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Originally Posted by shakran
See, this is the kind of crap I was talking about. Baseless insults hurled at the left simply because it's the left. This is the kind of garbage that doesn't need to be in here.
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My observations are based on my experience on TFP. Your response seems emotional and you seem to assume my observation is baseless. So rather than exploring the basis of my observation you respond with emotion, validating my point. thank you.
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You're right. We don't understand the value in leaping headfirst into a volcano with both eyes shut while yelling "I'm the decider!" simply because you said you'd do it in a moment of stupidity.
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There are many threads discussing the war. Why did Democrats in Congress vote to give Bush the authority to go to war with Iraq? Where they lied to? Where they asleep at the wheel? Did they assume Bush would not use the athority? There are also other questions on this issue not honestly and directly answered by liberals.
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More vague insults that don't add anything to the discussion. Again, this is the kind of crap that needed to be cleansed.
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You are correct. My coment was insulting. But, like I said I am making an effort to be nicer. I am sorry that I so easily offended you and others.
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Yet a third instance of insulting those of us who aren't Bush Brownnosers.
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Are you calling me a "Brownnoser"? Are you guilty of what you accuse me of? Should I expect an apology? Will I get one? I doubt it, after all I started it. Right?
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Just because we think the conservatives are wrong does not mean we're either radical liberals or socialists. But then you know that, don't you, and you just couldn't pass up the opportunity to slam the left with cheap, thoughtless pronouncements that break down completely under even the slightest scrutiny.
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True.
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The only issue on his plate that he's paying any attention to is Iraq. There's plenty more on his plate, but he's ignoring that.
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That was somewhat hyperbole on my part. I did not think that literally he was only dealing with Iraq. I guess I should not use hyperbole. Have you used hyperbole? But wait, I started it. I get it now.
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No, it is not. It's based on a shaky tower of credit card debt, and is not at all sustainable.
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If the "tower" falls, what happens? The economy will keep going. There are many factors affecting our economy, credit card debt is one, but it is minor. Credit card issuers have carefully measured default risk and have priced their product accordingly. That is why people are paying between 11% and 21% interest. Some currently have no option but to work mutiple jobs at low wages because they won't sacrifice and save. As long as they have no options and won't reduce expenses, employment will be high, wage growth low, and consumer spending high. The rich will get richer. As a conservative I say each person in that situation is responsible for getting out of it. What do you say as a liberal?
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As has been covered before, if you get rid of millions of good, well-paying middle class jobs and replace them with jobs at Walmart, that is not growth.
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What about the good jobs created requiring higher education? I factor those in, I guess you don't. Yes, fewer American's work in factories, but more work in clean airconditioned offices than ever in history.
Real work in exchange for goods and services. Today people work less for more and better goods and services than at any time in history.
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We are still talking about the united states right? Oh sure, for now the deficit is a little smaller than last year's. That's kinda like saying the Rockies aren't as big as the Alps. And when you realize that the deficit is cumulative and is then called debt, and you realize that the national debt is still hurtling upward at breakneck pace, you realize that claiming the deficit is smaller really doesn't mean anything.
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Government has a printing press, They can always print more money to pay debt obligations. The real important measure is interest rates, which are at historically low levels. If you thought the government was at risk, you would demand a high interest rate for money you lent to the government. If you felt future inflation was going to be high you would want more than 5% on a 30 year bond. Low interest rates mean people with money to lend have confidence.
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You're trying to prove a negative. Because we haven't had any attacks, that MUST mean what the president is doing is working. But correlation does not equal causation. Just because we have had no attacks concurrent with Bush's policies does not mean Bush's policies are causing that no-attack condition. After all, the sun has not gone supernova in the past six years either. Would you suggest that this, too, is thanks to Bush and his leadership?
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No. I was just stating a fact. I don't think Bush gets 100% credit/blame for our economy either. However, it it was a problem I would expect him to try to help fix it.
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First, that's a VERY VERY big if, something along the lines of "if he fills in the grand canyon using only tweezers," and second, managing to stabilize Iraq does not mean he had a good presidency. He has a lot more to answer for, and we cannot forget that the ends do not always justify the means.
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Perhaps in your book. I think the ends do justify the means.
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The hell we don't. Iraq just happens to be the biggest thing to complain about at the moment.
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True. You only have two more years of Bush bashing, what's next?
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*Bush has also been an economic disaster (you can claim the economy's booming all you want - - go talk to the homeless shelters and the salvation army and all the other charities and they'll tell you something VERY different. Go talk to the libraries who's budgets have been slashed, and the schools who have 30+ kids to a classroom, and the formerly middle class people who are reduced to working at poverty wages because of downsizing, and you'll no longer be able to honestly claim that the economy is great).
*He has been a civil rights disaster (the patriot act, the Guantanamo prisoners, the secret CIA operations that are kidnapping innocent civilians from around the world and ferrying them to torture chambers in places such as Syria, Pakistan, and Iraq so that we can question them under torture while claiming that WE didn't actually torture them),
*he has been a scientific/medical disaster (stem cell bans forcing millions of people with diseases that could potentially be cured via stem cell research to rot away in the interest of protecting some frozen embryos - - -embryos which, btw, will be thrown away by the thousands by fertility clinics),
*a free press disaster (I'm not just talking about his media inaccessibility which, btw, is inexcuseable for a government official who is answerable to the public, but also his refusal to speak out against the FCC's anti-democratic, pro corporate lifting of media ownership restrictions),
*an energy disaster (pushing ethanol and hydrogen, the two "alternative fuel" technologies which are more resource intensive and environmentally damaging than gasoline,
*an environmental disaster (wants to drill the ANWR, pulled out of the Kyoto treaty, pretends global warming doesn't exist),
* a foreign policy disaster (damn near EVERY nation is pissed off at us now, sabre rattling with Iran and North Korea - we are very lucky that Korea got sensible in time and realized the path of disaster they were allowing Bush to lead them down),
*and a disaster relief disaster (New Orleans still looks pretty much the way it did a week after Katrina hit)
In short, this president is an all around disaster. I've tried but I can't think of one thing he's done well or competently. He got off to a good start with Afghanistan shortly after 9/11 but he lost interest in them quickly (which is why the man who attacked us is still on the loose, and Bush claims he doesn't really care about getting him). Instead he went after Iraq, where precisely none of the terrorists who attacked us were from, and left the real terrorist hotbed to fend for itself.
We have PLENTY to complain about - the only question is knowing where to start.
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Bush has not had a real impact on the above one way or the other. Government spenting is higher than ever even if you take out war related costs. What is your answer, should he have spent more money? I think making people and agencies more accountable is the answer.