20th September 2005, 6:59 PM
Michael Moore might have a few inaccuracies in his films, but at least he's trying to show the truth... Ann Coulter is just a viscious attack dog like so many others on the far right.
Bush is partially to blame for the economy because of the impact of his budgets... that is, the massive tax cuts for the rich (tax cuts for the rich, aka "trickle-down economics" or whatever you want to call them, don't work, never have worked, and never will work. Give rich people more money and they just keep it.). Yes, the recession didn't start under him, but he made it worse, no question about it. He made the levees break? No. As for Clinton, I would definitely say that that shows the massive double standards here. Attacking Clinton for everything he did is the most noble thing you can do, while attacking Bush for everything he does is vile, anti-American country-hating. It's a political ploy to try to convince people that only one side could possibly ever be right, and thus it's a direct attack on everything that this country was founded on... it's about free debate, not the squelching of ideas for being on the other side of the aisle. But that's not what conservatives want, they want a dictatorship... or better yet to most of the ones in power, a theocracy... where only their views are heard. I hope they can't get away with it, but the American people are pretty stupid... I know saying 'the nearest state that was stupid enough to vote for Bush is five states away' makes me feel a bit better, but then what about the rest of the country... :(
Darunia: I'll reply to the highlighted sections.
One by the opression of everyone who wasn't "normal", yes... race, gender, etc...
Of course they could have, because the only people who believe that Democrats hate America are deluded radical right people like you, not the actual Democrats who would be doing the governing.
I get your point, we should still be living in the 1200s. Serfdom today!
Equal rights are among the greatest things modern humanity has attempted. We're very far from being there, and we're not moving forward on all fronts (gay rights are sloowly moving forward, but women's right seem to have stalled... and abortion seems like it'll always be an issue.), but at least we are trying, unlike anyone before. This is an unqualified Good Thing.
This is why I don't like replying to these things... so many things that are so, so wrong, and I know you won't listen to a word of truth ever in your life... Unions? Helping to create equality in industries that have always enforced opression. Foreign trade relations? Unfortunate acceptance of weak foreign labor laws that I wish was different... we should not have China with any sort of favored-nation trade policy given what they do to their own people. Nixon? It's his own stupid fault for being so paranoid he needed to spy on his opposition... WHO HE WAS CRUSHING IN THE POLLS ANYWAY...
Is a single word here true? So when someone does something that is blatantly illegal -- saying you don't believe in the law doesn't excuse you from having to follow it (that's referring to international law, by the way. Conservatives saying that they don't believe in international law and so it doesn't matter that we illegally invaded Iraq doesn't change the fact the invasion was, definitively, illegal by the standards of international law. I should know, I took a course on it last year...). But even so, most Democrats supported this president for a while, I'd say... the nation only began turning on Bush when it became clear the the reason for going to war -- WMDs -- was false, and that there was in fact no exit strategy. Now, Bush only has a 40% approval rating. There are non-war reasons for that yes, but this war is the main cause. Americans don't have much tolerance for casualties, and once people start dying unless they see a really good cause (like WWII) they want to quit... this is both good and bad, of course, depending on the situation. Here? Ignoring the 'why we went in' part that so blatantly shows how bad this administration is... I don't know. It looks like there will be civil war whether we're in there or not... the question is if it'd be worse with us there or with us gone. I suspect it'd be worse with us gone, so we should stay... but if there is a point where it looks like the overall violence (that is, INCLUDING violence to Iraqis! It's disturbing how easily people here ignore the reports of dozens of people dying just because they aren't American...) would reduce by us leaving, then that is probably when we should leave.
You say "bitartizanship" and then produce a list that shows how little you are truly interested in "bipartizanship". You want "rule by us and those few on the other side who can be convinced to agree with us"... not bipartizanship, which implies actually giving in a bit and admitting that sometimes the other side has a point... 1) is done because it is overly large and bloated in a lot of ways. 2) happens these days because of tax cuts more than anything. Clinton, scourge of people like you, balanced the budget. While slightly expanding social programs, and reducing others (like kicking so many people off welfare). Bush, gave us a deficit in the hundreds of billions. Yes some of that is because of the recession, but not NEARLY all of it... not when we've squandered so much revenue by cutting taxes at the worst possible time. 3) International cooperation is the only way to get anything done worth mentioning. As Iraq should prove, going it alone does not work, and won't. 4) the right has just as many people speaking in a hateful fury (which, I would say, Democrats are not... Moore is angry, not hateful. Coulter or Limbaugh are hateful.) who are just as allowed to excersize their right of free speech. 5) I know countries want to build up their image, but the truth, hurtful as it is at times, is a good thing... now, of course, some countries go too far in attacking the US, but that's not what you mean and we all know it. "Support the presidents of Germany and France"? No, not just two countries... it's a big world. We are citizens of it, and should act accordingly... use legal means to punish where it is appropriate, use our power for good (peacekeeping, aid, blockades on truly bad regimes, etc), etc... not for the kind of thing we had in Iraq.
Ah yes, the current refuge of the Republican... that world events mean we must all "rally 'round the flag" which is conveniently being held by them and them alone. Just like John Ashcroft's terror alerts -- notice how they went away with him? Shows how truthful they were, and how much they were a scare tactic to keep the American people in line-- there is far more hype in what you say than there is truth. In fact, quite the opposite. Suspending our liberty in order to fight a war that will last forever is unquestionably wrong. This "War on Terror", or your stated threat from China, are convenient excuses you need to fall back on to stop that oh-so-hated "change"...
One final thing... I had to deal with this seperately. We have done so many things so counter to this supposed philosophy that when I read this I literally laughed out loud... democracy and humanitarianism? In fits and spurts, but the other two thirds of the time we've been quite adept at supporting dictatorship and terror, as long as those dictators weren't "red"... or Muslim, now... (them having natural resources we want is also a good reason to ignore "democracy" and "humanitarianism", of course... notice how we sanction Burma and not China? Yeah.)
Quote:Anyone that has been alive for more than a decade, unless convient memory kicks in, can remember the partisan bullshit republicans tried to pull to get Clinton out of office and constantly defying his decisions. Equally stupid shit is being pulled now, including blaming Bush for a poor economy (no one's been able to explain this one yet), to Bush purposly allowing NO's levees to break...even some people go as far to say that he had ordered them to be broken, but I'm not going to get into that.
Bush is partially to blame for the economy because of the impact of his budgets... that is, the massive tax cuts for the rich (tax cuts for the rich, aka "trickle-down economics" or whatever you want to call them, don't work, never have worked, and never will work. Give rich people more money and they just keep it.). Yes, the recession didn't start under him, but he made it worse, no question about it. He made the levees break? No. As for Clinton, I would definitely say that that shows the massive double standards here. Attacking Clinton for everything he did is the most noble thing you can do, while attacking Bush for everything he does is vile, anti-American country-hating. It's a political ploy to try to convince people that only one side could possibly ever be right, and thus it's a direct attack on everything that this country was founded on... it's about free debate, not the squelching of ideas for being on the other side of the aisle. But that's not what conservatives want, they want a dictatorship... or better yet to most of the ones in power, a theocracy... where only their views are heard. I hope they can't get away with it, but the American people are pretty stupid... I know saying 'the nearest state that was stupid enough to vote for Bush is five states away' makes me feel a bit better, but then what about the rest of the country... :(
Darunia: I'll reply to the highlighted sections.
Quote: politics were left to the politicians to argue over. Americans were all one, and it's always true that a people cannot stand divided.
One by the opression of everyone who wasn't "normal", yes... race, gender, etc...
Quote: In WWII, what would have happened if the New Deal Democrats who loved America had been the Michael Moore ones of today?Could American had won WWII with the problems it faces today--?
Of course they could have, because the only people who believe that Democrats hate America are deluded radical right people like you, not the actual Democrats who would be doing the governing.
Quote:It was in the 60's that the new age of liberal thinking began to divide the country on large issues... abortion, women's rights, etc., which right or wrong, could only serve to cause conflict within our society.
I get your point, we should still be living in the 1200s. Serfdom today!
Equal rights are among the greatest things modern humanity has attempted. We're very far from being there, and we're not moving forward on all fronts (gay rights are sloowly moving forward, but women's right seem to have stalled... and abortion seems like it'll always be an issue.), but at least we are trying, unlike anyone before. This is an unqualified Good Thing.
Quote:Liberals went further, pushing to destroy American industry with ever-more-powerful unions and increases in minimal wage (wage increases are a great thing, don't get me wrong, but not when the competing markets (China) don't share our fondness for improving humanity.) By the 1980's, the political dissension had also made American no longer respect the sitting president: Nixon.
This is why I don't like replying to these things... so many things that are so, so wrong, and I know you won't listen to a word of truth ever in your life... Unions? Helping to create equality in industries that have always enforced opression. Foreign trade relations? Unfortunate acceptance of weak foreign labor laws that I wish was different... we should not have China with any sort of favored-nation trade policy given what they do to their own people. Nixon? It's his own stupid fault for being so paranoid he needed to spy on his opposition... WHO HE WAS CRUSHING IN THE POLLS ANYWAY...
Quote:By today, the flag-toting, proud, patriotic Americans of the 1950's have become more infatuated with promoting their political beliefs than the general good of their country. Whether or not Iraq was just, the Democratic response was atrocious: fuck our president, we don't need to respect him! Today, there is so much anti-military hype, how can any foreign dictator fear us, knowing that his Democratic allies in Washington will keep the US military from lifting a finger? Such slander would have been enought to get one lynched at the beginning of the century. Suddenly, liberals blame everything on the president: even things that are very much out of his control, like gas prices. Come on now, what kind of stupidity is this? We no longer support our government, but seek to ferment unrest. Once a people no longer believe in their country or support their government, that people will inevitably fall. Democrats hate Republicans, and vice versa. Both sides are guilty of this.
Is a single word here true? So when someone does something that is blatantly illegal -- saying you don't believe in the law doesn't excuse you from having to follow it (that's referring to international law, by the way. Conservatives saying that they don't believe in international law and so it doesn't matter that we illegally invaded Iraq doesn't change the fact the invasion was, definitively, illegal by the standards of international law. I should know, I took a course on it last year...). But even so, most Democrats supported this president for a while, I'd say... the nation only began turning on Bush when it became clear the the reason for going to war -- WMDs -- was false, and that there was in fact no exit strategy. Now, Bush only has a 40% approval rating. There are non-war reasons for that yes, but this war is the main cause. Americans don't have much tolerance for casualties, and once people start dying unless they see a really good cause (like WWII) they want to quit... this is both good and bad, of course, depending on the situation. Here? Ignoring the 'why we went in' part that so blatantly shows how bad this administration is... I don't know. It looks like there will be civil war whether we're in there or not... the question is if it'd be worse with us there or with us gone. I suspect it'd be worse with us gone, so we should stay... but if there is a point where it looks like the overall violence (that is, INCLUDING violence to Iraqis! It's disturbing how easily people here ignore the reports of dozens of people dying just because they aren't American...) would reduce by us leaving, then that is probably when we should leave.
Quote: Bipartisanism in Washington, more than anything, weakens our national resolve and identity. As we go into the next century, the liberals hasten their dismantling of the United States' hegemony by 1.) constraining our military budget 2.) ballooning the national deficit and raising taxes to support their asinine political agendas; and increasing the waste of the ominously over-sized bureaucracy 3.) shackling our ability to use our withering military might by insisting that we take our orders not from Washington or from the values of our forefather and democracy, but from Europe, 4.) undermining our international image and integrity by allowing anti-American zealots like Michael Moore to make huge fortunes by pushing their backwards, destructive, hate-filled political hot air propaganda, 5.) subduing patriotic fervor by declaring that the US is no longer good and just but rather a rogue, self-centered, redneck, villainous state... and that as the only (current) world super power and therefore the trend setter to the rest of humanity, we should not be proud and strong as before, but weak and submissive to the international community. "Don't support our president", shout the liberals! "Support the presidents of France and Germany instead!"
You say "bitartizanship" and then produce a list that shows how little you are truly interested in "bipartizanship". You want "rule by us and those few on the other side who can be convinced to agree with us"... not bipartizanship, which implies actually giving in a bit and admitting that sometimes the other side has a point... 1) is done because it is overly large and bloated in a lot of ways. 2) happens these days because of tax cuts more than anything. Clinton, scourge of people like you, balanced the budget. While slightly expanding social programs, and reducing others (like kicking so many people off welfare). Bush, gave us a deficit in the hundreds of billions. Yes some of that is because of the recession, but not NEARLY all of it... not when we've squandered so much revenue by cutting taxes at the worst possible time. 3) International cooperation is the only way to get anything done worth mentioning. As Iraq should prove, going it alone does not work, and won't. 4) the right has just as many people speaking in a hateful fury (which, I would say, Democrats are not... Moore is angry, not hateful. Coulter or Limbaugh are hateful.) who are just as allowed to excersize their right of free speech. 5) I know countries want to build up their image, but the truth, hurtful as it is at times, is a good thing... now, of course, some countries go too far in attacking the US, but that's not what you mean and we all know it. "Support the presidents of Germany and France"? No, not just two countries... it's a big world. We are citizens of it, and should act accordingly... use legal means to punish where it is appropriate, use our power for good (peacekeeping, aid, blockades on truly bad regimes, etc), etc... not for the kind of thing we had in Iraq.
Quote:This sends the wrong message to our enemies. Suddenly, crackpots like Kim Jong Il feel strong enough to challenge the US. Naturally, when the next Democratic president comes in, the Republicans will counter with equal hateful fervor... and then constructive cooperation and reasoning no longer direct our foreign policy, but rather the petty squabbling of the bipartisanism. Gay marriage and welfare are fine in the imaginary world where there are no real problems to work on, but on planet Earth, there are madmen and evil foreign countries that want to kill us and destroy our benevolence. America has, for 60 years, been the guardian of democracy and humanitarianism, but with the internal division we face today, we're too busy broadcasting how much our president can't orate to notice that the ground is crumbling beneath our feet. In the real world, real problems need to be handled with firm action and unwavering force...THAT is what won us both the world wars, and lack of that is what lost us Vietnam (thanks to the advent of schismatic new liberalism).
Ah yes, the current refuge of the Republican... that world events mean we must all "rally 'round the flag" which is conveniently being held by them and them alone. Just like John Ashcroft's terror alerts -- notice how they went away with him? Shows how truthful they were, and how much they were a scare tactic to keep the American people in line-- there is far more hype in what you say than there is truth. In fact, quite the opposite. Suspending our liberty in order to fight a war that will last forever is unquestionably wrong. This "War on Terror", or your stated threat from China, are convenient excuses you need to fall back on to stop that oh-so-hated "change"...
Quote:America has, for 60 years, been the guardian of democracy and humanitarianism,
One final thing... I had to deal with this seperately. We have done so many things so counter to this supposed philosophy that when I read this I literally laughed out loud... democracy and humanitarianism? In fits and spurts, but the other two thirds of the time we've been quite adept at supporting dictatorship and terror, as long as those dictators weren't "red"... or Muslim, now... (them having natural resources we want is also a good reason to ignore "democracy" and "humanitarianism", of course... notice how we sanction Burma and not China? Yeah.)