I think it's also a cultural difference. Even though there are plenty of political parties in Europe called 'Christian Democrat' (and some of them run governments), politicians tend not to wear their religion as part of their politics at an individual level. It seems that in the USA there is a need to invoke God at every turn. That would turn a lot of people off over here (even 'theists').

Qualifications? Remember he was a "community organizer" that doesn't qualify?
Of course he was not qualified, and of course one of our lefty pals here will accuse me of being a racist because I am criticizing the man. But when I (or they) criticize Bush, that's of course fair game because he's white? Did anyone accuse Bush haters of being racist? (nope, they didn't) No, that's not racist thinking is it?

Neal Anderth wrote:Faxmonkey, What's the point of being an atheist (rhetorical)? There are plenty of top notch scientists that are theists. If nothing matters in a grand sense beyond our own perception of reality than religion makes perfect sense in regards to having a framework for life that you appreciate. Atheists have to have some framework that makes living sensible to them.

Personally i find the world interesting enough, more interesting acutally the more we understand the underlying priniciples and fill in the details. Plus it's kinda awesome that i'm made from stardust and probably end up some day as part of a black hole.
I certainly don't feel that rules in a dusty book would give my life meaning in any important shape, way or form.
Talking to some of the theistic scientists you will quickly find out that for many it's a very diffuse idea rather than any sort of organised religion, more like spiritualism really. At least over here.

Neal Anderth wrote:You hardly need to look farther than Redscape to see that often religion is just one of many factors to consider. Take the NeoCons that can't imagine the solution to any problem that doesn't involve violence. They are made of both avowed atheists and the very religious. The same can be said of the radical libertarians at Redscape, both religious and atheist.

Sure there are other factors to consider, but usually there's at least some facutal underpinning for economic or military policy. There's none for any sort of religious based moral legislative action, like the gay marriage stuff, or the abortion battle.

Neal Anderth wrote:What do you care if I'm religious, or I you if you're atheist, if neither of us is trying to impose on the other?

Well i guess religious people would argue that athetist are imposing their atheism in public places (no public prayer madatory or otherwise, stuff like that - which i being an atheist think absurd obviously) and as an atheist i really can't ignore all the opposition to social change, medical support and scientific research that i perceive to be based entirely on religious grounds.
So good luck with that.
But if it helps i don't like all the treehuggers, animal rights groups, peace activists and save the earthers who've checked in their capacity for rational thought too.

Randy:

Read your own words again, and think about it. Of course I guess if you cannot accept that prejudice is a two way street, then it will not matter. Your unsaid implication here is that only whites are capable of prejudice or racism and this is what irks me here

Do me a favour, Randy, and read all of what I have written on the two threads. You should find that I have said the direct opposite of what you have, that racism exists in all communities. It is not my 'unsaid implication' but your own inference that appears to be the problem.

Again your post rambles on about how 'we' are saying that 'any' criticism of Obama is based on race. Again, I have explicitly (you may have missed that in your haste to argue against the man of straw image of me) said that is not what I'm saying. Some is, not all of it. For you (and Tom) to continue to assert this as my position is frankly rude. It's almost as if your defensive need to jerk your knee has been so great that it's knocked your eye. Before writing up a rant, please please please take a few minutes to actually read what you are responding to. It's for your own good, not mine.

You say you don't know about my girlfriend, but you appear to have mad an assumption or two about her or my perspective anyway. You mention the south. Neither she nor I have been to the South, and I would not presume to say I can speak about experience of what it's like there directly. Her experiences as a US resident were in Chicago, which is either 'north' or 'mid-west' depending on your point of view, and one of the most racially mixed cities in the USA.

To expand a little more on her experience and perspective, I'll tell you right now that it was not exclusively from white anglos that she saw issues with race. Guess what, I also have my own perspective about racism, and I've certainly seen in from blacks, from asians, and from whites (to other whites), in the UK, in the USA and in other places.

Okay Danivon, since you dispute my contention that Obama was less qualified that John McCain and Hilary Clinton, please elaborate for us how I am wrong

Umm, again, that's a straw man you've created. I didn't say you were wrong, I said it was a subjective argument. What I also said was that I can see why your suggestion that George voted for Obama based on race might annoy him. Again, I implore you to read the stuff you are reacting to, rather than just reacting.

A neat trick, huh? Not quite as neat as the left pretending that prejudice and racism is a one way street though is it?

Seeing as you've repeated this fallacy expanding it out to generalise about the whole of the 'left', I will repeat the gist of my response. Not only do I not pretend that this is the case (and if you dispute that, please show me where I have - not through 'unsaid implications' but actual words), but I have actually said that racism is a problem in all communities.

Tom:

Qualifications? Remember he was a "community organiser" that doesn't qualify?
Of course he was not qualified,

Yeah, Tom, that's all he was. He never served in a State legislature. He never held office as a Senator. He never had any legal training or experience. The only actual 'qualifications' for the office are being a 'natural born' citizen and being over 35 at inauguration. Other than that it's all subjective, and the ultimate 'qualification' is determined by the ballot box. Some feel he was a better candidate than his opponents based on his various qualities. Those are, to them, 'qualifications'. Not to you, perhaps, but then again. But at the end of the day, when it came to the time to make a decision, more people thought he was the best man for the job than thought someone else was.

and of course one of our lefty pals will accuse me of being a racist because I am criticizing the man.

Really? Really? You and Randy are fighting over Steve's cloak of victimhood, aren't you? Quite a tussle there to be the one who howls and moans the most about being called something that you haven't been called. You know what, it's not going to be me who accuses you of being a racist. But I am going to accuse you of being a jerk.

No-one has accused you of being a racist as far as I can see, despite you raising many criticisms of the President. Not a single person, in the past two years or so. I've already said on this thread that not all criticism of Obama is racist. Others have concurred, and not one person has said that 'all' or 'any' is.

Yet you are so desperate to paint your 'lefty pals' as unreasonable that you cry out like a baby that we'll call you a racist. Believe me, when you distort what I say, and then ignore my response and do it again, you are fast ensuring that you'll be no 'pal' of mine. A shame, as in many ways you seem like a nice guy, but when you go back to your habit of repeatedly arguing against me using stuff I never said as your jumping off point, well, I'm gonna assume you are a jerk.

It would be nice to see if you can be a man and retract your statement, or at the very least acknowledge what I've been saying. Then I'll maybe consider you to be a bit less of a jerk.

For you (and Tom) to continue to assert this as my position...

time for you to re-read what I have written, I have not asserted anything regarding your position. I did mention our lefty pals will insist any criticisms regarding Obama simply must have to do with race and thank you for proving this over and over. No straw man, read the accusations and the reasonings behind them, there is ZERO reason to assume the "birther" issue has absolutely ANYTHING to do with race, but there you go, it's somehow mentioned over and over again, it simply MUST be racist ...I don't get it!

As for the birth certificate thing I’ve never weighed in on it one way or another. While I place little stock in the claims that he was not born in Hawaii, I have no sympathy for him in having to respond to the demands that he display the document. In order to get a driver’s license (which is necessary as basic identification for thousands of other reasons too) you have to provide more documentation than Mr. Obama was willing to do to become president. At some point it’s a valid question ask since it’s a basic requirement that a president be a naturally born US citizen of the age of 35. What document other than a birth certificate would be used to determine this? It’s a valid request to see it. The entire episode was a huge joke, and Mr. Obama is more at fault for not snuffing it out when it started, which oh by the way was by the Hillary Clinton campaign, not the republicans

I guess its a good thing that you didn't weigh in on the issue since you have some of your facts wrong. Mr. Obama, when he first was issued a passport as a young adult, had to provide evidence of his birth that satisfied the State Department. Everything else after that was trumped up conspiracy theories. Everything.
For any rationale person the issue was settled by the certification of his citizenship by the State Department. Or if not that, at least by the certifications that followed ad nauseum from State officials in Hawaii.
I think the fact that Obama had to resort to extraordinay measures to reveal a document no one else has to reveal publicly (for every other candidate the fact that the State Department has issued them a passport seems good enough) demonstrates that he has been discriminated against. Discriminatory behaviour being treating people differently. (Sometimes justifiably).
How do we know that race may have been a factor? There was a fairly direct comparison available to consider.
When the less clear issue of McCain's citizenship was raised, he was born in Panama, the issue was raised, and settled and never became an issue again. McCain had as many political enemies on the left as Obama on the right. Many atacked him viciously over things like his divorce, and his military record and his invovlement in the S&L scandal. But they accepted the facts of his citizenship and didn't continue a festering attack on his legitimacy based on wilful ignorance of the authentic facts.
The only difference between Obama and McCains treatment seems to be that Obama was black.

Ruffhaus, I ask the next part as a direct question and don't intend to insult. I'm just curious how you handle the issue intellectually...
I have seen on this forum where you describe your self as neo-Confederate.
I wonder how you square that with not being a racist?
The Confederacy was based upon racism and slavery. Its a part of the Constitution of Mississippi for instance. Isn't the celebration of the Confederacy a racist act?

Randy. There are two threads that I referred to, not just this one. The other is the 'religion of the President' one. Read that and you will see more on the context of George's original post, and why Steve is referred to in the past tense.

You insist that it is the implication you are responding to. All I can say is that I didn't read that in anything by any other poster, and at no point did anyone say that every criticism is driven by racism. There is certainly a position that some of it is, but that is not the same thing as saying that any and all of it is. Thus it is a 'straw man argument' to continue to assert that you are arguing against people who are claiming that all criticism of Obama is racist. You can hide behind accusations of implication all you like (I still maintain that a lot of your perception is inference instead), but you are plain wrong. I'm afraid.

Tom - In what way have you been proven right? Has one of your 'lefty pals' actually accused you of racism since you made that post in which you predicted it? Has my repetition of my point that not all opposition and criticism of Obama is based on race somehow 'proven' your assertion that we are saying that it all is?

You have both asserted that the 'left' and that posters on here are ascribing all criticism of Obama to race, and you are including me in that. I've said otherwise and you've steadfastly ignored/bypassed/discounted that and kept on point. 10/10 for consistency, I guess.

RUFFHAUS 8 wrote:You also refer to Steve as (among other things) departed. Have I missed something?

Steve announced he was quitting these forums in the "Religion of the President" thread.

geojanes wrote:When my grandfather was my age, a black man couldn't play major league baseball. In two generations we not only allowed qualified black men to play baseball, but to become president of the United States. Two generations! How cool is that! It took four to go from slavery to integrated baseball.

I'm not proud that people voted for him because he's black, I'm proud that enough people thought the fact he was black did not disqualify him, there is a huge difference, and that was the difference that won him the presidency. Actually, still makes me proud, despite his Presidential track-record of disappointing just about everyone.

For the record, I thought that this post addressed most of what Randy was saying about my initial post.

As far as qualifications go, that's very subjective. If the job of the president went to the "most qualified" I don't think any president would have ever been elected. OK, maybe Jefferson. But there are very, very limited criteria for being president, thank goodness. You just have to get the American people to vote for you, to get them to select you as their leader. Obama did that, and the discussion on his qualifications carry no weight to me.

Here is a telling map of what the election of Obama meant socially:

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/map.html?scp=1&sq=2008%20presidential%20election%20results%20county&st=cse

(Shoot, can't hard link to the right map: Click on Voting Shifts to see what I'm talking about)

This shows the change in county level results from the 2004 to 2008 election. One way to look at this is: who was more popular John Kerry (red) or Barack Obama (blue)? What you see is a country where many, many more places voted democratic, except for a swath from West Virgina, Eastern KY, Northern AL,TN, AR, and OK. For some reason the people of the Appalachians and the Ozarks found Mr. Kerry more attractive than Mr. Obama. I wonder why? Why do you think, Randy?

But for much of the rest of the country, including rural places in most of the heartland: MT, IN, WI, ND, SD, NE, elsewhere, Obama was vastly more popular. I believe the data suggest that in these places his race didn't matter, and that's the thing I'm proud of, it wasn't just our cities and coasts that voted for Obama, it was our farmers and ranchers, too. No doubt, many of the black people of Detroit voted for him because he is black, just like many of the white people in the hills and hollows of the Appalachians didn't vote for him because he's black, but to most of America, it didn't matter, and that's what I'm proud of.

Obamas qualifications were most certainly lacking, those who attempt to make them more are simply ignoring the facts. That does not mean he can't run, it doesn't mean he can't win, it doesn't mean he's can't do the job effectively. Lincoln had little experience as well. This is pretty much the same thing as hiring a new employee, you have several candidates for the job and after talking to them it would not shock me in the least if you hired one of the lesser qualified applicants, it's not all about qualifications. That's ok, but to try and pad Obama's resume is kind of silly, simply accept he has little (not nothing!) in the way of qualifications, nothing wrong there, the problem again is making something out of nothing. I could apply to be the sales manager of some huge corporation and try to pad my resume explaining how when I worked at K-Mart through college has given me sales experience that would apply to the job. Who's kidding who if I did that? Yeah, I had to work with dumb bosses, yeah I had to deal with customers, I could argue it would help my career, but that "experience" is so damned little, of course it means nothing and trying to pad that nothing job is pure fluff and drivel that would make me look foolish. Why is it so different for Obama?

I did not vote for him, but his race meant absolutely nothing to me and I too am proud we showed race is less of an issue than so many thought. It was certainly a great achievement. But for any who voted for racial reasons alone, even because it made them "feel good" that was a racist reason to vote that way. In this example, race was a reason, Race should play no part whatsoever. You like the mans philosophy, you like his energy, you like the party he represents, you like his limited qualifications, all good reasons to vote for him, his race? that should play no part or it's a racist reason. (racism does not always have to be a negative and it is in fact a negative if you thought McCain would be a better President but you went with the "feel good" reason, that racism affected the white guy in a negative way)

Just two points of clarification ricky.
First,

rickyp wrote:When the less clear issue of McCain's citizenship was raised, he was born in Panama, the issue was raised, and settled and never became an issue again. McCain had as many political enemies on the left as Obama on the right. Many atacked him viciously over things like his divorce, and his military record and his invovlement in the S&L scandal. But they accepted the facts of his citizenship and didn't continue a festering attack on his legitimacy based on wilful ignorance of the authentic facts.
The only difference between Obama and McCains treatment seems to be that Obama was black.

Actually McCain's citizenship issue wasn't less clear then Obama's. First, McCain was born to two natural born citizen Parents on a U.S. Military base. Law and precedence said that qualified him as a natural born citizen. The claim against Obama is that he only had one natural born citizen parent and was not born in the country. I believe law and precedence says that one non-citizen parent and not born in the country means not defined as natural born citizen. At least, I believe that is the difference and not skin color.

rickyp wrote:describe your self as neo-Confederate.
I wonder how you square that with not being a racist?
The Confederacy was based upon racism and slavery. Its a part of the Constitution of Mississippi for instance. Isn't the celebration of the Confederacy a racist act?

To a neo-Confederate, secession was about tyranny and the economic subjugation of the south to the northern states. Since slavery wasn't really the reason for the Confederacy, one can celebrate the principaled stand on Liberty and free markets of the South while decrying the minor issue of slavery. Oh and btw, the north was just as racist. After all Lincoln wanted to ship all blacks back to Africa.

Gods how I hate Lost Causers.

My high school nickname was the Spartans. They have "Spartan Pride" yet the Spartans of old took kids from their families at a tender young age to train to be warriors and also taught homosexuality as part of their training. Does this mean I should not have "Spartan Pride"? A "Neo-Confederate" need not embrace every single aspect of the Confederacy and he can most certainly deplore slavery and racism while still calling himself that moniker. Yeah, it may require a bit of an explanation as Russ has just done, but to lay a claim as Rickyp did is a bit over the top.