Can someone explain to me in simple terms. USA elections

[ihatethecold]

What are the main differences between Obama and romney?
Is Obama like labour and Romney like very right conservative?

Why does Romney say he will get rid of the healthcare bill that Obama brought in.

Did it not work?
why wouldn't you want people without insurance to access healthcare ?
Thanks

The right continually have attacked the pregnancy advice centres and policies of education by charity groups like Planned Pregnacy and in many areas the right have gone out of there way to force Planned Pregnancy to close down due to the rights forced birth stance. They always conveniently forget that only 3% of what Planned Pregnacy do is permitting a woman the her god given right to liberty to choose and the vast majority of their work is in prevention of STI's etc. etc.

Oh and do remember that in the USA the vast majority of all abortions are on middle aged married woman.

Do remember that through their sex education practices Planned Pregnancy are in fact the largest preventors of abortions in the USA.

But hey the disinformation of the right is not know for letting facts get in the way of phoney rhetoric. WMD's anyone...anyone...Bueller...

How is the Democratic party anti family?

How does a party that campaigns against 'government interference in how businesses are run' including for instance making businesses provide a clean room for lactating women to pump milk call itself pro family? How is a party that objects to paid maternity leave for a paltry six weeks pro family? How is a party that always objects to raises in the minimum wage pro anything but permanent impoverishment of vast swathes of the workforce?

I suspect when the Republicans call themselves pro family what they are saying is that they are the party that makes it difficult for mothers to work or for working women to have babies and recover in a humane amount of time (and eat while they are away from work) and what they actually mean by 'family' is one where there is a male breadwinner.

Republicans believe the way to control the poor is to keep them poor and struggling because as the old song goes how will they keep them down on the farm once they've seen Paris.

Of course the republican elite can see Paris for as long as they can, especially in order to dodge the draft.

Not all Republicans.

I am most decidedly not a Republican, but it's unfair to tar them all with the same brush, the same as it is any other group of people.

Having done a little research the numbers for the USA are as follows.

5% of rapes end up in pregnancy,

32,000 rape pregnancies a year in the USA

That means 640,000 rapes a year in the USA

Question for Extrospektiv

If gun ownership is a great thing why are they not 640,000 men shot a year by a rape victim. Is that because the lack of gun control allows the rapeists a real means of force.

Instead of trying to criminalise the victims with force birther legislation why don't the right wing states go after the rapists.

Cheerful Yank... I think it goes back to the saying: Not all Republicans are racists (or misogynists, or Christian fundamentalists), but all the racists (etc) are Republicans.

'Significance? Haters gonna hate... :P'
It wasn't actually very funny though, was it?

'A few racists out of thousands of people, not as if everyone was applauding them.
They felt comfortable enough and uninhibited enough in that environment to do it.

'Same as Akin and rape, his insensitivity to rape survivors and ignorance of reproductive biology doesn't extend to the whole party.'

The Akin thing happened in the specific context of upcoming legislation sponsored by Akin and Paul Ryan which would stop funding for abortion unless forcible rape could be proved by the victim -- the 'legitimate rape' language used was the language of proponents of the legislation. Akin's wing of the Republican Party believes that women would make up rape allegations to get around loopholes in anti-abortion legislation that made exceptions for rape and incest. So he is opposed to loopholes. The forcible rape language was dropped after an outcry from women's organisations.

Akin isn't smart enough to have come up with his biological theories himself, as demonstrated by the fact that he was stupid enough to broadcast the rhetoric -- it is widespread in his section of the party. He is not a lone idiot marching to the sound of a different drum. Back in the early 90s he opposed the extension of the definition of rape to encompass marital rape on the grounds that women could falsely claim rape and make divorce very messy. Obviously that did not put much of a ding in his political career. On this occasion he was confident enough of the ridiculous assertions of the circle that populates his own little echo chamber that he saw fit to air them to a wider audience, just as the peanut throwers were confident.

Incidentally, the notion that women cannot get pregnant after forcible rape has been around in the Republican party and the pro life movement since the 1980s. It is a wishful thinking theory that originated in campaigns against abortion, with the rape and incest loopholes that all anti-abortion legislation normally include proving too much for those who want abortion ended completely. Stephen Freind, a Pennsylvania Republican representative, was the first known politician to air the myth in the political arena, and got laughed out of court, back in 1988. Henry Aldridge of North Carolina was next. Apparently it just won't die. www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/08/a-canard-that-will-not-die-legitimate-rape-doesnt-cause-pregnancy/261303/

Extro

You seemed to be portraying yourself as an American with strong opinions.

I now see that you are a British person who has had some trips to America, none of them lasting more than two weeks.

So I hope you will not be offended more than necessary if I say that to take the views of the American voter, I will listen to citizens and residents and not you.

Thanks to those who responded about the gun issue. Bohemian I can understand all those points of view. I understand feeling the need for personal protection, in a 'all the baddies have a gun therefore I need one too' kind of way. I also get that not wanting govt to tell people what to do is a big thing for some, although it seems to extend mostly to things they want to be able to do/control, rather than things they would like other people not to do...

I also understand that in some places guns just are, as you say CheerfulYank, and getting them back in the box just is never going to happen.

But what I struggle with is why any of these principles trump the fact that surely with stricter gun controls, less people would die? I can see the comparison with alcohol here, although of course the big difference is that the purpose of a gun is to cause harm/kill people. The only reason to have guns (other than those genuinely needed for animal control or whatever) is so that you are in a position to do that, whether in self-defence or not.

I find that very difficult. When gun lobby people have that argument put to them in debate, that strict gun controls surely = less death, what is their response generally?

I would also like to thank people for a fascinating and informative thread. I studied American History as part of my degree and also did a term on American politics, but remember shamefully little of it really. Most of my 'knowledge' now comes from the West Wing!

Ten??!!

Just to be clear, I don't think all gunowners are racists! I think some people want guns because they are paranoid about crime, and some of those people are afraid because they have been affected so much by hysterical news coverage of crime, which often has a racial element. Studies have shown for example that in areas where black and white people commit crimes at similar rates, most of the criminals actually shown on local TV are black.

I'm not the biggest fan of Michael Moore but I thought he raised an interesting point in Bowling for Columbine, where he talked about how Canadians also have lots of guns but much less gun violence. I think he pointed to fear and paranoia as a big difference between the societies, you could also talk about how Canada has a much better social safety net that probably reduces crime, as well as demographic factors.

Flowery like you I don't understand why people's personal opinions get to trump the obvious fact that gun control would limit violence. I suppose a lot of people would disagree with your saying that the only purpose of a gun is to harm/kill people. I think the vast majority of people would say its purpose is protection, or maybe hunting, i.e. good purposes. So why should they have to be unprotected just because some people use guns wrongly?

Okay, sure, but what I really don't get is why we can't at least limit the worst guns, surely you can protect yourself without a semiautomatic, or with just one gun. But I guess that is seen as a slippery slope to banning them completely.

I think actually that 'slippery slope' thinking is a big driver of American beliefs that don't make sense elsewhere.

I found this to be one of the biggest differences when I moved to the UK, there seemed to be a decided lack of slippery slope arguments. For example, my uni department would waive rules for individual students, in a way you wouldn't have in the US because 'if we do it for you, we'd have to do it for everyone'. Or the fact that the Brits have limits on hate speech, which in the US would not only be unconstitutional but everyone would be freaking out that it would mean all unwanted speech would be banned.

Basically the Brits seem a bit more pragmatic to me, whereas there is a kind of hysteria in the US sometimes that doing anything to address a certain issue is impossible because of the inevitable consequences.

In part I think this is because the US is a more precedent-based society, legally and even emotionally. But perhaps it also ties into these American fears of tyranny and too much government, etc and so on.

Interesting comparison between the US and the UK that I have always found revealing :

The UK tax code talks about the principle of a transaction - it may not be written that a particular transaction is legal or illegal but if it follows a pattern and standard then it can be decided upon.

The US tax system is all about exact rules
box 18 on the first page of EVERY US tax return is about Farm income - even though only a fraction of the population is involved in farming

if something is now banned in a rule it is allowed
so the rules proliferate
and in the UK the principles adapt.

Talkin - Absolutely. A source of endless confusion to US clients when I saw them advised (used to be a lawyer, though not tax) on transactions in the UK. They were really uncomfortable with the idea they couldn't go through a list, tick all the boxes and know whether the authorities would be happy with what they were doing. Feeds back into the inherent distrust of government.

To be fair, the upside of rules is that they can give greater transparency on how decisions are made and what will happen (at least, until the rules get so complex no one can understand them!)

There were a number of times in the UK where it felt like I was just supposed to send all this information to whatever office/agency, they would look at it in some obscure manner, and then get back to me about what they decided. This is really frustrating to an American!

trying to find your way through US bureaucracy is also very difficult when you are not familiar.

Some of it is much more complex for visitors.

Slight off topic but I just read this article on the BBC and it amused me. Apparently Obama brews his own beer and people demanded the recipe.

It then says at the end of the article:
One of the oldest political cliches states that people vote for the person they would most like to have a beer with - and Mr Obama's rival in the November election, Mitt Romney, a Mormon, does not drink.

The Americans are used to the price of goods on the shelves in stores not equalling the price at the checkout.
Such things are illegal in the EU.

I always chuckle at the New Hampshire Liquor stores right on the state border with excellent roads leading to them.
Then again Europeans always find it odd that you can buy beer anywhere but wine and spirits are tightly regulated

British people have to remember that 93% of Americans do not have a passport. Not travelling to other countries rather affects one's world view.

A member of my family travelled to Europe and was freaked that people in Spain did not all speak English - so ended up in London !

The proportion of teetotalers in the USA is around 40 % and in Europe 30%
www.gfk.com/group/press_information/press_releases/003343/index.en.html
The religious right were never going to vote for Obama even if he joined a temperance group