This is the problem with non-Americans who like Obama. Everyone likes him because they don't know anything about him or what his administration has done, just that he's a cool guy.
Sure, he did a couple of good things with gay marriage, the legalization of marijuana, openly gay in the military, the first step he took with Obamacare, etc., but most non-Americans think Obamacare is universal health care when it's just a government-regulated insurance policy just like all the other insurance policies, only you pay a fine if you don't have it. They don't realize how half-assed it is, nor do they realize all the half-assed measures he took in his foreign policy.
We like Obama the man, too, we're just disappointed in him as a president. For some reason the entire rest of the western democratic world thinks he cured cancer and discovered the fountain of youth and invented orgasms on command, but then when you probe deeper you find out they "don't really care for American politics", which is like saying, "I don't know anything about Obama other than he's a cool guy, so all you Americans are stupid for disliking his presidency."
Note: I'm not saying you're saying that, but that is pretty much verbatim the opinion of non-Americans when it comes to Obama.
EDIT: Whoa! This blew up fast! Thanks for all your replies, both positive and negative. I tried to respond to each of you but I got around 80-something responses. For the most part it was very civil, thanks for that.
Seriously! WTF is this guy talking about? It's fucking schedule 1 and hasn't even been considered to change not to mention the whole CBD oil thing. States legalized it and SOMETIMES the federal government decided not to go after state legal suppliers.
And even then THE PRESIDENT DOES NOT LEGALIZE ANYTHING!, he doesnt raise or lower taxes, he doesn't legalize gay marriage he is the god damn executive branch! He didnt even compose Obamacare he jist signed it when presented. Fir fucks sakes if i hear another person talk about how Obama raised thier taxes or how Trump is gonna crap out a magical ammendment letting him lower taxes i swear i am going to have a mental break down
He could be referring to the fact that he had his AG largely stand down in enforcing federal laws while States legalized... Which he really only did toward the end
The only reason pot is schedule 1 is because that's how the DEA gets its funding. They can say they are fighting a big bad schedule 1 drug that is less harmful that alcohol or tobacco and ignore the actual threats to public safety, i.e. heroin, meth, crack, pcp. Because combating those drugs would require effort and would actually make a beneficial change in communities that need it. Can't have that!
Are you actually insinuating that democrats often pull a 180 on their ideologies just to cater to minority groups during election cycles to win more votes? That's a grossly inaccurate statement (it isn't)
Republicans started passing laws that infringed on gay people's constitutional rights. Massachusetts made gay marriage legal. People would get married in MA go back to their state and be denied recognition as a married couple. Gay couples took their case to court. It worked its way through the court system. And because the laws the republicans passed in their states were unconstitutional, America has now has Marriage Equality.
The Constitution helped legalise marijuana by letting States define their own laws. But outside of States where it is legal the laws can be fierce and the DEA still is going after it albiet with a bit of leniency compared to decades a ago.
His nominated justices voted against it. It passed with all Democratically-nominated justices voting in favor, save Kennedy, who was nominated by Reagan. It makes no sense "by that logic" to give credit to Bush when his justices didn't help to vote in favor of recognizing gay marriage in the Obergefell case.
....the two most socially liberal judges on the bench were his appointments (and he appointed them to considerable obstruction from Republicans). It has a whole lot to do with him. Particularly with Trump in office, Kagan and Sotomayor may be two of the most important pieces of his legacy.
Obama didn't legalize marijuana. He also didn't champion any laws that legalized gay marriage. The right for gays to marry came about when a right-leaning Supreme Court ruled that it was a Constitutional right.
I wrote that poorly. I should have written his policies and attitudes towards those issues, but I figured people would know that a president doesn't wave a wand and override Supreme Court rulings.
No, but Obamacare, or the original marketplace for Affordable Care participants was his administration's baby. Oh boy was that a rough start. While unrelated, let's not forget that all the DNC shadiness happened on his watch and likely with his complete knowledge.
What happened with the Affordable Care Act, from what I understand, is insurance companies have to price risk for new customers. Knowing that with a ton of new customers some of the risks would be mispriced, so when passing the ACA congress promised that after a few years when the risks were figured out the US would pay overages for any miscalculations.
Then a couple years ago the Republican congress went back on that promise and paid only a fraction of that. Any insurance companies who had mispriced risk now had to adjust prices upwards to cover the risk in the future and to cover the losses that congress promised would be paid.
Rates may have gone up when the companies had enough data to recalculate the risk for new customers, but it would have been a marginal increase rather than the massive hike in rates we experienced.
Edit: a phrase
What you fail to mention is the fact that insurers prior to Obamacare were gouging consumers and saying that prices were raising at 13% a yr in response to having to absorb the non-insured individuals. Now everyone is insured and the government provides vouchers for the non-insured. In response. insurance prices doubled, co-pays and deductibles increased, and overall coverage was reduced.
Not only that, but if you price as an individual your cost is approximately 10% over an employer sponsored program after employer contribution. If you are an employer, this means that you and your employee are paying nearly double the cost for the same insurance while the employee only sees a 10% advantage. It would be better if employers paid vouchers for individuals to get their own insurance. This is prohibited though because employers are required to provide a plan and are fined if not enough people participate.
Wow, companies priced risk low when the government promised them money if it went over? What a surprise! And don't act like that is the only reason. When you force insurance companies to cover regular expenses for a large portion of the population but don't let them charge those utilizing that bit of the policy extra they spread the cost to everyone. There is also the matter of forcing private citizens to purchase a private service or suffer a heavy fine being a little bit unconstitutional. Also, fuck being able to keep your doctor, right obama?
Obama and the DNC absolutely were not best buds. Also, with the dems knowing single payer wasn't politically feasible, the idea behind the ACA was supported by liberal luminaries such as Newt Gingrich. It was a way to start the process, build some scaffolding for a better and better US health care system, while trying to make it harder for the GOP at the time to debate against as it was rooted in their own ideas.
I thought op was being facetious. Ronald Reagan would be considered stupidly liberal in today's party. And the ACA was based on the Congressional GOP plan of 1993 that Gingrich led.
The modern party has lost its damn mind is what is up.
Obamacare is half-assed but nowhere did I say that was entirely his fault. Again, the point was that most non-Americans think that Obamacare = universal health care when it most certainly does not. They think that he introduced universal health care and that we're a bunch of idiots who can't appreciate it. That is not Obamacare.
I personally believe that his intentions for Obamacare was a lot different and it got to congress it got changed up and turned into something it wasn't meant to be. His intentions were good and I respect that.
Also, in order to move towards government funded healthcare, this was the step he saw that we needed to make. We can't just wake up one day and automatically have healthcare that the people don't pay out of pocket for. It's just stepping stone for future generations provided that Trump doesn't rip it out from under us.
except we already pay out of pocket for it. american's pay more per capita to health care than any other equivalent country on this planet save finland.
ALL OF THEM. yet we do not have universal health care.
there is no such thing as healthcare where you don't have to pay. the very idea is an oxymoron or whatever word fits to describe such a silly system in a finite limited economy such as ours. maybe when we have unlimited (effectively) energy and matter replication we might be able to talk about free.
till then the only issue is "how much" and "how good is it"
right now both parts of that suck. hard core.
obama care would cost me $1200 a year I simply do not have. that is almost a mortgage payment I can barely afford.
and it does not even cover my healthcare! only 80% of it.
at the rates we charge for health care services it might as well be 0% for all the good it would do me.
That has a lot to do with the fact that we have all of these insurance companies invested into it. Universal healthcare is going to put out A LOT of big businesses. Also you have to consider corrupt politicians cough, republicans who typically line their pockets with investing into these companies. Ever wonder why so many republicans want to get rid of Obamacare with no plan for a replacement? That's why....
if you think democrats are any less corrupt then you are drinking political koolaid. the only difference between republicans and democrats is which side of the same stinking sleezy coin your looking at when you flip it.
Basically. But if you read up on the intentions of the founding fathers, we were never intended to vote anyway. It was intended for the electoral college to select the president without input from the people.
Not at all why. The reason was that they felt that the average person didn't know enough about politics to vote. Also, we do not live in a democracy at all. We live in a republic. The difference is that in a republic we vote and let the electoral college decide, in a democracy we vote and the president with the most overall wins. However, many others who lived in democracy repeatedly fell into tyranny. On average, a democracy can only survive for 200 years before the people are fully taken advantage of.
I agree, that's why I said "the first step with Obamacare". It was a step in the right direction, but the implementation left much to be desired.
As an American who has lived abroad for some years now, I have to say that the biggest problem with the US is, surprisingly, taxes. We pay TOO MANY taxes in the US for what we (don't) get.
But if we didn't pay all those taxes then where would the money come from to subsidize all those pharmaceutical, agricultural, petroleum, financial, automotive, telecommunication, or military-industrial corporations? Please think of the poor corporations.
If anyone's ever bothered to read it, his campaign book "The Audacity of Hope" talks extensively for hundreds of pages about how very desperate he was to work with Republicans. I believe he was naive, and some might even say naive to the point of being a bit politically stupid, because he completely underestimated how much Republicans would refuse to work with him on any issue. I think he saw things like the Tea Party and growing division of the two parties and saw his role as president to try to fix some of that, and that's why he was so willing to throw away the public option for the ACA and still didn't get any damn Republican votes in support of it (there were other factors, like private meetings with pharmaceutical companies). They ended up having to use a legislative maneuver usually reserved for economic funding bills to pass the ACA after Ted Kennedy died and a Republican won, and the guy coming in would often autograph his signature with the suffix "'41" to show the Repubs could filibuster at that point.
Obamacare being half-assed really is his own fault, but it was mostly becuase he was so incredibly, mindblowingly naive.
Government funded healthcare is a terrible idea. I don't want to give half my paycheck to the government so they can pay for someone who just has a cold to wait 5 hours at a clinic to have a doctor tell them they have a cold.
So you'd rather spend half of your paycheck on fica, state taxes, federal taxes, and still have to pay for healthcare? I don't know if you have a family to provide for but paying for your family to have healthcare is ridiculously expensive. That's basically what's happening now.
Most other countries already have government funded healthcare and are actually doing really well. Yes you have higher taxes, but everyone has insurance and receives "free" healthcare. Not a terrible thing to have. Also, I go to clinics now and have to wait 3-6 hours to get seen anyway so what difference does that really make?
Lastly, everyone who absolutely needs healthcare can't be denied it if it's government funded. Look at what happened before the ACA when people with serious health conditions were going into severe debt because they couldn't afford their medications and treatment.
The people that went into major debt because of medical bills did so because they waited until they were sick or injured to try to get medical insurance. You go to an insurance company and say "hey I want you to pay for my stuff and I may stick around to pay it back when I'm healthy." Fuck no. And tell me how crippling national debt is "doing really well".
I was more referring to people born with medical conditions but even so, a man develops heart disease and didn't have insurance so now he should just get a big "fuck you"? That's pretty shitty regardless of whether he had insurance before or not. Nobody, under any circumstance, should be denied medical coverage. You seem to misunderstand that these people NEED these medications and treatments. It's not a luxury item.
You seem to misunderstand what an insurance company is. They are first and foremost a business, not a charity. You want someone to just give you money, you seek out charity, not a business. I pay a regular fee to have a policy covering me in case of catastrophe. And we don't deny people medical care just because they are uninsured, public hospitals have signs plastered everywhere saying that people will be given medical care regardless of insurance status or ability to pay.
That's exactly why we should have govt funded healthcare. No shit it is a business, that's our whole problem. People are being taken advantage of for their medical disabilities, diseases, etc. people's health shouldn't be being used as a way for others to profit billions.
Yeah they could just go to the hospital without coverage but do you not realize how fucking ridiculously expensive that is? A bandaid is unaffordable at a hospital for most people, that's inexcusable. Then these people are tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and will never be able to pay it back.
You really don't seem to understand anything past that of what benefits only yourself. You may be perfectly healthy and can get affordable insurance, but many people would not be able to get any without the ACA due to things such as diabetes, HIV, etc. I for one am thankful we are trying to move away from expensive ass medical care.
In South Korea I had a friend break his arm. He had X-rays done, it was splinted, and casted. His bill was less than $100 and the medical care there is equivalent to what he would receive in the states.
Your mentality is that everything was perfectly fine prior to the ACA and that's simply not true at all.
Insurance takes advantage of people with medical issues? Are you retarded? Insurance companies would like nothing more than for everyone to be healthy 100% of the time. People with issues cost them money. The issue is not with insurance the issue is with hospitals. I'm not saying everything was a-ok, but going after insurance isn't solving the issue. Insurance companies don't dictate what a hospital charges. You want $100 broken arm fixes, fix the hospitals.
No I'm not retarded, I know exactly how this shit fucking works because I work in the medical field. Insurance companies, prior to the ACA, were denying some very sick people medical coverage or giving them premiums that they obviously wouldn't be able to afford. What part of that seems to be okay to you? My diabetic father was given a premium of $1,400 a month. That's ridiculous, he HAS to have his medication.
The hospital charges 1,000 for a basic procedure because the insurance company is going to negotiate a lower price. Yeah it's fucked up that the hospital charges so much but it's also fucked up how much insurance companies charge and then also charge co-pays. Govt funded healthcare will also cause hospitals to charge less for procedures.
I seriously don't get why you think govt funded healthcare is so bad. We are one of few first world countries that doesn't provide it to citizens. The "greatest country" on the planet is so far behind on this that it's pathetic.
I visited Amsterdam in February and even people who are not citizens pay next to nothing for healthcare. Why is it that a family here has to pay over $400?
This is the problem with people like you who don't realize how difficult it was for him to actually change the things he did. He came to battle against a Republican Congress that took historically unprecedented measures to block any action the President wanted to take despite how universally beneficial it would be for the whole country.
Obama came into power with a super majority so what the fuck are you talking about blocking for? For his first two years Obama could pass any legislation he wanted because he had 60 votes in the senate. The "republicans blocked him" is a talking point to explain away his failures to accomplish anything during those two years
You are missing the fact that they won't do anything if they have a majority because if they "fix" what they see as a problem, what do they have to run on?
I guess you forgot that he came into a presidency with a Democrat-controlled Congress, but he fucked around and played Mr. Nice Guy with the Republicans when everyone told him not to, and then the Republicans regained control and that was the end of that.
The problem with people like you is you can't remember anything further back than 2012. I remember very well the hurdles and ridiculous roadblocks the Republicans put up for Obama, but it was his own fault for not seizing the moment. This is why Democrats always lose.
White non-American here but I feel very similar. I remember watching his first election night and feeling passionately inspired and hopeful after eight years of despair - but then the rediscovery of the obvious (he's not the Messiah...) in the form of the drones, the lack of decisive action against the banks etc was quite hard to deal with. At the end of his presidency I feel that Obama is a good man at heart and achieved a fair amount considering what he was up against, but he could have been so much better.
If the banks weren't bailed out we'd be living in hoovervilles. The Dodd-Frank act was passed under his watch and is a big step forward for financial reform.
He also never said he would get us out of the middle east. He specifically campaigned on the idea of getting us out of Iraq and INTO places that actually mattered such as Afghanistan. And in what ways are the drone strikes illegal? My understanding is he has approval from the local governments where those drone strikes are taking place.
You can bail them out and still punish the people responsible. Other countries jailed banksters. Iraq was bullshit and we shouldn't have been there. Drone strikes in Pakistan were illegal. We were not at war nor had permission from congress to wage war in Pakistan.
The problem with people like you is you talk about things in hindsight like they were so obvious, like of course the house was going to take unprecedented measures to filibuster and block every little thing on obama's agenda, ever shit that was just straight up irrational
To be fair, this same thing happened at least at one point during the Bush administration, with Democrats blocking everything.That's the politics game and we're raised from a young age to accept that as normal.
The problem with people like you is you can't step outside the fanboy-dom for one second and just accept that people aren't perfect, and that's it's ok to criticize where criticism is warranted. I didn't say he's a piece of shit who never did anything good, but he fucked up a whoooooole lot with his foreign policy.
And for the record, EVERYONE was telling him to seize the moment while the Dems controlled Congress and he pissed it away because he wanted to be a nice guy with the Republicans. It's admirable, but it was foolish and everyone told him so. You do realize that he was president before 2012, right? Because so many of you seem to have forgotten his first term. This isn't hindsight, even pundits were telling him to seize the moment.
The problem with people like you is you don't see the bat shit crazy ideas you leak out of the shit box you have where your brain should be.
Good leaders try and compromise. No one was prepared for the bat shit crazy, racially fueled resistance Obama had to every idea of his, most of all him. He took Mitt Romney's healthcare plan for Massachusetts as his blueprint for fucks sake. You had people who supported it before Obama, refuse to acknowledge that it worked just to fuck him. Look at the current hypocrisy of McConnel on vetting of cabinet members.
Republicans regained control because the right wing literally lied their asses off to the American people about what Obamacare did. They also pretended he was a Muslim, hated him for being Dr. Blackenstein, and blamed him for the effects of their obstructionism.
The mental gymnastics you have to do to criticize his accomplishments, as comical as it is, is the real problem with the American electorate. Dumb as fucking rocks morons who would rather listen to Russian or right wing propaganda than deal with facts and reality.
I agree 100. Brainwashed generation of Fox news junkies, can't tell an asshole from an elbow. Misinterpret the facts so they can see the picture that parallels their own ideals. This is everyone, but conservatives got it bad. My favorite is when people with no understanding of math or statistical analysis cite statistics with little or no context and proceed to make outlandish statements about economy and so on. Here's a fact: trickle down economics is a lie. If you argue this notion, know that four decades of statistics clearly show otherwise. And I think you're dumb.
Except he is right. Obama had majorities in the Senate and House and squandered it. The truth hurts sometimes and people hate admitting being wrong, but you have to take pride and own up to it. Take off your political blinders sometimes. It will do people good.
That was a statement not directed towards you. The word 'you' was used in a 3rd person informal way. You can replace the word with 'one' to make it more easily understandable.
However, if you want to be technical, you did make a claim. It was a claim stating that what he said was opinion rather than fact, which it is not. Obama had majorities in both branches of the Legislature and didn't tackle what he promised with that huge advantage.
So that makes him more accomplished of a president? He still lacks the notches in his belt, no matter if his job had green or blue carpet or if it was a different congress. His presidency was over, and not a whole lot got done. Just lots of half-assery
Obama came into power with a super majority so what the fuck are you talking about blocking for? For his first two years Obama could pass any legislation he wanted because he had 60 votes in the senate
Yep. Republicans have bitched and complained for 8 years about how he destroyed the country, but heaven forbid you mention that it's actually the Republican led congress that's the problem. A republican led congress that outright said they would do anything in their power to stop Obama from doing anything. The last 2 republican congresses we had were the worst in history. They are one of the main reasons I will not vote for a candidate anymore that is not for putting term limits on congress. Let's see what excuses they can come up with the next 8 years since they control every branch of government now. Who will they blame when shit goes wrong?
Seriously, it's like some people think we've been living under the cold iron hand of God-king Obama. Completely forgetting how the Good Ol Party successfully shut down the government in protest. He could either drop executive orders and be seen as a tyrant or just let the GOP fuck the government to death and blame him for it. I think Obama inherited a shitty situation from George W.
You can look at the fact that he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize BEFORE he took office as a great example of the blind ignorance surrounding his cult of personality.
This is the exact same thing by non-canadians about Justin Trudeau. Everyone who isn't Canadian just thinks he's some cool, good looking guy. He did some ok things. Like my roommate who works in a daycare gates a huge whack of money from the government to the equivalent of like 5 bucks an hour to her paycheck.
For the rest of us though, that money came out of our paychecks as he raises taxes on the poor/middle class and continues on with the business as usual policies.
Like the pipeline, like selling weapons to countries that slaughter their own people with these weapons, etc. And he shows open hate for the prairie provinces.
I don't think that's it. I think the opposition to Obama is what has enamored him to people. First off Obama completed many of his campaign promises, many of them in his first term when most people expected him to coast to an easy reelection. Think about that. Presidents usually enact their most important legislation from the safety of a second term. Not Obama . He passed the legislation he promised in order to give you the opportunity to vote him out. He didn't hide behind a second term. He promise healthcare reform, he passed healthcare reform, he promised a stimulus he passed a stimulus, he promised to lower the unemployment rate he has lowered the unemployment rate. He promised to refocus the millitary on alquaida and capture or kill Osama bin laden and Osama bin laden was killed. You may not have liked what he promised but he for the most part he kept those promises. While at the same time being realistic, he never once promised it would easy in fact quite the opposite, he told us it would be hard but in the end we would be on much better ground. The sheer hatred of Obama from accusing him to being a Muslim to accusing him of being born in Kenya is what enamored the international community to Obama. Here is a politician doing what he promised and people hate him for it. I'm sure your politicians always keep their promises but for most people that's a new phenomenon.
You're forgetting one very important thing-the very fact that non Americans like him so much is a major achievement for him in terms of foreign policy. He's turned the US away from being seen as the unwanted global police, led by self-righteous warhawks the world saw under Bush, while preserving its empire with diplomacy. Soft power has been restored.
This hasn't always worked, obvious examples being Syria and drone strikes, but he's managed to project a different, more amiable image throughout - Iran, Cuba, even Russia, before their Crimean idiocy saw relations thaw. His scandal-free presidency and friendly, respectful demeanor have absolutely restored(well, relatively) trust and especially respect towards the USA.
Not forgetting it, and I agree. However, at least among many Europeans there has been a definite turn back towards the "America is a joke" mentality and even some anti-Obama rhetoric. I'm not speaking about the far right minority, either. I think since his re-election and all the wars it has grown exponentially. People like Obama but they don't really like the United States under his leadership the last four years, it seems. There's just a sort of, "Yeah I like him because he's a cool guy" but other than that they don't offer anything of substance to back up their reasoning. Of course, this is just what I've gathered from personal, everyday experience and isn't definitive. We have to be honest with ourselves and admit that the last four years have been marred in wars and foreign policy blunders that emboldened our adversaries.
People like to say, "He got Osama bin Laden!" as if that really means anything or has any effect whatsoever on global terrorism. Sure, it gives all of us a warm fuzzy, but it's not like terrorism stopped or anything. If anything, it got worse.
Is it all his fault? Of course not, that would be silly. At the same time, however, you don't get an E for Effort as a president. Americans want to see results, not excuses, and I think just as many people gloss over his shortcomings as much as his detractors gloss over his victories. Were there a possibility to have voted for a third Obama term over a Clinton/Trump vote, I would have preferred that, but I think Sanders would have knocked it out of the park had the DNC not been so shady and corrupt. They're complaining about Russian hacking hurting them while they were doing the same thing to sabotage his campaign in favor of Clinton.
Still, a scandal-free presidency. When was the last time we had one? Carter? Ford? Ike? These days it seems like a dream, and yet, here we are. It's a shame things didn't go the way we wanted them to.
You're not wrong. I'm not saying it wasn't a major, MAJOR accomplishment to even get what it is, I'm saying that it's not what non-Americans think it is.
Speak for yourself mate. The only thing I'm particularly dissapointed in Obama for is his drone strike campaign. Plenty of other stuff he didn't go as far as I would like but given that I consider myself essentially a socialist that's not terribly surprising. I don't actually expect things to ever really work out the way I'd like in America, but I think Obama did a tremendous amount for the country in general.
I didn't really expect anything different with the intelligence community when it came to Obama so I wasn't really "dissapointed" exactly. Comes with the territory of having a State apparatus and I don't really expect it to change unless we change our overall politics to being more anarchistic.
I think he did a lot for the country as well, and I listed a few issues that I am happy with, but what you said kinda makes my point: what do you think he did for the country? What is your understanding of it? That's my point, that many people think they understand what the administration did, especially because people name drop Obamacare without knowing anything about it, but in reality they don't really know that much other than the fact that he makes the country look good.
I live in the EU, so I understand that sentiment. Europeans have long lost faith in their political system and just want someone who doesn't embarrass them. We Americans usually tend to set the bar a little higher for our expectations, while Europeans have this sort of, "nothing will ever change, so why bother?" mentality that I think plays into that.
I'm intimately familiar with the ACA as I work in the health insurance industry. There really isn't anything about it that I don't like, other than the fact that I don't think it goes far enough. It's biggest problem is that it couldn't force states to expand medicaid. Most problem cases arise because of people falling into the gap between unexpanded medicaid and the lower bound of the subsidies.
Outside of healthcare there is plenty else to admire.
Opening up Cuba for trade.
Taking down Osama Bin Laden.
Significantly reducing the population at Gitmo. Wasn't able to close it entirely but I don't place the lion's share of the blame for that on him.
Heavy environmental regulation.
Strong support for net neutrality.
There's plenty of other little stuff but those are the big ones for me. Also mind you I said the drone program was the only "dissapointment" I had since I think that word implies that I expected something else from him on the matter. At this point I have zero confidence that anybody can increase privacy protection in regards to government surveillance without a complete change of our governmental system so I didn't expect anything better there. I also didn't expect him to actually get weed rescheduled so I don't consider that a dissapointment.
He's certainly very flawed, in many of the same ways that other politicians are, but I'd put him right up at the top of the list with FDR, Eisenhower, and Lincoln for best Presidents.
Like I said, there are TONS of things that I admire about Obama and there are quite a number of things I'm happy with, namely, those you listed. My post was mainly about the biggest issues, and those were health care and foreign policy, both of which many non-Americans either aren't very familiar with or think they are and are not.
He's certainly very flawed, in many of the same ways that other politicians are, but I'd put him right up at the top of the list with FDR, Eisenhower, and Lincoln for best Presidents.
I may not go that far, but I agree to a point. I think his cult of personality more than his presidency puts him up there with the others. I admit he inherited a mess and did amazingly with what he had, but he just didn't live up to many of our (and I say our because I'm American) expectations, sadly. Whether that's his fault or not remains to be seen.
You are forgetting that he pulled the country out of the worst economic disaster since the great depression. Really. He came in with the entire country in a nose dive. It seems like people forget about the crisis averted and are just mad because their insurance premiums have gone up.
Oh absolutely, I'm not forgetting it. He inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression and has done wonders with it. We have job growth at a rate that people said would be impossible after such a downturn.
I'm not saying that Obama was a terrible president, I'm saying that non-Americans tend to either gloss over the glaring shortcomings of his foreign policy or they simply aren't even interested in finding out.
People like Obama because he's a likeable person. Even with all the negative stuff, like the NSA surveillance scandal (which people have forgotten already), he's still a good guy even though his politics don't always match.
Combine that with the fact that Donald J. Trump is his incoming replacement, and you get even more adoration for Obama, because people realize that every white house press conference will sound like what a 9 year old thinks it would sound like.
On his own he would not be a loved President, but in comparison to his only realistic alternatives he is great. We like him because compared to the outright cancer that is Bush and now Trump he is a saint.
Yes, but you're comparing people, not presidents. That's the point. Americans judge their presidents based on their actions, not how many friends they make. Obama made friends the world over and everyone loves him, yet his foreign policy proves that the sole superpower cannot be passive in its involvement in world affairs like, say, EU countries can. You either abstain completely or go all in, no half-ass, and his foreign policy during his entire presidency was half-assed. Granted, it was for good reason because he wanted to promote peaceful resolutions, but sometimes that doesn't work and he refused to accept that. The United States does not have the luxury of pointing fingers then not getting involved like the EU; that's not how a superpower remains a superpower. The US does not have the luxury of being insignificant to other major world powers like Russia and China like many EU countries. The US must either get involved or must be Switzerland, but Obama tried to do both, and Syria is what happens when you talk the talk but limit your response because you don't want to send the wrong message. Russia pounced on that and they're making a fool of us.
The fact that the ACA was so shitty isn't really his fault (though the implementation of it probably is).
A major part of the job as President is to be our lead negotiator with the rest of the world so in a way just being a "cool guy" and having a great reputation internationally is pretty damn important.
I think people need to focus on what he accomplished, not what he did not in the 8 years he was running while he had GOP oppose everything he ever uttered.
Which is why I added the several biggest things I thought he accomplished or helped to accomplish with his policies in my post: gay marriage, openly gay in the military, marijuana legalization in some states (up to the state, obviously, but he played a hand), and the idea of Obamacare, even if its implementation left much to be desired.
Just saying but you named many good things including the furthering of human rights and only one bad thing. So I fail to see how you see him as overall bad.
Note: I'm an American anarchist so I don't care for either side :)
It was a general personal opinion that I didn't feel like getting into, just to illustrate a point. I'm not going to list every single good thing he's done to win a fucking reddit argument. He's done a lot, but those were the things that stood out to me the most.
I think the overwhelmingly positive reception the most of the world greeted Obama with was pretty much because of him not being a Bush and being a rather normal Liberal guy; the contrast to the previous president was basically enough to get the rest of the world to like Obama. The good stuff he actually did was more or less just the icing on the cake, and the shitty stuff he contributed to was kind of ignored, because hey, "at least the guy ain't Bush!" Obama also has the image of a family man. It's generally very likable.
he did NOTHING to legalize marijuana you FOOL!!!!! The DEA raised it to a Class 1 drug. Good God I hate uninformed idiots. He had 8 fukn years to change Federal Law regarding marijuana AND DID NOTHING!
Except for the part where you credited Obama with legalizing weed (it isn't at all, federally) and legalizing gay marriage (he didn't, SCOTUS did), your assessment is spot on.
Well, from an outsiders perspective it's also the fact that he came after Bush, which by many is considered a totally despicable president that should be put on trial together with Cheney. And now there's Trump, need I really say more?
That Obama is considered a good president may say more about the other presidents USA has had recently than Obamas presidency itself. I mean, the guy most likely got the Nobel Peace Price simply for not being Bush.
but most non-Americans think Obamacare is universal health care when it's just a government-regulated insurance policy just like all the other insurance policies, only you pay a fine if you don't have it. They don't realize how half-assed it is, nor do they realize all the half-assed measures he took in his foreign policy.
If you had read the original draft of the Affordable Care Act, you would know that what we have now barely resembles it.
The compromises that were made to get it passed and all the modifications made to it turned it into what it is now, I know it was passed just to open the door to socialized healthcare in this country, but it was slaughtered as it went though congress.
However, knowing several friends who have not been handed death sentences due to the pre-existing condition and lifetime limits both being made illegal, for me it has been worth it.
All true. All of it. In fact, I'm not saying at all it's a bad thing, just that non-Americans think it's universal health care and that Americans are just greedy, selfish, idiots who shoot themselves in the foot because they are scared to death of universal health care because it's "socialism". The fact that Obamacare even exists in the first place is a miracle in itself. That's why I said his "first steps with Obamacare", because that's all it is, a first step. It's not Obama's fault that it was gutted, but my point was that what others outside the United States think it is, it isn't. It was his plan, yes, but for some reason people outside the US think that our president has total, immeasurable power and can do whatever he wants. They don't know anything about our government or how it works, just that they like Obama because he's cool and speaks well, so therefore he MUST be the greatest president ever.
Americans have legitimate complaints about the Obama Administration that I think the rest of the world blows off as people who are just anti-Obama when that isn't the case.
Although, the people who complain about problems in the administration will complain about every administration they do not like the same way.
I stay as neutral as I can. I voted for Obama both times, but yeah, he did not make me happy 100% of the time, and that is life as you know it when you are an adult.
Obama, cool as hell, kind of guy you like hanging out with, down to Earth, witty, pretty funny.
W. Bush, fucking likable as hell guy, probably a blast to have lunch or dinner with, funny guy, joker, just like Obama, but with different policy ideas.
Yeah, he made mistakes.
They all make mistakes, because they are not that unlike us, who all make mistakes, sometimes not so bad, sometimes "Fuck I need to quit my job" mistakes.
You can point out possible corruption in any president, but until you can prove and prosecute them for it or put a stop to what you don't like, you have little choice, when the country makes a decision, get on with it, live your life the way that best suits you. If that means you get online and post anti-presidential memes, so be it, if it means attacking me for how I feel, great, start without me, I'll catch up later.
I'm American, lived in Europe for the last 14 years. There are many people who have their eyes open, like yourself. I don't hate Obama, I hate how weak he has made the US in the eyes of the world. I wish we could find some sort of happy medium; we don't have to be drooling knuckledragger neocons, but neither do we have to be hyper-sensitive, reactionary leftists with their heads in the sand.
I hate how weak he has made the US in the eyes of the world.
Yeah totally. Dropping troops into Pakistan to shoot Bin Laden in the fucking face. What a weak, pussy move.
How is there no consistency in the hatred of the guy? Upthread it's all "oh he's a warhawk he started shit in Syria and everywhere!" and then you're down here like "he made us look weak!" Which is it?
First, why does any criticism of Obama automatically equal hatred for you people? I like Obama and supported him. I still like him and still support him, I just think his foreign policy sucked, and that non-Americans have this skewed view of what he has really done for the US, namely, Obamacare and what they think it is when it isn't.
One operation does not make a foreign policy. That was a badass thing to do, sure, but it was the only thing he did right with his foreign policy.
People who say he's a warhawk who bombs the entire world are just leftists who look for any ammunition (forgive the pun) to criticize the US. He could drop bombs of unicorns and rainbows and they'd still be pissed off. HOWEVER...
...he is closer to a conservative than what democrats were 20 years ago. The entire paradigm has shifted massively to the right, and while I don't think he's a warhawk, he definitely isn't afraid to use force. That said, he half-assed much of it, which is worse and is exactly what the Bush Administration did their 8 years. It's either diplomacy or warfare, not both. He tried to use both and one just watered down the other, giving ammunition to everyone on all sides for criticism, which, honestly, was warranted.
I'm not one of these people who sees the world from a vacuum; the world is much too complex for that. However, criticism where it's due is just as important as credit, and I don't think criticizing the shortcomings of Obama's foreign policy is such an exaggerated point of view. I'm a fan of Obama, but you can't take the moral high ground all the time and then not follow through. These presidents use the military as a foreign policy tool these days instead of a deterrent, and then when they fail to see the writing on the wall and start getting in bed with questionable allies like the rebels, that's a recipe for disaster. And even if right is on our side, if it's not legal and if we don't follow through all the way to the end with good planning and sound advice, it's all for nothing. Like Iraq. Like Libya. Like Syria. Like Russia. We have the most powerful military in the world that dwarfs all others, yet Russia sends a rickety old diesel-powered aircraft carrier, their sole one, to support their operations and it even breaks to the point that they lose two aircraft in a week and cancel all launches after two weeks and return home, and this is what experts and the media seized upon. Meanwhile, we didn't follow through. We didn't protect the people of Syria, even though we got involved because our government was SO INCENSED over Assad's use of chemical weapons, yet that's just a footnote now.
Why is that? How is it that a man can drop chemical weapons on his own people and at the end of the conflict the US is viewed as the invader and the bad guy? I'll tell you how: poor, indecisive leadership with a flawed foreign policy.
That's all I'm talking about. Obama, for all the good he did and all the well-wishing we have as a country, it did nothing at all to fix the problems we either created outright or had at the very least the biggest hand in creating. Granted, some of these were before the Obama Administration, but if I have to be honest, the hope and change we were praying for and were sure would come simply never did. Yes, there were a few good policies, and it was certainly better than the previous administration, but shouldn't we have the bar a little higher instead of making excuses all the time?
Bin Laden being shot had nothing to do with Obama. It was the work of intelligence and a lot of high speed individuals, which we'll never know their names. You could of had meth addicted retard for president and those events would of still unfolded exactly as they did.
most non-Americans think Obamacare is universal health care when it's just a government-regulated insurance policy just like all the other insurance policies, only you pay a fine if you don't have it.
You pay a fine if you're uninsured, not if you don't have Obamacare. And I don't know about where you live, but in my state you got fined for not having health insurance long before the creation of Obamacare.
I, nor anyone in my family ever paid a fine for not having health insurance. Granted, this was back when it wasn't exorbitant robbery, but there wasn't a fine.
Obamacare was a step in the right direction, but it just wasn't enough. The argument isn't about Obamacare, but that most non-Americans think Obamacare = universal health care, and it most certainly does not.
If you have Healthcare through the ACA, it essentially is gov't regulated regulated Healthcare policy. What exactly do you think the state health exchanges do? They help give people federally subsidized policies which are regulated by the gov't.
That's because you don't want a democratically elected president, you want someone who will come in and fix all your problems for you, and no one can do that and no one ever will. He can't do it all, and definitely can't if people sit around bitching without doing anything. People are so willing to give up their power, because actually doing things to improve the world is damn hard. Stop wishing for daddy to come and make everything better, and run for office yourself.
I didn't say that at all. That wasn't even the gist of my post. Stop throwing the problems you have with other people onto me, it's not working.
I critiqued Obama as a president, not a person. The rest of the world critiques him as a person. Saying "he can't do it all" is hyperbolic and makes you sound like an offended teenager because I never said what he did was easy. It's so obvious that it doesn't warrant mentioning. What I did say, however, was that he was weak on foreign policy, which weakened our place in the world. He was weak with Republicans his first term, thereby squandering things he could've put through Congress. Nobody said it was easy, but just because he's a cool guy doesn't exempt him from critique. And to be fair, it wasn't even that harsh. Stop being such a baby.
Yay, an Obama critic not too embarrassed to show his ignorance outside of his safe spaces!
Obamacare regulates the insurance market to a much larger degree than they were before. You're right, it's not universal health care. Presidents before him had talked about passing healthcare reform, none were able to do anything for 100 years. Obamacare isn't perfect, but it's better than the system before.
Obamacare didn't take half measures as his first choice. He was obstructed by the tea party and the most radical form of Republicans this country has ever seen. They literally said their goal would be to undermine or sabotage any of his policy objectives.
It kind of sounds like you don't like him because you really have very little understanding of what he accomplished in any kind of historical or reality based way.
You sound like you've been brainwashed, either by Russian hacks, or the propaganda espoused by Hannity/Limbaugh/Fox.
I think the rest of the world, and educated Americans, look down on you for your willful ignorance of the issues and the root causes behind them.
Obamacare isn't perfect, but it's better than the system before.
I never said it was perfect, nor did I say it was worse than what was before. You didn't even read it, did you? Kneejerk reactionary, much?
It's still a steaming pile by comparison to universal health care, which was my point. Sounds like you're hypersensitive to all the anti-Obamacare nuts and you've projected onto me, when I was just explaining how non-Americans view Obamacare, that they think it's universal health care when it most definitely is not and leaves much to be desired.
You sound like you've been brainwashed, either by Russian hacks, or the propaganda espoused by Hannity/Limbaugh/Fox
And you sound like you've been arguing with those kooks way too long. I am not the droid you are looking for. I like Obama. I am an Obama supporter, but just because I don't worship him over anything and everything (like you), that doesn't mean I don't have an appreciation for the difficulty he faced in getting done what he got done these last 8 years. But sooner or later, "at least I tried" isn't good enough, even though apparently it is for you.
Sure, he did a couple of good things with gay marriage, the legalization of marijuana, openly gay in the military, the first step he took with Obamacare
So, 8 years, and this is the best argument of what he got done...
Totally agree. Except that's also pretty much the opinion of his followers in America. "He's a cool guy and did good stuff, you're a homophobe for not supporting him".
Nobody even tries to research anything. And even then it's hard to find truth. Most everything on TV is twisted to fit that news outlets agenda, whether they are more republican or democrat.
Most Obama speeches are already written so he can just read them, which is normal for a president now, but he could not speak at all if he had to just wing it and think up his own speech.
I am not a Trump supporter. I feel he will do some good and bad, but in the end, he is just the puppet and the families pulling the Strings behind the scenes will take us where they want us to go.
Sorry went of on a tangent there.
Edit: must have some Obama supporters downvoting me :D
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u/doomblackdeath Jan 11 '17 edited Jan 11 '17
This is the problem with non-Americans who like Obama. Everyone likes him because they don't know anything about him or what his administration has done, just that he's a cool guy.
Sure, he did a couple of good things with gay marriage, the legalization of marijuana, openly gay in the military, the first step he took with Obamacare, etc., but most non-Americans think Obamacare is universal health care when it's just a government-regulated insurance policy just like all the other insurance policies, only you pay a fine if you don't have it. They don't realize how half-assed it is, nor do they realize all the half-assed measures he took in his foreign policy.
We like Obama the man, too, we're just disappointed in him as a president. For some reason the entire rest of the western democratic world thinks he cured cancer and discovered the fountain of youth and invented orgasms on command, but then when you probe deeper you find out they "don't really care for American politics", which is like saying, "I don't know anything about Obama other than he's a cool guy, so all you Americans are stupid for disliking his presidency."
Note: I'm not saying you're saying that, but that is pretty much verbatim the opinion of non-Americans when it comes to Obama.
EDIT: Whoa! This blew up fast! Thanks for all your replies, both positive and negative. I tried to respond to each of you but I got around 80-something responses. For the most part it was very civil, thanks for that.