The Top Ten Reasons Conservatives Should Vote For Obama

[Industrialsize]

From a Conservative Blogger, Andrew Sullivan:

10. A body blow to racial identity politics. An end to the era of Jesse Jackson in black America.
9. Less debt. Yes, Obama will raise taxes on those earning over a quarter of a million. And he will spend on healthcare, Iraq, Afghanistan and the environment. But so will McCain. He plans more spending on health, the environment and won't touch defense of entitlements. And his refusal to touch taxes means an extra $4 trillion in debt over the massive increase presided over by Bush. And the CBO estimates that McCain's plans will add more to the debt over four years than Obama's. Fiscal conservatives have a clear choice.
8. A return to realism and prudence in foreign policy. Obama has consistently cited the foreign policy of George H. W. Bush as his inspiration. McCain's knee-jerk reaction to the Georgian conflict, his commitment to stay in Iraq indefinitely, and his brinksmanship over Iran's nuclear ambitions make him a far riskier choice for conservatives. The choice between Obama and McCain is like the choice between George H.W. Bush's first term and George W.'s.
7. An ability to understand the difference between listening to generals and delegating foreign policy to them.
6. Temperament. Obama has the coolest, calmest demeanor of any president since Eisenhower. Conservatism values that kind of constancy, especially cmopared with the hot-headed, irrational impulsiveness of McCain.
5. Faith. Obama's fusion of Christianity and reason, his non-fundamentalist faith, is a critical bridge between the new atheism and the new Christianism.
​

4. A truce in the culture war. Obama takes us past the debilitating boomer warfare that has raged since the 1960s. Nothing has distorted our politics so gravely; nothing has made a rational politics more elusive.
3. Two words: President Palin.
2. Conservative reform. Until conservatism can get a distance from the big-spending, privacy-busting, debt-ridden, crony-laden, fundamentalist, intolerant, incompetent and arrogant faux conservatism of the Bush-Cheney years, it will never regain a coherent message to actually govern this country again. The survival of conservatism requires a temporary eclipse of today's Republicanism. Losing would be the best thing to happen to conservatism since 1964. Back then, conservatives lost in a landslide for the right reasons. Now, Republicans are losing in a landslide for the wrong reasons.
1. The War Against Islamist terror. The strategy deployed by Bush and Cheney has failed. It has failed to destroy al Qaeda, except in a country, Iraq, where their presence was minimal before the US invasion. It has failed to bring any of the terrorists to justice, instead creating the excresence of Gitmo, torture, secret sites, and the collapse of America's reputation abroad. It has empowered Iran, allowed al Qaeda to regroup in Pakistan, made the next vast generation of Muslims loathe America, and imperiled our alliances. We need smarter leadership of the war: balancing force with diplomacy, hard power with better p.r., deploying strategy rather than mere tactics, and self-confidence rather than a bunker mentality.
Those conservatives who remain convinced, as I do, that Islamist terror remains the greatest threat to the West cannot risk a perpetuation of the failed Manichean worldview of the past eight years, and cannot risk the possibility of McCain making rash decisions in the middle of a potentially catastrophic global conflict. If you are serious about the war on terror and believe it is a war we have to win, the only serious candidate is Barack Obama.
​

 

[ZOS23xy]

Sarah Palin is the new Dan Quayle.

McCain is desperate to be president, worse than Nixon's joneses...

How come no one ever talks about McCain's friendship to G. Gordon Liddy?

 

[Phil Ayesho]

I couldn't agree more- except for the irrational fear of terrorism.

One of the most serious obstacles to conservatives thinking clearly is their marriage to the Military industrial complex.

They seem to live exclusively in a world where we MUST always have SOME enemy to demonize... to justify the obscene amounts of money we spend on Defense.

No amount of money- no matter how obscene -can prevent terrorist attacks in a free society. IT can't even prevent them in a totalitarian society- its just the totalitarians can keep you from finding out avout them.
Terrorism avoids such ideas as Nuclear weapons simply because the more complex and expensive the method, the more likely it is to be foiled.

Boxcutters and suicidal believers are far more cost effective.



On their BEST day ever- terrorists killed the same number of people who die EVERY MONTH merely driving their cars.

The threat they pose may be dramatic in terms of theatre- but it simply does not warrant the kind of nationally myopic focus that it has gotten- totally distracting us from the REAL threats to our future- economy- climate, and the fascist forces of home brewed theocracy.

Bin Laden did not do nearly as much damage to this nation as our OWN over-reaction... did not harm this country nearly as much as the cynical USE of his attack to scare Americans into compromising their principles and endorsing evil initiatives like Gitmo and Abu Graihib.

And- further, the objective of terrorism is to make your agenda matter. In focusing our entire defense establishment on terrorism, we GIVE the terrorist precisely what they want most- relevance and OUR expenditure of Our treasure on dealing with Them.
The most effective counter to terrorism is to IGNORE them publicly- and fight them covertly.


As to Iran,,,
The truth is to be Found in Eisenhower's farewell address- that we must be prepared to sit at the table with ALL others- not as the supreme power in the world, but as equals... and TALK with each other.

Of the nations in the Gulf, Iran is actually the one we have the best chance of winning over- if we approach them the way we did China, rather than the way we approached the USSR.
We won over the Chinese to a more democratic and more capitalistic structure thru trade- not escalation and saber rattling.

It is STILL a strategy to WIN...
It simply is far more effective and far more secure than shooting the people who disagree with you.

Persuasion is a far more sophisticated form of defense than hurling explosives.

I would replace step 1 above with this:
Send every republican in America a copy of Dale Carneigie's " How to Win Friends and Influence People".


And tell them to stop being such fraidy cats.

Life is dangerous... Our expenditures on any threat must be in proportion to the REAL potential of that threat--- not how scary it seems... but how actually damaging it IS.

When we act or react out of fear- we become as stupid as any other animal.

The gift of reason is the gift to act intelligently.

 

[rob_just_rob]

Sullivan is obviously a socialist liberal who hates America.

 

[Calboner]

Sarah Palin is the new Dan Quayle.

Quayle, as I recall, was a political featherweight and never had much of a following. Palin may be his equal intellectually, but she is much more savvy and ambitious politically and has a huge and enthusiastic following. She has more in common with George W. Bush than with Dan Quayle.

Sullivan is obviously a socialist liberal who hates America.

And is a secret Muslim who pals around with terrorists. Anything else belong on the list?

 

[ripsrips]

And is a secret Muslim who pals around with terrorists. Anything else belong on the list?

Typical Liberal statement, you can't come up with anything else.


So we're going to take advice from a brit now?
Andrew Sullivan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[117817]

The most effective counter to terrorism is to IGNORE them publicly- and fight them covertly.

World Trade Center attack #1 + ignoring terrorists = WTC attack #1 X 1000 = 9/11/01

If not for our current "failed" policies then we would have had:

9/11/01 + ignoring terrorists = 9/11/01 X 1000

Well, I guess you'll get another chance for that now. I am so sorry that you and many others are hell-bent on this outcome. I leave it to you to remember that you asked for it over the next years. "I told you so" will not be appropriate.

Life is dangerous... Our expenditures on any threat must be in proportion to the REAL potential of that threat--- not how scary it seems... but how actually damaging it IS.

Terrorism avoids such ideas as Nuclear weapons simply because the more complex and expensive the method, the more likely it is to be foiled.

Great ideas. Here are some more to go along with them.

Don't use condoms until you get AIDS.

Drive drunk until you crash and kill someone.

Play with poisonous snakes until you get bitten.

A table saw SEEMS scary, but how many people do you know who have REALLY chopped their fingers off? None for me. Well, I don't think a table saw IS dangerous then. I'll never even give that SCARY, noisy, whirling blade another thought until I chop my fingers off with it.

Let your kids play with guns. Heck, that only SEEMS scary because kids don't know how to find the bullets anyway; just like terrorists don't know how to find nukes. When one the kids ends up with a bullet hole between his eyes, THEN you know its dangerous.

Terrorists don't want nukes, huh? Well then, let them go free until NY City or southern California is a mushroom cloud. As you are soaking up a big dose of radiation you can confirm, "yes sir, this is dangerous".

It's all fun and games until someone dies. Think about how to save lives AFTER people are dead.

 

[B_Nick4444]

oh, man!

some food for thought there!

if I had a sense that Obama could accomplish all that ...:scratchchin:

 

[Calboner]

Typical Liberal statement, you can't come up with anything else.


So we're going to take advice from a brit now?
Andrew Sullivan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dude, I was amplifying the jest in Rob's post ("Sullivan is obviously a socialist liberal who hates America"), as I was afraid that some people might think that it was meant seriously. It looks as if you not only missed the joke but actually agreed with what was written as a joke. Sullivan is about as much of a "socialist liberal" as Dwight Eisenhower.

If not for our current "failed" policies then we would have had:

9/11/01 + ignoring terrorists = 9/11/01 X 1000

Ah, yes: the only alternative to launching a war against Iraq was to "ignore terrorists." So the fact that we started a war in which half again as many Americans have been killed as were killed in the attacks of 9/11 is clearly a net gain for us over the alternative.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

Great ideas. Here are some more to go along with them.

Don't use condoms until you get AIDS.

That's funny... WHO is against teaching our children about condoms? REPUBLICANS.



Ah- so you not only know nothing, but flunked math.

WHO ignored terrorists?

Bush did.

WHY? because he was hoping for an attack ( probably not such a biggie ) as an excuse to implement the totalitarian strategies of the Blueprint for a New American Century- pre-emptive imperialistic warfare to gain control of the middle east.

Let your kids play with guns. Heck, that only SEEMS scary because kids don't know how to find the bullets anyway; just like terrorists don't know how to find nukes. When one the kids ends up with a bullet hole between his eyes, THEN you know its dangerous.

well then, cower under your fucking bed you chicken shit.


I never said terrorist weren't dangeorus- I said they were NOT a threat to the survival of the U.S.

REBPULICAN economic theories are a FAR bigger threat than anything Osama ever dreamed of doing.

Terrorists don't want nukes, huh? Well then, let them go free until NY City or southern California is a mushroom cloud. As you are soaking up a big dose of radiation you can confirm, "yes sir, this is dangerous".

It's all fun and games until someone dies. Think about how to save lives AFTER people are dead.

You miss the point- like any scaredy cat republican fear mongerer...

It is EASIER to prevent terrorists from getting nukes than form getting box cutters and plane tickets.

Fissionable material can be traced- its rare and its expensive- people playing with it get radiation illnesses... radiation detectors can find a nuke in a huge pile of incoming containers....


We USED to have a pretty effective covert operation meant ot keep terrorists from getting their hands on fissionables...
But then CHENEY fucked that up by revealing Plame to be CIA- which compromised the entire CIA operation she worked for...

That is how stupid republican are and how little they are doing to keep nukes out of the hands of terrorists.

We CAN try to defend agaisnt the bigger threats- we can never be p[erfectly safe from every threat.

Life is risky-
Freedom, even riskier.

Cowboy up and FACE it... stop being a chicken shit who imagines his government can guarantee him perfect safety.

We do what is fiscally PRUDENT in making life as safe as is practicable... and take our chances...

We put seat belts and airbags into cars- driving up the price... but we don't declare war on Driving just because it kills 40,000 people a year.


Franklin said that "people willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both".


Wake up and grow up.


I am not afraid of terrorism.

Your fearing them makes you THEIR tool.

 

[Phil Ayesho]

Typical Liberal statement, you can't come up with anything else.


So we're going to take advice from a brit now?
Andrew Sullivan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dude- you really gotta clue in to the fact that Americans are starting to see the "liberal" is not a pejorative anymore.... it makes you sound SOOO out of touch.


As to taking advice from a Brit... really- give up on the xenophobia- it makes you look parochial and hopelessly naive.

 

[B_24065]

From a Conservative Blogger, Andrew Sullivan:

10. A body blow to racial identity politics. An end to the era of Jesse Jackson in black America.
9. Less debt. Yes, Obama will raise taxes on those earning over a quarter of a million. And he will spend on healthcare, Iraq, Afghanistan and the environment. But so will McCain. He plans more spending on health, the environment and won't touch defense of entitlements. And his refusal to touch taxes means an extra $4 trillion in debt over the massive increase presided over by Bush. And the CBO estimates that McCain's plans will add more to the debt over four years than Obama's. Fiscal conservatives have a clear choice.
8. A return to realism and prudence in foreign policy. Obama has consistently cited the foreign policy of George H. W. Bush as his inspiration. McCain's knee-jerk reaction to the Georgian conflict, his commitment to stay in Iraq indefinitely, and his brinksmanship over Iran's nuclear ambitions make him a far riskier choice for conservatives. The choice between Obama and McCain is like the choice between George H.W. Bush's first term and George W.'s.
7. An ability to understand the difference between listening to generals and delegating foreign policy to them.
6. Temperament. Obama has the coolest, calmest demeanor of any president since Eisenhower. Conservatism values that kind of constancy, especially cmopared with the hot-headed, irrational impulsiveness of McCain.
5. Faith. Obama's fusion of Christianity and reason, his non-fundamentalist faith, is a critical bridge between the new atheism and the new Christianism.
​

4. A truce in the culture war. Obama takes us past the debilitating boomer warfare that has raged since the 1960s. Nothing has distorted our politics so gravely; nothing has made a rational politics more elusive.
3. Two words: President Palin.
2. Conservative reform. Until conservatism can get a distance from the big-spending, privacy-busting, debt-ridden, crony-laden, fundamentalist, intolerant, incompetent and arrogant faux conservatism of the Bush-Cheney years, it will never regain a coherent message to actually govern this country again. The survival of conservatism requires a temporary eclipse of today's Republicanism. Losing would be the best thing to happen to conservatism since 1964. Back then, conservatives lost in a landslide for the right reasons. Now, Republicans are losing in a landslide for the wrong reasons.
1. The War Against Islamist terror. The strategy deployed by Bush and Cheney has failed. It has failed to destroy al Qaeda, except in a country, Iraq, where their presence was minimal before the US invasion. It has failed to bring any of the terrorists to justice, instead creating the excresence of Gitmo, torture, secret sites, and the collapse of America's reputation abroad. It has empowered Iran, allowed al Qaeda to regroup in Pakistan, made the next vast generation of Muslims loathe America, and imperiled our alliances. We need smarter leadership of the war: balancing force with diplomacy, hard power with better p.r., deploying strategy rather than mere tactics, and self-confidence rather than a bunker mentality.
Those conservatives who remain convinced, as I do, that Islamist terror remains the greatest threat to the West cannot risk a perpetuation of the failed Manichean worldview of the past eight years, and cannot risk the possibility of McCain making rash decisions in the middle of a potentially catastrophic global conflict. If you are serious about the war on terror and believe it is a war we have to win, the only serious candidate is Barack Obama.
​

What do you mean by this? Please explain:

5. Faith. Obama's fusion of Christianity and reason, his non-fundamentalist faith, is a critical bridge between the new atheism and the new Christianism.

 

[Calboner]

What do you mean by this? Please explain:

5. Faith. Obama's fusion of Christianity and reason, his non-fundamentalist faith, is a critical bridge between the new atheism and the new Christianism.

Dude, you didn't have to quote the entire original post to ask that question, especially as you quote the relevant part of it right there.

 

[rob_just_rob]

It also seems odd to address the question of what point #5 means to Industrialsize, who isn't Sullivan.

 

[B_Nick4444]

It also seems odd to address the question of what point #5 means to Industrialsize, who isn't Sullivan.

it was Indy who put it forth

 

[ripsrips]

Dude- you really gotta clue in to the fact that Americans are starting to see the "liberal" is not a pejorative anymore.... it makes you sound SOOO out of touch.


As to taking advice from a Brit... really- give up on the xenophobia- it makes you look parochial and hopelessly naive.

You have no clue and are really out of touch...your posts are meaningless.
STFU.

 

[Calboner]

Well, since Andrew Sullivan isn't likely to answer 24065's question, I'll make a guess at what Sullivan meant by no. 5:

Obama's non-fundamentalist faith: The article to which Sullivan linked that phrase includes the following quotation from Dreams from My Father:

One Sunday, I put on one of the few clean jackets I had, and went over to Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street on the South Side of Chicago. And I heard Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright deliver a sermon called “The Audacity of Hope.” And during the course of that sermon, he introduced me to someone named Jesus Christ. I learned that my sins could be redeemed. I learned that those things I was too weak to accomplish myself, he would accomplish with me if I placed my trust in him. And in time, I came to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world and in my own life.

It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice and not an epiphany. I didn’t fall out in church, as folks sometimes do. The questions I had didn’t magically disappear. The skeptical bent of my mind didn’t suddenly vanish. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to his will, and dedicated myself to discovering his truth and carrying out his works.
​

Sullivan comments:

To be able to express this kind of religious conviction without disturbing or alienating the growing phalanx of secular voters, especially on the left, is quite an achievement. As he said in 2006, “Faith doesn’t mean that you don’t have doubts.” To deploy the rhetoric of Evangelicalism while eschewing its occasional anti-intellectualism and hubristic certainty is as rare as it is exhilarating. It is both an intellectual achievement, because Obama has clearly attempted to wrestle a modern Christianity from the encumbrances and anachronisms of its past, and an American achievement, because it was forged in the only American institution where conservative theology and the Democratic Party still communicate: the black church.​

A Christian faith not founded on purported personal revelation and not claiming God-given certainty for its tenets: I think that's what Sullivan meant.

The new atheism: The movement represented by books recently published by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and the like.

The new Christianism: The term "Christianism" has been coined as a parallel to "Islamism"; I don't know what exactly Sullivan meant by it, but I think it means the quest for domination of all areas of life by Christianity.

As for how Obama's faith is to form a "bridge" between these two things, I have little idea. People who hold all forms of religious faith to be pernicious delusions (the new atheists) cannot accept even a non-fundamentalist Christianity, and Christians who believe that their task on earth is to establish the rule of their religion over everyone cannot accept a form of Christianity that does not accept their claims to certainty.

 

[stratedude]

From a Conservative Blogger, Andrew Sullivan:

My initial thought when reading this was "how can such a far left thinking person label himself "conservative"??
Then I read later that he was from Europe, so there you go. Anyway, he obviously doesn't have much a clue about things in America.
#10) As an American, this looks like he misses what the problem with race relations here. So, whites are supposed to vote for the black man to show the world, and the black community that white Americans aren't racist? And somehow Obama will "end the era of Jesse Jackson (and others like him) in black America"?? Who does he think he is kidding???
#9) He loses all credibility when he says, "Fiscal Conservatives have a CLEAR choice". WTFF???? Everyone knows that the best way to reduce government debt is to stimulate the economy while cutting spending. The author completely missed that. He fell for the stupid politics of "higher taxes obviously means higher revenue". Only dumb people fall for that. And if anyone thinks that Obama is going to cut overall spending isn't listening to him.
#8) What Republican (or intelligent Democrat) is going to sit there and believe that Obama is better on foreign policy than McCain? This was a very weak point.
#7)Ha ha. I ACTUALLY read the Time article attached to this...and if Andrew did too, he would have said the opposite. It sounds like Obama is going to dictate his foreign policy to his generals - that regardless of what they want, his desire to cut and run takes precidence.
#6) Yes Obama is a cool calm character, but using this as a reason for Conservatives to accept his liberal socialist ambitions is a far stretch.
#5) Yeah I agree with the other poster here. WTF is he talking about here? As far as I can tell, Obama is a faux-Christian with a HUGE Muslim following (besides European support, he has Louis Farakan and the Nation of Islam supporting him. I call him faux-christian because he admitted he went to Rev. Jeramiah's church not being a believer, and it sounds to me like he became a member of that church to build a NETWORK of powerful people. That, and the possibility that he related with Jerimaiah's church of anti-white, anti-american gospel. Either way, I wouldn't call it a very good reason for conservative patriotic white people to vote for him.
#4)This is simply nievate. There will always be a war between the right and the left. The Boomers are just a macro-cosm of the rest of the country. And by the way, they absolutely still run everything, and if you think that their votes have somehow disappeared, you may be shocked again.
#3) This one I agree with him 100%! Every true conservative in America would choose Palin as president out of the four. That being said, if McCain gets elected, the soonest Palin could make a run is 2016. With Obama getting elected, Palin will most definitely get elected in 2012.
#2) I agree with most of what he is saying but that in absolutely NO WAY makes an arguement to vote for Obama over McCain. I certainly don't want to sell my country out to socialism just to try to change the republican party. That is stupid. That is like Cutting you leg off because you have a stubbed toe.
#1) Why don't you quit with the bullshit and just come right out and say it? Elect the guy that looks like and whose name sounds muslim and maybe they will leave us alone. Because that is about what you are sounding like. I can't understand why you would have such a passive and defeatist attitude about it in the same breath you talk about how much of a danger it is. What a total douchbag! The TRUTH is that ever since 9/11/01, Bush/Cheney have done the RIGHT thing, and the proof is in the pudding. No terrorist attacks and the theory that there are more terrorist and/or Bush has increased recruiting is just that - an unfounded THEORY. Take the fight to them. Of all the horrible worthless attempts to defeat terrorism in the past 38 years, BUSH's response is the only one that seems to have worked! And if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'll take McCAin's hot headed, heavy handed, hands on, all of the above approach to terrorism over Obama's "let's cut and run so we have time to rewrite this flawed constitution" approach.

Seriously, anyone who thinks this is a decent attempt to drag real conservatives across the isle is obviously a far left LOON.

 

[B_Nick4444]

As for how Obama's faith is to form a "bridge" between these two things, I have little idea. People who hold all forms of religious faith to be pernicious delusions (the new atheists) cannot accept even a non-fundamentalist Christianity, and Christians who believe that their task on earth is to establish the rule of their religion over everyone cannot accept a form of Christianity that does not accept their claims to certainty.

possibly because it is nonsense?

 

[B_starinvestor]

1. Because we want to give up on economic prosperity
2. Because we want a minority in there, regardless of consequences
3. Because he was a community organizer
4. Because he's never run a business and it would be cool to see how he runs government
5. Because we are proud of ACORN
6. Because his speeches send tingles down our legs
7. Because we would trust his judgment in foreign policy
8. Because if we didn't, we would be called racists (again)
9. Because whatever Hollywood actors say, we respect
10. Because we think Resko was made up and silly. Obama never represented him.