The actual exchange was:
Woman - ...I can't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's not, he's not..he's a...um..he's an Arab.
McCain - no ma'am. He's a decent family man citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign is all about.

I don't hear it as McCain saying Obama is either Arab or decent man thing. I hear it as McCain responding to HER use of the word "Arab" as a pejorative.

Heard his rely about those several dozen times now. Dr Paul refutes that he wrote them. So, I have to weight that against the thrust of everything else I have heard him talk about, and accept that explanation. I don't know that it is true or not, so I have to trust my instinct, and my instinct is that he is a good and decent man, I could be wrong. The race card is frequently the card people pull out when they want to demonise someone, or sex...look at Julian Assange. I don't pretend that he is a perfect man either, it is the message I support, not the man. Thanks for the read though, but I have to rectify that against everything else I see and hear, and it doesn't measure up.

edit, typo.


In reply to this comment by marinara:
you may find this interesting:
http://politics.videosift.com/talk/Racist-Ron-Paul

Unfortunately, we live in a democratic republic. That doesn't mean a free country--that just means a way a government runs. It does not actually prohibit or discourage a-holes from running other's lives. Remember, we only have the freedom elected officals give us, so we must elect them wisely (And that ain't gonna happen.)

He does address the issue "Get off the gay hating because god hates you."

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
>> ^bareboards2:
Methinks you missed the point, my friend.
He came up with a religious argument to counter religious stupidity.
This may be a turning point.
>> ^rottenseed:
upvote for the sentiment but he totally missed the point. The point being "what the fuck do we, the government, have any business in people's sexuality as long as its not hindering another?"


Nahhh, it does miss the point. He ends up supporting the course of action you and I would support, but he never addresses the 500 pound gorilla in the room, what business just government have to decide what marriage even is? Isn't that completely personal and private. The only reason we really have it is to stop Mormons from practicing their religion, and for money...always the money.
I will upvote because he seems like a good and decent man, however. Bold, frankness isn't something you get from a lot of political types.

>> ^bareboards2:

Methinks you missed the point, my friend.
He came up with a religious argument to counter religious stupidity.
This may be a turning point.
>> ^rottenseed:
upvote for the sentiment but he totally missed the point. The point being "what the fuck do we, the government, have any business in people's sexuality as long as its not hindering another?"



Nahhh, it does miss the point. He ends up supporting the course of action you and I would support, but he never addresses the 500 pound gorilla in the room, what business just government have to decide what marriage even is? Isn't that completely personal and private. The only reason we really have it is to stop Mormons from practicing their religion, and for money...always the money.

I will upvote because he seems like a good and decent man, however. Bold, frankness isn't something you get from a lot of political types.

I will never be happy knowing that others are lost or being punished FOREVER while I enjoy my "heaven". This is the same for ANY God or "heaven". I would tell that God this, "Go **** yourself".

Many people are using archaic concepts to discuss heaven & hell that are so various in use among different sects that it is almost futile to even try seriously talking about them. Some pick an extreme and blast ‘religion’ for saying an unprincipled wastrel who ‘converts’ is given eternal bliss, while a decent man who never heard of God is condemned to everlasting torment. Any fair-minded person would balk at such a stilted portrayal of judgment.

I’d suggest that condemnation of “religion” (or specifically Judeo-Christianity) based on these flawed positions is not fair or accurate. People are talking about God’s justice literally with pitchfork devils and halo angels as their framework. Most serious-minded persons talk about heaven & hell more properly in terms of the peace that comes with being aligned with God or the failed potential that comes with distance from God.

Put yourself in God’s shoes and say you are trying to maintain a realm of harmony and understanding. Someone comes along who stridently disagrees with how you’re doing things to the point where they basically are in open rebellion. In such a circumstance, would it not be reasonable to offer them a place where they could be happier since they are unhappy with things as they are? Would not such a place by necessity involve some degree of separation?

Ultimately, a person chooses their own degree of judgment based on their alignment with God. Both heaven (alignment with God) and hell (distance from God) are places where a person can reach the highest degree of happiness they can. Obviously (from a religious viewpoint) a person aligned with God has a much higher capacity for increasing happiness. Likewise, a person not aligned with God would only drift further and further away. On an eternal timescale, one side offers an ever-increasing degree of limitless happiness while the other offers only the literal damnation of halted progress.

I’m not saying all religions ascribe to this exact explanation, but it is a far more accurate discussion of the concept of ‘heaven and hell’ than what was offered by either the goombah who called into the radio show, or the caricature so lambasted by the hosts.

damn! does anyone else feel that this is really sad? This obviously decent man is struggling to the point of being driven to desperately compromise his principles just to feed his family. I guess it is probable that he will go to jail now, further exasperating the situation for his family...
Given that I just watched the video on Reagonomics (http://videosift.com/video/Reaganomics-Sucked-Wealth-Up-Did-Not-Trickle-It-Down), it is difficult to not question the values that modern western societies are built on.

I would love to see that video. Please share it with me if you find it. And btw, the fbomb video you shared with me was priceless. I'm beginning to like Shep myself
>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

>> ^EgyptianPrincess:
WOW! I can't believe this was on FOX news!

Shep is a good person. I remember when I started to like him. It was right after he got back from a field reporting for the most recent Hezbollah/Israel conflict. He got back, and the latest story on the headlines was Mel Gibson doing his first Jew bashing thing. As the shot was fading away for a commercial, he muttered as an aide something to this effect. "There is a war on, people are dying, and we are talking about Mel Gibson". It was a striking moment of caring and candor which will forevermore crystallize in my brain that he is a good and decent man. Let me see if I can dig up that clip.
Also, the bits where he drops the fbomb on torture is worth a gander.

>> ^EgyptianPrincess:

WOW! I can't believe this was on FOX news!


Shep is a good person. I remember when I started to like him. It was right after he got back from a field reporting for the most recent Hezbollah/Israel conflict. He got back, and the latest story on the headlines was Mel Gibson doing his first Jew bashing thing. As the shot was fading away for a commercial, he muttered as an aide something to this effect. "There is a war on, people are dying, and we are talking about Mel Gibson". It was a striking moment of caring and candor which will forevermore crystallize in my brain that he is a good and decent man. Let me see if I can dig up that clip.

Also, the bits where he drops the fbomb on torture is worth a gander.

Not much of an Olbermann fan these days, but he nailed this one.

Here's an article at The American Prospect, Why Democrats Are Deserting Obama. Here are the opening paragraphs:

Dorothy: You’re a very bad man for pretending to be a wizard. Wizard: No, I’m a good man, just a very bad wizard.

Barack Obama, you might say, is a very good man who is just not turning out to be a very effective president. And he makes a serious misjudgment if he thinks that it is just the liberal base of the party that is disillusioned both with the deal that he cut and with his leadership skills. Centrists like House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer are every bit as dismayed at the agreement Obama made -- a deal that increases the deficit by some $900 billion in a fashion that is both inequitable (too much to the top) and not very efficient as economic stimulus.

It was nothing short of astonishing to see Obama, at his surprise press conference Tuesday, with harsher words for members of his own party than for Republicans. It is the Republicans, after all, who have been blocking his efforts, wall-to-wall, while the liberal Democrats who have been his staunchest if often exasperated supporters.

I still believe Barack Obama is probably a decent man, and I agree with the majority of his political opinions. However, I agree much less with his political actions. He might be the smartest wonk to occupy the Oval Office in decades, but he has no political savvy. On the big issues he almost always blinks first. He never calls the Republicans' bluffs. Let's be frank: he's been at the helm for 2 years now, and his leadership has been weak. And just in the last 24 hours he has caved AGAIN, this time on the Israeli settlement issue. So if he's still wondering why so many Democrats are pissed off at him right now, it's because we have every right to be pissed off. EVERY right.

*quality

Warren Buffett is a good and decent man. His book is a model to cure wall street investors from being lechers that provide nothing to society except to extract wealth, to investors that make the world a better place for everyone should be required reading in the halls of investor ethics classes (do such things exist?). I have always thought a flat tax, or sales tax would end up in the rich being able to hide less money and pay the taxes obligated, rather than just upping the rate; the bracketed income tax is just to easily manipulated. With that said, Milton's Negative income tax could help any poor that could not handle the burden. And you can't just go crazy with tax cuts unless you are also cutting spending...which capital hill isn't showing any signs up anytime soon. Politically speaking, if I was on the hill, I would most likely vote for any tax cut I could get and vote down any unnecessary spending I could; as I would wager the chances to lower taxes come along much fewer than a small government person would like, have to take every opportunity.

But I think there is mostly a accepted notion that the current tax system is pretty out of touch with reality. No doubt, hidden in 8 million words of federal statute, lied a core ethic for what the tax code was supposed to accomplish. But now that hidden code is a miasma. Laden by 10s of thousands of corporately manipulated, and "Best of intentions worst in results" statues. In coding, we call it zombification. You have chopped and transmuted a section of code, and entire segments of program so many times that any hope of further development requires more work than to just chuck the entire thing out the window and start over. I think we have reached that point. It is time for the ever so unpopular "do overs" of our childhood.

I like McCain, he is decent man who fought hard for this country, but he is losing his grip on reality. His career is behind him. He should honestly retire and enjoy his last few years on this earth.

>> ^Baera:
I feel sorry for McCain in that he does not have enough pull within his own campaign to control what we've been seeing lately out of his camp. I'm not voting for him, but I'll upvote his comments in this video. He's actually a decent man. He needs to reign in some of the people surrounding him, and put a stop to the environment at his rallies/speeches that fosters people yelling out hate speech.

You're far too kind. A lot of the shit coming out of his campaign is coming directly from his and Palin's mouths; especially all this bullshit about Obama's affiliation with Ayers. He deserves defeat, not pity.

I feel sorry for McCain in that he does not have enough pull within his own campaign to control what we've been seeing lately out of his camp. I'm not voting for him, but I'll upvote his comments in this video. He's actually a decent man. He needs to reign in some of the people surrounding him, and put a stop to the environment at his rallies/speeches that fosters people yelling out hate speech.

- Also, I would like him to formally address the fact that somebody yelled out at one of his campaigns rallies to kill Obama. If this mob mentality continues to intensify, I will soon be genuinely be concerned for Obama.

re. http://www.videosift.com/video/McCain-Booed-for-calling-Obama-a-decent-man
Dupes happen all the time. Don't worry about it. It's just part of the sift. You can type *discard in the comment box to get rid of it. Good post, he just beat ya to it!

Dupe:
http://www.videosift.com/video/McCain-doing-the-right-thing

Please upvote.

Also here (similar):
http://www.videosift.com/video/McCain-Booed-for-calling-Obama-a-decent-man