Does "Bush bashing" bother you?

Yes C.I., it happens from both sides and is equally frustrating to me when it happens. The President's religious beliefs, however, seem to be a particular focus of leftist attacks with some of the most outrageous and ignorant accusations and conclusions being drawn about it not to mention how illogical it is to accuse him of lying about everything else but believing he is spot on re his faith.

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suzy wrote:

Scrat wrote:
Oh goodie, more attacks on the President's religion!

I didn't see an attack on his religion, Scrat, maybe I missed it?
What upsets people is that, with so many different religious beliefs in the USA, it is frightening when the president makes his decisions for the nation based on his one religion, which this guy so blatantly does. He does not and should not have that right or privilege. This is the USA.
Not a dictatorship. Not a kingdom.
It's as simple as that.

It's not "as simple as that".

Consider this:

A) Murder is against the law.

B) Murder is prohibited by Christian faith, in the Ten Commandments.

Now, suppose you and I are arguing the merits of a law against murder, and I happen to be a Christian. Does that fact automatically devalue my opinion on the issue, or do you simply consider the merits of my argument, and ignore the fact of my faith?

Of course the second option is the rational one, absent anti-religious bias. Now, if my only argument against murder is that God says it's bad, well, that's a pretty weak argument, isn't it?

It is absurd to argue that you accept the President having his faith, but don't think he should be allowed to base his decisions on it. You might as well say it's okay for him to have O-negative blood as long as he bleeds A-positive. As I've written ad nauseum here, the only issue should be the relative merits--strengths or weaknesses--of his policies, positions and actions, not whether or not his faith leads him to them. Why? Because once you allow yourself to use the fact of his faith to devalue his policies, positions and actions, you are effectively arguing that his faith makes him unfit to hold his office, and I see no way to square that notion with the First Amendment.

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Your founders, and subsequent constitutional scholarship, sought to place a barrier between church and state.

They did not see it necessary to establish such a division in other cases: eg, bowling clubs and the state, or blondes and the state.

What previous analogous Presidential criticism are you two aware of? Certainly, there was some opposition to Kennedy on the basis of his Catholicism. Certainly also, there would have been some opposition if Lieberman, a jew, had run for the presidency. But in the main, a President's religious notions haven't been a subject of debate or concern previously.

From this, you two draw the conclusion that debate or opposition to Bush, as it is pretty much unique, MUST arise out of Bush hatred - Bush is identified with X, therefore X must be bad. This is a move you both make continually. It's a handy-dandy notion, but wrong.

The alternate explanation is that it is precisely the nature of Bush's faith which allows for proper debate and concern. Now, it may be that the concern is misplaced, but that is not by any means a given, and it is the constitutional concern which makes this a completely valid issue.

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That's right, Blatham.
Scrat, "Of course the second option is the rational one, absent anti-religious bias. Now, if my only argument against murder is that God says it's bad, well, that's a pretty weak argument, isn't it?"
While your whole premise is faulty, I will only address that statement, as I have a lot to do.
God is not the only argument against murder!
I think most peoples can believe that murdering is bad, and that we can have laws against it, as the majority belief system.
Do you think otherwise?

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Leave religion out of it; murder is wrong any way you wish to translate this action. Why is Bush against homosexual marriage? One answer? His religion.

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blatham wrote:

What previous analogous Presidential criticism are you two aware of? Certainly, there was some opposition to Kennedy on the basis of his Catholicism. Certainly also, there would have been some opposition if Lieberman, a jew, had run for the presidency. But in the main, a President's religious notions haven't been a subject of debate or concern previously.

If you honeslty believe that then you are seriously off-base.

Lincoln was critisized for some of his religious views, Andrew Jackson was critisized for not belonging to an established church. (During Johnson's impeachment hearing he was accused by William G. Brownlow of being an "infidel" to which he replied "As for my religion, it is the doctrine of the Bible, as taught and practised by Jesus Christ.".) There are numerous other examples up to and including Jimmy Carter.

Quote:

It's a handy-dandy notion, but wrong.

Perhaps. But not as wrong as yours.

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Blatham
Blatham, how could you neglect Catholic Al Smith? I'm shocked Shocked

BBB

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Couldn't say it any better myself.
*********
From Dream to Nightmare
April 30, 2004
By BOB HERBERT

At least 10 more American soldiers died yesterday in George
W. Bush's senseless war in Iraq.

They died for a pipe dream, which the American Heritage
Dictionary defines as a fantastic notion or a vain hope.
"Pipe dream" originally referred to the fantasies induced
by smoking a pipe of opium. The folks who led us into this
hideous madness in Iraq, against the wishes of most of the
world, sure seem to have been smoking something.

President Bush and his hyperhawk vice president, Dick
Cheney, were busy yesterday lip-syncing their way through
an appearance before the commission investigating the Sept.
11 attacks. If you want a hint of how much trouble the U.S.
is in, consider that these two gentlemen are still clinging
to the hope that weapons of mass destruction will be found
in Iraq.

Reality was the first casualty of Iraq. This was a war that
would be won on the cheap, we were told, with few American
casualties. The costs of reconstruction would be more than
covered by Iraqi oil revenues. The Iraqi people, giddy with
their first taste of freedom, would toss petals in the path
of their liberators. And democracy, successfully rooted in
Iraq, would soon spread like the flowers of spring
throughout the Middle East.

Oh, they must have been passing the pipe around.

My
problem with the warrior fantasies emerging from the
comfort zones of Washington and Crawford, Tex., is that
they are being put to the test in the flaming reality of
combat in Iraq, not by the fantasizers but by brave and
patriotic men and women who deserve so much more from the
country they are willing to defend with their lives.

There is nothing new about this. It seemed to take forever
for American leaders to realize that they were lost in a
pipe dream in Vietnam. A key government spokesman during a
crucial period of that conflict was Barry Zorthian, the
public information officer for American forces in Vietnam
from 1964 to 1968. In a book published last year,
"Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered From All Sides," Mr.
Zorthian is quoted as saying:

"We probably could have gotten the deal we ended up with in
1973 as early as 1969. And between 1969 and 1972 we almost
doubled our losses. It's easy to second-guess but I've
never been convinced that those last 25,000 casualties were
justified."

The sad truth about Iraq is that one year after President
Bush gaudily proclaimed victory with his "Top Gun" moment
aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, we don't know
what we're doing in Iraq. We don't know where we're
heading. We don't know how many troops it will take to get
us there. And we don't know how to get out.

Flower petals strewn in our path? Forget about that. The
needle on the hate-America meter in Iraq is buried deep in
the bright red danger zone. Even humanitarian aid groups
have had to hustle American and other non-Iraqi workers out
of the country because of fears that they would be
kidnapped, shot or bombed.

A USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll found that only a third of
Iraqis believe the U.S.-led occupation is doing more good
than harm. The poll was taken in late March and early
April, and it's a safe bet that if the results have changed
at all in the past few weeks, they've only gotten worse.

There is nothing surprising about the poll's findings. The
U.S. primed Iraq with a "shock and awe" bombing campaign,
then invaded, and is attempting to impose our concept of
democracy at the point of a gun.

Why would anybody think that would work?

Since then we've
destroyed countless homes and legitimate businesses and
killed or maimed thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians,
including many women and children. That was a lousy
strategy for winning hearts and minds in Vietnam and it's a
lousy strategy now.

Equally unsurprising is the erosion of support for the war
among Americans. There's no upside. Casualties are mounting
daily and so are the financial costs, which have never been
honestly acknowledged or budgeted.

Mr. Bush has enmeshed us in a war that we can't win and
that we don't know how to end. Each loss of a life in this
tragic exercise is a reminder of lessons never learned from
history. And the most fundamental of those lessons is that
fantasy must always genuflect before reality.

E-mail: [email protected]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/opinion/30HERB.html?ex=1084331785&ei=1&en=9640c08729d6f206

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

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fishin' wrote:

blatham wrote:
What previous analogous Presidential criticism are you two aware of? Certainly, there was some opposition to Kennedy on the basis of his Catholicism. Certainly also, there would have been some opposition if Lieberman, a jew, had run for the presidency. But in the main, a President's religious notions haven't been a subject of debate or concern previously.

If you honeslty believe that then you are seriously off-base.

Lincoln was critisized for some of his religious views, Andrew Jackson was critisized for not belonging to an established church. (During Johnson's impeachment hearing he was accused by William G. Brownlow of being an "infidel" to which he replied "As for my religion, it is the doctrine of the Bible, as taught and practised by Jesus Christ.".) There are numerous other examples up to and including Jimmy Carter.

Quote:
It's a handy-dandy notion, but wrong.
Perhaps. But not as wrong as yours.

Head bowed in shame on historical ommissions. I apologize.

However, is it your claim fishin that a president's faith has no connection to constitutional concerns? Or that religious beliefs ought to be completely taboo subjects for debate as regards political figures? If so, I will begin to tell about your mother again.

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blatham wrote:

However, is it your claim fishin that a president's faith has no connection to constitutional concerns? Or that religious beliefs ought to be completely taboo subjects for debate as regards political figures? If so, I will begin to tell about your mother again.

I would never say that there is no connection. Its a matter of degrees. You (based on the sum total of your posts about it on this board) seem to believe that the rate of incidence is high in the case of Bush. That may or may not be true but the basis for the claims seems to be "because I said so". You seem to jump to that conclusion as the first possible reason for anything he does (or doesn't do) yet seldom provide any hard and fast evidence that it is the actual reason for his actions (or lack of). You may believe it to be true but thusfar that seems to be a matter of your own "faith".

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Speaking for myself, the basis of my claim to that effect is that I have observed this for myself throughout Bush's reign.
Frankly, what I see, hear and read is good enough evidence for me.

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I'm with you, suzy; I don't need to be hit over the head to see how religion guides Bush's presidency. I guess for anyone that wishes to not see what we see is 'normal' too.

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fishin' wrote:

blatham wrote:
However, is it your claim fishin that a president's faith has no connection to constitutional concerns? Or that religious beliefs ought to be completely taboo subjects for debate as regards political figures? If so, I will begin to tell about your mother again.

I would never say that there is no connection. Its a matter of degrees. You (based on the sum total of your posts about it on this board) seem to believe that the rate of incidence is high in the case of Bush. That may or may not be true but the basis for the claims seems to be "because I said so". You seem to jump to that conclusion as the first possible reason for anything he does (or doesn't do) yet seldom provide any hard and fast evidence that it is the actual reason for his actions (or lack of). You may believe it to be true but thusfar that seems to be a matter of your own "faith".

Yes, it is a matter of degrees. Clearly, someone like Pat Roberts or Billy Graham's son Franklin (or quite a few others in the fundamentalist movement) wouldn't be jolly choices to hold the Presidency, due to their exclusionary notions of faith and their paltry take on separation.

I do think Bush is uniquely extreme in this regard, though I may be wrong. It may simply be that for political expediency (achieving and maintaining power) his adminstration forwards policies dear to a more radical component, now very powerful within your party. But the effects are the same, regardless.

As to not having made reference to statements and policies and political connections in the past, you are simply wrong on that. I've been doing it for four years. You know yourself that a wide range of policies have originated under this administration which have as a goal the forwarding of values and ideas emollient to the advancement of christian faith ideas and values within the polity. As I've said before, I don't care if he is a Whirling Dervish. That's not the point.

I am not going to take the time to link and quote and argue all I have previously. You also know how easy it is to find such, and where to locate the quality varieties of it.

But if you like, we can start afresh, taking this Frontline piece to be broadcast this evening, and then tear it apart for facts, ommissions, fallacies, etc. I'd be quite game.

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blatham wrote:

I do think Bush is uniquely extreme in this regard, though I may be wrong. It may simply be that for political expediency (achieving and maintaining power) his adminstration forwards policies dear to a more radical component, now very powerful within your party. But the effects are the same, regardless.

My party?!? Who are these masked radical iindependents? I wasn't aware that there were any. Very Happy

Quote:

As to not having made reference to statements and policies and political connections in the past, you are simply wrong on that. I've been doing it for four years.

I know you've made numerous assertions based on connections and what you THINK the rationale for policies has been but that doesn't make your perceptions accurate and they are far from conclusive evidence.

Quote:

But if you like, we can start afresh, taking this Frontline piece to be broadcast this evening, and then tear it apart for facts, ommissions, fallacies, etc. I'd be quite game.

Well, I'm afraid I probably won't be watching Nightline tonight as I'll be meeting up with this cute girl for the evening and neither politics nor Nightline is near the top of the agenda. Wink

Feel free to start a thread on it though. I can always play catch up from what I can pull from press reports.

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blatham wrote:

Your founders, and subsequent constitutional scholarship, sought to place a barrier between church and state.

Yes, and the nature of that barrier was to prevent the state from officially adopting a specific religion. Period. There is no evidence that they intended to prevent men of faith from serving in government, nor were they stupid enough to think that men of faith would never referrence that faith while doing so.

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suzy wrote:

That's right, Blatham.
Scrat, "Of course the second option is the rational one, absent anti-religious bias. Now, if my only argument against murder is that God says it's bad, well, that's a pretty weak argument, isn't it?"
While your whole premise is faulty, I will only address that statement, as I have a lot to do.
God is not the only argument against murder!

Of course not. That's my point! God is not the "only argument" Bush has made for ANY position he's taken, so why do you and others pretend that's the case? Confused

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Leave religion out of it; murder is wrong any way you wish to translate this action. Why is Bush against homosexual marriage? One answer? His religion.

No, that's YOUR "one answer". Bush has stated numerous reasons for his stance against same-gender marriage. You choose to ignore that and attack his religion, because that takes no thought or effort, and because you lack respect for his faith.

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Quote:

Well, I'm afraid I probably won't be watching Nightline tonight as I'll be meeting up with this cute girl for the evening and neither politics nor Nightline is near the top of the agenda. Feel free to start a thread on it though. I can always play catch up from what I can pull from press reports.

Keeping my fingers crossed for ya. When I am about to date a new lady, I always get her full name, then call about to the local clinics to see if "my" tests are back yet. Just a safeguard. Feel free to use it if you like.

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Speaking of Nightline, i got this in e-mail today! Tonight, ABC's Nightline is doing something beautiful and courageous.
The entire show will consist of a reading of the names of each soldier who has fallen in Iraq, while his or her photograph shows on the screen.

But ABC affiliate stations around the country will be prohibited from airing the special. That's because they're owned by Sinclair Broadcasting Group, a company whose executives have given tens of
thousands to Republicans and whose right-wing allies tout it as "the next Fox."

In a statement released earlier this week, the company said that to honor the men and women who died in this way would be a political act
that is "contrary to the public interest." Censoring images of the fallen serves the right-wing ideologues who pushed the war in Iraq,
but it certainly doesn't serve our country to hide those who were killed

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suzy

Yes, it is some ten outlets, I believe, which are owned by Sinclair and won't show it. There's a good amount of press on this now, and Sinclair is coming under some needed scrutiny.

They are making the same argument that the White House/Pentagon is making...that, somehow, it shows disrespect to the fallen. That's a stupid and transparently incoherent argument, and is itself egregiously disrespectful (as John McCain's letter to Sinclair today maintains...he's pissed) because the real reason for the Pentagon/White House and Sinclair policy is nothing but political.

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Does "Bush bashing" bother you?

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