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Omega133 said:
Yes, while it is true that Bush spent quite a lot, the same could be said with all these stimulus packages being handed out.
The intent and effect are different, though. One of the problems with trickle-down, the Reaganomic scheme that Bush followed, is that the wealth doesn't actually trickle down. Some might point out that the raw number of millionaires is up, or something, but that in itself doesn't change the gulf between the richest and poorest; American wealth, after a quarter-century of Reaganomics, has consolidated some, and is doing so again in the present economic crisis. Without the bailouts, that consolidation would be more dramatic. As I said of the auto industry bailout, if the industry went tits up, sure the CEO might lose a house. One of several, perhaps. Or maybe just one he planned to buy in the near future. Point being, he'll still be pretty damn rich. The worker who loses his job in that collapse, upon losing a house, will be on the street.
Interesting. Heres something to consider: Was Chenney pulling the strings?
Speaking of rumors, that one is pretty widespread.
Sorry, typo. I meant to say Afghanistan. I don't think we should be in Iraq either. I'll edit it.
Well enough. However, of Afghanistan, I still think the troop numbers under Bush are significant in considering the mess we've managed to make there.
Interesting assessment. But it puzzles me slightly.
We often project ourselves into other people's heads. This is inevitable, and by itself not something to criticize. However, if, for instance, since
you don't think that way, you don't see that others might or do, that projection can become problematic. Part of what Joe is referring to has to do with the politicians, media, and public at large. To use a dramatic juxtaposition, just because neither you nor I committed a violent crime last year doesn't mean there weren't over a million violent crimes committed in the country. Likewise, that you and I might seek to transcend the petty and dysfunctional rhetoric of American politics doesn't mean other people aren't fully engaged in that kind of mudslinging.
You need not explicitly declare all lies, political spins, or other problems equal in order for an argument to tread into that realm. Part of your point-counterpoint with Joe has ... um ... a whiff of a suggestion about it.
That question depends on a few different factors. If somebody messes something minor up you can say "nobodys perfect". However if someone messes something major up it's a different story. And if the person does it intentionally then there is no way you can claim this.
A functional example from Sciforums: One of our neighbors and I occasionally trade shots over right wing sex scandals. Why am I not so hard on Bill Clinton? Why am I not so hard on John Edwards? Well, to take Mark Sanford as an example, even without the scandal of public money financing parts of his affair, he was among those who helped haul Clinton in for impeachment. He was part of the "family values" moral push in the Republican Party. He was part of the machinery that fights against equal rights for homosexuals. And all of this in the name of "family values" that, apparently, don't mean a whit to him.
From Mark Foley and Ted Haggard on up through Sen. John Ensign, or Governor Sanford, or the lately-exposed Dr. George Rekers, what matters to me isn't so much their sex life, but the blatant hypocrisy. Yes, it's true, nobody's perfect, but my Republican-faithful neighbor doesn't seem to get the point:
It's not that he's not perfect, but that he's a professional moralist who doesn't actually believe what he's selling. Same thing with former Governor Spitzer. I might be able to care less that he hired hookers, but he was a prosecutor who put people in jail for doing what he did. That sort of inconsistency makes all the difference in the world.
Reality is what it is, but politics, which have a tremendous effect on the daily realities of people across the country, are a different thing entirely. Being old enough to remember the Cold War, I can say for certain that if my fellow leftists were to speak openly the way Sarah Palin and the Tea Party have, they would have been excoriated. When it's a leftist, there is nothing honorable in the public mind about carrying a gun to a presidential event and advocating open, armed revolution. Why should it be any different now that it's the right wing?
Whether or not one is worse is, as I noted, a different matter that matters greatly. Right now, for instance, the Tea Party is upset at the "socialism" of a health reform plan that pours money into large corporations. They're also upset at the prospect of the "socialism" in financial services reform that means large corporations will have a harder time stealing from people. Quite clearly, it's not about socialism or anything else except for
greed.
Everything in its context:
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, or
Catcher in the Rye are oft-criticized by younger readers in the new century. Yet in 1914-15 (Joyce) or 1951 (Salinger), these books were tremendously challenging in both their literary and sociopolitical contexts. Yes, Holden Caulfield reads like a spoiled brat of some odd fantasy world to our twenty-first century sensibilities, but in 1951 it was a fairly visceral indictment of a cultural subsection. A younger generation might push
Catcher away because it seems so fantastic; an older generation might embrace it as an indictment of ideas humanity is struggling to transcend. Context, as such, is
everything.
And likewise with the political back and forth. Examined in a vacuum, all claims can be said to have equal value. However, viewed as factors in their respective formulae, that equality falls away, and we find not only differing implications as far as fact is concerned, but also as far as integrity, ethics, and morality count for anything.
Take the general labels of the parties for instance. They're both hopelessly corrupt. But underlying each are
allegedly (especially in the case of Democrats, the so-called "liberal" party) contrasting ideas. And what are the values of those sets? The outcomes of liberalism and conservatism are, theoretically, exceptionally different. Yet as people whine and complain about the liberal Democrats, well, where the hell are those politicians? Contemporary Democrats fall to the right of 1970s conservatives on national security and civil liberties issues. Justice Stevens, the retiring lynchpin of the Supreme Court's liberal faction, considers himself a conservative, and points out that, with the exception of Justice Ginsburg, every justice appointed since about 1971 or so has been more conservative than his or her predecessor. Justice Sotomayor is still up in the air (and was also appointed after Stevens made the remark), and the trend appears to continue with the nomination of Solicitor General Kagan, who is a defender of institutional power, and has argued dubiously before the Supreme Court.
And with Kagan, the right wing said, "She's a lesbian!" The White House shot back: "How dare you! She's heterosexual!" And the liberals said, "Um ... who
cares if she's gay? What's the probem with that?"
In all of this, what
is the ideology that we're giving over to? These are the reasons why the answer matters.
Nobody's perfect, sure. But there is a difference between acknowledging a shortcoming and relying on it. When you cut through the superficial manifestations, one of the contrasting ideologies acknowledges human imperfection, and the other relies on it.
So you're are saying that maybe sometimes we the voters are responsible for electing people knowing full well that they won't do anything?
Between 1988-90, there was a distinctive anti-incumbent mood, known as "Throw the Bums Out". It came to a head, actually, four years later with the Republican Revolution of '94. The problem with that movement was that the people threw out some incumbents, and even changed the balance of power as various seats lost seniority, party balances shifted, and so on, but they pretty much elected clones of the people they threw out.
In 2008, we saw this again. People grew sick of Washington politics, but whenever a newcomer is on the ticket, the first criticism is that he or she hasn't been a politician long enough. Obama, for instance, was criticized for his lack of experience as an office holder. George Bush was criticized in 2000 for not having enough foreign policy experience. Sarah Palin is another issue altogether; nobody knows
what McCain was thinking on that one.
Voters do what feels good. As long as think they have an opportunity, they choose a very superficial gratification. Take 2004 for example: Sen. John Kerry was the best the Democrats could come up with? Or 2000: Bush vs. Gore? What kind of choice was that? Hell, it could have been worse: Bush vs. Bradley. I voted third-party, preferring a nuclear physicist who believes in Vedic mysticism over Al Gore.
Right now, it's not sometimes. Right now, it's pretty much all the time. Rand Paul isn't actually that much of a surprise when you stop and think about it. He wants to take the GOP, and the nation, back to the 1980s. The "grassroots" candidate wants to reintroduce the institutions of three decades ago.
Put simply:
As long as the voters keep buying the clones, the marketplace will continue selling them.
For all the hope and change, and all the bogey-man talk of radicalism, what has Obama done that is truly radical? Fought for a law that requires all Americans to pay over to private health insurance companies? No, really, that's about it. That's as radical as he seems to get.
Repeal DADT? Oh, come on. That's not radical. That's called finding a way to keep talent in the armed services during wartime.
Obama is a constitutional scholar who won't make a stand for the Constitution. If he did, the criticism would be, "How radical is it to actually do his job?" He has a little over two and a half years left, sure, but so far everyone's wondering where the hope and change are.
Or Scott Brown, the Tea Party darling in Massachusetts. How far outside the Beltway does he operate? Hard to tell. He just backed off a filibuster of the financial services bill after receiving political assurances for his state through the processes of Beltway politics. He's only been there how long, and he's already dancing the Potomac Two-Step?
This is
still a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Except the people don't really seem to want it, except as something to complain about. We haven't lost control of things yet, but we are shirking our duties
at least as much as the people we send to Washington, D.C., or the state houses, or even our freaking city halls. I mean, up here, it still crushes me to think that former Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels was a
Democrat. You would never have known from watching the guy in office.
Personally, I blame capitalism, but that's another subject entirely, and I've ranted far too long.