I couldn’t resist quoting an exuberant Steve, so here goes and that sums up what the republicans feel at the moment:
Kerry has conceded. Of course, when a Democrat concedes that doesn’t mean he won’t unconcede later but it looks like even Kerry can not flip flop his way outa this.
We shall bid him a fond adieu, waving as he windsurfs back to France, tacking left, then right, then left again. That means the Democrats will not be able to realize their Vision of the Future: State of the Union speeches in French, Kerry getting permission slips from the UN to defend America, the Vietnam Memorial renamed the Wall of War Criminals, a giant government healthcare system run with the smooth precision of the US Post Office headed by Hillary, and a state visit from Jacques Chirac complete with a big French kiss by Kerry on the steps of the Capitol. Democrats, we feel your pain.
Meanwhile, back in Red State America it’s time to break out some Texas barbecue and longnecks. YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAWWWWWW! Let’s throw a dart at the world map and see who we’ll invade next.
Hey, how about that: IT’S CANADA!
on the other hand, Abu Aardvark has a different perspective:
…
On the one hand, I feel a deep sadness for America, and a real fear for the future of the world and the country. We had a chance, as a nation, to use our democracy to impose accountability on a failed president. We didn’t. Despite all the amazing efforsts [sic] of so many Americans – special gratitude to Wisconsin, along with the rest of the real American heartland – the cold fact is that, given the popular vote and the likely allocation of electoral votes, Bush has won a narrow mandate for his policies.Which means: no illusions. This is who we are, for better or for worse. Much of the world, and many Americans, have argued forcefully over the past few years that this administration does not reflect the real face of America. That argument becomes more difficult now.
…
Here are a couple of things which come to mind:*we now can be pretty confident that America’s image abroad will not improve for the forseeable future.
*it would not surprise me if a number of governments, on the other hand, which had been recalcitrant now become more helpful towards the United States.
*others will, of course, disagree, but I am strongly convinced that Osama bin Laden and other Islamist radicals are dancing, singing, and throwing flowers in anticipation of a Bush victory. Bush’s foreign policy serves their interests in so many ways
*perhaps this goes without saying, but Iraq will continue to deteriorate. Bush and his supporters had to deny the realities in Iraq for campaign purposes, but the reality remains.
…
Because let’s be clear: thanks to Bush, the next President was always going to face an incredible mess. For better or worse, it will now be exclusively a Republican mess.
I’m not an American so I can’t have a say on how the election unfolded, but I cannot but have pity on the Americans at the moment, they have such a fractious country, such a polarized society that it would be difficult for them to realistically agree on anything for the next 4 years…. and that uncertainly will no doubt translate very badly for them as well as the rest of the world.
Congratulations Mr. Bush.
Comments
Bush has it, and congratulations
The US isn’t as divided and fractious as you might think. Though the presidential choice broke in half, Republicans increased their majorities in the congress. The country, as a whole, appears to be moving to the political right.
Bush has it, and congratulations
Mahmood,
Thank you for posting Abu Ardvaark’s sad comments. I thought I felt pretty good when Kerry conceded, but after I read Abu’s anguish at the Bush victory, I FELT EVEN BETTER!
If I may offer some advice to Abu, it may just be possible that your unconscious assumption of moral superiority to Republicans does not allow you to argue your position well, as you feel no need to reason it through because, after all, you’re just right and that’s all that needs to be said, right?
It’s delusional thinking to believe the world hates America because of Bush. Much of the world subscribes to a perverse and irrational anti-Americanism for many unsound reasons and has done so long before Bush ran for president. There were plenty of anti-Americans around when Clinton held office. The Sep 11 attacks were cooked up while Clinton was president, not Bush. No matter who the president, there will be foreign idiots who hate America because it’s too big or too capitalist or too successful or too infidel or too too.
I doubt Osama is celebrating Bush’s victory when he spent a considerable amount of time repeating the Democratic talking points in his latest screed and promised to attack America if it voted for Bush. He also complained in his video that Bush’s campaign against Al Qaeda has severely disrupted his organization. That doesn’t sound like a supporter. He was all but wearing a Kerry button.
My guess is that Osama will be sending his thobe out for dry cleaning after he hears that Bush won reelection. To Bin Laden, that means we have given Bush power to continue hunting him down for another four years. Bush is relentless. His reelection means it is likely that Bin Laden will be killed or captured in the near future.
Abu is kidding himself if he thinks the war in Iraq is seriously straining America. The war has cost only 1% of our income. We fought a world war fifty years ago with two major theaters and dozens of countries. Iraq is only one country.
There has been a moral accounting for Abu Ghraib. The guilty parties are being tried or are already sentenced. Can you say the same about the other side? It is sheer hypocricy to flog America endlessly for this relatively minor transgression where not one drop of blood was shed when the insurgents are gleefully decapitating civilians and shredding women and children with car bombs. Are you going to even mention that or are those criminal acts simply invisible in your moral universe?
Bush has successfully defended America against further terrorist atrocities thanks to aggressive law enforcement, the Patriot Act, and the cooperation of our allies around the world. Furthermore, he has not acquiesed to the status quo where terrorists retain the initiative but rather took the war they started to their home. Kerry would have done neither of these.
The fact is that most of the world do nothing to solve the world’s problems and are glad to let America do the work, then idly criticize whatever America does. Kerry would have taken such effete criticism to heart. Bush will not, thank goodness.
Steve
Unfinished monkey business
Yesterday I thought the omens looked good for Bush when I saw a man walking round with a pet monkey off Exhibition Avenue.
For anyone out there in need of some consolation over Bush’s victory, this article on the US economy’s worth reading:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1272402,00.html
Steve….
Again you illustrate beautifully how clueless you are about the way anyone outside of your American-residing repubs thinks. Promise me you will never attempt to enter diplomacy or foreign policy. 😉
Looks like 4 more years that I will have to avoid returning to the US…. 🙁 The only good thing about Bush being re-elected is the fodder he provides for late night comedy and websites. 😀
Salaam,
PM
Re: Bush has it, and congratulations
And another thing Steve. Bush’s re-election plays right into Osama’s game. What do you think the timing of that video was all about? Bushie’s foreign policies go a long way towards making the US look imperialistic — which is OBL’s excuse for trying to destroy the US.
Also, do you honestly think Bush is going to cough up Osama? Hell, he’s probably hiding out somewhere in the West Wing. After all — Osama MADE Georgie what he is today.
And no one can mine the fears lurking in the American heart to his own political (and financial advantage) better than Porgie….
Salaam,
PM
Bush has it, and congratulations
I’m no admirer of Bush (or of Kerry, for that matter – two of the lowest calibre candidates of all time, surely). But if 19 mass murdering jihadis hadn’t taken it upon themselves to hijack passenger planes into the heart of New York, we’d all be looking at a very different America today.
Those 19 jihadis intended to kill as many people as they possibly could that fateful day. I guess they got their wish and then some. People, and Muslims especially, will go on suffering and dying for decades as a result of their actions, whether in retaliatory wars or random acts of violence everywhere as the so-called “clash of civilisations” lumbers on in blood and fury.
Re(1): Bush has it, and congratulations
My Dear PM,
Osama’s video was a lame attempt to look important. He doesn’t have the power to kill Americans anymore now that Bush has whittled Al Qaeda down to nothing, so all he can do is whine and threaten on video.
Whatever the US does, it’s going to be accused of imperialism by knee-jerk anti-Americans. Let’s not forget that these wars were kicked off by Bin Laden’s insane quest for a world-wide Second Caliphate, which is to say, Muslim religious imperialism. If the Arab Muslim world wants to see an imperialist, they need look no further than the bathroom mirror.
Yes, I do believe that Osama’s days are numbered. One of these days, our Delta force is going to pull him out of his rathole or collect enough pieces of him for DNA analysis. It sounds like we may have come close in the last month. We have had a lot of luck doing his lieutenants in. I see no reason why that luck won’t continue, especially now.
If you believe Bush is making money on this war, you have drank too deeply of Michael Moore’s Kool-Aid. Thank goodness we had Bush as President after Sep 11 rather than Gore. We probably would have suffered another couple Sep 11 attacks while Gore dithered over taking down Afghanistan.
And really, PM, wouldn’t you say Osama is the biggest fearmonger at all?
Steve
Re: Steve….
PM,
We can both agree I have no future as a diplomat. I do have a taste for foreign policy, though. However, I am in such a good mood today that I will put in a good word for you with the Bushster so that you can visit your beloved America discreetly. It will be our little secret.
Leaving the porch light on for you,
Steviekins
Bush has it, and congratulations
well, usually i’d never chime in on some filthy arab miscegenator’s web page, but i had to say something about america’s fears. we don’t have any! after decades of 1000’s of soviet icbm’s pointed at all of our cities, ready to turn all of us into gas molecules, it takes a lot more than some terrorists to scare us. do not confuse fear with hate. we hate the terrorists, we do not fear them. so, they kill a thousand of us or so… that many die on our freeways everyday. even if they kill millions, they would easily be replaced, and our response would be unilateral, decisive, and final.
do americans fear arabs…. no.
do americans fear muslims…. no.
do americans like either… no!
we also don’t like how other countries have tried to influence our elections. we don’t mind hearing your opinions, but thats all we want (or don’t want) to hear from you.
Re: Bush has it, and congratulations
I couldn’t disagree more with your miscegenation comment. It’s foolish and hateful. You should be embarassed by it.
However, you are entirely correct that the terrorists be damned, we are not intimidated. This misguided Islamic war against America is a colossal blunder by radicals who have taken counsel of their passions and understand neither America nor Americans.
Steve
Trackback :: Barney Wins Second Term
TrackBack from Sabbah’s Blog
Now after Bush won a second term, it’s time to move on and try to find a tool to understand his DOG, Barney! After all, we are stuck with him for another four years 🙁
So in my search I came across this Dog Translator, which will obviously help y…
Bush has it, and congratulations
[quote]well, usually i’d never chime in on some filthy arab miscegenator’s web page, [/quote]
Please don’t call my friend Mahmood names. By doing so you are calling me the same in my eyes.
Americans do not have a problem with ARABS or MUSLIMS. You seem too and that is sad. We have a problem with those who wish us harm and that my friend is a VERY VERY SMALL MINORITY.
Good Luck
Mark
[Modified by: Bonsaimark (Bonsaimark) on November 03, 2004 08:41 PM]
Re: Bush has it, and congratulations
You’re a sick dude/dudette, Anonymous. Always got an ‘F’ in the Plays Well With Others category, eh? Take your revolting attitudes elsewhere.
Bush has it, and congratulations
PM,
you don’t seem to grasp the big picture. Here is the condensed version.
Americans think that their Marshall plan changed Europe. They think another marshall plan would have similar results in the mideast. But the porblem with a marshall plan is that you have to invade someone to do it. The problem with invading someone is that it is a clear violation of international law. Saddam and his WMD gave us just the loophole we needed.
Don’t think it’s a Marshall plan? Then why is a $20 billion dollar gift package sitting in a bank account waiting for security to improve. Why was that $20b approved and set aside before the first soldier even set foot in Iraq?
PM, simple truth is that Bush thinks peace, prosperity, equality, and freedom are what the Arab people really want. He thinks that if he gives it to them then they’ll stop breeding extremists.
Iraq is a marshall plan for the mideast. Learn to deal with it.
Bush has it, and congratulations
dudette, thank you very much!
i’ll have my “dude” (husband) respond later.
anyway, to say that americans don’t have a problem with arabs/muslims, is to bury your head in the sand. the fact that we don’t abduct them off of the streets and cut their heads off doesn’t mean we don’t have a problem with them. all of western civilization has a problem with them!
just look at the latest news from europe!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3974179.stm
Common Decency
Thanks for standing up for Mahmood, Mark.
Our man could have gotten away with it if only he had left out “filthy”.
I wasn’t even sure what “miscegenator” meant. It sounded too much like something from a Shrub stump speech. Well it’s not. And people, I am SO sorry I looked it up.
Head on back to your Klan meeting, leave the rest of us non-Aryans alone!
Re: Bush has it, and congratulations
You are the only one who has talked of a Marshall Plan for the Middle East. It won’t work.
Europe already had a trained workforce and population familiar with democracy after WWII. That is the hard part, developing the human capital for a strong economy. They just needed the capital to give them the factories and tools to do what they already knew how to do.
Iraq does not have a trained workforce by Western standards, though it’s good by Middle Eastern standards. If you dump Marshall Plan sized bucks willy nilly on Iraq, you’re watering sand.
Twenty billion bucks may sound like a lot to an individual, but it’s not enough to turn a national economy around. That’s only $800 per Iraqi. It’s not bad as seed money to get a few industries going, but the real money for the Iraqis will come from their own oil industry, once it is refurbished.
However, your main idea is right that economic development will drain the poverty swamp that breeds terrorists. That ultimately needs to be the goal for Iraq. Unfortunately, there are ample terror swamps next door in Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.
Steve
Re: Common Decency
More misinformation. BT, don’t you know that George Bush’s brother, Jeb, the current governor of Florida, is married to a Mexican woman, Columba Garnica, whom he met while studying in Mexico. They have three brown-skinned children: George P., Noelle and Jeb, Jr. In the eyes of a racist of the old Southern school, that would make his brother a miscegenator.
Steve
Re: Bush has it, and congratulations
you are not welcome here, please leave. you have no common courtesy and that makes you not worth debating with. and you hide behind the Anonymous tag, thinking probably that I couldn’t figure out who you are?
username: hunter
email: userabuser333@aol.com
IP: 198.81.26.10
ISP: AOL
Thank you for visiting.
Re(1): Bush has it, and congratulations
“You are the only one who has talked of a Marshall Plan for the Middle East. It won’t work.”
I am just the only one to choose the marshall label. The more popular label is neocon. If you go back and review public records from the summer of 2002 the neocons were being openly frank about their long term plans. Then Bush went and called it “a crusade”. After that, the information stopped flowing. Plan stayed the same and every action & inaction in Iraq has been consistent with thier 2002 goals.
If you like “neocon plan” better than “marshall plan for mideast” then feel free to use it. A rose by any other name.
Re: Bush has it, and congratulations
[quote]we also don’t like how other countries have tried to influence our elections. we don’t mind hearing your opinions, but thats all we want (or don’t want) to hear from you. [/quote]
“We”? Guess you consider yourself the Great One Brain of all America, huh?
Re(1): Common Decency
Steve….
you missed the part where I said
[quote]Well it’s not.[/quote]
This isn’t about the Bush family, of whom many accusations can be made, but bigotry isn’t one that even I believe could stick.
This is about someone making an malignant remark that has no place in a civilized forum among civilized participants.
I’m sure you’ll agree with me on that
Bush has it, and congratulations
Is Canada on the axis of evil? Oh! I had no idea. But everybody around here seems normal…..they must be hiding their evilitis really well ….. those sneaky bastards.
When the US liberates Canada, how will they know who to shoot since Canadians look so much like Americans?
It’s all in a movie, no wait TWO movies!
First, all Canadians have beady little eyes and sing nasty little songs about things to do to your uncle (courtesy of South Park, The Movie)
Secondly, some overzealous border town local law enforcement will get arrested trying to get a five finger discount for some Labatt’s Blue sparking an international outrage.
And Canadians don’t care, as long all the expletives are bilingual. (yes please, I’ll have some Canadian Bacon)
Canadian War Plans Exposed!
Actually what’s going to happen is that Washingtonians find the Expos to suck even more in DC, and in a fit of rage, Congress will turn our guns north.
Re(2): Common Decency
BT,
If I repeated a false allegation against you and then discounted it, it’s rather a cheesy way of slandering without taking responsibility for it, dontcha think?
Steve
Re: Bush has it, and congratulations
We have not placed Canada on the Axis of Evil. It’s on the Axis of Annoying, which is reason enough to invade it. We don’t really want to shoot anyone, not with real bullets. Cap guns should do the trick. As for telling Canadians from Americans, well, we just wait until they get to the end of their sentences. If they finish with “Ay?”, blast ’em. We may inadvertently cap gun a few Minnesotans but then they can be kind of annoying, too, so what the heck.
This is an entirely justified invasion because as everyone knows, Canada is actually part of the United States. The paperwork just hasn’t gone through yet. We’re going to have to break up some of those big provinces, like Saskatchewan, because they are too hard to say. Maybe we’ll just call it Betty.
We’ll have to deport all those Quebecois back to France. That’s where they belong anyway.
Steve
Re: Bush has it, and congratulations
Patricians? PT, I know a lot of people who voted for Bush and not one fits that description. Take a good hard look at Mahmood’s election map. The interior of the US went completely for Bush. If you drive through Arizona or Illinois or Georgia, you don’t find patricians lounging by the pool of their mansions having servants bringing them a cool drink. You find working people paying bills and raising families.
Even on the coasts, where the Democrats won, it was the cities where Kerry drew the votes. If you look at individual counties of those states, the rural counties went for Bush. If you are looking for patricians, you might look in the big coastal cities where you can’t live well on less than $100,000 salary. You might find people like Ted Kennedy, certainly a patrician, and a rabid Kerry supporter.
Bush’s reelection reflects the popular will of ordinary people. The big city elites, who are out of touch with mainstream values, were defeated.
Steve
Re: Bush has it, and congratulations
Peace Taker,
The Americans aren’t ‘inflicting’ their politics upon you. Most of your problems are self-inflicted. The sooner you admit that the quicker you will come to solving them. If you really believe our military and economic power is being wielded over you, why don’t you actually do something about it, like reforming your political and economic systems, instead of complaining all the time? Playing the eternal victim keeps you in your own trap and accomplishes nothing.
Re: Ambivalent
Jasra, my dear,
Just for writing that you are pro-Bush, I forgive you all your sins. Not that you had that many or that big of sins, but nevertheless, they have all been expunged. You’re welcome.
I think you are confusing the American right and the Muslim right, which are certainly two entirely different schools of thought. I also see no embrace of Bin Laden by Iraqis, let alone a marriage. The Iraqis are repulsed by the foreign jihadis and their bloody rampage. Likewise, the Arab right’s efforts to deny individual liberties and rights to people is entirely different from the American right’s efforts to conserve individual liberties and rights.
Yes, we oppose expanding marriage to include same sex couples. We see heterosexual relationships and homosexual relationships as two entirely different creatures. It makes sense to extend medical benefits and such to the wives of workers when they are engaged in raising children. It does not make sense to extend the same benefits to a homosexual lover who is not employed. The proposal to extend marriage to include gay couples is basically an effort to squeeze unearned benefits from the government.
We are in favor of civil unions for same sex couples. Generally, we believe these two different kinds of relationships should be covered by different laws and each follow their own track. The Democrats have been dishonestly spinning our position as hatred of gays. This dishonesty in presenting their position is part of the reason they lost. They displayed contempt for those who disagreed with them rather than presenting reasons for their position. They tried to morally intimidate rather than persuade.
Steve
Re: Ambivalent
Jasra,
You misunderstand the meaning of “American political conservative”. There is a light-year of difference between middle-eastern “rightists” and American “rightists”. American political conservatives want limited government interference in people’s affairs, not quite the same as middle-eastern conservatives.
I would be very happy to see more conservatives on the Supreme Court. Government needs to be scaled back to its constitutional limits. It has become too big and too costly. American voters have finally realized that it does not serve them to have the government take care of their every need.
Semantics, my dear Steve, semantics
Steve ..
Forgive me father, for I have sinned … and thank you for absolving them in the name of Bush the father, Bush the son, and Cheney the holy ghost.
The point I am trying to make is the following. The topic of same sex marriages in the States is as controversial as the topic of state legislated child support laws in Bahrain that would not discriminate against mother or father. Even the mechanism of how to get there is controversial. It is a political hot potatoe.
Why? Because it goes against the existing ‘traditional values’ that we operate under. Exactly like why gay marriage goes against the ‘traditional values’ that you operate under.
You are a nation at war in Iraq. You vote for stability and anti terrorism. You want strength, you go back to God. We are an island in a region that is at war. We also ‘vote’ for stability. We want strength and certainity. We are also going back to God.
It doesn’t bode well for those of us who are agents for change. Who want evolution and not revolution. God is playing too much of a goddamn role in politics.
The question I have in my mind is the following. There is, in absolute terms, more democracy, more individual rights, more human rights, more accountability, more freedom in America than in any other country in the Middle East. I can understand why our region is turning to God. It is based on fear. Fear of the unknown in unstable times. Fear of not getting a job. Fear of not feeling adequate. Fear of not being able to live and honorable life.
What I dont understand is why Americans are feeling that same fear enough to justify the obessions with values? You have more civil rights than any other country in the world. You have a healthier economy than any other country in the world. The whole world runs on the greenback. Any other country with ur debt profile would have seen a higher devaluation in the dollar than we currently have. Zero risk is defined by your T Bill.
I cannot grasp the fact that the average midwest American feels the same amount of fear and trepidation that calls for God’s intervention that we find in this part of world. It boggles my mind.
That tells me that democracy hasnt worked. Because it failed to deliver education. Because if people really had perspective on life and the impermanence of life and politics – then there is absolutely no way that America would have let its whole value system crumble after one attack….
It pains me to see it. It pains me to see the the America, the land of the free, having self confidence that is skin deep. You dropped the ball. You started eye to eye, and you broke the gaze first!
How on earth do you expect the reform minded moderates in this part of the world to steer our political right back to the middle and the left, if you werent able to??? How?
Re(1): Ambivalent
Boojum ..
I never stated that your rightists and ours are the same. If I did, then I apologize.
But, the battle that your moderates face against your rightists is exactly the same that our moderates face against our rightists .. it is a battle of going against conventional wisdom that is steeped in ‘values’. In fact, it is easier in your case because you have the Constitution to determine limits, and you fight the battle through legislation. We dont have those tools or limits. It is harder for us. And yet .. look what happened to you!!
(As for conservatives on the Supreme Court .. doesnt that also mean that Roe v Wade could also be overturned? (In addition to downscaling Gov’t to its consitutional limits?) )
Re: Semantics, my dear Steve, semantics
Jasra,
Religion in America is not fear based. America has always been a very religious country. Unlike Europe, religion never created wars or strife here. You are trying to draw a comparison between religion in the middle-east and religion in the US and that is impossible.
The US is not a perfect society. The popular culture has become very vulgar. Any parent will tell you how difficult it is to keep their children from absorbing the trash broadcast on TV. The “values� issue that affected the election was really a statement that the pendulum has gone too far in one direction. It has nothing to do with 9/11. It is a social trend that began in the 1960s, driven by social liberals, of which Kerry and Clinton are seen as being members.
Re(2): Ambivalent
Jasra,
Our moderates have their “values� too, not all of which are in the best interests of the public. Each party on the political spectrum believes their values are the correct ones and the ones that should act as the law of the land. You are quite correct in that our constitution sets limits, but what about the issues the constitution does not address? This question occupies our politics endlessly.
You are saying that it is a bad thing that the US population has moved rightward, because you equate this with religious rigidity. This is a misunderstanding. Political conservatives are not the same as religious conservatives, though they often vote for the same camp. Political conservatives want smaller government, less regulation, and freer markets. Generally, so do religious conservatives, but they also want sway in other areas, for example, the education curriculum.
I don’t think conservatives on the Supreme Court will overturn Roe V Wade. Most Americans want abortion restricted, not outlawed. The dispute on when life begins still rages and until we have a conclusion, legal abortion will remain, even as increasing numbers of Americans disapprove of it.
Bush has it, and congratulations
I wish everyone would remember that while 58.6 million Americans voted for him, 55.1 million did not. In other words, a very sizable minority — almost the majority of Americans — choose someone else.
George Bush’s powers are limited, and so is his time in the White House. He gets four more years and that’s it. He’s got a mandate to lead us, but agreeing with him and the conservative wing of the Republican Party is not required. I hope he makes good use of his time and our resources during his second term. But whatever happens, I know that I’ll always disagree with many of his policies.
Re(2): Ambivalent
I’d say the parallels you see and the points you are making are valid.
Could Roe v. Wade be overturned? Possibly, though I hope not. It’s something that many conservatives desperately want to happen, that’s for sure. As for cutting back on government size and services: well, oddly enough everybody wants to pay less to the government, but no one wants to get less from the government.
Bush didn’t veto one spending bill in his first term, don’t be surprised if he doesn’t during his second term.
Bush has it, and congratulations
Dear Mahmood,
You say:
“but I cannot but have pity on the Americans at the moment, they have such a fractious country, such a polarized society that it would be difficult for them to realistically agree on anything for the next 4 years…. ”
Did you know that this is the first time since 1988 that a president wins the election with more than 50% of the popular vote? Not even “almighty Clinton” was able to surpass the 50% mark either of the times he ran and won! That tells me the country is not as divided as it might seem from the outside. Also, a nice gain of 4 seats in the Senate and several in the House are further proof that the country is not as divided as you say. If I remember correctly, it was also 1988 the last time the same party held majorities in both the Senate and the House, and had a president in office. I think this is a BIG win for the US, and a wake up call for the rest of the world: could they have been wrong about American way of thinking? Or, could the news media be blamed for the disparity?
There is a lot of talk about moral values post election day in the US right now. They say it is the moral issues that have won this election, not the economy and not Iraq. Take a look at the map, and wonder why the whole center of the US is a sea of red…The people of the US have spoken. Their message is clear: “We LIKE our ‘cowboy’ president. We LIKE the way he is heading the country. And we AGREE with his values.”
Iraq, Afganistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti…all will have a page in future history books. We are too close to be able to see clearly now. I am sure there were some that thought going to Europe and Japan back in the 1940’s was a mistake. Maybe they were right! Had we not gone, there would probably not be today’s Japan and Germany, and at least, our American cars would not have to compete with the BMW’s and Hondas!! 😉
P! (from Bolivia)
Re: Bush has it, and congratulations
Almost, but not quite. Kerry was about 3% short of the majority.
Joan, the major difference between Republicans and Democrats is that we don’t demand you agree with us.
Steve
Re(3): Ambivalent
Joan,
That’s true what you say about government services but, unfortunately people don’t understand there are limits to the federal treasury. Alan Greenspan has already given two warnings on the need to reform social security. Bush’s spending is outrageous – I don’t know how my generation is going to afford the $540 billion medicare drug plan.
Abortion will probably disappear by itself in another 50 years. Less and less doctors are going into the business and increasingly Americans are finding it incompatible with their own personal values. Except for cases involving the mother’s life or similar, the market demand for abortion will end up shrinking away.
Bush has it, and congratulations
The “real” October Surprise wasn’t Osama, or the silly Iraq ordnance nonsense, but Chief Justice Renquist’s cancer. This brought the question of the judiciary to the immediate attention of American cultural conservatives. The President’s most enduring power in the American system is the ability to fill vacancies in the federal judiciary, which (among other things) legally interprets the Constitution. For both good and ill, a strategy of the Civil Rights movement has been to use the judiciary to impose “rights” that would not easily pass in a democratic fashion.
It was clear that homosexual rights advocates were going to use this same strategy to impose gay marriage. Renquist’s illness meant that this concern was front and center, and got religious and other cultural conservatives to the polls in record numbers.
United States of Canada
Everybody look here
[url]http://www.urbanvancouver.com/blog/8[/url]
priceless!
Re: Ambivalent
The US does not expect or desire for Iraq or any other Arab nation to go either right or left. It’s none of our business and we just really don’t care what they do. We just want to see them have a government that does as the people choose. And we would like to see it done in such a fashion that the people are free to change thier minds at some future time.
Americans have many gods and many different views on violence, crime, promiscuity, ethics, and morality. The only view that all americans share is that government is a slave of the people. It is for the people, by the people, of the people. We see no Arab government that meets this most basic criteria. And so, after 9/11 we chose to forcibly install one in Iraq. It is backed with sufficient money to rebuild the country and the money is given freely with no request that it be repaid.
They may do with their country as they wish. We only require that it is what the people of Iraq wish. No more dictators, let the people speak for themselves.
Re(1): Ambivalent
Not so sure about that. Even a casual observer of the Middle East would expect any Arab state to tilt left. Maybe they will need to crash and burn their economies before they shake off all those stupid socialist ideas they have accumulated. And I don’t expect any Arab democracy to be a slave to its people. I’d be delighted if it just followed its people’s advice most of the time in the big things.
Steve
Religion in US versus Europe
One thing that foreigners don’t get about religion in the US is that, unlike Europe, religion is not an “institution” here. Preachers, ministers, priests, and other religious figures have to compete in an open, entrepreneurial environment, and aren’t on the payroll of the State. Religious life in Europe is dying for the same reason that economic life in Europe is dying: the suffocating stranglehold of the State bureaucracy.
In the US, if you want to set up a church, mosque, synagogue, Hindu temple, etc, you have to buy or rent space (many churches are in rented buildings), get a congregation, and raise enough money from your congregation to pay for your building, your salary, and any good works your church wants to do as part of its mission. Other than not requiring taxes, the government won’t give you a red cent.
Since religion in the US is subject to “market discipline”, as well as market diversity, you get successes and failures: bad preachers and ministers have to close their churches, which are taken over by better ones – or simply razed to the ground by commercial property investors who build malls or whatever. Well-run churches that succeed in their religious missions grow and prosper. As usual, socialists who feel entitled to suck at the teat of the State find this profoundly unseemly and wrong, but it works far better than any scheme they can come up with.
Bush has it, and congratulations
The Patricians have done it again then. Led by their mentally challenged excuse for a leader, in a fanfare of style over content, the worlds most arrogant nation prepares to inflict their politics on us for another 4 years.
That rant by Anon should remind us that American society is full of intolerant biggots with less intelligence than their leader, if that’s possible. But this is their time. They continue to stomp over the world and international law, unopposed. The muscle their military and economic power wields over us is a sad fact of life in 1425(H). The only glimmer of hope that I can see is that, because of the accelrated speed of international communications and virtual real time information all over the planet,history should unfold faster now than at any time, and, in that all Empires eventually collaps, the demise of this Empire should also occur at an accelrated rate. The American experiment has a shelf life, I only hope their society turns on itself with the same grace they inflict their “Dream” on the rest of us.
Bitter? me? Nah.
Hey your heating bills are going to be bit pricey this year, what with oil at 50 bucks a barrel, how many corn dogs could you stuff into yourselves if it was $100/brl?
Ooh, perish the thought. We’ll just shut up and be good Arabs and we promise to try to be faithful subjects and pay homage to that slippery dullard you call leader.
Re: Religion in US versus Europe
Sorry to reply to my own comment, but I’m sure someone will wonder about “blue” areas, which are supposed to not be so religious. But even the bluest blue ares in the US still have thriving religious communities of the sort that are hard to find in Europe: Berkeley, CA (aka The People’s Republic) has more churches and other religious organizations per capita than any city in America, and even Hollywood has a fair amount of religion. You will find the sort of dry, intellectual agnosticism that dominates Europe in some parts of the US, but it is relatively rare. Even American athiests tend to be rather “religious” about it 🙂
Don’t Stay Away
PM,
I hope you don’t really intend to stay away from the U.S. America belongs to all Americans, not to any particular president or party or group.
Re: Religion in US versus Europe
Religion in Europe is dying because most Europeans today do not find it credible anymore. It’s as simple as that. Most of us regard the Bible as about as believable as The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, and rather less interesting. It’s got nothing whatsoever to do with bureaucracy.
[Modified by: Ash (Ash) on November 05, 2004 12:25 AM]
Ambivalent
Well ..
I have my 2 fils on this ..
As a reform minded Arab, I am pro Bush. He has, by deafult, or by design, managed to shake up our world and our conventional wisdom enough to force us all to take stock regarding where we are going and how we are going to head there.
As an Iraqi empathizer, I am anti Bush. Because one does not have grand plans for a war without having even grander plans for a peace.
As an American spiritually, I would be worried sick about the fact that this campaign was won on values. I would be worried about what that would mean for the fabric of America and what America wants to stand for.
Net net .. Bush was voted for by the majority of the American people. Yes, they are all going to the political right. And, UbL was also supported by the majority of moslem extremists known to you as the jihadis. Yes, they are all going to their political right.
Bush divorced Iraq and Saddam, and married Iraq to UbL.
Bush, and a largely republican House and Senate are going to be nominating supreme justices. The beacon of freedom is going to be tested in the light of a strong anti free conservative wave.
Mary Cheney, the gay daughter, was on stage with Dick and Lynn. But she was carrying her nephew. What is the message? The message is that its ok to be gay as long as you dont politicize it and you are seen to be upholding a traditional view of marriage. Bush and the republican party actively oppose same sex marriage. The campaign was won on values. Where is America going with this?
My point is .. Americans need to realize that the political and societal cost in the Arab world for fighting for personal effects law is EXACTLY the same as fighting for the right to gay marriage in America. The traditional values that govern the US in terms of conservatism and the political conservatism is exactly the same as the traditional values that govern us here in terms of patriarchy and religious conservatism.
If you are going to the right in a democratic environment based on values and an overseas war (that the majority of you dont feel), then how do you expect us to go to the left in a fledgling evolution of a tribal system based on patriarchy and religion?
If you couldnt do it, how do you expect us to?
Re: Semantics, my dear Steve, semantics
JJ
I think you might find this interesting. One could argue God doesn’t play as big a role in politics as some might think if this can happen in Texas.
Nov. 4, 2004, 2:44PM
Gay Hispanic woman elected Dallas sheriff
No Democrat has held the post since the 1970s
By BOBBY ROSS JR.
Associated Press
DALLAS – One-time migrant farm worker Lupe Valdez made history this week when she became the first woman and the first Hispanic elected Dallas County sheriff, not to mention the first Democrat to win the post since the mid-1970s.
She also is openly gay.
The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a political action committee that endorsed Valdez and trained her on answering questions related to her sexual orientation, hailed her as the “first-ever Latina lesbian sheriff.”
“I can imagine my mom crying for joy last night as this happened,” Valdez said Wednesday, a day after defeating Republican Danny Chandler.
Canadian War Plans Exposed!
Ok….I have one more question. Once Canada is liberated what will you do with our prime minister (Paul Martin)? Will you send him to the same jail sell Saddam is in right now and feed him American muffins. Saddam said that he really likes American muffins, Paul Martin can straighten him out and teach him that muffins are Canadian. He might teach him to each bacon too.
Re(3): Religion in US versus Europe
Ash,
Religions come and go and the non-committed are the most partial to new beliefs. The masses stopped believing in Zeus and Mithra and Odin because they found Jesus more credible. The next religion will introduce new deities and/or ultimate realities people will take as more credible than Jesus. Take, for example, the New Age movement that is gaining adherents in the US and Europe. Human nature doesn’t change. It hungers for spiritual truth, scientific literacy notwithstanding.
Re(1): Religion in US versus Europe
Ash: “Religion in Europe is dying because most Europeans today do not find it credible anymore. It’s as simple as that. Most of us regard the Bible as about as believable as The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, and rather less interesting.”
Well, no one likes to be bored. Even by their religion. That’s why, as Foobarista points out, retail religion in America, in responding to market preasures, continues to evolve and thrive whereas wholesale religion in Europe is dying out.
Re(4): Religion in US versus Europe
You European boneheads.
Pick a God, any God. They’re all good.
Religion isn’t about God. Religion is about giving people a foundation onto which they will build their society and culture. Europe has been losing its identity in equal measure to it’s loss of religion. Sometimes you Europeans are so self-righteous and arrogant that you fail to realize even the most basic things.
Re(3): Religion in US versus Europe
Ash,
Thanks for telling us about the Enlightenment. We dumb Americans had never heard of it. We still thought the Earth was square.
Ash, baby, let me clue you in. Not all of us Americans believe the Bible either. There are a lot of us that think it’s a great book, even a great work of literature (think King James version), but don’t buy the miracle business.
However, we think the values transmitted by churches are pretty good, when expressed in moderation. There is really no good substitute for the churches and synagogues and even the mosques. So we support them. For example, one of my high school girlfriends is an atheist, but she teaches in a parochial school and has no conflict with it. I’m an atheist too but I support religion as generally a good thing which ties the community together and does good work.
The Europeans have a lot of fun travelling into the American hinterlands and reporting on the Christian fundamentalist snake handlers and evangelicals jabbering in voices, but they make the error of generalizing that to the entire population.
If you don’t think marketing is the issue, then you have never been a single man in a Southern city. Every Baptist church has an intensely active singles program. If you want to meet a dozen cute girls in an hour, then you will gladly accept the invitation of a Baptist girl trying to save your soul so that you can show up in a room in the back of the Baptist church full of two hundred single women in their Sunday best looking for a date. I can’t stand the Baptists and I went.
When is the last time the European Catholic bureaucracy set you up with a smoking hot babe? I’ll bet if they did, there would be a riot of young men trying to squeeze through the door of the local churches.
Steve
Re(2): Religion in US versus Europe
As I’ve already said, religion is dying in Europe because no one believes in it any more. Since the 16th Century a succession of scientific discoveries, from the solar centric universe to evolution, and historical analysis of the origins of various religions has made it impossible for any but the most credulous to accept the claims made by the authors of supposedly “holy” texts. Marketing and bureaucracy are not the issues; credibility is the issue.
Re: Don’t Stay Away
JCJ,
Don’t worry, honey. The anti-Bushers just say that stuff, they don’t really mean it. They may claim they’re headed for France or Ireland if Big Bad Bush is elected, but they never make it to the ticket counter. After all the hoohaw has died down, you’ll see them in the line next to you at McDonald’s in Suburbia, USA, ordering their Happy Meal.
Steve
Re: Semantics, my dear Steve, semantics
Jasra,
You’re spinning this argument pretty hard.
Kerry represents a lot of things ordinary Americans reject. The whole war protester thing was popular back in the 1960s but in retrospect most people don’t look favorably on those who trashed the troops and America. He represents a set of leftist values that runs counter to those of most ordinary Americans and also seems passe.
While there is a substantial religious population, which burns most intense in the South, this was not an election driven by religion. The coverage of the religious populations is overemphasized in the media, probably because journalists are liberals who see fundamentalist Christians as their political opponents.
My own view is that the Beslan atrocity was the turning point in the election. It wasn’t hard for millions of American moms to see the same thing happenning in their local schools. When it came right down to it, they may have liked the game Kerry was talking, but they just didn’t trust him to keep the terrorists out of their local schools.
Steve
Re(5): Religion in US versus Europe
I’d favor some gods over other gods. The Aztecs would carve the hearts out of their prisoners for Quetzocatl, fling their bodies down the stairs of their pyramids, mount their skulls on vast racks, saw off the limbs to eat, and feed the guts to zoo animals. Sometimes they would flay women alive and the priests would wear their skins. I don’t like that religion. It’s far too messy. Quetzocatl seems like a rather bloody god.
The Thuggee of India strangled thousands of people per year to honor Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction. Kali seems like a pretty bloody god, too.
Ancient Turks worshipped the she-god Cybele, which they brought to Rome. The novice priests would spend years working themselves up to the moment when they would make themselves like Cybele, castrating themselves on Cybele’s altar then running as far as they could before they passed out, throwing their phallus through the nearest open window. Needless to say, I won’t be worshipping Cybele anytime soon nor do I want a Cybelian temple within walking distance of my home.
So I’d disagree that all gods are good and beneficial to mankind. Some are. Some aren’t. The jury is still out on Allah.
Steve
[Modified by: Steve The American (Steve) on November 05, 2004 07:33 PM]
Re(5): Religion in US versus Europe
Ash,
Despite what the lefty media reports in Europe, creationism is not taught in the public schools in the US. Most people know its nonsense. Most devout Christians accept evolution, though they try to spin it as a divine mechanism. You continue to commit the European error of overgeneralization from the extremes of Americans.
The mainstream values to which I refer is that you should do unto your neighbor as you would have done unto you, that you should support your community, that you should be honest in your dealings with other people, etc. Religious institutions are generally good at explicitly promoting those values.
The original poster has a point that European religion is too stodgy. Many of the fundamentalist churches here in the states are anything but stodgy. They are jumping. The services are lively. The people are energized.
Steve
Re(6): Religion in US versus Europe
I’m far from being a lefty. Do try to stop stereotyping for just 5 minutes of your life. You could also try abandoning your absurd generalisations about “Europeans” generalising about Americans. Can you not even see the irony there? And that smiley, Steve, that was a clue: it signified a light-hearted remark.
Religion in Europe is “stodgy” precisely because so few people believe in it and most of those who still do are of the older generation looking gloomily towards the tomb and wondering if perhaps a spot of praying might come in handy when they cross the River Styx. The lack of energy in religion in Europe is the product of disbelief, not the other way round. Countless American evangelicals have attempted to bring their “jumping”, “lively” and “energised” version of religion to Europe. They win a few happy-clappy converts. The rest of us just think they are bonkers, but good luck to them; whatever keeps them happy is fine, but we have urgent appointments elsewhere, ta very much …
Bush has it, and congratulations
Since the election, I have heard nothing on the TV except discussion about Americans voting for W because of morals. This because some dumb exit poll showed it was the first concern for 22% of voters; so does that equate to religion? What about the rest of us that morals were a nonissue? I think everyone has got the spin wrong just because they need an excuse for W not getting his butt beaten.
Are we afraid after 9/11 and OBL’s latest tape scared the crap out of us, so we turned to religion/moral values? No way. We know we are going to get hit, and the first time Kerry said something nice about Israel, the same thing would have happened. It has nothing to do with religion; that is the press and the world’s take because it conveniently can be used because of the God president.
This answer is pretty simple. America has played the games and played by the world’s rule for a very long time, and we frankly don’t believe in you anymore.
Re(7): Religion in US versus Europe
I called the media in Europe lefty, not you. Don’t be so eager for me to stereotype you. I’ll get around to it.
I can see the difference between European style religion and American religion without leaving town. Catholic services are exercises in severe boredom. If I filmed a mass I attended as a teenager, it could be substituted for a mass I attended now, if I ever attended.
Those old churches, established a hundred years ago by the tide of European immigrants, are slowly closing shop. Many keep their doors open even with scanty attendance through the investments made by a century of bequests.
The old time Protestant services are a little better, but still deadly dull.
The fundamentalist Christian churches, by contrast, are hopping. Irritating and annoying, but energized.
You might consider that the lack of energy in religion in Europe is part of a general lack of energy in Europe. It seems a rather dissipated culture, with its best days behind it.
Steve
Bush has it, and congratulations
Just a correction of something I saw waaaay upthread: The Roe v Wade decision was read by Justice Blackmun, a conservative Nixon appointee. Yes, Rehnquist opposed, but if you check the records, the majority included other conservatives.
Given that some of us remember the days when young women died in illegal or self inflicted abortions and nobody wants to go back to those days, I’d say that Roe v Wade won’t be overturned any time soon. GWBush has already stated publicly that he won’t go near the subject as “America is not ready for that”.
Personally it’s not something that I would do or encourage but I don’t believe in forcing my values on someone else who’s values or situation may be different.
As to the topic of religion: If it enables people to live peacefully with each other and inculcates good values in its adherents, that’s just fine with me.
One more thing: [url=http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/vote2004/countymap.htm] Here’s [/url] a county map of the U.S. and how each county voted.
Re: Religion, Schmeligion
Jasra,
[quote]1. A significnatly large number of Americans are quite religious and quite purtian. This does transalate into a political modus opereandi. (Look at the US public reacted to the Bill Clinton/ Monica Lewinsky scandal vs the French public’s reaction and acceptance of Mitterand and his illegitimate daugter Mazarine).[/quote]
A significant number but not a majority. Yes, their politics follows their religion. However, you do not need to be religious to object to the President having sex in the Oval Office, a historic spot, on public time with an intern, also being paid by the public, in a public office. Is it too much to ask for them to rent a room to do their private business? Jasra, would that kinda shennanigans be ignored at a private company? Generally, in the business world that would get you fired. It is a measure of the lower standard of government that Clinton was not fired.
To add to the injury was that Monica, who had no discernible skills, was paid $90,000 in salary and benefits from the public coffers just to assure the President of her sexual services. That makes a joke of everyone who pays taxes. And Clinton lacked the guts to come clean about the whole mess. He chose to lie instead. It worked for him before.
There is plenty for a secular person to hold in contempt here. The fact that the French think it would be acceptable is another reason to hold it all in contempt.
[quote]2. Europeans are much warier of God iterfering in their politics because they paid the price of doing so in blood and tears. Much more so than the Americans. [/quote]
It’s true. The Europeans have had a distinctly inferior history to ours in this regard. They have had plenty of wars and pogroms over religion. We have not, nor is there any chance of it. We regard religion as good in private but when it intrudes too far into politics, it brings ridicule upon itself by the overwhelming majority.
[quote]3. America is only 200 years old. God has been around way before that. America is still like a young woman at the peak of her power and prowess who does not have the wisdom of Europe in terms of what age and experience and religion can do to the lines of the face. [/quote]
The idea that Europe is wiser than the US is ridiculous. Europe spent the last century engaged in massive tribal warfare with high tech weapons. How wise was that? Do you see America setting up death camps anywhere? Yet Europe did it in WWII and, not learning from its mistakes, did it again in the Balkans just a few years ago. Were it not for American troops, the Europeans would be butchering each other even now.
Europe is the biggest engine of bad ideas in history. How wise was Marxism? How wise was National Socialism? Fascism? The idea that any of those was wise or a positive contribution to the world’s intellect is just plain crazy.
[quote]4. The Cathoic Church was at one point the biggest, most powerful, and richest institution in the world. Hence, it has always played a significant role from behind the scenes. Look at their position on birth control and population control. Look at Aids spending. How can you treat a problem if you dont acknowledge that it exists?? [/quote]
The Catholic Church doesn’t develop cures for medical conditions. America does. The funding is about two billiond bucks per year, fifteen billion bucks budgeted over five years. What country can match that?
[quote]5. Coming from an area where religion is so intertwined in what we do on a day to day basis, I will say that when people are scared, they turn to old values and traditions. And the majority of people in the States are turning to God because of uncertainity and fear. … America got a wake up call from 9-11, and it got scared by the destructive powers that were circulating around them. America responded by the very natural reaction of closing the shades some more and putting in black out blinds. Dangerous. Just cause you can’t see it doesnt mean that it ain’t there. [/quote]
Jasra, religion in the US has its own momentum independent of outside events. Terror has little influence on it. Most people like the social aspect of it. Church dinners and ice cream socials convince far more Americans to join a church than skyjackings. Americans, more and more, want to join a community outside their workplace. Churches provide that.
[quote]6. I actually have significnat respect for the French banning the hijab in public schools. You know why? Because girls under the age of 18 cannot think for themselves. …[/quote]
Hmmm. I think eighteen year old girls are natural contrarians. French Muslim girls want to wear the hijab because it’s forbidden. If wearing the hijab was mandatory, they would fight it.
[quote]OK. Enough ranting. As you can tell, Ramadan is driving me nuts.[/quote]
Whatever you do, don’t think about strawberry cheesecake.
Steve
Re(8): Religion in US versus Europe
[quote]I can see the difference between European style religion and American religion without leaving town. Catholic services are exercises in severe boredom.[/quote]
I’m starting to get this idea that you know nothing whatsoever about Europe. The Mediterranean countries are predominantly Catholic. Greece is Greek Orthodox. Northern Europe is predominantly Protestant, like the US.
[quote]The fundamentalist Christian churches, by contrast, are hopping. Irritating and annoying, but energized[/quote]
So what?
[quote]You might consider that the lack of energy in religion in Europe is part of a general lack of energy in Europe. It seems a rather dissipated culture, with its best days behind it. [/quote]
Europe isn’t “a” culture. It’s a continent that consists of dozens of sovereign states, each with its own history, culture, language etc. This habit of yours of treating a continent as if it were one country is really very lazy.
As for Europe’s best days … which would those be? The days when we had plagues and civil wars? The days when we rode around the world conquering, invading and colonising other countries? The days when millions died in two World Wars? The days when the ruling classes had it good and the peasants had boils?
I like America, a country I’ve visited happily on many occasions. But I do wonder why people like you – and you are not typical of the warm, curious-minded and open-hearted Americans that I’ve met – have such huge chips on your shoulders. Here you are, determined to pick an “America versus Europe” fight with me, despite the fact that none of my messages slag off America and I would never in a million years describe myself as “European”; I’m British. So where does this great insecurity of yours come from? Why are you so eager to seek offence that you seem even able to pull it out of thin air?
Bush has it, and congratulations
Ash,
All the different flavors of European Christianity are sluggish, like old boats that can hardly move because their hulls are loaded with barnacles. My point is that the American variants of the old European religions display the same traits.
My disdain for Europe comes from the endless stream of nitwit abuse which flows out of Europe to the US. We’re sick of it. However, since you’re British, I’ll cut you some slack. You did stick with us in the recent crunch and that does count for a lot.
Steve
Re(1): Religion, Schmeligion
[quote]Do you see America setting up death camps anywhere? Yet Europe did it in WWII and, not learning from its mistakes, did it again in the Balkans just a few years ago. [/quote]
You really are the most humungus cretin. “Europe” most certainly did NOT set up death campsI. Nazi Germany set up death camps.
See if you can get this into that bone you call your head. America is a country. Europe is a continent consisting of many different and distinct countries. A Swede is not an Italian. A German is not an Irishman. A Czech is not a Greek. A Briton is not a Swiss. If they are, then you must be a Canadian.
Re: Bush has it, and congratulations
Don’t bother cutting me any “slack”, Steve. Americans like you are a big part of why all Americans get tarred by the same brush. Not only are you astonishingly ignorant of history, culture and geography, but you appear to be proud of your ignorance.
If you were the only American I’d ever encountered, you certainly wouldn’t be convincing me that the “endless stream of nitwit abuse” is wrong. Fortunately I know plenty of Americans who are far better educated than you, so I know that your nitwittedness is entirely your own and not shared by all Americans.
Religion, Schmeligion
I am normally not one to generalize, but in the spirit of a sunny Saturday in Bahrain, I shall do exactly that …
1. A significnatly large number of Americans are quite religious and quite purtian. This does transalate into a political modus opereandi. (Look at the US public reacted to the Bill Clinton/ Monica Lewinsky scandal vs the French public’s reaction and acceptance of Mitterand and his illegitimate daugter Mazarine).
2. Europeans are much warier of God iterfering in their politics because they paid the price of doing so in blood and tears. Much more so than the Americans.
3. America is only 200 years old. God has been around way before that. America is still like a young woman at the peak of her power and prowess who does not have the wisdom of Europe in terms of what age and experience and religion can do to the lines of the face.
4. The Cathoic Church was at one point the biggest, most powerful, and richest institution in the world. Hence, it has always played a significant role from behind the scenes. Look at their position on birth control and population control. Look at Aids spending. How can you treat a problem if you dont acknowledge that it exists??
5. Coming from an area where religion is so intertwined in what we do on a day to day basis, I will say that when people are scared, they turn to old values and traditions. And the majority of people in the States are turning to God because of uncertainity and fear. We did the same here in the last 30 years because we didnt know how to deal with modernity. Go back to any old pictures of Bahrain, you will see our mothers and grandmothers hanging out in clothes that people wouldnt wear today. What happened? We got scared when we saw what happened in Iran and when we realized that the world was changing very fast around us .. we turned to religion. America got a wake up call from 9-11, and it got scared by the destructive powers that were circulating around them. America responded by the very natural reaction of closing the shades some more and putting in black out blinds. Dangerous. Just cause you can’t see it doesnt mean that it ain’t there.
6. I actually have significnat respect for the French banning the hijab in public schools. You know why? Because girls under the age of 18 cannot think for themselves. And if they are covering, then it is not because of a conscious aware choice. It is probably due to their parents not really sure of how to manage in a ‘foreign’ culture that they have now adopted as their home. So, good for them.
OK. Enough ranting. As you can tell, Ramadan is driving me nuts.
Re(4): Religion in US versus Europe
[quote]We dumb Americans had never heard of it. We still thought the Earth was square. [/quote]
🙂 Well, if you will insist on teaching Creationism in your schools as if it had some sort of credibility …
[quote]However, we think the values transmitted by churches are pretty good, when expressed in moderation.[/quote]
And which values would those be? Who gets to decide which bits are “pretty good” and which bits are too immoderate? You? Bush? David Koresh? Pat Robertson? Jerry Falwell? Michael Jackson?
[quote]The Europeans have a lot of fun travelling into the American hinterlands and reporting on the Christian fundamentalist snake handlers and evangelicals jabbering in voices, but they make the error of generalizing that to the entire population.[/quote]
haha, will that be all “The Europeans” in general generalising about the Americans in general? And please do point out to me where I in fact even mention Americans in my two posts on this topic. All I have stated is that religion is dying in Europe and that it is dying because most people simply do not believe in it any more. You may not like it, but it’s a fact. Deal with it.
Re(5): Religion in US versus Europe
[quote]Pick a God, any God. They’re all good.
[/quote]
In your humble opinion …
Re(4): Religion in US versus Europe
[quote]Human nature doesn’t change. It hungers for spiritual truth, scientific literacy notwithstanding. [/quote]
I agree with this, but religion and spirituality are not the same thing. Religion is what happens when spirituality gets institutionalised. And it’s that institutionalisation that is the source of so much mayhem and madness.
Re: Bush has it, and congratulations
[quote]What I see when I look at the red state/blue state maps is an exact replica of the division on the issue of slavery in 1860. [/quote]
tsk, tsk, tsk to even bring up the 1860’s and the issue of slavery as a reflection of today. Its shameful really, and one of the reasons that the democratic party is loosing its strength to resonate with voters. It is the same basic decisive arguments that I have been hearing since the election. Republican voters are racist. Republican voters are bigots. Republican voters are homophobes. We can keep going if you like with the insults and labels, but we know they are not true, don’t we?
The maps of the county returns show the truer picture of the election. Rural counties were more likely to vote republican than metropolis counties. Even in the great liberal bastion of California did this hold true. I don’t recall California being a pro-slavery state in the 1860’s, nor do I believe that rural voters are bigots as being suggested by many in the 2000’s.
BTW, lets not forget that the Republicans were the abolisionist. The Republicans were the anti- Jim Crow law party, and the southern Dems were the ones standing against MLK, not for him. It is very easy to create labels, but it is much harder to look inward as to the actual root cause of losing an election.
[quote]The morals, to me, seem the same: blue states want to see both sides, want what might be best for everybody. Red states want what they feel reflect their morals, their needs. [/quote]
I see, so Kerry wanted what is best for everyone, including a weak defense (not to get into Kerry’s voting record, as I only have so much time in the day), higher taxes on small business owners, giving our foriegn policy decisions over to the UN, a national program for health insurance with all that comes with that, and the list goes on and on.
Sorry, I just don’t see how these and other campaign promises were “best for everybody”. Afterall, many of these ideas and promises are based on class envy. With that in mind, you would think that they would resonate greater in the rural areas where poverty is more common (look it up please, I did so).
Perhaps, optimism is a better tool in rural areas while pessimism is a much greater tool for the urban areas. In this, I believe that the Republican messages resonate optimism, while the Democrats don’t.
[quote]How many Muslims, gays, terrorist targets are there in Paducah, Ketucky? [/quote]
Demographics for Paducah which shows more diversity than you suggest.
On top of the “bigoted minded” remark that you just made, let me remind you that terrorist have targeted other areas, such as Oklahoma City by ultra-right wing wackos, which seem to scar my nation’s psyche just a bit. Perhaps, there is some fear in Paducah that the same could happen there. Or perhaps as I remember in my military days, they have quite a few sons and daughters in the military and the Kerry message just didn’t resonate with safety and pro-military with these voters. Or maybe, just maybe, Bush spoke to these people and resonated to their ideas better than Kerry.
Anywho, I could on, but you just repeat yourself in that Republicans are homophobes and pro-slavery, while Democrats are pristine and pure as the driven snow, and rural areas have nothing to fear from terrorism, while urban areas are the only ones that lost friends and families on 9/11, so on and so on. Not really worth more statements.
One other thing, you state that you are poor. So am I, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to make more of myself. That doesn’t stop me from working hard for my slice of the American pie, and that doesn’t stop me from being an optimist about my future and my children’s future. If all we see is the negative, then that is where we ultimately limit ourselves.
Re: What kind of Muslim… er American are you
Jen, I think you need to move to Canada with Mahmood’s Alex, because your lack of tolerance is appalling. So the blue states only want to do what’s best for everybody, but the rest of America is selfish; your comments would suggest otherwise. Is there some reason you think your vote is more important than mine or anyone else in the country just because you live in a large city? According to you only the city dwellers practice tolerance because they are subjected to such diverse ethnic, religious and political community. Bull! I have lived in many different states and currently live in one of those blue states, rural one at that, and can find the same diversity in religion and ethnic make up as in the cities; and I find the same tolerance you speak of because that’s the way most Americans are .
“The fact that safe, cozy southerners and midwesterners have feelings of vengance when they didn’t have to witness those attacks and didn’t have power outages and worry about loved ones sickens me.â€?
This one sickens me, because you demean all those silly little rural Americans and their families that, in fact, did die in those attacks. How dare you?
“Now, thanks to the holy few, I have four, if not more, years of looking over my shoulder, eyeing every Arab for signs of a possible threat, feeling ill when I think of our foreign policies, and being emabarssed to travel abroad.� [/b]
Poor baby. No problem, Jen. Move to Canada cause you will fit right in with Alex. You want to believe the media spin about the religious right, go right ahead, but then they couldn’t even get the exit polls right could they. The fact of the matter is that record numbers of Americans, Democrats, Republicans, Independents etc., turned out for this election and participated in the process, and you seem to have a problem with that. That must be because you feel your life, your opinion and your vote should count for more than mine. Thank goodness there is a system in place to protect me from the Jens and Alexs of the world.
Re(1): Religion, Schmeligion
Steve,
The reason America didn’t spend the 20th Century fighting wars on its own territory was because by the end of the 19th Century you’d pretty much wiped out the natives, robbing them of their land and shooting those who resisted. I think in today’s parlance its known as genocide.
In fact, thanks to the bounties your government paid for killing natives you could make a lot of money out it. For instance, California in the 1850s paid a $5 bounty on every native man and woman killed, although naturally it was less for children. That’s not bad for those days.
Thought you’d pulled a fast one and got away with your bluster about American righteousness without this being brought up? Unlucky pal.
Re(2): Religion, Schmeligion
Scorpio
In all fairness the Candians had bountys as well on Indians. By no means does this make this “ok” but this was not just an “American” genocide issue. In fact at least until the year 2000 Canada still had a bounty for Indian scalps on the books…
Bounty On Indian Scalps To Be Reconsidered
March 31, 2000
——————————————————————————–
Canada will consider striking down a 244-year-old provincial law that offers hunters a bounty for Indian scalps, following complaints by native groups.
The Nova Scotia government has asked Ottawa to confirm that the 1756 proclamation by then-governor William Lawrence no longer has any force or effect.
“It’s a question of dignity. Nobody tends to think about stuff that happened two and a half centuries ago, but it’s still a sore point with our Mi’kmaq community and we feel it needs to be addressed, just on the question of dignity,” said Richard Perry, a spokesman for the Nova Scotia government.
“The minister states that it’s fairly obvious that in Canada, in the year 2000, laws today obviously prohibit the kind of hostile actions that took place here (in the 18th century).”
Nova Scotia’s government passed a resolution Tuesday to ask the federal government to negate the effects of the bounty, one of three passed by the British colonial government. The other two were formally repealed by Britain.
Perry said the resolution was adopted following complaints by Nova Scotia’s 13 Mi’kmaq native bands who were upset the law was still on the books. The resolution also invites the government to express its “sincere regrets over past hostilities.”
Nova Scotia must ask the federal government for guidance because the law came into effect before the present-day province existed and before Canadian Confederation in 1867.
[Modified by: Bonsaimark (Bonsaimark) on November 07, 2004 05:37 PM]
Bush has it, and congratulations
I live in one of those “costal citites” and I make under $50K a year. I moved here seven years ago from the midwest (Illinois, thankfully) so that I could experience something different, meet new people, take on a career.
What I see when I look at the red state/blue state maps is an exact replica of the division on the issue of slavery in 1860.
The morals, to me, seem the same: blue states want to see both sides, want what might be best for everybody. Red states want what they feel reflect their morals, their needs.
It is absoultely no suprise to me during this fear/moral issue election that EVERY major metropolis went for Kerry. Look again at that map. How many Muslims, gays, terrorist targets are there in Paducah, Ketucky?
People in the cities have to learn tolerance. It’s a prerequiste to moving here. All sorts of it: religious, political, ethical. We don’t all think alike, we worship different Gods, we have different deviances. Tolerance and trying to understand both sides of an issue (commonly refered to as “flip-flopping” here in the US) is a MUST.
The fact that the majority of this country thinks that Jesus will keep me safe in Manhattan while they wage an unjustified and poorly coordinated war elsewhere is frightening. The fact that safe, cozy southerners and midwesterners have feelings of vengance when they didn’t have to witness those attacks and didn’t have power outages and worry about loved ones sickens me. I do not know of one person here who lived through that event that did not come out of 9/11 looking for more insight into why the attacks happened. It made us think. It made the red states mad.
Now, thanks to the holy few, I have four, if not more, years of looking over my shoulder, eyeing every Arab for signs of a possible threat, feeling ill when I think of our foreign policies, and being emabarssed to travel abroad. That comingled with the memories of the fear, the smell, the shell-shocked look on my neighbor’s faces after the World Trade Center attacks… I see nothing but turbulance in our future.
And I am poor to boot!
I think this could be one of the biggest divides in US history. Any scholar of the civil war will tell you that the Confederacy thought their morals were just and the Union was over-educated and pompous. It’s the same divide, the same mindset, only now global and more important.
Bush has it, and congratulations
Okay. I admit I might have come off as slightly more bigoted than I intended. For that I apologize. Perhaps I live in a left wing vaccuum. But my no means do I believe that any one person’s vote is stonger, more meaningful, or more relevan tthan my own. Nor do I feel that mine should bear more weight.
I wish I could say this is a matter of me just being upset about “my guy” losing. But it isn’t. I don’t intend to move to Canada and haven’t entertained the thought. I am passionate about this issue because I love America, what sort of citizen would I be if I deserted it for such a simple reason? Americans have voted and I accept their decision. Agreeing with it is another thing altogether. If “my guy” did end up winning, I would not expect every republican to be satisfied with the result, either. Exit polls, or any other poll, to me mean nothing. I do not contest this election and am not crying fraud. I just feel that the entire coverage of the election ran like a Simpsons episode, and in the end, I think many more people voted on moral issues, personality, general likability than they did on issues. The important thing is that they voted.
“This one sickens me, because you demean all those silly little rural Americans and their families that, in fact, did die in those attacks. How dare you? ”
The comment you refer to was meant to reflect that people outside of Manhattan and Washington are dictating the safety precautions of those of us who were attacked, who still do not feel we are under adequate protection. Come on up to NYC sometime. You will see subways packed to the brim with commuters, sometimes up to four levels underground underneath Times Square – a massive complex of tunnels that go unprotected daily and could easily, if attacked, bring a massive economic center to it’s knees. Check out our Holland and Lincoln tunnels, that run under rivers and are only guarded by 3 or 4 men who occasionally stop to talk to every other unmarked van. The world saw a great highlight of our security for the Republican convention but as soon as the cameras left, so did the police. We are for the most part unprotected and people here still jump at every loud noise, still fear being contained in stopped subway cars, still watch out for ANYTHING out of the ordinary. Are you implying we are all just paranoid?
I will quote something from the Christian Science Monitor here: New York has seen its security funds dwindle from $222 million in 2003 to $62 million this year. Yet every “Code Orange” alert costs New York City an extra $5 million a week”
link: http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1014/p08s03-comv.html
I am sorry, I think this is backwards. I also feel that the main cause of these attacks are directly related to our foreign policies towards the Middle East as a whole, and superpower or not, we cannot continuously poke our noses in other another nation’s business. That is what started the whole mess. Kerry wants full international support on our foreign policy. Bush seems to only want some backup. It’s only a matter of time before we see suicide bombers here, and where will they strike? Not to downplay the residents of more rual areas (they make the country run just as much, if not more so, than we do) but honestly, they are more protected. If I lived in a rural area I would still be concerned about the day-to-day safety of all residents. Here’s one more link about the unequal allocation of funds, one especially important to New York (where we have seen up to 10 firehouses close to save money) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/10/eveningnews/main642697.shtml
I don’t think that Kerry necessaily KNOWS what’s best for everyone in this nation, but he is open for debate. Bush seems like he claims to know what is best for me. The man refuses to admit he’s made a mistake even. We cannot expect the world to just cave in to our will. Superpowers deminish when they get arrogant and sloppy.
And I am aware the south was primarily Democat before and during the civil war. But just to prove my point on the map, I will post it here: http://www.learner.org/biographyofamerica/prog10/maps/
Compare it to the map above.
The bottom line, I suppose, is that we will watch what the next four years brings and if the country is safer and more fiscally stable, “lefties” like me will be admitting we were totally wrong on everything. But I shudder to think what will happen if we “lefties” were right.
Re(3): Religion, Schmeligion
Thanks Mark – Americans/Canadians they’re exactly the same thing, surely?
Re(4): Ambivalent
Abortion wont dissappear. Even in Bahrain, where absitinence is supposedly the name of the game, we have abortions. The decision is to either regulate it for the safety of those involved, or continue the back alley cloak and dagger work.
How can you allow kids of 18 to die in a war, but not be able to drink, and not have an abortion if they choose to?
Dig deeper .. its about religion again ..
Re(2): Ambivalent
Steve babes ..
Have u been following the stated will of ‘our people’ in Bahrain. Segregation in Universities??
Sweetheart .. sometimes, the advice of ‘the people’ aint the right one to take. And, if the advice of ‘the people’ in Bahrain dictated foreign policy and religious issues .. then I can guarantee you that the US would not be very happy at all …
Democracy means education also ..
Re(1): Semantics, my dear Steve, semantics
That doesnt cut it. New York voted for Kerry. New York, who was hit with 9-11. who lost a lot of money and is spending alot more money on security .. voted for Kerry. New York, who got hit with a Beslan attack in its own borders, voted for Kerry. In fact, most of the States that have exposure to the rest of the world voted for Kerry.
There is a strong correlation between exposure (to the rest of the world) and Kerry voters, and ignorance (of the rest of the world) and Bush voters.
From a terrorism/ foriegn policy perspective Steve, neither Kerry nor Bush would have changed their policy in Iraq the next 4 years. The only difference is the way that they would have done it.
Marshall Plan
Hmmm.
Steve, you make a convincing argument that there was no Marshall Plan for Iraq based on the fact that there was (a) no functional civil society and (b) earmarked funds for Iraq aint enough…
So, pray, please tell us ignorant souls out here in the Middle East .. excatly how are we to believe that your intentions in Iraq are honorable ??!!
Re(1): Semantics, my dear Steve, semantics
Bullshit.
It is NOT a social trend that started in the 60’s by social liberals. It is the natural progression of a post war ethos.
And the pendulum is swinging because of 9-11. And the driving force is fear. Pure and simple.
The risk of being killed by a terrorist attack in the US today is significnatly less than it was being killed by an IRA terrorist attack in the UK during their heyday. And let me tell you, as an external visitor to both places, America has gone totally OTT.
And the real losers? The American people…
Naughty naughty
The jury is out on the Moslems, not on Allah.
History judged the Crusades on the Christians, not on Christ.
And History will judge Zionists based on their interpretaiton of the Torah, not on Moses.
Re(2): Religion, Schmeligion
Ash,
When the Slavs set up death camps again in the Balkans in the 1990s, why did the Europeans require the Americans to lead them to stamp this out? Why exactly were those death camps acceptable to Europeans until the Americans led you by the hand to put an end to them? Heck, the Dutch even helped load 8000 Bosnian Muslim civilians on buses to be driven to their deaths by the Serbs.
Why do the Europeans feel compelled to set up death camps every generation? Why don’t the Europeans feel compelled to snuff out these death camps when they are established? Why do the Europeans require America to demonstrate the right thing to do when evil arises in their own backyard?
Steve
Re(1): Bush has it, and congratulations
I’ll admit I’ve been too hard on you for slender reasons. Sorry. But you won’t find many Americans better educated than me. Your idea that anyone who disagrees with you is uneducated is part of the problem with liberals and Europeans.
Steve
Re: Bush has it, and congratulations
Jen,
[quote]I live in one of those “costal citites” and I make under $50K a year. I moved here seven years ago from the midwest (Illinois, thankfully) so that I could experience something different, meet new people, take on a career. [/quote]
Jen, you may be surprised to learn this, but you can achieve those same goals in most of America.
[quote]What I see when I look at the red state/blue state maps is an exact replica of the division on the issue of slavery in 1860. [/quote]
Jen, you need to go back to history class. Here is an electoral map of the 1860 election which precipitated the Civil War and here is an electoral map of the 2004 election. They are different, though, inexplicably, you find them the same.
One of the differences between the two “exact replicas” you find is that America in 1860 only had two thirds of the states it has today. Another difference is that the vote split north-south along the Mason Dixon line in 1860 while almost the entire interior of the US went Republican in 2004.
Your slanderous attempt to link Republicans to slavery under cover of a bogus history is one reason why the Democrats lose. You pose as better educated and enlightened, yet your arguments are mere rhetoric, logical fallacies, anti-intellectual.
[quote]The morals, to me, seem the same: blue states want to see both sides, want what might be best for everybody. Red states want what they feel reflect their morals, their needs.[/quote]
More nonsense. If your side wants to see both sides of the issue, why is it the party of political correctness, seeking to impose its rigid ideological position on every corner of the US. The liberals are foes of free speech, as demonstrated by their attempt to disrupt the convention and political meetings of the Republicans. Liberals demonstrated outside Fox to protest its conservative view. You see no such protests by conservatives outside CBS. The last thing liberals want is to examine both sides of the argument fairly. They shout down the conservative side whenever they can.
It is preposterous for you to claim that you want the best for everyone when liberals simply discount a large chunk of the population as ignorant or evil or rapacious in order to avoid thinking through their position and presenting it rationally.
[quote]It is absoultely no suprise to me during this fear/moral issue election that EVERY major metropolis went for Kerry. Look again at that map. How many Muslims, gays, terrorist targets are there in Paducah, Ketucky? [/quote]
You may be surprised to learn that there are quite a few major metropolises in the interior of the US. They didn’t vote for Kerry. The metropolises of California which voted for Kerry feel no terrorist threat. That’s an East Coast phenomenon.
And by the way, the lesson of Beslan is that everywhere is a legitimate terrorist target.
You may be surprised to learn that there are gays outside Manhattan. I’ve lived in most regions of the US. There are gays everywhere.
There is also a smattering of Muslims everywhere in the US. For example, there are Muslim summer camps in Iowa.
Your argument reeks of a sense of superiority that is based on false assumptions. The reason the Democrats won the coastal cities is that they have developed positions which make sense in the big city but make no sense in the rest of America.
[quote]People in the cities have to learn tolerance. It’s a prerequiste to moving here. All sorts of it: religious, political, ethical. We don’t all think alike, we worship different Gods, we have different deviances. Tolerance and trying to understand both sides of an issue (commonly refered to as “flip-flopping” here in the US) is a MUST. [/quote]
Was that Manhattan tolerance at work when liberals hunted down Republican representatives to the convention in New York when they went to shows and shouted vile names at them. Or when they held mass demonstrations that said Republicans weren’t welcome in NYC? Or when they hoisted signs that Bush was Hitler?
The fact is that big city liberals are some of the most intolerant people around. The politically correct ideology is a secular religion for them and those who don’t buy into it are treated like blasphemers or idolaters. If you were to express a conservative opinion in Manhattan you would be met with open scorn and ridicule. If you were to express a liberal opinion in the interior of American, you would be treated with Midwestern good manners, even if they thought you were crazy.
And please, don’t give me a lot of crap about how liberals don’t all think alike when I have seen them chanting the same slogan marching down the streets of DC like lemmings. Or Hitler Youth.
[quote]The fact that the majority of this country thinks that Jesus will keep me safe in Manhattan while they wage an unjustified and poorly coordinated war elsewhere is frightening.[/quote]
More nonsense, and incomprehensible nonsense at that. If stopping a madman dictator from slaughtering hundreds of thousands of his own people is not morally justified to you, then what is?
I might also point out that both Kay and Duelfer found covert laboratories making chemical weapons. Duelfer found documentation that Saddam intended to bottle these poisons in perfume containers and other innocuous forms for shipment to Europe and the US. At what point does this support of terrorism against the US become unacceptable to you? Do you need to see dead Americans first before you take action to stop hostile action or is it justified to preempt terror?
[quote]The fact that safe, cozy southerners and midwesterners have feelings of vengance when they didn’t have to witness those attacks and didn’t have power outages and worry about loved ones sickens me. I do not know of one person here who lived through that event that did not come out of 9/11 looking for more insight into why the attacks happened. It made us think. It made the red states mad. [/quote]
More condescension from a Manhattan liberal who can’t believe the rest of America thinks. Or more precisely, the rest of America doesn’t think like Manhattan so therefore they don’t think correctly or at all.
We know why Bin Laden launched his attacks. Al Qaeda has made its intentions and reasoning clear through its videos, tapes, speeches, and literature. We have read them and absorbed them. You have not. Bin Laden wants to conquer the world for Islam, to establish a Second Caliphate. It’s insane. Such murderous religious intolerance makes thinking people mad. If you had done your homework, you would be angry about it, too.
[quote]Now, thanks to the holy few, I have four, if not more, years of looking over my shoulder, eyeing every Arab for signs of a possible threat, feeling ill when I think of our foreign policies, and being emabarssed to travel abroad. That comingled with the memories of the fear, the smell, the shell-shocked look on my neighbor’s faces after the World Trade Center attacks… I see nothing but turbulance in our future. [/quote]
It’s quite the opposite. There have been no subsequent attacks on the American homeland, largely due to the Patriot Act and Bush fighting the terror war on the offensive, rather than the defensive as liberals prefer. Some 700 people were arrested in the lead up to the election who might have carried out an attack on the US. We’ve hammered Al Qaeda to a paste until it is unable to do more than make threatening videos.
The attacks would have happenned no matter what party was in charge of America and will continue no matter what party will be in charge. This hostility arises from the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, not from any rational cause. They will continue to launch attacks on America until we crush them.
[quote]And I am poor to boot! [/quote]
Fifty grand only makes you destitute in Manhattan. You can live quite a nice life on that in Dallas or Des Moines or Denver. How smart is it to live in a town where your money is worth two fifths of its value in a normal town in the rest of America?
[quote]I think this could be one of the biggest divides in US history. Any scholar of the civil war will tell you that the Confederacy thought their morals were just and the Union was over-educated and pompous. It’s the same divide, the same mindset, only now global and more important.[/quote]
I’ve read quite a bit about the Civil War and I have seen no such assertion by any scholar anywhere. Why don’t you provide a cite to back it up. It looks like you’re manufacturing history again.
Both sides in the US Civil War thought God was on their side, a fact to which Lincoln referred.
Since you brought up the Civil War, it’s interesting to note that New York City was against it. It considered seceding from the Union and declaring itself a free city, in the European fashion. There were draft riots where New Yorkers resisted fighting for the Union. During one, the New Yorkers went wild in the streets, lynching any black person they could find. Union troops had to make a forced march immediately after fighting at Gettysburg to enforce martial law on NYC.
New York was wrong about that war and its wrong about this war. But the arrogance and condescension remain the same.
Steve
[Modified by: Steve The American (Steve) on November 08, 2004 05:37 AM]
[Modified by: Steve The American (Steve) on November 08, 2004 05:57 AM]
Re(5): Ambivalent
I don’t buy it, Jasra. The religious right makes a big deal about abortion but they are not a majority of Republicans. The Republican party is generally against abortions but there is not a lot of energy behind prohibiting them. Most Republicans I know see abortion as necessary. When it comes down to it, most of us don’t want somebody’s teenaged daughter giving up her future because she got in trouble in high school. It’s really about her raising a couple kids in a lower economic arc working for low pay or her going on to college and being a mom in the suburbs on a higher economic arc.
Jasra, my dear, if you are an 18 year old soldier in the US Army and want a drink, you can go to the enlisted man’s club on base or buy a six pack at the base exchange. There are dry counties in the US where nobody can buy a drink off base. However, nobody makes the argument that we are sending captains off to war yet they can not buy a drink at home.
Please remember that you are getting a distorted view through the media of the electorate. The liberal media feature the religious right because it provides good copy, they hate them as their political opponents, and they can file unflattering stories to undermine them. However, the majority of Republican voters who are not devoutly religious have values, too. Those values are derived from culture, and overlap many of the religious values.
Steve
[Modified by: Steve The American (Steve) on November 07, 2004 07:07 PM]
Re(2): Religion, Schmeligion
Scorpio,
[quote]The reason America didn’t spend the 20th Century fighting wars on its own territory was because by the end of the 19th Century you’d pretty much wiped out the natives, robbing them of their land and shooting those who resisted. I think in today’s parlance its known as genocide.[/quote]
Interesting revisionist history. If we wiped out all the Indians, why are they still here and thriving? There were about two million Indians when Columbus arrived. There are about two million Indians now. You might look up the word genocide so you can understand what it means better. Putting the Indians on welfare on reservations is not genocide. You see, with genocide you have less people left afterwards, like Jews in Poland, as opposed to Indians running casinos from coast to coast in America and raking in millions.
The Indians had no concept of owning land. They did have a concept of making war against other tribes to take their territory. That’s how the Commanches chased the Apaches out of Texas, to provide one out of hundreds of examples. The Apaches, in turn, chased the Navajoes out of the game-rich New Mexican mountains. All the present Indians of North America are there because they chased the first wave of Indians from their land. The archeologists often find the cooked bones of the Indians who lost at Indian villages. All of Indian history is composed of wars against other tribes to push them out of their territory.
[quote]In fact, thanks to the bounties your government paid for killing natives you could make a lot of money out it. For instance, California in the 1850s paid a $5 bounty on every native man and woman killed, although naturally it was less for children. That’s not bad for those days.[/quote]
It’s true that bounties were paid for Indian scalps in many parts of the US. The reason was that Indians were fond of casual murder of Americans.
For example, in Texas, new European immigrants would buy a wagon and go riding, clueless and unarmed, with their family into the interior in search of farmland. Commanche hunting parties would come across them and kill them as they might a deer or bear. They liked to cut out the thigh meat of such settlers, cook it, and eat it. Arms were preferred, too. Often they kidnapped the women and children, who watched their husbands and fathers being eaten that night in the Indian camp. If the children misbehaved, they killed them.
Commanches were more mobile than settlers. Most Indian atrocity stories in Texas go like this: Indians attack a settler’s cabin and kill the men, kidnap the women and children. The neighbors form a posse and chase them, but lose the trail after three days.
That kind of savagery can make you post rewards for the killing of Indians. It was an act of desperation. The Indians killed far more settlers than vice versa. Their ponies allowed them to pick their fights and escape unscathed, again and again.
[quote]Thought you’d pulled a fast one and got away with your bluster about American righteousness without this being brought up? Unlucky pal. [/quote]
Try again, pal. I’m happy to pummel ill-informed arguments about American history, especially ones based on cowboy and Indian movies.
Steve
Re(2): Semantics, my dear Steve, semantics
Jasra,
Knowledge of the rest of the world is not limited to New York and DC. There’s a good argument to be made that people in New York and DC have a view of the rest of the world that is not grounded in reality, having acquired their information indirectly.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans from all over America see the world directly every year via the military. Like I did in the Philippines, they go out into the country, travel, read the local papers, talk to people, work with people. You can not visit a small town in America where a large number of people have not been overseas via the military. Most other countries lack any such mechanism to see the world and are less informed as a result. And people from New York City generally don’t join the military.
There are also plenty of people all across America who do business around the world. My old company in Austin, TX sent people regularly to Kuwait. My friend Danny in Denver from high school regularly travelled across Europe into Russia and on to Siberia to develop natural gas. It’s not hard to find people who have lived, worked, and travelled overseas in any medium-sized town in the US.
You just couldn’t be more wrong to say those with more international exposure voted for Kerry. Maybe a few Democrats have vacationed in France or cruised to Cancun but it’s mostly Republicans who have served overseas in the military or are cutting international business deals.
The typical Democrat is wildly misinformed about the world and is fairly naive about foreign intentions. The typical liberal in New York or DC is a transplant from Tiny Town, USA who has moved to the Big City and is dedicated to posing as a sophisticate. They are very interested in adopting whatever is fashionable in the Big City so they can return to their home towns and act superior to everyone. They have been nowhere but know everything, because they’ve been coached by their friends on their opinions. They are not independent thinkers, but merely mooing with the liberal herd to fit in.
There would have been a big difference in Iraq between Bush and Kerry, a difference which most voters grasped. Kerry thinks Iraq is Vietnam and would have disengaged from it, which would have led to more war. Bush thinks Iraq is South Korea, and would keep engaged there until the good guys win.
Steve
Re: Bush has it, and congratulations
Jen,
[quote]Perhaps I live in a left wing vaccuum. [/quote]
Perhaps? You live in Manhattan, Jen. Do you even know any Republicans or conservatives in Manhattan?
[quote]Exit polls, or any other poll, to me mean nothing. I do not contest this election and am not crying fraud.[/quote]
Jen, it’s becoming pretty obvious that the Democrats conspired to rig the exit polls on a nationwide basis. To paraphrase Hillary, that sounds like a Vast Leftwing Conspiracy. It was dumb and dishonest.
That is further confirmed by a coworker of mine who served as a Republican poll watcher in a DC ghetto. He said the place was awash with voter fraud. It appeared to him that lots of folks voted in Maryland and Virginia and then drove to DC to vote again. The Democrat voting officers and poll watchers looked the other way and allowed people to vote without ID. It appears that they were trying to run up the vote count for Kerry.
We won despite Democratic efforts to cheat. You need to clean up your party.
[quote]… people outside of Manhattan and Washington are dictating the safety precautions of those of us who were attacked, who still do not feel we are under adequate protection.
… Check out our Holland and Lincoln tunnels, that run under rivers and are only guarded by 3 or 4 men who occasionally stop to talk to every other unmarked van. … We are for the most part unprotected and people here still jump at every loud noise, still fear being contained in stopped subway cars, still watch out for ANYTHING out of the ordinary. Are you implying we are all just paranoid?[/quote]
Jen, you know nothing about defense and are calling for cosmetic measures that may reassure you but are ineffective. You can’t defend America by piling up police in the Metro any more than you can defend against beestings by chasing every bee. You go after the hive.
The most effective defensive measures are offensive and occur out of your sight. That means funding the NSA to intercept more terrorist communications, the CIA to infiltrate terror organizations and do them in, sending the military to destroy terrorist hives, like Afghanistan and Iraq. It also means supporting the Patriot Act so that the police have the same power to investigate terrorists that they have to investigate the Mafia.
[quote]I am sorry, I think this is backwards. I also feel that the main cause of these attacks are directly related to our foreign policies towards the Middle East as a whole, and superpower or not, we cannot continuously poke our noses in other another nation’s business.[/quote]
The main cause of the terrorist attacks is Islamic imperialism. These attacks are not the result of a belligerent US foreign policy but rather the result of a belligerent Saudi foreign policy which has declared war on the world in the name of Wahhabism and exports terror to support that policy.
[quote]It’s only a matter of time before we see suicide bombers here, and where will they strike? Not to downplay the residents of more rual areas (they make the country run just as much, if not more so, than we do) but honestly, they are more protected. [/quote]
Mohammed Atta and his crew were suicide bombers. Your concern is three years late.
Beslan was a rural area. It demonstrates that Islamic terrorists can strike anywhere.
New York and DC are better symbolic targets for the Islamic radicals but anywhere will do. America is full of undefended shopping malls and kindergartens. The idea that rural America is better protected is just crazy. Here in DC, the police were patrolling the Metro with assault weapons before the election. There are no police patrolling the town square in Littleburg, USA with assault weapons.
[quote]The man refuses to admit he’s made a mistake even.[/quote]
Oh, please, what a dishonest criticism. What do you think Kerry would have answered if a journalist asked him to give three reasons not to vote for him?
[quote]And I am aware the south was primarily Democat before and during the civil war. [/quote]
Yes, the Democrats were the slavery party before the war. The South went solid Democrat after the war. It was a good bet that any man in a southern town was a Democrat and a Klansman.
[quote]The bottom line, I suppose, is that we will watch what the next four years brings and if the country is safer and more fiscally stable, “lefties” like me will be admitting we were totally wrong on everything. But I shudder to think what will happen if we “lefties” were right.[/quote]
There’s not much chance of that happenning. The country is already safer now that we have smashed Al Qaeda’s base in Afghanistan. The country is already fiscally stable. The unemployment and inflation rates are minimal. Thank goodness that Kerry was not given the chance to “fix” an economy that wasn’t broken.
Steve
Re(2): Semantics, my dear Steve, semantics
Jasra,
Sorry, no Bullshit. The evangelical movement was going strong way before 9/11. I have three friends that joined it back in the 1980s. And the “moral decay” so many Americans complain about is accurately pegged to the 1960s anti-establishment movement. Divorce rates, illegitmacy, and drug use rose significantly after that decade.
Re(5): Religion, Schmeligion
I’d like to point out(PERSONAL EXPERIENCE ALERT), that while my European relatives were all against the Iraq war, when that conflict in Bosnia was going on, they asked me when the Americans were going to come and do something about it.
Re(2): Semantics, my dear Steve, semantics
Jasra,
I live in New York. It has always been a VERY democratic state. Republican presidents don’t stand a chance here, never have, never will, no matter how many skyscrapers Osama tumbles down. Kerry won the state by 60%. A Democratic win was completely expected.
Re: Marshall Plan
Jasra,
Implementing a Marshall Plan in Iraq won’t work because it lacks the human capital to put that money to good use. However, we can develop the oil industry and other selected industries to build an economic spine on which to hang the rest of the economy, much like US companies built up Saudi Arabia from the oil industry.
We have a history of treating defeated enemies well. Japan and Germany, savage nations both, became economic superpowers under US occupation. We were extraordinarily careful in bombing Iraq to avoid killing civilians. Baghdad is not a bombed out shell like Berlin or Tokyo. We have spent a fair amount restoring and creating infrastructure in Iraq, unlike conquerors like the Soviets who looted Germany. We are now creating a democracy in Iraq where they can vote for their own leaders.
So now the challenge for Arabs in the region will be to acknowledge good deeds done by America like rational objective creatures instead of finding fault no matter what, in the Saudi mode.
Steve
Re(3): Religion, Schmeligion
No contrition whatsoever over the $5 bounty for the killing of men, women and children. Instead you give a risible justification for the price on their heads. You’re not even going to make an exception for the little kiddies?
Ha – pathetic. You know you’re like one of those islamists – if the atrocity is committed by “our side” then its got to be explained or excused away. And like the Islamists you have to be constantly shamed into “clarifying” or “giving context” for your position.
Go on give us the full explanation (in less than 10000 words – if you can).
Re: Bush has it, and congratulations
[url]http://www.esri.com/industries/elections/graphics/results2004_lg.jpg[/url]
A 3D map of the election. Interesting to note just how small the areas are that Kerry won.
Bush has it, and congratulations
You boneheads have it all wrong. THE deciding factor in the election was 9% republicans voting for Kerry versus 15% democrats voting for Bush. You’ll never understand why Kerry lost if you can’t determine why he lost such a large number of democrats. It ain’t morals. Kerry pandered for every little vote and strayed too far left. He got the votes he pandered for, but alienated too many moderates in the process.
Re: Bush has it, and congratulations
Jen,
I will give you that you probably didn’t realize how you sounded, and that people who live in larger cities probably have more to worry about when the next attack comes because that is the nature of the beast. You should, however, realize it will not matter who is president. Again the media missed it with OBL’s tape. Vote for Bush, and I will get you because I told you so. Vote for Kerry, who is much more a supporter of Israel, and the first time he says “I like Israel”, OBL gets to win again. Maybe he wanted us all to vote for Nader. Does he want to dictate our foreign policy, particularly in the ME? Sure, but to him anywhere there is Islam is his little piece of the sky.
Personally, I like his idea. Mine the borders, stops all foreign aid, stop all global trading etc and put Americans back to work making and growing something, developing alternative energy and being self-sufficient. That of course is not going to happen. Nor is getting support for our policies ever going to work for Kerry or anyone else, nor should it because some of our policies are pretty bad. The world has alot of high and mighty talk, but they will always do what’s in their best interest, and we should do the same. You fool yourself if you think any differently, and frankly all that gets you is the status quo which the world has operated under for far too long. Personally, I like the idea that Iraqis might be free if we don’t all screw it up for them, and that Mahmood’s children may see the day when they can say what they think without fear. Not for me or my kids, but because it is the right thing, and if some Americans have to die in some more planes because of it, then so be it. So stop looking over your shoulder, cause we are not safe and never will be. Just be thankful you don’t live in KSA.
Re: Bush has it, and congratulations
Think that is true cause there is a whole of Dems now trying to figure out why when a county was dominated by Dems that Bush got most of the votes. Of course, they think it must be voter fraud-hacking-but they forgot there is a lot of baby boomers out there that remember JK from the good old days.
Re(1): Bush has it, and congratulations
[quote]there is a lot of baby boomers out there that remember JK from the good old days[/quote]
Yep they do! In the fashion of Genghis Khan and Jane Fonda for the most part.
Re(3): Religion, Schmeligion
Back on your “Europeans” nonsense are you, Steve? Are you utterly unable to compute the fact that Europe is not a single cultural, linguistic or historical entity but rather a continent consisting of many distinct and self-governing countries? That’s COUNTRIES, Steve, not states.
The saddest thing about you is that you obviously have no idea how stupid your “Europeans” crap sounds. Suffice to say that it sounds as stupid to me for you to equate, say, Britain and Serbia within your crass notion of “Europeans” as it would to you if I equated, say, Mexico and the US or Canada and the US.
Get yourself an education or at least learn to keep your fool mouth shut when you don’t know what you’re talking about – which is evidently most of the time.
Re(2): Bush has it, and congratulations
Steve, I argue with people for a living. Trust me, the only person who thinks you are “hard” is you. Your arguments betray utter ignorance. That doesn’t make you “hard”. It makes you stupid.
I know countless Americans better educated than you. Ones that, for example, are capable of distinguishing between France and Sweden or Nazi Germany and Sardinia.
Re(3): Bush has it, and congratulations
Hmmm. An arrogant European who considers Americans stupid. Sheesh, I’ve never encountered that before. If you’re so educated, why do think in cliches?
Yawn,
Steve
[Modified by: Steve The American (Steve) on November 08, 2004 05:27 AM]
Re(4): Religion, Schmeligion
Evading the question, aren’t you? Why did the Europeans not take action on their own to clean up the Serbian death camps?
Steve
step-back and deep-breath time
cool it guys, take a step back and a deep breath. please.
saudi printer?