Bush- "the Decider"

[Scalliwag]

I read this story this morning and it made me fume. http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/13/Bus...o.ap/index.html This is the same man that said going into this war that you are either "with us or against us", called anyone that opposed his obviously ignorant plan at the time of being "obstructionists", etc.
This war has gone on longer than our part in WWII and getting worse all the time. So his way to deflect criticism now is to say give me your ideas?
His plan is painfully and deadly obvious. He just wants this to drag out until he is out of office and blame others for not giving him a better plan.
He was given better ideas, such as not attacking Iraq until we gathered more support. Powell delivering lies at the U.N. came back to haunt us. We have always had 90% of the soldiers in Iraq our soldiers. Yet Bush would critisize anyone that pointed out that we were bearing the brunt of all this as though we were ridiculing our "coalition of the willing".

He keeps hitting lower lows. I hope the republicans that put him where he is pay a lot more dearly than just the past midterm election. The people that stood behind him including democrats showed that they have absolutely horrible judgment when it comes to leaders.
Some shit cannot be fixed and sometimes it is too late to ask for help let alone taunt others into fixing your mistake. If you accidently shoot your kid in the head it's not neccesarily the doctor's fault if the kid dies. You should have been more damned careful.
This man still refuses to accept personal mistakes and using bad judgment that cost many lives. And it is not hindsight. Wes Clark, McCaffrey, and other Generals warned them exactly what could happen and it did happen and they did offer other ideas to the plan.

Bush and Cheney need to be given a vote of no confidence by the congress and the senate so everyone is on record of their stance towards them.

[tingjunkie]

Hell yeah. I've been saying this shit for the past 6-7 years!

I know people in their late 80's who have been life-long republicans, who voted democrat for the first time in their lives in 2004! How these #@*! got elected twice I will NEVER in a million years figure out.

[[LB]]

i cant wait for 2008, when we can start climbing out of this hole bush has dug us into.

[ghostofdavid]

Things rarely get better with time in politics, they only get worse. I dread who we get in 2008 since the most people seem to want to restrict freedoms rather than allow them to exist. I joked about this while hanging out with some friends and an older man overheard our conversation. He said (semi-jokingly, I suspect) that the only reason why our freedoms are so slowly being whittled away is because we have not killed enough politicians to remind them that the masses are the ones in control of the country. It was an uncomfortable moment, but the more I think about it, it seems historically true.

[Apollo]

i personally feel that bush has done a lot of bad things, but there have been a lot of things and tough situations that he has done some good things... i think people just get so one sided and narrow minded that they refuse to look at the other side good or bad of that a politician has done

[Scalliwag]

well, give us some examples of good things he has done. Saying people are one-sided without making a case for the other side does not make a case. Hell, Hitler probably did a couple of good things in his life but whatever they may have been were meaningless because of the things he is remembered for.

[Apollo]

I feel that going to Afganistan was the right decision, and if Kerry would have been in office, we would not have gone

[SanguineSolitude]

what did we accomplish in afghanistan? we took to task those people who attacked us on 911 right? like osama bin...
and we secured peace in the region right? even though the taliban is regaining strength as people realize life under them (like under sadaam in iraq) was a hell of a lot better than it is now.

[SanguineSolitude]

Hitler funded volkswagen, (the peoples car) provided employment for nearly all germans, brought much needed infrastructure to germany (like roads, dams, railways,) funded scientific research that is still used today (jet engines anyone?,) and his policies focused on family values. And he catapulted the german economy from nothingness into a world power in a matter of years.

apart from the so called family values, his good things actually are better than Bush's.


Now im not saying Hitler was a good guy, far from it, he was a horrible human being. My point is that letting someone off the hook because they did something good isnt good logic. Bush messed up in a big way and his blunder has cost thousands of US troops their lives and hundreds of thousands of iraqis their lives. Whats worse is that he is only starting to admit some mistakes were made (6 years into this thing he figures it out) but isnt doing anything that will help. I think he has this idea that the terrorists have a limited number of fighters, when it seems clear to most people that the longer he wages war in another country, the more people will turn against the US becoming "terrorists" in Bush's eyes. "terrorist" being defined as anyone who fights against the US.

[Scalliwag]

You beat me to it on Afghanistan Sangy! Afghanistan is a failure and will be even worse off in the next two years. The Taliban has strongholds in several areas there.
I strongly disagree that Kerry would not have attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan but we will not know that answer for certain. One certain answer that we do know is that Kerry was brave enough to personally go into combat in Vietnam while Bush avoided it by a very common strategy. Gore went to Vietnam. Cheney got five defferments because he was a coward as well.

To say "you feel" that his political opponent would have done better or worse is a guessing game. We KNOW what Bush has done and he has failed. We know Bush and Cheney have never personally faced enemy fire and that they showed lack of courage when their actual asses could have been there. Remember both Bush and Cheney supported the Vietnam war.

So you got it right that Bush did the right thing by "going into" Afghanistan, but Afghanistan is failing and in turn he is failing there.
Again I ask where his successes are? Winning elections? That is all I see and I am not so sure about the first one.

[Lakemonster]

All the good things he did were things he hasnt done. lol.

I thought he was pretty lame as a Governor....

I quit trying to find the good in him early in 2004.

[Sonthert]

Don't forget, Hitler created the autobahn.

I said in 2001...Bush is the most dangerous president the US has had in 100 years. Right.
I also said, "The war in Iraq's wrong...and stupid...they have no evidence." Right.
I also predicted if Bush got elected to a second term, it would go so badly, the democrats would have the White house for three terms after that. We'll see.

The democrats tend to be knee-jerk and reactionary. Almost everybody (except yours trully) was on the attack Iraq bandwagon. What did you want a reactionary party to do...go against the constituency??

Afghanistan? That war isn't over, #1, #2 there are alot of Al Queda training bases all over the world, why should that just happen to be the one that we attack? Sure, thats where Osama was known to fight on behest of the US against the Soviets, but that doesn't change a thing. It hasn't made us safer, its made us less safe. You say Kerry wouldn't have gone in, I'm 80% sure you're right, of course Kerry doesn't represent big oil-energy money. Coincedentally, Kharzid, the new president of Afghanistan signed a deal with Unocal after the US helped pushed the Taliaban back (who also used to do dirty work for the US), worked for Unocal before he became president of Afghanistan! The US has no business or stake in Afghanistan short of a pipeline for energy from the Caspian Sea. So, no I'm pretty sure Kerry wouldn't have gone into Afghanistan...thats why voting for him was the best idea possible. That pipeline doesn't help me, it doesn't help America. It might help Asia, it might help Unocal, but I couldn't ante up a thin rat fuck about Unocal when Americans are sent over there to put their lives on the line.

[Scalliwag]

What is really sad to me at least is that I am a moderate. There are things republicans "campaign" on that are things I like. Gun rights is an absolute given to me. They just pander to the wealthy after they get control and everything else seems to take a backseat.
The more liberal wing of the democratic party that think every lazy ass ought to get a free ride totally annoy me as well.
But we always seem to flip to extremes and as a moderate that is frustrating. Bill Clinton was a moderate and because he had a "D" next to his name republicans loathed him. That and they seem to think that the office of the presidency had become some sort of birthright.
One of the things Clinton ran on was welfare reform and that pissed a lot of the left in the party off. But he was using common sense and saw the problems that generations of families living on welfare caused.
He believed in gun rights but that an AK is not meant for deer hunting or even personal protection for that matter. Sure there were things in the Brady Bill I did not agree with but at the same time I don't think that guns should be readily available that can e made fully automatic.
He was seeking moderation.

Republicans will NEVER accept anyone with a "D" next to their name. I dug up an article about a prominent republican from my area that will show just how far republicans will go when they have an "R" next to their name though. This is truly incredible but it says a lot about their logic.

To me this article reflects the mindset of the republican party and why we are where we are with Bush. They accept any idiot with an "R" next to their name and will stand next to them until the bitter end.
You have to read this story here http://www.armchairsubversive.com/sam_walls.htm

[Lakemonster]

He believed in gun rights but that an AK is not meant for deer hunting or even personal protection for that matter. Sure there were things in the Brady Bill I did not agree with but at the same time I don't think that guns should be readily available that can e made fully automatic.
He was seeking moderation.

This actually is part of the things Bush didnt do that pissed me off (verturn the Clintons exec order on Chinses weapons)

The part he didnt do that He didnt get to do and Im glad he didnt was the sunset of the 94AFB. BUsh said he would sign it if it came to his desk. Him and I parted ways.

ON a side note about that quote.... there are semi auto squirrel guns at Wal-Mart that are easier to make full auto than an AK... and not give away its ability visually. Making full auto's out of military style rifles requires modifications to the receiver... this means shop time with a drill press.... or a milling machine to cut out restrictive ledges.... then you have to order full auto parts.... and fit them... anyway. Its a pain in the ass for most folks.... No, I HAVE NOT DONE THIS.... I just know how to.

LOL... everyone at the hookah party was within 15 feet of an AK-47. NO one died.

[Scalliwag]

I was just using an AK as an example because most people know what they are. There are a lot of guns I think that there needs to be a lot less of. But it's a Pandora's box that I personally think is beyond repair at this point. I actually like a badass assault type rifle, errrr, non hunting rifle. I just think they are bad for society and there have been a lot of crimes to support that. I have yet to hear a story where a homeowner was being attacked by 5 people and took them out with one though, ya know?

But it is a whole other argument on where arms rights should begin and end. Someone could argue that since the government has nuclear arms that individuals should be able to. Part of the argument is that ardent gun nuts are almost that extreme.
Somewhere there has to be a line in the sand and everybody seems to have a different place they think it should be.
Republicans are not nearly as interested in protecting gun rights as they are in getting the votes of those they love to instill fear of losing them into.

The same dumbasses that talked about how they were "losing their rights everyday" under Clinton never balked at actually losing rights under Bush. I believe that is because they are as naive as they are stupid and easily manipulated.
They flipped out because that cult leader in Waco would not surrender to an arrest warrant. If it would have been a crack dealer with an arrest warrant the same people would have had no problem if the ATF shot their way in and burned the place to the ground on day one. But because it was a bunch of so-called Christian gun nuts that thought they were above the rule of law they freaked.
I don't know how many idiots I had to explain to that the bottom line in this country is that if an arrest warrant is issued for an individual it is not up to the individual to abide by it. It is law enforcement's duty to execute the warrant and the judicial system to set bail, have a trial, or whatever.
The argument that he could have been arrested when he was away from the complex does not matter. David Koresh made the decision not to abide by an arrest warrant and innocent people died. It was not Clinton's fault, Janet Reno's fault.

If you describe the exact scenario as what happened in Waco to a rightwinger but change it to a crackhouse and see what kind of response they give. That is the kind of shit I love to pull on people that think like that. Some people just need to be called out on their closed minded thinking.
BUt if someone thinks that we should be able to own any arm they want, ask them about nuclear and if they say no ask them why the hell not? It's an "arm" right? But if they say yes then don't piss them off though

[Molson]

speaking from a canadian stand point and many, many, many canadians agree....i cant believe you guys elected him twice. he destroyed your economy, ruined trade agreements, accomplished nothing with the war on iraq (as in where in osama? the peace? the accomplishment?) he ruined the american name for many countries across europe (i went to london England once last year, wanted to eat and got kicked out because they said no americans. i said im canadian showed him my passport and got a free drink), spent so much $$$ you had to raise your debt max (i forget what its called). and i ask please what did he do!?!?!

now i must say your next president (who i am actually hoping will be hillary) is gonna have a hell of a time digging you guys out of this and everyone will see her (or him) as a horrible leader as they accomplished nothing....but in reality theres not much they can do to really boom the economy.

Goodluck

[Scalliwag]

It would be the debt ceiling you are referring to Molson. I hate to admit it but many of my countrymen are just flatass gullible when it comes to politics.
They get all bentout of shape over the thought of higher taxes but they are stupid enough to think that republicans are actually "conservative" with their money. They are anything but conservative... never fucking have been!!!!
Holy shit if you look at how much their beloved Reagan spent on Star Wars and brought the national debt into the trillion mark for the first time in our history and we haven't looked back since.

I liken their mentality to a gullible customer at a used car dealership.... here's the scenerio:

Redneck wants to trade in his truck... wants $5000 for it
Salesman says that new truck he is wanting is $20,000 and we will give you $2500 for your truck
Redneck gets pissed and says "I want $5,000 for my truck"
Salesman says "let me go talk to my manager and see what we can do"
Salesman comes back out and says "great news we can give you $7500 for your truck!!!!"
Redneck gets all excited and signs the papers without noticing that they changed the numbers on the new truck to $30,000 and actually got even more money out of him!!!

What is worse is they never catch on and they even refer their friends to that great car salesman that gave them SO much money for that old truck

66% of republicans still support Bush. Two out of every three still don't get it. They never will. It is the way they think or do not think apparently.
Even more thought it was okay that Reagan sold missiles to Iran and Ollie North that lied to congress and shredded evidence is still one of their heroes. I thought he was a treasonous POS and was braindead long before his illness was diagnosed.
Gordon Liddy that was one of Nixon's henchmen has his own radio show. You cannot get too corrupt for these people.
The democrats have some bad apples but it is like the republican party since Joseph McCarthy in the 50's have been rotten to their core.

[Sonthert]

On the new "republican-influenced" bill to raise minimum wage, 70 rider bills (I forget the number, but ALOT) have been attached that are all tax cuts/benefits for the wealthy.

Oh, Shit! The Candians are laughing at us, now! We are bad off. OK, we deserve it.

I was thinking the other night what I would say to George W. if I met him in person.
"You insult the integrity of the office of president. You are a corrupt and crooked man. You typify everything thats bad about Americans. You embarass us."
Or something like that.

Like so many modern compromises, the worst of both sides is encompassed. Gun Control laws are pretty good, better than most things like the Endangered Species Act or the American with Disabilities Act. The Brady Bill was a move in the wrong direction. American law enforcement and society, by and large, including laws regarding smoking, have gotten into this "If you skin your knee, you'll never play football again." kinda thing from your mother. Anything bad happens, god forbid, we need to make a law! Drunk driver kills somebody, we need to shoot him! There is no safe way to live. There are no guarantees, tragedy will always strike. That is the bittersweet nature of life. Some nut will get a gun and shoot somebody. Can you take more people and put them in prison for more trivial things? Yes. Its absurd, of course. Crime has always been a problem in populated areas, it always will be. Making the laws so that more people will end up in prison won't solve that. Tougher gun laws won't stop people from getting guns. Guns are illegal in Mexico...yet there are shootings and gun violence frequntly. Canada has more guns per capita than the US, yet they have nowhere near the number of gun related deaths we do.

We can't make the world a safe place. Sorry. Accept your losses and move on.

[Molson]

Guns are illegal in Mexico...yet there are shootings and gun violence frequntly. Canada has more guns per capita than the US, yet they have nowhere near the number of gun related deaths we do.

We can't make the world a safe place. Sorry. Accept your losses and move on.

now im not the type of guy to go on nagging and tree hugging. but i disgaree, guns here (Canada) are much harder to get a hold of we have much less gun related deaths, fewer shootings, and a overall (statistically speeking) safer country. and please dont say its because we all live in igloo's and our neighbours are 2km away. its very simple, guns are harder to get.

take london for example not only are guns hard to get but they are ILLIGAL even cops dont carry guns there. you should check out the homocide rate out there

now comparing the states to mexico? im not even gonna touch that one

lastly the world will never be a 100% safe place, as long as there is disagreement there will be hatred. some people like communism (sp?) others prefer democracy. yes believe it or not some people prefer communism. but untill other nations and people can accept difference as a whole then no the world will never be 100% safe but it can get pretty darn close. (although with leaders right now i find it very very doubtfull)


EDIT: sorry i forgot to expand on canada having more guns per capita. well getting a gun here is much harder then getting one is the states. my understanding is for the USA you apply and theres a 3 day waiting period and thats just about it (roughly). here you must take a course, write a test, have a permit etc... so on average the people in possesion of these guns are more trained in the use, the danger, and the ability of each weapon. Edited January 28, 2007 by Molson

[Scalliwag]

I f you really want a gun you can get one here really quick. Buying it straight off the streets, friends, friends of friends etc.
I have to admit that the Bush administration has helped me to understand the reason our forefathers put the second amendment in there. The government is capable of getting out of control and when they start detaining U.S. citizens indefinately and taken away or suspending rights indefinately it needs to be considered.

If they were to suspend elections for example I would hope those making the decision started getting capped. After all I think that is what the amendment is there for.

[ghostofdavid]

Just remember, if your government does not fear you then you have not killed enough of its members.

<insert V for Vendetta quote>

[Sonthert]

Sorry, Molson, despite the fact guns are harder to get in Canada, the statistic I heard is that there are more guns in Canada per capita than in the US. Is that statistic true? I can't say. I think the tired old bromide "easy access to guns means more murders" is obviously not true. In Great Britain and in Mexico, guns are illegal. One country has a tiny few gun deaths while the other has a whole lot. We are able to avoid the problem of Mexico weighing down the statistics by using operators like "1st word countries" or "developed nations". Anti-gun nuts trot out countries with few guns and few deaths ignoring the other countries that disprove the point. There is no causation between ease of getting guns and murder/violence. There may be a weak correlation because a country whose people are by and large peaceful and non-violent may have a tendency to interdict guns. A violent country that has guns banned (Mexico) doesn't see the same effects. I hate to say it, but it is really the people of a country that make up how violent that country is going to be. I won't say its human nature, but its the climate of the population of a country that dictates murder and violence rates. In effect, sorry in advance, people kill people, guns are just the easiest device to use. Rwanda killed a million in a day...not too many guns, but lots of machettes.

The American government doesn't operate on trust, it operates on suspicion.

Or something like that Thomas Jefferson said. Point is, the US government has to have the ultimate check and balance left...if they get too greedy, they get shot. By whom? The people of the United States. I think Jefferson would have said, if he were contributing to this thread, the people of the United States must be ready and willing to replace a corrupt government with a healthier, new one. Threatening them with boxes of pencils and petitions doesn't sound too threatening.

[SanguineSolitude]

i believe the v for vendetta quote you were looking for was that

"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."

which is a very true statement. Locke, jefferson, Washington, etc. would all have agreed with it, after all when their government went corrupt they broke away from it with force.

[Afortunado]

You beat me to it on Afghanistan Sangy! Afghanistan is a failure and will be even worse off in the next two years. The Taliban has strongholds in several areas there.
I strongly disagree that Kerry would not have attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan but we will not know that answer for certain. One certain answer that we do know is that Kerry was brave enough to personally go into combat in Vietnam while Bush avoided it by a very common strategy. Gore went to Vietnam. Cheney got five defferments because he was a coward as well.

To say "you feel" that his political opponent would have done better or worse is a guessing game. We KNOW what Bush has done and he has failed. We know Bush and Cheney have never personally faced enemy fire and that they showed lack of courage when their actual asses could have been there. Remember both Bush and Cheney supported the Vietnam war.

So you got it right that Bush did the right thing by "going into" Afghanistan, but Afghanistan is failing and in turn he is failing there.
Again I ask where his successes are? Winning elections? That is all I see and I am not so sure about the first one.

Not to bash Scalliwag, but Kerry went to war? His "I served my country" was a farce. Not that I'm a big fan of Bush either, but lets keep things straight. His own unit brought to light that lie in a book. Kerry didn't serve. Not in the sense of the word.

[Scalliwag]

You beat me to it on Afghanistan Sangy! Afghanistan is a failure and will be even worse off in the next two years. The Taliban has strongholds in several areas there.
I strongly disagree that Kerry would not have attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan but we will not know that answer for certain. One certain answer that we do know is that Kerry was brave enough to personally go into combat in Vietnam while Bush avoided it by a very common strategy. Gore went to Vietnam. Cheney got five defferments because he was a coward as well.

To say "you feel" that his political opponent would have done better or worse is a guessing game. We KNOW what Bush has done and he has failed. We know Bush and Cheney have never personally faced enemy fire and that they showed lack of courage when their actual asses could have been there. Remember both Bush and Cheney supported the Vietnam war.

So you got it right that Bush did the right thing by "going into" Afghanistan, but Afghanistan is failing and in turn he is failing there.
Again I ask where his successes are? Winning elections? That is all I see and I am not so sure about the first one.

Not to bash Scalliwag, but Kerry went to war? His "I served my country" was a farce. Not that I'm a big fan of Bush either, but lets keep things straight. His own unit brought to light that lie in a book. Kerry didn't serve. Not in the sense of the word.

I don't take that as a bash... just misinformation. none of the men on his swiftboat, i.e., his men ever said that. He pulled one of his guys out of the water during a firefight, he was in a real war in real firefights. The swiftboaters that did not like him coming back and protesting the war are the ones that conveniently came forward during his presidential run. Conveniently republicans as well.
He went to a war and found out firsthand it was bullshit and came back and spoke out against it. 58,000 of our guys died and if you don't think that war was a farce then you need to read about the Pentagon Papers that were infamously released and caused Nixon's henchmen to go after the guy that leaked them.
After you read that story you may understand that he "served his country" even more when he came back.
Cheney and his five deferrments, Bush and his skipping to the front of the line, and Rush Limpdick getting out of the draft for a pimple on his ass is what I call not serving your country.