Is Washington, DC a quagmire?

Great Debates
21

I asked you to make your point, which you did while I was writing.

thanks

22

I’ll pass on any response at all for the moment.

If this gets sent to the Pit, I may reconsider.

23

Well the fact that Bush should be helping these neigborhoods instead of giving tax breaks and waging war seems a direct connection.

24

december , what is your point?

Is your point that parts of DC are bad places to live?

You’ll get no argument from me on that one.

25

See my post of 08-14-2003 12:08 PM for clarification.

26

Nor I. But it’s so much better than it was 15 years ago.

And I’m not joking.

27

So your point is… Baghdad is a nicer place to live than DC? Bush should worry about tyding his own backyard before blowing up someone else’s?

Ok look, parts of DC, chunks of it actually, are shitholes. You’ll never catch me in Anacostia but a LARGE part of downtown is undergoing a major urban renewal. Housing is so expensive downtown, I couldn’t live in DC if I wanted too…

Crime is high in parts of DC too. This is not a problem that can be solved by throwing money at it. This is also not a problem that can be solved by waving the magic Bush wand and chanting “Anacostia, the next Georgetown, Anacostia, the next Georgetown…”

28

I think DC is worse than Baghdad. Not too long ago they found WWI chemical weapons buried under a neighborhood here and as we all know:

There are NO weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

29

Hmm, I have thinking that Anacostia will start gentrifying soon too.

30

BEEN thinking rather.

31

So if we hear our that our solidiers are getting killed, dying of heatstroke, or becoming increasingly demoralized in a war that was based on falsehoods, we should smile and have a Coke because hey, it could be worse!

:rolleyes:

I think december is loosely qualifying the Latino gangs in DC as a foreign military force, El Mariachi.

32

Look, Wahington has its good neighborhoods and bad. Even some parts of Southeast are liveable.

My family moved to the suburbs 14 years ago because we couldn’t find a house big and nice enough that we could afford. Gentrification is both solving and causing problems: there is conflict with the “native” residents, who are often being driven out.

33

I live in DC. I think the conception of my city as a hell spawned war zone is drastically off base. Like all cities there are parts best avoided. That being said the improvement in livability has been striking over the past decade.

At the rate things are going Anacostia will be the next hot place to live in the coming decade. In some of what used to be the worst neighborhoods median home prices are now over 200k. Housing is now expensive everywhere, not just downtown.

34

In light of december addressing supposed parallels between Iraq and Washington, DC, could one find any irony in the fact that this Administration makes such a big deal about trying to create a representative government in Iraq, and at the same time staunchly opposing voting representation in Congress for the people of Washington DC?

Any irony there? No, of course not. None at all.

I’m starting to think that Washington, DC should declare war on the United States, a la “The Mouse That Roared.” We’d get peacekeepers, reconstruction aid, and democracy. Sounds like a good deal.

35

DC declare war on the US?

Oh brother, I can see all the crack addicts, the prostitutes and Marion Berry attempting to storm the Capitol… At least they’d all have guns…

36

Reminds me of the joke: “You know, (politician’s name) is so dumb, he thinks ‘Wade Boggs’ is what you have to do in order to cross the Potomac.”

37

If this is not the text to which december linked, then his “analogy” is merely dishonest posturing.

38

What’s the debate here?

39

Repeating from above:

The intended assertion is that some people are exaggerating the problems in Iraq in order to criticize Bush and his Iraq policy. Although the problems in Iraq are serious, they are not that much greater than the problems in our nation’s capital. Iraq presents challenges we can deal with, not reasons to surrender all hope and simply look for scapegoats.

40

I read that – and again I ask, What’s the debate?

You’ve asserted that things in Iraq ain’t so bad. You’ve done this several times, and each time you’ve been thoroughly rebuked.

You’re last sentence says it all: you’re not “debating” anything, you’re declaring something using a silly analogy which (as others have shown) doesn’t hold up.

Please, think of the poor hamsters!