asaris

I'm just curious. There have been a number of posts in other threads from right-wingers on why they don't like Obama. Here, I'm interested in hearing from people who are voting for Obama. I like Obama a lot, I'm voting for him, not against McCain, but naturally I don't agree with everything he says. I'm curious about what other people who are voting for Obama disagree with him on, or what worries them.

Protectionism. Obama has several times said that he wants fair trade, not free trade, and seems to embrace at least mild protectionism. I think this is a bad idea. Free trade makes everyone better off in the long run. It may result in some short-term hardship for people whose jobs are displaced, but in my view, the correct response is some other program to help them, like a national infrastructure program or retraining, not protectionism.

Unions. I like unions alright, but getting rid of the secret ballot in determining whether or not to unionize seems like a bad idea. It could lead to unions pressuring people to join, and doesn't really seem to have an upside.

Foreign Policy. This is more of a worry for me than a concrete disagreement. I'm a bit of a hawk, and think we sometimes need to behave hawkishly in our foreign policy. I worry that Obama might want to talk to other nations too much, in cases where we need to do some saber-rattling.

What are your thoughts?

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Rekna

Telco immunity. I really don't like the fact that they illegally spied on us and will get away scott-free. They should be fined and Bushco should sit in jail.

roachboy

i think the biggest structural problem the us faces is transforming the military-related patronage system away from cold war logic. the united states now spends more on military procurement than the next 20 countries combined.
this goes to comparative data for 2006:

World Military Spending ? Global Issues

this has to change.
i don't see obama doing it.


a radically different type of "globalizing capitalism" needs to be put into place---if we're going to accept the present configuration as given, it seems insane not to develop comprehensive programs that would seed the development of new forms of activity within the states--the republican "get a job at mcdonalds" plan is a farce, and always has been. 70% of american gdp is based on consumer spending. that seems crazy to me. i think obama is talking about initiatives that will in some ways address this general problem, but they need to go further and be rationally co-ordinated. another dimension: the american labor market has changed but in the main the educational system continues to reproduce an outmoded profile. and there's no obvious way to redirect the educational system. if that's the case, it puts more pressure on the need for some kind of systematic re-seeding of production in the states.

i do not think the question of "free trade" is a coherent single matter, nor do i think "protectionism" is a single coherent step to mitigate the effects of it. basically, you cannot think about this if you abstract the united states from the capitalist system that it has been instrumental in fostering since the 1980s. if you factor in the southern hemisphere, "free trade" means american domination. period. a different type of overarching organization is probably going to result from the present mutations in the space of capital flows. i think that the united states should advocate a more equitable and sustainable form of globalizing capitalism while it's still in a position to advocate anything. this is vague, but i think this will be among the biggest problems with the highest stakes that obama will face. i take some solace in thinking him intelligent and curious about the world. if mc-cain is elected, in my view the united states is fucked.

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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

twistedmosaic

Nuclear power and gun control. I am very for and very against, respectively, and he has a middle of the road and pro stance.

Willravel

Ditto here. Retroactive immunity was an epic mistake. We could have sent the message "If you spy on us, there will be consequences", but Obama and other Dems supported the FISA reboot. Very frustrating.

__________________
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Bear Cub

Nuclear power, emissions, gun control, education reform, foreign policy, unions, and taxes. I pretty much agree with Obama only in regards to abortion rights (for the most part) and illegal immigration.

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Living in the United Socialist States of America.

abaya

FYI, Bear Cub (unless your signature isn't true ):

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Manic_Skafe

Offshore drilling - it's a waste of time and resources and he needs to call it out for what it is instead pandering to the oil-drunk "drill baby drill" types.

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"Porn is a zoo of exotic animals that becomes boring upon ownership." -Nersesian

guyy

I disagree with him about ethanol & Afghanistan. The US needs to get out of Afghanistan as well as Iraq. I also worry that his health care plan isn't radical enough to do make much of an impact. And NCLB needs to be scrapped rather than modified.

dc_dux

FISA and Patriot Act, defense build up, federal funding for faith based organizations, off shore drilling.

Looking at the bigger picture, if he is to bring the country together to any extent, I expect to see him compromise in order to build consensus around difficult issues and I suspect I wont always agree with his compromises.

Bt I'll take a pragmatic consensus builder over a rigid ideologue any time.

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"In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican. "
~ H.L. Mencken

Derwood

the FISA stuff for sure

I also think he's falling short on the gay marriage issue. People like to call him the most liberal senator on the planet, but he still doesn't support gay marriage (just civil unions, which I don't think is going far enough in terms of civil rights).

flstf

- His tax cuts do not go far enough to help the poor and middle class who pay a higher percentage of their income than the wealthy to support our government.

- Gun control.

- School vouchers.

asaris

I agree on gay marriage, but I hope that he'll at least reverse the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

__________________
"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

onesnowyowl

Obama thinks that No Child Left Behind can be saved. I don't think it can. I think it needs to be repealed, period. There are too many problems with NCLB that cannot be solved with more money (though that is the deepest flaw, that NCLB hasn't been properly funded since the beginning). We have moved our educational system towards testing as the standard, and in doing so, have changed our classroom curriculum to fit that. Schools teach to the test, and they teach students how to take the test. Unfortunately, this results in robot-students receiving a standardized, monocultural message from robot-teachers. It removes a teacher's ability to actually TEACH, and turns students from kids into test scores. Quite frankly, the entire concept of NCLB is dehumanizing for both teacher and student. Why would we want a law that accomplishes all of this on the books? Even the UK, where serious standardized testing has long been the norm, is trying to move away from such testing. Why? Because research shows it does not work. Teaching to a test and testing students fails to teach students to think critically.

I also support nuclear power and disagree with his vote for Telco immunity.

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

abaya

Strange thing is, I'm not sure if he'd get away with it. America MIGHT be ready for a black president (we'll see, soon enough), but they're not ready for a federal approval of gay marriage... I'd say not until his second term at least, if he gets that far.

I am also against offshore drilling, but I'm hoping that his endorsement of that really is just pandering... and that he'll pour resources into building up alternative energy. But we'll see.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Derwood

Many people ARE ready for it, and IMO, catering to those who aren't is the very opposite of progressive thinking

abaya

Well, certainly I'M ready for it but given all that he's already been up against by just being black, my point is that he'll probably have to wait until he's already in office and other platform items get pushed through before he brings this one up. I'd sure like to see it happen--but this country does not deal well with way too much change all at once. At least, that's my amateur take on the situation.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Frosstbyte

I won't swear to this, since I don't have any hard evidence of it, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is an election tactic as opposed to how he actually feels about the issue. I think he'd risk losing some of the moderate conservative vote he's trying to swing if he came out fighting for gay marriage. I think gay rights are something we'd be likely to see improve under Obama after he establishes himself, but it'd be a very dangerous campaign platform point to make in a national election.

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I'm making a note here-
Huge success.
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.

ASU2003

I think he dems are taking the long approach to health care. He will get all of the uninsured on the same plan as the government. FEHB 2008 Plan Information for Nationwide Fee-for-Service Plans Open to All

Eventually the small businesses will switch to this plan because it will reduce their paperwork and make tax time simpler. Then when you have more than half the nation with the same type of plan, more and more companies will go this route.

And then the government will either run the healthcare plan or will make it a non-profit running it hopefully. But I don't see that happening until Hilary is elected.

There are a lot of issues to work out with that.

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Off-shore drilling isn't that great. But us environmentalists can't complain too much about ruining the view because we want wind turbines put up off the coast.

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Taxing real hard work. If he can reduce government spending to offer the tax cut for 'middle class' people, then I'm ok with it. But the tax code needs some work and make it so corporations pay instead of passing the costs to the consumer or moving their headquarters to a PO Box in the Cayman Islands. Also, the Joe the Plummer thing is a issue I have. If a small business is successful or if someone who was in the lower tax bracket moves up quickly, they should be able to pay taxes at the rate they were at for to years.

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I think we need to have an unannounced pull back of a few thousand troops to see if anything changes. Put some more in Afghanistan/Pakistan though. There are still problems there.

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Ethanol is a tricky one. If they built wind turbines next to the processing plants, it would solve some of the problems of powering the refining process. But the farm subsidies for not growing crops needs to go away. Since every acre now growing corn for ethanol can't be used to grow other food, making food prices rise. And causing farmers in other parts of the world burn down rainforests and drain swamps to grow crops.
And investors/speculators helped create demand for ethanol before the public was using it, so that didn't work.

ASU2003

In his 30 minute commercial, he also said that he would go through the budget line by line and get rid of programs that weren't working. Which programs would those be? I can go through the budget line by line too, but will the programs I would cut to get the budget balanced be the same he would cut?

Derwood

he's not going to say at this point....don't want to alienate a potential block of voters

ratbastid

His FISA vote is very problematic, and I wish he'd rethink gay marriage.

Willravel

I forgot about that. His running to the center on that issue may have gotten him a few folksey (bigot) votes, but it really paints him as a panderer. I'd be willing to bet he supports equal rights for gays in all truth.

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ratbastid

Yeah. Biden agreeing with Palin on gay marriage was the low point of the whole campaign season for me.

Derwood

I think it was pandering to the christian vote. I understand it, but it's disappointing. Obama had enough other hurdles to jump without alienating those who already questioned his religion