Sardines
Well-Known Member
I think Romney would have been a better president than 2nd term Obama. I also voted for McCain the first time around and stand by that. I really have a special place in my heart for McCain.That is a problem, I think we've lost sight of what it means to be a moderate, or rather we each have our own idea of what a moderate is and that tends to shoehorn people automatically into the other camp. Take Buck calling me a leftist. I'm all for the 2nd amendment and I own and really enjoy my guns, but I also think we need some common sense gun laws to try to at least chip away at the rampant shootings occurring in our country at rates literally orders of magnitude higher than any other developed nation, but I think we also need to find ways to address mental health issues in conjunction with these gun laws so people who are unstable can't get guns as easily. So which camp am I in? Remember, I by our modem definition MUST be shoehorned in one camp. So am I a right wing gun nut because I own, shoot and really enjoy my guns and don't want to give them up? Am I an irrational leftist who hates the Constitution because I feel we need a few restrictions on gun ownership? We've entirely lost the ability to have any level of nuance in opinion in this country. It was already happening way back in the 90's. We saw it exemplified in the Iraq war when Democrats voted to go to war then immediately backpedaled when they saw this was unpopular instead of sticking to their guns and owning an actually decision. And again when Obama killed Romney because he 1) said "binders full of women" and 2) was one of the few politicians who was capable of changing his mind (on abortion no less) but wasn't allowed to do that since he was then a "flip-flopper" when really that is the kind of politician we should want, one who has the convictions and intelligence to get new information, incorporate it into his world view, and make a reasoned decision to change his mind accordingly. But no, we must all be automatons with no ability to think beyond the party line, which lead us inexorably to the final evolution of this kind of no-quarter-given politics in a race to fascism on one side and an inability to put together 2 ideas to figure out how to stop the fascist on the other and no one is allowed to occupy any middle ground. But this is the inevitable position of a pure 2-party system. We won't survive this long-term if this model of political system isn't upended with a viable third party.
But yeah, I'm a radical leftist, or so I've been told.
EDIT to add: I think Obama was a semi-decent President. I only came to that conclusion after Trump got elected in 2016, so take it for what it's worth.