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Politics Where we learn not to think less of others who don't share our views |
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#31 |
Person who doesn't update the user title
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 12,486
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I lived in the pseudo-south for a year (southeastern Missouri)...that was enough.
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#32 | |
The urban Jane Goodall
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Florida
Posts: 3,012
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I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law. - Aristotle |
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#33 | |
King Of Wishful Thinking
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Philadelphia Suburbs
Posts: 6,669
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If Clinton had gotten us to this point in the Iraq war, with the body count and attendent mismanagement, people would be marching on the White House with torches and rope. The amount of slack people are giving Bush is astounding. The way the Right is spinning Kerry, with a Silver Star, Bronze Star, and 3 Purple Hearts into some kind of honorary draft dodger, is amazing. Clinton was an effective politician. He was the Democrats equivalent of Ronald Reagan, who was the smoothest orator I have ever heard and who successfully propped up an incredibly flawed economic policy on charm alone. I was amazed how Reagan could look at members of the press, who are asking serious and substantive questions, and admonish them like children for having doubts. Also how he can use the brilliant 'I don't remember' defense to defuse the Iran-Contra investigation. To be fair, I don't think he did remember. I personally think the Alzheimers began in his second term and his advisors led him through it. It seems that we are now at the point where %40-50 of this country will now have to put up with a president they dislike because both sides will play to the extreme right or left to garner the 'radical minorty who always votes' vote. Clinton was much more centrist than most people believe. For all of the conspiracies about Clinton, he left us in better shape than Reagan did and did not get us bogged down in a two-front war in the Middle East costing hundreds of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. I have an 18 year old son who just got his selective service notice. I personally believe that thanks to GWB, there is a %20 chance that we will have the draft reappear in the next 8 years, when he will be eligible. By that single measure, Bush has failed where Clinton, and almost any other modern president, would have succeeded. Mr. 'tax rebate' is responsible for the greatest loss of US servicemen and women since Vietnam. So millions of American families get 100 rebate checks, and hundreds of American families get death notices. This is not an acceptable trade. So I would be more than happy to have Clinton, sneak and all. Because having an effective, if sneaky politician in office is better than having a moralistic fuckup who hears only what he wants to hear and is happy to start a 'crusade' against 'evildoers' by spending the lives of men and women who signed on to 'support and defend the Constitution'. I never served, and neither did a lot of these self-righteous assholes on talk radio and TV. And to hear them criticize Kerry for his 'last man to die for a mistake' remark galls me. Because that remark was nothing if not prophetic given our current situation. As for the 'dirty' campaign about Bush's guard service. I wonder at people who can buy all of the conspiracy theories about Clinton but who are shocked...shocked.. at the suggestion that Bush was a 'fortunate son' who got preferential treatment during the Vietnam War. That's what I hate about a lot of the arguments. People write about how entertainers should stay out of politics, or how biased the media is, but only when they hear something that they don't like or disagree with the speaker. Bush politicized the war the moment he stepped on that aircraft carrier in his flight suit playing 'warrior king'. Considering the sacrifice he is asking others to make, and the 'dirty tricks' his own side is playing at painting liberals as draft dodgers and wimps, his record is part of the story. Command-in-Chief is a civilian position. It is one which justs happens to have been held at times by men who were in the service, and most of them were under fire at one point. Bush is a rarity in a president, he was technically a soldier during a war but never made it to combat. I do not believe that it is necessary for a Commander-in-Chief to have been active military, but I do believe it gives them a good insight into the sacrifice they expect of others. Eisenhower's farewell speech is an example of an ordered military mind evaluating and criticizing the political and economic power structure it had to deal with. Clinton, for all of his faults, knew he was a fortunate son. He was overseas in school during Vietnam and never had to risk his life. For him, I believe that soldiers would be the 'them' whose deaths would underscore a choice he did not have to make. This may be why he was so successful in keeping casualties low. Bush, I think, believes the big lie. In his mind he served and was ready to put himself in harms way, and could have been forced to do so at any time. He may not believe that there was ever a safety net provided for him. For him the soldiers are an 'us', and the sacrifice they make is one that he was perfectly willing to make at the time. They can share his crusade because he is one of them. So yes, I liked Clinton as a president. And if he was preachy, it was a leave them alone kind of preachy. And while he may have nibbled on the Second Amendmant with gun control, it does not compare with the assault on the Constitution we must now endure. He appeared to have a good group of advisors, to whom he appeared to listen. And they were able to keep themselves away from the 'best and brightest' hubris that got us into Vietnam, were able to negotiate internationally, and keep domestic policy on track.
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Exercise your rights and remember your obligations - VOTE!I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. -- Barack Hussein Obama Last edited by richlevy; 02-16-2004 at 03:57 PM. |
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#34 |
bent
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: under the weather
Posts: 2,656
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A nicely written, coherent response
![]() But I can't agree on several key points in your argument. First of all, attacking Bush's service record is one thing. Degrading service in the National Guard is another thing altogether. And that's exactly what the liberals are doing, whether intentionally or not. There are Guardsmen getting shot at right now in Iraq, yet the liberal side wants to paint Guard service as some kind of 'military lite' for people afraid to get their hands dirty. That's just plain untrue and insulting. It's also dirty campaigning. Bush might or might not have missed a couple of monthly meetings, training sessions, etc. while helping someone run for a Senate office. People opt out of Guard meetings all the time for various personal reasons, and it's never met with this kind of scrutiny. If there's any wrongdoing there, it's an administrative foulup on the part of the Guard, not some conspiracy. And as you said, Kerry's valor in combat, while admirable, doesn't equate to an ability to administrate the most powerful military force in the world. I think both sides are kind of missing the mark by even bringing up ANY of this. Kerry did what he was told, Bush did what he was told. Kerry was active duty, so that meant a different set of orders, hence a different outcome for the two. Secondly, Reaganomics WAS GOOD ECONOMIC POLICY. I'm not going to back down on this. The economic prosperity during the Clinton years was a direct result of what was implemented during the 80s: global trade initiatives, deregulation of the industries that drive our country, restoring the strength of the dollar and the stock market. The tech sector experienced HUGE growth, allowing us to play in the same sandbox as Japan, who had dominated us for the previous decade. All of this created jobs. No, it didn't help raise the minimum wage, but it provided opportunity to grow out of minimum wage jobs. Thirdly, the war on terror (I'm sick of the term as well) was dumped on Bush's head. Previous administrations, both Dem and Republican, are to blame for the fact that there even EXISTS an al-Quaeda. While we obsessed over Milosevic's penicillin factories, a far more dangerous threat was building under our noses. Now we have to deal with it, and as terrible as war is, it's the only language terrorists understand. You can't negotiate with someone who straps bombs to himself and runs into a shopping center screaming something about Allah. Bush's foreign policy is exactly what we need to remain safe. The UN would have us believe that diplomats wringing their hands and rending their garments is going to protect us from countries led by despots. They're sheep, plain and simple. And Kerry has said in the past (I can't find the quote, but I'm working on it) that he feels that American forces should be deployed internationally ONLY under the direction and approval of the United Nations. Oh-en-ell-wi. No sane person believes in a one-world government. Some pretend to, only because they suffer under the delusion that the US would be in charge of it. I'm out of steam. lol. |
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#35 | ||
I think this line's mostly filler.
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: DC
Posts: 13,575
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"never met with this kind of scrutiny"? Are you kidding? Bush is the president! He should have more scrutiny than some random joe off the street. And Clinton's activities during the war were indeed scrutinized this heavily, but he was upfront about not wanting to go to Vietnam. As with most scandals, Bush's ridiculous attempts to control the release of records is likely to be worse for him than if he just admitted that he "had other priorities" during Vietnam, like Cheney.
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_________________ |...............| We live in the nick of times. | Len 17, Wid 3 | |_______________| [pics] |
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#36 | |||
Person who doesn't update the user title
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 12,486
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#37 | |
bent
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: under the weather
Posts: 2,656
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Sìn a nall na cuaranan sin. -- Cha mhór is fheairrde thu iad, tha iad coltach ri cat air a dhathadh |
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#38 | |
bent
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: under the weather
Posts: 2,656
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What matters is policy, and in the long view, liberal government is bad for this country. It encourages suckling of the government teat at the expense of taxpayers, vast amounts of money go to programs that never pay off (the notable Clinton exception being Americorps), and the foreign policy has historically been abysmal. Too many people refuse to look at liberalism for what it is because they've been convinced that white people getting rich only happens when black people starve. It's all scare tactics and class envy, and every time this country falls for it, some mean old conservative has to come along and fix everything that the warm fuzzy Marxist has fucked up. Anyway, at the end of the day, we're more concerned about Janet Jackson's Super Bowl Tittie Extravaganza. No matter who gets elected, we will pretty much live the same lives. For all the talk about rich people, their wealth never hurts us personally. Likewise, I don't know many people who go downtown and write personal checks to the junkie in the cardboard box. Who cares who's president, let's go have a beer. edit: last graf is smartass comment on voter apathy, which I just realized didn't go over. I'm not adept at thinking prior to talking sometimes, oops.
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Sìn a nall na cuaranan sin. -- Cha mhór is fheairrde thu iad, tha iad coltach ri cat air a dhathadh Last edited by mrnoodle; 02-16-2004 at 07:36 PM. |
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#39 | |
lobber of scimitars
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Phila Burbs
Posts: 20,774
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US out of the UN now!!!
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![]() ![]() "Conspiracies are the norm, not the exception." --G. Edward Griffin The Creature from Jekyll Island High Priestess of the Church of the Whale Penis |
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#40 | |
I think this line's mostly filler.
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: DC
Posts: 13,575
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Quote:
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_________________ |...............| We live in the nick of times. | Len 17, Wid 3 | |_______________| [pics] |
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#41 | |
Person who doesn't update the user title
Join Date: Jan 2001
Posts: 12,486
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#42 |
|-0-| <-0-> |-0-|
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: New Jersey
Posts: 516
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The US jerking off the UN is part of the reason the UN is losing its validity. Just like the US not signing the Kyoto agreement...
And yes, the UN is nowhere near perfect, but its better than nothing. |
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#43 |
The future is unwritten
Join Date: Oct 2002
Posts: 71,105
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Richlevy, you're right about the guard. When you talk about Bush's service in the guard you have to put it in the time frame.
During the Viet Nam War entering the guard WAS DRAFT DODGING. Everybody knew it. It's where connected people hid their spawn. The only guard members that went to war were volunteers and they were mostly Korean War or shortly there after vets, that joined the guard because there wasn't a reserve unit handy. Some of these guys were chafing to get back into it and volunteered to do so although most were forced to be instructors. So don't be fooled by today's standards with no huge standing army and no draft mill humming. I can still see the looks on the draftee's faces as the man went down the line saying army, army, marines, army, army, marines, army....... ![]()
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The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump. |
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#44 | |||||
King Of Wishful Thinking
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Philadelphia Suburbs
Posts: 6,669
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As far as administrating the most powerful military force in the world, I think most objective views of the war in Iraq past the 'mission accomplished' point set by President Bush would note the lack of planning, supply, organization, etc. Quote:
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BTW, a few hours after I wrote my post about presidents who were veterans and Eisenhower, I heard a commentator bring up the same points.
__________________
Exercise your rights and remember your obligations - VOTE!I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. -- Barack Hussein Obama Last edited by richlevy; 02-16-2004 at 11:38 PM. |
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#45 | |
Hand-of-Kindness Extender
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Where am I?
Posts: 139
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