5 ms·

Can you remind me again, why did you vote for Obama second time?

by _random_ 13y ago

camus2 13y ago
because the other side was a joke,and between 2 evils one should always chose the lesser.
- moron4hire 13y ago
  How about they don't choose either? I chose to not be involved in a sham of a process that purports to give "two" options.
  - afterburner 13y ago
    Hopefully not too many people follow your example.
    - moron4hire 13y ago
      Neither Mitt Romney or Barack Obama were good choices for President, regardless of their comparison to each other. If more people refused to vote for a bad candidate, then the margin to win would be much smaller. Egads, if people voted for who they actually wanted, rather than vote against who they want the least, then maybe we'd get someone who actually, you know, represents the people! The only reason you can be upset about me not voting against my principles is that I'm not helping your favored candidate over your disfavored candidate.
      - afterburner 13y ago
        I disagree that both main candidates were not good. The winning presidential candidate does roughly represent the majority preference of the people. You make it sound like everyone is being disenfranchised. If you support proportional representation, or ranked voting, or some other change, I'd agree to that. If you went around telling everyone that would vote for my preferred candidate to vote for candidate X that has no chance of winning, I might be annoyed if you succeeded. Unless I liked candidate X even more and knew you could succeed with everyone (or a majority anyways); but that's very unlikely.
        moron4hire 13y ago
        our disagreement on the suitability of the candidates is the entire point of voting. and I think it is important to note: of the people who could have voted, only 28% chose to vote and vote for Obama. and going around, telling people to not vote for your preferred candidate, that is the entire point of campaigning.
        afterburner 13y ago
        I'm not saying you shouldn't campaign. You just read way too much into my initial "Hopefully not too many people follow your example" statement. But then you made some contentious statements so I felt I had to reply. Like saying the two main candidates were not good, stated as fact. Something clearly many people disagree with you on.
        moron4hire 13y ago
        having to preface every sentence with "in my opinion" is a waste of text. I am speaking it, of course it is my opinion. It is only fact insofar as it can be recognized as so. I did not explicitly state "it's a fact". Don't be pedantic.
        afterburner 13y ago
        It's not that simple, since you followed with: "If more people refused to vote for a bad candidate, then the margin to win would be much smaller. Egads, if people voted for who they actually wanted, rather than vote against who they want the least, then maybe we'd get someone who actually, you know, represents the people!" So you're using "the main candidates are bad" as the basis for how the population should vote. It was more a bad assumption than an opinion.
  - cynwoody 13y ago
    That's a tactical mistake. You are throwing away your vote. I'm a libertarian. But I almost never vote Losertarian, because I want to influence the outcome. So, I generally hold my nose and vote Republican, the Democrat Party being the party of Big Government, the enemy of Liberty!
    - DalekBaldwin 13y ago
      That's a miscalculation of opportunity costs. You are throwing away the time you could have spent doing better things than voting. How many times have you cast the deciding vote in an election?
      - afterburner 13y ago
        The opportunity cost of at most a few hours? Every two to four years?
        DalekBaldwin 13y ago
        Sure. You could spend that time writing posts on Hacker News that influence more than one voter.
        afterburner 13y ago
        oof, long shot...
    - moron4hire 13y ago
      It's not wasting my vote if I don't want either the Democrat or the Republican. By your logic, the vote is equally wasted if I vote Republican and the Democrats win, because I "didn't influence the outcome". Voting isn't a lottery game, you're not trying to use your vote to predict the outcome. You use it to voice your opinion. My opinion is that the two candidates provided are neither adequate, therefore I will not endorse either. EDIT: And in parliamentary procedure, abstaining from voting is a valid option, and it is not a waste of a vote. You are specifically going on record as not approving of the choice being provided.
- ams6110 13y ago
  Assumes facts not in evidence.
bluthru 13y ago
Because despite the Affordable Care Act being a long way from a proper first-world system, people realize that it's miles better than what we had previously on the whole.
- cynwoody 13y ago
  How can a system that costs more for less coverage and poorer access to treatment be better than what we had before? RTFA! What we had before had plenty of problems, but Obamacare is a failure from the get-go, leaving aside the $600+m web site debacle.
  - hga 13y ago
    "and poorer access to treatment" One critical thing about what I gather is the vast majority of plans is that their provider networks are narrow since the insurance companies were pressured hard to lower costs (we've all read about how many quality hospitals have been outright excluded). So narrow that routine medicine outside of your county or local area is out-of-network and entirely uncovered. This is going to have some serious effects on those who've retired but have not yet reached the 65 year old threshold for Medicare and have a second home, e.g. snowbirds who want to avoid harsh northern winters: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/12/more_obamacare_devastation.html http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/12/more_obamacare_devast...
- poulsbohemian 13y ago
  Without this turning into a long diatribe, one of the major problems I have is that the general assertion that the ACA is "better than nothing / better than what we had before" is that it is only true in some states. Yes, many states were doing a poor job of regulating health insurers, but in my state (Washington), the ACA offers few new benefits. Whereas previously high-deductable / catastrophic plans were available cheaply for those who were willing to pay cash for the bulk of their health needs, now everybody is pushed to plans that don't do enough for preventative care and will cost ~$1000/month for a typical family. I think we are all thankful to see people with long-term chronic illness finally able to buy health insurance regardless of their state, but for those states that already had functioning marketplaces for family/individual insurance, the ACA smacks of unnecessary federal meddling that, IMHO, fixes the market rather than leading to the competitive market that was a claimed benefit. Background: I've been a buyer/selector of health insurance as both an individual and employer since 2006, so have been through this a couple times now.
tzs 13y ago
Because he was the best available candidate by far. Yes, ACA has problems. We would have been better with a system modeled after that of Britain or Germany or Japan (or pretty much any other first world country...). Republicans, however, made sure that nothing like that could come about, leaving the only choices ACA or nothing. Going with ACA gives us something that can at least be tweaked up to first world standards. The other candidates and their party platforms were also terrible on science, terrible on the environment, and clueless on economics. Finally, many of us figured that if we elected him again, maybe Republicans would get it through their heads that the first time was not a fluke, and we elected him because we actually WANTED the things he had campaigned on the first time, and stop basing their ENTIRE strategy around "do the opposite of whatever Obama says".

Can you remind me again, why did you vote for Obama second time?

camus2 13y ago

because the other side was a joke,and between 2 evils one should always chose the lesser.

moron4hire 13y ago
How about they don't choose either? I chose to not be involved in a sham of a process that purports to give "two" options.
- afterburner 13y ago
  Hopefully not too many people follow your example.
  - moron4hire 13y ago
    Neither Mitt Romney or Barack Obama were good choices for President, regardless of their comparison to each other. If more people refused to vote for a bad candidate, then the margin to win would be much smaller. Egads, if people voted for who they actually wanted, rather than vote against who they want the least, then maybe we'd get someone who actually, you know, represents the people! The only reason you can be upset about me not voting against my principles is that I'm not helping your favored candidate over your disfavored candidate.
    - afterburner 13y ago
      I disagree that both main candidates were not good. The winning presidential candidate does roughly represent the majority preference of the people. You make it sound like everyone is being disenfranchised. If you support proportional representation, or ranked voting, or some other change, I'd agree to that. If you went around telling everyone that would vote for my preferred candidate to vote for candidate X that has no chance of winning, I might be annoyed if you succeeded. Unless I liked candidate X even more and knew you could succeed with everyone (or a majority anyways); but that's very unlikely.
      - moron4hire 13y ago
        our disagreement on the suitability of the candidates is the entire point of voting. and I think it is important to note: of the people who could have voted, only 28% chose to vote and vote for Obama. and going around, telling people to not vote for your preferred candidate, that is the entire point of campaigning.
        afterburner 13y ago
        I'm not saying you shouldn't campaign. You just read way too much into my initial "Hopefully not too many people follow your example" statement. But then you made some contentious statements so I felt I had to reply. Like saying the two main candidates were not good, stated as fact. Something clearly many people disagree with you on.
        moron4hire 13y ago
        having to preface every sentence with "in my opinion" is a waste of text. I am speaking it, of course it is my opinion. It is only fact insofar as it can be recognized as so. I did not explicitly state "it's a fact". Don't be pedantic.
        afterburner 13y ago
        It's not that simple, since you followed with: "If more people refused to vote for a bad candidate, then the margin to win would be much smaller. Egads, if people voted for who they actually wanted, rather than vote against who they want the least, then maybe we'd get someone who actually, you know, represents the people!" So you're using "the main candidates are bad" as the basis for how the population should vote. It was more a bad assumption than an opinion.
- cynwoody 13y ago
  That's a tactical mistake. You are throwing away your vote. I'm a libertarian. But I almost never vote Losertarian, because I want to influence the outcome. So, I generally hold my nose and vote Republican, the Democrat Party being the party of Big Government, the enemy of Liberty!
  - DalekBaldwin 13y ago
    That's a miscalculation of opportunity costs. You are throwing away the time you could have spent doing better things than voting. How many times have you cast the deciding vote in an election?
    - afterburner 13y ago
      The opportunity cost of at most a few hours? Every two to four years?
      - DalekBaldwin 13y ago
        Sure. You could spend that time writing posts on Hacker News that influence more than one voter.
        afterburner 13y ago
        oof, long shot...
  - moron4hire 13y ago
    It's not wasting my vote if I don't want either the Democrat or the Republican. By your logic, the vote is equally wasted if I vote Republican and the Democrats win, because I "didn't influence the outcome". Voting isn't a lottery game, you're not trying to use your vote to predict the outcome. You use it to voice your opinion. My opinion is that the two candidates provided are neither adequate, therefore I will not endorse either. EDIT: And in parliamentary procedure, abstaining from voting is a valid option, and it is not a waste of a vote. You are specifically going on record as not approving of the choice being provided.
ams6110 13y ago
Assumes facts not in evidence.

bluthru 13y ago

Because despite the Affordable Care Act being a long way from a proper first-world system, people realize that it's miles better than what we had previously on the whole.

cynwoody 13y ago
How can a system that costs more for less coverage and poorer access to treatment be better than what we had before? RTFA! What we had before had plenty of problems, but Obamacare is a failure from the get-go, leaving aside the $600+m web site debacle.
- hga 13y ago
  "and poorer access to treatment" One critical thing about what I gather is the vast majority of plans is that their provider networks are narrow since the insurance companies were pressured hard to lower costs (we've all read about how many quality hospitals have been outright excluded). So narrow that routine medicine outside of your county or local area is out-of-network and entirely uncovered. This is going to have some serious effects on those who've retired but have not yet reached the 65 year old threshold for Medicare and have a second home, e.g. snowbirds who want to avoid harsh northern winters: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/12/more_obamacare_devastation.html http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/12/more_obamacare_devast...
poulsbohemian 13y ago
Without this turning into a long diatribe, one of the major problems I have is that the general assertion that the ACA is "better than nothing / better than what we had before" is that it is only true in some states. Yes, many states were doing a poor job of regulating health insurers, but in my state (Washington), the ACA offers few new benefits. Whereas previously high-deductable / catastrophic plans were available cheaply for those who were willing to pay cash for the bulk of their health needs, now everybody is pushed to plans that don't do enough for preventative care and will cost ~$1000/month for a typical family. I think we are all thankful to see people with long-term chronic illness finally able to buy health insurance regardless of their state, but for those states that already had functioning marketplaces for family/individual insurance, the ACA smacks of unnecessary federal meddling that, IMHO, fixes the market rather than leading to the competitive market that was a claimed benefit. Background: I've been a buyer/selector of health insurance as both an individual and employer since 2006, so have been through this a couple times now.

tzs 13y ago

Because he was the best available candidate by far. Yes, ACA has problems. We would have been better with a system modeled after that of Britain or Germany or Japan (or pretty much any other first world country...). Republicans, however, made sure that nothing like that could come about, leaving the only choices ACA or nothing. Going with ACA gives us something that can at least be tweaked up to first world standards. The other candidates and their party platforms were also terrible on science, terrible on the environment, and clueless on economics. Finally, many of us figured that if we elected him again, maybe Republicans would get it through their heads that the first time was not a fluke, and we elected him because we actually WANTED the things he had campaigned on the first time, and stop basing their ENTIRE strategy around "do the opposite of whatever Obama says".