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Admiral Ackbar
Seekers of Hawke's Hot Stuff
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 Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 1:50 am Post subject: |
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This is probably selfish of me, but as much as I support Bill Clinton and what he's done (for the most part), Don't Ask Don't Tell still leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth. If not for that policy, I'd be in the military right now.
(Er, come to think of it, I'd probably be in Iraq or Afghanistan right now. I take it back...glory be to Don't Ask Don't Tell!!!)
I'm hoping the next Dem candidate is willing to battle DADT.
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Leb
Pizza Toppings
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| Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 2:08 am Post subject: |
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| The military is a long way away from being open in that sort of way, so imagine the kind of havoc he would have caused by not supporting it way back then. Even now, a lot of people would argue about why one's sexual preference needs to be discussed when the matter at hand is military service. |
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Yvl
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| Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 5:07 am Post subject: |
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| Leb wrote: |
| You don't know what you've got until it's gone! |
A corrupt puppet of the corporate world? Face it, regardless of how much else he did, he threw away his reputation and then some by signing NAFTA.
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Tony Stark
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| Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 9:46 am Post subject: |
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| Yvl wrote: |
| A corrupt puppet of the corporate world? Face it, regardless of how much else he did, he threw away his reputation and then some by signing NAFTA. |
What? I'd be willing to bet most Americans at the time or now do not really give a damn about NAFTA, in fact, I'd say a lot of us do not even know what it means.
| wiki wrote: |
| The Program on International Policy Attitudes reported in a January 2004 poll that 47% of Americans thought that NAFTA has been good for the United States, while 39% thought it had been bad for the country. |
Seems like fairly favorable results there. I whole-heartedly support NAFTA, from an economic perspective, I do not see how it does not benefit us. As far as Corporations controlling the world, they pretty much did without NAFTA. I do not see how NAFTA changed that either, it just let them and everyone else have tariff free trade to our nearby neighbors. Which admittedly gives them a little more consolidation on power, but it's not really the straw that breaks the camel's back.
But, back actually on topic. I met John Edwards once or twice. I worked at the Wade Edwards Learning Lab (the WELL), which was set up as a memorial to his son that died at my high school. His concession speech in 2004 was also at my High School, which has the largest gym in the state. I do not really support Edwards at all, and he seemed kind of like a douche when I met him.
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Yvl
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| Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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My friend's dad lost his job to NAFTA, and now they're struggling to survive. Of course I'm going to hate it. And anyone who feels otherwise needs to look at the reality of it, not from an economic perspective, but from a human one.
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Tony Stark
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| Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 2:35 pm Post subject: |
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Can he ever be employed again?
The statistic that we "lost a million jobs" due to NAFTA does not take into account the jobs we gained as a result of new revenue. Trade between Canada, Mexico and the US more than doubled since the signing of NAFTA. This stimulates the GDP which has an inverse relationship with Unemployment. Regardless that "a million jobs were lost" the unemployment rate is shockingly unchanged as a result. Canada, the US and Mexico all have more money. The human result is, we are all better off.
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Tonberry
The Tonberry Eggsperience
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| Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 3:12 am Post subject: |
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| I watched the debates tonight. They were extremely long, but worthwhile, I think. I'm pretty tired and I'll have to digest what I've heard some, but I would like to say that I'm quite shocked at how uncivilly the five other Republicans treated Ron Paul. I do not agree with everything he says, but they, as a group, rudely interrupted him more than half of the time he was speaking, and treated each other much more civilly. I think it's a shame that these politicians have resorted to alpha male aggression instead of intellectual and civil conduct. It's the same negative behavior we see in our foreign policy and I dearly wish to see something else in the future. |
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Yvl
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| Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 3:54 am Post subject: |
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He worked as a tailor, and since nobody in America will hire someone who does that kind of work anymore and he's been doing it all his life, no, not really. The problem with NAFTA is that the jobs gained are the wrong kinds of jobs which force Americans to do things they dont necessarily like. My friend tried going to college, but dropped out to pursue his passion of jewel / metal making. It's the only thing he can see himself being happy with. But since all of those kinds of jobs are outsourced to China now, he may have to settle with a boring desk job, which honestly I think he'd sooner kill himself than take.
Statistics only show numbers, they dont show emotions.
Anyway, this is off topic, and I think I've made my point, so I'll stop.
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Leb
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| Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 5:20 am Post subject: |
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| Do you have a reason for disliking NAFTA, or is it only because your friend's dad lost his job? |
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Yvl
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| Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 5:33 am Post subject: |
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It doesnt affect me personally, but my point was that people do suffer from it. I hate my friend's dad, honestly, but I see him suffering and it makes me feel that there are hundreds of thousands of others in his position.
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Leb
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| Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 2:23 pm Post subject: |
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Makes you feel that there are? Have you, by chance, actually done research before coming to this conclusion about NAFTA? Gut instinct isn't a very persuasive method in debate.
There are people who suffer from every choice the president makes. You have to figure out if the good outweighs the bad before you decide whether or not the choice made was the correct one. |
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Ujitsuna
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| Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 3:43 pm Post subject: |
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| Tonberry wrote: |
| I watched the debates tonight. They were extremely long, but worthwhile, I think. I'm pretty tired and I'll have to digest what I've heard some, but I would like to say that I'm quite shocked at how uncivilly the five other Republicans treated Ron Paul. I do not agree with everything he says, but they, as a group, rudely interrupted him more than half of the time he was speaking, and treated each other much more civilly. I think it's a shame that these politicians have resorted to alpha male aggression instead of intellectual and civil conduct. It's the same negative behavior we see in our foreign policy and I dearly wish to see something else in the future. |
Yeah, well Ron Paul is the only one in the Republican debates completely different on a lot of issues, they have to take issue with him instead of ignoring it. Ironically, Paul represents a lot of what the party used to stand for, less government, less foreign intervention etc. yet he is treated like an alien.
NAFTA is not free trade, it is managed trade. |
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Yvl
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| Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 7:46 pm Post subject: |
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"Causes me to understand," then, if you're going to pick apart my words. And I decided to look it up more thoroughly now, though I had a general idea of what it was through other debates on other sites, and I take it back - there are MILLIONS in his position, not just hundreds of thousands.
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Tony Stark
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 3:26 am Post subject: |
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| Yvl wrote: |
| He worked as a tailor, and since nobody in America will hire someone who does that kind of work anymore and he's been doing it all his life, no, not really. The problem with NAFTA is that the jobs gained are the wrong kinds of jobs which force Americans to do things they dont necessarily like. My friend tried going to college, but dropped out to pursue his passion of jewel / metal making. It's the only thing he can see himself being happy with. But since all of those kinds of jobs are outsourced to China now, he may have to settle with a boring desk job, which honestly I think he'd sooner kill himself than take. |
People will still hire tailors, just not to be tailors. This is a type of Structural Unemployment and is caused not necessarily by NAFTA, but by technological, cultural and otherwise changes in the economy at large. When I had my big bushy beard and I wanted to get rid of it, I wanted to find a place that did it old school, with an actual blade, like you see in old movies and whatnot. But, in my city I could not find a barber shop that did that anymore. Why? Technological change. The razors people use at home can now give you a better shave than the old school blade -- that service is obsolete. A similar phenomenon could occur within the tailoring industry, except the change would not necessarily be technological. While the original loss of his job could have been due to NAFTA, that is not necessarily the reason he cannot find another. And if that is the trend, he could have been without his job in a few years anyway.
As far as being a jeweler or what-have-you and those jobs being outsourced, most of that isn't NAFTA, especially considering it is not causing all the outsourcing. There are a lot of jobs in the United States that plainly do not exist anymore, and there are (different) jobs replacing them. If I really want to be a bard, but I cannot find a job being one, that's not really NAFTA's fault, that's just life. Sometimes you have to get a job you don't necessarily want to get by.
| Yvl wrote: |
| Statistics only show numbers, they dont show emotions. |
While that's mostly true (though I only used one or two numbers in my post above), economics does show emotions. It the study, pretty much, of people not getting what they need or want. It is often displayed as being a pretty depressing science and there's reason for that.
| Yvl wrote: |
| there are MILLIONS in his position, not just hundreds of thousands. |
The highest statistic I have found is one million, but as I explained earlier, new jobs are being created, unemployment is relatively unchanged. It's not really an accurate statistic.
Globalization is coming whether we like it or not. One way or another, something like this was going to be passed eventually. I do not see how this one piece of legislation, which is relatively insignificant to the sheer number of thing Clinton did in office can "destroy his reputation".
In order to try to make this relevant so that this thread doesn't get closed or something (because I cannot figure out a way to split it), NAFTA is actually an issue in the 2008 election. Democrats, particularly John Edwards, want to entirely eliminate or make sweeping changes to NAFTA. I have not researched into what Republicans think, but John Edwards has supported videos I have found online bashing Clinton for her laughing at a question Wolf Blitzer asked her in a debate.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb8rxgc-YQA
First of all, that's really a dirty advertisement. If you watch the whole footage from that debate, she says NAFTA should be changed. She does not laugh at the seriousness of NAFTA, but she just made a joke about Ross Perot. That's clearly out of context.
==
As far as the debate goes, Ron Paul was the clear winner of the Republican Debate from all the polls I have looked at. He did a pretty good job of not looking like a nut job, which is how the other candidates kind of treated him.
On the democratic side, in watching it, I did not see a clear winner, but that's because they were all dodgey and didn't answer the questions they were asked. This was the case on the Republican side too, but there was Ron Paul there, at least. Obama did an okay job though. He seemed very down to earth, while Hi lary just seemed cheeky and arrogant. Who do you think won the democratic debate, guys?
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Tullaryx
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| Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 12:13 pm Post subject: |
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In terms of charisma Obama won of course, but again his popularity seems to hinge on the fact that he is charismatic and makes very impassioned speeches. He spoke of ideas but not of any way to impose and make it happen. While I may not like Hillary I do think her message of experience for a job that requires it is being lost to irrational exuberance at wanting to have a change in the White House.
There's a saying when it comes to politics from the local to the international stage. Those who go out of their way to want everyone to like them usually ends up getting nothing done. I think like her or not, hell you can even hate her, but of all the candidates for the Democrats Hillary has the experience on how to handle the office and people who may not have the best interest of the country in mind.
On the Republican side I would say McCain may just become the dark horse who actually has the smarts and experience to do the job without pandering to those who are still on the fence. Huckabee and Romney both pander to the type of voters in the state they're campaigning in. While Romney does so like a used car salesman, Huckabee does it like a Snakeoil slaesman using faith like a crutch.
While Ron Paul may not have sounded like a nut he still came off as being the most extreme of the Republicans still left in the campaign. While not like Obama, he does have similarities in that he's more talk and less do in his political career and how we would go about as President.
That's the thing for me when it comes to who I want as President. Talkers will always be more charismatic and cool, but when it comes to my national leader I want doers and not just someone who looks good on TV. I wasn't sold on Bill Clinton when he ran against elder Bush who I voted for but he didn't have a war on his hand to occupy him while growing into the job. Whoever takes over after Dubya will not have the same luxury.
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