Bush has done it again - Page 2

Angrist · 02-09-2002, 04:58 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by gekko

It's really sad they teach you so little about Hitler.

I thought you were the one that said 'Thank God for Hitler'. Why the sudden change?

Jin · 02-09-2002, 05:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by MiscX
do you honestly think that Bush is the only one making all these decisions? by himself? ha.ha.ha.

sorry, folks. we don't have a dictatorship. i think it's sad that you compare bush to hitler. HITLER! he's not trying to annihilate an entire race, or take over the planet. he's a conservative president who is going to follow his views that we should protect america at all costs, and perhaps, AMERICA BEING THE SUPERPOWER, we need to take steps to prevent terrorist actions in other nations as well as our own.

i'd say that's MUCH better than selling military and nuclear secrets to the chinese (you think Clinton wasn't doing that?) if this happened while clinton was in office i would guess he would avoid war since he was screwing our military out of decent pay/equipment anyway and go have some more "Peace Talks" that we know are never going to work.

impressive liberalism in here though.

I totally agree with you. How can you guys even think about comparing Hitler to Bush? They may have a few similarities if you look hard enough, but you can find similarities between any two people in the world.

Hitler was a dictator who had a hatred for Jewish people. Bush isn't a dictator and although he is against terrorism, he doesn't hate the Islamic race as a whole. He didn't put Islamic-Americans in prison like Japanese-Americans were during WWII.

Hitler was a great speaker, he used his great speaking abilities to convince crowds or to manipulate people. Bush on the other hand is a terrible speaker and only convinces by his actions, because he is one of the least articulate leaders on earth.

Hitler fought other countries for selfish purposes, to gain land and more power. Bush is fighting to help the Afghanistan people, for the American dream, for the people's God given rights. Sure there may be a few benifits that may come to America, but the real purpose for fighting isn't to gain, but to prevent another tragedy like 9-11, and to help the oppressed people of Afghanistan(especially women). Some people may say that it is to gain money from their oil, but the costs of fueling planes, dropping dozens of bombs, and sending food supplies for thousands of Afghanistan people daily, is ENORMOUS. America is definetly losing more money than they are gaining by attempting to stop terrorism.

MiscX · 02-09-2002, 05:20 PM

*gasp* finally someone with some sort of sense.

"give it 10 years, no one will own a flag anymore"

that's BS. I'll still own one. I have one in my room all the time.

and, that's how the country works. people (like you, gekko) are cynical. sure, we're all a little cynical. but as has happened before in this country, we all argue and complain about things in this country but we will support it when it is under attack. i think the real problem is that people take this country and all the liberties they have for granted.

obviously there are tons of people who don't like this country. and those people baffle me by living here. why not live somewhere else, then? or try and change things? its a lot of these cynical people who just sit and bitch about things and then don't do anything to change it (like vote).

not saying that you people don't vote, of course.

haha, i think that's funny DH.

sdtPikachu · 02-09-2002, 05:25 PM

Gotta agree with Angrist... with the exception of President Blair (another born again christian... see sig), almost everyone in the UK thinks Bush is an incompetent idiot.

"I am not sure why he wants to take on all of this terrorist thing by himself."

Maybe he thought it'd be good for his approval ratings...?
You can never eradicate terrorism. As long as the means exist, so will the ends.

"Texans these days..."

"If ignorance ever goes $40 a barrel, I want drilling right on that mans head"
--Jim Hightower, Texan agriculture minister, talking of Senator G W Bush's agricultural policies

Funny how history repeats itself, isn't it?

"I agree that he's doing stupid stuff, and I don't see why he has such a high approval rating... Oh wait, yeah I do, everybody has this "yay go america" mood, so it makes Bush so amazingly good when we attack back after such a major terrorist attack"

Hence the "Hitler" comparisons. See below.

"Then all of a sudden we're attacked and we're like "WOO HOO! GO AMERICA!" and then we attack and we're like "YAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Maybe that's why gekko calls all that patriotism fake (at least I think he called it fake) because it pops up when it's convenient or whatever you wanna say"

Yep, I think this is more or less the crux of the matter.

"sorry, folks. we don't have a dictatorship. i think it's sad that you compare bush to hitler. HITLER! he's not trying to annihilate an entire race, or take over the planet"

It'd be nice to think that. Bush has already fostered the notion "if you're not with us, you're against use", like the non-neutraklity Joeiss mentioned above. Bush isn't trying to eliminate a race? Then why does he use words like "crusade" in reference to islam? Why does he have such a thing about "bringing america together under god" (a statement which is illegal in america I believe). As for not trying to take over the plenet? Maybe not, but he's doing a damn good job of showing incredible preference to those companies and charities who folow the same relgion as him.
I'm not saying Bush IS Hitler, and neither is anyone else. There are an incredible number of parallels though.

"AMERICA BEING THE SUPERPOWER, we need to take steps to prevent terrorist actions in other nations as well as our own."

Maybe you could have started this 30 years ago by refusing to give money to the IRA who have killed several thousand in their time.

""Peace Talks" that we know are never going to work."

I'm glad you are so certain of this. Why bother asking them to surrender when you can just kill every last one of them? Cos as you so rightly say, peace never works, and we should just annihilate everything, and give all our money to the military, yeah?

"impressive liberalism in here though."

You say it like you think it's a bad thing...

"That's why I compared him to Hitler. After WWI, Germany was being screwed over. Hitler wasn't happy because they made all Germans look like ****. He turned his country around, told everyone how great Germans were. He preached nationalism, and that's what Bush is doing right now. In reality, he's not doing that great of job. But he'll tell you how great it is to be an American, and how the free world will conquer terrorism."

Happy now MiscX? It's refreshing to see someone who knows how Hitler got himself to be so bloody popular.

Very good post gekko.

"I thought you were the one that said 'Thank God for Hitler'. Why the sudden change?"

If I remember correctly, it was PureEvil and nwoChris... but I don't know.
Even if it was gekko, he seems to know his onions now.

Jin · 02-09-2002, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by gekko

He turned his country around, told everyone how great Germans were. He preached nationalism, and that's what Bush is doing right now.

Bush never said that one race was superior to any other one like Hitler. There is nothing wrong with Nationalism, to be proud of one's country, but there is something wrong with racism. Hitler taught that people with blonde hair, and blue eyes were superior to everyone else, and that Jewish people were inferior to everyone else and therefore deserved to be killed.

sdtPikachu · 02-09-2002, 05:34 PM

"How can you guys even think about comparing Hitler to Bush?"

Because like Hitler he's using something that happened to his country to further his own popularity. He's already told us what his agenda is. Now all he needs is enough people to "believe" in it to make it happen.
I wonder how he'll go about that?

" America is definetly losing more money than they are gaining by attempting to stop terrorism."

Or maybe they'r ejust embarrased that it was America who put the Taliban in power in the first place. Do the words "knee", "jerk" and "reaction" mean anything?

" its a lot of these cynical people who just sit and bitch about things and then don't do anything to change it (like vote)."

And it's the majority of "anti-liberals" who also vote that stop things from eevr being accomplished.
I wonder when America will vote in a black president. Or a hindu president. Or even an athiest presdient.

Answer: not for at least the next 50 years. Your country as a whole is just to damn conserative on the whole IMO.

gekko · 02-09-2002, 05:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Angrist
I thought you were the one that said 'Thank God for Hitler'. Why the sudden change?

You should've tried clicking on the link. It was a post about Wolfenstein. The only reference to Hitler was we wouldn't have this game if it wasn't for him.

Jin, you also seem to know very little about Hitler. After WWI, the German people felt worthless. Hitler was a patriotic German, he didn't like that. He felt Germany was being screwed by the Treaty of Versai (sp?), which they were. He preached nationalism, made people feel good about being a German, and that's why they followed him. To show that Germany was a great nation, he conquered other countries. He showed the Germans that they weren't worthless, or weak. The holocaust wasn't in his original intentions. He was in a world of ****, and had no way out, so he needed a scapegoat, and he happened to hate Jews.

Bush is the same way. We get hit with a terrorist attack, Bush tells us that we'll get even, and being an American is so great. Telling us it's so great to be an American, and that we'll end terrorism. Americans feel we're the best in the world and we can take on anyone. While we more or less can, we can't do it all at once, and we can't do it without the loss of hundreds of thousands of men. We have 3 countries who are close to going to war with us, but does anyone care? Of course not, cause we all believe waving our flag will solve all the problems in the world.

This is only the beginning folks. Bush has 3 more years, 3 more years to screw up this country. And if our people are too stupid to understand why WWII started, they obviously won't see any corruption in our own country, not that we're the ones being brain-washed.

Jin · 02-09-2002, 05:56 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by sdtPikachu
"Or maybe they'r ejust embarrased that it was America who put the Taliban in power in the first place. Do the words "knee", "jerk" and "reaction" mean anything?

What the hell? America did not put the Taliban in charge of Afghanistan. Where'd you hear that? After the US helped to defeated the communists they made a mistake by leaving Afghanistan without a stable government. Afterwards the Taliban, a fundamentalist group from Pakistan took advantage of the opportunity and took over. The US did not put the Taliban in charge. There was a king that ruled Afghanistan after the communists left, but he wasn't powerful enough to stop the Taliban from taking power.

This time we are trying to make sure that the same thing doesn't happen again. Nations around the world are helping Afghanistan to form a stable democratic government. If a fundamentalist group similar to the Taliban try to take over again, the US military will take care of them.

Quote:

Originally posted by sdtPikachu

Answer: not for at least the next 50 years. Your country as a whole is just to damn conserative on the whole IMO.

There is nothing wrong with being conservative, and there isn't anything wrong with being liberal. I think something inbetween is perfect. It's kind of like decentralization, and centralization in a government. If you have too much centralization it's a dictatorship, and if you don't have enough there's no security at all, anarchy would be a common thing.

gekko · 02-09-2002, 06:09 PM

Actually, the Taliban was fighting Russia, and we supplied them with weapons to help them defeat the Russians. That gave them enough power to take over the country.

sdtPikachu · 02-09-2002, 06:10 PM

"What the hell? America did not put the Taliban in charge of Afghanistan."

So I suppose that giving them billions of dollars worth of weaponry and training to fight off the soviets had nothing to do with them seizing power?

When Afghanistan was invaded by the soviets, America had three choices.
1) Do nothing
2) Fund the Northern Allaince to fight them off
3) Fund the Taliban, a much stronger force that the northern Alliance, to fight them off.

Quelle suprise, America funded the Taliban. After the Soviets left, there was no-one powerful enough in Afghanistan to stop them. America let them seize power, and there was no-way they would have got such a total stranglehold on the country if it wasn't for America. Hence: America placed them in power.

"This time we are trying to make sure that the same thing doesn't happen again."

The American government is making sure it doesn't ake the same mistake twice.

"There is nothing wrong with being conservative"

Well IMO there is. Not being able to be elected if you're not one of the supposed "majority". Even if I wanted to be electedas President there's no way I would be. There are just too many people who would distrust me because I don't believe in god. They would never elect a black president because all the whites would think he would make rules to ensure black superiority. They would never elect a homosexual president, bacuse everyone knows those damned ***s are cursed devil worshippers and will lead this country to hell.

Did you never stop to think why the presidential candidates are almost always exactly the same? The same situation occurs in the UK. It is an excuse for democracy. As Oscar Wilde said, denocracy is the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people.

"...anarchy would be a common thing."

If people were human enough to face up to responsibility, anarchy would be the best form of government there is. The only tyranny that lasts is of the weak over the strong.

Jin · 02-09-2002, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by gekko

Jin, you also seem to know very little about Hitler. After WWI, the German people felt worthless. Hitler was a patriotic German, he didn't like that. He felt Germany was being screwed by the Treaty of Versai (sp?), which they were. He preached nationalism, made people feel good about being a German, and that's why they followed him. To show that Germany was a great nation, he conquered other countries. He showed the Germans that they weren't worthless, or weak. The holocaust wasn't in his original intentions. He was in a world of ****, and had no way out, so he needed a scapegoat, and he happened to hate Jews.

Bush is the same way. We get hit with a terrorist attack, Bush tells us that we'll get even, and being an American is so great. Telling us it's so great to be an American, and that we'll end terrorism. Americans feel we're the best in the world and we can take on anyone. While we more or less can, we can't do it all at once, and we can't do it without the loss of hundreds of thousands of men. We have 3 countries who are close to going to war with us, but does anyone care? Of course not, cause we all believe waving our flag will solve all the problems in the world.

Umm... I knew that about Hitler. Although they are under similar circumstances, they are fighting for two completely different things.

Quote:

Originally posted by gekko

This is only the beginning folks. Bush has 3 more years, 3 more years to screw up this country. And if our people are too stupid to understand why WWII started, they obviously won't see any corruption in our own country, not that we're the ones being brain-washed.

Why do you say that as if you were looking forward to a US downfall. Does it matter whether our leader is Al Gore, or George Bush? Either way we'd be fighting for the same thing. Freedom, Justice, Security, and most importantly for the people. George Bush has 3 years left, and although he could screw things up, he could also make things better. Also, who's to say that someone else wouldn't do the same under his circumstances. Give the guy a break. Sure he may not be the most competent leader, but he has good intentions. Hope for the best, and don't look at him just as a republican, but as the President of the United States. He is working for the beterment of this world, as Al Gore would. Why the hell should we care whether someone is a conservative, or liberal? As long as they believe is righteousness, and do everything they can to make a better world, it doesn't matter.

Jin · 02-09-2002, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by sdtPikachu

So I suppose that giving them billions of dollars worth of weaponry and training to fight off the soviets had nothing to do with them seizing power?

The Taliban didn't even come around until around 1995, after the communists left. The US did not support them, but Unicol, an oil company did. They thought that with the Taliban there would be more stability, and they could make more profit. The US did supply Afghanistan with weapons, and other supplies when the communists tried to take over, but it wasn't to one group, it was to anyone that was willing to fight. Usama Bin Laden was a freedom fighter who helped to get rid of the communists, but at the time he wasn't associated with the Taliban.

Quote:

Originally posted by sdtPikachu

"There is nothing wrong with being conservative"

Well IMO there is. Not being able to be elected if you're not one of the supposed "majority". Even if I wanted to be electedas President there's no way I would be. There are just too many people who would distrust me because I don't believe in god. They would never elect a black president because all the whites would think he would make rules to ensure black superiority. They would never elect a homosexual president, bacuse everyone knows those damned ***s are cursed devil worshippers and will lead this country to hell.

First of all you seemed to have overlooked half of what I said. I did say there was nothing wrong with being a conservative, but I also said that wasn't anything wrong with being a liberal.

Racism is still very real, but things are changing whether you're aware of it or not. For example Jackie Robinson, and Tiger Woods were both discriminated against for being black in a white sport. Right now BMX is almost an all white sport. During a recent event a black person fell on the first corner, got back up, and was able to get second somehow. When they were on the podium, the black guy got more of an applause then the white guy that got first. A few years ago it wouldn't be like that.

MiscX · 02-09-2002, 08:34 PM

i agree, "beware the tyranny of the minority" is a good phrase, and quite accurate.

sdtPikachu... look at what you wrote:
"America let them seize power, and there was no-way they would have got such a total stranglehold on the country if it wasn't for America. Hence: America placed them in power."

First, you say American let them seize power, and then you say we placed them in power. I'm sorry but those are two separate things. Us placing them in power would include us PLACING a particular group into power, and as Jin said, we didn't do any such thing. And let's just say we let them seize power. That's different from us putting them there -- they took it themselves. And if it's such a big deal, why didn't any other nations, or the United Nations try and stop us?

Conservatism and liberalism are both always going to exist. Anarchy? "If people were human enough to face up to responsibility, anarchy would be the best form of government there is." Aha, no. Sadly we don't live in such a great world where people feel this way... and true, I believe that we should have a much smaller government but there should be one nonetheless. I don't even know where to start on this... nations without stable governments are all called "power vacuums." People will try and grab power because people are always willing to be led if it results in a more comfortable lifestyle for them. There are tons of people who have different ideas of what "responsiblity" is. Some people don't feel they're responsible for anything.

"I'm glad you are so certain of this. Why bother asking them to surrender when you can just kill every last one of them? Cos as you so rightly say, peace never works, and we should just annihilate everything, and give all our money to the military, yeah?"

yeah, i said peace never works.

no, i was referring to the peace talks in the middle east, where it seems that nothing gets accomplished unless there is some heavy military backing to it. peace talks have accomplished things historically, however they haven't (historically) in the middle east. how long have they been "trying" for "peace" there?

also, every president in the history of the world has preached nationalism...

Quote:

Jin, you also seem to know very little about Hitler. After WWI, the German people felt worthless. Hitler was a patriotic German, he didn't like that. He felt Germany was being screwed by the Treaty of Versai (sp?), which they were. He preached nationalism, made people feel good about being a German, and that's why they followed him. To show that Germany was a great nation, he conquered other countries. He showed the Germans that they weren't worthless, or weak. The holocaust wasn't in his original intentions. He was in a world of ****, and had no way out, so he needed a scapegoat, and he happened to hate Jews.

Bush is the same way. We get hit with a terrorist attack, Bush tells us that we'll get even, and being an American is so great. Telling us it's so great to be an American, and that we'll end terrorism. Americans feel we're the best in the world and we can take on anyone. While we more or less can, we can't do it all at once, and we can't do it without the loss of hundreds of thousands of men. We have 3 countries who are close to going to war with us, but does anyone care? Of course not, cause we all believe waving our flag will solve all the problems in the world.

yes, EVERY president has told Americans to feel good about being American, and you know why? Because we live in AMERICA! Why the hell would the leader of a nation say "hey... we suck. boo, america." Makes a lot of sense? Yeah, right. By your logic, at LEAST Bush Sr., Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Nixon, Eisenhower, and Truman, who were involved in some sort of war/hostile negotiations are like Hitler. Yes, we all know Hitler used the problems of Germany and nationalism to help himself. But to say that Bush is like Hitler... you miss the entire point. Oh, and it's spelled "Treaty of Versailles". Americans feel they're the best in the world because that's what we SHOULD feel. In theory, you should live in the best country in the world, and that's why we live here. If we thought this country was terrible, we wouldn't live here anymore.

I find it really disheartening that you're so predicting the downfall of the United States, gekko. If Al Gore was in office, you think he'd do much different?

I think you all have it backwards (except maybe Jin). when we were attacked, I didn't sit like a mindless drone and wait for the President to say "be proud to be American" and then all of a sudden have a sense of purpose. I saw the attack and said "whoever did this better pay." And that's what the president does. He responds to the American people's wishes. Al Gore would have had to have done the same or commit political suicide. Remember, in America there exists a thing called "popular sovereignty" -- THE PEOPLE ARE KING. Maybe they don't teach you that in foreign countries.

and if you think one man can destroy this country, you're dead mistaken. That's why we have separation of powers, and checks and balances. unfortunately you all seem to be in the dark on how the us government operates. the president doesn't declare war, CONGRESS does. in america we don't have a unitary system like the U.K., for example. In America, we have federalism. We have a system where people are ELECTED to represent the people (who are king). Yes, our government is inefficient but it is IMPOSSIBLE for one man to destroy this country.

Blackmane · 02-09-2002, 08:46 PM

I agree with MiscX. I mean, Bush is dealing with terrorism, a very controversial topic to deal with. Either way he stands hes going to get flak from someone. If he stands against terrorism and anyone who supports it, like he is now, you can expect the Middle-east nations to be upset. However, just because people don't like us doesn't mean we should say Bush is doing a bad job. Those people don't like us anyway on a whole.

What if Bush decided to calm down, give up on the war against terrorism, and just leave the middle-east as it is? Not only would they probably still try to blow us up, but the US citizens would be mad at him too. He is obligated to take a stand against it or have a lot of Americans mad at him as he stands by and watches it happen.

And, by the way, whoever thinks Bush can destroy the US on his own is sadly mistaken.

manasecret · 02-09-2002, 10:10 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by MiscX
and if you think one man can destroy this country, you're dead mistaken. That's why we have separation of powers, and checks and balances. unfortunately you all seem to be in the dark on how the us government operates. the president doesn't declare war, CONGRESS does. in america we don't have a unitary system like the U.K., for example. In America, we have federalism. We have a system where people are ELECTED to represent the people (who are king). Yes, our government is inefficient but it is IMPOSSIBLE for one man to destroy this country.

Technically, Congress is the only branch that can declare war. But some time in the last century Congress passed some papers that allowed the Executive to take military action without the consent of Congress. However if the President wants Congress to be happy with him and therefore be more cooperative with him, then he had better not ignore Congress too often.

For example, Congress hasn't declared war with Afghanistan (I think), though I'm sure there's a majority consent (not that it matters). But what Bush is doing now could cause many other countries to get pissed at us if he takes it too far. I'm pretty sure Congress would eventually stop him if Mr. Bush got a little too kill-KILL, but it could possibly be too late by that time.

So could one man destroy our country? Perhaps it's a bit unlikely; after all, most presidents probably don't want to have their career ruined and carry the whole animosity of the American people or any other number of things (assasination?) if they did such a thing. But I bet it could happen. Commander-in-chief with the power to send military action without anyone else's agreement is an easily abused position for someone who doesn't mind the consequences.

But again, (probably) very unlikely.

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