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Of course, that's not the only quote from A Man for All Seasons that is applicable to this discussion. Here's another I particularly like:
quote:Sir Thomas More: I think that when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.
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Yet again we see a call for impeachment from someone who thinks this isn't a legal discussion, and we saw one two days into the NSA disclosure from the other primary opponent of applying the words of the law.
Impeachment is a criminal charge, removal is a conviction, and the standards for that should require proof that the law was violated, not some nebulous "spirit" of the law.
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quote:He was specifically talking about an indictment of the conduct of Henry VIII, his chief executive. I find the two situations more similar than not. Roper was arguing what the king had done was unethical, even if not illegal, and that the citizenry should reprimand him through revolt. More was urging him to caution, to a realization that we might not like the ways the laws protect activities we don't like, but it's the bargain we enter into by being part of a civil society.
I fear we must have very different versions of the A Man For All Seasons. In my verision, the part you quoted follows Roper and Alice urging More to arrest Richard Rich on the grounds that he is a dangerous and bad man and More refusing to because he hasn't broken any laws.
Or at least, that's what I remembered, so I went looking for it and found a more complete account of that section:
quote:(RICH exits. All watch him; the others turn to MORE, their faces alert)
Roper: Arrest him.
Alice: Yes!
More: For what?
Alice: He's dangerous!
Roper: For libel; he's a spy.
Alice: He is! Arrest him!
Margaret: Father, that man's bad.
More: There is no law against that.
Roper: There is! God's law!
More: Then God can arrest him.
Roper: Sophistication upon sophistication.
More: No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what's legal, not what's right. And I'll stick to what's legal.
Roper: Then you set man's law above God's!
More: No, far below; but let me draw your attention to a fact -- I'm not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can't navigate. I'm no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I'm a forrester.I doubt if there's a man alive who could follow me there, thank God.
Alice: While you talk, he's gone!
More: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!
Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast -- man's laws, not God's -- and if you cut them down -- and you're just the man to do it -- do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
I think the version you're describing must have, besides a very different preceding section to what you quoted, a very different conflict between More and Roper and a very different situation with More vis-a-vis the law and the king. Not having read yours, I have to admit I have a biased preference towards the version I've read.
(edit: I looked it up in the book version I have and found that the quote I presented, although not differing substantively, didn't completely jive with that version, so I made the necessary changes.)
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: It's certainly one of the ironies of the Bush reelection. He screws up a bunch of stuff, then tells the nation to have enough faith in him to fix his own mistakes, and America believed in a second time, this, after going back on most of the campaign promises he made the first time around. America has only itself to blame I think, for falling for it.
Emphasis mine. Do you wanna back that up, Lyrhawn? I think it's more likely that he kept more campaign promises then he broke. If you want to jump on Bush, that's fine. Just please do it with the facts handy instead of just dogpiling.
I'm going to point you back to the post I made maybe three or four posts after that one:
quote:As for campaign promises, are you serious? Serious? Bush campaigned as a small government, domestic policy president who started a bunch of losing foreign wars aimed at a Christian themed nation building after specifically saying in the second debate in 1999 that he thinks nation building is wrong, and NOT the correct use of American troops.
He said he would eliminate the "death tax" and when Congress failed to kill it right out of the gate he let it die without so much as a mention at a press conference. He's overseen the greatest expansion of federal power in the last fifty years. If he had campaigned on the positions he actually took, on the surface you'd think he was a 1940's democrat. He most certainly did not live up to the majority or hell, even a minority of his major campaign promises.
Maybe if you just looked around more...?
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quote:First of all, less than a hundred years ago, there was a free Kurdistan. There are still people living there who remember what it was like to be an independent nation and not part of Iraq or Iran, or Turkey. Their land was stolen from them by the world's worst cartographer, Britain, and summarily made into other nations. You'd be forcing them to donate land that should never have been there's to begin with.
When would this have been? In the 7th century, the Kurds were conquered by the Arabs. Over the following centuries they were occupied by Seljuk Turks, the Mongols, the Safavid dynasty, and, beginning in the late 13th century, the Ottoman Empire. Kurdistan was part of the Ottoman Empire from the 13th century until the end of WWII, as were Turkey, Iraq, Iran and all of the middle east. In 1920, the Treaty of Sèvres proposed an independent Kurdistan but this treaty was never accepted or implemented. In 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne created the modern countries of Turkey, Iraq and Iran and divide Kurdistan between them.
Kurdistan has not been an independent nation since the 7th century. Although they were promised an independent nation following WWI, it never happened.
Ehh, err, my bad. Alright, so there has never been an official nation of Kurds. But I don't think that hurts my overarching theme at all.
As for Kuwait, before the British got there, Kuwait was a part of the province of Basra. Historically those people were regionally part of the same area, but then the British came along, carved out Basra from Kuwait, made Kuwait its own nation, then combined Baghdad, Basra and then the southern area of the area thought of as Kurdistan and created Iraq out of nothing. In the same way that they helped deny Kurdistan statehood.
So far as a war with Iran/Iraq. So what? We were willing to invade and attempt to occupy Iraq anyway weren't we? So what's the big deal with invading just a small portion of the country, with a mostly docile population who would ACTUALLY greet us as liberators? And so we take a little bit of Iran, that is almost entirely composed of ethnic Kurds whose families have been there for literally thousands of years. Hell we might end up invading them too, why not do it the safer way? They couldn't stop us militarily.
Regardless, it still strikes me as the safest, easiest, best plan for all.
Edit to add: The US supported it by giving them legitimacy, and by defending them from invasion against Iraq. Give how Iraq went about doing it, I think it was the right decision to make, but that doesn't change the results.
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quote:Is "no protection" hyperbole? I think the only protection we can or ought to expect is in the words.
Again, the words provide no protection whatsoever. Respect for the intent of the words provides any protection implied by the words themselves, and justifies the application of force to those words. Concern for the WORDING of law is not, as far as I'm concerned, the same thing as concern for law.
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I don't know if Bush is the worst president ever; the Great Depression was too tremendous an event for Hoover's dismissal, and I'm not an ace student of all periods in American history.
I do feel that he's the worst in my lifetime. Unnecessary wars, massive deficits, strong suggestions of corruption, and a generally vindictive outlook that defies the need to justify anything it does to anyone. For a start.
But the real tragedy is that with all evidence of the above in plain sight, we allowed ourselves to elect him again. I see the polls of his falling ratings and want to shake people. "What could have changed your mind that wasn't readily evident before? Hello?!"
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Impeachment is a criminal charge, removal is a conviction, and the standards for that should require proof that the law was violated, not some nebulous "spirit" of the law.
I have to abide by what I feel is the spirit of the law, even if Bush hasn't. The legal recourse of the people is clear, we have the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
If Bush abuses his power and changes the law so that he never actually violates it, and if he makes impeachment truly an impossible undertaking, even if he has violated the trust of the people and the spirit of the constitution, peaceful non-cooperation, and then violent rebellion would be a solution. Thankfully I don't see it coming to that.
This is what I don't get about your argument though Dag, do you think that despotic leaders haven't altered laws in the past so that they can continue to rule as they please, in effect, above legal reproach? Do you think for some reason that an American president is somehow above trying this, or allowing it to happen? It seems that if he can manipulate the law enough, we shouldn't object to it, since nothing he does is illegal... and why does it surprise you that I find this to be utterly lacking in logic?
Please, present me with a way that I can effect change in a system where the opponent rewrites the rules as we go along.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I fear we must have very different versions of the A Man For All Seasons. In my verision, the part you quoted follows Roper and Alice urging More to arrest Richard Rich on the grounds that he is a dangerous and bad man and More refusing to because he hasn't broken any laws.
I sit corrected. Thanks, Squick.
quote:I think the version you're describing must have, besides a very different preceding section to what you quoted, a very different conflict between More and Roper and a very different situation with More vis-a-vis the law and the king.
I'm not sure what you mean by "very different." I'm also not sure how tongue in cheek this statement is. My "version", or at least the moral I take from the play and movie as I've seen them performed, is that our role as individuals is to follow our private consciences within the law, not to rewrite law or rebel against law based on our belief of what was intended. To again quote More:
quote:Man He made to serve Him wittily, in the tangle of his mind. If He suffers us to come to such a case that there is no escaping, then we may stand to our tackle as best we can, and, yes, Meg, then we can clamor like champions, if we have the spittle for it. But it's God's part, not our own, to bring ourselves to such a pass. Our natural business lies in escaping.
All this business of nitpicking and arguing over semantics is, I believe, exactly what makes a civil society viable. The intent, or spirit, might make a society livable, but the words are what make it viable.
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quote:For the last time, I've never said we shouldn't object to actions that aren't illegal.
I guess the problem here, Dag, is that while I think people are aware of your belief in this principle, it's rare to actually see you object to actions that aren't illegal.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Impeachment is a criminal charge, removal is a conviction, and the standards for that should require proof that the law was violated, not some nebulous "spirit" of the law.
I don't know. Clinton committed felony perjury and we have it on videotape; he took money from the Chinese and provided them with secret US military technology. Bush prosecuted a war Democrats voted to authorize, and agreed with them about things they later changed their minds about. Which is the greater crime?
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From what I am reading in this thread it must be the accusations made against President Bush. Not that the accusations are true, or proven at all, it's enough just to accuse him and that makes him guilty of whatever crime you want him to be guilty of. Like Domestic Spying for instance
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WIll B: last I checked, what Clinton lied about wasn't material to the trial, making it not felony perjury. And I suspect you'll find we still sell arms tech to the Chinese under Bush.
As for Bush, I have yet to catch the man himself in a lie, but I can easily prove several important people in his administration lied or were entirely incompetent, misrepresenting evidence to (among others) the Democrats in Congress in order to persuade them to go to war. One is Vice President, and the other got promoted to Secretary of State.
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quote:I guess the problem here, Dag, is that while I think people are aware of your belief in this principle, it's rare to actually see you object to actions that aren't illegal.
1.) My principle position in free speech threads is a combination of 1) in general, it should be legal to say almost anything, and 2) given that it should be legal to say X, it is often wrong - even immoral - to say X. There's also a heaping helping of dislike for the idea of government funding for purely expressive activities, something which is constitutional yet that I think shouldn't be done. I've written on this topic extensively.
2.) Going at it from the other direction, I support the legalization of several things I consider to be immoral. No one seems to mind when I stick to the legal sides of those issues, and I say with a small amount of both pride and discomfort that my posts on certain subjects fitting that description have caused people to either change their minds or at least be far more open to the idea of legalization of certain things. Pride (again, small amount) because it means I have been an effective advocate, and that my focus on understanding objections to legalization and addressing rather than condemning them has borne fruit at least a few times. Discomfort (again, small) because it demonstrates that what I say matters, and if I'm wrong there are consequences.
3.) Do I even need elaborate on why the abortion topic demonstrates your statement to be false?
4.) I haven't heard you condemn the practice of keeping immigrants in household slavery. I am assuming you don't think this is an acceptable practice nonetheless.
Perhaps it would help if you were to remember that I don't post everything I think, post count notwithstanding. I don't post about every post I disagree with nor about every post I agree with. I also don't participate in every single possible facet of any given discussion. Nor do I expect that anyone else here has done so. Therefore, it is probably inaccurate to assume one knows the beliefs of anyone on a topic they haven't posted.
Another helpful reminder - not one I think you need yourself but which others seem to - is that refuting a particular attack on position X does not mean that one supports position X.
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Senoj, I was being tounge in cheek, but also somewhat serious. I've always regarded A Man For All Seasons as sort of an anti-tragedy and I really don't think it fits with your interpretation at all.
In a classical tragedy, a person of great prominence in brought down by his fatal flaw. In Seasons, Sir Thomas More is brought down by his virtue of integrity.
What happens to More is not right, not just. But it is all legal (excepting the perjury on Rich's part). More is not a free actor. He is rather trapped by forces he has little control over. The king commands and he has no choice but to obey, no matter the rightness of the king's commands. He uses strict adherence to the technicalities of the law as a defense, but it is a feeble one. Through the workings of the legal system, they take away his home and fortune, then lock him away, and then kill him. I don't see how you can come away with the play thinking that this is the way things are supposed to be.
The president, as I seem to have to keep reminding Bush supporters, is not a king. His power is theoretically derived from the people who choose him to represent them. King Henry was a power unto himself, more or less beholden to no one but himself and theoretically God. Not so with the President of the United States. Rather, the President, due to the responsibilities of his position, is obligated to follow some pretty high standards. He does not hold power in and of himself, but only so much as he represents the interests of the people he represents.
To take an example from a previous discussion, it may be technically legal for the President to give all the names of our undercover agents to China or aL Queda or whomever, but him doing so is a gross betrayal of the public trust and would lead to him almost immediately being thrown out of office.
Now obviously, that's just a minimum bound. There is certainly much more expected of a President. For myself, I'd count acting in the best interests of the country, taking responsibility, and demonstrating trustworthiness as the central obligations of the President.
And, the wonderful thing is, the President is not a king. As such, even by the barest minimal "follow the law" standards, there are a whole ton of things I can legally do to make his life hell and his Presidency ineffective if he does not fulfill these obligations. If you're going to say that the only standards that the most powerful person in our government has to live up to is to technically not break the law, surely I as a private citizen should be held to the same standard.
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I certainly agree with your assessment, but I see it less as an indictment of an unfair society than an ode to the quality of the man. More himself never laments the unfairness of his own situation. When Cromwell threatens him, he responds by saying "You should threaten like a servant of the court; with justice." When Cromwell replies, "It's with justice you are threatened," More states, "then I am not threatened." He understood the law, and understood that despite the immorality of what was happening, the law would protect him.
He never spoke to the morality of the society or the law, until the very end. At that point justice didn't fail him, but rather an external agent (Rich) thwarted the system by undertaking a manifestly unjust and illegal action. Until then More operated within the system. But the system only serves the individual as long as the individuals within it obey the rules. When Rich broke them, then More was sunk and thus was free to declare the inherent immorality of what was happening. Until then he would not, not because he didn't think what was happening was immoral, but because he believed it to be immaterial.
Your point about the difference between a monarchy and democracy is well taken, but I think it's unfair to characterize the President as only having power in "so much as he represents the interests of the people he represents." The President holds power of himself, at the discretion of the people he represents. He can exercise that power as he sees fit, and the people are free to vote him out of office if they disagree with the usage of the power they've invested in him. The standards of conduct to which we hold the president with regards to reelection are exactly those you outline; the standards of conduct we should hold the president to for impeachment are the legality of his conduct. Thus if it's legal for the President to give the names of our undercover agents to China, he should not be impeached and immediately removed from office for doing so; he should be voted out of office at the next election cycle (assuming "the people" believe his action did not serve the nation's interests). Impeachment should be reserved (IMO) for illegal actions, not immoral ones.
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Senoj, When Rich committed perjury, everyone in the courtroom knew he was lying. However, there was no actual proof that he was lying. From the standpoint of the technicalities of the law, everything the members of the system did was legal. But it was hardly only the perjury of Rich, an individual, that was to blame. More's defense in law failed, not because these people didn't follow the letter of the law, but because they didn't respect the spirit.
And, keep in mind, that was only on the matter of whether or not More was to be executed. He had already sufferred greatly through workings of the legal system free from any corruption. The system had already taken away everything he owned and thrown him in jail. Perhaps you saw that as justice, but I did not.
---
I'm not willing to accept any system of government that is willing to countenance one its members flagrantly working for the destruction of the people he is supposed to serve so long as that person doesn't break any laws. If the President were found to have contacted al Queda and given them a list of all of our undercover operatives working to inflitrate their organization, I'd vote to recall him in a second. As you apparently support waiting until he's up for re-election, I honestly don't know where to go from there. I just don't see winning an election as a blank check to do whatever you want for the next 2, 4, or 6 years, so long as you don't get caught breaking the law.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: But it was hardly only the perjury of Rich, an individual, that was to blame. More's defense in law failed, not because these people didn't follow the letter of the law, but because they didn't respect the spirit.
Fascinating. I would say that the perjury of Rich was precisely what was to blame for the failure of the system. That until that point the system worked as it should have, admittedly imperfectly and non-ideally, but as it was designed to work nonetheless. That the system was unfair was a reason for attempting to change the system, not for trying to avoid the consequences of it.
quote: And, keep in mind, that was only on the matter of whether or not More was to be executed. He had already sufferred greatly through workings of the legal system free from any corruption. The system had already taken away everything he owned and thrown him in jail. Perhaps you saw that as justice, but I did not.
More gave up everything he owned, it wasn't taken from him. He could have chosen to take the oath, but chose not to, knowing the consequence of this would be his inevitable resignation as Lord Chancellor (?). He never complained about this or the other penalties, IMO, because he believed in the law, he believed it was the foundation of the nation, even when it treats us unfairly. It was when the law was finally broken (by Rich) that the system broke down, and then More finally stood up and spoke his piece about the immorality of it all.
quote:If the President were found to have contacted al Queda and given them a list of all of our undercover operatives working to inflitrate their organization, I'd vote to recall him in a second.
If there is a law that allows us to vote to recall the president, I think that's a perfectly reasonable and appropriate response. But impeachment isn't a vote to recall the president, it is an allegation of illegal behavior. If giving a list of our operatives to al Qaida is illegal, the (hypothetical) president should be impeached. But impeachment, and judicial review in general, should only answer the question of illegality, not attempt to arbitrate morality.
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In as much as we wouldn't be riding a massive deficit while trying to fund multiple military operations and disaster relief projects, yes, we would be better off.
Do I think the "Internet Bubble" would have continued if Clinton/Gore were still in power? No.
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quote:Originally posted by Sterling: In as much as we wouldn't be riding a massive deficit while trying to fund multiple military operations and disaster relief projects, yes, we would be better off.
You think Gore would not have reacted militarily to 9/11? Or that, had Gore been elected, he wouldn't have attempted to provide disaster relief in Indonesia, Pakistan and New Orleans? I think the primary difference between Bush and Gore would be the tax cut; whether Bush's cut ultimately helped or hurt the economy is debatable, but I think these other investments (with the probable exception of Iraqi war expenditures) wouldn't have changed with Gore in the presidency.
quote:Do I think the "Internet Bubble" would have continued if Clinton/Gore were still in power? No.
That's a pretty safe bet since the bubble began to burst while Clinton was still in office. IIRC, the first quarter of the eventual recession was Clinton's last in office.
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Gore wouldn't have been as spend crazy as Bush is. He would have pushed major environmental reform, and probably would have made energy policy a priority, instead of something to foist off on Congress and whine about from the White House press briefing room.
He would've vetoed overspending. He wouldn't have spent hundreds of billions on a war in Iraq, which in itself I think is a key enough difference.
And he would have chosen far different judges for the Supreme Court bench. His reactions to 9/11 probably would have been far less militaristic. I could see him attacking Afghanistan, and staying there to secure it, instead of pulling most of the troops out and leaving it for the warlords.
Let's not pretend that Gore would've done the same thing, and certainly not pretend that he would've been WORSE than Bush. We'll never know, but we can make some judgement based on his policies and speeches since 2000.
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It's what I've been saying all along, but it's nice to have people smarter than me tell that I'm right.
wow! you think the rolling stones are smarter than you., I'm sorry.
If you had bothered to read the article, you would recognize that author of the article is a Princeton history professor, not the Rolling Stones (either the band or the magazine editorial staff).
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quote:And he would have chosen far different judges for the Supreme Court bench.
Yep.
Perhaps Dag, you should wait and see what the Bush appointees do before you smile. Supreme court justices are notorious for disappointing.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: Therefore, it is probably inaccurate to assume one knows the beliefs of anyone on a topic they haven't posted.
Didn't you say earlier that silence is a form of consent? I myself was going to make this assertion above if you hadn't beat me to it. It is also very difficult to guage the opinions of a person who is only interested in playing referee in a particular discussion. It would be nice if you made it clear (for us less perceptive participants ) that you were arguing on a point of fact instead of a point of belief or opinion. If you feel annoyed that others continually express their frustration with the government by making legal arguments, then remember that you often encourage people to substantiate their claims this way. Society often encourages people to make the distinction between "right" and "legal," (hence the anti-drinking ads aimed at underage college kids in California which list legality as the main reason why it is wrong to drink) This is also the only way that some people feel they can make their ideas sound more credible, even if they are mistaken about the legal details... You can hardly blame a person for being confused about that.
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quote:And he would have chosen far different judges for the Supreme Court bench.
Yep.
Perhaps Dag, you should wait and see what the Bush appointees do before you smile. Supreme court justices are notorious for disappointing.
True, but based on what I know so far, I'm at this point in time far happier than if Gore had appointed two justices (although O'Connor might not have quit).
Further, I have far more faith in each of these than I ever did in Souter. And there's still time for Kennedy to step back from the brink.
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Just imagine if the Democrats hadn't provided the necessary pressure to make Miers withdraw, Dag .
I'm happy with Alito, I remain skeptical on Roberts. I'm pretty certain Gore (no idea on Kerry) would have appointed a judge just as good as Roberts.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: It's certainly one of the ironies of the Bush reelection. He screws up a bunch of stuff, then tells the nation to have enough faith in him to fix his own mistakes, and America believed in a second time, this, after going back on most of the campaign promises he made the first time around. America has only itself to blame I think, for falling for it.
Emphasis mine. Do you wanna back that up, Lyrhawn? I think it's more likely that he kept more campaign promises then he broke. If you want to jump on Bush, that's fine. Just please do it with the facts handy instead of just dogpiling.
I'm going to point you back to the post I made maybe three or four posts after that one:
quote:As for campaign promises, are you serious? Serious? Bush campaigned as a small government, domestic policy president who started a bunch of losing foreign wars aimed at a Christian themed nation building after specifically saying in the second debate in 1999 that he thinks nation building is wrong, and NOT the correct use of American troops.
He said he would eliminate the "death tax" and when Congress failed to kill it right out of the gate he let it die without so much as a mention at a press conference. He's overseen the greatest expansion of federal power in the last fifty years. If he had campaigned on the positions he actually took, on the surface you'd think he was a 1940's democrat. He most certainly did not live up to the majority or hell, even a minority of his major campaign promises.
Maybe if you just looked around more...?
I did look at that. You offered anecdotal evidence, no links, just more of your opinion. Nothing to back up the "most" part of your claim. I just did a google search, taking me 20 seconds. Here's what I found: Bush made 46% of his 2000 campaign promises after four years in office. "Despite his mixed record of success, the president has at least tried to follow through on nearly all of his commitments. Most have been presented to Congress as part of his annual budget or as legislation." Do you call going back on something as presenting it to Congress? Do you call most 54%? I was wrong about it being a majority the other way, but it's not like Bush didn't try at all. I chose that link because it actually listed the campaign promises. A lot of sites had rhetoric that didn't list the actual promises from 2000.
Thursday, September 2, 2004 Washington Post: "Thursday night, President Bush will accept the party's nomination for a second term here with a mixed record on those hard issues. On some -- tax cuts and education -- he made enormous progress toward his goals. On others -- Medicare, the military and his "compassion" agenda -- he made partial progress. And on the rest -- Social Security and attempting to "change the tone" of Washington -- nothing much has changed." And that was with 9/11 happening, radically changing his preidency. "Mixed record" is certainly not most. Tha man's no peach, but you're hardly being fair.
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Well, technically I was still right, and it wasn't opinion or anecdotal evidence, it was a statement of fact, regardless of the fact that I didn't offer a link to back up the now proven fact that I was right. And yeah, I'd call a majority "most." Maybe not the decisive number I was looking for, but still good enough.
Plus that list doesn't include the rhetoric that he used in the election, unless you contend that rhetoric doesn't count as a campaign promise? I think it does. He said the American military would be used for nation building, and in dramatic fashion he reversed that promise and spend hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives to do so. He said he was for small government, instead he reversed that decision and oversaw the greatest increase in the government since FDR. Those are not anecdotes or opinions, they are facts. Facts that I don't think anyone disputes.
As for that actual list of broken and fulfilled promises, on a cut and dry manner the numbers bear me out. However, not every issue is equally important or carries equal weight. A farm bill initiative isn't the same thing as the war in Iraq. The list is too long to do line by line, but I'll go back later and cover the major issues.
I give him a bit of a break for 9/11 happening, but that's not a carte blanche excuse.
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Just imagine if the Democrats hadn't provided the necessary pressure to make Miers withdraw, Dag
Last time I checked alot of republicans were scowling when Bush announced Miers was being selected.
I still hold Buchannan as the worst president in American History.
Watched with his head in his hands as the Union crumbled, and the only assertive thing he could do was send an Army to Utah on the strength of 3 witnesses (I mean no need to send an official government inspectiion commitee), just send an army have them ignore the mini civil war going on in Kansas and go to Utah.
Oh and when people actually start succeding from the Union, dont use troops then, just sit around dispondent in office.
Apprently he said to Lincoln while he was leaving "If you are as happy going into the presidency as I am leaving it, you are truely happy."
quote:Originally posted by SenojRetep: You think Gore would not have reacted militarily to 9/11? Or that, had Gore been elected, he wouldn't have attempted to provide disaster relief in Indonesia, Pakistan and New Orleans?
Did I say any of that? No. But it's unlikely he would have used the spectre of 9/11 to push for a unilateral invasion of Iraq. The costs of that have been so high they don't even acknowledge parts of the budget. It also seems unlikely he would have attempted to bribe U.S. taxpayers with paybacks that would later end up taken back by local taxes in many places. It's just remotely possible we would have had some tiny fraction of the surplus built up during the Clinton presidency left when the various disasters hit.
If the article's claim that Bush has built up a larger deficit than every president before him combined is true, Bush has performed with a truly stunning level of financial incompetence. Or perhaps stunningly well, if he's following the alleged neoconservative agenda of crippling the federal government to the point it will be incapable of action.
Ultimately, fair means or foul, Bush took office. Anything Clinton or Gore would or wouldn't have done remains speculation. But even by a fairly generous standard, Bush's performance has been abysmal.
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BlackBlade: yeah, but its likely neither side would have had the oomph to force her away if the other side hadn't opposed her.
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quote:If the article's claim that Bush has built up a larger deficit than every president before him combined is true, Bush has performed with a truly stunning level of financial incompetence.
There is no doubt that the Bush administration has overseen an enormous increase in the national debt, but it's not greater than all presidents before him combined. In Sept. 2001, the national debt was 5.8 trillion dollars. (This would the be the beginning of the first fiscal year under Bush's leadership). As of today, the national debt clock says the debt 8.35 trillion. If the debt continues to grow at the same rate through the end of Bush's presidency (assuming he does not leave office prematurely), the National Debt will be around 10 trillion, not quite double what it was when he entered office.
For comparison, During Reagan's administration (9/81 - 9/89), the debt rose from 1 trillion to 2.89 trillion. During Bush I administration, (9/89 to 9/93) the debt rose from 2.89 trillion to 4.4 trillion.
Reagan wins hands down for the largest % increase in the national debt. Bush I oversaw an impress growth in the debt but he still comes in behind Reagan in terms of percent growth and behind his son in terms of dollars per year in office. Bush II is way out in front in terms of total dollars added to the debt.
[ May 03, 2006, 05:16 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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I bow to your superior research, Rabbit. Especially in the face of my current lethargy with regard to doing research. (Forgive me, I'm recovering from stomach flu.)
" I just did a google search, taking me 20 seconds. Here's what I found: Bush made 46% of his 2000 campaign promises after four years in office."
I bow before the divining power that is google...but this such a subjective judgment, you can't really claim it as "evidence." Think about what that statment assumes, even if it from a major newspaper. Which promises are counted as being made, and which how must a promise be kept? What is a promise and not a goal? What is a categorical pledge?
There is no great big list called "campaign promises" with a bunch of items next to check boxes. If you're trying to imply that what you did is research... I wouldn't be too sure.
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quote:posted by The Rabbit: There is no doubt that the Bush administration has overseen an enormous increase in the national debt, but it's not greater than all presidents before him combined.
The article didn't say he increased the national debt more than all other presidents. It said he borrowed more between 2001 and 2005 (about 1.05 trillion) than all other presidents combined.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: JohnynotsoBravo:
" I just did a google search, taking me 20 seconds. Here's what I found: Bush made 46% of his 2000 campaign promises after four years in office."
I bow before the divining power that is google...but this such a subjective judgment, you can't really claim it as "evidence." Think about what that statment assumes, even if it from a major newspaper. Which promises are counted as being made, and which how must a promise be kept? What is a promise and not a goal? What is a categorical pledge?
There is no great big list called "campaign promises" with a bunch of items next to check boxes. If you're trying to imply that what you did is research... I wouldn't be too sure.
Read the article. It very clearly said it was talking about specific statements made by then Texas Gov. Bush while campaigning. Knight Ridder has been compiling these kinds of articles about campaigns for a while now. It very clearly lists the specific promise that was kept or not. The article did not deal in vague generalites like making American government honest again or something like that.
If you don't trust newspapers, take a journalism class and find out what you have to do to meet standards at a major newspaper for research. When I did at the University of Washington (which isn't high on the list of schools who give Communications/Journalism degrees), anyone who so much as misspelled a name (as you did my username above) in their written article got an "F" for that piece.
I didn't call what I did research. I merely offered more evidence than opinion about Lyrhawn's claim. I did the very minimum to get Lyrhawn to clarify, as he did above, that "most" only meant a majority. To me, "most" means "almost all" or at the minimum "greater than 75%" otherwise I would have used "majority." For example, "Joe, eat most of your dinner before you get dessert," would mean eating almost all of dinner.
I understand that the article's measure seems subjective in that it involves some judgement, but then I would venture to ask which of the claims you would question, and what evidence you would have of those claims being false. Is there evidence of partisanship or bias? Or are you objecting to the article purely on principle and not practice?
Also, if there is no measure of whether a candidate has fulfilled his/her campaign promises, why would you vote for a candidate at least in part on his/her campaign promises? No measure of whether a campaign promise was kept would also mean that Lyrhawn's comment about broken campaign promises was meaningless because one could argue that they were ALL kept.
quote:posted by The Rabbit: There is no doubt that the Bush administration has overseen an enormous increase in the national debt, but it's not greater than all presidents before him combined.
The article didn't say he increased the national debt more than all other presidents. It said he borrowed more between 2001 and 2005 (about 1.05 trillion) than all other presidents combined.
Juxtapose, The increase in the National Debt and the amount the government borrows are, to the best of my knowledge, the same thing. The only way the national debt can increase is by borrowing.
At the beginning of Bush first fiscal year (9/30/2001), the outstanding federal debt (i.e that cumulative amount borrowed but not repaid by all previous presidents was 5.8 trillion dollars). Bt 9/30/2005, that amount had increase to 7.9 trillion. Unless there is someway to incur debt without borrow, the numbers indicate that Federal Government, under Bush, borrowed 4.1 trillion dollars between 2001 and 2005. This is much more than the number cited in the article, but still not more than all his predicessors combined.
I'm not claiming, by any means that Bush hasn't been singularly irresponsible in his fiscal policy. He has borrowed more than any other single president, even when adjusted for inflation. But Reagan and Bush I borrowed so much that its no longer easy for any president to borrow more than all others combined.
It would be accurate to say that Bush I and Bush II combined borrowed more than all other presidents combined. It is also noteworthy that Reagan, Bush I and Bush II combined, borrowed nearly three times the amoung borrowed by all other presidents combined.
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quote:Juxtapose, The increase in the National Debt and the amount the government borrows are, to the best of my knowledge, the same thing. The only way the national debt can increase is by borrowing.
I always kind of thought the same thing. But when a Princeton professor of History uses it to mean something different, I'm willing to take his word for it unless/until I learn differently. Perhaps in the context of government operations only certain kinds of transactions qualify as "borrowing." I'm trying to do a search on it now, so we'll see.
EDIT - He might not have been counting government bonds. Bonds are nearly always spoken of as bought or sold. If so, he could be considering them commodities for sale, rather than loans, though I'm not sure. The search continues.
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quote:Originally posted by JonnyNotSoBravo: If you don't trust newspapers, take a journalism class and find out what you have to do to meet standards at a major newspaper for research. When I did at the University of Washington (which isn't high on the list of schools who give Communications/Journalism degrees), anyone who so much as misspelled a name (as you did my username above) in their written article got an "F" for that piece.
It my experience, the "rigorous" standards of major newspapers can't save journalists from being blissfully ignorant of what is important, or relevant or human about any given story. A paper can be "correct" and can pass muster based on hard standards for accuracy, but as you must know if you took a jouralism class, or if you are a human being, this is not going to stop the journalist from getting almost everything wrong. Wrong in a different sense than is plainly important to a major paper or a news network though, wrong in the sense that doesn't stop selling papers and ads.
Its hard for me to be too specific about this because it is a generalized observation and complaint about the media, but I feel that the media's perception of itself, its place in the fabric of our lives is far different from the reality. If you've ever been the focus of a newspaper article, you'll probably agree that the picture painted in that article is different from what you felt was important. The fact that you remember spelling as the life or death of an article tells me that form and presentation were emphasized, rather than the real world value of the content.
Failing that, you'll acknowledge that the mere fact of the media, having the media present and the possibility of having an article written about something changes the nature of that thing. In the laws of human interaction, Heisenberg plays a key role. That is why I NEVER trust judgements like the one you posted, even though I read the articles and try to figure out why some of the things in them got there. I fear that few go that far, few think about why the article is written, who writes it and why. The power in media, the power of free speech is huge, beyond political power in the role of shaping public perception, but that power is virtually unfocused. That's not a bad thing, but it is an important thing, I feel, to keep in mind when dealing with what I am told.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: JohnynotsoBravo:
" I just did a google search, taking me 20 seconds. Here's what I found: Bush made 46% of his 2000 campaign promises after four years in office."
I bow before the divining power that is google...but this such a subjective judgment, you can't really claim it as "evidence." Think about what that statment assumes, even if it from a major newspaper. Which promises are counted as being made, and which how must a promise be kept? What is a promise and not a goal? What is a categorical pledge?
There is no great big list called "campaign promises" with a bunch of items next to check boxes. If you're trying to imply that what you did is research... I wouldn't be too sure.
Read the article. It very clearly said it was talking about specific statements made by then Texas Gov. Bush while campaigning. Knight Ridder has been compiling these kinds of articles about campaigns for a while now. It very clearly lists the specific promise that was kept or not. The article did not deal in vague generalites like making American government honest again or something like that.
If you don't trust newspapers, take a journalism class and find out what you have to do to meet standards at a major newspaper for research. When I did at the University of Washington (which isn't high on the list of schools who give Communications/Journalism degrees), anyone who so much as misspelled a name (as you did my username above) in their written article got an "F" for that piece.
I didn't call what I did research. I merely offered more evidence than opinion about Lyrhawn's claim. I did the very minimum to get Lyrhawn to clarify, as he did above, that "most" only meant a majority. To me, "most" means "almost all" or at the minimum "greater than 75%" otherwise I would have used "majority." For example, "Joe, eat most of your dinner before you get dessert," would mean eating almost all of dinner.
I understand that the article's measure seems subjective in that it involves some judgement, but then I would venture to ask which of the claims you would question, and what evidence you would have of those claims being false. Is there evidence of partisanship or bias? Or are you objecting to the article purely on principle and not practice?
Also, if there is no measure of whether a candidate has fulfilled his/her campaign promises, why would you vote for a candidate at least in part on his/her campaign promises? No measure of whether a campaign promise was kept would also mean that Lyrhawn's comment about broken campaign promises was meaningless because one could argue that they were ALL kept.
One could argue that yes, but it would be a ridiculous argument with no traction whatsoever. When Bush says that he doesn't think US troops should be used for nation building, that is a campaign promise to me. He doesn't actually come out and pledge it officially, he's telling you his position right there. When he changes it, it's a reversal.
When the president calls democrats irresponsible when it comes to the economy and spending, and then oversees a massive increase in the debt and budget without vetoing a single bill, and cuts taxes for the rich to boot, I call that a breaking of a campaign promise.
And these are major issues, that I give far more weight to than promising to make $500 dollars worth of school supplies deductable for school teachers. That, while important, cannot change the fate of the entire nation in a shot. You can't do that in a cut and dry method. Some promises are more important than others.
Orincoro is right too, in, what do you consider a promise? So far as I'm concerned, his rhetoric is a promise too. If he doesn't mean it, he shouldn't say it, or he's being dishonest, and should be held accountable for it.
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quote:One could argue that yes, but it would be a ridiculous argument with no traction whatsoever. When Bush says that he doesn't think US troops should be used for nation building, that is a campaign promise to me. He doesn't actually come out and pledge it officially, he's telling you his position right there. When he changes it, it's a reversal.
Technicalities aside, I still don't want troops used for nation building, so Bush's reversal on this issue is disappointing.
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I'm somewhat more ambivilent when it comes to nation building, but I think that any nationing building we may do with our troops should have a detailed plan behind it that that has undergone extremely intense scrutiny, rather than a general idea that everyone there is going to greet us with flowers and open arms. Said plan should involve, for example, having an ample supply of people who speak the language.
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) that you were arguing on a point of fact instead of a point of belief or opinion. If you feel annoyed that others continually express their frustration with the government by making legal arguments, then remember that you often encourage people to substantiate their claims this way. Society often encourages people to make the distinction between "right" and "legal," (hence the anti-drinking ads aimed at underage college kids in California which list legality as the main reason why it is wrong to drink) This is also the only way that some people feel they can make their ideas sound more credible, even if they are mistaken about the legal details... You can hardly blame a person for being confused about that.
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