Trinity wrote:Coito ergo sum wrote:How do you know that was his intention?
It is fairly obvious if one reads through the multitude of quotes from his speeches, that there is a common theme of wanting a cohesion, of wanting community, of wanting a commonality. Why do you need a sworn declaration of those precise words? Reading between the lines is what I do, not just literally.
Well, the reason being is that politics love to create an impression of X while never actually saying X. That's how they can convince people to vote for them without actually being held to account.
It's kind of like how everything read between the lines and thought that with Obamacare they were being promised "less expensive" insurance than they are paying now. But, of course, the Obama administration never actually said that insurance would get cheaper. They just said they would be providing access to affordable health insurance. That doesn't mean cheaper.
It is what Bill Clinton did when he said "I did not have sexual RELATIONS with that woman..." -- "sexual relations" means intercourse. And, he meant to convey that he didn't have sex with Lewinsky, which is what most people took it to mean. But, it isn't what he said.
Trinity wrote:
From the "Audacity of Hope" 2006.
"We will need to remind ourselves, despite all our differences, just how much we share: common hopes, common dreams, a bond that will not break.
That isn't much different than every politician says. Voting for someone based on that kind of generalized nonsense is like voting for someone because they want everything to be happy, fluffy kittens.
Trinity wrote:
"When Democrats rush up to me at events and insist that we live in the worst of political times, that a creeping fascism is closing its grip around our throats, I may mention the internment of Japanese Americans under FDR, the Alien and Sedition Acts under John Adams, or a hundred years of lynching under several dozen administrations as having been possibly worse, and suggest we all take a deep breath. When people at dinner parties ask me how I can possibly operate in the current political environment, with all the negative campaigning and personal attacks, I may mention Nelson Mandela, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, or some guy in a Chinese or Egyptian prison somewhere. In truth, being called names is not such a bad deal."
He's against negative campaigning? LOL -- since when? Since his campaign includes calling his opposition a felon and a murderer?
Trinity wrote:
"In a country as diverse as ours, there will always be passionate arguments about how we draw the line when it comes to government action. That is how our democracy works. But our democracy might work a bit better if we recognized that all of us possess values that are worthy of respect: if liberals at least acknowledged that the recreational hunter feels the same way about his gun as they feel about their library books, and if conservatives recognized that most women feel as protective of their right to reproductive freedom as evangelicals do of their right to worship."
There's loads more, but I'm darned if I'm going to google any more, I have a life to get on with!!!!
Yeah, well, those are nice quotes, and they are sentiments nobody disagrees with, of course. So, to that extent, he is expressing unity. Sure.
People grow and change constantly. I've changed a lot of my thinking from a year ago, much less a decade ago. I expect that to continue, so I wouldn't hold anybody to something they said long ago.