US Presidential Election 2004 II

[quote=“mofangongren”]Hypothetically? OK, first I’d get a bunch of people understand education to advise me – i.e., to discuss the likely outcomes of various ideas on the table. I’d also need to go through the tax bases, and existing state setups – not all communities or states are alike in how they handle education.

It’s been a problem for a long time that the guys getting the education degrees in colleges are often the guys who are just trying to finish up a degree (any degree) after being an “undecided” major for 3-1/2 years. Pretty much anybody who’s gone to college knows these guys – at the last minute they opt into an education degree not because they like teaching but because they want to graduate on time. Screw that. There’s lots of people who would like to teach, would be good at teaching, but the pay sucks and they’d have to go through lots of certification courses. I’d deregulate a lot of the certification requirements (keeping in a background check just in case any horny Catholic priests try to sneak in). As with any economic situation, I’d increase pay to something liveable but also expect a lot more out of the teachers, including the ability to fire shitty teachers.

I’d fund after-school and other programs – the sort of stuff that keeps kids healthy, learning stuff, etc. America’s future soldiers and workers shouldn’t be fat losers or headed to jail. The cost in unwanted kids and jailtime just isn’t worth it. Heck, I’d even provide some funding to let home-schoolers get textbooks, etc. Private schools could probably apply for some kinds of funding… provided it doesn’t go toward S&M gear for Catholic priests.[/quote]

You almost sound conservative! :s

What’s up with the Catholic thing? I know you are engaging in satire, but come on, hasn’t there been cases of rape, molestation and other child abuse in the public sector?

The same ‘instincts’ that caused Bush to sit for 8+ minutes in front of a roomful of kindergardeners just after the WTC attacks on 9/11 are on primetime display again:

[color=red]
Bush Says National Sales Tax Worth Considering
[/color]

[i]NICEVILLE, Fla. (Reuters) - President Bush said on Tuesday that abolishing the U.S. income tax system and replacing it with a national sales tax was an idea worth considering.

“It’s an interesting idea,” Bush told an “Ask President Bush” campaign forum here. “You know, I’m not exactly sure how big the national sales tax is going to have to be, but it’s the kind of interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously.” …[/i]

I would bet donuts to dollars that not a few administration advisors headed out to the local Wal Mart in search of some Depends when Reuters printed this piece.

I mean, it’s ok to talk about a national sales tax, but Bush obviously shows he has no understanding of it at all, not in a wartime economy. It’s very likely a new and enormous black market economy would emerge overnight.

[quote=“flike”]The same ‘instincts’ that caused Bush to sit for 8+ minutes in front of a roomful of kindergardeners just after the WTC attacks on 9/11 are on primetime display again:

[color=red]
Bush Says National Sales Tax Worth Considering
[/color]

[i]NICEVILLE, Fla. (Reuters) - President Bush said on Tuesday that abolishing the U.S. income tax system and replacing it with a national sales tax was an idea worth considering.

“It’s an interesting idea,” Bush told an “Ask President Bush” campaign forum here. “You know, I’m not exactly sure how big the national sales tax is going to have to be, but it’s the kind of interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously.” …[/i]

I would bet donuts to dollars that not a few administration advisors headed out to the local Wal Mart in search of some Depends when Reuters printed this piece.

I mean, it’s ok to talk about a national sales tax, but Bush obviously shows he has no understanding of it at all, not in a wartime economy. It’s very likely a new and enormous black market economy would emerge overnight.[/quote]

Thank goodness Bush doesn’t know much about it. And that goodness Bill Gates couldn’t code himself out of a paper bag anymore. If Bush is smart, he’ll leave it to people that do.

On a sasy note, as a Chicago MBA myself, I can say with certainty that Bush had no economics or finance training at Harvard. :wink:

[color=blue]Post-mortem of the Radical Bush Administration[/color]

"If Bush can win reelection despite the failure of his two most consequential – and truly radical – decisions, he will truly be a political miracle man. But as his own nominating convention approaches, the odds are against him.

Why call these decisions radical? From World War I right through the Persian Gulf War, the United States had never initiated hostilities or invaded a major country without the provocation of an attack from that country on this nation or its allies. Bush changed that by announcing a new doctrine of “preemptive war” and applying it first to Iraq. Iraq was a military dictatorship with a horrible record of human rights abuse and a well-earned reputation as an international malefactor that had attacked its neighbors.

But the urgency that Bush cited for moving against Saddam Hussein was the threat he posed by his possession of chemical and biological weapons and his pursuit of nuclear arms. “Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant,” Bush said in his major domestic speech justifying the war. “If we know that Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today – and we do – does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?”

Long after Hussein was defeated and captured, the American forces occupying Iraq have found no evidence of the supposed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. The rationale for a war that has taken nearly 1,000 American lives, caused several thousand American casualties and cost well over $100 billion does not exist. "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64017-2004Aug13.html

In point of fact, life exists well before conception (sperm and ova are not dead matter). Obviously this sort of life is not sentient, but it’s not easy to know where to draw the line for sentience. (Singer’s celebrated theory that some apes have more of a right to life than some infants, because they possess more self-awareness, at least has the virtue of being cogent.)

Personally, I think “rights” are legal fictions. Not that I’m not happy to have them, but I don’t see any good reason to extend them to the preborn. Actually I think abortion should be mandatory in many cases, and am sympathetic to infanticide as well. If I ever run for president you can put me down as anti-choice, pro-death. Compassionate Social Darwinism?

Thus spoke Jesus on post 666.

[quote=“spook”][color=blue]Post-mortem of the Radical Bush Administration[/color]

"If Bush can win reelection despite the failure of his two most consequential – and truly radical – decisions, he will truly be a political miracle man. But as his own nominating convention approaches, the odds are against him.

Why call these decisions radical? From World War I right through the Persian Gulf War, the United States had never initiated hostilities or invaded a major country without the provocation of an attack from that country on this nation or its allies. Bush changed that by announcing a new doctrine of “preemptive war” and applying it first to Iraq. Iraq was a military dictatorship with a horrible record of human rights abuse and a well-earned reputation as an international malefactor that had attacked its neighbors.

But the urgency that Bush cited for moving against Saddam Hussein was the threat he posed by his possession of chemical and biological weapons and his pursuit of nuclear arms. “Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant,” Bush said in his major domestic speech justifying the war. “If we know that Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today – and we do – does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?”

Long after Hussein was defeated and captured, the American forces occupying Iraq have found no evidence of the supposed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. The rationale for a war that has taken nearly 1,000 American lives, caused several thousand American casualties and cost well over $100 billion does not exist. "

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64017-2004Aug13.html[/quote]

France’s own intelligence believed Saddam has WMDs.
Russia’s own intelligence believed Saddam had WMDs.
Iraq’s neighbors’ intelligence belived Saddam had WMDs.
The UN believed Saddam was developing WMDs.
All of US government admitted it either based on evdience or a hunch.
Republicans knew it.
Democrats knew it.
The whole world pretty much knew it instinctively.
Most Americans still know it.
You and I knew it.

We haven’t been able to find a “stockpile” … So, if we do suddenly find one, … Would the war instantly become “justifided”. Hummm. Probably not. The agrument would probably shape-shift to something else … … some real creative … like … hummmm … oh yea! Damn Halliburton!

[quote=“pinesay”]
You and I knew it.[/quote]

Here’s what I knew in August, 2002:

[color=blue]"While claims that proof exists that Iraq has nuclear weapons are probably no more than cynical attempts to goad reluctant public opinion . . . "[/color]

spook (aka ‘Gavin Januarus’) August 9, 2002, Forumosa
forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.ph … c&start=90

Here’s what Hans Blix knew prior to the invasion in March, 2003:

"Only in three of those cases did we find anything at all, and in none of these cases were there any weapons of mass destruction, and that shook me a bit, I must say.

I thought - my God, if this is the best intelligence they have and we find nothing, what about the rest?"

Chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix on pre-war intelligence supplied by US and British governments which he had been assured would “be the best available.”

One man … Going down the road with his entourage in a caravan of conspicuous UN land crusiers, going to locations that Saddam already knew he was going to … Hummm. Yea, that trumps spies (“human assets”) of dozens of nations on the ground in Iraq. :wink: Mr. Blix was a political person with the lights of TV cameras. Competent as he may well be, he is not a spy. Spies get killed for getting caught in Iraq as many of our did. But then, when risk goes up, so does the quality of the information.

But then again, I SAY: What if tomorrow we find WDMs-R-US in Iraq??? Will it change your perspective?

Following on from Spook, a quote from the same thread:

Wolf is right on. It’s all about Bush Jr. finishing what Daddy started and OIL.

I can’t believe we are going to get sucked into it all over again. “Weapons of mass destruction, means and motive for using them.” What is all this crap? It’s all just smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors.

Then there’s this perspective on the Neocon fiction that ‘everyone believed’:

"Days before the Iraq war began, veteran Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus put together a story questioning whether the Bush administration had proof that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction.

But he ran into resistance from the paper’s editors, and his piece ran only after assistant managing editor Bob Woodward, who was researching a book about the drive toward war, “helped sell the story,” Pincus recalled. “Without him, it would have had a tough time getting into the paper.” Even so, the article was relegated to Page A17. . .

Some reporters who were lobbying for greater prominence for stories that questioned the administration’s evidence complained to senior editors who, in the view of those reporters, were unenthusiastic about such pieces. The result was coverage that, despite flashes of groundbreaking reporting, in hindsight looks strikingly one-sided at times.

“The paper was not front-paging stuff,” said Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks. “Administration assertions were on the front page. Things that challenged the administration were on A18 on Sunday or A24 on Monday. There was an attitude among editors: Look, we’re going to war, why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff?”

Michael Massing, a New York Review of Books contributor and author of the forthcoming book “Now They Tell Us,” on the press and Iraq, said: . . . on the key issue of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, the paper was generally napping along with everyone else. It gave readers little hint of the doubts that a number of intelligence analysts had about the administration’s claims regarding Iraq’s arsenal." . . .

On Jan. 30, 2003, Pincus and Priest reported that the evidence the administration was amassing about Baghdad hiding weapons equipment and documents “is still circumstantial.” The story ran on Page A14. . .

Such decisions coincided with The Post editorial page’s strong support for the war, such as its declaration the day after (Colin) Powell’s (UN) presentation that “it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.” . . .

In mid-March, as the administration was on the verge of invading Iraq, Woodward stepped in to give the stalled Pincus piece about the administration’s lack of evidence a push.

“Despite the Bush administration’s claims” about WMDs, the March 16 Pincus story began, “U.S. intelligence agencies have been unable to give Congress or the Pentagon specific information about the amounts of banned weapons or where they are hidden, according to administration officials and members of Congress,” raising questions “about whether administration officials have exaggerated intelligence.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58127-2004Aug11.html

Who is ‘we’?

Who is ‘we’?[/quote]

You’re pulling a “Bill Clinton” here.

“We” is not important. You. Me. Them. They. Santa Claus. The French. The Iraqis.

The questions still remains flike. And let me now make it even more simple:

What would YOU do if YOU found a huge stockpile of WMDs in Iraq? How would that change or not change YOUR views.

Please don’t ask me to define “YOUR”.

If a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction were uncovered in Iraq then I’d be man enough to admit I was wrong.

Yea, but that’s just the point.

What would you be wrong about???

Wrong that you thought there were no WMDs to begin with?
Wrong that President Bush made a wrong decision to go to war?
Wrong that the CIA is incompetent?
Wrong that Chenney is in bed with Halliburton?
Wrong that Bush is an idiot?
Wrong that the war was all about oil?
Wrong about … insert your favorite conspiracy …

What does “man enough to admit your’re wrong” really mean?

The point is that if gettting Bush out of office isn’t about not finding WMDs, it will be about something else. The goal is to hate Bush, not think rationally. I mention this because the largest foundation for the “Iraq Was a Mistake” argument (currently) is that WMDs never existed. If that leg were to be yanked out, ne?

What would be your guess as to the NEXT argument the left would gravitate to?

:unamused:

[quote=“pinesay”]“We” is not important. You. Me. Them. They. Santa Claus. The French. The Iraqis.

The questions still remains flike. And let me now make it even more simple:

What would YOU do if YOU found a huge stockpile of WMDs in Iraq? How would that change or not change YOUR views.

Please don’t ask me to define “YOUR”.[/quote]

If a stockpile were found that existed before the war, that was created by Hussein’s government, then I would obviously be forced to conclude that Hussein was in violation of UN sanctions.

However, I would demand that verification. After all, the US failed to secure conventional weapons caches throughout Iraq, so who knows what could have happened there.

In addition, the US administration claimed absolute and accurate knowledge of WMD stockpiles before the war. After the war began, it sent in its own military inspectors - UN help was expressly not welcome - and still didn’t find anything. And hasn’t found anything to date.

There also exists evidence that the US has tried to plant evidence of WMD in Iraq.

The chances are excellent that any WMD that exist in Iraq now came there after the war, and were not there before.

Let me ask you: if WMD were found tomorrow in Iraq, would you trust the Bush administration enough to blithely conclude that Hussein put them there?

My apology would go something like this:

"I owe President Bush and everyone who supported him in the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussein an apology.

Saddam was, as President Bush claimed, stockpiling weapons of mass destruction with the goal of sucker punching the United States at his first opportunity and so we had no choice but to invade Iraq and topple his regime without waiting another day.

I apologize for calling President Bush a war-mongering liar. The truth is President Bush was speaking honestly after all and it was we who were blinded into lies, oversimplifications and exaggerations by our ideology.

Rather than being shamed that I voted for President Bush and maintaining that his bone-headed religious radicalism is the worst thing that’s happened to the American republic since its founding, it is I who am shamed for not seeing the truth and standing up for my country in its hour of need."

That’s pretty much it. No evasions, no changing my positions and/or justifications after the facts. No attempts to drag things out with reducto ad absurbio arguments about why weapons of mass destruction were found.

Saddam was in violation whether or not WMD are found.

Very well. I would obviously be forced to conclude that Hussein was in violation of additional sanctions.

Please continue the discussion here: [US Presidential Election 2004 III

Rascal
Moderator IP Forum