LOL


I guess since we established a democracy. We all know how imperfect it is, but I think we also know that out of all the alternatives, democracy is the form of government that represents the what "most" people think is best.


Speak for yourself... We liberals still believe that "We the People" ARE capable of thinking and SHOULD be the deciders.

You may not have realized this but you just stumbled on the #1 issue for a LOT of liberals including myself... that "We the People" are being shut out by plutocratic powers and their corporate influences. Powers that created fractional reserve banking, gave corporations the same rights as citizens and just recently, thanks to Citizens United made it possible to channel unlimited funding to political campaigns under the protection of free speech. And yet, WE are the ones you call zombies. Uh-huh.


You might not like my answer Sling... But I'm not a politician either so I don't have to candy-coat things. I'm sure you understand.

The lies have always been a part of our history and they flourish in the stew of conflict that our nation has always been. So unless we stop being who we are, they lies will probably continue indefinitely.

From our genocidal destruction of the native nations under the guise of Manifest Destiny to the Jim Crow laws to the Red Dawn illusion, the natural prejudices of the American people have always been leveraged by opportunists to divide and control because lies about someone you don't like is always an easy sell.

Maybe I'm being distracted by all these lists of lies that Tasmin keeps confronting me with that don't say anything about what the MSM is addressing.

So then... is that standard procedure - to be howled at for presenting a possibility that doesn't fit into the "image"?

Well, first let me say thank you for paying attention to what I was saying about foregoing the endless lists of shallow references and instead providing an actual focus that I can investigate.

But this is where you might throw your arms up...

The examples you mention are once again, promises about a reality that has yet to materialize, they were not intentional misrepresentations of the existing truth. So, maybe he didn't make these promises DURING his election campaign, but they are still promises. I tried to make this distinction clear, via definition... (promises are about the future / lies are intentional misrepresentations of reality) I also used analogies (football coach example). I'll try again...

"First thing I will do when I get home will be to fix the toilet." = promise. (...and future tense)

When he got home, there was a fire in garage and he had to take care of that first. = broken promise (sh*t happens).

"Yes, I fixed the toilet" (but he didn't) = LIE

See, what I am saying here? Now, I realize that this definition of a lie doesn't help your efforts to present Obama as a compulsive liar. Obviously, as such a lie has YET to be presented in this thread. That's OK. I understand, you guys hate Obama, for reasons I guess I don't understand, and calling all his missed predictions lies I suppose helps you folks develop a sense of being right. But it also means that I'm not going to put much stock in all this hullabaloo.

I just thought maybe you guys were actually on to something. Well, I guess I can report back to the evil mother ship commanding the communist army of zombies and say the "Good People" have no clue - at which point the council of Darth Vader, Dr Evil, Richard Simmons and the revived brains of Karl Marx, Stalin and Vladmir the Impailer will relay back to Obama to continue with the invasion.

;)

In an earlier response on this thread I explained how I don't categorize campaign promises as lies. As I said lies are intentional misrepresentations of the truth... promises are about the future where the truth doesn't exist and every promise made (by anyone) has the potential to fail, because you can't predict the future.

Seriously, anyone that thinks a campaign promise is a guarantee is an idiot. Remember when Bush Sr. said "Read My Lips, No New Taxes!"... Remember how he raised them anyway? If your going to count promises about the future that haven't materialized as lies, then Obama stands at the back of a long line of presidential liars.


I'm not saying your wrong in being pissed off. You have every right to be pissed off. Just like liberals have every right to be pissed off at Bush. People want different things and have different perspectives and one president can't help one person with out pissing someone else off.


Dude... get a grip. First of all, MOST Americans believe strongly in the Constitution, including liberals like myself so don't EVEN toss that one out there. Secondly, not to deflate your ego but the IRS wasn't targeting individuals like you. They were specifically targeting political groups that were hiding their donors under section 501(c)(4) and it didn't happen until the Citizens United decision made it possible for these groups to channel unlimited funds to political campaigns. And you're telling ME to do my homework?


It's not, which is why the slogan made sense when American colonists were taxed by a government that offered them no representation. But when you have American citizens using the same slogan, they're either too stupid to know how Congress works or they're just being drama queens.


I've been complaining about how complacent Americans are for over 20 years. Seriously, there is nothing new going on here. I guess a lot of people are just waking up. I guess it makes sense that they haven't been awake long enough to realize the real causes of their apparent problems aren't confined to the current administration or even the government. I'm just sitting bed side watching in amusement as the newly awakened are throwing punches in the air with their eyes still half closed.

Want some coffee?



Yeah, you need some coffee.

;)

Thanks for the lead... I'm not sure I want to read an entire book to get to one particular quote, but I'll see if I can pick it out electronically. Do you know if his reference to Kenya was really about HIS birthplace and not his father's? I know his father was born in Kenya...

I don't care so much about his early association with Ayers, or that he sat in the same church with Rev Wright. That only seems relevant if you hate black people, fear radicals or are seeking to generate a negative image of Obama's personality, I lost interest in that sort of thing way back when the liberals were doing the same thing to Bush and they had stacks of ammo for that too. Big deal.

So what are we doing here? Are we looking for lies that actually put the security and welfare of the American people at risk, or are we just looking for any kind of dirt that night lessen his popularity?

I'm looking for the former... 'Not really interested in the dirt. As far as I am concerned, politics is dirty by nature and a pure politician IS a lie.

Good question. Really good question actually. I guess by "officially discredited" I was refering to any kind of official judgement that specifically discredits something Obama has asserted as being true.

But actually, I'd like to point out that people seem to have different ideas about what an actual lie is.

For example, the bulk of Obama's "supposed" lies seem to be his campaign promises and I just don't consider a campaign promise or any kind of promise to be a lie. A lie happens when you knowingly misrepresent the truth and a promise is about the future where the truth doesn't exist yet.

Promises are also mandatory features of any political campaign. If you're not making promises your not entering office. Simple as that. That being said, it should also be understood that all promises are subject to failure, because you can't predict the future. Imagine if every football coach who has ever tried to psych up his team and fans with promises of championships was called a liar every time his team let him down.

Obama psyched up his voters with a promised "Hope for Change" ...it was a campaign slogan folks. I knew that when I voted for him. I wasn't betting my life on it because I know how polarized our political system is, but I voted for the promise anyway, because I felt any step in that direction would be worth the vote. And as it turned out a lot of hard fought steps were indeed taken.

Sure, Obama's legacy has fallen somewhat short of the his vision, which I would expect given the political gridlock he's had to deal with. But does that make his visions lies?

I don't think so.

I appreciate the advice Roy... Actually, I've been working with search engines for years, not just as a user but as a designer. I spent three years refactoring business intelligence systems for something called SEO (Search Engine Optimization). But you're right, most of the effectiveness of a search is based on how the user submits his criteria. The problem is that with the rhetorical nature of politics there is always a constant flood of misinformation and search engines alone can't filter it all out. In fact search engines have become the most recent tool for amplifying misinformation the same way television and radio was before that.


Yes, Roy... I know that. (Government 101)


Hmm... okay, I might have mixed up the quote on TV about Monica and the lie under oath about Paula. I was never that glued to the soap opera of his personal relationships. So forgive my lack of details when I was making the simple point that he lied under oath.


OK, I can see you're point and I agree, the Senate isn't likely to impeach Obama just on the basis of lying. Although I think they would if the lie itself was harmful enough. I'm pretty sure that's why the Senate didn't impeach Clinton, his lie just wasn't all that harmful to the nation. (Since you're the expert on impeachment I'm sure you realize that it's intentionally regarded as a last resort before assasination.)

In summary, I'll withdraw my point about the absence of any impeachment being any kind of indication that he hasn't lied.

...still looking for proof that that he has though ;)

My understanding is that the commissioner that was presiding over the intitial profiling in 2010 (right after Citizen's United cleared the path for unlimited campaign funding) isn't the one that's there now.

I'm not sure what people want to see here. At the most fundamental level, the IRS was clamping down on tax cheaters, which I would expect them to do. It's not like they were killing anyone or stealing money that wasn't owed to them.

The fuss seems to be over the idea that they were only clamping down on conservative tax cheaters, but when you consider the fact that during that initial period following Citizens United, it WAS mostly conservative groups that were applying for 503(c)(4) designations, it's almost understandable. When you can't see everything at once, you do the next best thing and focus on the most suspicious areas first, right?

In my mind, error should be measured by what groups were able to move money past the IRS, not by what groups were nailed by them. If liberal groups were able to smuggle though millions of dollars because the IRS was intentionally looking the other way, THEN I have a problem.

Until then, I don't really see what the big deal is.

BTW, that last line supports my feeling that these ruffled feathers all flustered about the IRS Scandal were worth something. It won't hurt Obama really. But it will lodge into the internal polices of the IRS, the acknowledged risk of profiling that will carry through to the next generation of presidents.

LOL - fat fingers. Yes, I meant the NRA. My bad. And thanks for the advice. Actually, that was my own words (and fat fingers)


Roy - that is WHY I always believed in the 2nd. BECAUSE the government can become tyrannical. All I am saying is that since the 18th century, new ways of controlling people have been developed against which guns are far less effective.


Yes, I think he can. I think ANY president can just like they already have. For example in 1932 Federal troops opened fire on American WW1 vetrans protesting in Washington DC.

(Here we go - gonna do red)

On August 28.1932 President Hoover ordered General Douglas Macarthur to evict the Veterans. Macarthur ordered then Majors George Patton and Dwight Eisenhower to mobilize the Federal troops out of Fort Myers, Virginia.

At 4:00 that afternoon Major Patton ordered the Calvary to charge the unarmed veterans and their families. Killing and wounding many of the marchers as well as a few by standers, one of whom was a United States Senator. As the day progressed into night the Army attacked the Veterans main encampment with small arms, bayonets, machineguns and tanks. In all it is reported that some 1,600 people, mostly woman and children were killed in the daylong struggle. Nobody knows for sure the exact number as there were those who had escapped the city during the fighting and who died of their injuries while on the roads heading back to their homes.


http://www.dailypaul.com/97314/federal-troops-attack-veterans-marching-in-dc

So it's not hard if you divide people up into groups first and THAT wouldn't hard either - it's mostly done already. As I've mentioned in my intro, America is a nation fissured with conflicting interests. We've even had efforts to amend the Constitution just a few years back to allow for the seperate legal treatment of gay people. That's profiling. We have liberals and conservatives that hate each other. Racism is still HUGE in the south. Texas Republicans are sweating over their largest growing demographic being Hispanic and on the verge of turning that state blue and they can't put that border fence up fast enough. Then there's biased media - OMG if anyone can demonize an isolated group of Americans it's the biased media... I've only been on this site for a few days and i've already lost count of the derogatory references that I've been associated with as a liberal... "Dark Side", communist! ("Obama zombies" is my favorite). And American Muslims, especially since 9/11 have seen huge increases in threats by other prejudiced Americans... How about those Japanese Americans that were transported to prison camps during WW2? Did the white Americans protest? No they didn't. Face it. Americans really aren't that unified and they never were.



Yes, I do. After Obama does his duty (and saves face) by sacking the guy in charge, that position will be filled by someone else who will promise all kinds of virtue but his job performance will still be measured by how much money he can recover from tax cheaters although they will probably just be more careful to insure that everytime they see another Republican SuperPAC hiding their donors behind section 503(c)(4) they will audit a liberal group too.

Just my guess.

The Dark Side... oooh...

What are you smoking?

LOL

lightfoot, you mention the constitutional line. I agree that any president, sworn in to uphold the Constitution, should be made an example of if he/she does in fact cross that line.

So... where did Obama cross that line? Do you have evidence that would stand up in court? It's a very simple question.

Please, don't hand me another long list of cranky opinions. I already know how to Google. I've been doing it for days and all I get are these long lists of heresays, quotes taken out of context and references to references to references to opinons all published by sources that are steeply conservative. I can switch out the keyword "Obama" for the keyword "Bush" and I would get the same kind of results from sources that are steeply liberal. It's all tit-for-tat BS.

Maybe, just maybe, I'm asking for the impossible. Maybe the proof just isn't there because a) Obama hasn't actuallty crossed that line as much as you want to think he has, or b) he has and we just don't have any proof yet.

If there was proof, I would think the impeachment process would have already started. When Clinton said he "had no sexual relations with that woman" and it was later PROVEN that he did, the impreachment machine was cranked up right away.

Personally, I thought his sexual relations was a family matter not a national concern, but he he DID lie under oath and that technically made him impreachable and that was all the conservatives needed.

With Obama there are plenty of conservative politicians standing next to the impreachment machine just itching to crank it up again, but so far they haven't. Why?

If the proof that Obama has lied to the point of constitutional violation is so abundant then why aren't they impeaching him?

you said... "So, if Bush lied, so did most of the world, including the US Democrat Party. "

The US Democrat Party isn't beyond lying Tasmin. So are you saying it's ok that Bush lied so long as other's did too?

Well, I don't know what to say... I'm not towing liberal propoganda, I was just asking for a single case where an actual documented quote from Obama was officially discredited. I thought you guys would be the place to go, but I'm suprised (and dumbfounded) to find that all you guys have are these long lists of complaints about his lying but no actual examples of it happening.

I even told Tasmin to stop sending these stupid lists and focus instead on one or two cases with actual proof and what I got back was another long list. Look, I can get those lists fro any of the hundreds of conservative BS factories just like I can get the same kind of mindless lists about Bush lies from the liberal BS factories and quite frankly I don't see any difference between either side. BS is BS.

Do I need to take the time to do the work for you? I really thought that with you people foaming at the mouth about what a liar he is I could just get the info from you. I didn't realize how insubstantial your data is.

Now I'm getting hostile reactions from you folks. Does it really piss you off that much when you run into someone who simply wants to see some proof?

Did I ever say Obama isn't lying? No. I never said that. So I'm not arguing with you. I JUST want to see some proof!

IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK FOR?

So... I'm going to make an attempt to find such a case on my own because I don't think it should be that difficult and when/if I find solid proof that he has lied (about anything worth getting your panties in a knot over) I will report it so you can see how it's done.

OK?