Just wondering what is the meaning of “forceful advocacy”. I’ve searched the internet, and can find it many times, but it’s not listed in an online dictionary as far as I know.
Generally it’s used in discussions of Chen Shuibian’s forceful advocacy of Taiwan’s rights. It’s also used to talk about lawyers or judges actions in legal cases.
What does forceful advocacy mean in a forum? Does it mean arguing that your way is right in the face of opposition?
Finally, has George W. been “forcefully advocating” social security in his townhall meetings?[/quote]
My (non-moderator) interpretation:
advocate - to make a case for something
forcefully - aggressively
personal attack - attacking the messenger, rather than the message
No, George Bush has been lying about Social Security.
IMO Gearge W. has aggressively been making a case for Social Security. Whether or not his facts are more factual than the evidence for WMD was, does his attempt to get Social Security reformed sount as “forceful advocacy”?
And what would I need to do to forcefully advocate something on forumosa?
I had a great teacher in politics back in my uni. days. After the first semester, I knew I didn’t like politics but I took his class three more semester as I enjoyed listening to his stories about the world. The last semester, the class was entitled: International Politics: Convergences and Antagonisms.
It was quite interesting(not for me though…) because it was just at the time in political history where the balance between the two(C and A) started to shift. The communists undermined their own credibility by censoring and starving their citizens. They undermined their own strategy with poor planning resulting in a lack of infrastructures, thus starving people. Moreover, they undermined their own people. My teacher put it this way: “Take the carrot away and the rabbit ain’t gonna run. Take it away for two generations and the rabbit will not even know what a carrot is.” I like to put it this way: Forcefully hold a man from fishing and he will go hungry. Do it to his son and the man will…Well, who likes to see starving children…
I really liked that teacher. He described political problems by going back to “the source”. Meaning he would go back to the early stages of what we now call oriented “communities”. He would say this:“communists or democrats…they all came from the same place.”
I just liked how this teacher would introduce the final semester: He would come into the classroom on day one acting angry and intimidating. He would walk in between our desks and with the utmost disrespect in his voice, he would say things like:“This is my classroom! You will listen to me! Copy that?! I’m the teacher here! That means I’m smart and you are stupid and that’s why you need to listen to me! Learn and shut up! If you don’t like it, get the hell out and go ponder why you failed this class!”
He would then smile(we all knew he was up to something) and he would ask? “How did that feel?” With a grin(he ate politics for breakfast that guy)he would add:"Well that’s politics for you and that’s how it all started. A long time ago, some guy decided to say: “This is mine, I was here first and if you don’t like that, I’ll bust your knee caps.”
Forceful advocacy and social security seem to be closely linked under that light. Which brings this question: Why this thread?
On the bush front, well…I believe his case for social security has finally made it to the supreme court. Not once have I felt that their “judgement was inappropriate” This said, I am very satisfied with that personally as I have absolute faith that his less than forceful plea will be considered fairly.
Just a few months ago, there was a thread in which we were discussing Bush’s lies. At that time, after providing a whole list of Bushian whoppers, I challenged folks to come up with anything Bush had ever said that was true. I think DB’s onto something.
I don’t think merely reading “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them” counts. However, to use a more “PC” term that sensitive Republicans can live with, it would appear that the Bush presidency has been quite “truth challenged.” I sure wish Bush could trust Americans enough so that he could provide them with real facts about Social Security instead of a bunch of staged events in which a key matter (affecting the next few generations of Americans) is shoveled under big pile of canned pablum.
This post may be a bit too rational for this thread and if so I appologise. However if anyone wants to read a short critique of the problem posed by the Bush proposals they might like to look at Robert Shiller’ article which was published in yesterday’s Taipei Times.
Shiller is Professor of Economics at Yale and is a very serious thinker about stock market and investor behaviour.
I guess I should say that I don’ think that Bush has been lying, but I do think that if he was a financial salesman he would have been struck off for misselling as he has failed to outline the possible problems associated with his product.
BB – nice link. There would sure seem to be a lack of proper disclosure, in my mind. Of course, if there was full disclosure, these social security reform proposals wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance in heck.
