# I'm ashamed of you people **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 25, 2006, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181 "2006-04-25T18:25:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/61 "2006-04-25T20:27:34Z")
Not necessarily. I think that, after this administration, the neoconservative movement will be scrapped for the garbage it is. At least, I hope so. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/62 "2006-04-25T20:34:34Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > Yeah, too bad they reached it long after it might have made a difference. Not to insult **Ogre** ’s father (and those like him), but has he learned his lesson? Yes, Bush is a disaster as a president. Good thing they’ve finally realized this. But in 2008 Bush won’t be running. What will that hard core Red-Stater do? “Gosh, this guy who was hand-in-hand with Bush for the last eight years will certainly do a better job, I’m voting the full GOP ticket!” or “Well, maybe the Democrats deserve a chance, despite what I’ve believed the last fifty years. Despite what everyone in my county and state has been bombarding me with for, well, my entire life.” They’ve all reached these revelations AFTER it makes a difference. It means nothing. What’s changed so much since 2004? Americans dead in Iraq, climbing gas prices. Incompetents everwhere. Sounds like 2004 to me. Rove and his henchmen gave people like this exactly what they were looking for - a Democrat that was obviously a cowardly liberal pussy faggot who was going to raise their taxes (despite combat commendations and the like). Can’t vote for one of THEM! I’ll be impressed when I see Alabama (IIRC) go Blue in 2006 or 2008. Anything else is the eqivalent of a man finding God on his deathbed. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/63 "2006-04-25T20:38:45Z")
> [@Oy!](#): > > I can’t speak to “monster” or “thing,” as those are completely subjective insults. But as far as being responsible for killing tens of thousands, do you have any idea how many Iraqi people have died because **the president[sup]TM[/sup]** used 9/11 and Al Qaida and WMDs as excuses to invade? Nobody knows exactly, but it’s well over 20 thousand. And are you aware of the fact that most of the prisoners at Gitmo and Abu Graib were scooped up by non-American people who were paid to bring in suspects? Or that they’ve been tortured? Or that our current attorney general (whom Bush selected) has referred to the Geneva COnventions as “quaint” or that our Vice President (also whom Bush selected) has been a firm opponent of any legal measures that might limit torture for detainees? I’m sorry, but saying Bush is “responsible for killing tens of thousands”, and has “people snatched off the street and tortured” is unfortunately not too far off the mark. I don’t think you can put all of that on President Bush’s head, though. I’m not even saying the invasion was justified. That’s a whole other debate. But when a Sunni suicide bomber walks into a Shi’ite mosque, for example, and kills himself and 90 other people, that’s not President Bush’s fault. He’s not the one sending suicide bombers into the mosques…in fact, the US army is doing its best to stop it from happening. Whether we should have gone into Iraq in the first place, at this point, we are the “good guys” there…we’re trying to help the Iraqis set up a liberal democracy, we’re trying to help them rebuild the country. The people who are trying to stop us from doing that have to hold a good deal of responsibility for a lot of those deaths. And this in no way is justifying the killings of innocent civilians by US troops. As for the problematic detentions, we’ve clearly made a bunch of mistakes that also are unforgivable. But there’s a difference between innocent people being detained or tortured by accident and inncoent people being detained by US policy. It’s not like Bush ever said, “Pick innocent people at random, imprison them, and torture them for fun.”, which seems to be what’s being implied. I mean, I don’t like the President, I didn’t vote for him either time, and I wouldn’t vote for him even if I could again. But there’s dislike and over the top. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/64 "2006-04-25T20:39:15Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > Not necessarily. I think that, after this administration, the neoconservative movement will be scrapped for the garbage it is. At least, I hope so. Great. That’ll no doubt wake all the dead they are responsible for. BTW, “partisan” my Spanish ass. Fucker’s certainly not _my_ President nor do I really care about either of your right-wing Parties. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/65 "2006-04-25T20:39:28Z")
Dubya has been America’s President since 2001. Mick has been world famous since 1965 (if not before). He clearly outranks Bush. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/66 "2006-04-25T20:49:52Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Dubya has been America’s President since 2001. Mick has been world famous since 1965 (if not before). He clearly outranks Bush. Well, the obvious question is… Who can do more blow without freaking out? -Joe ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/67 "2006-04-25T20:51:38Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > The whole level of divisiveness that this president evokes just really frightens me, and I sometimes wonder if these extreme emotions might be more destructive for the country in the long run than Bush ever could be. Wonder no longer. The answer is “no.” Happy to help. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/68 "2006-04-25T20:56:04Z")
> [@Merijeek](#): > > Well, the obvious question is… > > Who can do more blow without freaking out? > > -Joe I believe that’s been answered - Mick seems reasonably sane to me. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/69 "2006-04-25T20:56:08Z")
> [@](#): > > “Gosh, this guy who was hand-in-hand with Bush for the last eight years will certainly do a better job, I’m voting the full GOP ticket!” > > or > > “Well, maybe the Democrats deserve a chance, despite what I’ve believed the last fifty years. Despite what everyone in my county and state has been bombarding me with for, well, my entire life.” There are quite a few subtleties you’re missing here. First, 9/11 only happened 5 years ago, but its memory is already fading into the cultural background. I think Bush got re-elected, among other reasons, because, “goldurn it, he’s fighting the WAR ON TERROR!” Iraq is going to shit, Afghanistan is going to shit. Things are different now than they were in 2004, if only because the hardcore Red Staters have had another 1.5 years to think about the steady stream of corpses coming back to be buried, in a large measure, in the very same Red States. Keep in mind that poor Southern states, and in particular, Alabama, have more people in the military than any other part of the country. Second, I think even Red Staters are starting to realize that the Neocons have nothing in common with them. The Neocons are just another rich group that doesn’t give a goddamn about poor people, and who have steadily fucked up everything they’ve touched, from “tax prebates” to education reform to foreign trade relations. Third, you’re missing that even Red Staters aren’t just bleating sheep. They’re thinking, feeling human beings with a set of values…one that has been betrayed over and over again by the national level Repubs. And they are starting to realize it. Fourth, Alabama in particular will probably go gubernatorially Repub again, but only because our current Pub governor, Bob Riley, has actually done a decent job, and he’s the only electable one running. Fellow Pub Roy Moore is lagging waaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind, suffering from the fact that even religious Alabamians find him frighteningly insane. Don Siegelman (D, and former governor) is under criminal investigation. Lucy Baxley (D) is a dark horse candidate who will get lost in the Siegelman scandal. Hell, I’ll be voting Repub in state elections (and you can damn well be sure I’ll be voting in the Republican primary to make sure that psycho Moore stays far back in the polls,) and that’s a damn rare thing for me. ---
**Author:** ![Lightnin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightnin/32/180_2.png) [@Lightnin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightnin)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/70 "2006-04-25T20:59:22Z")
Bush has been getting everything he wants for the last 5-6 years… heck, for all of his life, as far as I can tell. Forgive us our glee at someone finally standing up to him and telling him, “No.” It’s just a shame that it wasn’t an American who did it. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/71 "2006-04-25T21:00:42Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > But when a Sunni suicide bomber walks into a Shi’ite mosque, for example, and kills himself and 90 other people, that’s not President Bush’s fault. And who let the fanatics loose, and turned Iraq into an ideal breeding/training ground for them ? Bush. > [@Captain Amazing](#): > > Whether we should have gone into Iraq in the first place, at this point, we are the “good guys” there…we’re trying to help the Iraqis set up a liberal democracy, we’re trying to help them rebuild the country. We are not, and we are not. We’re trying to make it a puppet of the US and a foward military base. We aren’t try to rebuild Iraq, just using that as an excuse to hand over money to groups like Haliburton who take the money and do little or nothing. > [@Captain Amazing](#): > > But there’s a difference between innocent people being detained or tortured by accident and inncoent people being detained by US policy. It’s not like Bush ever said, “Pick innocent people at random, imprison them, and torture them for fun.”, which seems to be what’s being implied. Even assuming he didn’t ( and I wouldn’t put it past him ), so what ? Results are what matter. > [@Ogre](#): > > you’re missing that even Red Staters aren’t just bleating sheep. They’re thinking, feeling human beings with a set of values… I wish I could believe that, but I don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/72 "2006-04-25T21:01:02Z")
> [@RedFury](#): > > Great. That’ll no doubt wake all the dead they are responsible for. > > BTW, “partisan” my Spanish ass. Fucker’s certainly not _my_ President nor do I really care about either of your right-wing Parties. No, but it should prevent more from dying, and will consign a Fascist ideology to “the scrap heap of history,” where it belongs. And you’re statement that “you do not care” is utter, complete, transparent horseshit. If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be so relentlessly strident about it. See, I’m agreeing with everything you’re saying, and you still keep taking offense. What the fuck is wrong with you? ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/73 "2006-04-25T21:02:05Z")
> [@](#): > > I wish I could believe that, but I don’t. I hope you’re using hyperbole, because if not, you’d be a giant idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Clam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3bc359/32.png) [@Happy\_Clam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Clam)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/74 "2006-04-25T21:14:18Z")
> [@](#): > > I hope you’re using hyperbole, because if not, you’d be a giant idiot. Can’t it be both? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/75 "2006-04-25T21:20:32Z")
**clothahump** Well, (just for fun), let’s change the nationalities and personalities a bit. Let’s suppose **Charlie Daniels** (noted right-wing muscian/ draft-dodger), had made the reservation at this hotel and later on **Jacques Chirac** (President of France - a country which sometimes has expressed an anti-American sentiment), asked Charlie to relinquish the reservation but Charlie refused. If the “Dopers” then engaged in a glee-fest of how a good 'Murican boy showed them Frenchies where to shove it, would you still feel the same outrage and shame as you did with the Jagger / Bush “fun-for-all” in MPSIMS ? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/76 "2006-04-25T21:34:56Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > For those of you that are American citizens and participated in that pathetic little circlejerk of drooling, mouth-breathing idiocy: whether you like Bush or not, **he is our President**. And he was dissed by a jackoff rock-and-roller. George W. Bush is a jackoff President, so I have no problem with Mick Jagger turning him down. By my reckoning, conservatives should be supporting Jagger here. Mick, and entrepreneur, got that hotel suite with money he earned. A government figure asked him to give it up, and he said no. The hotel room had been privatized. Bush is a big boy (I think that’s a fair description) and whatever hotel suite he gets will be paid for with my money as a taxpayer, so who gives a fuck if he has to find a different hotel? He gets more respect than he’s due as it is. > [@](#): > > This is not about politics. According to you, your threads are never about politics. They’re always about some bullshit point that you’ve deluded yourself into believing is not political. > [@](#): > > I’m embarrassed by you. The feeling is more than mutual. > [@](#): > > And forget the “be ashamed of yourselves” statement. Aww, I hadn’t even started to be ashamed. > [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Dubya has been America’s President since 2001. Mick has been world famous since 1965 (if not before). He clearly outranks Bush. Not only that, but Mick earned his own money and celebrity. GWB, who I’m sure was going to use taxpayer money to cover his night’s stay, would be nobody if his father wasn’t George H. W. Bush. I dare say Mick has done more for me than Bush has, and I don’t even like the Stones. Which was more embarrassing: the Stones’ Super Bowl performance, or the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina? I rest my case. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/77 "2006-04-25T21:43:57Z")
> [@Otto](#): > > chutzpah. Hooey + chutzpah = hootzpah. ? ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/78 "2006-04-25T21:48:00Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > There are quite a few subtleties you’re missing here. > > First, 9/11 only happened 5 years ago, but its memory is already fading into the cultural background. I think Bush got re-elected, among other reasons, because, “goldurn it, he’s fighting the WAR ON TERROR!” Iraq is going to shit, Afghanistan is going to shit. Things are different now than they were in 2004, if only because the hardcore Red Staters have had another 1.5 years to think about the steady stream of corpses coming back to be buried, in a large measure, in the very same Red States. Keep in mind that poor Southern states, and in particular, Alabama, have more people in the military than any other part of the country. I don’t thnk it’ll matter that much. 2008 we will still be involved in the “War on Terror”. We’ll still have kids being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just like 2004. 9/11 will have been 8 years ago instead of four years ago - but the US will still have its stream of victories (we got Saddam! No more 9/11’s!). You think 9/11 is fading into the background? Maybe - but not to the level that a couple of corpses a day have. We’ve gotten USED to it. I don’t think it’s even on the front page anymore. In 2006 and 2008 we’ll still be in the War on Terror. Afghanistan and Iraq…you’re not suggesting that we cut and run and suffer another **Vietnam** , are you? They’ve been going to shit for a while…we just need more time! > [@Ogre](#): > > Second, I think even Red Staters are starting to realize that the Neocons have nothing in common with them. The Neocons are just another rich group that doesn’t give a goddamn about poor people, and who have steadily fucked up everything they’ve touched, from “tax prebates” to education reform to foreign trade relations. That “tax prebate” was worth $300. $300 in their pocket right then, right there, and it may as well have been stamped with a Big Red Elephant. How many (from either side) do you think really understood what it meant or where it came from? Far too many saw it as a $300 gift to help right the wrong of the goverment robbing food from their mouths for so long. You can call the Neocons whatever you want, but the big mouths of the GOP are a bunch of Gawd-fearing Christians (and gosh will they tell you so until your ears bleed!) who are trying to save us from the War on Christmas and the War Against Jesus and the War Against Middle Schoolers Being Abstainant. Don’t worry about the fuckups in education reform, either. Those numbers will be spun so far past believability (by both camps) that they’ll be beyond meaningless. > [@Ogre](#): > > Third, you’re missing that even Red Staters aren’t just bleating sheep. They’re thinking, feeling human beings with a set of values…one that has been betrayed over and over again by the national level Repubs. And they are starting to realize it. If I was a flaming dickhead like some people on the SDMB I’d see if you’d be interested in betting on this. But I’m not, so I won’t. I just don’t think in 2006 and 2008 we’ll see any significant epiphany where they realize, “Gadzooks! We’re getting screwed!” I’ll just point out that those same values you think will cause the change are those same values that were being torn apart in 2004. The only difference is that nowadays they’re down to condom-thin deflections and rationalizations rather than tissue-thin deflections and rationalizations. I’ve seen so many posts by various people on the SDMB that would proclaim, “This will finally be the straw that breaks the elephant’s back!”…I’ll believe it when I see it. And I don’t think I will in the next two and a half years. > [@Ogre](#): > > Fourth, Alabama in particular will probably go gubernatorially Repub again, but only because our current Pub governor, Bob Riley, has actually done a decent job, and he’s the only electable one running. Fellow Pub Roy Moore is lagging waaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind, suffering from the fact that even religious Alabamians find him frighteningly insane. Don Siegelman (D, and former governor) is under criminal investigation. Lucy Baxley (D) is a dark horse candidate who will get lost in the Siegelman scandal. Hell, I’ll be voting Repub in state elections (and you can damn well be sure I’ll be voting in the Republican primary to make sure that psycho Moore stays far back in the polls,) and that’s a damn rare thing for me. Well, Alabama isn’t the only part of the GOP stronghold that’s getting screwed - certainly if you’re right about the Gawd-fearing salt-of-the-Earth Southerners other states will swing. Not all of them can have all the prominent Democrats in the middle of scandal. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/79 "2006-04-25T22:07:50Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > No, but it should prevent more from dying, and will consign a Fascist ideology to “the scrap heap of history,” where it belongs. It’ll it take an anti-war President to get you out of your current involvement in Iraq – someone like Al Gore _after_ the debacle in 2000. IOW, the only time he finally spoke freely was when he retired from politics. Other than him (plus non-contenders such as Kennedy and Byrd), I see no leaders in your horizon…Kerry’s recalcitrant backpedaling notwithanding. I do, however, hope I am wrong. For the good of humanity no less. > [@](#): > > And you’re statement that “you do not care” is utter, complete, transparent horseshit. If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t be so relentlessly strident about it. There’s a difference between critizicing the murderous cabal that’s currently running your nation – especially due to their insanely belligerant foreign policy – and giving a hoot as to which Party is in power. I lived Stateside during both, Bush’s senior fisrt term and both of Clinton’s. Wasn’t particularly outraged and/or enamoured of either one. > [@](#): > > See, I’m agreeing with everything you’re saying, and you still keep taking offense. What the fuck is wrong with you? Not enough weed. ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2006, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181/80 "2006-04-25T22:08:37Z")
> [@merijeek](#): > > If I was a flaming dickhead like some people on the SDMB I’d see if you’d be interested in betting on this. But I’m not, so I won’t. I just don’t think in 2006 and 2008 we’ll see any significant epiphany where they realize, “Gadzooks! We’re getting screwed!” Why does being willing to bet on this make one a flaming dickhead? I also think that the 2006 elections will be more of the same. Hell I won’t even be suprised if we see a Republican gain in Congress. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-ashamed-of-you-people/354181.md?page=5)