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 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.

There was too much pork in the stimulus bill

Reasons to agree:

1. "One of Obama's most poignant missed opportunities was in not using the historic $787 million stimulus package to reorder state and local government's spending priorities. As states and cities continue to spend ceaselessly and without results on education and healthcare, they're crowding out investments in the physical infrastructure that the private sector needs to rebuild the economy.

"In the stimulus, of the more than $200 billion that went directly to states and cities, nearly 70% went to education and healthcare spending. Only 24% went to infrastructure spending.

"But the states and cities in the most trouble already spend way too much on education and healthcare, pushing taxes up and sending private industry away. They don't spend nearly enough on infrastructure, which attracts the private sector and builds the real economy.

"As David Walker, former comptroller general of the US, said at the Regional Plan Association's annual meeting a week ago, nationwide, we are the 'highest in the world' on education. We are 'the highest in the world' on healthcare. 'Nobody comes even close.' On infrastructure, by contrast, we are 'below average' in both critical new investments and in much-needed maintenance spending.

"And, as Democratic governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell said at the same conference, when President Dwight Eisenhower left office, infrastructure spending was about 12.5% of non-military domestic spending. Today, it's about 2.5%.

"This shortfall is obvious to anyone who's ridden on an "express train" to the outer boroughs or driven on the Cross Bronx Expressway recently. But in New York, as elsewhere, the stimulus money has just allowed the state to ramp up spending on its wasteful, inhumane Medicaid program and its nosebleed public-school spending.

"Meanwhile, the subways are about to crumble into oblivion -- taking the economy with them. The same is true of decaying infrastructure in California and in aging states across the nation.

"The stimulus was a once-in-a-generation chance to change this. Instead, it made the situation worse."

-- Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor to City Journal

Probable interest 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.

Probable interest of those who disagree:

1. They disagree with the argument, outside of any interest or alterior motivation (30%)
   
2. Democratic party groupism (40%)
3. Liberal guilt.
4. Political laziness & issue crossover.

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.

Interest of those who agree: Liberal guilt (environment)

When I say that someone is motivated by liberal guilt towards the environment, I mean it as a bad thing. I'm talking about the guilt that knows we have been bad to the environment in the past, and assumes that everything that we do to alter the environment is going to harm it. It assumes it is impossible for mankind to help the environment, even if evidence contrary to their guilt, suggest that an action might increase biodiversity, or the quantity of animal or plant life.