SO ABOUT THIS WIKILEAKS THING...WHAT DO YOU THINK?

Their criticisms valid? What makes someone's criticism invalid? People like to invalidate the intellect and/or sanity of those they disagree with. Do I think Rush, Beck, or Hannity are dumb and insane? You can't be dumb and be as successful as they are. Insane? Beck appears borderline because of his strange antics, but they are generally rock solid in temperament from one day to the next. Extreme? Sure. Who isn't extreme, though? Who is to define extreme? It is usually used in the context of "disagrees with me a LOT." What's the opposite of extreme? Moderate? Isn't moderate usually just defined as "what most people think?" Cannot "most people" be... wrong? It's all about definitions, context, and consensus.

It's all about taking a moment to think. People are just doing the best they can with what they know. There are no angels and there are no demons.

Disclaimers:

-No, I am not saying you accused anyone of being dumb/insane. But you did strongly imply that their criticisms were invalid.
-No, I do not take Rush/Hannity/Beck's words like the gospel, nor should anyone, for anyone.

Maybe he doesn't like anyone from the independent parties either!

author=KingArthur

I can support someone and not like him. I didn't like the antediluvian more as he was even farther to the right and had a joke as as VP. There's no hope in fighting the two-party system sooo hypocrisy doesn't enter into it.

I didn't suggest you vote for McCain. What I did ask is how one could support and follow a leader that one clearly dislikes. Supporting someone while not liking him sounds contradictary to each other (and it probably is).

As for the two-party system, it all hinges on whether people vote for third party/independent candidates or not. You throwing out the option certainly doesn't help.

It's not at all contradictory? I don't like him because he was too far to the right. I didn't like the other candidate who had a chance of winning more because he was even further to the right.

look at the parties who have won presidental elections in the past. now look back to me. no wait. while the party system should work like you say with people voting for the candidate that exactly matches their viewpoint, it does not. perhaps in an election with two really terrible r. and d. candidates that nobody liked it would be more prudent to vote for a third party, but not in 2008 when things were divided the way they were.

I didn't say that my vote was inconsequential. I said that there are factors other than "Which candidate do you agree with the most" in play with America's voting system.

You also have still not answered my question of how a person can support a leader he dislikes. Supporting a leader requires that you like and/or agree with the leader

I think you're under the impression that I still support him. I supported him during the elections despite my issues with him for the reasons I stated above, he reneged on the few things he said he would do that I thought were good ideas, support lost.

I didn't say that my vote was inconsequential. I said that there are factors other than "Which candidate do you agree with the most" in play with America's voting system.

I'm going to go on a limb and assume those factors are irrelevant. If you don't like a candidate then why would you vote for him? If voters don't vote for the candidates they want to support (and that requires liking and/or agreeing with the candidate), what is the point behind voting at all?

For the record though, I would like to hear what those factors are.

I supported him during the elections despite my issues with him for the reasons I stated above

I'll quote what you said when I initially asked you the question:

Jericho
i didn't like him when i voted for him, nor do i like him now.

You have thus never liked President Obama at any point of the presidential election nor his presidency. Again, how and why would you support a leader you clearly never liked?

EDIT:
Also, you've made quite clear you do not support President Obama now. I haven't misunderstood you on that regard.

I don't know. You tell me. This is the way America has been voting for decades. For all intents and purposes, there are only two parties, and casting my vote for an independent when there is very clearly a better candidate vs. a worse one in the two main parties is as good as throwing it away!

And it is as good as throwing your vote away if voters keep thinking like this! I'm not calling you out specifically since it's a widespread problem we need to address, but you're part of the very problem you described. We both seem to agree that the current way voters vote is flawed, so let's do our part and do something right for a change: Vote for the candidate that you really support. If enough voters would realize this simple idea, the problem of "only Democrats and Republicans" will slowly but surely go away.

I don't really know how to explain in a different way that the reason I supported him was because I did not want McCain to win more than I didn't want obama to win.

This isn't really "supporting" in the true sense of the word so much as it is choosing the lesser of two evils, like I said. Reading this though, I can see you never did support President Obama while disliking him, so I guess my question has been indirectly answered: It's not possible to support someone while disliking him.

The former example, the one where you have an obligation to support and follow your superiors, has nothing to do with liking or disliking since obligation overrules such lines of thought. This is in my opinion the sole exception to the requirements behind "supporting" someone and, while I won't dismiss it, I will say that it follows a line of thinking different from one that isn't affected by any obligations.

I'm not sure what you meant by the latter though, Feld. May I ask if you could elaborate?
EDIT: Do you mean like two rivals aiming for the same goal? Like two rival big bads each plotting to take over the world.

In that case, let's take the classical example of "The Hero and The Villain temporarily teaming up to fight off The Evil Big Bad". Neither the hero nor the villain have accepted the other's policies or idealogies (or a compromise thereof), both of them have clearly different things in mind, and they still hate each other. However, a common goal of some sort (in this case the evil big bad) obliges both of them to work together or else their own personal goals will be unattainable or horribly skewed. In a way, this is a combination of supporting the common goal by obligation (otherwise they wouldn't team up) and choosing the lesser of two evils.

A more concise way to put it is putting aside differences to work together (temporarily) for a common goal. Once that common goal's done, it's back to good ol' straight disagreements.

Either way, neither The Hero nor The Villain never truly support each other throughout the ordeal and that's what matters in the end.

What do you mean it's not awesome?
And to be fair, I didn't link to any TVTropes pages with the above exception after the case.

On a different note, whatever happened to talking about Wikileaks?

God Tardis, are you really that blind? Can you not see how we've all fallen prey to the Bush conspiracy?