| Subject: And an even quicker response from me... huh. Turned out not to be. |
Author:
Duane
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Date Posted: 09/23/04 12:12am
In reply to:
Ben
's message, "Another annoyingly quick response" on 09/22/04 10:30pm
>(sigh) Life is insanely busy right now, but I want to
>make a quick response to the overall thrust of your
>post.
Yeah - I got really busy all of a sudden too... But I have a minute now, so I'd like to write as much as I can.
So I said that claims against Bush seemed to be propaganda, since, well, if it were as bad as everyone says, then it would mean he's really, truly, evil, and deserving of some sort of rebuke or punishment (impeachment, war crimes trial)
Ultimately, it boils down to 2 factors -
one, and I admit this is a fallacious argument to make, is that I simply don't think anyone could be that knowingly evil and callous.
and two, some of the claims made against Bush are purely rhetorical - "He started the war in Iraq because of a personal vendetta" (or some variant thereof) clearly, at least unprovable, but highly improbable - you mean to say his personal hatred of Saddam Hussein was the sole impetus for this war?
I mean, pretend you're Bush - what do you say to that? "Uhh... No?" The best tack was, of course, to ignore such ridiculous flaming rhetoric, which is what he's done - but that doesn't stop people from saying it (still).
Or to assert that it was petty motivations, like "Oil." Or, "Well, there are so many other places in the world we should have invaded for the same reasons - why not North Korea? Why not some other barely-governed African country whose tribal wars have decimated their population?"
I mean, that last argument is just more rhetoric - and I've heard it more times than I'd care to count!
But the thing that ties all of these arguments together is the fact that they're ALL "disposable" arguments. I've heard a friend of mine, who I consider to be rational and intelligent, just start spewing out what I've come to recognize as the "Anti-Bush, Anti-Iraq Litany," without bothering to discuss a single point:
"Invaded Iraq because of oil, and revenge, lied to us about WMD (which he didn't - I have to dig up some old online articles to find this one, but it's remarkable...), lied to us about his reasons for going to war, I mean if we wanted to invade some place to stabilize it, why not North Korea, or Rwanda, or ....?"
Blah, blah, blah. I figure that if someone spews out this laundry list of completely unsupported assertions, and then ASSUMES they're true, and doesn't even bother to discuss them in a logical fashion, then, they're not being rational, anyways, and DON'T want to discuss it - they just want to STOP talking about it, but in such a way that they feel they've "won" the discussion. Reminds me a lot of, "Jesus Said it, I believe it, that settles it."
I don't mean the above about you and this conversation, Ben - I just want us to direct this into an actual, substantial discussion about something.
So I suggest we pick one thing. War on Iraq (specific aspect of...), terrorism, economy, whatever - but just one, limited topic, or one single assertion, and we'll discuss that one thing in a productive manner.
Because we actually want to discuss these things in a substantial manner, and it's the only way we'll get it done.
But, for now...
>Remember when the controversy about
>Florida's vote got really bad? What people started
>saying was, "Man, we'd better do something or the
>American people are going to get completely
>disillusioned with the office of President." So Gore
>basically stepped down. I'm sure he wanted to be
>President, but he stepped down because he saw where it
>was all heading.
And that interpretation is a very, very charitable one. The other, equally common interpretation is that Gore fought, tooth and nail, using just as underhanded tactics as Democrats accused the Bush family of (like fighting to make sure our troops overseas did NOT get their votes counted, because (oddly enough, since Republicans are such "warmongers") soldiers tend to vote Republican) and that he only gave up when the Supreme Court finally said, "enough is enough!" and removed all possiblity of legal recourse.
Which is another side issue... If Republicans have been characterized by Democrats as "warmongers" (and they have, present and past presidents included), WHY DO MILITARY PERSONNEL TEND TO VOTE, OVERWHELMINGLY SO, REPUBLICAN?
I believe that, all thoughtless rhetoric aside, American people seem to understand that Democrats in office during a war = more dead troops, and bad, bad outcomes.
>See, all this makes sense to me... I just don't
>understand your conclusion. No matter who is elected,
>we agree their decisions will ultimately be made
>mostly by a group of people smarter than they are. So
>that means Bush won't get to take the whole Middle
>East, and Kerry won't get to socialize health care.
Right.
>So we need to look past those issues and see what sort
>of person we want in that office.
Well, I disagree - we need to see what sort of PARTY we want in that office. Not the person.
See, if you agree that the party, not the person, runs the show, especially when you've got 2 good-for-very-littles in the race, then it follows that you should look, not at the 2 good-for-nothings, but at their parties.
And, if you re-read the tail end of my last post, I think I make it abundantly clear that I think the Republican party is the one that's closest to acceptable.
>Do we really want a
>warmonger, and, on top of that, someone who can't seem
>to talk for five minutes without saying something
>embarassingly idiotic?
Well, like I said, I don't care, really. I'm more interested in the party: Republicans know how to run our economy properly (It's a simple argument to show how Democratic economic policy is the ruin of our economy... And that it's either contradictory, or it lies by omitting the truth.), they know how to execute military actions properly (or, rather, Democrats have a demonstrable track record of horribly mismanaging military affairs - think of any -ANY horrible military mishap in the last 50 years, and see if a Democrat wasn't behind it... If you find one, let me know), and they might be nosy when it comes to my bedroom, but I figure what they don't know can't hurt 'em. (well, and the religion thing is a bit disconcerting, but... I think (hope?) we as Americans are cresting that hill of rationality, and won't slip back into the dark ages...)
>but I
>have no doubt that he propagandized a lot of that
>film. I still enjoyed watching it, and I was really
>surprised to see the difference in the way people seem
>to think in Canada.
And I meant to comment on this before, but didn't - you said that you might feel more comfortable, politically speaking, in Canada. Why is that? It doesn't seem to jive with the Libertarian sort of view you normally take. I mean, Socialism is like battery acid to a Libertarian - why would you tolerate it in Canada?
>I'd like you to give me some links to where you found
>this info.
To be honest, the links I could give you NOW are probably just as biased as Moore, himself - moorelies.com is a good place to start, if you want. But I tried to find some original news articles online for you... They all seemed to be inaccessible (although the links are sometimes still there, when you search for them. which is strange.)
In fact, I just this second Googled a bunch of things about Michael Moore, and all that come up are a bunch of pages saying in as many different ways how he's a liar, or what he lied about, etc., etc. I'm not AT ALL saying this proves my point - I'm just saying I can't seem to find anything that even seems objective to show you, in all fairness.
I mean, I could always say, "Hey Ben, want to know the truth about Michael Moore? Go read 'Michael Moore is a Big Fat White Man!'" (which is the latest book expose of what a dishonest, lazy, crap-slinger Moore really is).
But that's not objective. And I wouldn't expect you to accept it as being even the least bit convincing. (unless you 'wanted' to read it, of course.)
So I've got nothing for you there, unfortunately. I just simply refuse to accept anything that man says at face value - he's clearly a propagandist. (which is why it steams me that people actually cite Fahrenheit 9/11 or Bowling for Columbine as *evidence* of something!!!! It's like citing a papal bull on abortion as "evidence" that it's wrong.)
>Yeah, I'd be interested to hear you expound on this
>when you get time. Politics is not my strong point,
>and I need to learn a lot more about it. It's just
>always a struggle to really find an "unbiased" source
>from which to learn about politics.
I know - the secret is that there IS no unbiased source from which to learn politics.
The best advice I can give you is the following:
Economics is the key. Once you have a rational base for understanding microeconomic transactions, you can infer everything else you need to arrive at the logical conclusions (about nearly everything, oddly enough.)
That's why I put so much credence in the fact that Republican economic policy is correct and logically defensible.
And also, read Walter Williams. He's first and foremost, a rationalist - his writings mostly encompass economics, but he'll occasionally write about something else. He has a Syndicated column in many Sunday papers, but if you search for him online, you'll probably find an endless supply of thigs to read.
>I guess... I still think Kerry would have a better
>view on the environment and on education, two key
>points in my book.
Know what? Education would be a great topic to start on - not too much rhetoric about education floating around out there. I'll make a statement:
"Our public education system is failing our children. By every objective standard, our children, on average, are learning less than other children in any of a dozen other first-world countries."
Agree or disagree?
And if you agree, "What should we do about it? (more money? better teachers? school vouchers? privatization?)"
And if you disagree, "Why do you think our education system is goood?"
OK. Enough for now. I think education first, then maybe Iraq - why did we go? did Bush lie? If so, what about, etc., etc.
Duane
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