epignosis wrote:
Then why are liberals so enamored with our incumbent? It doesn't make sense. |
Because partisanship makes blind. It's not like it doesn't happen to the other side regularly.
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In other words, they don't mind what a guy does so long as its their guy.
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In other words, they prefer it to what the other guy might/may/will do instead.
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What?
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Epignosis
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Joined: December 30 2007
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 06:22 |
Nope. Obama has been Bush Mk II.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout
Joined: May 13 2007
Location: Europe
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Points: 37575
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 06:31 |
Epignosis wrote:
Nope. Obama has been Bush Mk II.
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...or perhaps Bush Mk III 
But, nope - he was not the alternative to Bush, he was the alternative to McCain, and now Romney. No liberal is ever going to be enamoured by either of those two.
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What?
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akamaisondufromage
Forum Senior Member
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Points: 6797
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 06:56 |
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Help me I'm falling!
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dtguitarfan
Forum Senior Member
Joined: June 24 2011
Location: Chattanooga, TN
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Points: 1708
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 07:09 |
thellama73 wrote:
^Obama on gay marriage.I'm not defending Romney here, just pointing out the double standard.
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Ok, that's not saying two opposite things - Obama has been VERY clear: religiously he is not in support of Gay Marriage, but legally he thinks they should get the benefits. I have heard him talk on this, and I deeply respect him on this issue because I believe he does a very good job of separating "what I believe to be morally right" from "what I believe should be legal, and what I believe to be fair."
Epignosis wrote:
"I will cut the deficit in half."
Exaggeration? Left out bits and pieces?
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Once again - not necessarily a lie. He may have believed he could do that. Yup, obviously he didn't. But he did cut the deficit down a bit, so it's very possible he had the intention.
Edited by dtguitarfan - November 04 2012 at 07:10
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dtguitarfan
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Joined: June 24 2011
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Points: 1708
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 07:11 |
akamaisondufromage wrote:
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That's hilarious.
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thellama73
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 07:11 |
I think it's more than that. You can support a candidate you don't really like on the grounds that he is the lesser of two evils, but that's not the same things as four years of refusal to criticize and in fact to openly praise policies that are supposed to be the antithesis to your political principles. To a large extent, the Republicans have sold out too, but I truly believe that if a Republican president suddenly adopted a pro-abortion position that there would howls of protest from the base. Even if he was better than the other guy, a certain segment of Republicans would never support a pro-abortion candidate because it goes against their principles. I have seen no such principles from the left, and this has led me to believe that all these causes they supposedly care so much about have been a sham from the beginning. I will never take a Democrat's claim to be anti-war seriously again if they praised Obama's foreign policy.
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Epignosis
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Joined: December 30 2007
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 07:14 |
Dean wrote:
Epignosis wrote:
Nope. Obama has been Bush Mk II.
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...or perhaps Bush Mk III
But, nope - he was not the alternative to Bush, he was the alternative to McCain, and now Romney. No liberal is ever going to be enamoured by either of those two. |
But he ran as the alternative to Bush. The vitriol against George W. Bush was by the large the fuel that drove people (not just Democrats) to vote for Obama.
But the Democrats had an opportunity to choose someone else to carry their party's banner in 2012. That they chose an incumbent whose administration was so Bushy, so antithetical to the things their party claims to stand for, and a continuation of policies that Democrats claimed to despise, says something.
Edited by Epignosis - November 04 2012 at 07:15
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Epignosis
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Joined: December 30 2007
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 07:16 |
thellama73 wrote:
I think it's more than that. You can support a candidate you don't really like on the grounds that he is the lesser of two evils, but that's not the same things as four years of refusal to criticize and in fact to openly praise policies that are supposed to be the antithesis to your political principles.
To a large extent, the Republicans have sold out too, but I truly believe that if a Republican president suddenly adopted a pro-abortion position that there would howls of protest from the base. Even if he was better than the other guy, a certain segment of Republicans would never support a pro-abortion candidate because it goes against their principles. I have seen no such principles from the left, and this has led me to believe that all these causes they supposedly care so much about have been a sham from the beginning. I will never take a Democrat's claim to be anti-war seriously again if they praised Obama's foreign policy.
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Or if they do not condemn it.
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thellama73
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 07:32 |
dtguitarfan wrote:
thellama73 wrote:
^Obama on gay marriage.I'm not defending Romney here, just pointing out the double standard.
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Ok, that's not saying two opposite things - Obama has been VERY clear: religiously he is not in support of Gay Marriage, but legally he thinks they should get the benefits. I have heard him talk on this, and I deeply respect him on this issue because I believe he does a very good job of separating "what I believe to be morally right" from "what I believe should be legal, and what I believe to be fair."
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"I favor legalizing same sex marriages" - Barack Obama, 1996 "I am not in favor of gay marriage" - Barack Obama, 2008 "I think same-sex couples should be able to get married" - Barack Obama, 2012
Those are opposite things. If you're willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and make excuses for his holding contradictory positions, you should be willing to do the same thing for Romney. Your refusal to admit that a politician you like has ever told one, single lie shows that you aren't able to view him objectively.
dtguitarfan wrote:
Epignosis wrote:
"I will cut the deficit in half."
Exaggeration? Left out bits and pieces?
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Once again - not necessarily a lie. He may have believed he could do that. Yup, obviously he didn't. But he did cut the deficit down a bit, so it's very possible he had the intention. |
He id not cut the deficit down a bit, and made no effort to do so. He increased spending and continued the Bush tax cuts. Why is it so hard to accept that Obama, like every other politician in history, tells people what they want to hear in order to get elected? These numbers are from Office of Management and budget. Budget deficit in 2008 (pre-Obama): $459 billion Budget deficit in 2009 (Obama now in office): $1.41 trillion Budget deficit in 2010: $1.29 trillion Budget Deficit in 2011: $1.30 trillion Budget deficit in 2012 (estimated): $1.33 trillion
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Argonaught
Forum Senior Member
Joined: June 04 2012
Location: Virginia
Status: Offline
Points: 1413
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 07:33 |
Epignosis wrote:
I've been asked by many Democrats why Romney has not explained his plan for the economy. "Where's his plan?"
Funny, no?
Yet when I ask them what Obama's plan is, they cannot answer.
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Just to be fair to The Incumbent One, Mr. Obama is quite predictable. His system of values, social instincts, way of going about business and even demeanor are in the centrist range overall. As for Mr. Romney, well, he has made it harder to figure out where he stands on most issues, but ... Both Mr. Obama and Romney do seem to have more in common than many people realize:
- They both strive for consensus (neither would know how to pull off a Thatcher-esque "I'll whup yer butt first, and they you'll either agree, or not" ,
- Both have brown eyes
- Both are used to making emotional investment into communities they are in charge of; Mr. Obama was community organizer, while Mr. Romney was a bishop (pastor) in his church, which is 95% is community organizing anyway, because the faithful come to a pastor not to discuss scriptures, but to get help with cheating spouses, mortgage delinquencies, sick kids, loss of job etc.
Which makes me think, Mr. Romney will end up doing nearly the same thing as Mr. Obama.
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HackettFan
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Joined: June 20 2012
Location: Oklahoma
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Points: 7951
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 07:40 |
thellama73 wrote:
I think it's more than that. You can support a candidate you don't really like on the grounds that he is the lesser of two evils, but that's not the same things as four years of refusal to criticize and in fact to openly praise policies that are supposed to be the antithesis to your political principles.To a large extent, the Republicans have sold out too, but I truly believe that if a Republican president suddenly adopted a pro-abortion position that there would howls of protest from the base. Even if he was better than the other guy, a certain segment of Republicans would never support a pro-abortion candidate because it goes against their principles. I have seen no such principles from the left, and this has led me to believe that all these causes they supposedly care so much about have been a sham from the beginning. I will never take a Democrat's claim to be anti-war seriously again if they praised Obama's foreign policy. |
I've heard people on the left criticize Obama throughout his term.
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dtguitarfan
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Joined: June 24 2011
Location: Chattanooga, TN
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Points: 1708
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 07:41 |
thellama73 wrote:
I will never take a Democrat's claim to be anti-war seriously again if they praised Obama's foreign policy. |
Obama is like Mr. Myagi. He is against war, but if you threaten him directly, or threaten one of his loved ones he WILL stand up to you.
Republicans, in their criticism of Obama and everything he has done foreign policy wise (calling him the weakest president ever) have proven that they are basically Johnny from The Karate Kid: they talk big, they beat up kids who are smaller than they are in order to prove how "tough" they are, but inside they are really just a bunch of wimps.
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Epignosis
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Joined: December 30 2007
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Posted: November 04 2012 at 07:43 |
dtguitarfan wrote:
Epignosis wrote:
"I will cut the deficit in half."
Exaggeration? Left out bits and pieces?
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Once again - not necessarily a lie. He may have believed he could do that. Yup, obviously he didn't. But he did cut the deficit down a bit, so it's very possible he had the intention. |
If Obama never had the intention of cutting the deficit in half, that would make him a liar.
If Obama had the intention of cutting the deficit in half, that would make him ineffective.
Either is a sufficient reason to not rehire someone. 
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