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A lot of Democrats were the primary perpetrators no more than a week ago. I've gotten sick of this 8 year cycle in which everyone flips their stance on whether

A lot of Democrats were the primary perpetrators no more than a week ago. I've gotten sick of this 8 year cycle in which everyone flips their stance on whether or not a President who is for the most part doing the same things as the one before him is a bad guy or not. It's nice to have the anti-war left back, but I'll miss the small-government conservatives. My guess is the Patriot Act will stick around again but Democrats will be back to hating it.

jbooth 10y ago
I think one could say that this isn't just another typical 8 year cycle. As far as "primary perpetrators a week ago", I mean I'd have preferred that Obama do more to protect civil liberties but he is the guy who pardoned Chelsea Manning, tried to close Gitmo, and god knows what else he pushed back against. Running the executive branch means that by default you're the primary perpetrator, but there are degrees of perpetrating here.
- TallGuyShort 10y ago
  Yes, I also would have rather he pushed back instead of literally signing an executive order this month allowing freer information sharing between agencies, some of which were granted all sorts of "emergency" powers in laws he renewed. * commuted sentence - still in jail, was in jail this whole time, still no accountability that I see for things leaked by Manning and Snowden, and alarmingly high collateral damage rates in drone killings. Yeah, yeah, so different from Bush. Definitely not another typical 8 year cycle. Everyone's acting like Trump suddenly has unlimited power to be a tyrant while Obama couldn't do things like this just because those mean old white men got in his way. He expanded executive power plenty and didn't use it to keep very many campaign promises.
r_smart 10y ago
Didn't Obama just sign an 11th hour executive order expanding the CIA's ability to access the NSA's data on the citizenry? I'm right there with you on the 8 year cycle. I despised GWB, as many did, and voted for Obama with full support, only to watch as he continued the very erosion of civil liberties that I held against Bush. And yet, in the echo chamber of my social circle, the condemnations, the rants, the protests, had all gone silent. It seemed much the same too in the larger picture of the culture with the sources I looked to for information. Silence and rapture where previously there was outrage.

jbooth 10y ago

I think one could say that this isn't just another typical 8 year cycle. As far as "primary perpetrators a week ago", I mean I'd have preferred that Obama do more to protect civil liberties but he is the guy who pardoned Chelsea Manning, tried to close Gitmo, and god knows what else he pushed back against. Running the executive branch means that by default you're the primary perpetrator, but there are degrees of perpetrating here.

TallGuyShort 10y ago
Yes, I also would have rather he pushed back instead of literally signing an executive order this month allowing freer information sharing between agencies, some of which were granted all sorts of "emergency" powers in laws he renewed. * commuted sentence - still in jail, was in jail this whole time, still no accountability that I see for things leaked by Manning and Snowden, and alarmingly high collateral damage rates in drone killings. Yeah, yeah, so different from Bush. Definitely not another typical 8 year cycle. Everyone's acting like Trump suddenly has unlimited power to be a tyrant while Obama couldn't do things like this just because those mean old white men got in his way. He expanded executive power plenty and didn't use it to keep very many campaign promises.

r_smart 10y ago

Didn't Obama just sign an 11th hour executive order expanding the CIA's ability to access the NSA's data on the citizenry? I'm right there with you on the 8 year cycle. I despised GWB, as many did, and voted for Obama with full support, only to watch as he continued the very erosion of civil liberties that I held against Bush. And yet, in the echo chamber of my social circle, the condemnations, the rants, the protests, had all gone silent. It seemed much the same too in the larger picture of the culture with the sources I looked to for information. Silence and rapture where previously there was outrage.