Why Do So Many Liberals "Like" Mitt Romney On Facebook? 376
pigrabbitbear writes "Mother Jones reports that, 'In recent weeks, a host of liberal types have complained that their Facebook accounts have erroneously "liked" Romney's page, and some are floating the theory that the Romney campaign has deployed a virus or used other nefarious means to inflate the candidate's online stature. This conspiratorial notion has spawned a Facebook community forum, and its own page: "Hacked By Mitt Romney" (cute url: facebook.com/MittYouDidntBuildThat)' So what's going on? Is the Romney campaign engaging in some tech wizardry to hijack Americans' Facebook pages? Seems unlikely, but Romney did somehow manage to acquire millions of fake Twitter followers. But it looks like the Romney campaign isn't behind this one — Facebook and its mobile app is."
Using "Like" to stream "Lies" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Issues (Score:2, Insightful)
Obligatory Sun Tzu (Score:5, Insightful)
It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle. - Sun Tzu
I'd be willing to be the Obama campaign has an account somewhere that has liked Mitt as well.
uhh, practical reasons (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps they just wanted to see what his current platform was by viewing their wall.
Also, it's routine for people to "challenge" the choices of others when those choices are apparently strong and rigid. Maybe some liberals "like" conservative topics/people as a way to show their friends that they've considered those topics/people.
Why "Like"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do I have friends on Facebook that "like" pepsi, amex, costco, walmart, etc...
Why do they post religious jesus quotes in cheesy photos of angles or little girls praying, or images with stupid insperational quotes, or stupid photos of things to "like": Like if you don't want to kill kittens, etc...
Tempted many times to simply post on my wall: "Seriously WTF is wrong with you people!"
This is not a Romney issue, it IS a Facebook issue (Score:5, Insightful)
I have noticed a ton of my friends that "like" things I know they know nothing about.
For example, a friend of mine that is a stay at home mom that can't use her iPhone "likes" Barracuda networks. When I asked her about this, she was clueless.
I've also seen many other friends liking things that do not fit them at all. I mean, they shouldn't be even seeing ads for these things, so I don't buy TFA's assumption that these are fat-finger issues.
Re:Issues (Score:5, Insightful)
Minimum wage
Vietnam service
Abortion
Roe v. Wade
Stem cell research
Healthcare
47%
Gun control
Climate change and greenhouse gas reduction
It was actually not a joke. There is *no* issue which this man has not claimed to stand for just one side of.
Re:Issues (Score:1, Insightful)
I shudder to think about a new 4 years of a BHO administration...unbridled by the fear of re-election hanging over their heads.
And "obama care" (Score:2, Insightful)
I believe he's taking a 'wide stance' on the abortion issue.
Governor Mitt did some "liberal" things about healthcare when he was governor of Mass. Then as Rep Pres candidate, he was against Obama Care - similar to what he did - WTF?!? Now, he's back to being in favor of it - I think - I lost track.
Paul Ryan is also a flip flopper. As a Congressman, he brought up some important issues about Medicare - like cutting $700+billion to keep it from going bust - and now as Ryan the VP candidate, he's against it.
That's why when the Presidential debates are happening, I tell folks that if I want to see that much hot air, I'll turn my furnace on. Because they are debating issues that the President has little or no control over: taxes (Congress controls that) and the economy - tell me how the President can do anything about unemployment and the economy?
And as far as the VP debates go tonight, I'm going to watch something that is more intelligent and pertinent to the economy and our country: monkeys flinging poo at one another.
Re:Issues (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a registered independent and frankly I think that soap dish would be better then 4 years form either of them...
Not over four years (Score:2, Insightful)
To be fair, the Republican party got a lot of media attention in part because they had, like, 6 people running for the position of a Republican candidate
That's just the last two years.
The media has ignored just about any possibly negative thing to say about Obama over the course of four years; even longer if you include the campaign leading up to the last election.
There would be no such problem with Romney, even after the election is over. The press will gladly latch on to each and every mistake made. Indeed without other Republican candidates in the picture they will look at him ever more closely.
Like == Follow (Score:4, Insightful)
Proof is in the reporting of what was and now is (Score:5, Insightful)
Since Obama is carrying over, and mostly doubling down on, most Bush policies (use of drones, attacking Libya for freedom, warrantless wiretapping, funneling government money to large corporations, TSA/Homeland Security) yet receives none of the same negative coverage of same that Bush received - I fail to see how you can possibly make the case that Obama's negative coverage is anywhere near what a Republican would receive.
Romney cannot carry forward the same policies without a ton a negative press. Obama can. That has been proven to us over four years now.
Re:Issues (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone who works pays Federal taxes on their wages.
Not everyone pays Federal Income taxes, because Income taxes are only supposed to be paid on wages earned over a certain level required for some standard of living.
Example: When I was in college (which I paid for, unlike so many of the welfare-children who drank away mommy & daddy's hard work), I worked part time and made about $12k/year. Between standard deductions, student tuition deductions, and student loan interest deductions, I paid $0 in federal income taxes. However, I still paid FICA (and a couple other small taxes, I think), and that wasn't an insignificant amount, considering that I was paying my own way through college.
Another example: My mother (one of those greedy, money-grubbing teachers) raised three children on $19k/year. She also paid no income taxes, but still paid a decent chunk in FICA, property, and state taxes. I've heard people complain about how pissed they are that some people don't pay Federal [Income] Taxes. My response has always been: My mom would have gladly traded spots with you. She'll pay income tax, and you can sleep in a cold house because there isn't enough money to keep the house any warmer.
Re:Perfect Match (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure this is futile, since you sound like either an Obama hater, a Romney lover, or a tea partier, but here we go:
a man who claimed to hate Gitmo yet leaves it open
He tried to close it, Congress wouldn't let him.
claimed to hate war yet doubles down on drone strikes and issues a surge in Afghanistan
The Iraq war (which he opposed) is over, Afghanistan is winding down because the surge worked and we'll be out of there in two years.
claims to hate Wall Street while bailing out (and taking huge donations from) giant Wall Street banks
Rubbish, if he hadn't done that we'd be in a depression so bad it would have made the Great Depression look like boom times.
claims to hate the oil industry while taking huge donations from BP before the oil spill.
Any politician wil take any money offered. If Koch offered Obama money he'd take it, if Michael Moore offered Romney money, he'd take it just as quickly.
On the other hand, during the Republican debates Romney said he wants Roe v Wade overturned, two nights ago said he wouldn't outlaw abortion.
I do agree with you on one thing: The press does not care at all what Democrats will do, and rationalize any action they take. However, the same goes for Republicans. The "liberal media" is a myth; ABC only looks liberal compared to Fox or Rush, who are slightly to the right of Mussolini.
At least when you vote Republican you know the press will do their damnedest to catch them out in something
That's pure laziness; the Republicans make it easy.
Re:Perfect Match (Score:2, Insightful)
You don't understand. When Romney changes a position, it's called "flip flopping".
When Obama changes a position, it's called "evolving".
Re:Issues (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Simple mix up (Score:5, Insightful)
Several people have asked my why I "like" obama's facebook page even though I consider him a mass murder (for drone attacks), and have a litany of other issues with him (most of which apply just as well to Mitt, and I have no intention of voting for him either, I consider them equivalent candidates)
The answer was always that....tthere is no dislike button and I can't troll the page without hitting like. That is also why I like a page on the assault weapons ban, not because I favor gun control, but because I want to argue with the people who do.
Re:Because Romney is a liberal. (Score:4, Insightful)
But the Libya press conference changed my mind. He was openly gloating. Maybe the Obama administration did screw up in Libya. But Romney saw this first as an opportunity to score points on Obama, and second as a tragedy, if he even thought it was a tragedy at all.
And the fact that Obama kept saying it was a protest of a video and not a terrorist attack for weeks after even the State Dept was claiming that there was no protest doesn't both you at all? It's one thing to criticize the president over inaction, and 16 hours of silence qualifies as inaction on the part of the White House, but to lie about the cause to try to minimize the political damage is simply disgraceful. And then there is there is the fundraising in Vegas while people were dying overseas at our embassies... I guess we just have different priorities.
Re:Proof is in the reporting of what was and now i (Score:4, Insightful)
mostly doubling down on, most Bush policies (use of drones, attacking Libya for freedom, warrantless wiretapping, funneling government money to large corporations, TSA/Homeland Security)
The drone strikes was part of his original campaign. He stated that he would strike in Pakistan with them and all the other candidates said they would not. I completely support this.
Now "attacking Libya for freedom"? Can you explain what you are trying to say here? We are attacking Libya for freedom? That makes no sense. We have no troops in Libya. We are not attacking an abstract idea in Libya.
Warrantless wiretapping, yes I would like to see this stopped.
funneling government money to large corporations
You do realize that the Republicans are the greatest the supporters of corporate welfare? The amount this is happening under Obama vs Bush is laughable. It's like complaining about a couple drops of water in the desert vs being on the bottom of the ocean.
Re:Issues (Score:4, Insightful)
Like any politician is any better? Gitmo was supposed to closed in January 2010. No tax increases, after the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare was a tax. Drone strikes increase 3-fold under Obama. The "most transparent government" said that Benghazi was a protest about a Youtube video, then admitted it was a terrorist attack and are now engaged in Newspeak, claiming they never said it was a protest about a Youtube video.
WMDs in Iraq, Watergate, Iran-Contra, arming the Taliban in the 1980s, the list goes on and on.
Re:Perfect Match (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama made concrete promises and failed to live up to them, Romney promises something different every time he opens his mouth.
Re:Issues (Score:2, Insightful)
I shudder to think about a new 4 years of a BHO administration
Sorry, but that's incredibly stupid. The unemployment rate is lower than it's been since before he took office, home foreclosures are lower than before he took office, GM is doing good, is out of bankrupcy, and the US is strting to sell off GM stock, Bin Laden is dead, the stock market is higher than it has been since before he took office, we're out of Iraq and on our way out of Afghanistan.
And you want to replace him with a clone of the guy that caused all those messes in the first place, who wants to do exactly what Bush did? For God's sake, why??? Bush almost got us into a depression worse than the thirties and you want more of that insanity?
As Bugsy says, "what a maroon."
Re:Issues (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe it was more along the lines of 47% of the people in the US that pay no federal tax...many of which are also on the dole...
You can believe what you want, but that doesn't make your belief fact. Here are Romney's exact words:
Frankly, anyone working (or able to work) should be working AND...have to pay SOME federal tax..I don't care if it is $10 or so....just as long as everyone has some skin in the game, eh?
We all have skin in the game, by virtue of the fact that, as American citizens, we are collectively affected by federal policy. That's a dumb phrase too often trotted out by asshole narcissists.
Do us all a favor and don't be an asshole narcissist.
I don't like it that a large block of people are just voting themselves more money out of the general tax fund.
Yea, well, then demand that corporate lobbyists be banned from DC. I know you must be talking about corporations, since the poor people you so blithely dismiss hardly have access to the resources required to "vote themselves more money."
It's a bit mind blowing, how much influence some people think the least of our populace have over the government, meanwhile dismissing the vast amount of overt corporate influence that actually exists.
Re:Simple mix up (Score:5, Insightful)
Not just politics. I'd bet that you'd find people who will unfriend anyone who has a different opinion on Bleach Subbed or the latest installment of Mass Effect.
But to get back to the politics part, I saw this yesterday [balloon-juice.com] and your post reminded me of it. I can understand taking politics really seriously, but I've got enough in-laws from various parts of the former Yugoslavia to know that you can take the tribalism of politics way too far.
We're all used to hearing one side call the other "insane" or "evil" or "the antichrist" or "inhuman" because our commercial media is full of that kind of stuff. But when you start seeing friends or family in those overheated terms because of their political views, it's a sure sign that you've let yourself be used by someone else's political agenda, pumped into your head by some media big-mouth.
It's a shame that more people don't realize that the "other side" is mostly just scared.
Re:Perfect Match (Score:4, Insightful)
You've been intentionally avoiding them. Tax plans, abortion, health care, opinions on the "47%," it takes a thick layer of willful ignorance or perhaps a carefully filtered media intake to not notice what he's doing.
Re:Simple mix up (Score:2, Insightful)
liberals that "like" him may have "liked" him for the purposes of trolling the page
Remember where the 47% video was claimed to have come from? Jimmy Carter's unemployed grandson spent all of his time searching the web for anything he thought might be insulting. After he "found" a snippet of the video on You Tube he hunted down the person who posted it (I don't buy that story, but let's assume it's true for now).
Same thing here, people follow Romney, listen to Rush Limbaugh, etc. hoping to catch a tidbit that can be used to insult the candidate.
When you put "found" in quotes were you suggesting it was instead created? It's a fake? Is being an unemployed person, or Jimmy Carter's grandson really that bad? Are you trying to make an ad hominem attack because he's part of the 47% of non-tax payers? Or, just because he lives on peanut farm money?
Sure, the speech video hoopla was muck raking at its finest but maybe you should consider your own biases when you are out trying to catch those tidbits that can be used to insult Jimmy Carter's family members.
Re:Simple mix up (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Issues (Score:4, Insightful)
If you leave the money in circulation then it creates jobs
No it doesn't. Companies don't hire because they're paying less in taxes, they hire because they need people to get things done. Not to mention that taxing doesn't actually pull money out of circulation the way you're thinking -- it slows inflation or causes deflation. Taxes change the value of money, which is why cutting taxes only has short term benefits for an economy; inflation will eventually catch up so despite having more dollars available their value will be diminished. Likewise, when raising taxes, the money the government collects doesn't just disappear. First, it's used to pay for expenditures and goes toward lowering the deficit (and hopefully, eventually the debt). Second, as I mentioned, the rate of inflation will decrease in proportion to the money being taxed, thus resulting in the same amount of wealth in the economy regardless of the fact that there might be less money. Assuming that cutting taxes will create more wealth is like assuming that printing more money will create more wealth; it doesn't, it just affects the currency's market liquidity.
Of course, if you're voting based on the abortion issue, you're the type of sucker the Republicans love. Do you actually believe that guys like Romney and Ryan are against abortion? Even if they were elected, they have no way to overturn Roe v. Wade and they know it. It's just an issue they can make a lot of noise about to rally voters who care about nonsensical issues that have nothing to do with how the country is run. Also, what good is it to save the unborn when most aborted babies, if they were to be born, are likely to end up in prison? Here's a primer. [wikipedia.org]
Finally, a president's economic policies usually take longer than their one or two terms to actually have an effect. One of the many reasons a four year election cycle is stupid. When judging an incumbent's economic policies, one shouldn't consider whether they did good, one should consider whether they will do good. Not to mention the fact that, although the president has more influence over the economy than most, that influence is extremely limited, especially with a divided congress.
Re:Issues (Score:2, Insightful)
First off... anyone making $19k a year isn't paying income taxes. I think the standard deduction/independant income line is somewhere around $24k. So anyone who thinks that 19k is an upgrade, is already paying $0 in federal income tax. The people who are expressing envy over the lack of income taxes, are the people who are making $30k. I don't know many people who would drop their $30k/year job to for a $19k/year job just to avoid income tax. If they exist, then... I guess they're free to make that jump and reap the loss of what... $7k a year in spendable income?
My mom would have gladly paid a couple thousand in income tax if it would mean that her salary would jump to $30k. And, yeah, she could have paid $1 in income taxes. But what is the point? Let's say that the 40% of the country that pays no income tax were forced to pay $1... no, wait, let's make it $500 dollars. Now, for many of them, that would be a significant, painful increase in taxes that would hurt their standard of living. That would generate... $75B in taxes. That's significant... except when you realize that the Bush tax-cuts-for-the-rich dropped tax revenues by $1T. So, if given the choice, should we impose a painful tax on the poor and generate a small amount of money, or a barely-noticeable tax on the wealthy and generate 13 times more money? If you still want to talk about income tax levels of $1 or $10, then the amount of revenue generated is so small that it's only there to poke the poor and make them feel bad. No, it doesn't hurt them, but it doesn't help the country either.
And finally, I love people who complain that these "parasite" poor people aren't paying for the use of common services. Understand that without that 40% of people, many of those common services wouldn't exist, largely because they wouldn't have workers or the infrastructure they need to function.
And in case you think that I'm just biased... I make way, way more than my mom. I pay taxes. Quite a bit, actually. And unlike most people who complain about income tax rates, I've seen both sides. I gladly pay my taxes because I realize that if I pay even an extra $1000 in taxes, it won't really affect me, and that would mean that there are ten families out there that won't lose $100 in food or clothes.
And that is totally independent of the discussion of how to spend revenues. The whole point that a large portion of the country doesn't pay income tax, because the income disparity is so wide. And that income disparity is wide and growing because far too many of the wealthy (or nearly wealthy like me) are driven by selfishness and greed and would rather buy a new car for themselves than help other families feed their children, and they make themselves feel better by telling themselves that there are loads of people who are trying to keep their income low so they can live off the handouts of the wealthy. The reality is... different. But it's sickeningly common for the wealthy to be completely unaware of how the majority of the country actually lives.