Taboo: Topics which shouldn't belong in Politics

[Creatures]

Why are such topics like gender, race, religion very important to determine the new president, even if those things should have no influence on anything the president does?

After several years observing Germany, the USA and Switzerland, their voting habits and how politicians try to get votes. I'm kind of struck how crazy the US run for president is.
i have never seen anything like this in Switzerland or germany before

And it gets even scarier, i've never heard anyone in germany or switzerland talk about name, look, gender and religion. but all i hear in this forum and some brief moments on fox news is obama's name, he's kinda half black african (which is not true black...) his religion (es-muslim HELP!!!!) and then hilary, she's a woman (HELP!!!) etc. now mccain on the other hand, he's white, he's old, he's a veteran and probably religious, now why is everyone scared about the above and not afraid of someone who is white, old and a veteran? are they more trustworthy? does it actually influence you on how to vote?

Creatures

[no1_vern]

One person told me he was going to use chance to decide who to vote for. He was going to flip a coin when he get into the voting booth.

I think its more of what the people are afraid of than anything else. The fact that a lot of people do their best to smear the candidates at any cost, doesnt help.

Many people were turned off by Hillary Clintons' power grabbing than they were of Barack Obama. My wife told me she would NEVER vote for a woman that is so power hungry that she would allow a cow like her husband get away with fooling around on her.

Someone posted on here earlier that they thought Obama would be assassinated because of his religion(many people believe that because he is black that he is a Muslim.) When I claimed that he is a Cristian, I was told that he simply lied. So, without any PROOF, this person had decided that the way he saw the world was the ONLY way to see the world.

The only thing I can say is that ANY EXCUSE is used to sling mud -any kind of mud- at whichever candidate you dont like.

I wish I had kept a full copy of the article, I posted a list of taboo subjects last year but since then the article has been pulled.

[surreal]

Originally Posted by Creatures

I'm kind of struck how crazy the US run for president is.
i have never seen anything like this in Switzerland or germany before

And it gets even scarier, i've never heard anyone in germany or switzerland talk about name, look, gender and religion.

There was this one guy in Germany that talked about race religion gender and intelligence quite a bit.

[Creatures]

Originally Posted by surreal

There was this one guy in Germany that talked about race religion gender and intelligence quite a bit.

so you think germany learnt from their mistakes and keep those things out of politics, or you are saying that america is heading in the same direction as germany back then? ;P

but i can see your point, but that was in the past, we learnt a lot from science that race has influence on what we are but it doesnt make us less important etc. back then morals and knowledge were power because you could control them, today this should not happen again if there are still free thinkers who won't be censored

@vern: so things which have no influence at all in whether someone is a good president or not are used to make the other look bad? kinda strange way to "debate" reminds me of flame wars ;p

Creatures

[no1_vern]

I didnt say that politics made sense, just that in American politics anything can/will be used to make a candidate look bad.

[Beemer]

Luckily this isn't a North American wide phenomenon. Gender, ethnisity (we're all of the same race being human), religion are all taboo topics up here considering bringing them up in politics is nothing more than validating an opinion based on descrimination of one group over another.

All 3 categories should be irrelevant in politics. It's the best person for the job.

[osprey4]

Originally Posted by Creatures

i have never seen anything like this in Switzerland or germany before

Just a wild guess, but I'm thinking you haven't had too many presidential candidates whose father was of African descent.

[Creatures]

Originally Posted by osprey4

Just a wild guess, but I'm thinking you haven't had too many presidential candidates whose father was of African descent.

that changes what exactly?
we may have not a presidential candidate but we have many different nationalities within switzerland who can get a swiss passport after 10 years living here (or even earlier if they take some kind of test) so we are used to have lots and lots of non swiss here (btw i myself am half hungarien and half italien, you learn a lot if you are around so many different nationalities, you start to stop thinking as a citizen of a country more like a citizen of this world, and begin to accept different morals and different opinions, but still it works)

Switzerland cia factbook

Ethnic groups:
German 65%, French 18%, Italian 10%, Romansch 1%, other 6%

Religions:
Roman Catholic 41.8%, Protestant 35.3%, Muslim 4.3%, Orthodox 1.8%, other Christian 0.4%, other 1%, unspecified 4.3%, none 11.1% (2000 census)

and a good quote from wiki:

Resident foreigners and temporary foreign workers make up about 21% of the population. Most of these are from European Union or EFTA countries. Italians are the largest single group of foreigners with 18,9% of total foreign population, while people from the various nations of former Yugoslavia make up 21%, there are also many ethnic Albanians. Immigrants from Sri Lanka, most of them former Tamil refugees, are the largest group among people of Asian origin. In the 2000s, domestic and international institutions have expressed concern about what they perceive as an increase of xenophobia in Switzerland, particularly in the political campaigning of the right-wing populist Swiss People's Party.

the last sentence is very important^^ reminds me of some other country with lots of xenophobia ;p

Creatures