How are anti-Bush people "anti-American"?

[Orsorum]

Well?

 

[her209]

Because you don't follow blindly.

 

[RDWYTruckDriver]

I don't think being anti-Bush is being anti-American. Hell, there's always going to be people that are anti-( whoever is President at the time ) recently the anti-Clinton people. But there are people ( in the US ) that are anti-American and will be anti-President/Government reguardless of who's in at the time.

 

[Zebo]

I thought Bush was anti-american...Go figure.

 

[Tab]

Originally posted by: RDWYTruckDriver
Hell, there's always going to be people that are anti-( whoever is President at the time ) recently the anti-Clinton people. .

Yea I agree with that. This forum does have it share it of bush bashers. espically when you've most of the posts being about how bush sucks. I'll let you bash bush if you can back it up and sray on the topic.

 

[Konigin]

How are anti-Bush people "anti-American"?

They're not. Just not supporters of the administration.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Let's see: a simple person in a position of authority and power, coming into that authority through little hard work of his own, weilding that power to his own personal ends and the benefit of his friends, shirking of any sort of personal responsibility or accountability. He's the very embodiment of the American dream, to bash him is to bash America itself.

 

[conehead433]

Because the majority of the masses form their opinions based on FOX news. If you were not a supporter of this war, and of President Bush, then you were a ........

 

[M0NEYSH0T]

Let's see: a simple person in a position of authority and power, coming into that authority through little hard work of his own, weilding that power to his own personal ends and the benefit of his friends, shirking of any sort of personal responsibility or accountability. He's the very embodiment of the American dream, to bash him is to bash America itself.

His own personal ends and the benefit of his friends?

Explain.

Shirking of any sort of personal responsibility or accountability.

Huh?

Wow, what a sad comment. You must be a pure bleeding heart.

Because the majority of the masses form their opinions based on FOX news. If you were not a supporter of this war, and of President Bush, then you were a ........

For once this country has a news organization that doesn't project a biased opinion to its viewers. Name any other news organization that reports from the middle and I will quiet up. Again, another bleeding heart.


You people just don't get it, do you? The war was about making sure that the security of the USA is intact, and this was a necessary step towards that mark. We've got one nut case out of the way, and we've got several more to deal with, namely, North Korea. But you see, this guy is probably more nuts than Saddam judging solely by his haircut (trying to inject some humor here). Meanwhile the war on terrorism continues, and it would be nice have some support from you bleed hearts.

For God sake, even Clinton went to bat for Bush on those what, 16 little words in the Stat of the Union address on Larry King LIVE. How long was that in the news? One of your own! Even after the DNC chairman started commercials aimed at calling Bush a liar.

Winston Churchill once said:
If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain.

Where do you fall?

 

[conehead433]

"For once this country has a news organization that doesn't project a biased opinion to its viewers."

Your comment only proves that people will see and believe what they want to. How totally right wing, pro-Bush and pro-War could one news channel be? You've been indoctrinated so fully that you think it's 'fair and balanced' or some such BS.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: conehead433
Because the majority of the masses form their opinions based on FOX news.

i rember that during the war that that channel was the ONLY thing my parents watched, my dad watched it on TV while on the tredmill, while eating, while sitting on the couch. he never stoped watching that channel 😕. heck he would be watching it in the dead of night, even if they are reshowing the same thing. he continued spurting out pro war jargon,*cough* brainwashing. i dont trust any media channel as far as i can throw; my mom kept talking about how it was God's will that Iraq fall. i am a christian, but i dont see how its God's will for Bush to invade Iraq.

 

[LilBlinbBlahIce]

Originally posted by: conehead433
"For once this country has a news organization that doesn't project a biased opinion to its viewers."

Your comment only proves that people will see and believe what they want to. How totally right wing, pro-Bush and pro-War could one news channel be? You've been indoctrinated so fully that you think it's 'fair and balanced' or some such BS.

Yeah, watching such "fair and balanced" shows like Fox and Friends first thing in the morning makes me want to puke. Just the other day they were lauding the "fair and balanced" views of Ann Coulter.

 

[KenGr]

I observe that there are three types of "anti-Bush" people out there.

First there are liberals who are fundamentally opposed to Conservative policies like tax cuts, deregulation, etc. They may be wrong (in my opinion) but they aren't anti-American or even deluded, just a different viewpoint.

Second, there is a very large group that I will call "Democrats" (for want of an easier stereotype). They are anti-Bush as a knee jerk anti-Republican instinct. They seem to have no particular conviction driving them. For example, Clinton attacking mid-East/Eastern European countries was fine and an moral act while when Bush does it's all about oil. Welform reform was fine and a progressive movement when Clinton did it but it kills children when Bush does it. Etc, etc, etc. These people aren't anti-American, they are just blind followers.

Finally, there is a certain segment of hard core leftists. They hate America, as it is today, so much that they cheer when US soldiers are killed, they back (or at least fail to criticize) people like Arafat, Hussein, Castro, etc. I would term these people as anti-American.

 

[etech]

Originally posted by: Orsorum
Well?

Spin it baaabyyyyy!

 

[Orsorum]

Originally posted by: etech

Originally posted by: Orsorum
Well?

Spin it baaabyyyyy!

😛

Quote from a thread about ten lines down: What would the anti-Bush, anti-American people do if the President would take on N. Korea and Iran because of their nuclear threat?

I thought it was interesting that the person blindly lumped the two types together, with no distinction, and it made me wonder how many people here would have done the same thing.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: KenGr
I observe that there are three types of "anti-Bush" people out there.

First there are liberals who are fundamentally opposed to Conservative policies like tax cuts, deregulation, etc. They may be wrong (in my opinion) but they aren't anti-American or even deluded, just a different viewpoint.

Second, there is a very large group that I will call "Democrats" (for want of an easier stereotype). They are anti-Bush as a knee jerk anti-Republican instinct. They seem to have no particular conviction driving them. For example, Clinton attacking mid-East/Eastern European countries was fine and an moral act while when Bush does it's all about oil. Welform reform was fine and a progressive movement when Clinton did it but it kills children when Bush does it. Etc, etc, etc. These people aren't anti-American, they are just blind followers.

Finally, there is a certain segment of hard core leftists. They hate America, as it is today, so much that they cheer when US soldiers are killed, they back (or at least fail to criticize) people like Arafat, Hussein, Castro, etc. I would term these people as anti-American.

Of course, you completely left out the libertarians, who are against GW's unconstitutional assualt on civil liberties. We're not liberals, democrats, or leftists... are we un-American?

 

[Bleep]

so much that they cheer when US soldiers are killed,

This statement is a blatent LIE you cannot show anyone anywhere that this has happend. Are you a compulsive lier or just one that does it on certain websites where you have no personal accountability.

Bleep

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

"Winston Churchill once said:
If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain."


This is attributed to Churchill, but may not be so. Anyway, if you look at Churchill historically, it was conservative in his younger days, and became more liberal as he matured. Perhaps that "bleeding heart" of compassion was something worth having.

 

[Siddhartha]

"How are anti-Bush people "anti-American"?

They are not anti-American. Questioning a person's patriotism has been a ploy the Republicans have used to neutralize their political opponents since McCarthy.

 

[KenGr]

Originally posted by: Bleep

so much that they cheer when US soldiers are killed,

This statement is a blatent LIE you cannot show anyone anywhere that this has happend. Are you a compulsive lier or just one that does it on certain websites where you have no personal accountability.

Bleep

There were numerous reports of antiwar rallies where audiences cheered when speakers declared US troops would suffer huge casualties in Iraq. I didn't collect a full history but here's an example:

"We Support Our Troops...When They Shoot Their Officers"

Another:

<a target=new class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/03/27/3e82ec7193097?in_archive=1">Columbia Professor hopes for "a million Mogadishus".</a>

You can search and find these easily. It's fringe but it definitely exists.

 

[Zebo]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: KenGr
I observe that there are three types of "anti-Bush" people out there.

First there are liberals who are fundamentally opposed to Conservative policies like tax cuts, deregulation, etc. They may be wrong (in my opinion) but they aren't anti-American or even deluded, just a different viewpoint.

Second, there is a very large group that I will call "Democrats" (for want of an easier stereotype). They are anti-Bush as a knee jerk anti-Republican instinct. They seem to have no particular conviction driving them. For example, Clinton attacking mid-East/Eastern European countries was fine and an moral act while when Bush does it's all about oil. Welform reform was fine and a progressive movement when Clinton did it but it kills children when Bush does it. Etc, etc, etc. These people aren't anti-American, they are just blind followers.

Finally, there is a certain segment of hard core leftists. They hate America, as it is today, so much that they cheer when US soldiers are killed, they back (or at least fail to criticize) people like Arafat, Hussein, Castro, etc. I would term these people as anti-American.

Of course, you completely left out the libertarians, who are against GW's unconstitutional assualt on civil liberties. We're not liberals, democrats, or leftists... are we un-American?

There are plenty of conservatives who are "anti'bush" Bush as well.

Rock-ribbed Republican -- and anti-Bush - By Michelle Goldberg
The newest, most outspoken critics of the war on terrorism and Iraq are conservatives.

Salon.com ? Friday ? December 13, 2002 - Complete


Dec. 13, 2002 |


Chuck Baldwin, a radio host in Pensacola, Fla., is as right-wing as they come. He's the chairman of the state chapter of the Moral Majority and the founder and pastor of Pensacola's Crossroad Baptist church, where his guest speakers have included Jerry Falwell and Patrick Buchanan. His Web site features a waving Confederate flag, pictures of a "memorial to aborted babies," and rants about Bill Clinton's murder of Vince Foster.

But he's no Bush supporter either. In fact, as he wrote in a widely Web-circulated Nov. 26 essay, the "Bush administration seems determined to turn our country into the most elaborate and sophisticated police state ever devised."

As the Bush White House faces a predictable chorus of left-wing critics complaining about increasing encroachments into civil liberties in the name of fighting terror, it has also begun to hear from more and more conservatives saying the same thing.

The ACLU expects former Rep. Bob Barr -- the Georgia Republican who was a driving force behind the Clinton impeachment -- to join the group as a consultant on privacy issues, and it's negotiating with Rep. Dick Armey (R-Texas) to do the same. Phyllis Schlafly, the Eagle Forum founder and ERA opponent, worries that some Pentagon programs are leading us toward the "Big Brother government as imagined by George Orwell." Lisa Dean, director of the center for technology policy at right-wing Republican activist Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation, describes Bush's expansion of domestic surveillance programs as "antithetical to everything we stand for." New York Times hawk William Safire has made similar points in his column, warning, "This is not some far-out Orwellian scenario. It is what will happen to your personal freedom in the next few weeks if John Poindexter" -- the Iran-contra operative who now heads the Defense Department's Information Awareness Office -- "gets the unprecedented power he seeks."

The dramatic political realignments among the left occasioned by Sept. 11 have been well documented. Schisms have opened among erstwhile comrades over the proper response of what commentator Christopher Hitchens calls "Islamo-facism" -- and over our culpability in fomenting it in the first place. Below the liberal radar, through, similar shake-ups are happening on the right. Though plenty of people on the right have always been authoritarian cultural conservatives, there's also been a strong libertarian strain in the conservative movement. Now, conservative libertarian principles -- chiefly small government and individual liberty -- are clashing with a triumphant right-wing radicalism eager to exercise American power and make the world anew.

"We're not dealing with traditional conservatism," Baldwin says. "We're dealing with pseudo-conservatism that's very accommodating of big government instead of resisting big government and promoting individual freedom."

Half a century ago, in the inaugural edition of the right-wing National Review, William F. Buckley wrote that it was the duty of conservatives to "stand athwart history and yell 'Stop!'" Now the Weekly Standard -- the must-read barometer for Bush foreign policy -- crows, "The Left wallows in cynicism, while the Right is full of starry-eyed dreamers." This right wing, run by neoconservative ex-'60s radicals, is the chief engine of a new kind of radicalism in America. The administration is seizing unprecedented powers in its righteous war against terrorism. The radicalism of the right -- its overarching vision of a changed world -- may be why some left defectors like Hitchens seem to feel more comfortable among them than among liberal defenders of the status quo.

But it's also why some old-school conservatives, dedicated by definition to defending the status quo, suddenly appear to be alienated.

Philip Gold, a former Georgetown professor who campaigned for Barry Goldwater, worked on Steve Forbes' presidential run, and has written for publications like the Weekly Standard and the American Spectator, finds the new direction of the conservative movement so disturbing that he's pulled a Hitchens. He recently resigned from his job as a senior fellow in National Security Affairs at Seattle's conservative Discovery Institute because of his opposition to the war with Iraq, and bid farewell to the right in general in a Seattle Weekly article called, natch, "Goodbye to All That."

Rock-ribbed Republican -- and anti-Bush | 1, 2

"Over the last several years," he wrote, "I've become sadly convinced that American conservatism has grown, for lack of a better word, malign." The movement he's devoted his life to, he writes, "has gained the government, trashed its soul, and now bestrides the planet."

"We no longer have a commitment to limited government," he says. "I no longer recognize the movement. What I started out with isn't there anymore. The fact that mainstream conservatives are going along with [Total Information Awareness] and with TIPS indicates that these principles are no longer resonant in the movement."

The reason? "Power corrupts," he writes. "It corrupts especially when you've got it, but can't seem to accomplish what you set out to do, and you've jettisoned your ideals somewhere along the way but can't quite face the fact."

To conservatives like Gold, the Bush administration has betrayed its principles by expanding the federal bureaucracy and authorizing vast new domestic surveillance programs. If big government spying programs are going to be defeated, such conservatives are going to play a major role. After all, it was Armey who finally ensured the death of TIPS, the proposed Justice Department program that would have recruited mail carriers, meter readers and other workers with access to private homes to act as government informants. Armey added language to the Homeland Security Bill specifically outlawing both TIPS and a national I.D. card. "The leadership of Congressman Armey was very important," says Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's technology and liberty program. "Elements of the conservative movement and of the Republican party have held to their principles of limited government."

Right now, the one issue uniting civil libertarians on the left and right is Total Information Awareness, a Pentagon program being run by Poindexter that aims to create a centralized grand database of Americans' credit card purchases, medical histories, education records and other information. Through mining such data, the government hopes to discern patterns that will help catch terrorists. The problem, of course, is that to do so the government has to gather and sift through private information on millions of innocent citizens.

For liberals, such programs recall hated government spying operations like COINTELPRO, under which the FBI infiltrated and attempted to sabotage the civil rights movements of the '60s and early '70s. But conservatives have their own nightmares of federal power run amok -- especially after the events at Ruby Ridge and Waco, where federal agents killed religious fundamentalists who tried to live outside government's prying eyes. For them, Total Information Awareness raises the specter of Washington bureaucrats poring over their gun records, examining their church affiliations, and meddling in the lives of people who want only to be left alone.

"We don't want the government to monitor our daily activities," says Schlafly. "Technology is moving so fast. When they're able to combine our medical records, travel records, education records, gun purchases, credit card records, this is total information that I don't think the government should have about law-abiding citizens if we value freedom."

Of course, after Sept. 11 many Americans are quite willing to trade some freedoms for increased security. Yet this bargain, says Dean, is a betrayal of her brand of conservatism. "I never thought I'd see conservatives running to the government to solve problems like they do now. That's just not conservatism to me," she says. "People look at Homeland Security, the USA PATRIOT Act, national I.D. cards and say, if that protects us, we'll go ahead. I never would have thought I'd hear conservatives say that," she says.

Had Clinton been president, she says, conservatives would have "pulled together and fought" these initiatives, even after 9/11. She says the fact that many are complacent in the face of Bush's incursions is a matter of personality, not principle. "Conservatives trust Bush. They think he wouldn't do anything to harm them, that everything he's doing is for a noble cause," she says. Dean worries that such personal affinity blinds her ideological brethren to the massive structural changes taking place in government. "The groundwork we're laying now, we're laying for the next administration and one after that and one after that. At the same time, we're raising a generation of citizens on the belief that it's OK to give up all of our liberties in exchange for security. That's un-American."

In other words, mainstream conservatives favored limiting government powers when they didn't run the government. For example, as a senator, John Ashcroft was a consistent defender of privacy rights when he felt Clinton was trampling them.

"Both Ashcroft and President Bush have departed from their earlier emphasis on protecting privacy and have really become statists, who want to impose the power of the state on us to surveil us and also to prevent any dissent," says the ACLU's Steinhardt. "They're certainly not conservatives when it comes to wielding the powers of the state."

In fact, says Steinhardt, the real conservatives are now ? the ACLU. "We think of ourselves as the most conservative organization in America," he says. "We're dedicated to preserving the values of an 18th century document."

Of course, this kind of rhetoric is nothing new coming from liberal civil libertarians. What is new is how many conservatives have come to agree. Asked who is standing in the way of government assault on civil rights, Baldwin names only one group -- the ACLU. He talks fondly of forming alliances with liberals to stand up to Bush and Ashcroft. "The door is wide open for something like that," he says. "Left and right can disagree on several issues, but the one issue we should all be concerned about is the preeminent issue of freedom."

 

[sandorski]

One day people will wake up to realize that the world did not change after 9/11. Their perception changed.

 

[XZeroII]

Originally posted by: conehead433
Because the majority of the masses form their opinions based on FOX news. If you were not a supporter of this war, and of President Bush, then you were a ........

Change Fox to CNN and Bush to Clinton. WELCOME TO 5 YEARS AGO.

Same crap, new day. This same stuff is brought up about every single president. Get over it.

 

[ElFenix]

bush is america, duh!

 

[Miramonti]

I am anti anti-american, which come to think of it is why I loathe the dweeb called gw bush.