knicks said:
Need help political gaf. I am the only one supporting obama in my whole class, everyone is attacking me, so I thought what better place to come to.
Here are some attacks they are slamming on me.
"What demands would you (Obama) put on a foreign governments if there is evidence of its direct involvement in a debilitating attack on the United States?"
"What are Obama's immediate plans in terms of energy since he opposes offshore drilling? Currently, his plan does not include anything that would go into affect earlier than 2015. "
"Obama does not have immediate plans in terms of energy since he opposes offshore drilling. Therefore, Obama is only concerning himself with things that can not be put into action until 2015, which I believe is incredibly useless considering we are in 2008 right now, therefore something 7 years from now, is definaly not going to help us now. McCain on the other hand states, "We must, we must embark on a national mission to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil", I agree with McCain saying this because if we depend on foreign oil, we might possibly run into major problems maybe not now, but without a doubt in the long run."
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Your classmates are all kinds of stupid.
First, you don't "demand" anything of another country that attacks you. If another country attacks the US, or is imminently going to attack the US, Obama or any other US President would bomb the shit out of them, end of story.
For countries that are involved in terrorism, its more complicated. Saudi Arabia, for example, is a country we have a relationship with, but plenty of their money gets used for nefarious purposes across the globe. The way that Obama or any other Prez deals with that stuff is largely via diplomatic means. You put economic & trade pressure on other countries to force them to conform their behavior.
Second, Obama's immediate energy plans are to greatly increase federal funding & subsidies of alternative energy production. Under Bush we have very limited government subsidies of alternative energy, and as a result the sector is not developed enough to become profitable via private investment. Under Obama's plan, the Feds would prop-up alternative energy with something like $10 billion dollars a year (?) in direct subsidies, effectively forcing open the market. This will spur development, which will ultimately drive costs down to market-sustainable levels.
Offshore drilling is pointless, the government's own statistics say that it will decrease the cost of a gallon of gasoline by something like 6 cents. Literally 6 cents per gallon.
True energy independence will only come from nuclear reactors and massive government subsidy & development of wind, solar and other alternative energy sources.
Basically, both Obama & McCain support alternative energy. The main difference is that Obama is willing to use plenty of government dollars to subsidize the industry and prop up the market until it becomes profitable. The Republican strategy is more hands-off.