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Why/Why not McCain?

BPSCG said:
makes you wonder why nobody has Swift-Boated McCain yet...)
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It's early yet. If it's McCain v. Obama, we'll be forced to choose between the closet brainwashed socialist and the closet brainwashed Muslim.

All aboard the crazy train!
 
BPSCG said:
Because you can't bring the murdered people back to life, so torturing the guy won't accomplish anything. See my last post above.
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BPSCG said:
And this has been my point all along. Torture should only be a last resort, when there are lives hanging in the balance and there is no other way to get the information. But it shouldn't be off the table completely.

People argue against the death penalty because it is irrevocable - if you wrongly execute someone, there is no way to make him whole again. The same holds true with a "ticking bomb" scenario; there is no way to bring murdered people back to life, and I hold that it is a greater wrong to allow people to be murdered than to torture someone to get the information that would save their lives.
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Well then if that's your position than I would have to agree. However, if I had say about it, and I don't, I would need pretty good intel before I signed off on any form of torture.

BPSCG said:
You realize you sound like the failed claimants for the JREF million, don't you? They make their claims unchallenged, repeatedly but when cornered into making a testable prediction, they have a million excuses why it failed.

"Torture doesn't work!!! Torture doesn't work!!! Torture doesn't work!!! Torture doesn't work!!!" And then when you're presented with a case where it did work, well, the auras weren't right that day or there were bad vibes from the testers, or Randi doesn't really have the money...
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Wow...I failed to care who exactly I sound like. There are a million reasons why this form of torture would be effective against one person and not on another. And at no point in time did I state "Torture doesn't work!!!", that wasn't at all part of my argument for why I don't consider torture an overtly acceptable form of interrogation. Are you even reading my posts? You've danced around the other issues I've raised, namely, where does the line get drawn? Answer me this question and I'll be happy; what do you think of Mohammed's children being tortured and/or abused for information?
 
To try to paint McCain as crazy is a card I really think the Dems should not play. It might backfire on them,bigtime.
 
Kthulhut Fhtagn said:
Well then if that's your position than I would have to agree. However, if I had say about it, and I don't, I would need pretty good intel before I signed off on any form of torture.



Wow...I failed to care who exactly I sound like. There are a million reasons why this form of torture would be effective against one person and not on another. And at no point in time did I state "Torture doesn't work!!!", that wasn't at all part of my argument for why I don't consider torture an overtly acceptable form of interrogation. Are you even reading my posts? You've danced around the other issues I've raised, namely, where does the line get drawn? Answer me this question and I'll be happy; what do you think of Mohammed's children being tortured and/or abused for information?
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Please take this to the Social Issues forum, where there's a merry debate on waterboarding going on. This thread is about McCain's pros and cons.
 
marksman said:
It's early yet. If it's McCain v. Obama, we'll be forced to choose between the closet brainwashed socialist and the closet brainwashed Muslim.

All aboard the crazy train!
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...and don't forget the closet dyke... :goat

This isn't the actual link my CT friend sent me, but the weirdo allegations are the same.
What worries a small group of GOP Senators and Congressmen even more is a deep and dark skeletal secret in McCain's glorified past to which they are privy, and which the Clintons will use to blackmail him. .... McCain was kept at the Hanoi Hilton from December 1969 until his release, along with all the remaining POWs, in March of 1973. During this time, T translated all the Vietnamese interrogators' notes and reports regarding John McCain.

According to T, they reveal that McCain had made an "accommodation" with his captors, and in exchange, T's father saw that he was provided with an apartment in Hanoi and the services of two prostitutes. Upon returning to his prison cell, he would say he had been held in solitary confinement. That may be why so many of his fellow prisoners said later they saw so little of him at Hoa Loa.
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Except that the claim that his fellow POWs saw little of him is refuted in the very next paragraph:
Even when he was in solitary confinement, he was constantly in contact with others. Further, we always knew about movements within the camps because the Communists simply were not competent at preventing us from gaining intelligence. Men who were in the camps with him agree that they are not aware of a single night that he spent out of his cell.
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:boggled:
 
Lurker said:
I checked a ultra-right wing haunt tnad they list their reasons for opposing McCain:

1. McCain-Feingold they see as against the 1st Amendment
2. McCain is against waterboarding and thus will not protect them from terrorists
3. McCain favors a form of amnesty for illegals (this is probably their big one)
4. McCain opposed Bush's tax cuts

There are some other minor issues but these are the main ones that seem to get them frothing the most. It is interesting that as Bush became a lame duck they started calling him a non-conservative because of his position on illegals and amnesty. Note that they pretty much LOVED Bush before his lame duck status.
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My sense of it is that those are the excuses that they put forward for hating the guy rather than the underlying cause. For me they seem like routine policy differences. Although my view of this might be clouded a bit by my personal set of views that make it so that I don't align well with any political group so I'm used to the idea that almost nobody agrees with me on most issues. If I hated everybody that didn't agree with me I don't think I could find a person not to hate.

I can see illegal immigration as a hot button issue, but Bush did absolutely nothing about it for six years except watch the problem grow and now it seems like they're mad at McCain because he wants to do something to begin to clean up the mess.

The sense I get is that the enmity towards McCain is more like the enmity that some religious folks have toward atheists. They're mad at somebody less because they don't like people disagreeing with them and more because the non-believers make them feel uncomfortable about their own doubts.
 
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Lurker said:
I checked a ultra-right wing haunt tnad they list their reasons for opposing McCain:

1. McCain-Feingold they see as against the 1st Amendment
2. McCain is against waterboarding and thus will not protect them from terrorists
3. McCain favors a form of amnesty for illegals (this is probably their big one)
4. McCain opposed Bush's tax cuts

There are some other minor issues but these are the main ones that seem to get them frothing the most.
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There's probably more. Many of the ultra-right also see him as soft on abortion and stem-cell research (using discarded embryos). But you're probably right that the question of illegal aliens is probably the killer for him. If he loses Texas, he's dead meat, and there are a LOT of Texans who don't like him, not just because of this, but because of all the nasty things he said about Dubya when he was running against him.

I was actually going to vote for him in the Texas primary (Texas has open primaries) because my logic is, if there is a chance that we may have a Republican, get the one who is not a total right-wing nutcase. Now that he's got the nomination in pocket, I can go vote for Obama.
 
davefoc said:
We are living through what is almost certainly the worst administration of my life. It is the worst by standards that would be agreed to by almost all people. Yes there are a few partisans that have decided to overlook the corruption and incompetence, the massive unfunded spending and the disastrous management of the Iraqi occupation to .....
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....support McCain, who promises to continue the disasterous Bush policies if not compound them. He is Bush III.

I simply cannot get my head around the contradiction.
 
BenBurch said:
His elevator no longer goes all the way to the top. Huge negative. And expect many negative ads talking about outbursts of his and odd things he has said.
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So this isn't going to be an issues-oriented campaign? :D

I have engaged in about a dozen blogger conference calls with Senator McCain, and found him to be alert, responsive, sharp and incredibly involved with the details. He is feisty and does not back down easily, but then I always remind folks that Ronald Reagan's winning moment in 1980 was when he said "Mr Moderator, I paid for this microphone!"
 
Brainster said:
Moderately disagree but apparently we haven't been doing this for the last several years, since part of the effectiveness of this technique is convincing the person they are drowning, and the terrorists now know we won't drown them in reality.
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How do you know what the terrorists know about our torture techniques? And since at least one person subjected to this technique has, in fact, died, what basis do you have for your description of "reality"?
 
Okay, now that we've highlighted the important issues, what are your overall opinions of McCain? I mean, there have been a lot of stances brought up. But I want to hear some opinions about the messsage on the whole.

Should you vote for him? We know his opponents, and that there is hardly any difference between them. So overall, what is your view as a voter?

My view is that he would be bad for our nation. He supports a foreign policy of preemptive wars in the overall framework of a Clash of Civilizations with Muslim extremists. He makes token gestures of being progressive on issues like the environment, but he doesn't give the issues the backing required to fully address them. His policy is all fluff.

On healthcare he is vague. He says he would lower costs, but I haven't seen a plan. But he wants to put more decisions making and "choice" in the hands of people, whatever that means. I'm not seeing much meat here.

His education plan is just to give parents more "choice". Which does nothing to address the unequal funding of shools, go for uniform curriculum, get well trained teachers, or really do anything for that matter (The studies I've read that followed school choice programs didn't show any substantive changes).

I mean, he should be likeable, but he acted like a jerk in debates and acted like a complete slandering ***** in the primary. He can't give speeches for a damn and his jokes are god awful.

But he is a war hero, and that certainly makes his hawkish policies legitimate.

And need I comment on his stroll through Bagdhad to show how nice it was, when he required a hundred soldiers, tanks, and a helicopter to accompany him?

I nominate him for being the biggest douche left standing now that Romney is out (To put it in TDS terms).
 
McCain is OK in some areas, others he's atrocious. Worst of all, he'll put another conservative on the Supreme court (if given the opportunity) making homosexuality practically illegal, church state separation would disappear, Roe v Wade would be out and all sorts of other theocratic, conservative crap would come into play.

His foreign policy is worse than Bush's, it's almost bomb anyone who calls you names with him.

He panders a lot too. Like backing down on his immigration thing and the whole 'agents of intolerance' speech.

His visit to Iraq and his comments afterwards were a bloody joke.

The more I think about it, the more I realise I'd probably actually prefer Huckabee, if he didn't have those HORRIBLE views on religion and church/state issues he'd be a much better candidate than McCain. However, with the whole supreme court thing, you'd probably get the same results from both unless McCain dives to the center for the general election.
 
UserGoogol said:
I'm too lazy to go through the list at the moment, so I'll just say that I'm a pretty down the line liberal (at least on those issues) and in the end oppose him although I think he might be a lesser evil as far as Republicans go.
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Probably, except for the war issue, although, even there he's probably better than Hillary and Obama.

A big argument against torture is that it doesn't actually work.
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Depends on what you mean by torture. Psychological coercion works pretty well, but then I don't think that is necessarily what is meant by "torture".

You're just causing great suffering to a person and disgracing yourself while getting little but unreliable information in exchange.
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I agree.

To contrast, killing people often gets quite tangible results, although I don't think it gets terribly meaningful results in Iraq (or in other areas, although I'm not an absolute pacifist).
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Well, the lack of effectiveness of torture isn't a very good "reason" for killing people. That is, killing isn't a very good alternative to torture, although I know that's not exactly what you meant.
 
NeoRicen said:
McCain is OK in some areas, others he's atrocious. Worst of all, he'll put another conservative on the Supreme court (if given the opportunity) making homosexuality practically illegal, church state separation would disappear, Roe v Wade would be out and all sorts of other theocratic, conservative crap would come into play.

His foreign policy is worse than Bush's, it's almost bomb anyone who calls you names with him.

He panders a lot too. Like backing down on his immigration thing and the whole 'agents of intolerance' speech.

His visit to Iraq and his comments afterwards were a bloody joke.

The more I think about it, the more I realise I'd probably actually prefer Huckabee, if he didn't have those HORRIBLE views on religion and church/state issues he'd be a much better candidate than McCain. However, with the whole supreme court thing, you'd probably get the same results from both unless McCain dives to the center for the general election.
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I tend to agree with this somewhat. The bomb,bomb Iran joke was enough to keep me from ever voting for the guy. Somehow the Republican Party has been taken over by pro-war nut jobs. It is true lunacy. The idea that with sufficient bombing and warring the US can achieve perfect safety is in the end going to destroy the US unless it is stopped. We are driving fast for the cliff and bomb, bomb Iran McCain is just another Republican all fired up to push down harder on the accelerator.
 
Darth Rotor said:
It that is how you want to parse it, so is Hillary, she voted for the war.

Obama then makes for a better choice.
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I actually agree.

Ron Paul hasn't run a sound enough campaign to get the nom.

So, who do you root for?
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I'm still rooting for Ron Paul. That doesn't mean he has a chance, but he will get my vote at the state primaries. Now, if you are asking who would I prefer among the currently viable Republican candidates, I'd say McCain and Romney.

Best reason to vote for McCain: Mitt quit, Huckabee is a non starter.
Best reason to vote against: you like Hilly or Obama better
or
you support the Paul/Nader ticket for 2008. :p
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I don't really like Nader's political platform enough to vote for him, though I've watched his interviews. He is a very intelligent man.

I fully agree that Huckabee is a non-starter

The best reason for me to vote for McCain is because I dislike Hillary
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That's quite understandable. I've pretty much decided against Hillary almost from the start. I would have only voted for her if she was up against Giuliani (although I might have abstained). But fortunately, Giuliani is a non-factor, now.

H Hulk, you'd be better off heading to Mexico. It is more of a libertarians' paradise, if you are in the top 3% of wealthy in that so called republic.

DR
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I respectfully disagree. It's more of a libertine's paradise. You can do what you want if you have enough influence, but you are also subject to the unlawful whims of others, for the same reasons.

Mexico has a decent political framework; it's just not enforced strictly or regularly.
 
davefoc said:
I tend to agree with this somewhat. The bomb,bomb Iran joke was enough to keep me from ever voting for the guy. Somehow the Republican Party has been taken over by pro-war nut jobs. It is true lunacy. The idea that with sufficient bombing and warring the US can achieve perfect safety is in the end going to destroy the US unless it is stopped. We are driving fast for the cliff and bomb, bomb Iran McCain is just another Republican all fired up to push down harder on the accelerator.
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Please. Guy makes a joke and all the lefties start wetting their pants that he's gonna start World War III. Y'all did exactly the same thing when Reagan was testing a microphone before a Saturday morning radio address and said, ""My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

Get a grip. As it turned out, Reagan was able to figure out a way to destroy the Soviet Union without dropping any bombs on them - something none of his predecessors had been able to do.

ETA: And before that, in 1964, Barry Goldwater was gonna launch World War III. LBJ's people even made a commercial. Of course, Goldwater was defeated and LBJ proceeded to ramp up the war in Vietnam and... Hey! Why are you walking away with your fingers in your ears?
 
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