Patriotism

[a-train]

Originally Posted by bytor2112

We have characterized nations as rogue or as state sponsers of terrorism long before Bush and we were gearing up for a military response to 911. Previous administrations had been soft spoken and done nothing with regard to the growing terrorist threat. A little tough talk aimed at nations that encourage terroristic aggressions is way over due.A policy of doing nothing will yield results such as 911 and the attack on the Cole. Th threat of terrorism is real and should be dealt with as aggressively as possible and the nations labeled by past and present administrations should be warned of impending consequences if corrective actions aren't taken. The argument over patriotic or unpatriotic is distasteful to me and is a lot of hype and political posturing on both sides of the aisle. Burning the President of the United States in effigy and some of the ridiculous slanders that are presented by so-called anti-war groups are nothing more than an attempt to divide our country. Take a hard look at some of protest groups and see who they really are and what they really represent.....

This makes evident some fundamental distinctions. The first is that the persons involved in the 9/11 attacks did not and do not constitute a state or nation, but are citizens of a state acting on their own. Second, their actions are not the result of U.S. soft spokenness against terrorism or the specific cause of certain terrorists, but rather they are the result of U.S. interventionism.

The designation of "state sponors of terrorism" and the policy of war against such designated states is a doorway through which conflict can be infinitely multiplied. It is an audacious and ridiculous notion. The logic would have us invade every country from which illegal drugs are imported. Perhaps a single murder could be considered an act of war to which a military effort for regime change would be the response.

I will quickly admit that the doctrine is not new. Let the slaying of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the accusation of "state sponsored" assassination serve as our reminder of the possible dangers of such designation. Perhaps a better policy could have avoided the tremendous bloodshed that followed.

Let those who argue that the first World War could have developed without the introduction of that murder and the subsequent alliance of Austria-Hungary with Germany against the Serbians remember that their argument still admits that a singular act of violence only needed to appear to be aligned with a usurpation of some balance of European power to precipitate the war through attempts at intervention by any given alliance.

The disassembly of diplomatic relations with Serbia, the delivery of an ultimatum, and the propagandizing of Serbian/Austria-Hungarian tension fueled public support to military action against Serbia and Serbian support for the military repulsion thereof.

Bin Laden believes that he can use the same tactics on the west as he did on the Soviet Union. He hopes to draw us into war and into bankruptcy, just as he did the Soviets. Now, we can either show the world how tough we are and spend the fortune of future generations policing the world and trying to prove Bin Laden wrong and the Austria-Hungarians right, or we can demonstrate as did Reagan the ability to know when to say when.

-a-train

[Brenton]

He hopes to draw us into war and into bankruptcy

If I could actually trust the stuff in the newspapers, then I'd believe that. ;p
It's pretty funny because, his plan is working perfectly if that's true because the american debt is going to be unaffordable in less than a decade and the whole world is going to become bankrupt in turn.

[Elphaba]

Originally Posted by bytor2112

The comments hurled at Bush and the twisting of his comments are intellectually dishonest.

Did you seriously just call me intellectually dishonest?

Bad form, Bytor.

But since you brought it up, let's explore "intellectual dishonesty" a bit. I offer the following to give this subject some perspective.

Numerous high-level members of Bush’s team have left his employ, and gone on to write a book about their experiences working with Bush. The ones I have read, to a book, are full of their frustrations trying to be “intellectually honest” with him. Unfortunately for all of our dead and wounded soldiers, and the tens of thousands of obliterated Iraqis, he refused to listen to the experts in their various fields. I think that merits at least a few “hurls” at the man, and I do not apologize for it.

The following are four of these books, written by key players in the Bush administration after they resigned their posts. And just so there is no question about my intellectual honesty, I have culled an excerpt from the first Amazon customer review of each book. None of the commentary is mine.

1. Scott MacLellan, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. First Amazon customer review:

Here are a few of his [MacClellan’s] observations:

*Bush believes his own spin (better known as [...]) and demonstrates a remarkable lack of inquisitiveness.
*Bush favored propaganda over honesty in selling the war. Cheney steered war policy behind the scenes, leaving no fingerprints.
*Bush and his team repeatedly shaded the truth, manipulated public opinion, and sold the Iraq situation in such a way that the use of force appeared to be the only feasible option.
*Contradictory evidence was ignored or discarded, caveats or qualifications to arguments were downplayed or dropped, and a dubious al-Qaida connection to Iraq was played up.
*The Bush administration didn't check their political maneuverings in at the door after the win - instead, they maintained a permanent campaign mode, run largely by Rove.
*Presidential initiatives from health care programs to foreign invasions were regularly devised, named, timed and launched with one eye (or both eyes) on the electoral calendar.
*Operating in the campaign mode means never explaining, never apologizing, never retreating. Unfortunately, that strategy also means never reflecting, never reconsidering, never compromising.
*Bush is out of touch, operates in a political bubble, and stubbornly refuses to admit mistakes.
*The press is partially responsible for giving Bush soft questions and enabling the president.
*Despite the expose, McClellan describes Bush as a man easily intelligent enough to be President, possessing personal charm, wit, and enormous political skills, who did not consciously set out to engage in these destructive practices.
*McClellan asserts, "What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary and the Iraq war was not necessary."


So, is Scott MacClellan intellectually dishonest? Is the Amazon customer reviewer?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2. Richard Clarke: Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror. Excerpt from first Amazon customer review:

. . . . Instead, they seemed preoccupied, as former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neil suggested in his recent book, with regime change in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Astonishingly, the morning after 911 Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested attacking Iraq in the total absence of any evidence linking Saddam Hussein's regime to the attack on New York City or Washington, since Iraq represents a target-rich environment, as opposed to Afghanistan, which has so few. President Bush himself cornered Clarke and attempted to pressure him into finding a link between Hussein and the attack on the World Trade Center on 911 attack. To Mr. Clarke, the Bush administration was intent from that time on to use 911 as a convenient excuse to attack Iraq, something they seem to have desired to do from the very outset of the administration.
. . . .
Indeed, the available public record suggests as much, with not only Mr. Bush, but also Mr. Cheney and Ms. Rice, as well as Mr. Rumsfeld trotting out a garden variety of ostensible rationales for invading Iraq in the post-911 time frame, all the way from the original "Axis Of Evil" comment in the 2002 State of The Union speech to the spurious linking of Saddam with Al Qaeda to the use of nerve gas against the populace some dozen years before to failure to comply with United nations resolutions since the 1991 attack by the international coalition that deliberately stopped short of regime change due to fear of destabilizing the region.

So, is Richard Clarke being intellectually dishonest? Is the Amazon customer reviewer?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

3. Paul O’Neil, in collaboration with Ron Suskind: The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill. Excerpt from first Amazon customer review:

The book shows that a number of White House insiders or heads of government institutions (notably Alan Greenspan at the Fed) are not very comfortable with the ideologues currently running the White House. Lost in a lot of the attention that O'Neill is getting is the fact that other White House folk have also spoken off record. Reading the book--and I generally find it is easier to talk about something you have actually read instead of something you merely make up in your head--it is pretty certain that Alan Greenspan was also interviewed for the book and is one of those who spoke off the record. I would also bet that Christine Todd Whitman, former head of the EPA (another one who wanted policy to be based on verified data), was another. It is absolutely definite that either Colin Powell or several members of the State Department (unquestionably with his blessing) cooperated in the making of the book. Possibly other nonideologues like Condileeza Rice or one of her aides talked with Suskind.

So is Paul O’Neill being intellectually dishonest? Is the Amazon customer reviewer?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

4. George Tenant, They Want to Change the World. Excerpt from first Amazon customer review:

Anyone who claims this book is former CIA director George Tenet's self-exonerating backlash against his former agency or his one-time boss, President George W. Bush, has not yet read At the Center of the Storm, and is in for a surprise. If no other part of this book is read, I'd urge anyone to turn to the chapter entitled "They Want To Change The World" and then defy anyone to walk away without feeling slightly less secure. Yes, Tenet does give his side of the story for his now-infamous "slam dunk" remark, and has select critical words for the current administration, particularly Secretary of State Rice, and Vice President Cheney, but instead of using this work as a vituperous denunciation of Washington insiders, he makes what I found to be a responsible criticism of exactly what was mishandled in the time between September 11, 2001, and the period that followed the end of the (first stage of the) Iraq War, and what has come to be termed the occupation of that country.

So, is George Tenant being intellectually dishonest? Is the Amazon customer review?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Need I go on?

The point of this post is to demonstrate why people react viscerally to Bush. We didn’t just wake up one day and decide to hate our president.
Rather, his stubborn refusals to listen to anyone who tried to explain the dangers of this war, including Muslims in his White House, has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, all in the name of God. And yes, I despise him for that, and will not apologize for it.

Believe it or not, I am not intellectually dishonest, nor are most people who hate what Bush has done. We are people who care deeply about our
country, and how this man has torn it asunder.*

And when even those who worked with him closely, including the very loyal, write exposes about the man, then there is obviously something concrete and disturbing about him.

You obviously feel differently, and that can be a good thing as it motivates us to have the conversation. In my opinion, as long as we can have the conversation, there is hope.

Elphaba

*I can't believe I just used the word "asunder."

[rameumptom]

I voted for W twice. I wasn't too excited the first time, but he was better than Al Gore. The second time, I thought better of him because of his actions right after 9/11.

Since then, his hubris and incompetence have come out in spades. He pretended to be a conservative, and ended up being something else. He followed the neo-conservative Bush Doctrine of preemptive strikes, and then bungled Iraq until last year when he finally listened to Collin Powell and others, who had insisted on more troops in Iraq.

He has worn our military out. He allowed Congress and himself to spend like drunken sailors, not vetoing hardly anything at all. He tried to foist upon us Harriett Meyers as Justice. He promised a reformed education system with vouchers, and then turned it over to Ted Kennedy to create a monstrosity that has gotten our kids further behind the world in science and math. He had 8 years to get us drilling and developing alternative energies. Instead of a new national driving goal to accomplish that, he chose to take us back to the moon and Mars. Should I go on?

IMO, he rates in the bottom group of presidents with Jimmy Carter. Both were extremely incompetent and uninspiring. Both have led us into huge economic problems by not being able to aptly lead our nation. Both could have prevented some of the economic issues of their day by using some good sense and by guiding the nation in proper directions. Now, it is too late. No one is listening to Bush without a sense of suspicion.

I'm not too excited about the two candidates we have before us now. But I do know that neither could do much worse than W has to our country.

Hmmmm. Did that sound bitter?

[a-train]

Originally Posted by rameumptom

Hmmmm. Did that sound bitter?

Let us call it "righteous indignation". Perhaps the best paradigm is that which admits the relatively small impact of George W. Bush himself in the far greater contest at hand. While he certainly taught one doctrine and lived another, we must recognize that it is policy that matters in a government rested on the rule of law.

The monarchies of old were often beset by the bitterness of the people to throw the rascals out. The same feeling can exist in our system, but often we rid our government of the creators of bad policy without extricating the bad policies from our system.

We know for certain that presidents, senators, and congressmen will come and go, but our concern should be policy. A policy platform avails nothing from mudslinging campaigns. Good policy is good policy regardless of the identity of those who pursue it.

Fascism and socialism, the rejection of our constitution, the evils of nation building and interventionism, bailouts galore through nationalism, these things will continue to remain with us past January of 2009. Man has fought the battle between liberty and slavery from the days of Adam. George W. Bush will simply be added to an already endless list of those who fell victim to the philosophy and appeal of the world.

Let our efforts first be to ascertain and rally around the principles of freedom. Then, we will have available to us the better leadership we need.

-a-train

Vote third party

[Elphaba]

Originally Posted by rameumptom

Since then, his hubris and incompetence have come out in spades.

Hubris indeed.

IMO, he rates in the bottom group of presidents with Jimmy Carter. Both were extremely incompetent and uninspiring. Both have led us into huge economic problems by not being able to aptly lead our nation. Both could have prevented some of the economic issues of their day by using some good sense and by guiding the nation in proper directions. [/quote]There is a major difference between the two, in that President Carter is a humble man, while Bush defines arrogance.

Did that sound bitter?

Finally, we agree on something.

Elphaba

[bytor2112]

Elphaba.....first of all, you have quoted a bunch of guys that want to sell books and no one wants to buy a book that is favorable to a sitting president....IMO. Secondly, I am not defending the Bush presidency........I voted for him twice, because Gore was nuts and Kerry was way to liberal....again IMO. I was merely pointing out the misinterpretation of the comments from his speeches. I am going to hold my nose and vote for * and hope for the best. I wish we could completely start over....new congress....throw the bums out and new candidates from both sides. I am disgusted with politics, politicians and the state of our country. I manage millions of dollars...retirement plans and individual savings...for a living and I have just watched 25% of my clients assets sucked down the drain the past two weeks because of ineptitude from elected officials and there is blame o'plenty to go around .......It's kind of like Nero fiddling while Rome burned. I haven't slept in a week and feeli like I need a Xanax drip.....

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Originally Posted by DigitalShadow

What does the word Patriotic mean to you?

It means loving one's Fatherland. In my case, that's the U.S. However, it does not mean ignoring the rest of the world. Everybody's in this together.

Do you consider yourself patriotic? If so, in what way?

Yes, I love my country. I obey the laws, vote, do my job to the best of my ability, pay my taxes, and try to generally be a good citizen and help other people.

Is patriotism always a good thing? Why or why not?

That depends. If a person loves his/her own country and says 'To h*ll with the rest of the world,' no it's not good. However, if one is a responsible world citizen in addition to being patriotic for his own country, it's just fine. I think of it in terms of stewardship--I have good feelings towards other countries and am willing to work with and help them, but my primary responsibility is to my own country.

Can someone be patriotic but still criticize aspects of their government? Why or why not?

Of course. Just as loving oneself involves self-improvement, so does loving one's country involve striving to make it better.

The phrase "love it or leave it" is idiotic. It seems to me that if there is a problem in our country, if we simply leave it indicates we don't care enough about our country to stay and fix the problem.

HEP

[a-train]

Originally Posted by bytor2112

I am going to hold my nose and vote for...

Take it easy, I get in trouble just for mentioning the name of someone running. Besides, you don't have to hold your nose, you can vote third party.

-a-train

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by Elphaba

There is a major difference between the two, in that President Carter is a humble man, while Bush defines arrogance.

Elphaba

Carter was honest too.