Sorry Stoid, my mini-rant wasn’t so much directed at you as at this whole thread.
I lost track of it somewhere around the bottom of the first page, so I haven’t seen the defenition of “debate” that’s being used here.
But honestly, what is there to debate? When people here provide no other cites except their own subjective feelings of “creepiness”, I feel like I might as well just call up Miss Cleo and see what she says about the future of GWB, since she uses more or less the same rationale.
Numerous people on both sides of this debate have been asking, nay, begging for cites concerning this issue. I posted a number many posts back, just so everyone remembers…
actually, it was 15 posts from here for fast and easy referencing.
I’m sorry if I implied that you saw good in Bush, but refused to acknowledge it. That isn’t really what I meant. Let me see if I can clarify my message. Let’s say that that there are two people who see a crying child from a distance. They approach the child, but a third person (a middle aged man) reaches the child first. The man, pulls some candy from his pocket and offers it to the child while softly asking the child some questions.
The first person, who has had relatively beneficial experiences in life and believes in the genuine goodness of people might think “Ooohhh… what a sweet old man! He’s trying to calm that child and help her find her way!”
The second person, who has been molested as a child has alarms going off in their head. “Is this person a molester? He looks suspicious to me… after all, why would he be talking softly unless he didn’t want to be heard?!”
In this case, each person is seeing the same events but they are bringing their own interpretation to the events. What I’m saying isn’t that you see and recognize a good act of Bush’s and then mentally block it from your “good file”. What I’m saying is that I think your feelings for Bush are causing you to always perceive his actions in a negative light. People tend to color in the details of events using their thoughts and emotions at the time the event occurs without even realizing what they are doing. It’s why our memories can be so unreliable sometimes.
For instance you might watch a televised speech by Bush and perceive an arrogant or imperialistic attitude. This evokes an emotional response, and then you associate those feelings w/Bush. If the pattern is continued then eventually it applies to other areas relevant to Bush. His speech patterns, his policies, personal life, etc. Now, everyone does this to a certain extent. It’s a mostly beneficial trait which helps us adapt and survive. When the bias we bring to a situation prevents us from changing our perception it becomes a hindrance and a liability.
As you’ve clearly stated, you don’t have these same feelings about all Republicans and I believe you’re telling the truth about that. However, I never thought your “creepy” feelings extended to all Republicans anyway. As in my original post I think you receive the label of “partisan” because of your feelings about Bush not about other Republicans (although there may be some bias there also, if it was there it’s to a much lesser extent then your bias against Bush).
Your nightmare. Those are pretty strong words. I realize what you’re experiencing is an emotional response and that you don’t always feel this way about people who hold ideas opposite to you. Your strong, reflexive, emotional response to Bush is exactly what I’m talking about. Just as an assault victim has great difficulty thinking rationally about the person who attacked them, so do you Stoid, have a great difficulty thinking objectively about Bush, who you dislike so much.
My part of the communication bargain is that I’ll try to examine my own bias. At the same time I’ll try to analyze your political views based on their merit.
Grim
Grim:
All very valid points, very well argued, I have no quarrel. There is almost certainly truth in what you say. It would be nonsensical for me to completely deny any possibility of it, since I am daily a victim of the very thing you are talking about.
However, here are two items which may help mitigate your belief that my feelings for Bush render me incapable of seeing him in a fair light:
During the Election From Hell, when my emotions made me want to go right through the TV screen and punch him, along with everyone around him, and when I developed my reputation around here, I stated * ** here on the dope, at least twice ** * that the facts of that mess were that there was ** truth on both sides. ** The charges, countercharges and the fundamental points of view of each side were often valid. Which is a great deal of why it was so incredibly infuriating. (May I also note that that is a helluva lot more than most people were willing to say, on either side? And both times I said it, it was largely ignored. )
When all this shit hit the fan, I had to admit to myself (and I did here, too) that I may actually feel a little more secure with The Bane of My Existance in the Oval office. Not the least reason being the people he has surrounded himself with. They are not my ideological choices, certainly, but many of them are extremely experienced, competent people. And he was the man who picked them.
See? I’m not blind and stupid when the subject of Dubya comes up. I just hate his sorry ass. 
stoid
I hope everyone read this…
If you read it, then read it again, but this time, try to imagine another person standing apart from the original two. This person saw the plight of the child at the same time as her equals, and moved to intercede on the part of the child with equal determination. However, unlike the other two concerned parties, when the man offered candy to the child she did not immediately fall back upon preconcieved notions.
This seperate person saw the man as potentially good as well as bad, but made no determination until she could reach the man and decide what his intentions were for herself.
I find that this non-existant person, (just an ideal really) should be what all dopers are trying to embody when they post in the GD. Opinions are well and good. Where would society have gotten without them, but here in a place of reasoning we should leave opinions behind us, and deal with the issues at hand.
Just Think of the little child.
See, but here’s the thing. The watermelons’ squaking aside, all Bush did in re: arsenic was set it aside the new levels for a while, along with a bunch other last-minute Clinton executive orders to see it it was really a good idea. Would that he had the legal authority to do that with the pardons!
As it happens, on the arsenic issue, they concluded today that 50 PPB is in fact the right level.
Go figure.
That is, of course, 10 PPB. From the old standard of 50. Apologies for the error.
Did you know that when asked what he would do with his income tax refund, W. said he’d give it to charity? Which is funny, since he told us, his fellow Americans, that we should go shopping with our refunds. Another funny thing is that he didn’t know if he had even received his refund.
The story is attributed to two journalists, one from the New York Times, the other from the San Francisco Chronicle.
So what?
Your point?
And from that you deduce . . . ?
Great Duh-bates indeed.
It went something like this:
And it wasn’t at all about overturning everything Clinton did? OK.
The fact is that the arsenic issue had been studied for years. The fact that it was only implemented in Clinton’s last year was more of a coincidence than anything. That was simply when the research had come in warranting the new tougher standards.
Do you know why Clinton lowered the arsenic level? Arsenic levels are linked to certain cancers. In Europe acceptable levels are considered less than 10 ppb.
Bush dismissed the new tougher standards before he had the slightest clue why they had been implemented. Fortunately, people who actually understand science have been heard, and the tougher standards will in fact be implemented.
Umm. Reference please.
50 ppb is, in fact, way too high.
There is no single action Bush could possibly take that would be more detrimental to the future of the planet than his rejection of the Kyoto treaty. For this single act alone, he should be run out of office, humiliated and ashamed. His other policies will eventually work themselves out, as we learn from past mistakes. But once serious environmental damage is done, it cannot be undone.
The thing is that the environment is in a very precarious position at the present time. To put it bluntly, we are running out of time. If the entire world were to stop pouring CO2 into the atmosphere tomorrow, it would take 50 years minimum for the current levels to decrease back to pre-industrial levels.
The consensus among the world’s best climatologists is that a 60% reduction in greenhouse emissions is needed in order to keep global warming from running out of control. The Kyoto Protocol calls for a 2% reduction in greenhouse gases from benchmark 1990 levels.
So, a huge cut is needed, but W has dismissed ideas that we will make even a modest cut.
The rest of the world understands what a serious problem this is. Yet W dismissed the treaty (1) before appointing a science advisor, (2) before consulting with ANY world leaders on this issue, and while Gerhard Schroeder was on his way to the US to discuss the issue, and (3) before he had read the treaty.
Such blithe dismissal, such incomprehensible arrogance in the face of such a serious problem is beyond stupid.
References:
http://www.ipcc.ch/ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/ EPA’s global warming site
http://www.ucsusa.org/ Union of Concerned Scientists
Other specific actions to cause me to hate Bush? Let me count the ways (in no particular order):
Is it just me, or can others just see the spittle flying from themoon’s lips here?
Balderdash. There have been several mass extinction events in the Earth’s history, many where better than 50% of all species were wiped out. And guess what? The environment recovered each time. Unless you equate George Bush with a kilometers-wide meteor striking the Yucatan Peninsula, I can’t see how you can even begin to take this statement seriously.
The Earth will keep rolling on with or without us. Even if we deliberatly tried to destroy all life on the planet, we wouldn’t succeed. Within a blink of an eye in geologic time–say, a couple of hundred thousand years or so–you’d have a brand new race of sophisticated creatures ruling the earth, many of them evolved from cockroaches.
No, what’s really at stake is whether we humans survive, both individually and as a species. And guess what? That involves balancing costs and benefits, like whether we need to sacrifice our ability to feed ourselves for the sake of an ambiguous “threat” that’s still surrounded by much debate. In any event, we need to avoid sticking with self-destructive absolutes like the failed Kyoto “treaty” that nobody ratified.
Dunno about you, but his pre-9/11 gung-ho efforts to shred the ABM treaty and push forward with a defective pie-in-the-sky NMD system sure had me spooked.
And yes, I know Clinton allowed NMD testing to continue (which IMO was an act of cowardice – he should’ve axed that turkey), but at least he wasn’t taking a sledgehammer to international stability in the process.
Just wanted to say that I appreciate the cites you provided obidiah. It’s taking a while to get through them all, but very interesting reading. I wonder if anyone else has comments on them? Seems like they show more and more reasons to question Bush as a “successful businessman,” and powerful governor, not to mention the character issue. Thanks
And? I mean, so what? These statements on their own mean absolutely nothing. They do lots of stuff in Europe–the fact that they do them isn’t a particularly compelling reason for us to do them.
Out of curiousity, what are cancer rates like there, particularly for the cancers which you claim are linked to arsenic?
It’s just you. It’s just you using an ad hominem attack.
Once a species goes extinct, it is extinct for good. So, while you are correct that bio-diversity will again increase in time, we will not be able to reverse the mass extinction that is taking place right now. New species will evolve to take the place of the species we lose, but this will take a very long time. Millions of years.
No kidding. :rolleyes:
The question is not are we going to destroy all life on earth. The question is, are we going to leave a world full of rats, cats, pigeons, and not much else to our grandchildren, or are we going to try to preserve the bio-diversity that we have left.
Perhaps you wouldn’t mind leaving a world ruled by cockroaches, so that you can purchase cheap gasoline, but I would.
Global warming is real. The overwhelming consensus among scientists who work in climate related fields is that it is real, and is a serious threat.
And, pray tell, why do you think Kyoto would be self-destructive? And why do you call it an “absolute”?
That W. doesn’t practice what he “preaches”.
Incidence of various arsenic-linked cancers per 100,000 population. EU stats are gleaned from the International Agency for Research on Cancer; U.S. stats from the National Institutes of Health.
EU US
Lung 51.38 54.4
Bladder 22.43 16.3
Skin 9.10 12.9
Liver 7.64 4.32
Kidney 11.72 9.1
Prostate 47.15 149.7
So, of the six cancers commonly linked to arsenic, the United States actually has a lower incidence than the European Union for three of them; and of the other three, only one – prostate cancer – appears to occur at a statistically significantly higher rate, which can be related to a lot of factors aside from arsenic.
Also, the EU only reduced their arsenic standards from 50 ppb to 10 ppb in 1998, so it isn’t as if they’ve been light-years ahead of us.