President George W. Bush

Seriously, I've enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts the last 2 pages. I appreciate ya'll sharing your perspectives. I don't think there's enough constructive discourse in our society. I think we have a responsibility to each other as citizens of a wonderful country to hear each other out regardless of where we stand. What I can't stand are complainers who offer no real view point or vision for improving the country.

I think we all want to keep America strong, safe, and prosperous, we just have different ways of getting there. If we objectively communicate, regardless of party affiliation, we might find a better way.

Four years will pass in a flash, and again a choice will be made.

 

I have been out of the loop for a bit and I see this thread has really grown!

First, I would like to apologize about my inflametory comment around mid-west america. I should have stated my concern more like the adult that I am(my wife still has doubts about that). The concern I have with many mid-west voters not in urban environments is their lack of direct exposure to foreign cultures. We all live in a very diverse area and we understand better that just because others aren't like us doesn't mean that they are bad. If these people were reduced to pictures on the news or articles in the paper, I would probably see the rest of the world as the enemy and want my government to make them good (like us).

As for the oil comment, there are a lot of bad nations in the world that have the power to do major harm to us, what made Iraq so special?

Gregg

 

Interesting (and timely) excerpt from washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/politics/administration/whbriefing/

 

I have been out of the loop for a bit and I see this thread has really grown!

First, I would like to apologize about my inflametory comment around mid-west america. I should have stated my concern more like the adult that I am(my wife still has doubts about that). The concern I have with many mid-west voters not in urban environments is their lack of direct exposure to foreign cultures. We all live in a very diverse area and we understand better that just because others aren't like us doesn't mean that they are bad. If these people were reduced to pictures on the news or articles in the paper, I would probably see the rest of the world as the enemy and want my government to make them good (like us).

As for the oil comment, there are a lot of bad nations in the world that have the power to do major harm to us, what made Iraq so special?

Gregg

 

Those who lack the ability to think for themselves and are afraid to make their own decisions rely on other people to tell them what to believe. Taking to heart the words of a book written by a bunch of men many, many years ago is not only sad, but ignorant.

Some religious people have this misconception that because they go to church they are good people. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is who you are as a person that matters. Compassion, selflessness, giving, non-judgemental, forgiving, non-violent - those qualities help define a good person-not who you sleep with. Your line of thinking only spreads hate, and there is no moral integrity in that.

I guess those catholic preist were not reading their bible correctly when they decided to molest children.

 

very well said farscape!

 

What do you think your laws are based on? They're based on some book by some guys written long ago. Your most basic principle thou shall not kill was writting in some book by some guys long ago. What's truly ignorant is thinking you know better simply because you're current. Assuming people that have faith in right and wrong and religion are blind followers is what's truly ignorant. And THAT is how the lack of moral fortitude has truly hurt this country.

 

Whatever Mearen, go to Utah or some other Theocracy you crave. Ideas evolve much like Man did from the early primates hundreds of thousands of years ago. You can have morality and not religion. Just like you can be religious without being moral.

 

This note fell out of a Gideon's in some hotel I once stayed at: "Do not argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience."

 

Amen Mearen!

 

I hear Salt Lake is beautiful this year.

 

If he had ordered them into battle against an enemy I would have had no problem if he had been naked while doing it.

[/quote]
freed millions of people from oppression (I thought the idea of liberty was kind of our thing);
[/quote]

Yes he did. One bullet at a time. My way or the highway. You either have the government that we want you to have, or we kill you by the thousands. Something to be truly proud of.

"decided to seek out and destroy terrorists before they kill us;"

And stopped in the middle of it to go after a country that has not done anything to us.

"never bowed to the pressures of a bunch of corrupt foreign governments (I'm thinking oil-for-food scam here) who have no interest whatsoever in their own people's security, let alone ours, etc."

Did you count the number of american companies involved in that scam? Mobile, Exxon, you name them, they profited. Sure, smear the countries that stood up to us and did not kiss our asses because they knew that we were acting on outdated intelligence. I for one have never been as impressed with Germany as I was then ... and I thought the current chancellor would side with the US.

"Oh, and just a guess, but I think he has enough of a basic understanding of what America's devotion to freedom means so that he would likely never send government thugs to raid the home of an innocent family at gunpoint (on Easter weekend) to kidnap a 6-year old boy and send him back to the communist prison he had just miraculously escaped from. (I'll take John Ashcroft over Janet Reno any day)."

Instead he outsources torture of prisoners to other countries. That's the ticket ...

Great list. Nice and short. Paints a clear picture of the man that will run this country in the next four years.

Marianne
(who is a fiscal conservative, and a social liberal, and can't stand partisan politics)

 

Thousands and thousands of women and children. For the WMDS that are not there. For the ties to terrorism. For all the lies we have been told and that you believed.

"Restore our status in the world? As what? The world hates us because we do not bow to the will of the UN."

Bow to the will of the UN? The UN can't enforce ****. They will place us on the list of rogue nations if we keep up going the way we are, and for a damn good reason. We are aggressors. We are going to war against nations that have not done anything to us. We are killing innocent people. Why don't you get that? What is so hard to understand about that? Is it that you refuse to see the reality of dead people? Does it make you feel better to believe that we did it for a good cause ... they are better off dead then living in a dictatorship?

Ask those families that lost their husbands, wifes, children if they think they are better off dead.

Marianne

 

"o Bush launches an invasion of Afghanistan to destroy the Taliban and capture/kill Osama and his thugs.
How would you have reacted to that? "

The same way I react to our invasion of Iraq. It is WRONG to invade a country that has done nothing to us. Next thing we know we put people to jail for planning a murder.

"Using your logic, the US can only respond when we have been attacked. "

Absolutely

"Fast forward to today. You may be comfortable with the US waiting until there is 100% verifiable proof that a nation state/group is going to atttack us before we attack them. Unfortunatley, to get to the 100% threshhold the attaack will have to have already occured. As far as I am concerned, I would prefer my President to attack and destroy any person/group/country for which any portion of intelligence shows that they are a immediate or potential threat."

I'm sure you would be. After all, we are more important and better than other nations.

Marianne

 

Well, it is a fact that almost 50% of the people in this country are of below average intelligence. Throw in a few unenlightened people, and you come out with a majority.

Marianne

 

Wow. So are you actually saying that if we could have prevented 9/11 by invading Afghanistan prior to the attack we would have been wrong to do it, and instead we should have waited until after 3000 of our citizens were killed?

 

Please oh please keep the attitude that only the ignorant and dimwitted people would vote for conservatives. Because it is the arrogant self-righteous smugness of the "elite" that is driving what used to be a competitive party into the ground.

 

And what do I care what is in that book? My morals are not based on a book, they are based on who I am and what I do every day of my life. I am not a christian, not a muslim, not a buddhist. I am not gay, had four children and would never have had an abortion. But I believe that everyone has the right to be treated equally under the law, that abortion is a choice a woman makes, and that your religion is your choice ... just keep it out of my life and out of the laws that govern my life. And keep the laws out of my bedroom, what I do in there is nobodies business.

If you don't want gays to be allowed to get married, lets make marriage a church only thing, create civil unions for all. People choose to have a civil union, they have the protection of the law, if they want their god to bless the union they have a marriage ceremony in addition. If their church does not do gay marriage ceremonies, the couple finds a church that better suits their needs.

Marianne

 

Yes. We would have been wrong to do it. If we had known an attack would occur we should have stopped the attack, not invade a country. Arrest those people that we knew were here for a long time. Stop keeping intel in the desk drawer and use it to protect america. And for crying out loud .. interrupt your vacation long enough to take action on information you are getting from the CIA and the NRO.

Marianne

 

How about you ask those families who lost their wives, husbands, children, mothers, father, etc.. on 9/11, and when the USS Cole was bombed, and when the American embassies in Africa where bombed, and when the WTC was bombed in 91. America didn't start this (please spare me the diatribes about how our support for Israel or our stance in the mideast is the root cause of terror) in fact stupidly we turned a blind eye to the fanatical terrorists for more than 20 years.

Don' lecture me on the realities of the dead. I lost 3 friends on 9/11, and 5 friends in Iraq and Afghanistan. I know all to well the cost of ignoring pending threats as well as confronting threats before they are realized. We has war declared on us, and if you care to examine history, wars always result in the deaths of innocent civilians (either by accident as in Iraq or deliberate such as Hiroshima/Nagasaki/Dresden in WWII). To be honest I feel the Bush administration has been too timid in prosecuting the war on terroists, I would've leveled Fallujah months ago. We lose far too many of our troops in the process of trying to avoid the deaths of civilians.