@rydhel1016,
Thank you for your spirited reply to my post. It's good to see such people in this forum. However, I would like you to qualify some assertions that you've made regarding what I've written in this thread.
I'll begin with this:
Its because you want others to see it too and get them convinced in the process.
What did you mean by me convincing our readers? I find two paths to this. One would be that I wrote to convince them (the readers) that my preferred US Presidential candidate is John McCain, which is redundant since the opening statement of my first post here clearly points out who my choice is. The second meaning could be that I'm convincing them that McCain is the my choice and that they should choose him as well because of the qualifications I have stated in favor of the man and because of what apparently is lethargic in his contender. I'm inclined to believe that you employed the second meaning because of what I read in the next paragraph.
I look at it and I find it quite interesting. It is plain naivete to assume that our preferences do not affect the US electoral results. You mentioned that you would "probably write a thousand posts just to convince as many people as possible that my preferred candidate should win" had this been the Philippine elections. And when you say "post", I assume that you mean posting in Internet blog sites, forums, message boards, etc. and not putting up banners, stickers, pictures and/or posters on physical walls. Now, if you meant the Internet kind of posting then why should making a (cumulative, for simplicity's sake) thousand posts on various online fora all over the Internet not make a difference in the electoral results?
And I think it's safe to assume that you have a relative who lives in the US, or you have a friend is related to someone living in the States. You also might have American friends here and they in turn have their friends who are back in America. Now, if you voiced out your preference to one or all of them, shouldn't that send a ripple (no matter how minute) that could stir the US electoral results? Now do you see the difficulty posed by your position?
Let's talk about the third paragraph of your reply. The statements made here are quite misleading because they make too many wrong assumptions. To say that my statement of America going the way of "just keep our resources to ourselves, give jobs to our workers and secure our own borders" would be Obama's policy of governance is myopic. My statement was a mere simplification that partly held some of what Obama advocated (e.g. giving the locales jobs) What I merely wanted to point out was that the macro policies of McCain would allow America to keep its own engines running while not abandoning the commitments it had made to the same allies that Obama was trying to outwardly appease.
I would even venture to say that it's overly simplistic to have your nation keel over and keep to itself while the world's in a crisis. Or worse, give out concessions that you would definitely regret (read: talks with Iran without pre-conditions, of all things! In the latest debate, he wobbled on this)later.
Another wrong assumption would be to equate the foreign diplomatic work of the Philippine president with that of the US president. That is not an apples to apples comparison. It doesn't even come close. Everyone would certainly agree that PGMA (and the Philippines, for that matter) cannot be made responsible (note the meaning used in "made responsible") for the welfare of its neighboring nations. This is valid because they cannot expect the Philippines to help her neighbors because we ourselves are in a pretty bad shape, economically speaking.
But the same CANNOT be applied to the US. They are a world power. They are surely capable to helping others and they have chosen to do so (an admirable deed that is being watered down under the banner of self-preservation).
Then, yet again, naivete and wrong assumptions plague the fourth paragraph. Only the uninitiated in international relations and foreign policy would not believe that the Philippine foreign policy has been based (ever since 1946), on the US foreign policy. I'd hate to admit this fact but it is there. And whoever said that the Filipinos in the US would get kicked out? They'd most likely jettison those who've not earned the right to stay (or work) in the United States through legitimate means. Unless of course,you frown upon this as well. In which case, there is no discussion at all regarding your view about "foreign policy". "Kick the foreigners out because we want to be self-sufficient" as your take on their possible "foreign policy" is borderline racist, mind you.
Your assumption of the "hardworking ones" not caring who becomes the US president is a classic burden of proof fallacy. It literally begs the question. How can you safely assume that this is true? Have you actually asked a substantive number of "hardworking ones"? Because last I checked, those hardworking Filipino friends of mine in the US who are nurses, engineers, doctors, professors, elementary teachers, students, chefs, waiters, salespersons, pastors, musicians, painters, architects, web developers, seamen, soldiers (US Rangers and Navy) (need I go more?) carefully watch the news every day. Their local publications have opinions and queries regarding the elections. They talk about it over coffee, through their blogs, they chat and they write their friends via emails, they talk to their relatives here about it too. Because they want to intelligently make a choice. To trivialize it by calling it a mere "TV show" to them would be insulting. Because they DO care.
And your takeaway paragraph. Two things. One, eye-opening. This reveals the truth on your stance. You claim to not really care whoever wins the US elections. But your rather frequent references to Obama shows how skewed your arguments are towards him. By default, there shouldn't have been any argument at all as we've seen how easily you change sides.
Two, you assumed that I would feel more hopeless should Obama win. Never did I mention in my first post that I would have greater or lesser hope with the outcome of the US elections. You indirectly equate my choice of person for the US presidency with laziness with which I find much irony given the brevity of your discussion and yet it is riddled with fallacies. Then you conclude with a statement that begs the question yet again by saying that "people that lose hope are those that know themselves to be lazy". (I tried to Google that phrase up seeing it in quotes and thinking it might be said by someone in authority. You can exercise the same diligence by typing the entire quote in Google's search engine and see what I found) I won't even go into how that is fallacious. Thus,
hopeless = lazy.
According to you, if Obama wins,
me = more hopeless than you.
But
you = less hopeless than me >= hopeless = lazy.
That makes you a tad better than I am on the laziness scale.
Great.
