When you've got more than bringing up old shit about pranks he pulled in college.
You cannot tell me that if the roles were reversed, that the right would spare Obama with the argument that it was "pranks he pulled in college."
When there is a discussion about which dark skinned social activists Obama shook hands with when he was younger, you can't say that the crimes someone commits when they are younger are off limits.
I happen to think that if you choose to run for president, that there is very little that is off limits. That is especially true of conscious decisions you made (repeatidly) as adult.
Yes. What you did in college is not your character today.
When it comes to the aspect of my character that has respect for other people and the law, my character since college is unchanged.
Sure, Romney may have changed. I am not here to convict someone for their entire life. Presidential candidates simply SHOULD be deeply scrutinized and I just don't have any positive reason to believe that has changed.
Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.
BUT if objects for gratitude and admiration are our desire, do they not present themselves every hour to our eyes? Do we not see a fair creation prepared to receive us the instant we are born --a world furnished to our hands, that cost us nothing? Is it we that light up the sun; that pour down the rain; and fill the earth with abundance? Whether we sleep or wake, the vast machinery of the universe still goes on. Are these things, and the blessings they indicate in future, nothing to, us? Can our gross feelings be excited by no other subjects than tragedy and suicide? Or is the gloomy pride of man become so intolerable, that nothing can flatter it but a sacrifice of the Creator? --Thomas Paine
And he's got a good point. Let me know if you don't want to watch it and I'll paraphrase for you.
When there is a discussion about which dark skinned social activists Obama shook hands with when he was younger, you can't say that the crimes someone commits when they are younger are off limits.
Alright, lets talk about how bad it is that Obama did coke and has a policy of incarcerating people who do. If he'd have gone to jail for it, do you think he would be president? His policies want to offer "treatment" to drug users. He used drugs and became the President! How much treatment did *he* need?
I happen to think that if you choose to run for president, that there is very little that is off limits. That is especially true of conscious decisions you made (repeatidly) as adult.
By all means, have it on limits, but don't expect anybody to be convinced by anything like pranks in college decades ago.
When it comes to the aspects that has respect for other people and the law, my character since college is unchanged.
Grow up already! I keed, I keed
Sure, Romney may have changed. I am not here to convict someone for their entire life. Presidential candidates simply SHOULD be deeply scrutinized and I just don't have any positive reason to believe that has changed.
Scrutinize away, I don't have a problem with that. You asked specific questions and I answered them: Pranks you pulled in college decades ago do not exemplify your character today.
When you've got more than bringing up old shit about pranks he pulled in college.
Didn't realize that something that would be a felony if he had been caught is just a prank. You might want to tell this to people that have been seriously hurt by people impersonating an officer.
Classic case of IOKIYAR
Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
I haven't heard much from the right about Obama admitting to using cocaine.
Really? I'm pretty sure I hear about it constantly:
Not just talking about it, but writing about it, too:
quote:In spite of all the mean, though true, things I say about Obama, I can't help feeling sorry for him. After all, his Kenyan father deserted him when he was just a baby. Then, because that had worked out so well, Obama's ditzy mother then married a Muslim and moved to Indonesia. Eventually, Obama and his mother were deserted by his stepfather, which led to Obama's mother dumping 10-year-old Obama on his white grandparents in Hawaii. It was there that young Barack took up basketball, marijuana and cocaine, while seeking out radicals, revolutionaries and Communists as pals and mentors.
The truth is, with that kind of dysfunctional background, Barack Obama could easily have turned out to be a serial killer. Still, one can't help thinking that if only he had, today he'd probably be in prison, instead of the Oval Office, and none of us would have to worry about what awful thing he's going to do next.
Rather than offer a line-by-line response, I'd just like to say this:
Not all bouts of youthful high spirits are merely pranks. They can and occasionally do cross the line into seriously criminal behavior.
And not all criminal behavior is alike, either. Not many would suggest that a person who regularly uses drugs but otherwise behaves lawfully is actually equivalent to a member of a violent drug gang who not only uses, but distributes drugs and engages in lethal violence.
Some activities betray character flaws. Some do not. To at least some extent, the line which separates the two will be a matter of opinion. For the sake of consistency, I will say that I regularly derided Bush the Lesser for his historical addictions to drugs and alcohol. I have no idea whether Obama's use of cocaine approached, reached, or exceeded the level of Bush's problem.
But to be perfectly honest, I already strongly disliked Bush by the time I found out he had been an alcoholic and a drug abuser. Commenting on those blotches in his past was more about seeking out additional negatives than expressing the reasons I really didn't like him.
I don't really care if a Presidential candidate used drugs of any sort in the past. What matters to me is his or her current capacity for good judgement, and the degree to which the candidate holds acceptable (to me) political views. After all, I think most illegal drugs should be legalized, strictly regulated, and taxed. That one has overcome a previous drug addiction (and I must grudgingly include Bush in this as well, as to my knowledge he was not abusing any substances by the time he was President) is in fact evidence of good judgement in the present, regardless that it required less good judgement in the past.
In the case of Romney...I already don't like him. I already think, on the basis of shear policy, that he would be a bad President, or at least worse than Obama. I am therefore biased toward eagerly accepting any additional evidence that would confirm my already-existing opinions of him.
To counteract that, I;m trying to imagine my response as if Romney were not actually the individual in question. I'm trying to imagine it was just some guy in the news. Perhaps I should imagine that it was someone I even like, though that precludes virtually every political player.
I think that impersonating a police officer could potentially be just one of those things that sounds funny to a high school or college kid, but where the actual ramifications become clear to adults thinking beyond what would be "funny." It can also be disastrous - but that largely depends on what is actually done while impersonating an officer. From what I read of Romney's alleged exploits, they amounted to stupid pranks, but nothing really malicious.
I don;t think that even really stupid things need to follow a person around forever. The exception is when past deeds match with current opinions and actions to establish a deeply-seated long-held position. For example, when combining Romney's "hair-cutting" assault and his current political positions on homosexuality...it becomes clear that Mitt Romney hates gay people. The police impersonations, however...I see no current policy or activity that suggests he's still trying to come up with idiotic ways to mess around with his friends or tease girls.
This new story isn't going to change anything for me. Even had I originally been intending to vote for Romney, I don;t think this would change anything. He was an idiot when he was a teen and young adult...but I think I was an idiot before I was 25, and I don;t particularly feel the need to hypocritically demand that he not be given the same consideration. I denounce his assault only because it was violent and targeted at a specific minority he continues to stand against today, a far cry from a mischievous streak that ended when he grew up.
The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." Barash, David 1995.
Didn't realize that something that would be a felony if he had been caught is just a prank. You might want to tell this to people that have been seriously hurt by people impersonating an officer.
That's quite possibly the stupidest thing you could have replied with...
For one, I can think on many hilarious pranks that could count as a felony, BFD. What they can be is not what they is.
For the second part, how does that follow in any way? Or is that just some meaningless emotional appeal?
"Oh, you drove 5 mph over the speed limit? ZOMG! TELL ALL THE PEOPLE WHO DIED HORRIBLY IN CAR CRASHES!!!"
WTF man, are you even trying? Seriously, walk me through your thoughts while posting please. Did you actually think that was a meaningful reply? Or are you just throwing the first thing that comes to you mind no matter how retarded it is?
Classic case of IOKIYAR
If this is a classic case then IOKIYAR is total bullshit.
I think it is how he used his costume that matters, was he a blue light bandit, or a prankster like you see on Punked or Jackass? I am not a Romney fan at all, but before I judge him on this I would like to put it in proper context.
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. ― Edward R. Murrow
"Yeah, I know. I'm guilty. I understand that. I knew it was a crime, and I did it anyways. Shit, why argue? I'm a fucking criminal, look at me." - Raoul Duke
Again all you have has personal attacks and feigned outrage. Amazing how you can not reply to me without personal attacks.
Again I do not see how impersonating a police officer, with lights and all is simply a prank. Talk about a false equivalency. It is a felony. No matter how you want to look at Mitt with rose colored glasses it is a felony.
You really want to equate driving five miles over the speed limit with impersonating a police officer.
quote:Said Madden in a recent interview, “He told us that he had gotten the uniform from his father,” George Romney, then the Governor of Michigan, whose security detail was staffed by uniformed troopers. “He told us that he was using it to pull over drivers on the road. He also had a red flashing light that he would attach to the top of his white Rambler.”...
Phillip Maxwell, a prep school buddy, told the New Republic in 2008 that Romney had pulled over students from a girls school next door to Cranbrook while wearing a police uniform as a prank. Other former classmates described Mitt as a “happy-go-lucky guy known less for his achievements and more for his pranks.”
In The Real Romney, a biography published by Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman this year, another former friend recalled how Romney had “put a siren on top of his car and chased two of his friends who were driving around with their dates.” The two friends were in on the scheme, but the girls were not. There was beer in the car trunk, according to a prearranged plan. Mitt told his two counterparts to get out of their vehicle and into his car. Then they drove off, leaving the girls behind.
Again nothing to see here folks he is a republican. But look at that Obama, he had dinner at Bill Ayers house. Oh and he used cocaine too.
Give me a frikking break.
Ready, set....
Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
To be fair.... The people he pulled were in on the joke, he didn't try to imprison the girls who weren't in on the joke. I don't like him but I am not going to condemn him for being a prankster. His bullying is far more disturbing. There are many reasons not to like him, though this one seems more like an episode of Punked.
A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. ― Edward R. Murrow
"Yeah, I know. I'm guilty. I understand that. I knew it was a crime, and I did it anyways. Shit, why argue? I'm a fucking criminal, look at me." - Raoul Duke
To be fair.... The people he pulled were in on the joke, he didn't try to imprison the girls who weren't in on the joke.
That was one episode.
Read the article.
quote:He told us that he was using it to pull over drivers on the road. He also had a red flashing light that he would attach to the top of his white Rambler.
It sure doesn't sound like everyone was in on the joke.
quote:Phillip Maxwell, a prep school buddy, told the New Republic in 2008 that Romney had pulled over students from a girls school next door to Cranbrook while wearing a police uniform as a prank.
Were these girls in on the joke? This is a potentially very scary situation when someone impersonating a police officer pulls over young women. So he didn't try to imprison these girls either so we should give him a pass? To Mitt it was all a sick joke, but doing something like this is not funny. That is why it is a felony.
Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
"God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness.
Again all you have has personal attacks and feigned outrage. Amazing how you can not reply to me without personal attacks.
No, its not an issue of capability; its one of willingness.
Again I do not see how impersonating a police officer, with lights and all is simply a prank.
From your own link:
quote:Romney had put a siren on top of his car and chased two of his friends who were driving around with their dates. The two friends were in on the scheme, but the girls were not.
It was all planned out like a prank.
"Impersonating a police officer" covers a wide range of behaviors, from the wrong costume party at the wrong time to actually running around arresting people against their will.
Just because it can be something really bad doesn't mean it is.
It is a felony.
Only when you're convicted.
No matter how you want to look at Mitt with rose colored glasses it is a felony.
When you speculate on other people's wants, you look like really stupid asshole. You can read the first part of my first post in this thread for what I think of Romney, the issue here doesn't matter who he is.
I think it is how he used his costume that matters, was he a blue light bandit, or a prankster like you see on Punked or Jackass? I am not a Romney fan at all, but before I judge him on this I would like to put it in proper context.
I keed, I keed
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