Showing posts with label Reasons to agree and disagree with President Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reasons to agree and disagree with President Obama. Show all posts

Interest of those who agree and disagree with Obama: Money

Poor people are usually democrats, because they think they will get more money from the government if they support democrats.

Rich people tend to be republicans, because they think they will keep more money if they support other republicans.

It has nothing to do with what system people thinks works best, or what type of government works best. It usually has all to do with self interest or greed.

Obama openly promised that he would raise taxes on the very rich and give more to the “middle class”. On video tape he said he would "spread the wealth around".

Self interest is a bad motivation, because if everyone only acted on self interest, bad things would happen.

We need people to act out of what they think will be best for their grandchildren.

Republicans would say that Rich people don't want to keep more of their money, they think that this is the cart before the horse. Republicans will say that people who are self reliant, and don't want anything from the government, will become rich. Republicans will say that they would not want anything from the government even if they were poor, and that their rugged individualism would cause them to eventually become rich, or if they were able to pass their self reliance onto their children, that their children would become rich.

Some wealthy people are democrats, and believe that they and other wealthy people should pay more taxes. But the great majority of Rich people are republicans, and the great majority of poor people are democrats. This means most people are acting out of self interest, which is to be expected.

Political Laziness and Issue-Crossover

This is republicans disagreeing with Obama because he is a Democrat, even when he is doing conservative things.

This is democrats defending Obama, even if they would have attacked Bush for doing the same thing.

The cause is political laziness and the result is issue crossover. 

Issue crossover is when you agree with Obama on one thing, and so you tend to give him the benefit of the doubt on other issues. This is only natural, but it can lead to bad policy. 

It is like giving Hitler the benefit of the doubt on his policy towards invading his neighbors, because you like his progressive environmental policy (OK you idiots; I am not comparing Hitler to Obama. I am using a good logical debating technique of proving a point with an extreme case). 

This means that democrats and republicans need to work with each other when they agree, because the other side has to be right some of the time, no matter how bad they are. And this also requires democrats and republicans to oppose people from their same party, because this will result in policy based on thought and logic, instead of whether or not you like the person in power.

Not being politically lazy means you have to think about each issue, instead of republicans who don't like Obama for one thing he did, crossing over that distaste for Obama's decision, to another issue.

Obama is an inspiration

Reasons to agree:
  1. I had political beliefs before Obama came along. I will have them even when we have a new president. My dislike for Obama's policy has nothing to do with him, but my preference for libraterial and republican beliefs (mostly). I like Obama. I think he will be good for our country and an inspiration for millions. I focus on him because he is the most visual proponent of democratic agenda. I could just post what I believe, but people wouldn't care, and so I post what I believe with respect to why I think Obama is right or wrong. Anyways I just want to say that I believe Obama is an inspiration. 

JUAN WILLIAMS: Obama’s Outrageous Sin Against Our Kids

Juan Williams

http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/04/20/williams_obama_dc/

As I watch Washington politics I am not easily given to rage.

Washington politics is a game and selfishness, out-sized egos and corruption are predictable.

But over the last week I find myself in a fury.

The cause of my upset is watching the key civil rights issue of this generation — improving big city public school education — get tossed overboard by political gamesmanship (Romney has said "Some kids, particularly certain minority populations, are falling behind. Horace Mann said that education was the great equalizer. But in too many of our schools today, that is not being achieved. I believe that the failure of education in urban schools is the civil rights issue of our generation." –Source: 2006 State of the State Address, January 2006). If there is one goal that deserves to be held above day-to-day partisanship and pettiness of ordinary politics it is the effort to end the scandalous poor level of academic achievement and abysmally high drop-out rates for America's black and Hispanic students.

This is critical to our nation's future in terms of workforce preparation to compete in a global economy but also to fulfill the idea of racial equality by providing a real equal opportunity for all young people who are willing to work hard to succeed.

In a politically calculated dance step the Obama team first indicated that they wanted the Opportunity Scholarship Program to continue for students lucky enough to have won one of the vouchers. The five-year school voucher program is scheduled to expire after the school year ending in June 2010. Secretary Duncan said in early March that it didn't make sense "to take kids out of a school where they're happy and safe and satisfied and learning…those kids need to stay in their school."

And all along the administration indicated that pending evidence that this voucher program or any other produces better test scores for students they were willing to fight for it. The president has said that when it comes to better schools he is open to supporting "what works for kids." That looked like a level playing field on which to evaluate the program and even possibly expanding the program.

But last week Secretary Duncan announced that he will not allow any new students to enter the D.C. voucher program. In fact, he had to take back the government's offer of scholarships to 200 students who had won a lottery to get into the program starting next year. His rationale is that if the program does not win new funding from Congress then those students might have to go back to public school in a year.

He does not want to give the students a chance for a year in a better school? That does not make sense if the students and their families want that life-line of hope. It does not make sense if there is a real chance that the program might win new funding as parents, educators and politicians rally to undo the "bigotry of low expectations" and open doors of opportunity — wherever they exist — for more low-income students.

And now Secretary Duncan has applied a sly, political check-mate for the D.C. voucher plan.

With no living, breathing students profiting from the program to give it a face and stand and defend it the Congress has little political pressure to put new money into the program. The political pressure will be coming exclusively from the teacher's unions who oppose the vouchers, just as they oppose No Child Left Behind and charter schools and every other effort at reforming public schools that continue to fail the nation's most vulnerable young people, low income blacks and Hispanics.

The National Education Association and other teachers' unions have put millions into Democrats' congressional campaigns because they oppose Republican efforts to challenge unions on their resistance to school reform and specifically their refusal to support ideas such as performance-based pay for teacherswho raise students' test scores.

By going along with Secretary Duncan's plan to hollow out the D.C. voucher program this president, who has spoken so passionately about the importance of education, is playing rank politics with the education of poor children. It is an outrage.

This voucher programs is unique in that it takes no money away from the beleaguered District of Columbia Public Schools. Nationwide, the strongest argument from opponents of vouchers is that it drains hard-to-find dollars from public schools that educate the majority of children.

But Congress approved the D.C. plan as an experiment and funded it separately from the D.C. school budget. It is the most generous voucher program in the nation, offering $7,500 per child to help with tuition to a parochial or private school.

With that line of attack off the table, critics of vouchers pointed out that even $7,500 is not enough to pay for the full tuition to private schools where the price of a year's education can easily go beyond $20,000. But nearly 8,000 students applied for the vouchers. And a quarter of them, 1,714 children, won the lottery and took the money as a ticket out of the D.C. public schools.

The students, almost all of them black and Hispanic, patched together the voucher money with scholarships, other grants and parents willing to make sacrifices to pay their tuition.

What happened, according to a Department of Education study, is that after three years the voucher students scored 3.7 months higher on reading than students who remained in the D.C. schools. In addition, students who came into the D.C. voucher program when it first started had a 19 month advantage in reading after three years in private schools.

It is really upsetting to see that the Heritage Foundation has discoverd that 38 percent of the members of Congress made the choice to put their children in private schools. Of course, Secretary Duncan has said he decided not to live in Washington, D.C. because he did not want his children to go to public schools there. And President Obama, who has no choice but to live in the White House, does not send his two daughters to D.C. public schools, either. They attend a private school, Sidwell Friends, along with two students who got there because of the voucher program.

This reckless dismantling of the D.C. voucher program does not bode well for arguments to come about standards in the effort to reauthorize No Child Left Behind. It does not speak well of the promise of President Obama to be the "Education President,' who once seemed primed to stand up for all children who want to learn and especially minority children.

And its time for all of us to get outraged about this sin against our children.

Obama is right on the Alaskan natural gas pipeline


Reasons to agree:
  1. In a speech given in Lansing, Michigan, Senator Obama called for the completion of the Alaska natural gas pipeline, stating, “Over the next five years, we should also lease more of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska for oil and gas production. And we should also tap more of our substantial natural gas reserves and work with the Canadian government to finally build the Alaska natural gas pipeline, delivering clean natural gas and creating good jobs in the process.“ 
  2. Natural Gas is cleaner than coal.
Probable interest (or motive) of those who agree:
  1. Republican Party Affiliation (40%)
  2. They agree with the argument, outside of any interest or alterior motivation (30%)
  3. Racism (5%)
  4. Political laziness & issue crossover.
  5. Money for those living in Alaska, or in the Energy market.
  6. The desire for lower cost natural gas (more supply)
Probable interest (or motive)  of those who disagree:
  1. They agree with the argument, outside of any interest or alterior motivation (30%)
  2. Democratic party groupism (40%)
  3. Liberal guilt.
  4. Political laziness & issue crossover.
  5. Money. The desire to sell products to people in Cuba.
  6. The desire to see higher prices, so people use forced to think more about their energy decisions. 

A LITTLE GUN HISTORY

In 1929, the  Soviet Union  established gun control. >From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. 
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In 1911,  Turkey  established gun control.. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. 
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Germany  established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated. 
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---- 
  
China  established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated 
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---- 
  
Guatemala  established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. 
    ---- ------------- ------------- 
  
Uganda  established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. 
    --------------------------
---- 
  
Cambodia  established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million educated people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. 
    --------------------------
--- 
  
Defenseless people rounded up and exterminated in the 20th Century because of gun control: 56 million.. 
    --------------------------
---- 
  
It has now been 12 months since gun owners in  Australia  were forced by new law to surrender 640,381 personal firearms to be destroyed by their own Government, a program costing  Australia  taxpayers more than $500 million dollars. The first year results are now in: 
  
List of 7 items: 
  
Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent. 
  
Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent.
  
Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent)! 
  
In the state of  Victoria  alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent. Note that while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not, and criminals still possess their guns! 
  
While figures over the previous 25 years showed a steady decrease in armed robbery with firearms, this has changed drastically upward in the past 12 months, since criminals now are guaranteed that their prey is unarmed. 
  
There has also been a dramatic increase in break-ins and assaults of the ELDERLY. Australian politicians are at a loss to explain how public safety has decreased, after such monumental effort, and expense was expended in successfully ridding Australian society of guns. The Australian experience and the other historical facts above prove it. 

Thanks for linking to this blog

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http://ffgop.canalblog.com/archives/2009/04/08/13308145.html

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Just copy and paste it into this site,

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...and this is what you get

Constructive criticism is one thing that the Democrats (and the Left in general) cannot do.

Right, we seek to improve things, to solve problems. On this same site and with the media, we do not hesitate to support the U.S. President when he's right, even if it is democratic.

Supporters of Mitt Romney released a website with this in mind. The idea is to use the quotes and actions of Barack Obama, and explain how its actions are positive, negative or otherwise.

Visit!

http://r2aadwo.blogspot.com/

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Obama is a republican when it comes to his family, but wants us to live like democrats.

Reasons to agree:



  1. Obams says how great public schools are, however he sent his own kids to private schools while he was in Chicago and DC, but he opposes vouchers that would allow us to choose were to send our kids, like he did.

  2. Obama said that Rich people didn't pay enough taxes when Bush was president, but he is a millionare, and he didn't pay extra money to the government because he thought it was right. Infact he hardly gave any money to charity. From 2000 to 2006 he gave 1, .5, .4, 1.4, 1.2, 4.7, and then finnaly 6.1%. For 4 years in a row he gave less than 2%. Most average republicans give more than that, and most republicans that had as much as he had gave way more than him. Yet he goes on and on about great he was to work as a community organizer, when that was just a job to get him into politics.

Obama made the right decision for his kids but the wrong decision for our kids

Reasons to agree:

Obama was asked:
Q: Do you send your kids to public school or private school?
Obama said:
“A: My kids have gone to the University of Chicago Lab School, a private school, because I taught there, and it was five minutes from our house. So it was the best option for our kids. But the fact is that there are some terrific public schools in Chicago that they could be going to (notice latter why he brings this up). The problem is, is that we don’t have good schools, public schools, for all kids. A US senator can get his kid into a terrific public school (if this is true, why did he send his kids to a private school? He says that it was close, but you would think that if he doesn’t support vouchers, that he only wants us to send out kids to public schools, that he would go to the extra effort). That’s not the question (yes it is. The question you were asked is if you send your kids to public or private schools). The question is whether or not ordinary parents, who can’t work the system, are able to get their kids into a decent school, and that’s what I need to fight for and will fight for as president. “2007 YouTube Democratic Primary debate, Charleston SC Jul 23, 2007.

Obama said he wants to help make it so that “parents, who can’t work the system, are able to get their kids into a decent school”, but he doesn’t want them to have the choice he made ol sending them to a private school.
So all the talk about how great our public schools goes out the doors when he makes decisions about his own family.
We aren’t good enough to get vouchers so we can choose were to send out kids… For us, public schools are the best choice, but for him he is going to use a private school.
It goes to show that people are very democratic, when talking about others, but everyone becomes a republican and looks out for their best interest when it comes to their family.
Again Obama made millions of dollars, and always says how the rich need to give more of their share, but he didn’t make any extra donations to uncle Sam himself, so his words are not for him to live by, just others.
But that is the right decision. It shows he loves his kids.
Now he just needs to make the right decision and love our children and give them vouchers so we can make the same decision he made.

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 see more competition in Education (20%).
  5. Hope in the future.
  6. Desire for equality, and better schools for minorities.
  7. Racism (5%)
  8. Dislike for unions (5%).
  9. Preference for variety (many different approaches to education)
  10. Despare. We have tried everything else, why not try vouchers.
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. Solidarity with the teachers union.

Obama was wrong to have voted against Roberts

Obama is Wrong:


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.[5If 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 right about anti-intellectualism

Obama is Right!


Reasons to agree:



  1. People hate smart kids.

  2. Americans are way over-fascinated with calling smart people nerds, and geeks. This is not done so much in other cultures.



Background: “I try to avoid an either/or approach to solving the problems of this country. There are questions of individual responsibility and questions of societal responsibility to be dealt with. The best example is an education. I’m going to insist that we’ve got decent funding, enough teachers, and computers in the classroom, but unless you turn off the television set and get over a certain anti-intellectualism that I think pervades some low-income communities, our children are not going to achieve.” ~ Meet The Press, NBC News Jul 25, 2004


Obama is right about evolution



Obama is Right!


 Q: If one of your daughters asked you, “Daddy, did God really create the world in 6 days?” What would you say?


A: What I believe is that God created the universe, and that the 6 days in the Bible may not be 6 days as we understand it. My belief is that the story that the Bible tells about God creating this magnificent Earth, that is fundamentally true. Now whether it happened exactly as we might understand it reading the text of the Bible, that I don’t presume to know. But one last point--I do believe in evolution. I don’t think that is incompatible with Christian faith. Just as I don’t think science generally is incompatible with Christian faith. There are those who suggest that if you have a scientific bent of mind, then somehow you should reject religion. And I fundamentally disagree with that. In fact, the more I learn about the world, the more I know about science, the more I’m amazed about the mystery of this planet and this universe. And it strengthens my faith as opposed to weakens it.


Source: 2008 Democratic Compassion Forum at Messiah College Apr 13, 2008

Obama is right on Merit Pay




Reasons to agree:



  1. We should reward good behavior and punish bad behavior


  2. “ Teachers are extraordinarily frustrated about how their performance is assessed. And not just their own performance, but the school’s performance generally. So they’re teaching to the tests all the time. What I have said is that we should be able to get buy-in from teachers in terms of how to measure progress. Every teacher I think wants to succeed. And if we give them a pathway to professional development, where we’re creating master teachers, they are helping with apprenticeships for young new teachers, they are involved in a variety of other activities, that are really adding value to the schools, then we should be able to give them more money for it. But we should only do it if the teachers themselves have some buy-in in terms of how they’re measured. They can’t be judged simply on standardized tests that don’t take into account whether children are prepared before they get to school or not.” ~ Barack Obama, 2007 Democratic primary debate on “This Week” Aug 19, 2007





Background





Q: As president, can you name a hot-button issue where you would be willing to buck the Democratic Party line & say, “You know what? Republicans have a better idea here?”


A: I think that on issues of education, I’ve been very clear about the fact--and sometimes I’ve gotten in trouble with the teachers’ union on this--that we should be experimenting with charter schools. We should be experimenting with different ways of compensating teachers.


Q: You mean merit pay?


A: Well, merit pay, the way it’s been designed, I think, is based on just a single standardized test--I think is a big mistake, because the way we measure performance may be skewed by whether or not the kids are coming into school already 3 years or 4 years behind. But I think that having assessment tools and then saying, “You know what? Teachers who are on career paths to become better teachers, developing themselves professionally--that we should pay excellence more.” I think that’s a good idea.


Source: 2008 Fox News interview: presidential series Apr 27, 2008


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"

Obama is Wrong:


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 right to want higher teaching standards

Reasons to agree:
  1. Those students in Education departments across the country have had worse ACT, and SAT grades than other college departments. They even have worse grades than Criminal Justice departments (cops). It is sad that cops can know math, geography, history, and science, better than those that we put in charge of teaching our children. We need higher standards for teachers, if we are going to pay them more. I'm not saying every teacher is stupid. If you are a teacher, and you are offended, than you prove my point. You are stupid. The facts are the facts, and if you get mad because of the facts, than you are stupid. I'm from Idaho. I'm not offended when you say bad things about people from Idaho, in general, because I know that you are not talking about me specifically. Of course their are a lot of very smart people who are teachers. I thought about going into teaching. My father, whom I love and respect very much is a teacher. My mother in law is also a very good teacher. Two of my 3 brothers got degrees in teaching. Their is nothing wrong with teachers, with colleges of education, etc, we just need to raise their standards if we want our students to do better. 
"I’ll recruit an army of new teachers, pay them higher salaries and give them more support. In exchange, I’ll ask for higher standards and more accountability." ~ Barack Obama speech at 2008 Democratic National Convention Aug 27, 2008.

Obama is right that quitting high school is quitting on your country

Reasons to agree:
  1. "In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity--it is a prerequisite. And yet, we have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation. And half of the students who begin college never finish. This is a prescription for economic decline. So tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It's not just quitting on yourself, it's quitting on your country. That's why we will provide the support necessary for all young Americans to complete college and meet a new goal: By 2020, America will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world."  Source: 2009 State of the Union address Feb 24, 2009


Obama is melodramatic

Obama is Wrong:
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

Obama is Wrong:
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:

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

Reasons to agree:
  1.  The person who is buying the ecstasy wants to buy it.
Reasons to disagree:

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

Obama is Wrong:


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