Bush: Take bin Laden attack threat seriously
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Lobotomy Boy
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Why? Because the Bush administration is the one playing the Bill of Rights card. They played it with the Patriot Act. They played it by authorizing wiretaps that violated FISA. This is serious business. Are you suggesting that we can't bring it into the debate because you have no rational answer to it? If bringing the Bush administration's attempts to systematically dismantle the liberty that they are sworn to protect makes you "wander off in a huff," perhaps you should evaluate your own motives in defending this administration.
The arguments of the Bush apologists are starting to remind me of the South Park episode when the illegal aliens from the future started taking all the low-paying jobs ("They took R jobs!"). The men of South Park decided to combat this by climbing into a great big pile and having sex with one another. Their reasoning? They had to do something. Finally Stan decides that the pile is pointless and convinces everyone to work together to make the future a better place so aliens didn't have to come back in time to get jobs. They start fixing everything, but then decide it's too much work, so they go back to the pile. Substitute dismantling our civil rights for men having sex in a great big pile and illegal aliens from the future for terrorists, substitute "9/11" for "They took R jobs," and you pretty much have the Bush administrations argument in a nutshell. "They took R jobs!"
Rant off--lets go back to the pile.
GTSteve03
Member
Manedwolf said:
+1! Excellent and well-reasoned plan. Which of course means it has no place in our Government's thoughts.
Camp David
member
Lobotomy Boy said:
Explain to us all how many civil rights have been denied Lobotomy Boy?
Detail how Lobotomy Boy has been personally denied his civil rights?
Elaborate all fear-causing stimuli brought on Lobotomy Boy by government?
Lobotomy Boy
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Just because jack-booted thugs aren't kicking down my door does not mean that an erosion in civil liberty does not effect me. Yes, the elimination of civil liberty is an abstraction, but liberty itself is an abstraction. It is an abstraction that I am willing to fight and die for. If the current administration crosses a certain ideological line, abstract though it may be, and you find yourself on the opposing side of that abstract ideological line, you will see exactly what I mean by this in the very concrete form of a muzzle flash.
JohnBT
Member
If the current administration...? If...? From what I've been reading here I thought the end of the world had already happened.
Okay, so Bin Laden was a threat. Then for a time he really wasn't much of an immediate threat. Now the President thinks he is again...
...and almost everybody still thinks they are smarter than the President and the Joint Chiefs.
John
Okay, so Bin Laden was a threat. Then for a time he really wasn't much of an immediate threat. Now the President thinks he is again...
...and almost everybody still thinks they are smarter than the President and the Joint Chiefs.
John
Bin Laden was a threat, is a threat and will be a threat at least until he's looking at the rooty part of the grass.
Bush uses him as his personal Emmanuel Goldstein to great effect, apparantly.
And no, don't sell these folks short on smarts. I've no doubt that they all carry the King James version of 1984 and refer to it often.
Biker
Bush uses him as his personal Emmanuel Goldstein to great effect, apparantly.
And no, don't sell these folks short on smarts. I've no doubt that they all carry the King James version of 1984 and refer to it often.
Biker
Free Clue: Congress passed the Patriot Act, not George Bush.
You see, the legislature creates laws, not the executive. The USA is not a monarchy or a dictatorship, it is a representative republic. Blaming everything on the executive branch is ignorant and counterproductive.
Thank you.
:banghead:
You see, the legislature creates laws, not the executive. The USA is not a monarchy or a dictatorship, it is a representative republic. Blaming everything on the executive branch is ignorant and counterproductive.
Thank you.
:banghead:
Lobotomy Boy
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Free Clue #2: Congress passed the Patriot Act in a frenzy of mindless post-9/11 patriotism. Many admit to not having read the act before voting for this. The fact that a Republican-controlled congress failed to re-authorize the Patriot Act in its entirety indicates that more than just a few Democrats have had second thoughts about passing the Patriot Act in the first place.
What does this mean? That our elected officials are blithering idiots? Yes, certainly that, but is this news to anyone? On a more ominous level it means that the Bush administration manipulated the mindless frenzy of patriotism in order to obtain broad, sweeping power not normally granted to the executive branch. This was devious and they should be called to task for this cynical manipulation. In fact, I predict they will be, and heads will roll before the 2008 election. If history is any indicator (anyone but me old enough to remember Watergate?), the backlash against this sort of thing is usually a radical swing in the opposite direction. If Hilary is our president in 2008, she aught to send Rove and Company a nice thank-you card for handing her the office.
Free clue #3: You might want to quit banging your head against a brick wall so much. Brain cells don't replenish themselves.
What does this mean? That our elected officials are blithering idiots? Yes, certainly that, but is this news to anyone? On a more ominous level it means that the Bush administration manipulated the mindless frenzy of patriotism in order to obtain broad, sweeping power not normally granted to the executive branch. This was devious and they should be called to task for this cynical manipulation. In fact, I predict they will be, and heads will roll before the 2008 election. If history is any indicator (anyone but me old enough to remember Watergate?), the backlash against this sort of thing is usually a radical swing in the opposite direction. If Hilary is our president in 2008, she aught to send Rove and Company a nice thank-you card for handing her the office.
Free clue #3: You might want to quit banging your head against a brick wall so much. Brain cells don't replenish themselves.
Camp David
member
Lobotomy Boy said:
I read the entire Patriot Act the first time I ever heard of it; if you think the American public will - or should - give Congress a pass because they "admit to not having read the act before voting" you've got to be out of your mind! Really. They supported it initially with their vote; they need to do so again.
You see, Lobotomy Boy, you have not yet stumbled upon the truth here with the Patriot Act and that's surprising... Many of the Congressmen and Congresswomen now voting against the Patriot Act are doing so not because they don't support it; they are running for re-election as far left members of the Democrat Party and don't wish to be tied to their initial support of the Patriot Act (and the President). Their position has noting at all to do with the Patriot Act. They're hypocrites.
RealGun
Member
Lobotomy Boy said:
Congress gets to use the excuse, but if Bush, in "a frenzy of mindless post-9/11 patriotism", accepted the Patriot Act as a recommendation, something that had been in the works for years under other Presidents, he is to bear all accountability?
Horsefeathers. Congress voted for it, congress takes the blame.How exactly is it possible, in your mind, that the Bush administration are devious geniuses with mind control powers, yet simultaneously bumbling idiots who couldn't pour water out of a boot?
Lobotomy Boy
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For the record my opinion of the administration is somewhere between devious-geniuses-with-mind-control-powers and couldn't-pour-piss-from-a-boot-if-the-instruction-were-written-on-the-heel. I might suggest you refrain telling me what is and what is not in my mind. I have a wife who can handle that chore.
RealGun
Member
Lobotomy Boy said:
Gotta watch that body language and tone of voice.
CAnnoneer
Member
IBTL:
1) There is no evidence AFAIK that anything done or not done by the administration has helped stop domestic attacks. Under the shroud of secrecy, they can equally well claim credit for 1 stopped attack, as well as 1,000,000. That should give any thinker a big pause.
2) Killing leaders is good, but it is like Tylenol for your viral infection - dulls the symptoms while the disease progresses. Anyone killed becomes a martyr anyway, and is immediately replaced by a lieutenant. Whether rebuilding Iraq would produce a systemic immune response is a matter of great speculation. All we do know is that it is extremely costly.
3) It is better to concentrate on the message, not the messenger.
1) There is no evidence AFAIK that anything done or not done by the administration has helped stop domestic attacks. Under the shroud of secrecy, they can equally well claim credit for 1 stopped attack, as well as 1,000,000. That should give any thinker a big pause.
2) Killing leaders is good, but it is like Tylenol for your viral infection - dulls the symptoms while the disease progresses. Anyone killed becomes a martyr anyway, and is immediately replaced by a lieutenant. Whether rebuilding Iraq would produce a systemic immune response is a matter of great speculation. All we do know is that it is extremely costly.
3) It is better to concentrate on the message, not the messenger.
Aguila Blanca
Member
Follow the provisions of that pesky Constitution thing he took an oath to uphold and defend. That would be a good start.joab said:
Aguila Blanca
Member
Camp David, you tried this before. First you asked if "anyone" had been harmed by the Patriot act. When mention was made of Jose Padilla's unlawful incarceration (for three YEARS, with no charges brought), as well as the Muslim attorney in Oregon, you quickly changed your tune to demand that only those who had been PERSONALLY affected bother to respond.Camp David said:
Face it ... those who have been PERSONALLY affected are in jail or military detention and cannot respond. That does not demonstrate that no harm has been done. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
joab
Member
What if your right thing is different than my right thing?
Are you the only one that can be right about what the right thing is?
Are you the only one that can be right about what the right thing is?
Manedwolf
member
Camp David said:
One. The OMG PANIC COLOR ALERT AIIE! DUCTAPE AND PLASTIC system
Two. Cue Cheney's menace-rumble about Saddam and "nuclear weapons". Nuclear weapons! Boo, America, Boo!
Three. Anytime someone questions policy about anything even as irrelevant to the topic as illegal immigration, say "9/11!" repeatedly until they go away.
And it's still my belief that the ONLY reason that this administration hasn't gone for controlling guns "to keep them from terrahists" as another means of control is that it would still be political suicide at this point. The NRA still has too much power for them to get away with it, too many republicans would suddenly realize that neocons are NOT conservatives. But give it a few years more of this sort of leadership, and see what happens...
Remember, one of their primary keys to controlling freedoms is scared soccer securitymoms who are all too willing to vote away civil rights for security-blanket false security. That same demographic is scared of guns, too.
GoRon
Member
So what would the Bush haters here rather we as a nation do?
What different policy would you run on if you were up for election?
Not whining about what Bush has done, but what you or your ideal candidate do that would be substantially different than the current administration.
No pie in the sky stuff. Remember, congress makes the laws, you have to deal with them.
What is the direction, what is the alternative?
Focus on al-Quaida, Iraq and the overall war on terror.
The fact that the alternative isn't obvious to everyone reading this tells us that nobody is out there proposing a real alternative.
What different policy would you run on if you were up for election?
Not whining about what Bush has done, but what you or your ideal candidate do that would be substantially different than the current administration.
No pie in the sky stuff. Remember, congress makes the laws, you have to deal with them.
What is the direction, what is the alternative?
Focus on al-Quaida, Iraq and the overall war on terror.
The fact that the alternative isn't obvious to everyone reading this tells us that nobody is out there proposing a real alternative.
Manedwolf
member
JohnBT said:
Yes. And many might be. Remember, Bush got to his station in life by his family's connections and wealth. He FAILED in business. Repeatedly! If he didn't have his family's network and riches to back him up, he'd be a candidate for a fast food floormopper. Other people don't have the luxury of a soft pillow every time they fail.
And of others...some people rise to fame and fortune on their own merit, others do so by stabbing others in the back and climbing higher on their bodies. That doesn't require intelligence, just an utter lack of ethics and the willingness to be cruel and ruthless.
The halls of government and the halls of corporations are filled with both sorts, and they need to be judged on a person by person basis.
GoRon
Member
Actually he was elected twice by the people of the USA.
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