Can no one rid me of this troublesome President?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(larkinmj @ Apr 5 2007, 11:35 AM) [snapback]418200[/snapback]</div>

At this point, I strongly doubt Bush could give a rat's nice person less what anyone thinks of his dimwitted decisions. He convinced himself a long time ago (with the help of a tight-knit group of blindly loyal or supremely opportunistic yes-men) that 'history' will regard him as the greatest POTUS that ever lived.

Well, the über-wealthy (and stupid poor) probably consider him one of the greatest presidents, just as they loved Calvin Coolidge, the guy responsible for the Roaring Twenties (which was followed by the Great Depression).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Apr 5 2007, 10:17 AM) [snapback]418320[/snapback]</div>

More important...They have CHOCOLATE

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(rudiger @ Apr 5 2007, 12:20 PM) [snapback]418355[/snapback]</div>

Is it just me, or does "POTUS" really sound like a filthy insult word? The POTUS is a real potus! Might I get banned from PC for calling the POTUS a potus?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Apr 5 2007, 03:59 PM) [snapback]418378[/snapback]</div>

"POTUS" really is longer than necessary. The "T" for "the" is superfluous; so is the "U" for "United" since we know what states we're talking about. So when referring to Bush, you can just use the acronym "POS".

 

Why would he want to work with this numbnuts congress (and yes, I do mean Nancy in that even though this particular issue is a senate one) when he can just wait a couple days and sign it off?

I can't even imagine how the Senate would have tried to attach a 'immediate surrender in Iraq rider to passing Fox's nomination'.

Is it required that every action in congress be fronted with a 'surrender immediately' rider?

Stupid stupid congress....

 

Well, looks like some conservative American people are starting to wisen up. BYU (in Utah where 70% voted for the Moron) might rescind a Cheney commencement speech invitation. Sounds like they don't like people who lie. Read it here...
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_wi...Protest,00.html

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Apr 5 2007, 03:29 PM) [snapback]418359[/snapback]</div>

Does it really matter whether it was a week or a month? Do you think the ambassador of Lumembourg is such a critical position that even a month long recess would make Clinton's recess appointment any different than Bush's? Even normal confirmation hearings and votes take longer than a month.

Now, you can go down the path of reasoning that it was believed that Hormel's nomination vote was blocked because he was gay, and therefore Clinton was right to use a recess appointment. But to do that you have to come to the conclusion that it is OK for a president to use recess appointments to bypass the will of Congress. Earlier you called that an abuse of power.

I think the abuse of power is when one or two Senators that are in positions of power on committees use their position to block full Senate votes of Presidential nominations because of political or personal agendas. If Senate doesn't approve of the candidate, then hold the vote and reject him. Sam Fox actually had the support of several Democrats, and probably would have been confirmed in a full vote. But, it was clear that the full vote would never occur due to the actions of two Democrat Senators and their desire to carry out John Kerry's personal vendetta. Now there is your abuse of power.

 

Well, it's a good thing Bush can't run again isn't it?

All that really means is that we'll have another face on the same demon. Whether it be Democrat or Republican, they're all working together to spend all your money and further exploit your pacifism.

Our completely corrupt government is exactly why the 2nd Amendment was created. If you don't think 1000+ citizens with firearms can make a difference... well.. Remember the Alamo.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(desynch @ Apr 5 2007, 01:30 PM) [snapback]418401[/snapback]</div>

So what the hell are you waiting for, Rambo, an engraved invitation? Why aren't you and your fellow gunslingers out there right this minute "defending" the country from its thoroughly corrupt government? Good gawd amighty, stop yer yappin' and start blastin'!

Or don't you think things are "bad" enough yet (which then raises the question - what, exactly would "bad" enough look like? And would we want to WAIT until things GOT that "bad")?

Some people aren't willing to wait. So while you Weapons-Are-The-Answer wackos have been sitting on your asses waiting for things to get "bad" enough, people who use other, more persuasive, peaceful methods to temper and restrain government corruption stopped "waiting" decades ago and formed civil rights movements and organizations that, among many other accomplishments, forced an end to a pointless war in Vietnam, deposed a criminal president, put in jail a vast crowd of corrupt politicians at every level from city to county to state to national office, and without whose efforts the Bill of Rights, including your precious 2nd Amendment, would have long since been a shredded and ancient memory.

All of it without firing so much as a BB gun.

On second thought, desynch, maybe you'd better keep sitting on your nice person while cool heads with negotiating skill continue to fight in the courtrooms and the public plaza to keep things more or less in our favor. A good deal of their success owes to the fact that they HAVEN'T tried firing a Magnum at a corrupt politician. A guy like you shows up with your friends, guns blazing, who knows what we'd wind up with? Two things we'd know for certain: you'd and your pals would be dead, and whatever we'd wind up with would be incalculably worse than what we had before you showed up.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

Only two more years...it could be worse but I don't know how !!!

 

Your personal attacks aren't really necessary.

I'm not a gun slinging whacko, I'm just not so naive as to believe "negotations" will always work. If, after your negotations go sour, you had better hope there are still people like me whom are willing to fight for your freedom.

Dismissing those whom are willing to take arms against a corrupt government as being a whacko is completely unfounded. I firmly believe we have the ability to correct our governments problems without violence, but do not deny the fact that it may be necessary. At this point, it is not necessary. Things aren't "bad enough" yet. When things are bad enough, you yourself will feel the call to arms - with no persuasion other than your own conscience.

Then again, I'm sure people such as yourself would have considered our founding fathers to be "whackos".. After all, they had to fight for their freedom. Negotiations didn't work.

If you think some how that the Democrats have Americans interests at heart, then you're blind. If you don't realize you're being played by this "two-party system", then you're not paying attention.

Some of the things being done by our current administration could be considered treason.. The (un)Patriot Act, in my opinion is treasonous.

Whats the punishment for treason in America?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(desynch @ Apr 5 2007, 02:56 PM) [snapback]418452[/snapback]</div>

You're correct, "wacko" was name-calling; I apologize.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(desynch @ Apr 5 2007, 02:56 PM) [snapback]418452[/snapback]</div>

OK - but I don't hear you calling for negotiation as the FIRST avenue of redress, NOR do I hear you actively joining in and contributing to such efforts. I hear you advocating gunfire as the ONLY avenue of redress (else why would you have put the word negotiation in quotes the way you did) - and even if you DO support negotiation as the FIRST avenue of redress, you still sound like you'd stand removed from any participation UNTIL you think gunfire is called for, THEN you'll get involved. That doesn't do us any good; we've ALL got to be involved in the FIRST avenue of redress to give it clout enough to succeed BEFORE some dimwit (that's who would do it, some dimwit, someone with insufficient wit to see the situation clearly) thinks it's time to start banging away with a Magnum and REALLY bring the hammers of hell down on us.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(desynch @ Apr 5 2007, 02:56 PM) [snapback]418452[/snapback]</div>

So too are the removal of habeus corpus, extraordinary rendition, torture, invading and occupying a country for reasons of personal private gain. In many eyes these things are already "bad" enough to call for significant government overthrow.

But what should be overthrown - corrupt seatholders, or the seats themselves?

So far, the seats themselves have proved extraordinarily durable, surviving assasination at the highest level SEVERAL times, and innumerable deposings and arrests from the highest level right on down through all levels without any significant change in the seats or their relative power.

We've got all the non-violent tools we need to cast out corrupt seat holders. We often lack political will or political insight enough to do the job as often or as vigorously as we should, but when we DO exercise that will or finally understand how deeply we're being screwed we DO the casting out - without violence.

When you resort to violence, now you're threatenting not just the seatholders but the seats too.

At the time of the Revolutionary War, it wasn't the seat holder but the seat itself (monarchy) that was the source of the trouble. I am personally not convinced that war was ABSOLUTELY the only solution, but the provocation was the seat, and it takes more than removal of a seatholder to change the seats themselves.

Today I think most, if not all, of our difficulties are in the seatholders, not the seats. That isn't to say the seating couldn't use some adjustment (abolition of electoral college, instant runoff style of voting, accommodation of more than two dominant parties, etc. etc.), but wholesale overthrow of the seats I don't think is even remotely called for.

It's the seatholders who are corrupt, and they can be deposed and arrested without violence - when we muster the will to do so.

But you start shooting, and you put the very seats in danger. And THAT makes the likely outcome WORSE than what we started with.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Apr 5 2007, 01:17 PM) [snapback]418320[/snapback]</div>

No, but they have LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS OF CHOCOLATE TO DIE FOR!!!!!!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(desynch @ Apr 5 2007, 03:30 PM) [snapback]418401[/snapback]</div>

Yes, the Alamo! Is that all you can think of? You and your guns? As Pogo use to say: "We have met the enemy and he is us!"

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airportkid @ Apr 5 2007, 05:51 PM) [snapback]418490[/snapback]</div>

Mark, I totally agree with you on this one: no need for violence. There's enough in this world already.

 

In order for it to get "bad enough", negotiations must fail first. I would never advocate unnecessary violence. I believe our Republic can survive, even after corrupt politicians have left the system crumbling in on itself.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(desynch @ Apr 5 2007, 06:43 PM) [snapback]418509[/snapback]</div>

Well, then for starters, you are giving yourself a very bad impression with your picture and your words. They may come back to haunt you.

You reap what you sow, and more so than you sow.

It's an old saying and it pertains not only to words but to actions and it is a principle.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(loveit @ Apr 5 2007, 06:47 PM) [snapback]418513[/snapback]</div>

However you judge me by what you see on a picture - is soley based upon your own interpretation. I could go pretty deep into what kind if impression you give, but it wouldn't be appropriate. I'm pretty sure everyone has already told you in the other threads about Religion of what kind of image you portray... Is your "come back to haunt you" some sort of threat? What WILL haunt you is your inability to see true evil, because you're so tied up in a book of nonsense.

I'm an American. I love the Constitution. I love my country. If our way of life is threatened by external or internal forces, I will fight to Conserv(ative) our freedoms. You can fight however you feel necessary. With your tounges, with your negotiations, with your law suits, with your pandering to the enemies of the free world.. I commend anyone who takes these paths in trying to "fix" things. I hope you succeed. I hope it is tolerance and love that solves the worlds problems... but thus far, tolerance and love have been a weakness that is being exposed by our enemies.. foreign and domestic.



<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(loveit @ Apr 5 2007, 06:40 PM) [snapback]418505[/snapback]</div>

Nice edit there.. didn't think I'd catch it, did you?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Godiva @ Apr 5 2007, 06:44 PM) [snapback]418510[/snapback]</div>

As far as we have to. The question isn't really "how far do you go", it's "do you have the conviction to go as far as necessary?".

 

It's not the seatholders. It's the system that assures that only corrupt politicians can get elected and only massively egotistical people will want to even try. To be elected you have to be callous, cruel, and willing to prostitute yourself to your campaign contributors. These character traits are incompatible with the traits needed in a good public servant. So the only solution lies in the overthrow of the system.

However, the government has thousands or tens of thousands of times more firepower than any private "militia" and it has the disciplined, well-trained soldiers to use those weapons. Therefore violent resistence is futile, as well as immoral.

This leaves either nonviolent revolution (as in Gene Sharp's ideas on nonviolent civilian-based defense, which could be as effective against a domestic government as against an invader) or Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin's ideas about building a new society within the shell of the old, and essentially displacing the old system without ever confronting or overtly opposing it.

Nonviolent revolution would require a lot of people willing to sacrifice a great deal, and Americans are notoriously unwilling to sacrifice anything, plus they are brainwashed into believing that violence is the answer. So this solution is utopian and very unlikely.

The remaining solution (Day and Maurin) is very very slow. There are some 50 CW houses in the U.S., quietly working at creating a new way for people to think about society and social obligations. Maybe they'll succeed, but not in my lifetime.

I'm a pessimist. I expect things to continue getting worse and worse. So I'll support good causes and do some volunteer work and spend my summers hiking in the mountains of B.C. and take the occasional winter trip to warm places. IOW, try to do a bit of good, and enjoy life.

You think Bush is bad? You ain't seen nothin' yet.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Apr 5 2007, 05:54 PM) [snapback]418550[/snapback]</div>

Daniel, your posts so often match my view of things I often wish I'd said them first and I was beginning to despair of ever disagreeing with you on any point. But here, finally, we do disagree. (I'd call you some kind of name but this isn't the Talk Like A Republican Thread).

The problem isn't the system, it's the seatholders.

First, there is no question that some systems are by nature designed to benefit the rulers upon the backs of the people. Feudal systems. Totalitarian systems. Systems that categorically suppress and deny any voice from the people. Such systems I would agree are in and of themselves THE problem.

But some systems have at their heart egalitarian intent: democracy, socialism, communism. What these systems suffer isn't breakdown of the system per se, but the corruption of their intent. Now, any system, however honestly and fairly applied is still going to result in some injustice - people have naturally conflicting interests and often the only resolution is that one party winds up unhappy. But on balance an egalitarian system fairly applied would provide the most satisfactory result for the most people.

The problem ANY system suffers is the steady corrosion of narrow self interest eating away at the system's ability to provide for the larger welfare. No matter WHAT system you erect, that acid will begin attacking it the moment you set it up.

If, as the corrosion steadily turns the system evil, you scrap the system and set up a new one, you haven't addressed the problem. You've simply shifted the acid to another shape of beam to eat away at.

The problem is how to neutralize the acid as much as you can, not keep replacing the system.

I believe the system we have in the US (pretend to have, so far gone is the acid attack against it) of representative democracy, with some components of direct democracy (e.g. state's initiatives), with the seats of power deliberately constructed to diffuse the power, is a pretty good design. I don't think the answer is overthrow of the system itself to - what? We've got a great design - let's just do a better job of keeping the acid out of it as much as possible - and tweaking it to prevent the acid from getting into it in the first place.

That tweaking is a never ending job, because the acid of selfishness isn't mindless - quite the contrary. Whatever barrier you put up to deflect it will eventually be breached, outflanked, torn down or used as a ladder to reach an even higher level of depravity. But it doesn't require wholesale overthrow - just constant minding.

We're still learning how to do that minding - and I'd say we're considerably ahead of where we were as recently as 400 years ago. What proportion of humanity still serves at the pleasure of a despot today compared to then? Vile as the US system has been corrupted, villains like DeLay and Abramoff are still apprehended, and the prospect of a Kissinger or Rumsfeld or Cheney or Bush being held criminally liable for their depravities is not the unthinkable impossibility it would have been as recently as 50 years ago.

Yeah, it could get worse before it gets better. Probably will. But I don't share your overall pessimism. I don't think the human spirit would stand for that.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA