Originally posted by
[email protected] 11, 2007 02:22 pm
They aren't though. Bush is really quite a cunning bastard...
To call George Bush "cunning" merely exemplifies your own limited intelligence, as does your post in general, which is just baffling in its stupidity. You clearly have no understanding of politics, or any idea of what you're talking about.
he's a masterful orator when he wants to be and he has been able to play a complex game with an entire nation
Bush is probably the worst speaker the US has had. His frequent malapropisms, tautologies, nonsensical statements, and frequent slip ups are evidence of that. I don't think he's ever given a speech without a slip up.
No one would describe Bush as a "master orator," even his most vehement supporters.
As for "worst president in history" you must have an extremely short memory if you've managed to forget the likes of Reagan.
Ronald Reagan didn't do half the things I mentioned, and furthermore, his environmental policy wasn't as bad as Bush's. He increased fuel efficiency for cars, for example, and his tax cuts to the rich were not as massive as Bush's has been.
Lots of people like to make comparisons with Hitler. This shows a definite lack of political maturity and a complete lack of understanding of who Hitler was and what the Nazi party has been responsible.
I've read Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and several of historian Alan Bullock's books on Hitler, who is generally regarded to be de facto standard. I can see many similarities between the corruption in the Republican Party and Hitler's policies.
As for comparisons, I'm not saying the ones against Saddam and Noriega are invalid, I'm saying you can draw comparisons between any right-wing dictator and Hitler, and there are quite a lot of them between Bush and Hitler, more so than any other president. The 31 similarities and the 14 points of Fascism are evidence of that.
As for the 31 similarities, I'm sure you have no wish for me to go through each one but I will attack the ones that I see as most saliently exaggerated/irrelevant.
You don't go through any of them. You call them "irrelevant," "utter crap," "insulting," and "not a similarity," and numerous other fallacious arguments, but provide no evidence or refutations, or show any knowledge of politics or history.
Oh yes, before I begin I'm going to assume you are familiar with a term we in the logical field like to, amusingly, refer to as the argumentum ad nazium. Now on to the 'similarities.'
None of my statements can be interpreted as an "argument ad-nauseum," for they weren't the basis of my "arguments" at all. Your post however is filled with logical fallacies, including, but not limited too, prejudicial language ("This is utter crap"; "if you don't realize this, you're crazy"), ad-hominems, straw man arguments (Bush is a cog in a machine, blah blah blah), and so on.
He may be at an extreme end of world politics but I argue that he is not at any truly extreme end - I define groups like the American Nazi Party and the KKK as at an extreme end of American politics
The American Nazi Party and the KKK have absolutely no power in American politics, at all. Neither one of them hold one office in the country, unlike the Greens or the Libertarians.
The republicrats operate in the centre of American politics.
Republicans are "center right" according to political scientists, as well as most Democrats.
Yes he does, all world leaders do.
The United States has vetoed more UN resolutions than all the other nations on the Security Council combined.
Furthermore, no other "world leader" is under direction violation of the Security Council, and has so openly violated treaties his nation has signed onto
Do you even know how the UN works?
International law means very little to a lot of world leaders.
International Law was established as a way for European countries to settle their disputes reasonably, as they had almost killed each other off through warfare. As such, they take it very seriously, and that is why the United States and Britain, were two of the only major countries to support any kind of invasion of Iraq without approval of the Security Council.
Evidence if you will, haven't you guys had like a hundred other presidents?
No, we haven't had a "hundred presidents" -- that would be mathematically impossible -- each president is allowed a four year term. (The Constitution was effective March, 1789.) We haven't even have 50, there were 42 presidents before Bushler.
And do you know what a signing statement is? It strengthens the power of the executive branch and allows the president to override congress. As such, it is rarely used, but Bush has already issues over 700 of them.
Are you sure you should be on a political board?
Do you know what combined means? it means you have to add all the other things up, meaning your claim is extremely unlikley.
Your understanding of economics is about as good as your understanding of politics and history. Bush has spent more money than all other presidents combined, and has increased our total debt from 20 to 50 trillion dollars.
Define "worst" in both instances
No other president has given corporations such free range to pollute as bush has, with misnamed policies such as the "Clean Skies Act" etc. which actually relax standards on pollution.
This still doesn't show him to be anything other than a symptom.
And yet you provide no rational basis for your idiotic beliefs and interpretations.
The American left is too wrapped up in opposition to Bush, as if Gore or anyone else would have been a better leader.
Where is your evidence that Gore would have invaded a sovereign nation, killing thousands of people, or that he would have opposed international weapons bans and bans on biological warfare?
People in the Third World could care less about "big bad capitalism" if they're being invaded.
Attacking Bush is too short sighted, he's out of office next year for fuck's sake.
Bush will leave office in 2009, which isn't "next year" by my calculations. And again, it makes an enormous "difference" in the world whether the US elects another Bush or not.
The constitution is meaningless, it was made by capitalists to govern capitalism, it is just another set of bourgeois laws.
You're an idiot. The constitution is precapitalist. Modern capitalism was established by the US judicial system in the nineteenth century, not by the "founders."
Wow, you're full of shit - I recommend you spend more time at school kid rather than sitting about with your liberal hippy friends.
It's actually a requirement in my state to take political courses to receive a degree, no matter what you're "majoring" in. Furthermore, my "views" come from studying the writings and books of political scientists (Thompson, MacDonald, Johnson, Lindblom, Thomas Ferguson, et al.) on my own.
What political scientists do you read, and what classes have you taken in PoliSci?
He operates well within the system - capitalism for future reference.
The United States Constitution says that the US must abide by any treaty the US has signed onto -- the US constitution is the "supreme law of the land," so he's operating outside of it.
The US constitution is "Republicanism," not capitalism, and the US is a mix of democracy, republicanism, and corporate (not free-market) capitalism.
Had I known how ignorant you were of leftist theory I wouldn't have bothered even pointing out that I'd like to distance myself from you
This really has nothing to do with "leftist theory" -- the extreme ideology of Bush is a fact, evidenced by his actions. How you interpret them _may_ tie into leftist theory.
Had I known how ignorant you were of leftist theory I wouldn't have bothered even pointing out that I'd like to distance myself from you - it's clear to anyone with more than a few brain cells that I operate on a much more leftist/anti-authoratarian plane than you, you liberal ****. If you cannot recognise that bush is just another cog in the wheel of capitalism and not, in fact, operating outside it then I'm afraid you are not worth my time..
I don't care if you're "more leftist" than I am, although leftists usually know what they're talking about, whereas you certainly don't. Given your debating abilities and your "understandings" of economics, I doubt you could understand Das Kapital by Marx, for example, even the labor theory of value. I hope all leftists aren’t this stupid, or the movement might be in trouble.
I'm probably going to ignore most of your responses, because you're full of shit, but do induldge me and answer me one question;
Yes, if I had a dime for every time an idiot told me that on a forum. I have a feeling I’ll be hearing more from you.
As for revolution, you should probably define the context in which you mean? Many different theories take different approaches to revolution.
Also, it's "argument ad-nauseum," "unlikely" not "unlikley" [SIC], "authoritarian" not "authoratarian" [SIC], and indulge not "induldge" [SIC]. Are you sure you're "college educated"?