So I was listening to a RW radio babbler, he said that Obama wasn't doing what the people want...

[Kablooie]

He said Americans were fine with our health care and didn't want any changes.
Americans don't want to close Guantanamo.
Americans don't want government making decisions for banks.
Americans don't want the government paying for people's houses.
Etc.

Obama isn't listening to the American people. He's not doing what we want him to do.

----

Of course most of us here don't agree on these points but many here are also saying,
'Obama isn't listening to the American people. He's not doing what we want him to do.'.

----

Personally, I'm glad he's not listening to us and is not doing what we want him to.
I didn't vote for someone to slavishly do my bidding.

I voted for someone that would make intelligent informed decisions based on a huge amount of complex information.
I have reservations about many of Obama's decisions but I trust that he makes them in a much more informed way that I could ever do.
He may be considering information about topics that I am completely unaware of. If I was aware of them, I might rethink my position as well.

So I still have opinions but in the end I must trust that his decisions will work out for the best in the long run even though they don't seem to me to be the best decisions at the time he makes them.

[Skittles]

1. do you feel this way only about Democratic politicians?

[Kablooie]

2. I feel this way only about Obama.

[Skittles]

3. that is bad

[Kablooie]

5. bad, is that?

[Skittles]

8. very bad

you should never, ever trust a politican that much

[Kablooie]

9. The problem is that in the end you have no choice.

You can vote him out the next election cycle but by the the harm, (or good) has already been done.

[coti]

4. Personally, I think most of us are pretty well informed and that he should give us his good ear.

That's just me, though.

[Kablooie]

6. And the RW would probably say the same thing.

Though I fully concede that being informed from a left wing perspective means having knowledge.

Being informed from a RW perspective means denial of knowledge and reliance on popular prejudices.

[coti]

7. Yes, there's definitely a difference. nt

[Syntheto]

10. No, there's not, actually...

...I've read intolerant, over-the-top crap here and on freerepublic. The only good thing here is that most people are atheists, while the FR are a bunch of jesus freaks, and their ulitmate argument is that their bible told them so.

Here, while there's no overt religion, there's still a religious sense of dichotomy. Obama is a christ-like figure, who apparently has been chosen to lead us out of the wilderness, while GW Bush was, is, and represents pure Evil. What silly, two-dimensional drivel.

I mean, when you read posts claiming that the Bush family killed JKF, planned the twin towers bombing, were responsible for poisoning our water supplies with fluoride, which also increased breast cancer, not to mention killing 300 million Iraqi school children and apparently drinking their blood to achieve immortality, it gets old.

I mean, absolutely no tolerance here of any sort of criticism of Barry O, because he's just so, so, african-american and only racists (read republicans only, right?) would dare to be critical of such an exalted figure with such impeccable credentials. That he is just another hack politician whose race was cynically exploited to get the vote out is, well, heresy, heresy, I tell you.

People here, just like on freerepublic, pat themselves on the back and sing together in a chorus about how smart, how informed, how involved, how they're just so much better than their counterparts on the other side of the aisle. Neither group could really hold up as individuals in an open forum, one on one without their posse behind them, backing them up and telling them how smart they were.

So, when somebody posts such patented bullshit as 'we all know our side is not only morally superior, but we're better educated, and it's a fact that our brains are actually physically bigger' well, it's irritating, because it's bullshit, and silly bullshit at that.

Have any of these self-proclaimed homo superiorises ever convinced the other side of their point of view? I have never read a single post that has ever claimed that, because obviously, you can't talk to those little-brains (thanx and a tip of the hat to Albert Brooks in Defending Your Life) especially while they're teabagging (you know, sucking dick and while the balls dangle down their chins, don't tell them though, and we can all make fun of them without them knowing what it actually means, tee hee, tee hee)

If you want to be 'informed' get a subscription to some neutral site like Stratfor or Foreign Affairs, and quit basing your 'knowledge' of current events on what some idiot like Limbaugh or Olbermann or Maddow says; people who make their money singing a particular song for money.

[coti]

13. Are you talking to me, or someone else?

That was an awful long response to just a couple of sentences.

It sounds like you're saying we should avoid the "extreme" wings of the political spectrum. For the most part, I agree.

But I think even you are looking at the issue a little too simply. I see a gradient from the center to the far left, and, to be honest, I see people like Rachel Maddow finding a pretty reasonable balance in their approach. Olbermann can be one-dimensional, I agree, and I'd like to see him cut down on the red meat characterization. But having a point of view does not necessarily mean that a person isn't thinking critically. That's where I think we differ- I see those on the liberal side of things having gotten there, mostly, through a process of critical thinking. The rightwingers don't seem to do much of that. Maybe that's a self-serving point of view, but people toward our side at the very least have been right about what's best for the country.

I get frustrated with DU quite a bit myself. You can sense when an issue has devolved from a policy discussion into a social war- when it's become political rather than philosophical. People clique-up and begin labelling their opponents to win what ends up becoming a cultural debate. They start arguing on social terms rather than ideological ones. I think that's what frustrates me the most. It does, also, occasionally start looking like people aren't thinking- the kneejerk reaction against the Afghanistan escalation, for example.

But that's not always the way it works here. And there's always something for a critical mind, even if it's just observing human behavior.

[Taitertots]

11. He Isn't doing what we want

What we want is NOT those things.

What we want is:
End the wars
Don't start new wars
Tell banks what to do
Make sure we can get affordable health care
Restore freedom (end patriot act, etc)
Tax the ultra rich
Help the poor
Etc...

[mmonk]

12. Comparing us to them never works.

In order for it to work, all things including what we stand for and our value system would have to equal some sort of moral revelancy with those you compare.

[butterfly77]

14. Everybody seems to want to be in on..`

every decision 24/7 especially the media but,they didn't say a damn thing but rah,rah,rah, as bush destroyed the country...