the most important election of your lifetime: 2012 american general election thread

ike, voting is good because it's a civic virtue as an act, sure, that's why I do it even though my votes have never managed to change any election and never will. but voting for candidate a or candidate b doesn't really come into play, which is why I didn't say 'don't vote' I said 'don't overthink it']

there's a weird disconnect there, imo. every individual vote, when considered in isolation, makes no difference in a national election, sure. otoh, votes in aggregate make a huge difference, and votes in aggregate can't exist absent individual votes. this should be enough to dispel the notion that the individual vote is "mostly just a formality". it's like carrying a coffin. i can't carry a coffin on my own. if i weren't there, the other five guys could probably manage it without me. but that doesn't mean that my participation is insignificant. i'm as important as anyone involved. shared responsibility is not necessarily diminished.

I've never voted in a Presidential Election. Now that I'm in Virginia, it feels maybe more important, but actually I'm not entirely sure if it matters. I'm voting for the experience.

carrying a coffin is a good analogy for america

my vote for mondale changed the course of history

My guess is that it was advisors/CIA/military folk telling him what to do and he got the legal team to work on it. I imagine they would have advised anyone else in office to do the same, and I think it more likely that Obama would say 'no' than Romney or most Republicans for that matter, being as they're traditionally (and vocally) more hawkish than the Dems.

I am assuming that Obama picked up the paper one day, saw one of those "20% of electorate think Obama is a Muslim" polls, and thought "Well, it look like I'm going to have to kill some brown people to get re-elected".

(Or maybe he has a real taste for it - we don't really know)

really?

Also hey guys there's this thing called Google :)

Romney forcefully defends killing of al-Awlaki

Romney, Perry congratulate Obama; Perry gives backhanded praise

Mitt Romney: Death of AL-AWLAKI a Major Victory

yeah, i know. i'm drawing a moral distinction between ordering a murder and congratulating the murderer, splitting hairs perhaps. also saying that i'm agnostic about what people might have done if they'd had the power when they didn't. not endorsing romney or perry, btw.

the al-Awlaki assassination was the no-man's-land action for me. Believe it or not, I would've considered voting for him (as I said in November '08). You've all got your beyond-this-I-won't-go moments; this one was mine, as bad as Candidate Obama siding with Republicans on warrantless wiretapping. I'm quite aware that Justices Ginsberg and maybe Breyer will retire or die in the next couple years and would prefer Obama nominating their successors but I can't even trust the decision making of a man so unconcerned about the morality of killing an American citizen without bringing him before a court.

xp not literally no, but seems like he both has a massive handicap as regards foreign policy (or the one vector of foreign policy that will get any play), and a blank cheque from the Democratic Party because they are the Democratic Party. He seems, to me, to cut more of a Tommy Carcetti figure than an actual villain like Nixon - willing to make bad deals to get further (in this case to set Obamacare in - I would like if he went mad socialist in the next term, but I consider it about as likely as Eisbaer's slash theory above).

Also as a non-USier the details of "these people that we're killing with no stated rationale or oversight have a different passport to these people we've been killing with no stated rationale or oversight" still elude me, particularly as Gubke says compared to the other elements of that sentence.

One thing I'm surprised to hear about is torture - I'd thought that apart, from refusing to prosecute Bush-era torture, Obama's hands were clean on that?

I'm sure W would've gotten around to repealing DADT eventually.

If he needed the cannon fodder, maybe.

not to say that Obama's policies haven't made the income inequality gap worse, mind, but at least he pays lip service to the notion that it is not an inherently 'good' thing.

Obama 2012: For the Lip Service

He and Holder have continued the late Bush administration policy of banning it; now we target suspects with drone missiles.

"these people that we're killing with no stated rationale or oversight have a different passport to these people we've been killing with no stated rationale or oversight" still elude me

al-Awlaki is an American citizen and thus has constitutional rights. We must take the government's word that he was A Dangerous Fellow.

Right, but the last sentence is also true of lots of other people.

This made me laugh:

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/04/river-phoenix-reacts-to-the-romney-nomination.html?tw_p=twt

Many governments kill their own citizens with no judicial process whatsoever. Some guys just get together in a room and decide who to kill. It sucks balls to be a citizen of such a country.

My own government is now able to kill my fellow citizens without a judicial process. It cites various reasons for doing this, but none of those reasons rise above the simple need to maintain an unbreachable wall of safeguards between me and the guys who got together in that room.

al-Awlaki is an American citizen and thus has constitutional rights. We must take the government's word that he was A Dangerous Fellow.

right which is why this is a legal issue not a moral one

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2012-04-18/news/mitt-romney-american-parasite/

right which is why this is a legal issue not a moral one

I don't know if you're being a pedant.

Because we can't verify whether al-Awlaki committed the crimes for which the Obama administration had him killed, his death IS a moral blight if you believe in due process and the presumption of innocence. How can you separate law and morality from this act?

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2012-04-18/news/mitt-romney-american-parasite/

― stay in school if you want to kiw (Gukbe), Thursday, April 19, 2012 1:51 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Man, this is a pretty great read. This stuff really should be mobilized in the campaign - Romney comes off as like, Roger Smith.

man we have this voting conversation a lot

if you believe that due process and the presumption of innocence is a moral right then you should believe its a moral right to everyone in the world

if the american gov't is assassinating people I really don't care more if it's happening in nyc to american citizens or cairo to non-american citizens

iatee sometimes you say smart shit and then there's times like this

the law stems from principles, this isn't hard to get, I'm glad you love the brotherhood of man so much that you're incapable of understanding how a government parceling out the rights its own founding documents guarantees to its citizens isn't a big deal but you're on the wrong side here so just moveon.org imo

There are no such things as rights dudes, they're privileges.

yeah the constitution stems from 18th century 'principles' not 21st century ones, that's why it's currently 'constitutional' for a 16 y/o to buy a gun which will be used to kill people and 'not constitutional' for the govt to mandate health insurance, really dgaf about 'constitutional' when the question is right or wrong

Because singling out his status as an American Citizen makes it a legal case, as opposed to the moral argument that which shouldn't be killing *anyone at all*, and certainly not without due process. We're all pretty sure Bin Laden was responsible for what he said he was, but I still don't like the idea of shooting a guy in the face that is not an immediate threat to the soldier.

In a legal sense, it is certainly troubling - especially as they apparently have the "justification" locked away in the counsel's office somewhere - but in the moral sense I don't see it as any different from the huge number of crimes this administration/country has committed time and time again without many people raising an eyelid.

So, legally, I'd say it's troubling, but as troubling as the sentencing of Tarek Mehanna to 17 years. Or as troubling as the fact that, on an almost daily basis, police officers in this country violate personal rights and run roughshod over daily lives and we, as a people, have very little-to-no recourse to address the issue unless somehow the media takes an interest. Personal freedoms have been eroding for a long while, both legally and practically.

xposts

if you believe that due process and the presumption of innocence is a moral right then you should believe its a moral right to everyone in the world

when have I ever written otherwise?

Legal and moral are not two separate spheres. And there are pragmatic concerns here, too.

Also as a non-USier the details of "these people that we're killing with no stated rationale or oversight have a different passport to these people we've been killing with no stated rationale or oversight" still elude me, particularly as Gubke says compared to the other elements of that sentence.

― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, April 19, 2012 3:19 AM (7 hours ago)

I have no control over what foreign governments do to their citizens or to citizens of my country. For the most part, that's out of my hands. Though I have substantial moral qualms about war in general, I am tentatively willing to accept that it may be necessary in certain circumstances for my government to set out to kill people without a trial. I do not accept, however, that it is ever acceptable for my country to deliberately assassinate American citizens without a public trial of some kind. This is both a legal and a moral issue. It is moral in the sense that my government, as a representative democracy, is an extension of my will. I am the "we the people" that authorizes and empowers my government. Therefore, when my government behaves in an immoral manner, I bear some moral responsibility. At the very least I am obligated to register my objection and to allow my values to guide my political participation in America's governance. It may also be immoral for my government to assassinate non-US citizens, but that's a slightly different issue, one that obviously has different implications about the relationship between the US government and its citizenry.

yeah i don't really agree with that.

really dgaf about 'constitutional' when the question is right or wrong

This ia a terrible attitude, imo, though a sadly common one these days. The constitution is a device that protects a mechanism, and that mechanism in turn protects us against a wide variety of abuses of governmental powers. It's not a perfect tool, but it's a good one, and the idea that it's only valid to the extent that it ensures the success of our values is very short-sighted, imo.

yeah I bear the same moral responsibility when 'we the people' kills someone in mexico and when it kills someone in arizona

yeah i don't really agree with that.

what part of it?

yeah i agree with that xposts

I disagree with contenderizer only insofar as he endorses the theory of collective guilt.

yeah. i was born into this country without a choice. the country is a construct, not some moral reflection on me.

i choose to see it as collective responsibility, not collective guilt. like, regardless of how we came to be here, we have a responsibility to ensure that the government that claims to represent us behaves in accordance with our values. imo. how far you take this is up to you.

I have no control over what foreign governments do to their citizens or to citizens of my country. For the most part, that's out of my hands.

the level of control we have over nearly everything is extremely limited. i could make a huge list but i'll just let that sit as a principle. this is also why the moral attachment you have to any one individual you vote for is very limited.

you voted for a man, he does something horrible, what level of responsibility do you have for that thing? as much as guilt can be quantified, i'd say it is an amount indistinguishable from zero. what control do you have over affairs, in that moment after you learned of the murder? only over your own power to say that it is shitty. which is about the same as your vote in the first place: a vote is a speech act "given the options that life offered up at this moment, i guess i pick this guy"

i don't understand the sense of accounting that goes, "my vote means that everything this government does for four years in on my conscience, i won't bear eight". st. peter isn't holding you to such a raw deal.

Personal freedoms have been eroding for a long while, both legally and practically.

Personal freedoms in this country have never existed.

A vote is also an incredibly diffuse instrument of responsibility: if you want to make your views on this (any) matter clearer than when you voted - here's the streets, take to them.

i don't understand the sense of accounting that goes, "my vote means that everything this government does for four years in on my conscience, i won't bear eight". st. peter isn't holding you to such a raw deal.

st. peter isn't holding me to anything. i choose my own sense of moral responsibility. if the french government does something i see as immoral, i may register an objection by some means or another, but I'm not terribly likely to view myself as helping shape French policy. I feel less responsibility to ensure that the wold world acts in accordance with my values than I do to ensure that America does so. And I feel less responsibility to police America's actions than my own. Expanding circles of selfhood and localism.

A vote is also an incredibly diffuse instrument of responsibility: if you want to make your views on this (any) matter clearer than when you voted - here's the streets, take to them.

Well exactly. I'm not just talking about voting.

struggling w this Capitalization business, obv

Dude, are you simply not following this? The US government that kills a US citizen is the same one that kills a foreign national!

the levels of control i can exert on actors within the french and american governments appear pretty similar to me.

ha how morbsy is that

you voted for a man, he does something horrible, what level of responsibility do you have for that thing? as much as guilt can be quantified, i'd say it is an amount indistinguishable from zero. what control do you have over affairs, in that moment after you learned of the murder?

You gain some in the moment he's up for re-election. And in your choice to register protest in other forms.

I understand the decision to vote for Obama on a lesser-evil basis even though I won't do it. What I don't understand is how the Democratic Party, the news media, or anyone else will distinguish your reluctant vote from "yay Barack, keep on doin what yer doin."

I think that's the heart of it, actually. The problem with sticking to moral principles when it comes to voting is that the reality for me is that America largely doesn't reflect my values, sometimes in its laws and framework, and a lot more in practicality. That's not just the government, of course. It's the private companies (whom I still believe do the most damage) and the citizens who accept it. Part of the reason I don't like Americans running around the world killing folk in "defense" of this country is that I'm not entirely convinced its a country worth defending.

There needs to be a significant change, but that won't happen until the people decide that what's going on is "wrong" and there's a popular force backing the kinds of thing OWS is talking about. If that were to happen, I think Obama would be more inclined to follow that lead than Romney, who would outright ignore it as "wrong".

So really, despite all the shitty things Obama has done, it always goes back to Romney being worse. I'll vote for the person who does the least amount of damage to the people who need it most. Just because I don't like what the President has done, I don't think I can in good conscious not do my part by voting if doing nothing allows for the possibility that the downtrodden in society are going to be worse off, or that women can't get access to adequate healthcare, or that Romney's trickle-down, businessmen-know-best attitude won't be unleashed on an unsuspecting and largely uninformed citizenry.

But you know, that's just my own personal moral justification.

Because a vote for Obama DOES register as "yah, Barack, keep on doin what yer doin"?

xpost

Morbs OTM about the media, but I'm about as likely to reach up into the sky and touch the moon than affect any change in that risible industry.

obama was going to 'do what he was gonna do' whether he won 51% or 60% of the vote, he would not if he won 49% of the vote