Ralph Nader is unsurprisingly still a giant douchebag

[Spanish Moss]

While I do believe his mind has begun to slip him, I'd argue that he's not wrong in accusing Obama of being a war criminal, who is worse than Bush on that in certain aspects (such as drone plane bombings).

[Spanish Moss]

Obama's not a war criminal in my opinion but he has been aggressive and Dubya-like in many ways.  He's certainly not the kumbaya President libs wanted.

He's exactly the president I wanted and nothing like Bush Jr. Jrwas all about sending hundreds of thousands of ground troops in at great cost, both financial and human. Obama is like a surgeon, sending in high tech drones as needed and finally getting Osama bin Laden, in Pakistan, a place the GOP was too afraid to touch.

High tech drones which have killed tons of innocent individuals, including targets wrongly accused, also including at least one American citizen.

[Spanish Moss]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/25/ralph-nader-says-obama-is-war-criminal-worse-than-george-bush_n_1914154.html

how is this even controversial?

Dunno, because it's pretty clear Obama is at very least a war criminal.

[Spanish Moss]

it's just what liberals do.  when it's "their guy" they're more than willing to excuse the most magnificent crimes.

And that's what irritates me about the left in this country.  Wiretapping under Bush?  Everyone wigs out.  Practical evisceration of the 4th Amendment via the NDAA under Obama?  Weak justifications, or they look over it.

I seriously just don't get it.

[Spanish Moss]

it's just what liberals do.  when it's "their guy" they're more than willing to excuse the most magnificent crimes.

And that's what irritates me about the left in this country.  Wiretapping under Bush?  Everyone wigs out.  Practical evisceration of the 4th Amendment via the NDAA under Obama?  Weak justifications, or they look over it.

I seriously just don't get it.

Personal I think it's quite simple; the election 2000 showed the price of ideological purity and the whole argument that "the lesser evil is still evil". It got people 8 years with George Bush's cronies, policies and wars.... and no matter how much a corporate stooge the left find him, he's still preferable to Bush. So yes they could play it up, but it would make them nothing more than useful idiots for GOP.

So basically let the Democrats get worse and worse, without holding their feet to the fire, because it's politically convenient at that moment?

Honestly, I used to believe there must be a point where Democrats draw the line on their Presidential Candidate, but after NDAA - I seriously believe their candidate could be a proto-fascist, but as long as the Republicans pose someone further to the right, they'll continue to support them.

[Spanish Moss]

I have to say I never found targeted drone strikes as being on the same level as an invasion. Since we don't get any cooperation from the Pakistanis, drone strikes are the best way to kill Al Qaeda targets hiding there.

As well as innocent people we think are worthy targets when they aren't.

[Spanish Moss]

I love the idea that recent U.S. presidents are war criminals. It's very cute and I'm sure y'all will win many elections running on that.

"If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged." - Noam Chomsky

While I strongly disagree with hanging ANYONE, this is a factually correct statement.

[Spanish Moss]

it's just what liberals do.  when it's "their guy" they're more than willing to excuse the most magnificent crimes.

And that's what irritates me about the left in this country.  Wiretapping under Bush?  Everyone wigs out.  Practical evisceration of the 4th Amendment via the NDAA under Obama?  Weak justifications, or they look over it.

I seriously just don't get it.

Personal I think it's quite simple; the election 2000 showed the price of ideological purity and the whole argument that "the lesser evil is still evil". It got people 8 years with George Bush's cronies, policies and wars.... and no matter how much a corporate stooge the left find him, he's still preferable to Bush. So yes they could play it up, but it would make them nothing more than useful idiots for GOP.

So basically let the Democrats get worse and worse, without holding their feet to the fire, because it's politically convenient at that moment?

Honestly, I used to believe there must be a point where Democrats draw the line on their Presidential Candidate, but after NDAA - I seriously believe their candidate could be a proto-fascist, but as long as the Republicans pose someone further to the right, they'll continue to support them.

Fascism seems pretty tame to me.

I wasn't saying the candidate is proto-fascist, I'm saying that if in 2016 they could run a virtual (literal) fascist and as long as the Republican is more (literally, not hyperbolically) fascist, most people will still vote for them.

I mean, after NDAA, upping the war in Afghanistan and drone bombing (which included killing an American citizen who was a MINOR), as well as climate holocaust going on and having no meaningful alternative ("clean coal" is b.s., and nuclear energy produces tons of waste at a risk not worth taking) - what does he have to do to actually lose the vote of liberals?

[Spanish Moss]

Obama's not a war criminal in my opinion but he has been aggressive and Dubya-like in many ways.  He's certainly not the kumbaya President libs wanted.

He's exactly the president I wanted and nothing like Bush Jr. Jrwas all about sending hundreds of thousands of ground troops in at great cost, both financial and human. Obama is like a surgeon, sending in high tech drones as needed and finally getting Osama bin Laden, in Pakistan, a place the GOP was too afraid to touch.

High tech drones which have killed tons of innocent individuals, including targets wrongly accused, also including at least one American citizen.

Your point?

As someone on the left he is entirely unacceptable for me to vote for and bad enough that he's not worth conceding to for my vote.

[Spanish Moss]

Amusing how the Democrats have absorbed neocon "logic" now that their man is on the throne.

[Spanish Moss]

Like I quoted Chomsky, if we followed the Nuremberg laws, Obama wouldn't be in the Oval Office right now.  I'm wholly against capital punishment, but not against his removal from office.  He has done great damage to our Constitution (continuing in the strain of Bush), and is internationally acting so reprehensibly that the fact people are actually defending him alarms me.

[Spanish Moss]

Not to mention the growing possibility that Americans could eventually be on the receiving end of a drone strike.

You didn't read this...

People don't care because even with the war monger Bush in office it was pretty easy for 99.99999% of Americans to avoid getting droned.  Not hard.  Really you should be more concerned about lightning strikes.  Objectively they are a far greater threat to you than Bush/Obama drones.  Other than crazy terrorists who lays awake worried about stuff like this?

So you accept the principle that the government can decide who gets to live and who gets to die? And you don't anticipate any potential for abuse of that power whatsoever? Martin Niemöller would like a word with you.

If the President of the Unites States picked out at random two perfectly innocent people a year and had them executed that would have zero impact on the general populace.  Fact.

Now the one US citizen that I know about who was executed was not a "perfectly innocent" person.  We can quibble about the process but that guy getting his ticket punched was not the beginning of a slide down a mythical slippery slope.  Honestly.  The president whether it is Bush or Obama is busy enough they don't have the time or inclination to just randomly pick a name out of a hat and kill the person.  Why would anyone in the Oval office want to do that?

Where do you draw the line on how many innocent civilians are okay to execute? Is James Holmes all right in your book since he only had 12 victims? Also where do you get the idea that only 2 civilians have died from drone attacks? You realize the number is more like 10 for each militant killed?

If this was McCain instead of Obama, a whole lot more Democrats would be flipping their lid.  Party loyalty is destructive to justice.

[Spanish Moss]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/25/ralph-nader-says-obama-is-war-criminal-worse-than-george-bush_n_1914154.html

how is this even controversial?

My thoughts exactly.  Though for praising Palin like that, I think he's really starting to loose it. 

Chomsky has also praised Sarah Palin for her mocking of Obama's hope/change shtick in 2008.

Well honestly, that's all it was.  A shtick.

[Spanish Moss]

Some people are so overly partisan they don't even have their own ideology.
So Nader was consistent in his view of opposing these interventionist tactics. So he defended someone who is right winger once because they made comments he agreed with.

Here's a tip, just because you generally disagree with someone politically, maybe even dislike them as a person, doesn't mean everything they ever say is automatically wrong. Heck I am sure there are times Obama and Bush have said things I agree with, despite my extreme opposition to their corporatist warmongering anti-privacy economically destructive political views.

Truth.

If anyone here were to comb through everything Sarah Palin or Vladimir Lenin has said on public record, I'm sure one could find something they agree with.