I love a good debate, and as joc said, this was not. Way too much name-calling. People don’t like discussing politics because it always leads to arguments. I think its great to get everyone’s opinions out on the table, and if tiedye weren’t a facist, this probably would be a pretty boring thread. That being said, here’s my 2cents
Originally posted by tiedyetoga
Also CIA evidence says that Clinton knew the whereabouts of Bin Landen and did nothing!!!!! A few Cruz missiles, uh... Big deal. Do you not care that we are safer now then we have ever been? Or that kids in Iraq and Afghanistan can go to school now? You seem to have lost touch with whats going on. I can\'t wait till Bush gets reelected so you can bitch and mone.
Ok, but we also supported Bin Laden financially all throughout the 80\'s. With Clinton and Bin Laden, everyone in america was so caught up in the sex scandals that they had blind eyes to world events and it was made up in the press as clinton wagging the dog when we bombed. I agree Bin Laden should have been gone after better by clinton, but I also have to agree with DB. Bush was all behind finding Bin Laden, we were searching caves, and then all of the sudden, Bush stopped mentioning Bin Laden completely and it was all about Sadam. When asked, he said sadam must be hiding Bin Laden, and according to his own rules of hiding terrorist, he declared war on Sadam. Yes, sadam was evil, but it does come off more as Jr. trying to get the guy his dad couldn\'t rather than finding Bin Laden. As you yourself mentioned, Sadam was left in power because even though they knew he was bad, they didn’t want to risk someone worse coming into power after him, and Clinton didn’t want to commit to reconstruction. All following quotes are directly from Bush’s speech, full text available
here.The Economy
I dont see massive tax cuts as a way to boost the economy. Tax cuts are a good way to get into office, but if you think you can solve the deficit just by giving away money in hopes people will spend it more, your going to only sink deeper into debt. The only reason that the economy is so important to bush all of the sudden is because he knows that it was the economy that held his father from re-election. Bush is going to talk up as much as he can from here on out about how great the economy as a strong point for re-election. Nothing he has done yet has proved to me that he is good with the economy. The tax break letter (which I still have) reads more like a publishers clearing house announcement than a solution to the budget. As he said:
"After recession, terrorist attacks, corporate scandals, and stock market declines, our economy is recovering - yet it is not growing fast enough, or strongly enough. "and
"A family of four with an income of $40,000 would see their federal income taxes fall from $1,178 to $45 per year. "and
"More jobs mean more taxpayers - and higher revenues to our government. " OK, so if we drop the amount of money that people owe us per year by more than half, and twice as many people get new jobs, we\'re still pulling in the same amount of money. Seeing how we’ve already sunk much deeper due to a sluggish post- 9/11 economy, that means if anything we’ll still be way in the red long after the next election. I\'m all for everyone having a job and earning their own, but I dont see the tax break as a way. If you want to create more small business, then create better tax breaks for small business and start up business, not individuals. I’ll agree with Tiedye that its easy to say ‘why don’t they just go get a job’, but the fact is that there aren’t enough jobs out there that pay enough to support a person. Yea, you could always go work at McDonalds and earn your minimum wage $5.15, but face it, people are lazy. They know they can work there asses off and earn a cool 206$ pre tax a week, or they can sit on there ass and, for example in Connecticut earn up to 429$ a week.
source. What would you do if you knew you could earn twice as much as you do now just to stay at home? This is why communisms failed. So, yea, it pisses me off that some people are sucking off my taxes like this, but not everyone who is unemployed is doing this. Most want to work, but simply can’t find something.
The Environment
"Join me in this important innovation - to make our air significantly cleaner, and our country much less dependent on foreign sources of energy." This statement encapsulates Bush completely. Bush wants to make it so that we get all of our fossil fuels from america. He proposed drilling in alaska. America said no, and within a week we were at war. Now he\'s pushing the drilling again. Bush doesn’t care if the drilling starts now. All he wants is the permission to put the drills in place, because once they are their, its going to be impossible to stop their usage. At the same time, the winners in war have always taken the spoils, and while no soldiers are (leagally) walking out of Sadams palaces and mailing stuff back home, contracts are being put into place for American companies to set up business in Iran, and most of them are friends of the bush administration. Money is being made, and we are exploiting the countries resources.
War
“All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. And many others have met a different fate.
Let\'s put it this way, they are no longer a problem for the United States and our friends and allies.”So, you’ve killed them. Is it that hard to say? That’s what happens during war, people die.
I ask you tonight to add to our future security with a major research and production effort to guard our people against bio-terrorism, called Project Bioshield.”Wow, a defensive move from bush. I gotta say, I never saw that coming, however this sounds like star wars all over again...
In Iran, we continue to see a government that represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction, and supports terror. We see a government with WOMD? What report is he reading?
Iranians, like all people, have a right to choose their own government, and determine their own destiny - and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom. Yes, as long as its facistic, and we approve of the person in power. This is no different than the Honduras / Standard Fruit scandal of the 50’s.
Sadam:
A brutal dictator, with a history of reckless aggression... with ties to terrorism... with great potential wealth... will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States. Yet I should vote for you because...
He pursued chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons even while inspectors were in his country."Right, like that aspirin factory we took out.
"He has shown instead his utter contempt for the United Nations, and for the opinion of the world."And how exactly did you respond when the UN said no to your invasion? You went against them, with only one other major force following, while a great percentage of both populous in England and the US were against it.
"The 108 UN weapons inspectors were not sent to conduct a scavenger hunt for hidden materials across a country the size of California."Um, yes they were. When Bush made the statement that Sadam had weapons, the UN sent in inspectors to look. Just because they didnt find them where you thought they were doesnt mean they do or dont exists. So, the inspectors started looking randomly for them, and still found nothing.
So I don’t like bush, but I wasn’t crazy about a lot of Clintons moves either. Its not because he’s facist, I just don’t trust him. He has too many agendas going at once and he doesn’t finish anything. I’m all for space exploration, but much like the economy, Bush is just trying to find a foothold in the history books. If he’s remembered as the man who colonized the moon, maybe future generations will pay less attention to the other asinine things he’s done, the same way most people tend to forget about JFK and the Cuban missile crisis with the bay of pigs. No president is going to do everything exactly the way everyone wants, but Bush is one of the worst in my opnion.
I\'m living in Rome and you\'re debating re-electing Nero. Eventually, its all gonna burn.