Getting back on track,a few points spring up.
So there’s a terror attack on Nov 2 say and the election is delayed a week.What’s the chance that there will be another terror attack then and the pattern continues?
Speaking as a Brit,we have had general elections postponed.The 2001 general election should have taken place in Apr/May,but due to foot and mouth(a friend of your scrapies it didn’t occur till June.
And here,the PM gets to decide when the election will be.This means that its often when the government finds itself well ahead or the opposition has a major scandal on its hands.Imagine if that was the case in the US
Look, I never supported the war, but I don’t know why you insist on propagating the myth that Bush declared Iraq an imminent threat. He didn’t. In fact, he specificially stated that we needed to invade BEFORE they beacame an imminent threat. Just trying to keep the facts straight, rjung.
And, fyi, I will not be getting into a debate about whether or not either of the candidates has a conscience.
At the risk of being an imminent threat to this particular dead horse…
In point of fact, “imminent threat” does have a specific meaning in the context of international law, so the use of that exact phrase is significant. If you’re really interested, read the Spinsanity analysis: Sorting out the “imminent threat” debate.
This is some funny stuff here. More examples of what I have mentioned before - it is easy debating liberals in a lot of cases - if one denies it, another will be along shortly to demonstrate it.
Not really - more a comment on the kinds of bizarre stuff the lefties will swallow if it is a bash at Bush. As I said earlier, some people honestly believed Clinton was having people killed. Same thing here.
Haven’t been reading the SDMB for the last year or so, have you? What about all that stuff about how Bush didn’t follow up on the Gore-Clinton “plan” to deal with terrorism?
9/11 was unprecedented. And, as I mentioned earlier, saying that Bush is interested in delaying the elections is a serious misstatement of the topic. Bush is interested in how to deal with a terrorist attack serious enough to make it necessary to delay elections. To repeat - fire insurance is not the same thing as conspiracy to commit arson.
The one BrainGlutton is afraid of:
I am entirely sincere. I think the notion that Bush might be plotting to stage terrorist attacks in order to hang on to power is a nutsoid notion. I also think the notion that JFK was assasinated by a cabal of CIA/FBI/LBJ/Mafia/Illuminati members is a nutsoid notion, and for the same reason.
And I think the reason it is being seriously discussed by Dopers is that this is too much a hothouse for the extreme Left. You guys don’t realize how paranoid you sound to someone who doesn’t masturbate over the latest issue of Mother Jones.
Well, if the shoe fits…
Same. I have seen the development of closed-circle thinking. This strikes me as an example of it.
It is very similar to creationist discussions where no one disagrees. Part of the fun is the feeling that one is privy to secrets denied to the world at large.
Overstating? If you think you don’t mean it, then don’t say it. BrainGlutton and other types like Reeder are, as far as I can tell, very earnest in their statements to the effect that Bush is the anti-Christ.
And, for the record, I have stated elsewhere that I think they are entirely sincere. Let’s not get into accusations of trolling here.
You are accusing me of groupthink? That’s rich. In this thread, it’s basically me and John Mace against the True Believers of the SDMB.
Freud called it projection. As in “you only think that because you are agreeing with the thousands and thousands of conservatives on the SDMB”.
Great, that just makes things ten times worse – “He isn’t a threat now, but he might be one someday, so I gotta pop him first!” :eek:
So shall we agree that George W. Bush is, indeed, an immoral bastard, since he led the invasion of a country that (by your own admission) posed no imminent threat to the United States?
As far as I know, “W” is the legitimate son of George and Babs, so I think the “bastard” part is clearly false. As for immoral, well we’ve already hashed that over in this thread.
Do you know how logistically impossible this is? How many hundreds of polling places there are in even one medium-size state? How small a percentage of the vote is done at any one polling place?
Granted, but they wouldn’t need to hit very many of them. Maybe three attacks across the nation starting early and continuing until later would keep a lot of folk at home and encourage the election to be delayed.
Well, first, you only find it easy because you aren’t debating, you’re just heaping logical fallacies after personal attack, and then patting yourself on the back for how witty you are.
Secondly, and allowing you to call it a “debate” just for the sake of discussion, you aren’t “debating” liberals here. Just because someone disagrees with your fantacism doesn’t make them “liberal.”
But then, I’m used to knee-jerk reactions from fanatics, both on the left and the right.
I don’t see any evidence of a fascist plot in his statement. He’s merely stating that he finds them morally capable of doing just about anything to get reelected. I don’t believe he mentioned anything that would put Bush in the White House for more than another 4 years. Wouldn’t that be required for this plot to be considered fascist in nature? As I pointed out, we’ve seen over and over again that politicians are more than willing to bend the hell out of the law to stay in power (redistricting, for example). The Bush administration did not create this problem, but they certainly haven’t shown us any reason to believe they won’t bend the rules to the fullest, and in fact have shown a tendency to bend all sorts of laws that get in their way.
And you’re cherry picking what you debate, or just making it up as you go. Plenty of good reasons have been given to back up the fear of this being abused, but you’ve ignored them in favor of easily brushed off strawmen, and launching group-wide ad hominem attacks.
You used to actually debate, and I believe you still do in some other threads. Is Bush so indefensible that you gave up when it comes to him and his administration?
Correct. In fact, to be fascist in nature, it would require even more than subverting the Constitution and establishing a one-party dictatorship. Much more. Some GD posters have accused Bush and the neocons of being “fascists,” but I hate seeing political terminology used so imprecisely. We have enough trouble figuring out what “liberal” and “conservative” are supposed to mean, without needlessly muddying the waters about a (relatively) precise term such as “fascism.” Fascism does not simply mean authoritarianism, militarism, or dictatorship, it means a particular kind of political ideology that existed nowhere before the 20th Century. From the Encarta:
I think the last definition mentioned here is the best. Now, whatever Bush and Co. are aiming at, it ain’t that. Vauge, predictable rhetoric about making America “stronger” is not the same as a vivid conception of thoroughgoing national cultural renewal. Fascism is sometimes misidentified as an “ultraconservative” ideology, but it is actually revolutionary and anticonservative (as well as antiliberal). In short, I just don’t credit Bush with enough imagination to be a fascist.
Returning to the topic at hand: What concerns me is not that the Bushies might actually stage a fake terrorist attack, but that, having advance intelligence of a real one, they might intentionally stand down our defenses and allow it to succeed. Which would be just as treasonous. Now, I don’t buy the conspiracy theories asserting that that was what actually happened on 9/11/01, because I’ve never seen any credible evidence presented for that; but I wouldn’t put it past the bastards to try it in the future, now that they’ve learned how much political capital they can make be made out of terrorism.
Don’t forget the lessons they’ve given in how little plausibility must spread on denials to render them palatable enough to be sold and swallowed w/o chewing.
Bad example. I just heard on the radio that they have decided to reschedule the presidential election, from September to October, and parliamentary elections won’t be held until next February, if then.
it didn’t occur till June.
