Iska told me you defended Biden and I had to see it for myself XD
Berserk wrote:
Oh, and Biden gave Ryan the respect he deserved. Ryan really thought he was going to get away with criticizing the stimulus after personally requesting funds from it for his district? Ryan was really going to tell Biden of all people about a tragic car accident? And then Ryan starts dropping all this chain e-mail bullshit like: "Did you know Biden visited China and openly supported their one-child policy and forced abortion?" or "Did you know that Obama snubbed Netanyahu in New York to go on The View?"
No, he didn't. I can't BELIEVE you would even defend Biden. Come on, Berserk. Not even Obama laughed at Romney throughout the entire debate neither was it the other way around. Here you had Biden laughing, interrupting, smirking, the entire time Ryan was talking. How would you like someone laughing as you're speaking? Multiple times? Come on, this has nothing to do with what Ryan said but with common courtesy, so be quiet. No matter WHO is talking or what they are saying, especially in this type of discussion, you need to show respect and not do stupid things like LAUGH as they're speaking. (Have you ever been in mock trial or any debating team? That's like a rule.)
You just proved my point that people will defend Biden/Obama no matter what they do
But not even Obama would be that disrespectful or at least I don't believe he would be.
Iska wrote:
@PE: I agree with every word of what you wrote (as I'm sure you know from our FB conversations). I can't shake this feeling that while most Americans have finally become ready for a (half)black president, we still aren't ready for a female president. It just saddens me so much.
I'm not saying, of course, that all Obama supporters chose him over Clinton simply because they're misogynists (that would make me as much of an asshole as the people who suggest that everyone who supported McCain did so because they're racists) but all the examples you gave (and plenty of others I've seen personally), should make it pretty obvious to anyone with the tools to spot sexism that a lot of people (yes, even liberals) still have problems with assertive and confident women, women who are not conventionally attractive, women who are conventially attractive and just the general idea of a woman having that much authority over men.
(I originally wrote a couple more long paragraphs here delving deep into feminist theory in an attempt to explain why this is, but I deleted it because, dear Christ, who do I think is really interested in reading all of that?)
Yeah, I agree basically with everything you've said too. I think the gender thing is harder for people to overcome than race, TBH, at least in the USA. It's as if people don't want to admit that it's there, but it's definitely still there. The 2008 elections were a perfect example of that, and that's also why I resented the whole Obama campaign as well since it had also fed off of the sexist attacks by the media (who were pretty much with him from the start) and the people against Clinton/Palin. I don't like how we arrived to him being president at all when it comes to these things. It's one thing to make attacks about Clinton's character, her policies, but her body and things related to her femininity, even her PERIOD? (And jokes about how Palin's baby should've been aborted, TOTALLY FINE!) That's not politics, it's sexism. It wasn't even coming only from that "evil" Republican party, those "woman haters," but all sides.
http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/ ... 012258.jpg
^ true.
I'm not even someone who sees sexism in all things, every day, all the time (I don't want to become that), but I think it's so blatant when it comes to Hillary Clinton and women in politics.
even a political cartoon like this:
http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/no_sexism.gif
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/20 ... st-images/
That's not even the horrible stuff. It's just really disheartening for any woman who wants to be in politics.
I'm interested in reading! XD I actually read this long article that was about the sexist attacks against Hillary Clinton sparking a feminist awakening, and it was really interesting. If you have time you can look at it.
http://nymag.com/news/features/46011/
EDIT:
And I can't seriously be the only one who is really disgusted by how the Libya attack has been handled, can I?
You're not.
EDIT2: DON'T GOOOO~
And the voting thing, I think here in the US it's "okay" to not vote, and I'm partly glad there's the option of not voting although I will always vote as I feel privileged to have this right. I will say though that government does run on a certain amount of apathy, but also it's hard to actually educate yourself on every single candidate, that sometimes you just don't want to vote. My friend was telling me today how embarrassed she felt because she didn't even know any of the judges or any lower-level people, she wasn't even sure she should be voting at that time because she was picking at random. It's not easy to study up on these things, especially if you have a job, children, etc etc...
If someone is honestly unsure, doesn't know anything, or doesn't like either candidate, I wouldn't force them to vote. It's not about taking elections for granted, but why would you want a person who doesn't believe in their vote to vote? Just to say they participated in the process?