I understand your frustration but to me this has more to do with hypocrisy than it does with patriotism. The last Republican standard bearer crafted his campaign around the message "Country First." He acknowledged that there were many mistakes that had been carried out in the invasion and occupation of Iraq but that it was unpatriotic and even treasonous to criticize. Right now we are facing an economic crisis with a new president putting out a controversial and admittedly far from perfect plan to deal with it. Under the principle of "Country First" as outlined by McCain it should be the duty of political leaders of all stripes to support this plan. Obviously McCain himself doesn't agree with that since he is one of the leading opponents but I will give him a pass on questioning his patriotism. I think if he actually believes that this plan is a threat to the nature of the US then it is his patriotic duty to speak out but at the same time I never subscribed to such a shallow view of patriotism as what he peddled during the election.
I just think new yorkers are willing to be frank about how they feel....i think southerners keep it in more. That's my experience in living in both places. I perfer the brutal truth you get here in nyc over the polite southern hospitality - but that's me. But regardless - I don't judge people on how they feel so much as how they act.
I am not saying it's unpatriotic to criticize policies - this is what i am struggling with. You keep coming back to that. BUt it's not a policy issue. It's stating you want the leader of your country to fail and for your country to suffer. To me that's unpatriotic, not just dissent.
I think we might differ on our view of patriotism and dissent. My impression is that you are viewing the idea of dissent in the abstract that you fully accept the idea of patriotic dissent but in a specific case like this you don't like it. My own feeling is that someone could wish that the President fails and that Washington is laid in ruins and still be patriotic. While that is incredibly extreme I think if you truly believe that what the President is doing is dangerous for the country that even harsh dissent could still be considered patriotic. In the end all of this is subjective and I can understand why you think that what the Republicans are saying is unpatriotic. By the standards they laid out during the presidential campaign they are being unpatriotic.
I simply don't connect how wishing for your countries failure is an example of dissent. In fact, I'd say the equivalent of Dems being unpatriotic wouldn't be them wishing we failed in Iraq - but wishing we failed on the war on terror and that we got hit again by terrorists - or hoping the terrorists struck a blow so severe that it sent our country into shambles economically - such as having a nuke be set off on American soil. That's clearly unpatriotic. I mean, do you not see that? If you don't agree - I'd like to know what you do indeed find unpatriotic, since you could then argue that treason is just a form of dissent.
Unpatriotic? No. Ignorant of what normal people face in tough economic times? Maybe. Don't care about anyone but their fat cat buddies and their campaign contributions? Absolutely. By the way: Bachmann / Limbaugh vs. Edwards / Biden? Oral Roberts JD / Southeast Missouri State University DROPOUT former DJ vs. Univ. North Carolina J.D. / Syracuse J.D. - Con Law Prof. Uh, I think Dems win in a LANDSLIDE in the Intelligence Department.
Yes. There was an opinion poll a few years back that the majority of registered democrats actually chose an option stating they wanted to see Bush fail. I believe it was several hundred democrats polled. I'll look for specifics when I get more time. I just remember a big splash was made because the rhetoric became much stronger and much more personal about Bush and hoping he'd fail. If you have any common sense at all, and can apply that common sense to the rhetoric of Howard Dean and a few others, you can't come away with any other opinion that these guys wanted (and couldn't seem to wait for) Bush to fail in Iraq and elsewhere. I'm not suggesting they wanted troops to die. They wanted policy/strategy to fail.
The problem as I see it - we don't really know whether this 1 trillion stimulas package will work. So even though I voted for Obama, I am against the trillion dollar package as it currently stands. As you may recall, back in 2008, TARP was the magical solution to all our problems. It was supposed to fix the banking crisis and credit crunch and get the economy back rolling to previous levels. Well as it turns out, TARP was a complete failure. The solution, TARP x 2. To me, it seems like patchwork short-term policy. For the past 8 yrs, the fuel driving our economy was leverage at the individual level. Having utilized all of the capacity for debt at the individual level, the Govt. will now try to keep the economy going by using its capacity for leverage. Problem is, due to the recent wars and past budget deficits, the Govt. may already be close to its capacity. The argument is that the Govt. is the only entity with the resources that can take on this problem directly. Of course this is not technically correct. The Govt. does have enough resources to cover its own expenses, let alone 2 trillion in additional debt. Basic cash flows, if you have 100 in cash and 200 expenses due, you need to come up with another $100 or you file for bankruptcy. Before all this Stimulas talk, the Govt. was already running at 500 billion dollar deficits annually. That means it has to go out and borrow so it can either finance the interest on the debt or pay obligations as they come due. By a simple phrase "full faith and credit", the Govt.transforms into this omnipresent being that is to big to fail. Where have we heard that before? (Citi, AIG, GM, etc.. ring a bell). To me, fixing a problem caused by leverage with more leverage seems illogical. But this is the solution the brains have come up with. IMO, we are just postponing the natural correction which is inevitable.
You may be the only person I've seen that suggest Biden is brilliant. Has he relayed any good speeches lately?
Most of my friends are democrats and none of us wanted W to fail. He just wasn't our candidate of choice. Please provide the poll for the rest of the board that supports your claim.
I think you are being a bit unfair to the Republicans as I don't believe any of them truly want to see the country laid in ruins and don't believe that the failure of Obama will lead to the country in ruins. I believe that most of them might accept that the stimulus package will only result in, at best, very short term relief and then lead to a lot of long term pain. As I've said patriotism is very subjective and intent and context are important. Von Stauffenberg thought he was a patriot yet he led a plot to assasinate his country's leader. Mordechai Vanunu felt it was his patriotic duty to spill the secrets of Israel's nuclear program. Both of those acts were treason in the very legal sense yet their is a strong counter argument that Von Stauffenberg was acting to save Germany and Vanunu to fulfill what he saw as the moral duty of the Jewish state. I think we need to be careful using patriotism to club political dissent.
According to Bernanke on 60 Minutes last night the TARP avoided a financial meltdown. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/12/60minutes/main4862191.shtml [rquoter]By September, Bernanke and then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson went to Capitol Hill to urge a massive bailout of the banking system, which lawmakers soon passed. Asked how close of a call it was, Bernanke said, "It was very close. It was very close. The Congress passed the bill that gave Treasury the right to put capital into the banks in the first week of October. And it was in the second week of October that the crisis reached its peak. If we had not had those powers, we could have had a much, much worse outcome. So it was a very dangerous situation." [/rquoter]
I chastaised Liberals who said they hoped we failed in Iraq. I don't see why the Republicans get a free pass for saying the same thing about the economy.
I think you are making a big assumption here in terms of what some Republicans would be willing to accept if it made Obama look bad. They want revenge for Bush. Some of them at any cost. If you have 5 million in the bank, you don't care if the economy tanks into a great depression.
