I can see it now...

Well... unfortionatly, even with Moot's best efforts, I can already see a thread full of "omg bush suxorz..." ect.

Well, for once, I'm going to head it all off. Since this place is SO new, I'm going to do something unheard of... I'm making this a Pro Bush thread.

Yes, you heard me right. I voted for Bush. I am 19 years old, and I am very aware of the issues. I plan to vote all my life. Bush's tax cuts helped my family and partially allowed me to go to college. I wish he would drop the whole "amnisty for illegals", but, I doubt he will. I think he handled Sept 11th with a quiet grace. While I know he is prone to make mestakes when speaking, I'd like to see someone who hasn't. The fact that he is so soft spoke, yet so smart, greatly impresses me. He served his country, in a different way that Kerry. However, he did more than Clinton did, so he gets points with me.

So... I could continue listing things that make me like thus guy, but frankly, I'd like to find some people who agree with me. Yes yes, I know people exist who's life goal has been to humiliate the man, but lets hear from the people who actually like him. Obviously, more than half the country does...

Anyway, I don't know if I should be bold enough to keep this a pro bush thread, or give in to the fact that probably, this thread will turn into a mix of good and bad. But just, try to keep it civil.

And... no talk of killing him. As much as you hate the guy, there is no reason to want to kill him. Don't use that type of anger here.

-Tarage

>>5
You asked to keep it civil, yet you're the only one in this thread making ad homonym attacks. Cool your attitude before you ruin your own thread.

I'd like to address a few things quickly. First, the fact that the kurds were not "hit own people" is utterly irrelevant. It doesn't change the nature of what he did, nor does it provide any more or less justification for this misguided and poorly executed war.

Second, Bush did not get the majority of the American public to vote for him. He received the vote of a bit more than half of roughly half the voting age public. That means he has, at best, 30% of the country behind him. If this were a "real" democracy we'd have no president. I'm not suggesting that we should go that way, but to say that he has the support of the majority of Americans thanks to the result of the most recent election is false.

Although I am 100% to this war and believe it would be in our best interests to pull out right now, I'm not going to play the oil card either. This war was much bigger than oil. The war is an attempt to foist a whole new idealism on the American people and the world at large. Dubya is doing what his father couldn't. He is creating the New World Order that George H. W. spoke of. The goal of the neo-conservative doctrine is hegemony through democracy. It is steeped in democratic peace theory – the notion that democracies do not go to war. If we force democracy on every other country on earth while we're at the top then no challenges could possibly exist. There is no opposition left.

The first step is creating an ideological enemy. There is no communism to fight any more. Sure, there is North Korea and Vietnam and Cuba, but they're small fry. China is hardly communist and we don't get in ideological tussles with them anymore. International terrorism is the new communism. Bush's neo-con friends are creating an enemy that can't be defeated, one that can be fought in perpetuity so that we can always have a clear foreign policy directive. We can always have the rhetoric of freedom. In keeping with its replacement of communism, terrorism is now the anti-freedom where socialism once held that role.

No, this war is not about oil. It is about hegemony and the perpetual enemy by which we define ourself. What no one stopped to think about at first was whether this was a good idea. What does it mean to be the hegemon? It's not just a walk in the park where we point the gun at any old country and they do what we say. As hegemon we would eliminate all other governments on earth. We would be responsible for the local administration of every country. What's the point of talking to your governor or voting for your president when there is always a higher authority? I oppose this war and the administration that instigated it because it aims to lead us in that unenviable direction. Utter dominance is not in our national interest.

In regard to domestic policy, Bush has shown nothing but contempt for intelligent economics (if such a thing exists). I think CV hit all of the major points (although I don't think it's reasonable to assume that people will respond as expected to interest rate hikes), but I would like to point out that reliance on tax cuts to spur the economy is not only costly, but fallacious. There is no macroeconomic (or even econometric) evidence to suggest that tax cuts or a persistently low tax rate results in increased economic growth. The US already has the lowest taxes of any industrialized nation but we've never grown at the rate that Sweden or Japan have in the past. Both of those countries have significantly higher tax rates. Furthermore, tax cuts when directed primarily at the wealthy do practically nothing for the economy in the short term and only have negative effects down the road as aptly explained by CV. Rich people don't need the money. It's not a matter of fairness. They have a lower marginal propensity to consume (see, I'm bringing out the big words) which means they spend less of that tax cut. If you give the tax cut to the poor they'll spend it because they need it for subsistence.

The same theory applies to social security which Bush also wants to butcher. Social security is not about fairness or caring for the elderly. It is about providing spendable income to people who don't have any and reaping the benefits of the multiplier effect. Old people with no money will spend government transfers with abandon. That money then goes into the pockets of businesses and not only improves the economy in real terms but gives the perception of rosy conditions. What follows is increased investment. If you want a more thorough and difficult to read account of how this concept works read John Maynard Keynes, the guy who came up with it.

What about the rest of it? Health care - 42 million Americans are without and surely won't be getting it from Bush. Education? Stop giving us the "No Child Left Behind" act. It's a paper tiger. It has no money and no effect and exists only so that Bush can say it does. "Values" issues? These shouldn't be issues, but apparently in his religious fervor and unending hubris Bush thinks they are. We are the worse for it. Environment? He wants to make it easier to destroy our natural resources by increasing logging in National Forests, which, by the way, we all own and don't get a penny from when the timber industry goes and makes its millions. The Clear Skies Act is an attempt to emaciate the Clean Air Act and actually results in a less stringent regulatory environment. I could go on and on, but what it comes down to is that people don't make it their life's goal to simply humiliate Bush. There are real and pressing reasons to oppose essentially all his policies.

And don't tell me anything about propaganda. You're not hearing anyone, liberal or conservative, talk about this stuff in the news.