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Comment by ocdtrekkie | Hacker News Reader

That was, to be honest, the biggest issue I had with Hillary Clinton and why I couldn't vote for her. (FWIW, my vote for neither major party affected nobody, my state's electoral votes are locked.)

She basically stated she wanted to continue Obama's legacy and... in retrospect, Obama's legacy sucks. I voted for him twice, and I almost wish I hadn't. Countries we weren't ever even at war with have children who have now grown up to fear the sound of an American drone. (As a note, I have no issue with use of drones themselves, I have issue with how we use them. Like assassinations without due process.)

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Obama's legacy has good spots and bad spots. In the future, his drone policy is something that may be viewed as a stain on America much like America's cold war meddling in South America that caused misery and bloodshed for millions of Latin Americas.

On the other hand, Bin Laden is dead, we didn't start any new wars, the US left Iraq, and several regimes changed to democracy in the Middle East without the US military getting heavily involved.

Obama's Justice Department has successfully shed light on patterns of police misconduct in several major cities and has mandated reforms. Yet, Obama and the DoJ ignored a landmark report on forensic science that could've exonerated thousands of wrongfully convicted and prevented wrongful convictions in the first place.

Net Neutrality won the day under Obama, yet he has done precious little to roll back pervasive surveillance and indeed has strengthened it.

In the fullness of time we'll see if Obama's legacy is ultimately viewed as negative or positive. And a lot of that depends on individual perceptions and what issues are important to you. Not to mention that feelings about his legacy will depend a lot on the quality of presidents succeeding.

> Bin Laden is dead

A kindergartener, compared to who runs the show in Middle East now.

> we didn't start any new wars

Only to see the age old religious ones reignite - Sunni IS, supported by disenfranchised Iraqi Sunnis vs Shia Iraqi government. That is effectively not only a religious war but also a civil one - Top IS brass is ex-Saddam's military.

> the US left Iraq

Should have finished the phrase: "The US left Iraq in a much, much worse state than when it first came."

Left Iraq in a much, much worse state and still have 5000 soldiers there, so we never really left.

An important one to highlight is his administrations' advocacy for LGBT rights both domestically and abroad. It's maddening to see the dichotomy between his privacy legislation and how he's advanced the civil rights of so many at the same time.

The two facets, on the surface, appear to be at such odds...

Several regimes changed to democracy? Is that so? And how are they doing?

And don't forget dropping bombs everywhere. Including weddings and hospitals where Obama achieved first world occurrence of a Nobel peace prize winner bombing another.

Without getting too deep into a discussion about geopolitics, it should be abundantly clear that getting rid of authoritarian governments is just the first step. Democracy is hard. Americans of all people should have a deeper appreciation for how hard it is to keep a functioning democracy.

As for dropping bombs, that ties into the drone policy and the real questions about collateral damage, how targets are selected and vetted, and the reality that in some ways targeted strikes are simply extra judicial killings.

Assessing Obama's legacy requires wading through ethical morasses and coming to understand situations that may be occluded by a lot of factors that are not visible to the public.

> collateral damage

"Collateral damage" is dehumanizing doublespeak for the killing of civilians.

I don't want to live in any future that sees Obama's legacy in a positive light.

> we didn't start any new wars

I think you need to re-examine that one. I'd agree we didn't start any wars on the scale of Iraq, but we did continue with unnecessary and unsuccessful foreign interventions that have only served to further destabilize the Middle East (and bleeding into Europe...)

We stopped calling them wars and stopped asking congress to authorize them. It's pretty frustrating to see a line like that spouted on HN.

...we didn't start any new wars...

Don't tell a Libyan that; you might get punched in the face.

> Obama's legacy sucks. I voted for him twice, and I almost wish I hadn't.

I did too, and I also almost wish I hadn't, but, TBF, it's not like the other choices were that great.

The more I think about it. It's really like we don't actually have a choice at all. We just get to influence the letter next to the name when that official shows up on CSPAN. Policy never moves.

Kucinich, Mike Gravel

Did you think he sucked across the board, or just on foreign policy and domestic surveillance? It's a huge job.

Space policy wavered again under Obama as well, the repetitive change in goals our executive branch has tasked NASA with has held back our ability to progress with manned space exploration. Designing for Mars and designing for the Moon each present different problems.

The F-35 project has somehow survived as long as it has, despite being a massive cash sink into a project that is going to produce a bad plane that doesn't win fights. And if we rely on it for our next generation air superiority, we're going to be at a disadvantage until the next generation comes around.

I don't feel like we've really had a good last eight years. It's a good thing gay marriage is now a right, but that was decided by a 5-4 conservative Supreme Court anyways... not exactly something Obama can take credit for.

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