we’re more interested in calling eachother names than actually dealing with issues. Its much easier to say that republicans blindly follow the party line and democrats are dirty commie pinko hippies than it is to think about the points of view different parties bring to the table. Lets face it, America isn’t doing to well. Our economy is in a “jobless recovery,” public schools have less money to educate students and many are on the verge of closing (at least in PA), many of our liberties are being jeopardized because of a perceived need to protect America from terrorism. As far as the economy goes, taht really isn’t directly Bush’s fault, and his tax cuts (although an inordinately high percentage went to the wealthy) have done some good in keeping the economy afloat when many people are having trouble finding work. But people would rather bash Bush and compare him to Hitler. Going to war with Iraq was ill timed, I don’t think waiting a few more months to a year would have cause the situation to be any worse than it was, and we might have been able to gain more international support by waiting, which would have made “winning the peace” easier.
And if you want to make a decision based on policies, try the following URL:
Ya know, the whole war with Iraq that everyone says we declared is a bit of a fallacy. we simply did what the UN or most nations were too frail to do; lifted the 12 year cease-fire from the first war because Hussein thumbed his nose at the UN who was profiting with France in the Oil for Food program. It was Iraq who continued breaking international law for those who consider the UN as valid, but I could care less about the UN (a bloated pig of an organization that has proven itself useless for the last 20 years). 60-70% of its funding is from the US and what does the UN do worldwide that is really good? Not a damn thing.
Bush as Hitler? WTF is wrong with that picture? We have been far too kind to our neighbors as it is let alone setting up an imperialistic nation. What have we conquered and made a state sanctioned territory or state in the history of the US during this century? If we did do anything of the sort, then Cuba would be a state and so would most of Europe, Japan, and eastern china as well as a good portion of the south central/eastern Asian continent.
Like Churchill said, “Democracy is not the best form of government, but it is the best that I’ve seen.” ----Not word for word but as best as I can remember.
Commie, pinko hippie.
:)~
It goes both ways.
Idiots like Rush Limbaugh talk about “Liberal hate speech” but freely toss around words like “Feminazi” and talk about “America Under Siege” to describe the Clinton Administration.
Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.
I forgot that the original post mentioned something to the effect of less money for education. Do you guys realize that the industrialized nation that has the least amount of money to fund education has the highest test scores and academics? Singapore has the highest academics but its not due to being funded with a ton of money. Its called a work ethic. Education starts at home, not on TV, nor should kids be raised by TV nanny.
lumpy- you just made my point for me, every one would rather call names and point fingers than deal with issues. Of course it goes both ways. The sooner we realize that alot of political commentary that you get on TV consists mostly of name calling rather than actually dealing with issues. The media didn’t call attention to the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal because it is necessarily biased to the right, they brought attention to it because it’s easy to make money by pointing fingers.
Apollyon- and I’ve met some very bright kids who were home-schooled, the problem is despite posturing, Americans in general really don’t place a big emphasis on education. Most of our heroes are athletes and actors and musicians. I think that says alot about what children are taught to value.
The real problem with America…
…is that people start with preconceived notions and just blindly accept them as true instead of looking at the facts. Just look at drew6’s post. It starts with a lot of premises to the effect that America “is not doing too well.” Some are true, some aren’t. Some are just other people’s propaganda. Well, if your premises are wrong, then everything else you say based on the premises is going to be wrong too.
For example, this whole bit about the patriot act cutting into our freedoms. Is that true? That’s what we’ve been told, but every time somebody complains about it and I look into it, it turns out to be completely false.
Example: Wiretaps. We’re led to believe under the patriot act anybody can be tapped anytime for any reason. Wrong! You STILL need court approval, you STILL have to justify it. The only difference is now you can apply the “tap” to a specific person rather than a single specific phone line. That change doesn’t restrict any more freedoms.
My solution? Think for yourselves, do your own research and don’t fall anybody’s propaganda. Sorry if that’s too much work for you, but if you can spend hours in the gym for yourself, you can spend 30 minutes online looking stuff up for your society and country.