The Federal Government shouldn't duplicate services provided for by the states

Reasons to agree:

1. When you have administrators in Federal, State, and County agencies all with the same responsibility you are wasting money.


2. When you have administrators in Federal, State, and County agencies all with the same responsibility there is no accountability for the performance of any of the government agencies.


3. When the federal government has a mission that is the same as more local governments, they often don't really do anything besides set standards which the local agencies are not required to follow, and funnels money which they takes from individuals in each state, and put is back into other states. This whole process is overly complex, prone to corruption, bad incentives, inefficient with our money, and leads to bad results. 

Reasons to disagree:

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Probable interest of those who agree:

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Probable interest of those who disagree:

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Common Interest

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Opposing Interest

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Images That agree

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Images That disagree

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Videos That agree

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Videos That disagree

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Website that agree

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Websites that disagree

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Related arguments:

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Score:

# of reasons to agree: 0

# of reasons to disagree: -0

# of reasons to agree with reasons to agree: 0

# of reasons to agree with reasons to disagree: -0

Total Idea Score: 0

Don't like the score? It is easy to change the score. Just post a reason to agree or disagree with the overall idea, or any of the reasons and the score will change

Obama was wrong to have voted against Roberts

Reasons to agree:

1. People on both sides of the isle, say that he is very respectful, to those with whome he disagrees.


2. During his two year tenure on the D.C. Circuit, Roberts authored 49 opinions, eliciting only two dissents from other judges, and authoring only three dissents of his own. This shows that Roberts works well with others, and builds consensus.


3. Roberts is one of twelve Catholic justices — out of 110 justices total — in the history of the Supreme Court.^[37]


4. His wife is an attorney and a trustee (along with Clarence Thomas) at her alma mater, the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. He must be pretty cool to have got a smart girl like that to marry him.


5. Roberts graduated graduating with an A.B. in history summa cum laude in three years from Harvard.
   


6. Before attending Harvard Law School, was the managing editor of the Harvard Law Review,^[3] and graduated with his J.D. magna cum laude.^[5] If that was good enough reason for Obama to be president, I guess it is good enough reason for Roberts to be Chief Justice.
   


7. He represented 18 states in United States v. Microsoft. How cool is that?
   


8. All of his maternal great-grandparents were from Czechoslovakia. Roberts understands immigration.
   


9. He was captain of his football team and was a Regional Champion in wrestling. That is pretty cool.

Probable interest (or motivation) of those who agree:

1. Republican Party Affiliation (40%)


2. They agree with the argument, outside of any interest or alterior motivation (30%)
   


3. Political laziness & issue crossover (15%)
   


4. The desire to have more conservative judges on issues like abortion, gay marriage, etc.


5. The desire to strengthen presidential power and weaken legislative power (not encouraging the legislature to vote against people they don't like, instead of "bad" people)
   

Probable interest (or motivation) of those who disagree:

1. They agree with the argument, outside of any interest or alterior motivation (30%)
   


2. Democratic party groupism (40%)


3. Political laziness & issue crossover.


4. The desire to have less conservative judges on issues like abortion, gay marriage, etc.
   


5. The desire to limit presidential power and strengthen legislative power (letting the legislature vote against people they don't like, instead of "bad" people)
   

Obama is wrong when he says: "We need to fix and improve our public schools, not throw our hands up and walk away from them"

Reasons to agree:

1. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We have spent more and more money per student in public schools over the past 30 years, and our performance has only gotten worse.
   

Background: “We’ll make sure that every child in this country gets a world-class education from the day they’re born until the day they graduate from college. What McCain is offering amounts to little more than the same tired rhetoric about vouchers. We need to move beyond the same debate we’ve been having for the past 30 years when we haven’t gotten anything done. We need to fix & improve our public schools, not throw our hands up and walk away from them. We need to uphold the ideal of public education, but we also need reform. That’s why I’ve introduced a comprehensive strategy to recruit an army of new quality teachers to our communities--and to pay them more & give them more support. We’ll invest in early childhood education programs so that our kids don’t begin the race of life behind the starting line and offer a $4,000 tax credit to make college affordable for anyone who wants to go. Because as the NAACP knows better than anyone, the fight for social justice and economic justice begins in the classroom.” McCain-Obama speeches at 99th NAACP Convention Jul 12, 2008

Obama is melodramatic

Reasons to agree:

1. Obama said, "I got high [to] push questions of who I was out of my mind.” People do things for a lot of reasons. To say that he used drugs for one reason, because he was having problems with his racial identity, seems to be playing the melodramatic race card. I'm not saying that it might have been part of the reason that he used drugs, but to fully blame all his drug use with racial identity problems, like he did in his book, seems a little melodramatic.

2. Melodrama involves an oversimplified hero. Obama seems to see himself as a hero, in a very simplistic way. He wrote two or three autobiographies about himself, before he was even un unaccomplished senator. Now that he is president, he can write a few autobiogaphies, but he has already written two or three.

Obama is wrong on drugs

Reasons to agree:

1. When Obama said, “Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack though" (Dreams from My Father), he thought he would reach those who had used drugs and convence them to go straight. However he will have reached more straight kids and convinced them to use drugs, by making it sound cool, showing that he was able to beat it, and using their street names, as though he is still trying to have "street cred". 

Reasons to agree:

1. Obama is right that selling 15 tablets of Ecstasy should not be in the same class of felony as raping a woman at knifepoint.
   

Obama was wrong to vote no on mandatory death sentences for gang members who kill cops

Reasons to agree with Obama:

1. If you get killed because you made someone mad, or they want to steal your car, or because you were in the wrong place in the wrong time, that is one thing. But gangs are specifically targetting cops. We need them to be un-afraid of going into dangerous places. If they are not safe, than none of us are safe. It should be worse to kill cops, because they stand in the place of all of us in keeping our society together, and all that thin-blue-line stuff.

Background:

Q: On mandatory death sentences for gang members who kill cops you voted no. Would you explain?

OBAMA: [The proposed legislation] was entirely unnecessary and unconstitutional. It suggested that I could kill a police officer but because I’m not a gang member, I would be treated differently. I think both cases should be death penalty eligible.

KEYES: Senator Obama does not think it superfluous to have hate crimes legislation that adds a special animus to certain acts of violence already penalized against the law. But in order to convey against those certain acts a special category of deviation from society. The law provides a special message aimed at discouraging things considered especially harmful to a society and a community.

Source: Illinois Senate Debate #3: Barack Obama vs. Alan Keyes Oct 21, 2004

Obama was wrong to restrict police entry rules into dangerous places

Reasons to agree:

1. Q: On the right to let cops go into dangerous places with search warrants without knocking, you voted no as well. Would you explain?

   OBAMA: With respect to the potential for police officers not to knock when they go in, there’s an issue of search and seizures and there must be some parameters for law enforcement to protect our civil liberties.

   Source: Illinois Senate Debate #3: Barack Obama vs. Alan Keyes Oct 21, 2004

Obama passed on stupid urban legends that exaggerated racial problems.

Reasons to agree:

1. “I don’t want to wake up four years from now and discover that we still have more young black men in prison than in college.” ~ Barack Obama, fund-raiser in Harlem, NY, Nov. 29, 2007.

   “Simply untrue, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. There may be a case for arguing, as some Obama supporters have done, that the total number of black prisoners is slightly higher than the total number of black students. But I can only fact check the comparison the candidate actually made, which was between young black men in prison and in college. Rather than acknowledge the error, the Obama campaign declined to provide statistical support.” Source: GovWatch on 2008 Pinocchio Awards for Biggest Fib of 2007 Jan 1, 2008. As GovWatch points out, there are more black men in prison (age 18 to 100 years old) than there are “young  black men” in college. However Obama said there were more young black men in prison than in college, which is far from true.

Obama made stupd campaign pledges

Reasons to agree:

1. 
   An Obama campaign booklet, “Blueprint for Change”, p. 42 Feb 2, 2008 said: “Obama will work to ensure that ex-offenders have access to job training, substance abuse and mental health counseling, and employment opportunities. Obama will also create a prison-to-work incentive program and reduce barriers to employment.” There is no specific plan, just a promiced outcome. No real-world analasis of trying to figure out how much things will cost, or how they will force people to hire ex-cons... It is nice to say that you want ex-cons to be able to get jobs, but it is stupid to just say your going to do it, without saying how, looking at how much it will cost, or trying to figure out if you even have the money to do it. For instance should the Federal Government be spending tax money collected from New York, and California, to pay ex-cons from Idaho, to go to a jobs program in Pennsylvania? The federal government shouldn't be doing crap lack that. They should have limited social programs. 
   
   

Obama is wrong when he says: "We have to fight for all those young men standing on street corners with little hope for the future besides ending up in jail

Reasons to disagree:

1. We should reward good behavior and punish bad behavior. Fighting for people who do nothing but "stand around on street corner" is rewarding bad behavior. Obama didn't stand around on street corners. It sounds cruel, but kids need to see that people who make bad decisions fail. That prevents more bad decisions. But it all depends on what you mean by "fight for". We should, of course, be smart. If we can fight for them in a way that does not reward bad behavior, but gives them different options, that is ok, but that is the problem with generic stupid language, like "fight for". A lot of parents fight for their kids, and cause damage... sometimes it is better to let the kids fight for themselves... but this language is stupid...
   


2. Usually compassion is not a limitless resource. When you have compassion on criminals, to some degree, you are less able to provide compassion to law abiding citizens. You will have less money, time, and other resources for other priorities. 

Obama is right to think that it is Ok to expose 6-year-olds to gay couples, but wrong to think the government should make this choice

Background:
Q: Last year some parents of second graders in Lexington, Massachusetts, were outraged to learn their children’s teacher had read a story about same-sex marriage, about a prince who marries another prince. Would you be comfortable having this story read to your children as part of their school curriculum?
A: My 9-year-old and my 6-year-old are already aware that there are same-sex couples. And my wife and I have talked about it. And one of the things I want to communicate to my children is not to be afraid of people who are different, and because there have been times in our history where I was considered different. And one of the things I think the next president has to do is to stop fanning people’s fears.
Q: Have you sat down with your daughters to talk about same-sex marriage?
A: My wife has.
Source: 2007 Democratic primary debate at Dartmouth College Sep 6, 2007
Reasons to agree:

1. People get very upset with government. They want it to do all these things and have all these powers, but then they get upset with the things it does that they don't like. The only way to solve it is to keep the government totally out of the raising children, business. That should be up to parents and gaurdians. If you push to give the government power to promote your way of life, you or your children are going to suffer some consequence, because you gave the government power to meddle, and someday you won't like the decision it makes with the power you gave it.
2. When I say that government forces people, I'm talking about parents in Massachusetts that are not given the option to exclude their six year olds from hearing about "A king and A king" gay children's stories.
   
3. Obama is not sending his kids to private school. He gets to choose what his children are exposed to. However poor kids have to be exposed to whatever social experiments those in power feel like playing at the time.

PS: This post is kind of complicated. I say that Obama is ok to make that decision himself, but his support of gay marrage in California, would mean that parents would no longer get to be involved in these types of decisions, because parents in Massachussetts were refused this right when they passed gay marriage. So I am saying Obama is both right and wrong. If you disagree that that is an OK decision for parents or teachers to make, I would love to hear your arguments, however I think the decision is a good one for parents to make, but a bad one for teachers to make.

Obama is wrong about Republicans

Obama said: "The Republicans may have a different attitude, because they haven’t been appearing before forums that are diverse. The policies that they have promoted have not been good at providing ladders for upward mobility and opportunity for all people. That is a fight that all of us will fight. But I don’t want us to get drawn into this notion that somehow this is going to be a race that splits along racial lines. Source: 2008 Congressional Black Caucus Democratic debate Jan 21, 2008.

Reasons to disagree with Obama:

1. Obama said that republican policies, "have not been good at providing ladders for upward mobility and opportunity for all people". However democrats have been in a majority in all the places most hard hit by poverty for the last 60 years. We have spent hundreds of trillions of dollars on poverty. Democrats have been in charge in New Orleans, for decades, but somehow republicans got blamed for their problems. Democrats have been in charge in all the places hit by poverty for a long time it is their policies that destroyed the family that destroyed initiative that created families that never got jobs, but lived off the welfare system. It is the democratic policies that have failed. It is republican policies that have not been given a chance in these democratic strong holds. 
   

2. Republicans are not in charge in Detroit. Republicans can not be blamed for these problems.
3. Republicans are not in charge in Chicago. Republicans can not be blamed for these problems.
4. Republicans are not in charge in New York. Republicans can not be blamed for these problems.
5. Republicans are not in charge in Las Angleles. Republicans can not be blamed for these problems.
6. Republicans are not in charge in New Orleans.  Republicans can not be blamed for these problems.

Obama was wrong on the Program Assessment Rating Tool Bill

Amendment intends to pay down the Federal debt and eliminate government waste by reducing spending on programs rated ineffective by the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART).

Reasons to disagree with Obama:

1. We have programs out there that have made absolutely no effort at all to measure their results. I believe these are the worst offenders. In the following years, I hope Congress will look at those programs to create accountability. Reference: Allard Amendment; Bill S.Amdt.491 on S.Con.Res.21 ; vote number 2007-090 on Mar 22, 2007
   
2. People like Obama always critisize business, but government needs to learn that it is the outcome that matters not how much money is thrown at a problem.

Obama is wrong on the Free Market

Background: Obama said; "It's useful to remind ourselves that our free market system is the result neither of natural law nor of Divine Providence. Rather, it emerged through a painful process of trial and error. And although the benefits of our free market system are mostly derived from the individual efforts of generations of men and women pursuing their own vision of happiness, in each and every period of great economic upheaval and transition we depended on government action to open up opportunity, encourage competition, and make the market work better." ~ Obamanomics, by John R. Talbott, p. 69 Jul 1, 2008

Reasons to disagree with Obama:

1. How does Obama know what divine providence is? Obama is not only a politician, but a prophit who can tell us what the mind of God is? 

2. Obama is way wrong to say that the free market does not follow natural law. The free market works, when it follows natural law. One natural law is the law of the harvest: that you reap what you sow.  Liberals often want to remove the law of the harvest. They don’t want people to be punished for making bad decisions. They want to create an unnatural ecosystem. Also nature thrives when there is a vibrant ecosystem. In the same way, the economic ecosystem does not work very well when there are monopolies.  Obama will suffer to the degree that he makes the market not follow natural law.

Obama is wrong on protecting the rural economy

Reasons to agree with Obama:

1. Government should not "protect" one aspect of our economy. This is called corporate welfare. Obama just wanted the votes of rural downstate votors.

Obama said; "Our rural communities are the backbone of Illinois. Yet, factories have closed, jobs have disappeared, and homes and farms have been foreclosed upon. Effective federal programs are necessary to protect the rural economy." Source: Campaign website, ObamaForIllinois.com, On The Issues May 2, 2004

Obama is wrong on the Ownership Society

Background: 

In a 2005 commencement address, Obama described the conservative philosophy of government as “to give everyone one big refund on their government, divvy it up by individual portions, in the form of tax breaks, hand it out, and encourage everyone to use their share to go buy their own health care, their own retirement plan, their own child care, their own education, and so on. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society. But in our past there has been another term for it, Social Darwinism, every man or woman for him or herself. It’s a tempting idea, because it doesn’t require much thought or ingenuity.“

Reasons to agree (that Obama is wrong)

1. Obama says the ownership society is the same as social darwinism. People take care of stuff they own. However, if the government gives you a house, you will not take good care of it. If the government gives you free healthcare, you will over-use it. Everyone miximizes their own reward. That is why the ownership society works. It works on rewarding good behavior. The anti-social darwinist want to reward bad behavior, and punish good behavior. This has never, and will never work.

Obama often mischaracterizes the views of those he disagrees with

Reasons to agree:

1.        Obama said; "The fact that we’re spending $12 billion every month in Iraq means that we can’t engage in the kind of infrastructure improvements that are going to make us more competitive, we can’t deliver on the kinds of health care reforms that Clinton and I are looking for. McCain is willing to have these troops over there for 100 years. The notion that we would sustain that kind of effort and neglect not only making us more secure here at home, more competitive here at home, allow our economy to sink." -Source: 2008 Democratic debate at University of Texas in Austin Feb 21, 2008. Obama was saying that McCain was going to be spending $12 billion a month in Iraq. All McCain was saying is that we still have troops in Germany, and Japan. That it's not a problem having our troops in a place, its just a problem if people are dying, and money is being spent. Obama mischaracterized what McCain said.

2.       Obama constantly made fun of McCain for saying that the fundamentals of our economy were sound. For instance in the 1st presidential debate on September 26th, 2008, he said: "Ten days ago McCain said the fundamentals of the economy are sound." However Obama said the exact same thing when he was president. What they both meant was that we still have natural resources, educated people, and stuff. Obama tried to make it sound like McCain was out of touch, and didn't know there was a recession, but McCain acknowledged how bad things were in the sentence before the one Obama always quoted, yet Obama chose to always take him out of context. In this way Obama is a typical politician.

Obama is a hypocrite

Reasons to disagree with Obama:

1. Obama self rightously accused Clinton of "resort(ing) to the same typical politics that we’ve seen in Washington" (2008 Congressional Black Caucus Democratic debate Jan 21, 2008) and then accused her of mischaracterizing his beliefs. However Obama often mischaracterizes the views of those he disagrees with .

Interest of those who agree
Interest of those who disagree
Webpages that agree
Webpages that agree

Obama is wrong to always use strawman arguments

Reasons to agree:

1. Obama said; "It's not going to happen. We're not going to go round them up ... We should give them a pathway to citizenship (Obama at Joliet town hall)" But no one wants to "round them up".
2. Obama used strawman arguments with the stimulas bill. Whenever people would criticize it, he would say, "well some people don't want to do anything".

Background:
A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position

Interest of those who agree (that Obama is wrong):

1. Promoting the Republican Party by attacking a democrat.
2. Promoting more logical debate.
3. Racism (criticizing a minority, Obama, because he is a minority).
   

Interest of those who disagree (that Obama is wrong):

1. Promoting the Democratic Party by defending a democrat.
   
2. Liberal guilt (defending a minority, Obama, because he is a minority).