So one of my younger cousins who's father I constantly argue with over politics decided to get in an argument with me over the current presidential campaign of Barack Obama.

Basically it is me and a 50 year old man who makes over 250k a year arguing about politics, since she is asking him for ammunition and for some reason I thought it would be interesting to share.

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"i dont think that obama is a bad person, and i dont think hes untelligent like you think sarah palin is. but i dont believe in socialism and OBAMA is a socialist. the real decision we have to make is between democrats and "moderate" republicans (really people who interpret the constitution "liberally" who register as republicans) and conservative republicans (who believe in conserving the constitution). by the way, mccain is not a conservative republican, and there is not a whole lot of difference between him and obama when it comes to their political views. but nonetheless he is less of a socialist than obama. and palin is less of a socialist than both of them. obama believes in socialism and all his mentors and colleages are socialists.

First of all Sarah Palin is not stupid... She is uninformed and not in anyway ready to lead in the case that John McCain were to die in office. Why is Obama more qualified? Easy...

Obama has been a State Senator and an Illinois legistlator. He has been a community organizer helping people in Illinois get back on their feet after losing jobs when the plants shipped jobs overseas. What does this mean? This means he has been helping people at the expense of his own time and career.

Sarah Palin is a governor who violated ethics laws in Alaska, spent government tax dollars on trips to church (violation of the separation of church and state), and who is being used as a gimmick to get people to vote for McCain because of his "Folksy" sounding running mate.

Barack Obama leans towards socialism, however you still do not grasp that there is such a thing as balance. I have been reading Barack Obama's book, and he praises many of the free market Ideals of Ronald Reagan and other presidents in the past. He speaks of a balance where the government runs education, health care, and transportation, while fitting in the private sector when possible, and while leaving the rest to the private sector.

Obama believes in government being responsible for everything it takes for someone to have a fair shot to actually get somewhere. What does that mean?

Education!! Government must help fund and manage education so that every American has a fair shot at an education, as well as the resources they need to compliment the hard work it takes to make it.

Transportation/roads/bridges!! Government must make it easy for people to travel to and from work and school, and make sure our bridges and roads are not decaying and collapsing putting our lives in danger. Corporations only care about MONEY, so shortcuts will be taken and people will die because of their greed.

Health Care!! Government has a responsibility in a country as rich and as powerful as ours to make sure that no citizen will lose their life as long as there is a way to save it. And in most cases preventative measures are neccesary to make sure it doesn't get to that point. That is where Health care comes into play. Insurance companies run health care and they are all about money. They decline to give a person benefits on their death bed under accusations that it was a pre existing condition and not covered. They take shortcuts and treat people like the enemy, and not like a true valuable customer. Because once your sick, your not a valuable customer to them anymore. You are an expense.

The difference between Obama and McCain is that Obama wants health care to be affordable and is willing to spend money on Health care and education. Whereas McCain wants to privatize health care fully, cut funding to medicare and medicaid, and to privatize social security and education.

Do you even know what that means? There will be rich CEO'S who will run our schools, The stock market will affect our quality of education, and corporate greed will rule over fair education. See my cousin, Corporations are all about profit. If it is not profitable to have a school in a bad neighberhood of compton, they will close it, and not care about the kids who want to make something of their lives.

That is NOT America.

"calling a person "communist" or a person a "socialist" is not name-calling. it may be considered "name-calling" on the news, like the news media uses "conservative" and "liberal", which also refer to beliefs about our constitutional government, but these terms arent bad, they just refer to the type of government that someone believes in. and i dont mean it in a name-calling way either. its just a way to refer to types of government. basically, communism "promotes the establishment of government ownership of the major means of production and property in general." so like universal health care. socialism is "the intermediate step from a free market system to communism. Socialism promotes government ownership of the major means of production and distribution of goods. It differs from communism in that there is still some individual property. Socialists do not believe in free markets. They believe that capitalism and free markets create an unequal society, so that a small portion of people end up with the majority of the wealth and power (the rich and powerful). Socialists believe in redistribution of wealth to establish equality." basically, they believe in taking money from people who have it and give it to people who don't- in the US, it is called "welfare". ok, i know your thinking, wait a second, the poor people NEED this money while the rich people HAVE ENOUGH, but here is my analogy on this. take school for example. one student studies really hard and makes straight A's. another student makes D's and F's. and so their grades are "unequal". so in a free society, the person who makes A's can choose to help the person that makes D's and F's, or they can choose not to. just like the person who makes D's and F's can choose to study and make better grades or not. in a socialist government, the person who has A's will have those A's taxed, so that they have to give part of their grade to the person who makes D's and F's. and now, they both end up making a C average. now, do you think that's fair? do you believe that people should be forced, by the government, to become "equal", or do you believe that people should have the FREEDOM to choose what to do."

You fail to exhibit a unbiased logical view of the candidate you think is a socialist. Barack Obama believes in the free market, and your problem, as well as the problem of republicans is that they paint liberals all with the same brush.

Just because Obama believes in socialized health care, doesn't mean he is going to take money from the rich and give it to the poor. There is a lot of money that is being wasted by our government and alot of that could be used for more noble and important things such as keeping Americans healthy.

The rich should not be penalized for being rich, but the poor should not be forgotten because they lack influence. You are a very lucky girl. You were born into a family with a mother and father who have provided well for you, but many people are not so lucky. You complain about it being hard for your dad to send 4 kids to private school and keep a multi million dollar house in Carmel with just over 250k a year, and whine about how hard it will be for him if he has to pay more taxes, but you have no sympathy for the mother who works 2 jobs, has 2 kids, lives in an apartment in a bad neighborhood and cannot afford health care for her children. If one of her children gets sick and she cannot afford to pay for the treatment. The child will either die, or they will lose everything just to keep the child alive.

You don't get it... You could have been that child. That could have been you, living that life. What makes us human is our ability to put ourselves in other peoples shoes, and realize that if we have, and others do not. It does not make us better. It makes us responsible. At the very least responsible to fairness. Shame on you for being so gullible as to fall for such nonsense. I cannot blame you though, as I am sure if your father was not conservative you would not be either. Don't take that as an insult, as I am sure you can agree he has a big impact on your beliefs.

People should have the freedom to choose what they do. But the very same people you want to vote for would deny Gay's and Lesbians the freedom to choose to get married like we can. They also strip away our civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism.

The biggest flaw to your entire belief system is that it took Socialist methods to save the capitalist system this last month with the bailout bill. If it were not for socialism, capitalism would have failed, and that's a FACT.

"our government is a CONSTITUTIONAL republic, not a democracy. our constitution was designed by our founding fathers to PROTECT THE INDIVIDUAL AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT AND THE "MOB" (A MAJORITY OF PEOPLE). our constitution does not allow for socialism- it protects the freedom of the individual. like in the example about grades, if the student making A's WANTS to help, then they can. but it doesnt allow the teacher or a group of C students to take the grades way from the A student just because the teacher (the government) or a group of C students (the mob) want those grades. in this case, the constitution protects the individual. since the 1930s the democrats have "interpreted" the words and meaning of the constitution and they no longer follow what it says. instead they "interpret" the words of the constitution to mean things that THEY want it to mean.. otherwise there would never be any socialistic type programs allowed because they would be found by the supreme court to be "unconstitutional". because the constitution is now interpreted and does not mean the same thing that it originally meant, we now have socialism and we have lost many individual freedoms."


Our government is a constitutional republic, but it is a representative democracy (which is a type of constitutional republic).

The founding fathers based their protection from government on the example of England, and dictatorships. Not on separation and inequality. You are completely ignorant if you believe that the republicans follow the constitution exactly as it is written and do not also interpret it as they see fit.

The declaration of independence is clear in its meaning that all men are created equal, and until your homophobic party can come to terms with this, please don't lecture us on the constitution or our founding fathers. We have lost more freedoms under a republican president then ever under a democrat. Your ignorance is astounding. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney together have done more harm to the constitution then any other president and vice president in history. Not to mention the acceptance as torture as a method which violates our promise to our citizens and the world. Wire tapping is a violation of our civil rights... The suspension of habeus corpus is a violation of our civil rights.

"i do not thing that this is solely the responsibility of the democrats because there are many "moderate" republicans (for example, bush and mccain) who have also promoted socialism at the cost of individual freedom."

NUHUH!!! stop right there... Accept responsibility for your goddamn republican president. All the republicans who act like they can just say "oh well he was bad" and move on are dreaming. Accept responsibility for one of the worst presidents in history, and don't you dare act like you have the judgment to pick another.


"again, obama is NOT a bad person. but he is a socialist. now, about what you said about obama, he did NOT sponser any bill with luger, but i agree he did support it. again he is not a bad person.....the state penal code that he promoted made it more difficult for violent criminals to be punished.....again, he is a socialist and believes that a person is a criminal because of the society being unequal. people who believe in freedom to choose realize that criminals have a choice, as do all of us, and we should not blame society for our choices, and instead accept responciblity for our own actions.....you said obama fought for womens rights to choose, meaning he is for abortion. which is "the death of a fetus". the legislation that he voted against was legislation that if a child was aborted and managed to live through the abortion, then the medical team should provide medical care to the aborted baby, instead of just leaving it to die. this did not mean that the mother had to care for the baby, and she could still choose to not care for it.....the provision said nothing about making abortions illegal. instead it just wanted to insure that the baby, if aborted alive, would recieve medical care. and he was AGAINST this."

Yes he did... http://obama.senate.gov/press/060523-lugar-obama_bil/

I have heard nothing about Obama making it more difficult for violent criminals to be punished, as a matter of fact all I find is complaints that he made it easier for them to be punished.

You just attributed something to Obama that you have no evidence is his belief. Prove that he believes that a person is a criminal because of the society being unequal, or don't you dare spew nonsense you have no proof of. Just because one socialist somewhere sometime believes that, doesn't mean that someone who shares some socialist views does as well.

And regarding abortion... You contradict yourself. So the mother would not have to take care of it? then who would??? The GOVERNMENT? I thought you were against tax and spend democrats, and then you are willing to fund the entire 18 years of a failed aborted babies life? Abortion is a womans right, and your party thinks they have the right to INFRINGE ON THE FREEDOM OF A WOMAN TO CHOOSE WHAT HAPPENS INSIDE HER OWN BODY. And you complain about socialism stealing our rights!!! HA!.

"when you say he fought for ethics reform, what ethics did he reform?? are you referring to the day that he bought a house for 300,000 less than the asking price and on the very same day tony resco, a professional real estate developer, bought the adjacent lot from the same seller for the full asking price. by the way, during this time, resco was the finance director for obama's senate race. "


http://obama.senate.gov/issues/ethics_and_lobbying_reform/

Every news station found Obama to be 100% legal in his purchasing of a house, and found his ties to rezko to be mostly trumped up from nothing. Yet it seems to be all you people can talk about... Maybe if you could argue issues instead...

What about John McCain and the Keating 5 Scandal? I am sure you have an excuse for why John McCain chose cash over country.

"ok, you said that obama has shown better judgement than mccain, to what are you reffering? obama said, OPENLY AND REPEATEDLY, that the surge of troops in iraq would not work, yet it has been extremely successful and many of the provinces in iraq that were under control of the US forces are now controlled by the iraqi government. the person that said that iraq would treat us as liberators was not mccain, but people inside the bush administration, but they are both guilty in not following our constitution. if they had followed our constitution, then we would have never had the war.....mccain never said anything about "muddling through afghanistan" and the US bombed the hell out of that country and defeated the forces there in less than a year.. the russians werent able to do this in TEN years. first of all, there was no guarentee that osama bin laden was in afghanistan when we attacked afghanistan, but we did kill many of the al quaida leaders, and we never stopped that war for the iraqi war. we always had been fighting both places simultaneously, but al quida was completely defeated and whatever people were left fled to pakistan and iran."


Obama said repeatedly that the surge has not made Iraq safe, instead it has taken a flawed occupation and made it less flawed. IT IS STILL FLAWED. He has explained himself many times, but it falls on deaf ears, as you people cannot listen to anything he says without shouting nonsense back at him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKFL-Mz4rto
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY2EP6fj1Js
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yV5jgWDTHog

We are losing our grip on Afghanistan as we speak, the generals keep saying we need more troops and that the Taliban and Al queda have gotten stronger... just a month ago they attacked a US base in Afghanistan head on. That is unheard of. You are lacking some heavy information.

So already you have been proven wrong on three points, and I blame Fox news for that.

The Russians weren't able to do it in ten years because we were aiding the afghans!!!!

Another reason it was so easy was because Iran who has influence over the Northern alliance in Afghanistan cooperated with us and asked them to help us against the Taliban and AQ.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj1mZtbckNY

Al queda did not flee to Iran you dolt, Iran hates Al Queda and would kill their members on sight... Do you even know the history of Iran and AQ?

The leaders that survived as well as Osama are believed to be in the mountainous border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Obama has been right on EVERY thing that he has predicted and said. He called for more troops in Afghanistan, and the generals begged for more troops shortly after. Obama called Afghanistan the central front in the war against Al queda, and McCain said we can just muddle through Afghanistan. John McCain has been consistently wrong, and his campaign is just as erratic as he has been throughout his career.

".......obama said that we should go into pakistan, but what he failed to mention is that pakistan has nuclear weapons, so we cant just run in there. but we have made many secret incursions into Kandhar, the northern province of pakistan. you should also know that kandhar is trying to win its independence from pakistan, and the government of pakistan does not have control of that region.
...and about obama vs. mccains education, i agree that obama was a better student., but it is more than just your academic performance that is important. john mccain did graduate near the bottom of his class from Annapolis, but just graduating from Annapolis is more difficult than graduating from columbia or harvard law because annapolis not only pushes their students academically, but also physically and emotionally. later, mccain went on to become a navy pilot, and navy pilots are the best and most skilled of all the military pilots in the armed forces. they have to be exceedingly intelligent, think quickly and without error, and have like really fast reflexes. now compare that to the years obama used coke and weed on a regular basis (as HE documented in his own book)."

Obama did not say to attack Pakistan, he said that whenever we have actionable intelligence that can lead to the killing or capture of members or leaders of Al Queda, that we should do so with or without the help and permission of the Pakistani government. Damn right!!! If Osama is sitting in a cave and we know where he is, and Pakistan said they won't help, you wanna just leave him there? You think Pakistan will use nukes on the USA? Are you so daft? They would cease to exist as a people and a nation if they chose to do such a thing.

It is your intelligence, education, and judgment as well as your ability to unite and inspire that makes you fit to lead. Please don't give me BS about Annapolis being harder. Sure it is harder physically, but he passed bottom of his class, and crashed 4 planes before finally becoming a POW, so he has always been a giant failure in that respect. Best pilots... LOL

Obama smoked weed and coke... big deal, he learned from his mistake and made something of his life. More then can be said for most drug addicts. John McCain came back from Vietnam and cheated on his wife because she got in an accident and was deformed. He left her finally and married Cindy, who also used to pop pills and was stealing drugs from a charity she worked for. Some of his first wife's children who are his children still are not going to vote for him. Because they know the real John McCain.

"saying that they are not qualified is really not the issue because clearly they both have the ability to run the presidency. the difference is that obama is more of a socialist than mccain. and since both are socialists, neither are my choice for president. however, obama is more of a socialist than mccain and would pick people for his administration that are also more socialist than mccain. so why would this be bad? the answer- our government was designed to protect individual freedom, not to promote equality (the basis of socialism).
...........now you talk about how obama was selfless and chose to avoid taking a high paying job for a private law firm and instead decided to help the people of chicago. do you really think that a person on a state senators salary can afford a 1.6 million dollar house?
....you also go on to state a list of bad characteristics of mccain. mccain has been in the senate for over 20 years, and none of these so-called "facts" have prevented him from performing his duties as a senator for the state of arizona. people have made accusations that obama has a homosexual relationship with his pastor reverend wright, while at the same time being married. so does this mean that he is better than john mccain?"

They are both qualified as far as being knowledgeable about what is going on around the world. The difference however is not your short sighted ignorant reason, but rather that Barack Obama will invest in the American people, where as John McCain will invest in big business and corporations that line his pockets.

Our government was found on the principles that "All men are created equal", you interpreted it your way, and yet blast liberals for their interpretation. Bottom line is this... All are not always going to be equal, the reason a democrat like Obama gets my vote is because he knows it is important to give everyone a chance to start on equal footing and make of themselves what they will from that point on.

Barack Obama sold 2 books each netting him over 1-2 million dollars. Plus, have you heard of a loan?

The rest of your response lacks coherence.

"he answer is that both of these men have been able to perform their jobs in such a way that they were elected by their parties to run for president. the real issue is the type of government policy that they would promote. again....our nation became great bc our founding fathers had the insight to protect FREEDOM and not promote equality....the question you gotta ask is which of these two men is going to best promote our constitutional republic and individual freedom. "

Barack Obama will uphold our constitution, uphold the separation of church and state, maintain equal pay for equal work, allow our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters their freedoms as Americans, and make sure that government doesn't stick its nose into a woman's body and her right to choose. Sounds like freedom to me.

One day you will wake up, until then... You deserve what you get.