Obama is right about anti-intellectualism

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

 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"

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

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 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

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 is right that some heinous crimes justify the ultimate punishment

Reasons to agree:

1. “While the evidence tells me that the death penalty does little to deter crime, I believe there are some crimes--mass murder, the rape and murder of a child--so heinous that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment. On the other hand, the way capital cases were tried in Illinois at the time was so rife with error, questionable police tactics, racial bias, and shoddy lawyering, that 13 death row inmates had been exonerated” The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p. 58 Oct 1, 2006

Obama is right about videotape all capital interrogations

Reasons to agree:

1. “Obama had a 2002 bill to stop police abuse. Chicago had become infamous for use of torture by police to help frame innocent people. Thirteen innocent men on Death Row were exonerated and released, some of them victims of these tortured confessions. Illinois desperately needed some action to restore confidence in the police. Obama’s proposal was to require videotaping of interrogations of suspects in capital cases. When Obama began, the idea of a bill was opposed by police, prosecutors, most of the senate and the governor. The governor was determined not to appear soft on crime, and had promised to veto any proposal for mandatory tapings. By the time Obama finished his work, the police and prosecutors embraced the bill, it passed in the Illinois Senate by a vote of 58-0. The governor took the unusual step of reversing himself to sign it, and Illinois became the first state to require such tapings.” ~ The Improbable Quest, by John K. Wilson, p.145 Oct 30, 2007. I think Obama is right, however from this paragraph it seems like some people were desperately trying to exaggerate his involvement. But none of that matters in 2012. He does not have to inflate his Resume any more.

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 is right about the disparity between sentencing crack and powder-based cocaine

Reasons to agree:

1. Rich people use cocain. Poor people use crack. It is wrong to punish the poor people more.

Obama is right to try to ban racial profiling

"Obama will work to ban racial profiling" ~ Campaign booklet, “Blueprint for Change”, p. 48-49 Feb 2, 2008

Reasons to agree:

1. Race should only be considered when it is used to describe a specific suspect in a specific crime and only when used in a manner like other physical descriptions (e.g., hair color, weight, distinguishing marks). This is often referred to as the "be on the lookout" (B.O.L.O.) exception.
   


2. “If we know that in our criminal justice system, African-Americans and whites, for the same crime, receive--are arrested at very different rates, are convicted at very different rates, receive very different sentences. That is something that we have to talk about. But that’s a substantive issue and it has to do with how do we pursue racial justice. If I am president, I will have a civil rights division that is working with local law enforcement so that they are enforcing laws fairly and justly. But I would expect a white president or a woman president should want to do the same thing, because I believe the pursuit of racial equality, of the perfection of this union, is not just a particular special interest issue of the African-American community. That is how all of us are going to move forward. And to the extent that we don’t deal with those issues, those longstanding, deep-seated issues, we will continue to be hampered. We will be competing with the world with one hand tied behind our backs.” 2008 Congressional Black Caucus Democratic debate Jan 21, 2008
   


3. 
   Q: In the last decade, whites were 70% of persons arrested, but only 40% of inmates. Why?
   
   
   
   A: The criminal justice system is not color blind. It does not work for all people equally, and that is why it’s critical to have a president who sends a signal that we are going to have a system of justice that is not just us, but is everybody. I passed racial profiling legislation at the state level. It requires some political courage, because oftentimes you are accused of being soft on crime.
   
   
   
   Source: 2007 Democratic Primary Debate at Howard University Jun 28, 2007
   
   

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 has the right approach to fatherhood

Reasons to agree:

1. “How many times in the last year has this city lost a child at the hands of another child? How many times have our hearts stopped in the middle of the night with the sound of a gunshot or a siren? How many teenagers have we seen hanging around on street corners when they should be sitting in a classroom? How many are sitting in prison when they should be working, or at least looking for a job? How many in this generation are we willing to lose to poverty or violence or addiction? How many?” “Yes, we need more cops on the street. Yes, we need fewer guns in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. Yes, we need more money for our schools. Yes, we need more jobs and more job training and more opportunity in our communities.” “But we also need families to raise our children. We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child--it’s the courage to raise one.” Barack Obama, Chicago church speech, in Change We Can Believe In, p.235 Jun 15, 2008. I'm not saying this makes Obama a better dad than Bush, or Clinton. I'm just making a comprehensive list of all the good and bad things about Obama, and I think he is a pretty good dad. We haven't gotten so bad that we don't care about this sort of thing, or elect people who are very bad to their kids.

Politicians should make fewer decisions

Reasons to agree:

1. We should not let baby-kissers make important decisions.
2. We should not let people who are willing summerize their ideas for American's future in a 30 second campaign commersial.
3. We should not give power to the type of person who wants power. No politicians are appointed. They all self-choose. This is stupid. You don't advance in the military because you want to. You advance if you imprese those above you. The same with business. Politicians should be appointed.
4. People have problems who want to control other people's lives. Politicians should get a dog, plant a garden, or have kids, and try their little experiments on a scale that will only hurt them when they make mistakes. 

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. 

We should reward good behavior and punish bad behavior

Reasons to agree:

1. People, like dogs, seek rewards, and avoid punishments.


2. The Parable of the Talents tells us that law of the harvest.


3. We can all agree on some very basic definitions of good and bad.


4. Even if we make some mistakes, and accidently call some good things bad, the effort in the long run, will result in more good being done than bad.


5. It may seem cruel to "reward" those who are smart, but it is cruel to those in the future, if we create an un-just society, or a backwards society. Our challenges that we face in the future will need smart people. We have to reward those who seek education.


6. We should reward behavior people that help the environment.

Reasons to disagree:

1. If I don't like what you call "good" and "bad" then you might end up, then I might think you are rewarding bad behavior and punishing good behavior.


2. It is hard to judge "bad" behavior. For instance, if you get bad grades, is it because you are lazy (bad), or disadvantages.

Obama is right to provide tax incentives for corporate responsibility

 

Reasons to agree:

1. We should reward good behavior and punish bad behavior


2. If you are going to have sin taxes you should also have virtue tax credits.


3. If a behavior helps America as a whole, it isn't wasting money giving tax incentives, it might actually bring in more mone.

Reasons to agree:

1. Government shouldn't determine what is "good" business behavior and "bad business behavior.


2. Some businesses could win more jobs, if they had 30% of their employers in India... for instance if they keep loosing jobs to South Korean firm, because employment cost are too high, maybe it would help them keep at least some of the work coming into the states, instead of going to companies that are 100% foreign. These should be business not political decisions. 

Background: Obama’s “REAL USA” Corporations Plan (Responsible, Accountable, Loyal USA Corporations) will reward companies that create quality jobs in America with tax incentives. Companies will be required to:

1. locate in the United States 90% of its production and employment for the sales of goods and services that are consumed here;


2. invest at least 50% of its R&D budget here in the U.S;


3. make sure their workers have access to affordable health care by providing a standardized and portable health insurance plan and pay at least 70% of the cost;


4. make sure their workers have retirement security by contributing at least 5% of payroll to a portable, multi-employer pension fund and operating a profit-sharing plan for all full time employees; and


5. limit management compensation to 50 times the lowest-paid full-time worker.


6. Source: Campaign website, ObamaForIllinois.com Jun 25, 2004

Obama is right to stand against "the excess influence of agribusiness lobbying"

 

Reasons to agree with Obama:

1. Big farms located far away are bad.


2. People should be allowed to have goats, and chickens in the suberbs.


3. 
   People should grow food not grass. It is a waste of time to plant grass, put fertilizers, pesticides, and weed killer, down, and every week mow a lawn while burning gas in a 2 cylinder engine that spits out carbon dioxide, when you could spend 1/2 the time growing a better looking yard that actually gave you fruits, vegetable, and nuts for free. There should be more local farms, and less giant farms that all produce the same thing.
   
   

Reasons to disagree:

1. Words are cheap. You shouldn't get any credit until you take actions.
   

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 reading this story 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. One of the things I want to communicate to my children is not to be afraid of people who are different because there have been times in our history when 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 with your daughters to discuss 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 the 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 this problem is to keep the government out of raising children and doing business. That should be up to parents and guardians. If you push to give the government power to promote your way of life, you or your children will suffer some consequences 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 the government forces people, I'm talking about parents in Massachusetts who 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 must be exposed to whatever social experiments those in power feel like playing at the time.

PS: This post is complicated. Obama is okay with making that decision himself. Still, his support of gay marriage in California would mean that parents would no longer get to be involved in these types of decisions because parents in Massachusetts were refused this right when they passed gay marriage. So, 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 right about the Confederate flag

Reasons to agree with Obama:

1. "I think that the Confederate flag should be put in a museum. That’s where it belongs. But we’ve got an enormous debate that’s taking place in this country right now. And we’ve got to engage the people of South Carolina in that debate." Source: 2007 South Carolina Democratic primary debate, on MSNBC Apr 26, 2007.
   

However Mike Huckabee said; "if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell 'em what to do with the pole, that's what we'd do." That is real classy when a former preacher makes jokes about sodomising someone with a flag pole.

Huckabee always talks about how he is a “Christian leader” but he made jokes about shoving a flag pole up the collective butts of people who thought the confederate flag was somewhat racist.

Obama is right about race

 

Reasons to agree with Obama:

1. Obama is right about the disparity between sentencing crack and powder-based cocaine .


2. Obama is right to try to ban racial profiling.
   


3. Obama has said: “[Those who worked on civil rights in the past realized that] to achieve racial equality was not simply good for African-Americans, but it was good for America as a whole; that we could not be what we might be as a nation unless we healed the brutal wounds of slavery and Jim Crow."


4. 
   Obama has said; "Now, we have made enormous progress, but the progress we have made is not good enough. As many have already mentioned, we live in a society that remains separated in terms of life opportunities for African-Americans, for Latinos, and the rest of the nation." Obama is right. Its not always about race, but often about historical economic opportunities. For instance, many Irish came to American in deep poverty because they were fleeing the potato famine. African American's aren't always the victim of direct racisms, but are often the victims of racism perpetrated on their parents, which caused them to have a worse life, which caused them to live in a worse neighborhood which caused difficulty for their children. With that said, my dad was a teacher in a state that didn't pay teachers very well, who had 5 kids and a stay at home mom, and I did not have very many economic advantages. I worked hard, borrowed a lot of money for college, and am now a professional engineer. Sometimes I think people look at me, who have more privileges than I had, who think I lived a cushy life. So economic advantages can often outweigh racial disadvantages, which Obama understands.
   
   


5. Obama has said; "And it is absolutely critical for us to recognize that there are going to be responsibilities on the part of African-Americans and other groups to take personal responsibility to rise up out of the problems that we face. But there has also got to be a social responsibility, there has to be a sense of mutual responsibility, and there’s got to be political will in the White House to make that happen.” Source: 2007 Democratic Primary Debate at Howard University Jun 28, 2007
   


6. "A line in my speech at the 04 Democratic National Convention struck a chord. “There is not a black American and white American and Latino America and Asian American--there is the United States of America.” For them, it seems to capture a vision of America finally freed from the past of Jim Crow and slavery, Japanese internment camps and Mexican braceros, workplace tensions and cultural conflict--an America that fulfills Dr. King’s promise that we be judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character."


7. "I have no choice but to believe this vision. As the child of a black man and white woman, born in the melting pot of Hawaii, with a sister who is half-Indonesian, but who is usually mistaken for Mexican, and a brother-in-law and niece of Chinese descent, with some relatives who resemble Margaret Thatcher and others who could pass for Bernie Mac, I never had the option of restricting my loyalties on the basis of race or measuring my worth on the basis of tribe." Source: The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p.231 Oct 1, 2006


8. "So many of the disparities that exist between the African American community and the larger American community today can be traced directly to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow." ~ Source: Speech on Race, in Change We Can Believe In, p.222-3 Mar 18, 2008
   
   
   
   
   


9. Segregated schools were and are inferior schools. We still haven’t fixed them, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.
   


10. "Legalized discrimination-- where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions--meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth & income gap between blacks and whites, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities." ~ Source: Speech on Race, in Change We Can Believe In, p.222-3 Mar 18, 2008


11. "[In his State Senate race], one of Obama’s central themes was the powerful potential of multiculturalism in American society. Rather than continually castigating whites for an oppressive history of mistreating blacks, Obama suggested, blacks would do better if they infiltrated the mainstream power structure and worked from there to effect social change" ~ Source: From Promise to Power, by David Mendell, p.113 Aug 14, 2007


12. “Any solution to our unemployment catastrophe must arise from us working creatively within a multicultural, interdependent economy,” Obama said. “Any African Americans who are only talking about racism as a barrier to our success are seriously misled if they don’t also come to grips with the larger economic forces that are creating economic insecurity for all workers.” ~ Source: From Promise to Power, by David Mendell, p.113 Aug 14, 2007


13. "His steadfast beliefs made him less than a unifying force in Chicago’s black community. The idea of building bridges to people of all races was anathema to many old-school black leaders who still sounded a voice in Chicago’s African American community." ~ Source: From Promise to Power, by David Mendell, p.113 Aug 14, 2007


14. “I believe in vigorous enforcement of our non discrimination laws. But I also believe that a transformation of conscience and a genuine commitment to diversity on the part of the nation’s CEOs could bring about quicker results than a battalion of lawyers.” ~ Source: In His Own Words, edited by Lisa Rogak, p. 34 Mar 27, 2007


15. Obama is right about the Confederate flag

Reasons to disagree with Obama:

1. Obama passed on stupid urban legends that exaggerated racial problems.


2. Obama said; “I don’t think the Democratic Party takes the African-American voters for granted. I’m happy that the president spoke at the Urban League. He should have spoke at the NAACP. I want Republicans to compete for the African-American vote. They’re not getting the African-American vote not because African-Americans aren’t open-minded, but because Democrats have consistently championed those issues-civil rights, voting rights, concern for working families-that are of greatest concern to African-American voters.” ~ Source: Meet The Press, NBC News Jul 25, 2004. Obama might be right in his explanation about why African Americans are democrats, but he is wrong about what should make someone join a party, sort-of. It is true that "Democrats have consistently championed those issues-civil rights, voting rights, concern for working families-that are of greatest concern to African-American voters” but that is not the reason you should join a political party. You don't join a party because you think that party is "on your side". You join a party because you think that political party is going to be good for your party. Obama wouldn't see it this way, but a republican would look at the things that the democratic party promises like someone should look at drugs. There is a part of you that might want it, but it will destroy your self will, yourself esteem, your community. Your drug dealer isn't your friend just because he gives you stuff. Of course this is an oversimplification. There are certain things that people need: good schools, and good services, but us republicans really respect people like Colin Powel, Clarence Thomas, Condoleezza Rice, who don't want everything the Democratic party tries to give them. I'm not saying that people make the wrong decision to become democrats, but Obama was wrong to boil the whole question down to what party will give your people the most.


3. Obama wrongly called a Boston cop stupid. 

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.