On that, would it be better under a Republican? Voting for Obama is a lesser of two evils. Seriously, do you genuinely think, that voting for a non-libertarian conservative would make the situation better?
I do, actually, at this point. Because then the Democrats would have been cast in the role of the opposition, and the outcry could have potentially ended with them putting forward an actually decent candidate. Instead, we have the Republicans having to fill the role of the voice of reason, which is going about as well as you'd expect. For all their flaws, they AND the democrats all tend to be far more reasonable when a Republican is in power, because the Republican radicals lose a lot of their rhetoric and ability to influence the party, and the Democrats have a reason to exhibit a tiny bit of backbone and stand against poor legislation (rare as it is for them to actually do so even then).
I don't know anymore if Obama was the lesser of two evils. As far as I'm concerned, he's effectively declared war on the concept of democratic government, because without an informed populace there is no Democracy, only a farce. And he has fought at every turn to leave the American public unenlightened and powerless, while attempting to placate them so they don't complain about it.
I mean you could not vote, but then you lose your power to change things.
What power to change things? Because it's not that often that votes change much of all, and even rarer that you can actually tell in advance what kind of change your voting for. What I need to is get involved in politics - but I'm afraid I wouldn't survive the experience, hah.
Oh yeah, and a response to this. First off, let me state that I a a bit more authoritarian then many on this board, so keep this in mind. Two, while you bring up a good point, the Republicans are not exactly being the voice of reason (we are just barely getting them saying it "might" have gone overboard, impressive given they despise him) The Repubs in the Committee on Intelligence have agreed with him mostly (including John McCain who was actually a victim of torture.)
And I plan to get involved with politics assuming I can pull my educational career together.
Anyway, terrorism. They may not be faceless mooks, But Ideology can press them into such. However, these are still
humans. People who murder are fundamentally human beings, no matter how much we like to pretend otherwise. And given this, there is a necessary rationality in all groups. religion helps justify some of the insaner things (After all, if you believe you get to go to Heaven for murdering people, why would you fear death?) and many end up on some level of sane. After all, 2+2=5, but when making a gun, 2+2 must equal 4. These people aren't exactly rushing at the government like lemmings. They hide, they fear death. They are rational.
Dealing with Terrorists in such a manner as recommended here is Very unwise. Remember Israel handing over 100 prisoners for one man? Yeah, like that doesn't happen often. North Korea is another example. We always concede to them, and then they will do it AGAIN.
If we're blatantly morally in the wrong it would be good to stop being blatantly morally in the wrong, though. That would also reduce the desire for people to join terrorist groups.
There are very, very, very few things that are blatant. But we are discussing how to defeat Terrorism, not why they do it. The difference between Freedom Fighters and Terrorist are likewise a Separate issue.