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Topic: The John Kerry/George W. Bush thread (Read 66904 times)
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Shiver
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 LOLercaust!
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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Well, the Dow was overinflated; perhaps if a brake had been put on a little earlier it would have stayed at a sane level. Someone pointing out how idiotic a lot of the software startups... so perhaps the BJDJ was not the best indicator of economic performance.
On the other hand, since this president seems to have the reverse deal going on with investors, I guess one must remember that it's all relative.
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Art
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Sigh. I hate to sound evil and class-warfare-ish, but no, Terminator, the workforce is not all middle-class and small-business-owners. Actually quite a lot of it is the *working*-class (hence the name) working for large publicly-held corporations. The middle class and small business owners are a sizable chunk of the workforce, sure, but what they're a *huge* chunk of is the people who have time to show up to vote on Election Day, which is why they're the people both parties usually try to throw a scare into.
Actually, one of Kerry's biggest campaign promises (whether you choose to believe him or not is up to you, but given that you're not psychic this is the only real way to say what he "will" do) is to make the lower-class and middle-class tax cuts permanent. Kerry claims he'll raise taxes on the upper-class, which for him starts from $200,000 up. (FWIW I always considered my family upper-middle-class and my dad never made more than $100,000.) Also, Kerry specifically claims to be trying to protect small business against *large* business -- almost all the business-related tax cuts Bush passed would benefit large, publicly-held corporations rather than small privately-held ones. The huge tax break for foreign-based corporations only applies to corporations large enough to move their operations overseas; the cut on dividend taxes only applies to corporations that have gone public and have stockholders. Unless you're going to start talking about estate tax (don't get me started on that -- let's just say that there are no existing IRS records of any actual small business or farm that ever had to be sold to pay it), there's no evidence of any small-business-targeted tax raise or cut from either side.
And no, I don't believe any president can ever be given credit for creating a boom or bust, but I'm not such a fatalist that I think the government has no power over the economy at all (or I'd lose much of my interest in politics). Clinton set up an environment where the dotcom boom could be nurtured and safely transmit its gains to the population at large; booms and busts happen in administrations of any party, but it's under Republican regimes where public spending is slashed and tax cuts go to the rich that you see polarization increasing, where booms mainly benefit the elite and the poor stay poor. We can argue about it all day, but there is an argument to be made that Clinton's social programs made the late '90s boom one that everyone in America could feel -- one that, for instance, successfully decreased unemployment, as opposed to this economic recovery in which unemployment is continuing to stand still and occasionally grow. We really should note that Clinton's running of the *government* gave the *government* a nice budget surplus that economists were saying could last long enough to actually be a problem for the government; George W. Bush made it disappear completely and be replaced by record deficits in the blink of an eye. Say what you like about the country as a whole, but the government's books aren't doing well under Bush.
Finally, on other points that are completely and totally tangential to the point about taxation: Um, I'm not entirely certain what you're referring to about the Florida election. Neither party has ever been totally innocent of possibly messing with the voter rolls to their benefit (the temptation is just way too high). But the fact is Gore didn't *get* those votes in 2000; it's a toss-up whom to blame the recount situation on (though, honestly, looking at Katherine Harris and her team I felt like they were understandably reticent to actually find a Democratic victory). However, there *is* some pretty nasty dealing concerning huge numbers of votes that were thrown out, without informing the voters, because Governor Jeb Bush personally ordered election counters to "spread the net wide" in disqualifying felon voters, not only throwing out registrations of confirmed felons but anyone whose name was similar to a felon's; this discriminated strongly against, for example, Hispanic people and many black people and was *certain* to unfairly throw out some people's right to vote (since often they *knew* there was only one felon named "Tyreke Randell" but threw out all ten Tyreke Randells in the county anyway). Only through a convoluted chain of logic can you tell me that's fair; only by being completely blind can you say that doesn't penalize Democrats, who almost always perform much better among minorities than Republicans.
As far as the War on Terror goes, what you say doesn't match at all with anything John Kerry has publicly said; he's actually been way more outspoken about the need to aggressively "hunt down and kill" terrorists than almost all his competitors in the Democratic primaries. As for what he's said about Iraq, I don't think expressing a desire for triage -- for doing the important things first and with all your energy, and the less important things second and with less energy -- is the same as wanting to compromise with terrorists' existence. Afghanistan is a big threat, so we lead the charge there with all our power. Iraq is a lesser threat, so we set up a coalition to keep an eye on them and limit their funds. Claiming that this is unacceptable compromise is like claiming the War on Drugs should be fought by whatever means necessary to *absolutely eliminate* drugs, even if it means sending cops to search every single house in every single neighborhood in every single city in America, and damn the costs. That's an insane attitude, and, heck, it's not even an attitude George W. Bush even really seems to endorse, given that he *is* willing to compromise and wait for results in delicate hotspots like North Korea. I don't think Iraq is an example of his being overall tough and unwilling to compromise; I think it's just his becoming obsessed with one particular plan and going with it despite its flaws (mistakenly classifying Iraq as "high-risk" rather than "low-risk", not denying that there's high and low levels of risk).
Also, Terminator, misspelling people's names to make fun of them is a really stupid and immature debating tactic, and it only makes you look bad. Don't do it, no matter how negatively you feel about a person. And it is good to try to expand your points a bit in order to make them part of a single argument, since tossing off taxes, the War on Terror and election fraud all at once appears pretty scattered and random.
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Art
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Okay, I'd missed Friday's debate, so I went back and found your source for the "nuisance level" quote. The thing is Kerry was there talking about all terrorism, as a concept; it's pretty clear he wasn't talking about Al-Qaeda specifically, which he does hope to destroy as an institution.
I think it's really annoying that increasingly the Bush campaign is using the word "terrorist" as code for "bad Muslims". Terrorism is a particular crime, and you'll never get *rid* of terrorism any more than you'll get rid of murder, or get rid of confidence schemes, or get rid of burglary. Any upset kid who makes a pipe bomb in his basement can be a terrorist. People who think that solving terrorism means going to a particular part of the world where terrorists come from and killing them all are seriously deluded; unless you kill every single person in that country, you won't make it impossible for some angry person in that country to *become* a terrorist, and the more people you kill the more likely that is to happen (since widespread war is one of those things that gets people upset).
Finally, I'm also pretty sick of the rhetoric that says that Muslim terrorists are all psychotic religious fanatics who believe that God personally ordered them to kill every living person in a "free society". They may often use that rhetoric, but most terrorists have rational political agendas just like we do, and have specific goals they want to accomplish (often by scaring us into thinking they're crazier than they really are). They can be cornered, intimidated, negotiated with and coerced. I think what people don't realize is the degree to which politicians and diplomats *had* neutered dictators like Saddam Hussein before the war; it's the dangerous assertion that people like Saddam are *crazy* and you can never negotiate with them and *must* always go to war that's led to our current situation. The problem is that if you go through life thinking everyone who opposes or even hates you is mindlessly fanatic and must be annihilated, you're going to get in a lot of needless fights and in the end you *are not going to win*.
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Death 999
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We did. You did. Yes we can. No.
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Anyway, it was Bush who first said that you can't really win a war against terrorism. He basically said the same thing Kerry said, but without comparing it directly to crime. It was one of his few lucid moments in the past few years.
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Vassago_Umara
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Spathis rule!
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George Bush could be classified as an environmental terrorist, he actively wants to destroy wildlife preserves, is making our country more polluted under acts such as the "cleaner" sky act, which sets pollution regulations for factories and coal plants back to what they were in the 1960's.
And the "cleaner" water act which actually reduces the amount of money spent on water treatment plants, purification, and the conservation of natural filters like wetlands.
Speaker: Bush, George - President
Date: 9/29/2000
Quote/Claim:
"[If elected], Governor Bush will work to…establish mandatory reduction targets for emissions of four main pollutants: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and carbon dioxide." [Souirce: Bush Environmental Plan]
Fact:
"I do not believe that the government should impose on power plants mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide." - President Bush, 3/13/03
I'm not a Kerry fan either, but I believe in a time such as this we MUST vote for the lesser of two evils, and I believe Kerry is nowhere near as corrupt, biased, and closeminded as Bush. You can't be president and base all of your decisions on what you think Jesus would want, ignoring all scientific evidence to the contrary.
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Time is never wasted, if you are wasted all the time.
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Kaiser
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I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
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George Bush could be classified as an environmental terrorist, he actively wants to destroy wildlife preserves, is making our country more polluted under acts such as the "cleaner" sky act, which sets pollution regulations for factories and coal plants back to what they were in the 1960's.
And the "cleaner" water act which actually reduces the amount of money spent on water treatment plants, purification, and the conservation of natural filters like wetlands.
Environmental terrorist? Okay. So you want the economy to tank more by putting in so many restrictions that they're unprofitable. Oh, and that life filled tundra up in Alaska where the oil is. Wait... What life? IT IS BARREN.
He wants to shrink the preserve a little. So what? I'd much rather have cheaper gas than preserve wasteland.
I'm not a Kerry fan either, but I believe in a time such as this we MUST vote for the lesser of two evils, and I believe Kerry is nowhere near as corrupt, biased, and closeminded as Bush..
The lesser of the two evils IS Bush. Kerry just says what he thinks the far left wants to hear. He hides his own objectives and is a habitual liar. The draft for example. That is a DEMOCRATIC proposal that the Republicans, and the President especially, is against. Expect to be drafted if Kerry wins.
Kerry lies on his own record constantly. He is the most liberal Senator in the Senate! How do you have the gall to claim he's not biased? Everything he does is biased. At least Bush TRIES to give the people what they want.
Kerry would only be a good President to a person who wants to government to control every aspect of the country. *glances at all the horridly run government businesses* Sorry, I'd rather keep my doctor as an independant.
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Shiver
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Environmental terrorist? Okay. So you want the economy to tank more by putting in so many restrictions that they're unprofitable. Oh, and that life filled tundra up in Alaska where the oil is. Wait... What life? IT IS BARREN.
I've been to Alaska, and it's beautiful. This is a stupid way to start a pro-Bush post; after reading just this line I've already disregarded everything that follows as dog shit. I will illustrate this reaction of mine in the following quotations.
He wants to shrink the preserve a little. So what? I'd much rather have cheaper gas than preserve wasteland.
Yes, I would honestly expect Bush to at least be able to drop the gas prices down to nice friendly level what with all the environment stomping and Middle East war mongering. [link=http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200410/200410130038.html]He has failed even in this.[/link]
The lesser of the two evils IS Bush. Kerry just says what he thinks the far left wants to hear. He hides his own objectives and is a habitual liar. The draft for example. That is a DEMOCRATIC proposal that the Republicans, and the President especially, is against. Expect to be drafted if Kerry wins.
Expect another irrelevant war or two if Bush wins, forcing a draft.
Kerry lies on his own record constantly. He is the most liberal Senator in the Senate! How do you have the gall to claim he's not biased? Everything he does is biased. At least Bush TRIES to give the people what they want.
How exactly do they gauge who is most liberal and who is most conservative within the government? That's something the Bush Administration and their pet news network like to claim, but even if Kerry is "too liberal", he is not the most liberal. Howard Dean and Ted Kennedy are less liberal than Kerry? Even with the little I know about the other two, I doubt it.
Kerry would only be a good President to a person who wants to government to control every aspect of the country. *glances at all the horridly run government businesses* Sorry, I'd rather keep my doctor as an independant.
In an extremely biased way, you have stated the difference between liberal and conservative. Bush isn't a true conservative. Sure he taxes like one, but he spends like a democrat. Who's going to get rid of the huge deficit he made doing that? Him? The next asshole neo-con in line? I doubt it.
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