Me, I believe. And I do hate “freedom”, but only when it immediately precedes “fries” or “toast”.
I suspect part of the problem is the absolute horror with which “Bush haters” are seeing their countrypeople (and allies, which is why I feel qualified to comment) hitch themselves to this political monstrosity. “I’m ever so dismayed that we’re in a shit storm, but I won’t stop flinging shit” could be a great allusion to Bush’s foreign policy, for example.
It’s terribly difficult to speak calmly when you see the supporters of Bush actually buying this awful, awful, proto-fascist crock, when previously you had thought your political opponents were merely respectably idealistically different; but do so we must. I agree with the OP.
Which rational positions would you like to engage? What reasonable debate is being offered? After three years of death and carnage brought forward under false premises, precisely what “rational discourse” would you like to engage in?
If I am dismissed as a crank by someone who takes the trouble to investigate the facts, I am entirely content. If dismissed by someone who won’t take that trouble, what is lost?
True enough, anger is seldom sanctified by truth. But it happens, and this is just such an occassion.
People aren’t like falling weights. They don’t have easily calcuable properties and behaviors. In fact, I think the human brain is the only computer on the planet capable of making probabilistic computations about an individual’s behavior that have any hope of being even remotely accurate. We simply can’t treat politicians like physical systems which we’re obliged to regard with near-scientific skepticism because they’re so complex, and so much of what motivates them is completely hidden from us. It’s a practical necessity that we make up our minds about someone’s reliability based on incomplete evidence, and to dismiss a critic’s objections that we don’t, in fact, know everything needed to be certain beyond a reasonable doubt as hopeless and obfuscatory nitpicking, is not unreasonable. It’s also really irritiating when the self-appointed voices of reason themselves shows evidence of the same human biases upon which we, again due to practical necessity, must all rely when dealing with other humans.
I think there’s a mountain of evidence indicating Bush is either the most disastrously incompetent fool to ever sit in the oval office, or he’s a pathologically lying sack of shit, or, quite possibly, both, with feeling. He used up his “benefit of the doubt” quotient almost before he was elected, and it’s been downhill from there. I’m not a crazed, foaming-at-the-mouth Bush hater to think this. Either you see it by now, or you refuse to, in my estimation, and I’m really quite unconcerned at this point with accusations I’m being irrational. The whole fucking mess of the recent history we’ve lived through is fundamentally irrational, heinous, criminal, and lamentable. How anyone could be happy with Bush’s performance up to now is so beyond my comprehension I’m not ashamed to assert I’m either a sociopath, or the Bush apologists are. Furthermore, I’m leaning strongly towards it being them instead of me. Again, there’s fuck all to “reason” through at this point when you’ve been witnessing a slow-motion trainwreck of a presidency and the action of delusional ideologues with cubic hectares of blood on their hands who claim to fight for our “freedoms”. Listen up? Listen to what? A mosquito’s whine of niggling doubt about treating our President and his cronies “fairly” when at best their devastating inadequacy has been the death of tens-of-thousands of innocents?
Sorry, no.
But the afore mentioned posters DO NOT DEFEND THIS ADMINISTRATION. How hard is that for people to understand?
Just because some one is not as rabid as you (general you - not vibrotronica in particular), does not mean they support Bush, and it sure as hell doesn’t make them apologists.
I hate Bush. I hate what he and his cronies have done to my country. I hate this administration with a passion normally reserved for Carolina. That is how much I hate them, but I believe I’ve been called an apologist once or twice for not joining in on a dog pile with enough vigor.
Loopydude, really.
If this were true then everyone who voted for Bush in 2004 would be a sociopath by your lights.
You’ve talked yourself into a world-view where anyone who disagrees with you cannot be doing so in good faith, but must be evil.
Do you honestly not see the fucking irony of your position slapping you in the fucking face? Honestly?
Self-righteousness is a drug. It’s not pretty in Rush Limbaugh, it’s not pretty in Ann Coulter, it’s not pretty in George Bush, and it isn’t pretty in you either.
Gosh, you guys all sound like me prior to the 2004 election. Glad to see you’re finally catching up to what the Bush admin. is. Unfortunately, too many of you think the 2006 elections will be something like fair elections. They won’t be. That’ll hurt you. No amount of outrage will help if you let your opponent rejigger the electoral results.
I am apparently not making myself sufficiently clear. Let’s take John Mace as an example. John has repeatedly expressed disapproval of Bush’s actions, in particular as regards to torture. He has also, however, often pointed out factual errors or unsupported claims in criticisms of the Bush administration by other posters. His usual reward is to get shouted down as a Bush apologist. He’s not. What I am proposing is that when someone like him points out what he perceives as a problem in an argument you make about the Bush administration, examine his point rationally and take it seriously. See if you can use that critique to make a stronger argument against Bush and his allies.
I thought I was clear enough in the OP that I am fully convinced Bush has been extremely harmful to this nation, in general and in many particulars. I’m not suggesting you back off from criticism of Bush. I’m telling you that it is crucial for you to pay attention to your facts, to engage reasonable objections and questions on the basis of reason, and to try to be persuasive to those who are civil. Sloppy attacks that ooze vitriol but are weak on factual grounds will not help undermine Bush’s position; quite the opposite.
Let’s see if I can paraphrase your position.
When confronting fence-sitters:
DO: Make reasoned and convincing arguments.
DON’T: Babble incoherently and throw cats.
That about right?
Why is this a debate at all?
Bingo. The reason I posted it is that so many people around here can’t seem to grasp the concept. Instead, anyone who questions any part of an anti-Bush statement is a “Bush apologist” whose points can simply be ignored.
This is the BBQ Pit. Great Debates is four doors down :)Can I interest you in an argument?
You know, that reminds me… my tone so far really hasn’t been quite up to Pit standards. Pardon me while I break into song…
You piss me off.
You fucking jerks.
You get on my nerves.
Can I humbly suggest that the buzzword “theocracy” be retired? “We are living in a theocracy,” “Bush is trying to create a theocracy,” etc. is my clue that ridiculous hyperbole lies ahead, and I should probably stop reading. I think I can judge for myself whether the American government constitutes a theocracy, thank you.
Also, the various jokes comparing Bush to a monkey are extremely unbecoming, and a dead giveaway that a poster is interested in bullying, not conversing.
No it isn’t.
Indeed! The chimps should file suit for libel.
The OP, OTOH, is 100% correct, IMHO. (Did I miss any acronyms? :D)
Its called righteous indignation. It is the natural result of someone lying to you and costing you hundreds of billions of dollars, almost all your international goodwill, and thousands of soldiers.
I dunno. Check out “Going to See the Beast” 
Dude, you just don’t get it. When it comes to Bushwhacking, there can be no quarter. Bush =evil, therefore anything bad said about Bush must be defended, whether it’s true or not. You’re either with us or against us. Funny, though… that sounds vaguely familiar. Where have I heard that before? 
Exactly how many fence-sitters are still out there? People may be sitting on the fence about some of the subissues (like a timetable for pulling out or if we should stay there until we are so sick of it that we just can’t stand it anymore; whether this administration was lying or if it was just tragically wrong about almost everything it said about Iraq) but there are very few people are still on the fence about whether going into Iraq was a good idea (neocons will always say it was a good and necessary thing to go into Iraq because they believe in some theory that is just slightly north of believing in the Easter Bunny) or whether we are handling things in Iraq competantly (everyone making money in the reconstruction thinks its been handled great).
I don’t think it is necessary to convince people that Bush lied (it is enough that he was just tragically wrong about everything). What exactly are we trying to convince the fence-sitters of?
That they’d better climb down or we’ll set fire to it? Just thinking out loud…