A rather sad overlord [DevNull puts forth his political beliefs]

Great Debates
#1

Maybe this is pit material, but… The way I see things is that it has been over six years of President GW Bush:

“Wiping his ass with the Constitution”

“Flushing the country down the toilet”

“Enslaving the citizens of the USA”

“Destroying our freedoms”

“Shitting on the Bill of Rights”

etc, etc etc (You can Google all the above for specific anti-Bush cites)

Yet, I am unaffected.

I am 38 years old and I remember what a country down the toilet kinda felt like in 1979. I am happy now and have a more positive outlook then I did back then.

So what gives? Seriously.

I mean, these vile phrases I quoted are commonplace and we got all these groups and movements all in full swing with the Moore’s of the world making anti-Bush motion pictures and getting leaders like Chavez in on it and you can’t turn around without another clown on teh internets posting about a freedom Armageddon of sorts.

But nothing in my neighborhood. Did I miss something? Am I a weirdo because I cannot see what all these people see? Is this happening two towns over from mine?

I am not kidding that I have no idea what these people are all paranoid about.

Maybe it is because many of these people call Bush an idiot, yet credit him for all these evils (that are apparently invisible) that makes me highly skeptical, but after six years of accusations, it is starting to wear quite thin.

My question:

Is Bush that good to make his overlordish destruction invisible to me?

#2

Maybe you simply don’t disagree with what he’s doing. A good 30% of the public feel he’s doing a great job!

#3

The people who scream at Bush are also pretty much unaffected, I think. After all, the loudest screamers are the upper middle class Democrats. People who have not sent their kids to Iraq*, do have college education, do not worry about losing their job to Mexicans,etc.
But they do genuinely feel scared that they are losing their country to a bunch of red-state hillbillies.
They are scared, And when you are scared, you scream a lot…even if your fears are more theory than fact.So you generalize—projecting your personal fears onto the national level. You may be unaffected now, but you worry about being affected in the future.

Take your example of 1979. You were apparently one of the “screamers” who thought the country was going down the toilet.
What happened in 1979? Did I miss something?
Because, for me, 1979 was very best year of my life.I had the most positive outlook ever. I was 25, starting a good career, and falling in love. No financial worries, no personal worries, no political worries…a great future ahead of me
But now, 3 decades later, you and I are both still here, the country is still functioning, and life goes on. No screaming necessary.

So why all the big fuss? Not because of what Bush has done or will do…but because of a sort of paranoia. The world is getting less and less stable, so people are scared about their personal lives, and screaming at Bush is cheap therapy.

*yes, I’m ignoring Cindy Shehan. When I say the “loudest screamers”, I’m talking about the mass of Michael Moore’s supporters–the Daily Kos bloggers, moveon.org, etc—who represent millions of people, and who statistically do not have many family members in the army, or much personal stake in Bush’s politics.

#4

Yep, I’ve thought the same thing as the OP from time to time. “I’ve got a job that pays decently, none of this fooferaw over the Bush circus has affected me, so what’s the big deal?”

I have no idea whether any of the items the OP has quoted are real quotes, much less who said them, but assuming they are, yes, there are a lot of people who speak somewhat hyperbolically, to say the least, of the current administration being a cross between the SS and the Galactic Empire. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who want to characterize any objections at all to the behavior of the current administration as “Bush hatred”, because that allows them to neatly avoid ever thinking about whether there is any legitimacy at all to those objections. Is the OP that sort of person?

Hey, I’m relatively unaffected by the administration’s comic/sad misadventures as well. The OP recognizes that other persons HAVE been affected, though, right? Doesn’t mean no legitimate criticisms can be made, can it?

#5

I’m much less affected than even you are! :wink:

Really the only affect on us is the terrorist threat level, which I would say (and this is of course personal opinion) has gone up for us thanks to the Iraq war, rather than down or stayed level, and that’s partly Blair, too. But he has affected many people, and while those statements are pretty over-the-top (i’ve never heard the “enslaving” one before, but I have all the others) that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been bad for your country and mine (again, opinion). It seems to be mostly theoretical stuff - he could have raised the attack risk, he *could * infringe upon your rights - which is good up until it’s no longer theoretical.

#6

The notion that things aren’t bad because things aren’t bad for you is rather selfish and short-sighted, don’t you think?

#7

I was thinking of that very quote. As young adults in the '80s my friends and I used to say the '70s were ‘The Me Generation’ and the '80s were ‘The Me; Fuck you! Generation’. It seems to me – and this is only my impression – that people have become more selfish over the last couple of decades.

As to Bush ‘wiping his ass with the Constitution’, here’s last week’s Tom The Dancing Bug.

#8

Well, they haven’t even started coming after the Commies yet. That poem can be used to suggest that any complaint, no matter how trivial or inaccurate, deserves the full support of the people.

#9

They have suspended habeus corpus for American citizens who they have simply declared to be enemy combatants. But you are not an enemy combatant, so what’s the worry, right?

#10

I, for one, welcome our…oh never mind

#11

In this context it’s supposed to be analogous.

#12

Bush-bashers love to use that quote from the Nazi era, but I don’t see the analogy…
Who are “they coming for” today?
Who is suffering under the Bush administration? Who is afraid of “them” banging down doors in the middle of the night?
In the famous quote,it starts with trade unionists, then communists,then Jews then Catholics, etc,etc. Each ethnic group narrows the noose…till it is too late.
But it’s a little hard to see who the noose is threatening in America today.*

So, yes, as the OP states–most people are totally unaffected.

Bush will be out of office soon, and life will go on…which will leave Michael Moore and Cindy Shehan disappointed.

I don’t follow your logic. You are thinking of the quote about German history, and you fear that today’s selfishness will bring it to fruition? I think exactly the opposite: people are selfish today because our freedoms are so well entrenched. We can afford to ignore politics, concentrate on getting laid and then telling the whole world about it on myspace. :slight_smile: We don’t have to worry about a military coup, or censorship, or the government controlling our personal lives.

*Yes, there is a camp called Guantanamo, …but it isn’t filling up with thousands of prisoners yanked from their beds in Nashville or Seattle. Most rational people can tell the difference between an American citizen and an Afghani captured overseas with an AK-47 in his hands.
And then there is–horrors–the Patriot Act. Which so far has yielded lots of panic stories about surveillance of public libraries, but no actual loss of freedom.
(but this is a topic for another thread…, one that’s been done here a few million times)

#13

Tell that to Jose Padilla.

#14

The OP was eleven years old in 1979. I was eleven in 1968, and other than a general awareness of some bit of hubbub going on, I certainly wasn’t politically aware enough to feel that the country was in the toilet. Playing catch with my brother was far more important.

#15

“I’m all right, Jack!”

First time I’ve heard it used as a political argument before, but I suspect it lies at the base of much conservative thought.

#16

Separate, though related, thoughts. The OP reminded me of the quote. Then I thought about how selfish people seem (to me) today, which reminded me of how we felt in the '80s. I said nothing about fearing that selfishness will bring it to fruition.

Are people more selfish today? Maybe, maybe not. People have always complained about taxes, while ignoring the benefits they receive from paying them. Some people have always climbed upon the backs of others in order to advance. Are things different today? Probably not. However in light of the abuses of the current administration, it brings individual acts of selfishness into higher relief. For example, I believe that a healthy population benefits the country, businesses, and citizens. I also believe that ‘free’ access to health care (which isn’t ‘free’, because we’d be paying for it through taxes) is morally the right thing to do. But within the last year I’ve read posts hear that amount to ‘I’ve got mine. If you cannot get adequate – or any – health coverage for whatever reason, what’s it to me?’ I’d call that selfish and short-sighted. But that’s a debate for another thread. I only mention it here to illustrate my perception of people’s selfishness.

So how does that relate to the OP and Fear Itself’s post? It seems to me that people who are only concerned about Numero Uno might have the opinion that if they are not a part of a put-upon group may not see the big picture. They might be too focused on their own well-being to notice trends that may affect them in the future. Do I fear that we will have gulags? It’s happened in the past and is happening now; but I can’t see it happening to the extent suggested by Niemoller’s poem/sermon. He was confessing; not warning of what was to come. I do think that it’s important that we pay attention to what this administration – any administration – is doing.

Everyone knows I’m a Liberal. I believe things that Conservatives believe are absolutely wrong. But I still think our country should be as FDR said:

‘The greatest good to the greatest number of our citizens’. This cannot be achieved through selfishness. And as selfishness has an economic efffect on people, so it has social effects.

I really didn’t want to hijack the thread. But in a society many things are interconnected. All I really wanted to do was to agree that we should care about things that don’t affect us personally, because they do affect the country.

#17

Do you really beleive that all, or even a majority, the Gauntanamo detainees are Afghanis who were actually captured with weapons in their hands? Because if so, you seem to be a very uninformed person.

#18

who changed his name to Abdullah Al Mujahir,and has a long arrest record and has travelled to Pakistan where he may have met Abu Zubaydah and other senior al-Qaeda leaders

You may enjoy about Bush-bashing.
But suppose Hillary is elected in November-- do you think she’ll automatically set Joe Padillo/Abdulah Al Mujahir free, or will she consult with the CIA first?
Sure , you can panic and say “First they came for…”
Or you can be rational and recognize that the judicial system isn’t perfect, but the average American citizen can still sleep well at night.

#19

And who, nevertheless, is an American citizen arrested on American soil.

#20

So they say. Which of those is a crime? If they were so sure, why didn’t they try him? Does innocent until proven guilty mean nothing to you? If they can declare him an enemy combatant and suspend his right to habeus corpus on mere allegations, they can do it to you or I. Even **Bricker ** has said what happened to Padilla was inappropriate. When did we become a country where citizens can be locked up just because “everybody knows” they are scarey?