Comments on: Barack Obama, our Democratic nominee!

By: Cyde Weys

Cyde Weys — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 01:34:44 +0000

Naturally, a few minutes after writing this post, and before Obama came on to give his victory speech, a thunderstorm killed the power to my house for a few hours. Brilliant.

So I had to watch his speech this morning, not live.

By: William

William — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:49:49 +0000

Woah, sorry about the above post. It’s kind of 2AM here and my thoughts aren’t so coherent right now.

By: William

William — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:48:34 +0000

It’s my pivotal issue largely because I simply don’t care about a lot of the other things. The thing that bothers me is that I’m afraid we’ll join the rest of the world and ban guns altogether like Japan* or many parts of Europe.
I was under the impression that Obama was rather pro-gun-control. Is that not the case?

*They’re effectively banned, though are exceptions.

By: Cyde Weys

Cyde Weys — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:10:27 +0000

William: Your number one issue is guns? Really? Aren’t there more important things to worry about? I own a rifle, and about the only time I even think about it is when I’m going to the target range. To me issues like the economy, the Iraq War, reproductive rights, our standing in the world, etc., are far more important. And it’s not like they’re even going to be taking rifles away anyway. The Democrats have largely come to realize they’ve lost on this issue, so they aren’t pushing the gun control thing nearly as much as they did in past years.

By: William

William — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:07:48 +0000

I think I know where Doc’s coming from, ’cause I got the same sort of feeling. I’m American, though, so I’m not really bothered by it.

By: Jeff V

Jeff V — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:16:37 +0000

I didn’t think Cyde had a tone of superiority. If anything I thought his post was paying homage to the more progressive western countries while simultaneously celebrating the US’s possible entry into the upper echelon of progressive nations.

By: Doc glasgow

Doc glasgow — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:12:10 +0000

Sorry misread. Still only 75.1% are “white only” by ethnicity. Which means 24.1% are minorities of some ethnic abstraction, 300% more than in the UK. What % are white upper middle-class males? Because that’s the minority that the leadership is drawn from.

My post above is, on reflection, overly dramatic, but I was reacting to Cyde’s US triumphalism that adopting a black nominee demonstrated some sort of superiority in US tolerance and minority enfranchisement compared to other nations. For goodness sake even Islamic nations have had female presidents.

By: William

William — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:39:01 +0000

Just start off with, how do you figure that we have minorities as 52%? My figures put us at around 80% whites, with the next largest group (blacks) at almost 13%.
Wikipedia’s number match up with mine, as well, to save you the trouble.

I won’t say that we have a great track record with minorities being represented in leadership positions, but I also don’t care. Maybe I’m just being stupid, but I don’t see why it’s important to have someone with what is effectively a permanent tan as president. Far more important to me as a voter are what they are for or against.

Now, all of that said, I’m definitely not in favor of Obama. My key issue in politics is guns, so I’m stuck with the republicans, because it seems like most democrats are determined that they are the work of the devil. Or something to that effect, in any case.
Defending the second amendment in Japanese is even harder than doing so in English, by the way.

By: Doc glasgow

Doc glasgow — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:07:49 +0000

“no other western nation has ever had a minority as a nominee of a major political party for the top position”

For goodness sake. This is really stretching for something to boast in. Women are 50% of the population, so it is rather shocking that you’ve never even had a female nominee never mind VP/ president. UK did it 20 years ago (Thatcher 1979, party leader 1975), and nearly every other nation has.

As for other minorities, few nations have such woppingly big minorities as the US has, so it is an unfair comparison. The US is the only nation I can think of where the MAJORITY of the population (52.1%) are MINORITIES. In the US the “non-white” is only 7.9%.

Further, let’s look at some facts: UK first ethnic Jewish Prime Minister – Benjamin D’Israeli (1868); first atheist “nominee” – Neil Kinnock (1982); ethnic minority (Scottish) – George Hamilton Gordon (1827); working class socialist – Ramsay MacDonald (1924). Other than the fact that the US has had a Roman Catholic leader (ours only convert on leaving office) I’d say there’s little to boast in here. I can’t think of any statistic whereby a proportion of the population measuring 50%+ has been excluded from office until 2008.

Indeed it is rather shocking that the US hasn’t had a minority candidate long before now.