What has Bush done that is good? - Page 2

That powerful teacher's union!

What a joke. Yeah, those $35k/year masters of the world!

No. I'm afraid it's you who doesn't get it.

Put it in context. I was replying to someone else and challenging the validity of their statement.

Just because you may disagree with my viewpoint doesn't make it unintelligent.

If this thread just listed what Bush has done right it would mostly be blank.

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Economy to grow at fastest pace in 20 years.

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And you complain about my links. Just reading the other headlines there you can tell which way they lean.

I guess in order that it not be subjective "good" must be defined. Perhaps you should also define bad. Both of these things seem to be ever more subjective as each day passes. This is especially true among liberals IMO.

and aparently the game of row-sham-bow continues. While I dont understand your repeated reference to Plato or how his influence on Bush is relative to the questions posed. I still fail to see your absent point. Which "fundamental" writings are you refering to? The writings of someone who died in 347 BC are hardly relivant to the actions taken as a result of Terrorism.

Foreign Policy....Lets see, regardless of what you think I know about the administrations foreign policy its important to keep in mind that the U.S.'s involvment in Iraq is based on a series of events. The most significant being the unwillingness to cooperate with UN resolutions on numerous occasions. After timeless warnings and games we reacted to a threat that almost certainly would have sold WMDs to the highest bidder, attacked, tortured, and killed more of there own citizens as well as any number of atrocities (things the regime had already done on more than one occasion).

so sit back (or walk around as Plato did) and think up any number of excuses to avoid liberating the people of Iraq and removing a killer from terrorizing the middle east if not anyone within reach. Your arguments are weak as are your references to fundamental thinkers.

Funny I was thinking the same thing about conservatives.

If they disagree with something it's either unintelligent or bashing. On the liberal side real reasons for statements are given. Which of course are ignored by the conservative under the guise of being " unamerican " Or " Who do you think you are questioning the president? ".

Fortunately the Bush supporters are running out of excuses for his actions.

So one of you lefty's (or the thread starter) define "Good" and then we can converse on an intelligent and honest level, otherwise it is just an exorcize in typing practice.

I vote for a "Bush Bash" forum.

Outsider gets to polluted with them.

Oh yeah, Lay has been indicted,

Lack of this was declared a black eye on the admin, so now this can be considered good and credited to the admin, no?

The first crisis that this admin faced and solved successfully, the China plane downing negotiations were a big success.

See what I mean.........

While looking for some claimed successes by the admin, I ran across this article:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110004640

Maybe old news, there are some interesting points in there. I apologize if it is not on topic,

I've always been so mixed on this. It certainly wasn't a complete failure, and things could have been better, but I've always felt something about the whole situation wasn't 'right'. I guess I just wanted him to blow the plane up with cruise missles so the Chinese couldn't reverse engineer our technology.

Headline November 2004:

"Kerry wins 49 states. Texas secedes from the Union. Other states don't seem to care."

Why is it all the loons are from Texas?

Interesting piece. But so what? He knows his croneys. He doesn't (didn't) know who the president of Pakistan was (shortly after a nuclear crisis with that country) while he was running for President. Which is more important in the global arena? No wonder this administration has such a US centric view. Bush thinks it's more important to know what's in his circle than what's outside of it.

That is not what it said.

Actually, it's the bush policy team that is deeply influenced by plato, aristotle and some modern interpretations of their philosophies.

It never ceases to amaze me that so many Bushists actually fool themselves into thinking that the administration's ideas have no academic roots. These are guys with phds in political science and are deeply steeped in political philosophy, as everyone in any political science department discusses often.

But those with no contact with these ideas fool themselves into thinking the administrations policies (really any administration's policies) are simple reactions and strategies that have not philosophical foundations. It's truely amazing since even the most basic poli-sci 101 courses and such common journals as foreign affairs are filled with discussions of plato, aristotle, mill, hume, hobbes, locke and the whole spectrum of famous political philosophers.

But go on believing what you tell yourself. You say my arguments are weak, but you apparently have absolutely no idea what they are, nor could you really have any idea what the Bush admin's are, as continually demonstrated in your comments like the one above. Bushists are, for the most part, just blindly tagging along.

Edit: just to add, I found it very interesting how recent discussions of kerry admin foreign policy attribute it to an "administration" as opposed to "kerry." It's quite a contrast from the constant focus on "bush," as if it's an individual that comes up with the policies.

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" No imminent threat? I think a little more research into the reasoning behind this is needed. I do believe the reason for going in was because Iraq failed to meet the demands of the UN. Who had made repeated demands and then repeatedly backed down. "

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Uh, no.

We've been over this soooooooo many times on this forum it should be embossed on everyone's brain by now.

The only ( and I do mean only because the rest of the world and the american people would have never bought it any other way ) reason this war got off the ground is Bush's mysterous " Threat ". The implication was that Saddam was a threat to us. Here in the U.S. Making people think he had the means to attack us.

And no I'm not going to look it up for one more person!

If he had said it was to liberate Iraq, settle the situation with the UN's handling of Iraq, bring more peace to the middle east nobody would have bought it.

Myself and many others didn't buy it anyway.

This has nothing to do with FDR or Kennedy or anyone else.

Bush told a lie ( apparently ) to start a full blown war.

What do you think the WOMD ( or lack there of ) debacle was all about? why do you think it was such a big deal?

Geez!

Selective memory loss I guess!

Well, it's bound to happen when we have elections, that some people be unhappy about the results.

As for the the southern states which formed the C.S.A. we can assume they would have continued along the tendency they followed before secession.
1. Expansion.
The landed-propoertied slaveowners were eyeing new domains, both westward and southward, as in the case of Texas (the trouble with Mexico having been among other things, that it had abolished slavery in 1831). And let's not forget that it was Lincoln's opposition to allow slavery to expand to new territories which was seen as a cause for secession.

2. Slave-based industrialisation.
We are used to the contrast between a rural South and an industrial North, but while the South was indeed still mainly rural and lagging behind the North (and Britain) when it came to industrialisation, it was in the same situation as (and ahead of some of) continental European countries at the time; and slave-labour was being used in factories. If it were allowed to continue, it would have.

To the people of the C.S.A. the right to own other people as slaves was seen as a freedom and a foundation of their way of life even if most of them couldn't afford to own one, and there was no way they were going to renounce it by their own volition. It is a very good thing they were crushed by the Union armies.

We obviously agree to disagree on this topic. I dont think you addressed anything in this last post outside the concept of having philosophical foundations based on ancient writings. I absolutely agree with you that many of the things we were all taught in College (if not High School) help to carve out our thought processes and mold us into well rounded decision makers. THAT BEING SAID...what the fuck does that have to do with the actions of the current administration? Where are you reading this bullshit? The decision to go into Afghanastan and then Iraq are reactionary measures taken in an effort to prevent the spread of terrorism. There are multiple reasons for each on many different levels and none have anything to do with Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Freud, or any other Philosopher, Scientist, or Street Poet.

To tie this all together there are many excellent contributions that have been made by this administration, While not every decision was a great one the morons who consistantly complain that nothing good has come from this administration expect every decision to have immediate results and are too narrow-minded to see that many of the actions that have been taken are not only to ensure that things get better today but that our chindren and grandchildren live in a better place. I hope I havent offended you with this post, It certainly wasnt my intention. It is damn near impossible to do anything other than present people with the facts and let them formulate their opinions based on the facts present. If you have a link or article you'ld like to send me explaining where these philosophical references keep coming from I'd be glad to read it, but for now I don't see their relivance to this discussion.

The modern world was influenced by Socrates, Plato and many greek philosophers, so what. What is your point.

If you would just come out and state your case instead of taking a detour to humiliate and browbeat with your supposed knowledge, you would come across much better IMO. Forget all the typing, electrons and time you would conserve in the process.

Back to my original point: maybe you should look into it before telling others that they "should read a bit deeper into all the reasons we went into Iraq," particularly since you have made it abundantly clear in this series of posts that you have no clue about what those reasons are. As is always the case, behind the rhetoric is a combination of political philosophies being put into action, something easy to learn about if look beyond fox news and actually listen to the discourse between the administration's thinkers, their fellow academics and other foreign policy experts and political scientists/philosophers.

once again you come to no relivant conclusion. Why bother posting if you're not going to make a point? You started this series of posts by attacking my response time to your question and once I responded you've done nothing but remove yourself from the discussion at hand. Have Bush and his administration in YOUR opinion done anything that you would consider good over the last 4 years? Please, don't bother responding with some tid-bit you picked up in a humanities class unless it is pertinant . Feel free to send me that link to the Bush Admin. and their heavy reliance on early philosophical thought, you have me waiting on the edge of my seat.

Sure, this topic is just a replay of an older thread in which I posted the most praises of the Bush admin out of all other participants. A sampling:

I'm glad Powell kept the wackos in the admin from going even more overboard.

I'm glad O'Neill spoke out about how screwed up things were.

Same with Clarke.

I'm glad Beers left the Bush admin, joined the Kerry campaign and committed to getting Bush out of office.

I thought it was very noble of John DiIulio (the former head of the faith-based programs) to tell the truth about the administration and it's short-coming from yet another insider's perspective. We owe him a lot, because he clearly supported Bush strongly and was very disappointed by what he saw during his time with the administration.

I really liked how the nation's top counter-terrorism advisor leading up to 9.11 personally apologized to the families of those killed, making a point to accept responsibility.

Speaking of accepting responsibility, it was really refreshing to see rumsfeld accept responsibility for the abu ghraib torture, and say "I am accountable."

I thought it was great that Karen Kwiatkowski came forward and spoke about her experiences close to the office of special plans and gave us some insight into how intel on Iraq was contorted.

I liked that Joe Wilson came forward and discussed his experience in Niger.

I'm glad that there is an investigation into the vp's office concerning the illegal outing of a CIA operative.

I'll have more to come soon.

Now I feel like I'm reading this post for a reason. I was concerned we werent getting anywhere.

I'm happy that chief medicare actuary richard foster's work showed that medicare chief Scully was trying to lie to the american people to help get Bush's prescription drug bill passed.

Evidently he did done good in the service.

Wow.

Nice.
Deja Vu, anyone?

So you're idea of the right thing would have been to fire cruise missles into China!? You have got to be kidding me.

Easily a Top 5 worst idea. Ever.

My idea would have been to keep China far away from our technology.

Which according to you would entail firing cruise missles into China to destroy said technology.

Idiocy.

Don't be an idiot. There are more than one path to just about any goal.

Okay, I'll bite.

Explain to me how you think the US could have destroyed that plane once China had gained control of it in a completely non-hostile way.

Go back in time and install a remote controlled self destruct mechanism. Or ask for it nicely.

What people dont seem to understand in America is that not every country in the world wishes to be a democracy. Just because it works here(not really when people lose their jobs just for speaking out against that bumbling idiot) doesnt mean it will work there. Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries have had certain way of living for hundreds of years and if u think they are going to change in a year just because we tell them to is foolish

I have always had problems with arguments like that. I know what you are saying but I don´t agree.

You say that not every country wish... Do countries have an opinion of things? Isn´t it just people who can have opinions? "Countries" often stands for those who benefit mostly from the current situation, those in power, and of course they don´t want democracy.

Then the next argument would be that people don´t want to have the freedom to decide over their destiny. But then you use a democratic argument against democracy. "If people could chose they would chose not to be able to chose". But how can we argue against their ability not to be able to chose NOT to chose at least?

The point should be to give them the right to chose but not tell them which choices are right, even if those choices limit them. I read a story from one of the african countries in the first post-colony periode. The people was given the right to vote but in many places the tribal leader told the members how to vote or voted for them. They had the freedom not to let the leader chose for them but they chose to let him. That seemed like the right compromise.

There are many forms of choosing to have yor social-structure organized: in other words, to be governed. For instance, Tribal organization: the people in the tribe want to live according to the tradition of tribal rule, few in such systems want to organize an eleborate vote system beyond the form that they allready have.

We often, arrogantly assume that the view of the world that we hold is absolute and should hold for all cases . . . 'Democracy' is great stuff, what we assume is the best for all people may take other forms where other forms of social thought rule: social thought is a reflection of the world-perspective within which one lives: it is the reality that one inhabits: in reality not everyone wants to give up their ways of being, or radically shift their 'reality' simply because some westerner tells them "democracy rules -ok?!". . . and wants them to shop at CostCo . .

BTW, I am responding to the post above and not the context so consider that before you flame me . . . in fact I don't even knnow what the context was, yet.

My biggest gribes with what you say is that it more often than not is a cover for those who have the power to keep it that way. what you describes is known as feudalism here in europe

Now it become very simplistic: Say a young man in a tribe want to break with it and live in another part of the country, go to another country to live etc. What is more important then. The unity of the tribe or the wish of the man? If we say the first then we value structure higher than individuals and I can´t do that as a liberal.

To parafrase: People want to live under tribal rule-> People choose not to be able to chose.

Unless they are asked how do we know?