NON-US dopers. A poll. Do you dislike Bush

[sailor]

*Originally posted by december *
I am struck by the overwhelming vote against Bush and his policies.

Two questions for my European friends:

Among the banned weapons that Saddam was known to possess were intermediate range rockets. Some of them might have been able to reach parts of Europe.

1. Did that worry you?
2. If not, why not?

Whether he had them or not is disputable, what is not disputable is that no one in Europe or even his neighboring countries, including Turkey, felt Iraq was a threat to them. Which goes to show President bush was quite paranoid if he really believed Iraq was a threat to the USA (I do not believe he believed that, only that he used it as a justification for the agression).

{quote] Fuck off back to your own threads, **december{/b], you fucking idiot.
[/quote]

[Kal]

*Originally posted by december *
Two questions for my European friends:

I was unaware that you had any.

[Frodo]

Argentininan here.

I had no opinion of him at first, started (tenuosly) to like him after 9/11, completely distrust and fear him now.
The reason: iraq.

[sailor]

*Originally posted by december *
No Because Bush’s “shoot first” policy isn’t increasing tension across the world.

So when the Chinese government said a few weeks ago that they would speed up their rearmament because they saw the USA as exerting too much influence in their part of the world, and they are holding talks with Russia with a view to counterbalance this. . . you don’t call that an increase in tensions?

And when the North Korean government says it needs nukes to keep America at bay. . . what do you call that?

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/east/06/09/nkorea.nuclear/index.html

North Korea has lifted its war of words with the United States to a new level, saying it may now need nuclear weapons to combat what it describes as a hostile stance from Washington.

[Gary_Kumquat]

Please do not let December hijack this. It’s a poll that makes a very simple, clear point.

If you let him, he will try to smokescreen that point with his usual bullshit.

[yojimbo]

On preview I see Gary Kumquat giving very good advice so I deleted a rather long post

[g8rguy]

I submit that it might have been more helpful if you’d asked a less inherently biased question, such as “what is your opinion of Bush,” as opposed to “do you dislike Bush.”

That is, asking “who hates X” is naturally going to get a lot of replies to the effect that poster Y hates X and not so much along the lines of poster Z likes X. I mean, if I started a poll asking “who likes sex with goats,” I’d expect that I’d get a disproportionately large degree of positive responses.

I think the point that Bush is, indeed, despised by most of the civilized world has been adequately made, but personally, I think you’d have been rather more convincing with a neutral question as opposed to one which was inherently slanted.

[sailor]

*Originally posted by g8rguy *
if I started a poll asking “who likes sex with goats,” I’d expect that I’d get a disproportionately large degree of positive responses.

You really think so? Well, just in case, let me say I don’t like sex with goats. (although, now that I think about it some have some pretty attractive teats. . . . Hmmm . . . actually I have never tried sex with goats. . . Hmmmm . . … I wonder. . . .) Never mind

[cabbit]

Ex-Pat Australian currently living in California here.

I do not like Bush, I despise his agenda, and I fear his oftentimes rabid fans. I think that any woman who supports him doesn’t truly understand his desire to limit and eliminate reproductive freedom. I think that any person at all who is not fabulously wealthy and supports him fails to see that he is completely willing to commit any act on order to advance the interests of the rich. His track record of funneling tremendous amounts of cash to his cronies is legendary, and I still don’t see any WMDs.

The response from any one of his rabid fans to any of this is always the same: If you don’t like it get out! Then there’s this threatening undergrumbling nationalist reaction. To those people who react in that fashion, I understand pride in your country, I understand that he’s your President, I even understand that you might like and support him. I do not understand the angry need to shout down and dismiss anyone who does not agree with Bush’s policies. If you’re not the type of reactionist that I describe here, and have different responses to people critisizing Bush, then obviously I am not referring to you.

Every single one of my relatives in Australia, Scotland, England, and Ireland detest him.

[Fretful_Porpentine]

Mr Bush felt confident enough to try his Spanish, which, it turns out, is extremely limited. At the press conference with Mr Aznar, who appeared to have no hard feelings after Mr Bush the previous day called him Mr Anzar, the US president repeatedly tried out various Spanish phrases. But within 20 seconds of Mr Aznar starting to speak, Mr Bush’s comprehension was exhausted and he reached for an earpiece carrying a translation…

While I dislike almost everything else about Bush, it seems unfair to slam him for making a genuine effort to speak Spanish while in Spain. Giving your host country’s language your best shot is the decent and courteous thing to do, even if your skills are limited.

Besides, it sounds like he acknowledged his limitations gracefully:

“I have to practice this very lovely language,” Mr Bush told the interviewer. “If I don’t practice I am going to destroy this language.”

Seems to me he deserves a break for this one.

[istara]

Yes, I dislike Bush.

[kniz]

[ul][li]I’m American.[/li][li]I’m not crazy about Bush[/li][li]IMHO the only polls on SDMB that mean anything are ones such as “what is your favorite salad ingredient?”[/li][li]Moving this “poll” to the Pit was the correct move.[/li][li]Bush does listen to other people: Rumsfeld, Cheny, Rove and he even lets Powell order lunch on occasion.[/li][li]He is less dangerous than the alternative would have been.[/li]If you’re worried about 2004, just wait until 2008. :eek:[/ul]

[NTChrist]

Yes.

[sailor]

*Originally posted by Fretful Porpentine *
**While I dislike almost everything else about Bush, it seems unfair to slam him for making a genuine effort to speak Spanish while in Spain. Giving your host country’s language your best shot is the decent and courteous thing to do, even if your skills are limited.

Besides, it sounds like he acknowledged his limitations gracefully:

Seems to me he deserves a break for this one. **

I agree and I did not post it with any intention of making him look bad but because in another thread some weeks ago december asserted that President Bush speaks Spanish and the president himself has cultivated that image. I now found that cite by chance.

[pingalondon]

Expat Aussie in the UK here:

Makes my skin crawl, and I greatly fear the repercussions of his performance thus far.

[Vote_Bakunin]

*Originally posted by g8rguy *
**I submit that it might have been more helpful if you’d asked a less inherently biased question, such as “what is your opinion of Bush,” as opposed to “do you dislike Bush.”

That is, asking “who hates X” is naturally going to get a lot of replies to the effect that poster Y hates X and not so much along the lines of poster Z likes X. I mean, if I started a poll asking “who likes sex with goats,” I’d expect that I’d get a disproportionately large degree of positive responses.

I think the point that Bush is, indeed, despised by most of the civilized world has been adequately made, but personally, I think you’d have been rather more convincing with a neutral question as opposed to one which was inherently slanted. **

I disagree. This might have deserved to go into the pit (though I’m a little dubious on that one myself) but it is what it is. Bush has done a lot of things to upset a lot of people. And his actions could have serious repercussions on the tenuous state of the world stage. We need to be able to say so without having a bunch of Bush sympathisers barging in like those clowns who staged a “protest” at the recount. Tie-wearing yuppie scum the lot of them (just to give this some genuine claim to the BBQ Pit).

If you started a thread called ‘Hands up all of those good God-fearin’ folk who think Dubya is just the ants pants’ then I wouldn’t dream of spoiling the party (or even looking through the window)

What pisses me off so much is we all said ‘Ah bullshit Iraq doesn’t have weapons of mass destruction’ and guess what folks!

[december]

*Originally posted by Vote Bakunin *
**What pisses me off so much is we all said ‘Ah bullshit Iraq doesn’t have weapons of mass destruction’ and guess what folks! **

I recall many war opponents saying that Iraq’s WMDs were unproved. But, IIRC only Scott Ritter and a handful of others said Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction.

[yojimbo]

Now about having that debate or arguemnt in the many threads about it.

Or in other words fuck off out of this one

[stringy]

Mildly disliked him when he came into office, since my views are generally liberal.

Now I despise and fear him, for much the same reasons as have been listed already - war in Iraq, lying about WMD, his foreign policies.

Leader of the Free World, my arse… Much of the rest of the world despises him.

[antechinus]

Yes gr8rgy, this poll is ‘inherently biased’.

Straight dopers tend to be very intelligent and well informed people (december is an obvious exception). Polling the SD’s on whether they like GWB it obviously going to return skewed data.

We are in the pit now arent we?