US of A Presidential Elections 2012

I guess I'm in the minority that doesn't care.
 
Could this be due to people being so worried about 'government conspiracies', that when seeing the truth, they just think it's another conspiracy?
 
US of A Presidential Elections 2012

My question: Why would someone care what religion the president prescribes to?

A few years ago I went to my usual barber shop and my normal person was out, so they put me in the corner with this weird dude. The first thing he says to me is, "I'm a conservative and I'm a Christian". I should have gotten up and walked out at this point, but I was trying to be nice. He continued on spouting all of the Tea Party BS, then he said something derogatory about Muslims. So I asked him, "What if I'm a Muslim?", that pretty well shut him up.

What I've noticed is most people I've run across assume that if you are white you're a Christian. Why? I'm not sure.
 
GaryC said:
Could this be due to people being so worried about 'government conspiracies', that when seeing the truth, they just think it's another conspiracy?
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No, it is just evidence about how stupid ignorant a large part of the population is.

I love my mother but when it comes to politics she is very ignorant.

I went to Clinton's first inaugural in 1993 as part of a school trip. We started planning for it back in the fall before the election and so didn't know who would be president at the time. I was full on Republican at the time, a middle school aged Republican but a Republican nonetheless, and so just assumed Bush would win. You grow up in Texas, South Carolina, Alabama, etc. and then move into Central VA which is still deep south in its politics and there isn't any reason to think anyone but a Republican could win the Presidency.

When Clinton won my Mom was just in shock. My Dad not so much he was from Wisconsin and looking back I can already see that he was starting to break away from the Republicans though It would take another dozen years, the junior Bush and the Iraq war for him to break away completely. I have mentioned this before but my family knew Laura and George Bush. We half a dozen social circles below them but intersected in other ways because of the Oil Business, Young Republican women's club and the way that Midland is a big "little" town.

Anyway back on track so my Mom is adamant that I should not go to the inauguration because Clinton won and it will be "dangerous." "There are going to be a lot of Democrats there and it is just too Dangerous. If Bush had won it would be ok but not with Clinton. It is just too dangerous I don't want you to go. Maybe they should cancel the trip."

And that just blew my almost 13 year old mind. Why does it matter who is elected president in regards to how dangerous it is to go to the inauguration parade route some five plus miles back from the capital?

I knew that Kennedy's assassination had hit a lot of people of my mom's generation really hard but I also knew that was not the case of my mom because of other stories she had told.

Its too painful to even argue with her about this kind of stuff. Makes my head hurt like nothing else.
 
CraigB said:
My question: Why would someone care what religion the president prescribes to?

A few years ago I went to my usual barber shop and my normal person was out, so they put me in the corner with this weird dude. The first thing he says to me is, "I'm a conservative and I'm a Christian". I should have gotten up and walked out at this point, but I was trying to be nice. He continued on spouting all of the Tea Party BS, then he said something derogatory about Muslims. So I asked him, "What if I'm a Muslim?", that pretty well shut him up.

What I've noticed is most people I've run across assume that if you are white you're a Christian. Why? I'm not sure.
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Arabs, Iranians, and Turks are "white" even classified as much in a lot of censuses.
 
_HighVoltage_ said:
There is a scary amount of people, who despite all evidence, still think that Obama is a Muslim. What's more, when you watch the video you will hear how said people believe it's unconstitutional for a president to be a Muslim.
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I'd be willing to bet that every one of those people gets their news only from Fox or Rush. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this country won't improve until the Boomers start dying off.

I had a co-worker who was spouting off some of that BS but when I brought up Rev. Wright he shut up, you can't be wacky radical black Christian and Muslim at the same time.
 
It is not what religion you are but what you do that counts.

Now come on America get your freedom of religion thinking hats on - you remember from History 101, the Plymouth Brethren. ...

Hells teeth, and we are the ones with the established church.
 
jasonof2000 said:
I'd be willing to bet that every one of those people gets their news only from Fox or Rush. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this country won't improve until the Boomers start dying off.
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It's worse than that I'm afraid, there are a number of Gen Xers that are just as retarded, I deal with them daily on this other forum, and it's downright shocking some of the crap that I read.
 
Older generations dying won't fix anything. People thought the same about Marijuana. In the late 60s, only the older generations opposed legal marijuana, so people believed it would become legal in a decade or two. Look at how that failed.

Opinions change and beliefs get passed on to younger generations. All we know for certain about older generations dying is that older generations will die.
 
Cellos88GT said:
It's worse than that I'm afraid, there are a number of Gen Xers that are just as retarded, I deal with them daily on this other forum, and it's downright shocking some of the crap that I read.
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SpitfireMK461 said:
Older generations dying won't fix anything. People thought the same about Marijuana. In the late 60s, only the older generations opposed legal marijuana, so people believed it would become legal in a decade or two. Look at how that failed.

Opinions change and beliefs get passed on to younger generations. All we know for certain about older generations dying is that older generations will die.
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Bingo. There's plenty of 20 and 30 something's that are literally chugging the Faux News/Rush/etc. Kool Aid, at least according to my news feed on Facebook.
 
SpitfireMK461 said:
Older generations dying won't fix anything. People thought the same about Marijuana. In the late 60s, only the older generations opposed legal marijuana, so people believed it would become legal in a decade or two. Look at how that failed.

Opinions change and beliefs get passed on to younger generations. All we know for certain about older generations dying is that older generations will die.
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rickhamilton620 said:
Bingo. There's plenty of 20 and 30 something's that are literally chugging the Faux News/Rush/etc. Kool Aid, at least according to my news feed on Facebook.
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Ehh I agree and disagree.

For some issues you are right but for things like gay rights and gay marriage the older generations dying off seems to be actually having an effect in shifting issues.

Nate Silver did a whole breakdown on age demographics in the aftermath of Cali's prop 8 showing that very thing.

That being said there are plenty of stupid people in our own late 70s through mid 80s generation. One of the girls I went to HS with has nothing but country boy, south will rise again, pickup trucks, gov't ruins everything, vaccines cause autism on her FB page. I didn't realize how nutty she was when I accepted her friend request. I didn't remember her that way. Now I just go on there and blow apart her and her friends fantasies. The latest one was that Obama eliminated the 20% tax bracket moved everyone up one bracket and increased all other brackets for everyone.

The funny or depressing thing is that none of them make enough money to get even close to the brackets they did actually raise. She has four kids so most likely she doesn't even pay regular federal income tax after all the child tax credits and deductions.
 
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There is always the zeitgeist. It might be slow, but it'll get there eventually..
 
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SpitfireMK461 said:
Older generations dying won't fix anything. People thought the same about Marijuana. In the late 60s, only the older generations opposed legal marijuana, so people believed it would become legal in a decade or two. Look at how that failed.

Opinions change and beliefs get passed on to younger generations. All we know for certain about older generations dying is that older generations will die.
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Marijuana prohibition is over 70 years old on a national level (1937 usa) and we are just starting to see a swing towards legalization. Two states have legalized it, but we have a long way to go before we see change at the federal level.
 
It'll be interesting if the federal government does intervene as the issue of state law vs federal law (those laws not in the Constitution) is nebulous at the moment. Obama's threatening of CA when they attempted to legalize marijuana isn't encouraging.
 
argatoga said:
It'll be interesting if the federal government does intervene as the issue of state law vs federal law (those laws not in the Constitution) is nebulous at the moment. Obama's threatening of CA when they attempted to legalize marijuana isn't encouraging.
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I don't expect Obama to actually do anything about that. He has plenty of other things on his plate.


RE: the distribution of taxes vs. income well its not really a surprise. I have posted about it before as well though that particular graph is interesting as it takes a look at a longer time frame.

The three big drivers of Federal spending are, Defense, Social Security and Medicare/Medicade. Look for states that have lots of defense industry in them, either through bases or defense contractors, and them combine that with a lot of older/poor people. Boom they become a net drain on federal taxes.

That is why Virginia and Hawaii are on the negative side of that list even though they have wealthy Democratic leaning areas.


In fact the crazy person on facebook is one of the people from Virginia that was cheering the secession petition on the WH website back after the election. When I pointed out the fact that those states couldn't survive without the Federal gov't because they are net consumers of federal tax dollars I got this.

British_Rover said:
I pointed that out in a facebook thread about the secession petitions that a girl I went to HS with.

This the response that I got.

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I just got explaining these states pay no net federal taxes at all after all transfers are complete but really they do the feds just muddle things so you cannot tell.

Stupid me for trying to point out facts on facebook. I already ran into a similar problem explaining why the map looks mostly red with little blue but Romney still lost. Synopsis the race was much closer then the media says it is like 90% closer because look at all the area Romney won...



:blowup:



insert I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
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And now after the appeal court ruled on Overturning the three recess appointments Obama made last year, overturning over 150 years of precedent in the process, I get this photo posted by her this morning.

408391_200696416735464_499498783_n_zpsb7707899.jpg


I just cannot take the stupid anymore I have to block her.
 
@BR

Social security is funded directly and does not count as an expense from the general income tax. Now if we could get congress to quit stealing from the fund.
 
GRtak said:
@BR

Social security is funded directly and does not count as an expense from the general income tax. Now if we could get congress to quit stealing from the fund.
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I know SS is directly funded which is why I said she does not make enough money to even pay regular Income tax. I am sure she pays payroll taxes though part of those payroll taxes might be refunded to her in the form of credits.


SS is still part of the overall budget and is counted in as transfer payments so when you have a state with a lot of retirees like Florida or a lot of retirees and poor people like say West Virginia then there is a ton of money coming in but not nearly as much going out just in FICA.

The article says Federal Taxes and not just income taxes so I assume they are counting all federal taxes, which would include FICA along with say the gas tax plus other taxes, in with their calculations and not just the income tax.

If you look and Median Age and income of Say WV and FL compared to say CA and CT it becomes very clear. This is all in 2010 so it is 2010 dollars, not that there has been any inflation in two years, and 2010 population.

WV has a Median age of 41.3 with 16.1 percent of their population at 65 and over. Florida is slightly older at 17.7 percent and median age of 40.7. WV's median income by household in 2010 was $39,444 and FL's was $45,609.

CT is not much younger then FL with 14.% over the age of 65 and a median age of 40 but CT has one of the highest household incomes in the country at $65,883. Just glancing at the chart and only NJ, AK and MD have higher household income.

California is even younger again then CT with a median age of 35.2 and 11.3% of the population at 65 or over. The median household income is $59,540. California though has a ton of Defense department money pouring into the state from both defense contractors and military bases. That offsets their demographics and pushes them down to just slightly net positive on taxes.

PA is also interesting with its place at net zero for federal taxes. Its income of $50,458 is very close to the median income of the US which is $51,144. The median age is 40.1 but 15.4% of the population is 65 or over. That is what pushes them to the net zero position. I do not think PA has a huge amount of bases though they do have some defense contractors. PA also has a sizable population of rural and urban poor.
 
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