I have seen several attacks here on how Obama has cared for his extended family.  I submit these attacks are out of line for three reasons:

1.  Those making the attacks no little of the people to whom they are suggesting Barack give a handout.  These people may not accept a handout.  These people may be wholly undeserving.  Who knows.  Who among us does not have a relative who is not worth even a nickel of our hard earned cash?

2.  Since when are hand-outs  appropriate?  It appears to me that most who are criticizing Barack for not giving a hand-out are the most vehement and vociferous critics of hand-outs.

3.  Many have claimed that giving a hand-out should be no big deal for Barack given his millions.  Barack does not have millions (or anything close to it).  He has been a public servant almost his whole adult life.  He has one home and one car.  Feel free to check his financial disclosure form.

According to CNN, he is worth $1.3 million.
I guess he can't afford $100 a month to his African family. They would not have to live in mud shacks.
They look well fed, so why should he worry?

Did you see my other two points?  I was only disputing others who say he is worth millions.  His net worth is roughly equal to the value of his house and that's almost all Michelle's doing.

And yes, Michelle appears to be the breadwinner.

I despise his hypocrisy. He is more than happy to pledge billions of dollars of our money to help fight world hunger, but hasn't lifted a finger to help his own family. If he won't help them, why the fuck should I?

You argument regarding his ability to give is the same as his argument about your and my ability to pay more taxes. Say what you want about his finances, he lives quite well. He is more than capable of sending a few bucks to Africa. He wants to raise my Payroll taxes alone by 12.4 of every nickel I make, why not donate 12.4% of Michelle's $300K a year to those less fortunate?

When I start seeing his charitable contributions anywhere near what I give, maybe I'll start believing he is sincere. I'm a cold hearted capitalist oil man and I give many, many times what he does.

What a caring man, rhis racist, whoremongering, founding member of the RWSAA gives dozens of times more to charitable causes than this hypocritical piece of shit named Obama does.

OMG!!! MRB has  the cojones to say that after the drudging of Palin, her family, and Joe the Plumber?
Not to mention the unrelenting villification of President Bush.

Go suck an egg. If your side can't take it, they should stop dishing it out.


-- Modified on 10/30/2008 11:03:26 AM

GA might flip to Obama?  If that's the case, the game is DEFINITELY over for McSAME.

-- Modified on 10/30/2008 11:18:23 AM

He met his half-brother twice, and was estranged from his father and separated by religion. He never really knew his step-grandmother. If you ask me, there's quite a fissure in that family that has to be repaired. Obama couldn't like his father's  remarriages, I'm certain that's an emotional wound he feels.

Thanks for your charitable contributions, but just by making them, you prove the point that individual charity has nothing to do with social policy or economic philosophy. If you actually believed you deserved all the money you make, why would you then give it away? And what purpose do you think that serves?

Why has the ''magic negro'' pulled his ads out of Georgia then

BTW. I didn't mean "Boy" in a racist manner. lol

and I would like to make this world a better place. I enjoy giving to others, it makes me feel good. There is a huge difference between "giving" to charity and being strongarmed out of your hard earned money.

It is "my money" to do with as I please. This concept promulgated by libs that we would have nothing without the government is pure bullshit.

Unlike most people I don't worship God, nor do I worship Government. I am an individual and I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions about my own life. This trend towards a Nanny Government is against all the principles this country was founded on. No wonder we are becoming as irrelevant as Europe. In another couple of years we will BE Europe.

Different people have different priorities even when it comes to charity.

Perhaps you wouldn't have nothing without the government, but it's very likely to be far less, and worse. There are things in your life that could only be handled by a government. A government is not similar to a business and can't be run like one. It's actions are not the actions of an individual, unless it really is a dictatorship with the dictator gaining from your taxation. I wouldn't blame you for hating taxes if they went to make somebody else rich, but as it is, the money circulates back into the economy. It maintains a civil environment in this country.  

What is your money without US currency? And if you use gold instead, who is going to guarantee the purity of the gold? And protect you from theft?

There's not going to be a nanny government. No such thing outside of communism, which was about abolition of private property. That doesn't happen here. Our constitution was written as a treaty between 13 states that were set up as separate. Any national government had to be somewhat weak and allow the States to have a lot of sovereignty. The "principles" you cite were more like necessities borne of the political reality then. That reality is no longer existent, but the Constitution was made to change. We now have the necessity for a national government with the states in eclipse. The only other path of evolution was toward the States seceding.    

Read your Constitution. AN ELECTION DETERMINES TAX POLICY. A government without taxation doesn't exist. We haven't figured out a way to have a government without them. The American Colonies broke away due to "taxation without representation" not taxes in general. Why should the colonies have been taxed by Britain to do something the colonies could do themselves: defense?

Later protests against taxation WITH representation were suppressed. The country didn't have a choice.

There's nothing about America, sans the frontier we used to have, that determines we're individualist capitalists. During the 1870s to the 1940s, there was a very strong, cultural sentiment leaning towards socialism, which reached its peak in the 1930s and nearly did away with capitalism. You're in the wrong about those "principles." The Puritans who were a major faction who founded this country worshiped God and were extremely community oriented.  

You complain about being "strong-armed." Shit, talk about exaggerating to bloat your emotions.
You've NEVER been assaulted by a tax official. Never in this country. I bet you've never had to bribe a government official to get them to do something that the law says they should be doing. That environment is part of what you're paying for, and what is being ruined. Your outrage is self-generated by your sense of persecution blown up with terms like "strong-armed." You're never going to be strong-armed by the IRS the way you'd be strong-armed by a simple police officer if you're stopped for a simple traffic violation and protest your rights to HIM. It's less hypothetical than the IRS. Why don't you just say that you've been "strong-armed" into driving safely?

There are some absolutely necessary things that a charity cannot do. A charity is not going to construct a levies in New Orleans or Galveston. It's not going to make highways or mass transit.

It's not a matter of "worshiping" government at all. It's a matter of making one that performs brilliantly.

Now as for Europe, irrelevant must mean "out of power." It doesn't have anything to do with their governments. It has to do with the traumas of the horrible wars caused by and fought on that continent. Europe is down because it wasted its resources and manpower in major wars, and then generally lost its confidence. Hell, how confident and bold can Germans ever feel?

You ability to spin is uncanny.

I am GaG on this one. If O'Bombi won't help his struggling relatives, why should I.

Red Baron, nice little spin there by "may they don't want it". Has your messiah tried to give then said no!

What a fucking hypocrite!

That is what I really like about you MRB. You are one of those passive aggressive who thinks they are smarter than everyone else and are able to outsmart everyone.

Go suck Goose egg.

Ther is no way you can justify giving more to the government than you keep for yourself, especially when there are those who not only pay nothing at all, but get some of my money too.

Levees in New Orleans is a joke, left to the private sector without the graft of local government the levees would have held against a thousand Katrinas.

If I don't pay my taxes no matter how unfair I go to jail, if you don't call that strong arming WTF do you call it? Zin, you've said some stupid shit over the years, but this has got to be one of the stupidest.

This country was founded on the concept of protecting it's citizens from government, not having government protect it's citizens. Government has it's purpose and is uniquely qualified to perform certain tasks. Taking more from it's citizens that it allows them to keep is not one of them.

Can you honestly say that giving more of my money to the government than I keep for myself is fair? That is what will happen if Obama/Reid/Pelosi are allowed to run this country virtually unopposed.

Right now our national debt is at $80,000 per family. We keep saying that our children will have to pay this, but nobody really seems to understand what it means, or they put the responsibility on the government. We have all benefited from running up that debt, some much more than others. If that debt isn't paid, there will be NO US. People aren't going to pay Washington that. Once people are in rebellion and we renege on the debts, Washington will be overthrown. It won't be able to function. I could imagine the US falling apart under those circumstances, forming new countries with a fresh start.

I consider the slightly higher taxes the very LEAST of what has to be done if the country is even going to have a chance. If it helps people at the lowest points of society, it should act to stem alienation and quite possibly rebellion.

You've got to be kidding about private contractors doing a better job. Private contractors are as prone to corruption and giving graft as the government, especially when contracting with the government. I'll remind you of the Rezko affair in Illinois. That isn't an exception. You don't see the obvious here, that good work depends on the integrity of the people who do it. It doesn't matter if they are government or private. Practically all of the corruption takes place at the point where government intersects with the private sector. It takes two to tango. It's a matter of how fast you catch the scheme and how damaging it was in the meantime.  

No, going to jail is qualitatively different from "strong armed tactics." Strong-arm tactics is if you don't pay up now they break your arm. The punishment is much more swift and immediate, and involves plenty of physical pain. Next time you don't pay up, they break your legs. That's the way taxation was done in most places through much of history.  

Being arrested, being jailed, and going to prison really sucks, eventually almost as much, but you have rights, you have a defense. They at least take their time and confer over whether they should put you in prison. Once you're in prison for white collar crimes, you have three squares and a cot. I'm not saying it doesn't suck, but it's hardly strong-armed.

Our constitution doesn't say the government promises NOT to protect its citizens. To the contrary, some passages tell you otherwise. "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." And in fact, the Constitution is very specific on what the Congress can't do. Nowhere is it mentioned or implied that they are not to protect its citizens.

The Bill of Rights is a written promise of what the government won't do. Those are commonly called rights, but have also been called "protections." It doesn't give limits the ROLE of government.

What gives the impression that our government doesn't have the power is actually our frontier heritage, which definitely weakened the reach of government. But in no way does this imply that the government is supposed to be weak, or that it's not supposed to protect people.

Though Obama is liberal, I believe he's first and foremost a pragmatist, and he listens and learns. My guess is he might just be a check and balance to Reid and Pelosi.