If you live in California, Obama is going to get all 55 electoral college votes anyway, so there is no downside to voting third party.
But if you live in one of the few states that actually decides who our next president will be (Ohio, Iowa, Florida, etc) then yes, everything Bob said is correct.
No downside to voting third party for President, but even in major Red/Blue states, Senate/House races can come very close and State-level officials are often close calls as well. Even more absurdly, a decent number of those State-level officials are running UNOPPOSED. Seriously, why aren't the third parties all over those ones? Those are races they can actually WIN.
Agreed. I truly do wish that there was more third party support in the race for president, but the only way that's ever going to happen is if third parties start gaining seats in the house and senate. Once that happens, then it makes much more sense to vote for a third party candidate in a presidential election. Also, good point about the Supreme Court. I shudder to think who the hell Romney would appoint if given the chance.
Did you really spend the first half of the video pointing out that viewing Obama as an objectification of idealistic leftist ideals is incredibly immature, and then go right into treating Romney as an objectification of nearly straw-man-esque vilified right wing ideals?
Are you really suggesting that the best reason to vote for Obama is the hope that some day he'll make a blindly partisan appointment of a judge you will then make blindly partisan decisions? I mean, you do realize the left hasn't exactly always been on the side of human rights, right? Their track record with the whole “freedom of speech” thing has been exceptionally poor lately.
And then more hyperbolic vilification of the right?
Oh, and I love the clip of the scientists as if Obama would continue to support them, even though you know well that Obama hasn't, and is far more likely to pull scientific funding than Romney would.
I mean, no matter of intelligently you try to word it, no matter how much you try to dramatize it, this is a logically inconsistent argument that's in denial of reality. It's as if you're trying to take all the worst aspects of stupid conservative arguments and give them a left wing spin. And it's just as stupid.
Um…. Bob at 5:38 you say what might be the most legendarily stupid thing I have ever heard an educated person say.
Bob let me ask: Have you ever been to Detroit? cause I have, I live there (or just up the road from there) and honestly its kinda fucked beyond repair. For Christ sake most of Detroit looks like a set of a goddamn zombie movie, and the shuffling hordes of homeless people don't help. Most of the abandoned houses and buildings are in complete disrepair and in in most cases have been taken over. If not by the homeless then by the many many roaming herds of feral Cats and Dogs. Seriously It's straight up post-apocalyptic here. I don't know more then 5 people that live in the city itself that have real employment. Almost everyone else is ether involved in the drug trade or is simply subsisting off the welfare system. To quote The Simpsons “Its Mad Max times there” Everyday there more horrifying news stories from the rampant corruption with in the city's Government to the almost total collapse of the public school system.
I know a lot of people that are voting for Romney, even liberals, because they see him as having the best chance to fix the economy.
I'm voting for Romney because he flip-flops, and is thus more likely to manage the parties to come to an agreement, rather than telling half the nation “Shut up and take you medicine because I know better than you what you need!”
And if it makes you feel better, he just ticked off a lot of Evangelical right-wingers by getting one of their most prominent members to take the “Mormons are a cult” language off his website, and that kind of progressivism in religious tolerance is like poison to them.
So yeah, while I hate racists, I'm kind of hoping Romney wins this thing for a lot of other reasons.
First off, Romney himself isn't really against abortion at all. Considering conservative judges aren't all ideological clones of each other (no matter what bob would like to believe), an appointment by Romney isn't necessarily one that's against abortion. And even if the judge were, that doesn't necessarily mean that they would vote to overturn it.
Second, the supreme court can't just arbitrarily declare things. A directly relevant case would have to come before them, which is fairly unlikely to happen.
Also I'm not giving Obama credit for Bin Laden's assassination.
He only made the call to proceed. Something that anyone else in that position would have done. Its not like he personally hunted him down, kicked in the door and shot him.
Obama is nothing more then another boss taking credit for the good work done by his employees.
You Obama nuts are scary people. Enjoy your NDAA and FEMA camps, Bob.
Anyone who's not indoctrinated in that ridiculous left-right paradigm understands that you have no real choice.
But keep up the American Bob videos, keep eating your GMOs, keep your head firmly in that sand and keep on believing everything is as the media says it is.
Quickly regarding the whole “Obama not getting credit for Osama bin Laden” thing.
Sorry, but it wasn't just that Obama gave the go ahead which “anyone would have done”. He gave the order to proceed WITHOUT informing the Pakistan government and also without concrete proof that Osama bin Laden was even there. We had no visual confirmation and no legal right to be there. A lot of people at his side were very very nervous about that decision. If they ended up being wrong, they would have unnecessarily raided a bunker on a hunch without the consent or awareness of the sovereign government. If bin Laden wasn't there, we would have been in DEEP SHIT. And it's also largely suspected that similar opportunities were narrowly missed because Bush and other officials didn't wish to go over Pakistan's head, which may have been tipping bin Laden off. It's entirely plausible that a different President would have thought it wiser to get Pakistan's cooperation first, which could conceivably have led to a security leak that could have given bin Laden time to move out.
Obama's move may seem like a no-brainer in retrospect, but if it had gone the other way, we would be asking, “What was Obama thinking? Any idiot would have wanted to get Pakistan's permission first!”
What he did was 1. take ressources which had been used to deal with Bush Daddy issues and allow racist voters to jerk off more easily by giving them the biggest slaughter of Arabs since the Algerian Independance War 2. Relocate them toward the region where Bin Laden was hiding.
Bob, you say “grow up”, yet you're the one acting like a spoiled fucking child. Grow a pair and admit that Obama's as bad as Romney, you fucking tool.
Fuck you and your anti-libertarian propaganda, you god-damn sheep. I hope you get fired from the escapist and end up living on the street, you fucking fascist.
Bob, even if I do disagree with you and think your critiques of the right are really, really strawman-ish, I do usually appreciate your videos because they're an intelligent person giving an alternate opinion from my own.
@Adam: It got nasty because I'm sick of Bob's egotistical bloviating. Despite what he's deluded himself into believing, he is NOT a superior being who is always right, and he should not be okay with people suffering and dying just so his “agenda” is fulfilled.
And fuck you, ya gary johnson cronie. When Obama wins and Gary Johnson loses, what address should I should I send Old Gary's tears for you to wank in?
You are a turd who has made threats to Bob, Lindsay Ellis and other fine people who have blocked you various times for being both a stalker creep, making sexual threats, and harassing their colleauges to get to them.
You are a loser and a creep. Bob could punch a blind kitten and still be a better person than you by a country mile.
And I bet you'll get off on this reply like a perverted little toady you are. I hope that someday you finally see a doctor and get on some medication, because, pal, you need it.
@Joel: I have never threatened Bob or Lindsay. I've yelled at them, insulted them, called them out for their hypocrisy, but NEVER threatened them. I won't risk trouble with the police or jail time because of a few left-wing Limbaughs.
In the past, I've made comments asking you to go away for not doing anything to actually contribute to an intelligent discussion and for resorting to repetitive, ad hominem attacks that do exactly nothing give you credibility, and I've probably come off like a pretty catty person because of it. That's why, instead of repeating those words, I'd like to offer these instead.
Please seek help. Get therapy, medication, start a blog in the vein of BatDanNight's “Irate Gamer Sucks” that's focused on Bob, do ANYTHING, but please stop doing what you're doing. You're dangerously close to crossing the line into full blown stalker. Also, I don't care how much you may be right about Gary Johnson and his ability to lead America into a more progressive future, you don't have to be such a fucking dick about it. I've followed your Twitter feed, and any time someone expresses an opinion that so much as implicitly supports the Left or the Right you spam them with the same goddamn things you spam here. You have a serious problem and unless you address it and accept the fact that even though people may support candidates for seemingly selfish reasons this does not automatically make them terrible people, than you will not get far in life. Also, your whole “Oh, I've obsessively yelled, screamed at and insulted these people for their percieved hypocrisy, but I've never THREATENED them” means fuck all at this point, because based on your previous behavior and your willingness to break promises for all we know you could very well cross that line.
One more thing: I've also witnessed your interactions on twitter that have been very pleasant, jovial and light-hearted. I know that you are not a terrible person and I'm sure that you have good intentions, but you have issues that cannot be resolved on the comments section of a blog. I hope you find what you're looking for, but until then please stop obsessing over one person so much.
Bob… imagine if you were some Pakistani kid whose entire innocent family was killed in a drone strike authorized by President Obama. Then imagine you log onto Youtube and see this bloated, ignorant, egotistical American praising his President in a short video before he returns to his Nintendo hentai and searching the web for creationists to blog about.
I love how clearly ignorant your understanding of Waziristan (the region subjected to the drone strikes) is. Do you honestly think that the children in that region have access to YouTube or that they have a deep enough understanding of either the English language or American politics to make heads or tails of this? I am sick to fucking death of people using Waziristan for political points. They were not living some idyllic happy life that Obama is tarnishing. They are caught up in a struggle forced onto them by the war in Afghanistan and their own government is doing jack shit to help them. Extremists moved in and their lives have sucked ever since. The idea that if American drones left them alone then suddenly they could go back to their wholesome lives is just plain moronic and self-righteous. Fuck you.
I worry for America if Romney wins; the guy would just let morons run free and destroy a lot of progress people with brains have been trying to make for years. That can't be allowed to happen
Speaking as a Canadian where more than two parties have a legitimate chance to win the election (admittedly it was pretty much a two party race up until the most recent federal election up here) but saying that it cannot work for presidential politics is something I disagree with because most people don't know who these third party candidates are or just how many ballots they're going to be on.
The best example I have for this is the head of the Green Party Jill Stein, a real presidential candidate that very few Americans have heard of because she is not affiliated with either the Democrat or Republican party. Recently she was denied an opportunity to attend one of the presidential debates and was arrested for trying to enter the building. The Green Party will be on 85% of the ballots and she was not allowed to attend the debate because she wasn't affiliated with the two-party system.
The way it stands right now with the two party system only alienates peopl
I thought this was a thoughtful video and I agree with Bob's logic in that voting for Obama – even begrudgingly – is a necessary vote against Romney and what he represents. I do, however, take issue with Bob's stance vis-a-vis having unrealistic expectations of Obama. I do not think it was unrealistic to expect Obama not to expand the torture regime, expand secret drone bombings to multiple countries, assassinate American citizens without due process and far from the field of battle and maintain a “kill list,” to levy sanctions against Iran that crush the population, crush dissent, and actually help the government more than hurt it, and to otherwise expand and perpetuate the War on Terror as much as (if not more than) McCain would have done. In fact, none of those were even on my radar at the time, which is probably not a testament to my naivete but rather my lack of understanding of the systems of power and capital to which Obama, regardless of how idealistic he is or was, is bound.
I suppose that at least with Obama, we can pretend he once had ideals. Romney seems to believe first and foremost in a Romney presidency. His election would be a big setback for reproductive rights (and women's rights on the whole), equal pay/anti-discrimination legislation, the anti-war movement, environmentalists (not that Obama was a huge help to them anyway), etc. I am sad to see that many of Bob's readers are voting for Romney and thus endorsing his worldview.
I apologize for the self-promotion, but I have responded to Bob's video at my blog: http://www.nicecore.net.
I also want to say something to the commenter above (Anonymous 7:51): It is not a grab for “political points” to cite the drone-bombing of the Pakistani countryside in an appeal to one's humanity as civilian casualties pile up, and your positing it as such is itself a cynical political strategy designed to silence discussion about it. Furthermore, unless you are privy to detailed and verifiable information as to how their lives were before we started randomly bombing all combat-age males in certain areas, is not a question of how ideal their life was before (unless you believe in the US as the imperial enforcer of world peace and happiness), but rather what we are doing now to make it a nightmare. Aside from being illegal, the drone attacks are counter-productive and not even effective in reducing terrorist activities. Around 74% of Pakistan now sees the US as “an enemy.”
Did I ever say that? No. I fucking hate the drone strikes. But what I hate more are idiots who seem to think that the solution to the problem is to just stop. You bring up the drones not because you have a better fucking idea (like offering aid to try and earn their trust rather than running in like we're fucking Iron Man) but because you want to make other people look evil. You don't actually give a shit about these people, you're just using them for your own political agenda, oversimplifying the state of their lives to make it appear black and white because it makes your point easier. You make me fucking sick.
Washington (state) voter, voted Green Party for president, Democrat for all local offices – not by design, just had a whole slew of pro-Tea and/or anti-Roe Republicans as the alternatives, as a pretty decent Senator, considering.
Like you, Bob, I'm far more anti-GOP than I am pro-anything, especially the social conservative wing. But I'm tired of choosing the lesser of two evils, but what I find more objectionable than anything is the continued existence of a calcified two-party system. I want a genuine third party, be it Green, Libertarian, or Perotista. The current electoral model doesn't support that, but nothing will change in this regard if the very idea of voting third-party is viewed as either inherently stupid or childish. As for the argument “voting third party is fine, just not THIS TIME”, well, that reminds me of the argument about why it's unethical to have a space program when people are starving. When are they ever NOT going to be starving? If we sit around and wait for that problem to be fixed, the Klingons'll reach Mars before we do.
I voted Gore in 2000, even though I didn't want to, I just voted against Dubya and the post-1994 GOP (Dole wasn't that bad, but Gingrich, yeesh!). I voted Kerry in 2004, even though he was probably the most worthless sack of pudding I've ever seen on the ballot, I just voted against Dubya, the new devil-I-knew. I voted for Obama in 2008, even though I didn't want to, as McCain had by that point gone so far to the right that I couldn't stomach the though of Dubya's party winning again. But not this time. And maybe not ever again. I consider myself part of the Thirder movement now. I almost don't care what party it is, I just think America needs to evolve away from it's current system, and I'm sick of being told “just not this time”.
Ballot's in the mail. The time is now. I hope Obama wins – he doesn't need me, my state's one of the safest locks – but my X is on Stein.
P.S. If it makes any difference, I convinced my best friend to take his vote off of Romney and pick Gary Johnson instead. So that should balance things out.
Your own vitriol is making you sick. I hope you find a way to discuss topics with adults one day without flipping the fuck out. The fact remains: drone strikes don't help anything, not even those brown people living in filth in that “Warakistan” of yours.
As a European, I wish you guys nothing but good luck with both the hurricane and the election. Now, speaking as an outsider, the continued existence of the electoral college has always baffled me. Not only does it seem unnecessary in modern times but also seems prone keep third party candidates from even registering in the results. Have there ever been any meaningful motions towards reforming this bit of post-colonial cruft?
Red: “[the electoral college] seems prone [to] keep third party candidates from even registering in the results”
That's the point of it. And it's not going anywhere as long as voters are too afraid of “the other team” winning if “their team” splits off to form two parties. Both parties would have to split for there to be any meaningful change.
Nevertheless, I think it's worth the effort. Then again, I don't have a team, I just have a lesser evil and a greater evil.
I live in the country, and the electoral college has baffled me since grammar school. Why not just count the number of individual votes instead of this whole “representative” thing?
I live in South Carolina, which will almost certainly be a Romney voting state, so it feels like my vote for Obama means nothing.
It wouldn't be so bad if the election coverage didn't also display the actual number of votes each candidate has, but they call this the “popular vote”.
I kinda thought that the guy with the most votes in a contest was the winner, but the college allows it so that you can have the most votes but still lose. It makes ZERO sense to me, and I wish they'd just get rid of the clumsy old thing. One person = one vote, count em up, winner is decided, FUCKING DONE.
Wow, quite the angry video. It needed to be said, but still….
I'm Canadian so this isn't my election, but still, I couldn't vote Romney. It isn't my general difference of opinion on the issues or how the party got hyjacked by the looney tunes, but rather I question his economic proposals. An economy is not a business in that both supply and demand need to be considered. Cutting spending also cuts someone's income, and thus their ability to spend and pay taxes, and the ability of those they spend money on to spend and pay taxes, ect. Beyond that, what's his business plan for the country: a 20% income tax cut and billions in new military spending with no explanation as to how this feat will be achieved except non specifics about loopholes. If he was looking for a business loan with that flimsy a plan he'd be laughed out of his own venture capital company.
Don't you realize how difficult it would be for our candidates to campaign if all 50 states (plus D.C. and territories) were both in play and meaningful? Have mercy on this ordinary, blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth everymen. They only have four short years and a couple of billion to spend.
I think the difference between “Liberals are dejected at Obama for not doing what he said” and “Liberals are terrified of all the awful things Romney says he's gonna do (even though he probably won't)” is mentioned in the video. Symbolism matters.
Romney is the front man of the Republican party which has said some pretty atrocious things that they believe will get them elected, like “In cases of legitimate rape, the woman's body has ways to shut that thing down.” That politician believed that saying that would get him elected because that's the vision of our country he is running on.
With that in mind, I cannot in good conscience choose to vote for that worldview being in charge of our country. Even if they are simply politicians saying what they think they have to in order to get elected, I refuse to validate those statements. Instead, as Bob suggests, I'm mostly rooting against everything I hear come out of Republicans on almost every matter.
Yes there are racist Republicans, but I think you all are overstating their numbers, especially given how many racist Democrats I've met and heard speak publicly. It's gets pretty bad too if you stop defining racism as “anti-black” and make it the more appropriate “anyone who treats people as a race first and a person second.”
And your insistance that Republicans = Racists baffles me. I'm currently living in the 85% White Republican district that's about to vote in Congress's first black woman member, Mia Love, and we couldn't be happier.
In your effort to stop people who cling to false beliefs, please don't cling to your own. But then again, you are just human, like everyone you're bashing.
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
If you live in California, Obama is going to get all 55 electoral college votes anyway, so there is no downside to voting third party.
But if you live in one of the few states that actually decides who our next president will be (Ohio, Iowa, Florida, etc) then yes, everything Bob said is correct.
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@Anonymous
No downside to voting third party for President, but even in major Red/Blue states, Senate/House races can come very close and State-level officials are often close calls as well. Even more absurdly, a decent number of those State-level officials are running UNOPPOSED. Seriously, why aren't the third parties all over those ones? Those are races they can actually WIN.
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Agreed. I truly do wish that there was more third party support in the race for president, but the only way that's ever going to happen is if third parties start gaining seats in the house and senate. Once that happens, then it makes much more sense to vote for a third party candidate in a presidential election. Also, good point about the Supreme Court. I shudder to think who the hell Romney would appoint if given the chance.
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Did I really just watch that?
Did you really spend the first half of the video pointing out that viewing Obama as an objectification of idealistic leftist ideals is incredibly immature, and then go right into treating Romney as an objectification of nearly straw-man-esque vilified right wing ideals?
Are you really suggesting that the best reason to vote for Obama is the hope that some day he'll make a blindly partisan appointment of a judge you will then make blindly partisan decisions? I mean, you do realize the left hasn't exactly always been on the side of human rights, right? Their track record with the whole “freedom of speech” thing has been exceptionally poor lately.
And then more hyperbolic vilification of the right?
Oh, and I love the clip of the scientists as if Obama would continue to support them, even though you know well that Obama hasn't, and is far more likely to pull scientific funding than Romney would.
I mean, no matter of intelligently you try to word it, no matter how much you try to dramatize it, this is a logically inconsistent argument that's in denial of reality. It's as if you're trying to take all the worst aspects of stupid conservative arguments and give them a left wing spin. And it's just as stupid.
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Um…. Bob at 5:38 you say what might be the most legendarily stupid thing I have ever heard an educated person say.
Bob let me ask: Have you ever been to Detroit? cause I have, I live there (or just up the road from there) and honestly its kinda fucked beyond repair. For Christ sake most of Detroit looks like a set of a goddamn zombie movie, and the shuffling hordes of homeless people don't help.
Most of the abandoned houses and buildings are in complete disrepair and in in most cases have been taken over. If not by the homeless then by the many many roaming herds of feral Cats and Dogs. Seriously It's straight up post-apocalyptic here.
I don't know more then 5 people that live in the city itself that have real employment. Almost everyone else is ether involved in the drug trade or is simply subsisting off the welfare system. To quote The Simpsons “Its Mad Max times there”
Everyday there more horrifying news stories from the rampant corruption with in the city's Government to the almost total collapse of the public school system.
Obama Has Saved NOTHING.
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Already early-voted for Romney.
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@ Narf
Wait what?
I…The judge appointment is very likely to happen under mitt romney, and it's very likely to overturn roe v. wade.
Isn't this completely correct?
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ANImaniac is correct, visited Detroit last month. It is a ghost town. Businesses are all slow. Living proof that the economy isn't great.
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I know a lot of people that are voting for Romney, even liberals, because they see him as having the best chance to fix the economy.
I'm voting for Romney because he flip-flops, and is thus more likely to manage the parties to come to an agreement, rather than telling half the nation “Shut up and take you medicine because I know better than you what you need!”
And if it makes you feel better, he just ticked off a lot of Evangelical right-wingers by getting one of their most prominent members to take the “Mormons are a cult” language off his website, and that kind of progressivism in religious tolerance is like poison to them.
So yeah, while I hate racists, I'm kind of hoping Romney wins this thing for a lot of other reasons.
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This comment has been removed by the author.
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@ Mads
Well… no, not really.
First off, Romney himself isn't really against abortion at all. Considering conservative judges aren't all ideological clones of each other (no matter what bob would like to believe), an appointment by Romney isn't necessarily one that's against abortion. And even if the judge were, that doesn't necessarily mean that they would vote to overturn it.
Second, the supreme court can't just arbitrarily declare things. A directly relevant case would have to come before them, which is fairly unlikely to happen.
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Unreasonable standulds are after all still standards
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Also I'm not giving Obama credit for Bin Laden's assassination.
He only made the call to proceed. Something that anyone else in that position would have done. Its not like he personally hunted him down, kicked in the door and shot him.
Obama is nothing more then another boss taking credit for the good work done by his employees.
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It's really something that even a political video can be instructive, informative, and entertaining all at the same time. Very impressive. Kudos, Bob.
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You Obama nuts are scary people. Enjoy your NDAA and FEMA camps, Bob.
Anyone who's not indoctrinated in that ridiculous left-right paradigm understands that you have no real choice.
But keep up the American Bob videos, keep eating your GMOs, keep your head firmly in that sand and keep on believing everything is as the media says it is.
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Hey Bob, alot of people disagree with you. You should start moderating comments.
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Having said that the funny thing is I am not a Republican, Not in any stretch of the term. I just don't like failures.
Bob a word to the wise: stick to nerd culture analysis.
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@ANImaniac
Quickly regarding the whole “Obama not getting credit for Osama bin Laden” thing.
Sorry, but it wasn't just that Obama gave the go ahead which “anyone would have done”. He gave the order to proceed WITHOUT informing the Pakistan government and also without concrete proof that Osama bin Laden was even there. We had no visual confirmation and no legal right to be there. A lot of people at his side were very very nervous about that decision. If they ended up being wrong, they would have unnecessarily raided a bunker on a hunch without the consent or awareness of the sovereign government. If bin Laden wasn't there, we would have been in DEEP SHIT. And it's also largely suspected that similar opportunities were narrowly missed because Bush and other officials didn't wish to go over Pakistan's head, which may have been tipping bin Laden off. It's entirely plausible that a different President would have thought it wiser to get Pakistan's cooperation first, which could conceivably have led to a security leak that could have given bin Laden time to move out.
Obama's move may seem like a no-brainer in retrospect, but if it had gone the other way, we would be asking, “What was Obama thinking? Any idiot would have wanted to get Pakistan's permission first!”
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“Its not like he personally hunted him down“
What he did was
1. take ressources which had been used to deal with Bush Daddy issues and allow racist voters to jerk off more easily by giving them the biggest slaughter of Arabs since the Algerian Independance War
2. Relocate them toward the region where Bin Laden was hiding.
So yes, credit is due to Obama.
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Bob, defend Obama's kill list, defend his drone strikes, defend his violations of civil liberties you fucking coward.
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Bob, I said it before, and I'll say it again: fuck you, you left-wing Limbaugh.
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Bob, you say “grow up”, yet you're the one acting like a spoiled fucking child. Grow a pair and admit that Obama's as bad as Romney, you fucking tool.
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Bob, why are you voting for a guy who's continued the wars and violated the civil liberties of millions?
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Fuck you and your anti-libertarian propaganda, you god-damn sheep. I hope you get fired from the escapist and end up living on the street, you fucking fascist.
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OBAMA CONTINUED THE WARS, YOU FUCKING MORON! DO YOU WANT THAT?
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So Bob, if Obama gets elected and continues to kill innocents in his wars, continues to imprison people unjustly, will you consider that “progress”?
You're a worthless fucking fascist, Chipman.
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Wow… that got nasty really fast.
Bob, even if I do disagree with you and think your critiques of the right are really, really strawman-ish, I do usually appreciate your videos because they're an intelligent person giving an alternate opinion from my own.
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@Adam: It got nasty because I'm sick of Bob's egotistical bloviating. Despite what he's deluded himself into believing, he is NOT a superior being who is always right, and he should not be okay with people suffering and dying just so his “agenda” is fulfilled.
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@james
And fuck you, ya gary johnson cronie. When Obama wins and Gary Johnson loses, what address should I should I send Old Gary's tears for you to wank in?
You are a turd who has made threats to Bob, Lindsay Ellis and other fine people who have blocked you various times for being both a stalker creep, making sexual threats, and harassing their colleauges to get to them.
You are a loser and a creep. Bob could punch a blind kitten and still be a better person than you by a country mile.
And I bet you'll get off on this reply like a perverted little toady you are. I hope that someday you finally see a doctor and get on some medication, because, pal, you need it.
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@Joel: I have never threatened Bob or Lindsay. I've yelled at them, insulted them, called them out for their hypocrisy, but NEVER threatened them. I won't risk trouble with the police or jail time because of a few left-wing Limbaughs.
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@James
In the past, I've made comments asking you to go away for not doing anything to actually contribute to an intelligent discussion and for resorting to repetitive, ad hominem attacks that do exactly nothing give you credibility, and I've probably come off like a pretty catty person because of it. That's why, instead of repeating those words, I'd like to offer these instead.
Please seek help. Get therapy, medication, start a blog in the vein of BatDanNight's “Irate Gamer Sucks” that's focused on Bob, do ANYTHING, but please stop doing what you're doing. You're dangerously close to crossing the line into full blown stalker. Also, I don't care how much you may be right about Gary Johnson and his ability to lead America into a more progressive future, you don't have to be such a fucking dick about it. I've followed your Twitter feed, and any time someone expresses an opinion that so much as implicitly supports the Left or the Right you spam them with the same goddamn things you spam here. You have a serious problem and unless you address it and accept the fact that even though people may support candidates for seemingly selfish reasons this does not automatically make them terrible people, than you will not get far in life. Also, your whole “Oh, I've obsessively yelled, screamed at and insulted these people for their percieved hypocrisy, but I've never THREATENED them” means fuck all at this point, because based on your previous behavior and your willingness to break promises for all we know you could very well cross that line.
One more thing: I've also witnessed your interactions on twitter that have been very pleasant, jovial and light-hearted. I know that you are not a terrible person and I'm sure that you have good intentions, but you have issues that cannot be resolved on the comments section of a blog. I hope you find what you're looking for, but until then please stop obsessing over one person so much.
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Bob… imagine if you were some Pakistani kid whose entire innocent family was killed in a drone strike authorized by President Obama. Then imagine you log onto Youtube and see this bloated, ignorant, egotistical American praising his President in a short video before he returns to his Nintendo hentai and searching the web for creationists to blog about.
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@Anonymous 7:34
I love how clearly ignorant your understanding of Waziristan (the region subjected to the drone strikes) is. Do you honestly think that the children in that region have access to YouTube or that they have a deep enough understanding of either the English language or American politics to make heads or tails of this? I am sick to fucking death of people using Waziristan for political points. They were not living some idyllic happy life that Obama is tarnishing. They are caught up in a struggle forced onto them by the war in Afghanistan and their own government is doing jack shit to help them. Extremists moved in and their lives have sucked ever since. The idea that if American drones left them alone then suddenly they could go back to their wholesome lives is just plain moronic and self-righteous. Fuck you.
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I worry for America if Romney wins; the guy would just let morons run free and destroy a lot of progress people with brains have been trying to make for years. That can't be allowed to happen
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Speaking as a Canadian where more than two parties have a legitimate chance to win the election (admittedly it was pretty much a two party race up until the most recent federal election up here) but saying that it cannot work for presidential politics is something I disagree with because most people don't know who these third party candidates are or just how many ballots they're going to be on.
The best example I have for this is the head of the Green Party Jill Stein, a real presidential candidate that very few Americans have heard of because she is not affiliated with either the Democrat or Republican party. Recently she was denied an opportunity to attend one of the presidential debates and was arrested for trying to enter the building. The Green Party will be on 85% of the ballots and she was not allowed to attend the debate because she wasn't affiliated with the two-party system.
The way it stands right now with the two party system only alienates peopl
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And I love how you think drone strikes are excusable because you think they have a shit life already.
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I thought this was a thoughtful video and I agree with Bob's logic in that voting for Obama – even begrudgingly – is a necessary vote against Romney and what he represents. I do, however, take issue with Bob's stance vis-a-vis having unrealistic expectations of Obama. I do not think it was unrealistic to expect Obama not to expand the torture regime, expand secret drone bombings to multiple countries, assassinate American citizens without due process and far from the field of battle and maintain a “kill list,” to levy sanctions against Iran that crush the population, crush dissent, and actually help the government more than hurt it, and to otherwise expand and perpetuate the War on Terror as much as (if not more than) McCain would have done. In fact, none of those were even on my radar at the time, which is probably not a testament to my naivete but rather my lack of understanding of the systems of power and capital to which Obama, regardless of how idealistic he is or was, is bound.
I suppose that at least with Obama, we can pretend he once had ideals. Romney seems to believe first and foremost in a Romney presidency. His election would be a big setback for reproductive rights (and women's rights on the whole), equal pay/anti-discrimination legislation, the anti-war movement, environmentalists (not that Obama was a huge help to them anyway), etc. I am sad to see that many of Bob's readers are voting for Romney and thus endorsing his worldview.
I apologize for the self-promotion, but I have responded to Bob's video at my blog: http://www.nicecore.net.
I also want to say something to the commenter above (Anonymous 7:51): It is not a grab for “political points” to cite the drone-bombing of the Pakistani countryside in an appeal to one's humanity as civilian casualties pile up, and your positing it as such is itself a cynical political strategy designed to silence discussion about it. Furthermore, unless you are privy to detailed and verifiable information as to how their lives were before we started randomly bombing all combat-age males in certain areas, is not a question of how ideal their life was before (unless you believe in the US as the imperial enforcer of world peace and happiness), but rather what we are doing now to make it a nightmare. Aside from being illegal, the drone attacks are counter-productive and not even effective in reducing terrorist activities. Around 74% of Pakistan now sees the US as “an enemy.”
I apologize for having written a lot.
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@Anonymous 8:09
Did I ever say that? No. I fucking hate the drone strikes. But what I hate more are idiots who seem to think that the solution to the problem is to just stop. You bring up the drones not because you have a better fucking idea (like offering aid to try and earn their trust rather than running in like we're fucking Iron Man) but because you want to make other people look evil. You don't actually give a shit about these people, you're just using them for your own political agenda, oversimplifying the state of their lives to make it appear black and white because it makes your point easier. You make me fucking sick.
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Washington (state) voter, voted Green Party for president, Democrat for all local offices – not by design, just had a whole slew of pro-Tea and/or anti-Roe Republicans as the alternatives, as a pretty decent Senator, considering.
Like you, Bob, I'm far more anti-GOP than I am pro-anything, especially the social conservative wing. But I'm tired of choosing the lesser of two evils, but what I find more objectionable than anything is the continued existence of a calcified two-party system. I want a genuine third party, be it Green, Libertarian, or Perotista. The current electoral model doesn't support that, but nothing will change in this regard if the very idea of voting third-party is viewed as either inherently stupid or childish. As for the argument “voting third party is fine, just not THIS TIME”, well, that reminds me of the argument about why it's unethical to have a space program when people are starving. When are they ever NOT going to be starving? If we sit around and wait for that problem to be fixed, the Klingons'll reach Mars before we do.
I voted Gore in 2000, even though I didn't want to, I just voted against Dubya and the post-1994 GOP (Dole wasn't that bad, but Gingrich, yeesh!). I voted Kerry in 2004, even though he was probably the most worthless sack of pudding I've ever seen on the ballot, I just voted against Dubya, the new devil-I-knew. I voted for Obama in 2008, even though I didn't want to, as McCain had by that point gone so far to the right that I couldn't stomach the though of Dubya's party winning again. But not this time. And maybe not ever again. I consider myself part of the Thirder movement now. I almost don't care what party it is, I just think America needs to evolve away from it's current system, and I'm sick of being told “just not this time”.
Ballot's in the mail. The time is now. I hope Obama wins – he doesn't need me, my state's one of the safest locks – but my X is on Stein.
P.S. If it makes any difference, I convinced my best friend to take his vote off of Romney and pick Gary Johnson instead. So that should balance things out.
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@Raging Anonymous
Your own vitriol is making you sick. I hope you find a way to discuss topics with adults one day without flipping the fuck out. The fact remains: drone strikes don't help anything, not even those brown people living in filth in that “Warakistan” of yours.
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As a European, I wish you guys nothing but good luck with both the hurricane and the election. Now, speaking as an outsider, the continued existence of the electoral college has always baffled me. Not only does it seem unnecessary in modern times but also seems prone keep third party candidates from even registering in the results. Have there ever been any meaningful motions towards reforming this bit of post-colonial cruft?
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Great video Bob! Thanks for bringing “American Bob” back!
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@Cyrus
Red: “[the electoral college] seems prone [to] keep third party candidates from even registering in the results”
That's the point of it. And it's not going anywhere as long as voters are too afraid of “the other team” winning if “their team” splits off to form two parties. Both parties would have to split for there to be any meaningful change.
Nevertheless, I think it's worth the effort. Then again, I don't have a team, I just have a lesser evil and a greater evil.
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@Cyrus
I live in the country, and the electoral college has baffled me since grammar school. Why not just count the number of individual votes instead of this whole “representative” thing?
I live in South Carolina, which will almost certainly be a Romney voting state, so it feels like my vote for Obama means nothing.
It wouldn't be so bad if the election coverage didn't also display the actual number of votes each candidate has, but they call this the “popular vote”.
I kinda thought that the guy with the most votes in a contest was the winner, but the college allows it so that you can have the most votes but still lose. It makes ZERO sense to me, and I wish they'd just get rid of the clumsy old thing. One person = one vote, count em up, winner is decided, FUCKING DONE.
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Wow, quite the angry video. It needed to be said, but still….
I'm Canadian so this isn't my election, but still, I couldn't vote Romney. It isn't my general difference of opinion on the issues or how the party got hyjacked by the looney tunes, but rather I question his economic proposals. An economy is not a business in that both supply and demand need to be considered. Cutting spending also cuts someone's income, and thus their ability to spend and pay taxes, and the ability of those they spend money on to spend and pay taxes, ect. Beyond that, what's his business plan for the country: a 20% income tax cut and billions in new military spending with no explanation as to how this feat will be achieved except non specifics about loopholes. If he was looking for a business loan with that flimsy a plan he'd be laughed out of his own venture capital company.
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@Mason
Don't you realize how difficult it would be for our candidates to campaign if all 50 states (plus D.C. and territories) were both in play and meaningful? Have mercy on this ordinary, blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth everymen. They only have four short years and a couple of billion to spend.
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@andrew
As Bob said in his video, *CLAP* tough shit!
EVERY state should matter!
I don't want the candidate I vote for not receive those votes due to an antiquated and quite frankly incompetant system.
One person, one vote, all get counted, highest number of votes wins, done. THAT is democracy.
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@Narf
I think the difference between “Liberals are dejected at Obama for not doing what he said” and “Liberals are terrified of all the awful things Romney says he's gonna do (even though he probably won't)” is mentioned in the video. Symbolism matters.
Romney is the front man of the Republican party which has said some pretty atrocious things that they believe will get them elected, like “In cases of legitimate rape, the woman's body has ways to shut that thing down.” That politician believed that saying that would get him elected because that's the vision of our country he is running on.
With that in mind, I cannot in good conscience choose to vote for that worldview being in charge of our country. Even if they are simply politicians saying what they think they have to in order to get elected, I refuse to validate those statements. Instead, as Bob suggests, I'm mostly rooting against everything I hear come out of Republicans on almost every matter.
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Just because I feel like posting a link to this blog post by Monster Hunter International author Larry Correia on Republicans an racism: http://larrycorreia.wordpress.com/2012/07/12/lets-play-spot-the-racist/
Yes there are racist Republicans, but I think you all are overstating their numbers, especially given how many racist Democrats I've met and heard speak publicly. It's gets pretty bad too if you stop defining racism as “anti-black” and make it the more appropriate “anyone who treats people as a race first and a person second.”
And your insistance that Republicans = Racists baffles me. I'm currently living in the 85% White Republican district that's about to vote in Congress's first black woman member, Mia Love, and we couldn't be happier.
In your effort to stop people who cling to false beliefs, please don't cling to your own. But then again, you are just human, like everyone you're bashing.
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Sorry, first republican black woman in congress. But still, we couldn't be happier.
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