Democrats Are Risking Political Damnation

We must also remember that the initial cost of the drug benefit was falsely quoted by this administration to win the congress' approval. The members of congress must be stupid; they don't seem to learn from the past. They were asked to approve the war on Iraq on the basis that Saddam's WMDs were an immanent danger to the American People. They seem to have forgotten.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

What exactly is Bush's convictions? Please tell us, because he keeps change'n em.

Your wish is my command:

1. The world has a lot to fear from the growing accessibility of WMD.
2. Although we went into Iraq based on a belief that they had an active, but concealed WMD program, it was nice to be able to get rid of one of the worst dictators in recent history.
3. If we leave Iraq now, they will be under the thumb of whatever warlord, cleric, or terrorist is strongest. We have a duty to try and rebuild.
4. Everyone has an affirmative duty to oppose evil, and sometimes further negotiation is stupid.

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On 1: Is that why Bush is seeking funding to develop a low yield nuke? What message do you think this sends to all the crazies in this world?
On 2: You just listed two very different justifications for aggression of this country against another. We also defied the UN. What message do you think this sends to all the crazies in this world?
On 3: That may be true, but we still haven't controlled the warlords in Afghanistan. FYI, that's where OBL and the taiban lives. They are responsible for 9-11, just in case you've forgotten.
On 4: Many of us see GWBush as evil. He's killed over ten thousand innocent Iraqi men, women and children. If that isn't evil, you perhaps don't understand the definition.

But thanks for trying.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

On 1: Is that why Bush is seeking funding to develop a low yield nuke? What message do you think this sends to all the crazies in this world?

We are saying that someone in a league with Hitler cannot be allowed to have WMD, not that no one can. There is no inconsistency. I should add that as a general principle, world nuclear disarment would be a good thing.

cicerone imposter wrote:

On 2: You just listed two very different justifications for aggression of this country against another. We also defied the UN. What message do you think this sends to all the crazies in this world?

This is extraordinarily simple. The reason to invade Iraq was WMD, but it was nice to be able to liberate a hideously oppressed people while in the neighborhood. Despite your opinion of our level of success, this was the motive, and it's not that hard to grasp. I don't really care whether we defied the UN or not, but just for the record, it's my impression that we obtained a resolution authorizing our use of force against someone who had defied the UN. The League of Nations fell apart because it lacked the will to act.

cicerone imposter wrote:

On 3: That may be true, but we still haven't controlled the warlords in Afghanistan. FYI, that's where OBL and the taiban lives. They are responsible for 9-11, just in case you've forgotten.

Strange as it may seem, here in the real world sometimes you have to do two difficult things at once.

cicerone imposter wrote:

On 4: Many of us see GWBush as evil. He's killed over ten thousand innocent Iraqi men, women and children. If that isn't evil, you perhaps don't understand the definition.

Well, then I guess you must hate FDR for fighting WW2. You have just described every major modern war.

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One of the ways in which the US is quite unusual as a political and cultural entity is that prospective leaders have to give the deep bow to Christian faith. There is no chance at all that a Buddhist or Hindu or an athiest would achieve the Presidency, certainly not in my lifetime. It is almost certain that a Jew would not either.

There are, of course, many iterations of Christian faith in the world, and that is also so in the US, but fundamentalist Christianity is the version which wields rue political power, particularly in the Republican party. One doesn't make an original claim in saying that it is the most powerful group within that party.

And of all the extant versions of modern Christianity, American fundamentalism is, quite arguably, the least complementary to a pluralist democracy.

It is highly anti-intellectual - whereas Catholicism and Anglicanism have supported breadth and depth of knowledge and education, and have consequently developed sophisticated theologies, American fundamentalism has not.

It is, in the main, exclusionary and arrogant, and holds itself to be the 'one true' path. Though such a notion is not unique to American fundamentalism, there is no other version of Christian faith where this is more the case.

It IS complementary, unfortunately, with certain other dynamics in American culture that lead many to notions of unique blessedness and righteousness.

Carter was the first evangelical president. But Bush is the first fundamentalist to hold the office. With any luck, he'll be the last of his type.

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I'm sure that the leader of North Korea doesn't fit that description.
Tell that to the Iraqi people. They seem very angry with the occupation just now, or haven't you heard? Rummie told us the Iraqi's would welcome us with open arms and flowers in the streets. What happened? The UN did not have the will to act? They were in Iraq inspecting to find Saddams WMDS, and they couldn't find any.
Unfortunately, the second difficult thing was ill planned and not justified by anybody's standard of war - except the Bushies administration. It's turned into a quagmire with no end in sight; costing almost 700 American lives and billions of tax dollars.
What has WWII have anything to do with Iraq? Since you can't remember, Japan attacked American soil. That was a declaration of war.

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I disagree Blatham. I think none of our presidents have been fundamentalist Christians--Jimmy Carter as a Southern Baptist may have been the most conservative/fundamentalist of 20th Century presidents--but I think the fundamentalist Christians comprise a relatively small percentage of American Christians in general. Then again, I suppose it would depend on your definition of fundamentalism. I hope you aren't suggesting that all Christians other than the Roman Catholics and the Anglicans are fundamentalist?

There is no way that George W. Bush is a fundamentalist.

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Well, sure, we can sort out our terms. Does the following seem an accurate account of Bush's version of faith? I think it is, and yet not Carter's.

Quote:

Derivatively, a fundamentalist Christian is a Christian who holds the Bible to be infallible, historically accurate, and decisive in all issues of controversy that the Bible is believed to directly address; which was the central issue for which the Christian Fundamentalist movement has contended.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Christianity

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Okay then Bush is absolutely not a fundamentalist by that definition. He's a Methodist. The Methodists are about as mainstream as you can get.

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How do you come to that? What has Bush said to make you think one or more of those belief elements are not held by him?

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Because I know what Methodists believe. What has he said to make you think he believes anything other than what Methodists believe?

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Well, there are what, some forty versions of Methodism in North America, including the conservative Southern Methodism found down around your parts.

But traditionally, reason plays a very important part of Methodist understanding of scripture, as opposed to a literalist reading such as we would see in the evangelism of Billy Graham, for example.

But it is bedtime. Let's continue this.

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Forty different Methodist groups? Possibly. I rather doubt that here in the United States. Anyway, George W. Bush is a member of the United Methodist Church of which I'm reasonalby certain more than 90% of U.S. Methodist belong to, quite mainstream, quite nonfundamentalist. I was raised in that denomination though I no longer belong to it. I can assure you, there is nothing fundamentalist about it.

Billy Graham is a Southern Baptist which would make him quite a bit more conservative than George W. Bush but Graham is of the majority of the Southern Baptist Convention that allows for interpretation of scriptures and therefore even he could not be classified as a fundamentalist Christian.

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morning, all.

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Foxfyre wrote:

There is no way that George W. Bush is a fundamentalist.

I would put forth that there is no way bush is a real christian.

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W and god
Did W not say that the Almighty has bestowed the concept of freedom to the world? Did he not say that it is America's duty to spread freedom?

If he said those two things can we stick with those two statements?

Is someone would pease post the exact sentences of W, I would appreciate it. I will comment further when I get the answers to my three questions.

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This reminds me of an old Emo Phillips routine.
You know the one?

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http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=18057

http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=1344&fcategory_desc=Under%20Reported

I spent quit a long time trying to search out sources that at least give a person reason to believe that Bush forms his ideas based on his interpretation of the Bible or what he feels God wants to have done. I think there is reasonable reason to believe that George Bush actually believes that he was chosen by God to be president in this time. I found lots of links this morning where he has made statements to people to lead one to think that.

All in all it is just the way he phrases everything as though he alone has the ear of God and if you don't see his way then you are on the side of evil. If believing that causes me risk political damage, who cares I am not running for office, I still believe it is true and that is one reason that I don't like Bush.

There are lots of people in government who are religious but I personaly feel based on everything i have read and heard that Bush is a fanatical extremist. Of course he is not going to come right out and say that in a speech himself, he just hints and does everything else short of that, so of course every link we come up with is going to be something he said to someone else.

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There is another thread started that deals with the different perceptions of Democrats and Republicans. I only mention those two groups as the study being conducted didn't include Libertarians, Independents, Nadar-ites, etc. The thrust of the conclusions so far indicate that a Democrat and Republican can be shown an image and will respond very differently.

In the same way, I think those who think to be behind the president is the constructive and right way to go are going to hear his words differently than those who oppose and/or hate him.

I am probably older than most or all of you and every president in my lifetime has been a professed Christian and has, on occasion, invoked the name of God when it fit his thesis and/or was appropriate to do so. I have done search after search on this one issue and I am unable to come up with anything sinister, untoward, or unusual that GWB has said re God, religion, or his personal faith.
No president in my memory has invoked the name of God more than Bill Clinton did and there was no similar chorus of alarm regarding that.

I therefore have to conclude that those who accuse GWB of some kind of dangerous messiah complex or whatever it is he is accused of re his faith are coming from an instense dislike of him and therefore read what isn't there into what he says.

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Foxfyre wrote:

I am probably older than most or all of you and every president in my lifetime has been a professed Christian and has, on occasion, invoked the name of God when it fit his thesis and/or was appropriate to do so. I have done search after search on this one issue and I am unable to come up with anything sinister, untoward, or unusual that GWB has said re God, religion, or his personal faith.
No president in my memory has invoked the name of God more than Bill Clinton did and there was no similar chorus of alarm regarding that.

I wonder what you think the median age of participants here to be. Expressing one's religious beliefs, and injecting those beliefs into policy decisions which will have a profound effect on millions of people, at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars is a different thing altogether. There was no "chorus of alarm" about Clinton (ah, the old knee-jerk reaction to mention Clinton whenever Bush is criticized) because there was no reason to assume that he made policy decisions based on his religious beliefs. There is good reason to wonder about this with regard to Bush. Your remark about the number of searches you have done is yet another instance of your attempt to insist that you speak from authority, based upon your apparent assumption that you are better informed than the rest of us. Your statements from authority are worth exactly how much we pay to read them--nothing.

Quote:

I therefore have to conclude that those who accuse GWB of some kind of dangerous messiah complex or whatever it is he is accused of re his faith are coming from an instense dislike of him and therefore read what isn't there into what he says.

Yes, such a conclusion will nicely support your constant unfounded contention that those who criticize Bush are hateful and vicious. Excuse the rest of us if we don't care to give such an indirect ad hominem the time of day.

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Democrats Are Risking Political Damnation

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