If Obama were elected... [no flaming]

[Sacul15]

Doesn't Obama realize that nuclear is one of the safest and cleanest sources of energy out there? He's essentially saying he supports it, but doesn't think we should have it at the same time. To me, it seems like he just wants to play it safe and not take a side.

And sure, drilling can't be our only solution, but it sure can't hurt.

[Mango]

Obama is for socialised healthcare, which given the state of the American economy would be disastrous.

[stoopdapoop]

Doesn't Obama realize that nuclear is one of the safest and cleanest sources of energy out there? He's essentially saying he supports it, but doesn't think we should have it at the same time. To me, it seems like he just wants to play it safe and not take a side.

And sure, drilling can't be our only solution, but it sure can't hurt.

Nuclear power is about as clean as Yukka Mountain, and Obama see's that. He's not saying we shouldn't have it, he's saying it's broken and it needs to be fixed, and he's absolutely right about that. I'm not afraid of some retarded terrorists stealing my spent uranium pods, but nuclear waste is still... well... Nuclear waste, and just throwing it around is hardly "clean" as you guys like to put, maybe it has no carbon emission but I don't really like the idea of such a large radioactive burial ground in my country.

And what the hell are you saying it can't hurt? did you even read his stance? He's forcing companies to use their offshore land to drill, you're just wrong about him not support it.

Also Socialized healthcare would be payed for by the money saved by not fighing in iraq "for another 100 years" as McCain suggest, and by increased tax revenues, which don't negatively effect anyone, not even the people who're being taxed more (being 5% of the country)

[R26]

Obama is for socialised healthcare, which given the state of the American economy would be disastrous.

This your problem. It isn't socialized. You Americans are afraid of the word "social". You current privatized system in the real disaster here.

[MasterDonut]

Obama is for socialised healthcare, which given the state of the American economy would be disastrous.

This your problem. It isn't socialized. You Americans are afraid of the word "social". You current privatized system in the real disaster here.

...as he said.

[Sacul15]

I'll just leave this here...

[Mango]

Also Socialized healthcare would be payed for by the money saved by not fighing in iraq "for another 100 years" as McCain suggest, and by increased tax revenues, which don't negatively effect anyone, not even the people who're being taxed more (being 5% of the country)

Hmm, I posted a message yesterday, but it appears to have gone. Anyway, from memory:

I don't believe that the US military will leave Iraq or Afghanistan. Defense contractors have been making a killing over there building military bases, urban reconstruction (after they blew it to pieces), security, PMC etc. I can't really see them saying "Oh well, the ride is over. It was good while it lasted." The defense industry has a vested interest in keeping the war going, and they are the most powerful and influential lobbying group in the US. There are permanent military bases along the trans-Caspian pipeline for a reason. Throw in the fact that an a war with Iran is likely to occur, and the US's escalating involvement in Pakistan (which is a post all by itself, google 'airlift of evil'), they will want to use Iraq as a base in the middle east.

It is estimated that the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq has cost $600 billion. That is a huge amount of money, considering that the defense budget is $800 billion pa. However, it has been documented that the pentagon is losing 2.3 trillion a year. Gone. Missing. Vamoose. Unaccounted for. That is a phenomenal amount of money.

With the housing market as it is, the US cannot realistically afford socialized health care. EDIT: Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac guarantee $6 trillion of mortgage debt, factor in fractional reserve lending and it's $60 trillion, add gearing and leveraging to that an it reaches over $100 trillion dollars*. The fact is that the government /can/ afford it, it will just borrow more and more money from the Fed, plunging America deeper and deeper into debt. This fact, coupled with the recent news that the US govt has agreed to take over the mortgage giants and become responsible for ALL of their debt should set the alarm bells ringing. If you realized how serious the situation is, you would probably agree.

Anyway, the debt is actually mathematically unpayable. Even if you sold off ever asset the US owns (and boy have the govt been trying that, selling the toll roads and deepwater ports is the tip of the iceberg) you could never pay off the debt.

*It's even more than this but I'm being conservative.

[k-dawg]

Also Socialized healthcare would be payed for by the money saved by not fighing in iraq "for another 100 years" as McCain suggest, and by increased tax revenues, which don't negatively effect anyone, not even the people who're being taxed more (being 5% of the country)

Hmm, I posted a message yesterday, but it appears to have gone. Anyway, from memory:

I don't believe that the US military will leave Iraq or Afghanistan. Defense contractors have been making a killing over there building military bases, urban reconstruction (after they blew it to pieces), security, PMC etc. I can't really see them saying "Oh well, the ride is over. It was good while it lasted." The defense industry has a vested interest in keeping the war going, and they are the most powerful and influential lobbying group in the US. There are permanent military bases along the trans-Caspian pipeline for a reason. Throw in the fact that an a war with Iran is likely to occur, and the US's escalating involvement in Pakistan (which is a post all by itself, google 'airlift of evil'), they will want to use Iraq as a base in the middle east.

It is estimated that the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq has cost $600 billion. That is a huge amount of money, considering that the defense budget is $800 billion pa. However, it has been documented that the pentagon is losing 2.3 trillion a year. Gone. Missing. Vamoose. Unaccounted for. That is a phenomenal amount of money.

With the housing market as it is, the US cannot realistically afford socialized health care. Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac are into 3 trillion of debt, factor in all the leveraging and gearing and you could easily quadruple that. The fact is that the government /can/ afford it, it will just borrow more and more money from the Fed, plunging America deeper and deeper into debt. This fact, coupled with the recent news that the US govt has agreed to take over the mortgage giants and become responsible for ALL of their debt should set the alarm bells ringing. If you realized how serious the situation is, you would probably agree.

Anyway, the debt is actually mathematically unpayable. Even if you sold off ever asset the US owns (and boy have the govt been trying that, selling the toll roads and deepwater ports is the tip of the iceberg) you could never pay off the debt.

so we move to europe?
=P whats the big deal. lol

[Mango]

The big deal is that your nation has been ransacked. Anyway, Europe is under the same system and the same system is being implemented globally. There is nowhere to run.

[Shr3d]

I selected "still hate it", because until the way things over work change, there's really no point in counting ducks before the eggs hatch.

[Mr. Happy]

First off, nothing the Cato institute says matters. No one should even read that, it's just propaganda. It'd be like if I posted something from moveon.org to back up my positions.

Doesn't Obama realize that nuclear is one of the safest and cleanest sources of energy out there? He's essentially saying he supports it, but doesn't think we should have it at the same time. To me, it seems like he just wants to play it safe and not take a side.

And sure, drilling can't be our only solution, but it sure can't hurt.

stoppdapoop is right. Nuclear is the way to go, here's the problem:

-all nuclear power plant designs are outdated.
-nevadan's are blocking yucca mountain from opening
-with red tape adn construction time it takes something like 15-20 years for a nuclear power plant to begin operation.

As for drilling....no. Just, no. All it CAN do is hurt.

1. It'll take at least ten years to setup the infrastructure for offshore oil rigs.
2. The Alaska pipeline has a fairly low flow limit. True, we are not meeting that, but even if it was filled to capacity it wouldn't affect our daily consumption rate much.
3. There is VERY LITTLE oil off the coasts. Sure, people throw around terms like "millions of barrels" but they forget to mention how much we use everyday. Theres only a couple years or less supply there.
4. It hurts the environment. You may not care about that, but it's still harm!

So, what can drilling do? Well, let's see. Lull people into a false sense of oil security, supply us with a tiny bit of oild in a decade, and harm the environment. Sounds like a sensible thing to invest money in.

[Sacul15]

First off, nothing the Cato institute says matters. No one should even read that, it's just propaganda. It'd be like if I posted something from moveon.org to back up my positions.

Fair enough. I still think it's valid since opinions are backed by numbers, but you don't like it so I'll try some other articles. It was just the first one I found on Google that listed the major drawbacks to socialized medicine. This may seem like a cop out of an argument, and frankly it is since I've already argued all of these points in about three other threads.

Here are some articles that aren't from the CATO institute:
http://www.angelfire.com/pa/sergeman/issues/healthcare/socialized.html
http://socglory.blogspot.com/
To be fair, here's this one as well
http://www.balancedpolitics.org/universal_health_care.htm
The only valid reason on the list is point 6. Essentially every other problem could be fixed by less government control over health care.

1. It'll take at least ten years to setup the infrastructure for offshore oil rigs.
2. The Alaska pipeline has a fairly low flow limit. True, we are not meeting that, but even if it was filled to capacity it wouldn't affect our daily consumption rate much.
3. There is VERY LITTLE oil off the coasts. Sure, people throw around terms like "millions of barrels" but they forget to mention how much we use everyday. Theres only a couple years or less supply there.
4. It hurts the environment. You may not care about that, but it's still harm!

1, 2, 3: If what you say is true then no private investor would bother investing in it anyway. Obviously that is not the case. The issue isn't whether or not to make oil companies drill there, but whether or not to allow them to make the decision on their own.

4: No, it hurts nature. Our environment consists of nature, as well as homes and agriculture and industry. We are hurting the important parts of the human environment by not drilling.

[stoopdapoop]

1, 2, 3: If what you say is true then no private investor would bother investing in it anyway. Obviously that is not the case. The issue isn't whether or not to make oil companies drill there, but whether or not to allow them to make the decision on their own.

4: No, it hurts nature. Our environment consists of nature, as well as homes and agriculture and industry. We are hurting the important parts of the human environment by not drilling.

I don't see private investors bothering with it. Not even companies that are leasing the land are bothering with it.

[Sacul15]

1, 2, 3: If what you say is true then no private investor would bother investing in it anyway. Obviously that is not the case. The issue isn't whether or not to make oil companies drill there, but whether or not to allow them to make the decision on their own.

4: No, it hurts nature. Our environment consists of nature, as well as homes and agriculture and industry. We are hurting the important parts of the human environment by not drilling.

I don't see private investors bothering with it. Not even companies that are leasing the land are bothering with it.

So why do we even bother with environment (sorry, nature) protection laws in those regions?