I obviously didn't mean in an election since there has only been one election since the war began and elections are more complicated than a single issue, which is why I used the quotes. I meant that they registered their clear support for the war when they were being lied to and have registered their clear opposition to it since they learned the truth. Wanna challenge that one? Cause, you know, they poll on that stuff...
Remind me what the request was and I will. I barely come over to this neck these days and when I do, I mostly just scan and lurk. I'm only here now cause Mr. Clutch cracked me up so good.
The reality is most Americans have seen enough of "spreading democracy" and "freedom on the march" that they are shunning military recruitment. The US Army has to woo soldiers with early exit as the recruiting targets have fallen short month after month. (link) In light of the recruiting shortage, I suggest you and a few other warmongering macho men (or shall I call you chickenhawks?) on this bbs respond to Uncle Sam's call This sure is much more helpful than just paying lip service or affixing a couple of magnetic bumper stickers.
This comes as no surprise. Don't conservative Republicans all advocate hard for intelligent manipulation, oops, intelligent design?
I get your point but I really don't like it. To me there is nothing at all wrong with morals and ethics in government -- in fact, I wish for more of them. And I'm uncomfortable with this marriage of criticism of policy with criticism of faith. I understand the fundamentalist right brought it on, but I'm still uncomfortable with it. I'm not at all interested in criticizing faith. In fact it is religious and moral and ethical tenets that bring me to this debate. I deeply believe that today's Republican party violates ethics that we have, as a people, agreed were inalienable, and that is the basis for my passion in partisan politics these days. As such, first I will not abide my side perpetrating snide and lazy attacks on the other side (sorry wnes, but yours is one) and I will not abandon that moral ground either. Ethics are the only ******* reason I'm a Democrat in the first place. (And here, basso, I provide you fertile grounds to make that threatened but tardy response, even while you will of course recognize the briar patch your current party loyalty affords.) I'll be straight about it. I'm a damn agnostic and I still value God's law over man's. And I am an affirmed Democrat. If you look at religious ethics at all, wnes, you'll find that the left has strong grounds there and the right stands on loud but shaky ones. I'm passing comfortable having that debate, but mocking religion doesn't serve it at all. Not at all.
In fact, I'll go further with this. I would posit that for decades, Democratics have been the party of religious ethics and Republicans have been the party of the (atheistic) bottom line. I'm passing happy to have this debate. Right leaning posters here have accused me of being a moralistic demagogue and they're right -- I am one. But I'm no match for the moralising demagogues of today's 'religious' wing of the Republican party. But even though I'm not, I say, bring it on. I also say, be careful what you wish for. Because every single Dem policy of the last fifty years or more is grounded in ethics (to be specific, in Christian ethics) and every core Republican policy is grounded in every man for himself style pure capitalism. The GOP got greedy here. Or maybe they were just trying to recapture and improve on the Reagan years. Whatever the case, George W. Bush is president now, at least in part, because a large group of people believed him to be the more religious man. So let's have that debate. Let's talk about which party better serves God, since the right insists on that. Let's have it because the left will win that debate. Easily. Even after years of running from what they stand for, the left will still win that debate because the opposition is insincere. For a very long time, ethics based in religion have been all the left has had going for it and for a long time they lost on account of it and so they ran away. But then the right got greedy -- they weren't content with winning. They tried to steal ethics away too. So I say, let's have that ethical debate and let's have it now. There's nothing I'd like better. The parties have traded places before. And if they do it again maybe I'll become a Republican. I am a moralist. The posters that mock that are right about me. It's the only reason this forum interests me at all. So I say, let's let the next ten years' elections be based on Christian ethics for real and whomever's more Christian, more deeply and truly Christian, according to the ******* scripture, let's elect them. As a Democrat and as a moralising agnostic, I would freaking love it.
Your point is well taken. And I apologize my silly little joke went overboard as it offends people of faith. The hypocritical, repulsive actions and agendas from conservative right probably caused a great deal of my aversion and cynicism towards religion in recent years, although I am still just as agnostic. I am not sure that one has to be religious to be moral and ethical. All too often it's the other way, as I have observed ...
Or it could be that most Democrats believed the LIE told by GW Bush. Here it is again way to keep the peace George.
if i can understand your convoluted reasoning here, you wish to chide president bush for his change of heart regarding nation building and a humble foreign policy, while at the same time acknowledging that "9/11 changed things sufficiently that we ought to be more active in foreign affairs," yet you disagree with the specifics. care to try and square that circle? what would you have done differently? You are also a profound cynic. Love him or loath him, Bush is the most progressive president this country has had since LBJ, perhaps earlier. When did the Democratic party become the rejectionist party? When did the party cease having any kind of vision for this country other than a rejection of any thought that emanated from the mind of a republican? You and your fellow rejectionistas have done a masterful job of telling us what you don't stand for, but what do you stand for in it's place? aside from an unyielding "right" to kill unborn fetuses, not much else that i can see. that you can with a straight face and high moral dudgeon fight against freedom, liberty, and democracy, the right of self-determination, for oppressed peoples in the middle east and elsewhere is the most profound betrayal of core principles by a political party in american history. how can you make common cause w/ mass-murdering dictators like Saddam and Kim Jong Il, and proto=tyants like Hugo Chavez is not only mind-bogglingly, anti-christian, but yes, anti-american, both in tradition and effect. Insincere? if Bill Clinton were advocating and effecting the same far reaching policy changes that GWB has you'd be hailing him as the second coming of Abraham Lincoln, if not Christ himself. By your steadfast adherence to a long since discredited chamberlinian worldview, you've demonstrated that your vaunted commitment to ethics is nothing but the worst kind of cynical partisanship.
What is mind boggling is that you can say Democrats are against democracy and self determination, and then argue that it is wrong to recognize the democratically elected Hugo Chavez in the same sentence. Bush doesn't really care about democracy. I am judging this by his actions. He didn't recognize the democratically elected Yassir Arafat, and pretended like democratic reform was suddenly swept in to the Palestinian territories. That isn't true. Arafat won at least two other elections already. Bush and others have tried to get rid of the democratically elected Hugo Chavez. Bush supports totalitarian regimes like Uzbekistan, Pakistan, etc. What Bush wants are countries that will let the U.S. have their way. His own actions show that whether they are totalitarian or democratic makes little difference to him. I have some news for you. Spreading democracy is not new as of the Bush administration. Lying to the people, to congress, to the UN to start a war isn't even new to the Bush administration either. But it wasn't advisable when it was done before, and it certainly wasn't advisable this time. Democracy is best spread by example, support of democratic causes, and aid when applicable. Pointing guns at folks saying be democratic or die, doesn't speak well for Bush's brand of democracy. The U.S. was respected around the world. We stood up against torture and brutality. Now we are torturers, supporters of torture, and have turned our back on the words of our own founding document.
Initially even more so because of it. It is unrealistic to assume that because we were respected and in general had favorable opinion throughout the world, that there weren't exceptions. There were conflicts, disagreements, all over, but in general we weren't seen as a huge threat to peace, purveyors of conquest, torture, etc. Like I say there were of course exceptions.
Nicely put as usual, FB. Okay, here's a fork of easy pie... This kind of thinking is at the heart of the cynical arguments of the right these days. If you opposed the Iraq war as unnecessary (and moreover as a distraction and divertion of resources away from the real enemy, the people who perpetrated the terrorist attacks against us), you are for Saddam and (inexpicably) weak on terror. If you don't support privatization, you're against fixing social security. If you support equal rights for all Americans, you're against marriage. If you don't support extraordinarily selective nation building, you're against democracy. You guys are so full of crap. We're either with you or against you, right? If the opposition party doesn't line up in lockstep to support every radical Bush policy, they are nattering nabobs of negativism. Worse, they stand with terrorists and dicatators. basso: I don't know how many times I have to say this or how to make you hear it. There are more than two answers to these questions. Worshipping at the holy altar of the black and white does not erase all shades of gray from the spectrum, as much as you or Bush might like to think it does. And opposing unnecessary, preemptive wars against countries that pose virtually no threat whatsoever to us does not equal loving Saddam, hating democracy or being weak on terror. What would I have done differently? Here goes for the millionth time: I would have gone after the terrorists. I would have stuck with that Bin Laden Wanted: Dead or Alive plan, instead of using 9/11 as an excuse for regime change in a country that had ZERO to do with 9/11 -- meanwhile declaring that we're "not that concerned" about Bin Laden. When I say 9/11 changed things, I state the obvious. Yes, we need to look at every current and potential enemy even more closely than we did before. We need to devote more resources to intelligence and follow each and every recommendation of the 9/11 commission. We need to beef up our homeland security not with color codes but with real measures. Kerry spoke frequently about the small percentage of checked bags on airplanes that are currently scrutinized. The first thing I'd do differently is take the untold billions of dollars (not to mention lives) being wasted on an unnecessary war that has nothing to do with terror and move them to the areas that do. Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia (where the terrorists actually hailed from), intelligence, airplane security for a start. And then, if we want to allocate resources to potential threats, I'd start with ones that actually have the power to harm us, beginning with North Korea. The American people supported the Iraq war because we were lied to in order that we would believe Iraq was a real threat to us. It wasn't. And the majority of the American people (www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm) is neither 'against Democracy,' 'for Saddam' or 'weak on terror' for changing its position in accordance with the new information that it was hornswaggled by the liars and cynics in charge. I'm a cynic? That's projection at its finest. Bush is very activist I agree. Progressive? Hardly. "Progressive" is not a term that applies to any and all "progress" in any and all directions. I've addressed the GOP's bogus and cynical 'nattering nabobs of negativism' strategy above, but I'll say again that there are more than two answers to these questions. In Kerry's appropriation votes that the GOP loves to mock, he was not playing two sides -- he was insisting we pay our bills. Pretty radical concept. You guys love to play dumb and simplify these complicated issues and it certainly works in a world of campaign commercials and soundbites, but it isn't true and you know it. Kerry said he'd vote for the appropriations if they came with a tax cut rollback to support them. When the GOP refused to include that rollback -- and refused to provide any other way to actually pay for the 87 billion -- he voted against it as a fiscally irresponsible measure. And here we have a true lack of ideas. Congress throws billions after billions at Iraq so they can say they're tough on terror (LOL) but refuses to say how they'll pay for it. Kerry made a proposal as to how to pay for it. The GOP not only rejected that solution -- they provided none in its place. That is cynicism. That is a lack of ideas. And diverting a real policy debate in order to capitalize on awkward language (voted for before voting against) is the lowest cynicism of all. And the following are reasons you are not only a cynic but an *******: 1. Saying that I personally and my party as well supports an "unyielding 'right' to kill unborn fetuses." That is a LIE and you know it. So **** you for saying it. 2. Saying that I personally and my party as well engage in a "fight against freedom, liberty, and democracy, the right of self-determination, for oppressed peoples in the middle east and elsewhere." That is a LIE and you know it. So **** you for saying it. My opposition to Bush policies is not even close to strictly partisan AND YOU KNOW THAT. You know that because you have read hundreds of (I think you would have to agree, if only privately) thoughtful posts from me detailing my deeply held reasons for opposing the Iraq war (not to mention the bigoted attack on gays and lesbians in this country and five or six other major issues). You are lying when you say my opposition is partisan, 'team' politics, because you know for a fact that isn't true. You know for a fact that my opposition is sincere. I know you know that because you are not an idiot even if you are a liar.
how nice that you can dismiss 9/11 and its impact so cavalierly, an "exception" to the rule...astounding.
I'm not dismissing 9/11 at all. I am only advocating that we don't give up our moral principles because of it. We don't give up what made America respected and admired around the world, because of that attack. Do you believe that the U.S. was hated and not respected around the world prior to 9/11? It sounds like that is what you are saying. Since you find it astounding that I believe people who supported and carried out 9/11 to be the minority or an 'exception' do you believe that sentiment was the norm?
sucking and ****ing...methinks 'tis passing strange your recent posts are so sexual in nature. mayhaps thine inpotence is borne not of rejection by a mere lass, but by an entire nation.
Gee, basso. You had all day and that's all you could come up with? Your recent stuff's been pure Jorge and not a step above. First the Saddam loving, freedom hating crap and now, just as Jorgie does when he gets schooled, in lieu of an argument you pull out the Bush won card. I'm pretty disappointed in you, basso. You used to seem smart.
and you have been unusually petulant and condesending. as mentioned above, perhaps your lack of congress has sapped the purity and essence of your precious bodily fluids.
