Wordforge qualifications

Yeah, I remember being the new guy for a bit.

Everything else are valid criticisms but those two bug me primarily because one of Obamas first actions after taking office was to try and close Gitmo and have congress tell him "lol, no", and if you're speaking election promises he ran promising to increase troop numbers in Afghanistan.

On the Gitmo issue it's fair to criticize him for not burning political capital to push the change through, but on those two things at least he did follow through on what he said he was going to.

He's still fucked up in a lot of other ways though.

Yep, it's code for "I'm not a reasonable person."

I used to be pretty conservative too, and I don't think it's uncommon for people to draw new and different conclusions over time. By far the most damaging thing to political discourse, though, is exactly what you've identified. People who argue in absolutist terms don't require a response or respect (though it can be fun too yank their chains).

See, now this says to me that you just saw what you wanted to see. I'm sure we are all guilty of this, but I never saw Obama as anything other than a centrist

Yeah, to me it says "I don't have time to engage my brain, so I'll just blanket all of you with the same generic statement." Which means debate is unlikely to succeed, and you're dealing with someone who knows-it-all, so why bother?

Raised liberal, grew to hate it, tried conservatism on for size in the early 00's, grew to hate it, went back to liberal, growing to hate it again.

Fuck it, all of humanity's ideas suck, and have failed.

There's nothing worth believing in.