Bush Hating

[laughinghatter]

Why do so many liberals hate Bush? I don't mean disagree with his policies, I mean hate him like he killed their father and raped their sister. I really want to know, I'm not trying to troll or start a flame-war, I just know there are several leftward leaning people who read my journal, and maybe they understand, because I sure don't

Comments

[isiseyes]

I think it's mostly because we can't believe he's actually managed to get away with half the shit that's been done in the last few years. And it's not just liberals who feel that way.

I mean realistically, he's nowhere near being a Republican if you look at his policies... his administration has been all about handing the honeypot to his pals and screwing everyone else. I would be upset about that regardless of what political affiliation someone claims to have, especially when I'm going to have to pay for it for many years to come.

[laughinghatter]

Even if you take as given that his administration is corrupt, which I haven't seen any evidence of, but I haven't really been looking either; is that enough to hate him personally? Is he to blame for all of the flaws of his administration, and even stipulating all that, is he any different than any other politician? I just don't see the reason for the intense hate.

Why hate?

[tolisten]

Hate is another way of manifesting your dislike of a person. Some people just take it a little too far. We don't really know who Bush is, never have and never will because as a public figure he doesn't show his true self to us. So when people say they hate Bush they are really meaning they hate his politics and his administration and some people just add violence to hate because that is their personality.

This is how I would interpret your question.

As far as not seeing any evidence of his corrupt administration then I imagine you haven't been paying attention because there have been plenty. The supreme court justice nominations just for an example.

Re: Why hate?

[laughinghatter]

How was the Supreme Court nomination corrupt? Did someone pay him to get the nomination? I don't think I've been ignoring politics enough to miss that. From what I recall, the problem was that the person was Bush's friend and that they weren't a lawyer or a judge. I have no problem with either of those, the first because you know your friends values and views best, and so can best evaluate whether you think they will be good for such a position. As for the second, how man of the writers of the constitution were lawyers? To my recollection not many, but they were all thinkers. That should be a more important qualification in my mind than whether they are a judge or a lawyer. Especially since the Supreme Court has morphed from interpreting the law, to establishing the law.

[cailetr]

The main problem I have with this whole issue is a lot of it started before he even had a chance to DO anything. As soon as he was elected, and before even, people were being beyond rude. If you don't want to vote for him, fine, and if you think he's kinda stupid, fine, but this was the first time I've seen things taken to this extent before someone really has a chance to piss you off. I've disliked politicians or other people before, but I've never acted in the immature way I've seen a lot of people act over Bush. I think once someone is elected you should at least wait and see if they screw up or do better than you expect before you trash them, but maybe that's just me. And I've seen people bash democrats they didn't like before, but NEVER with the hatred and intensity that people put towards Bush.

And a lot of people cross that line from hating his politics to hating HIM, so I don't think it's just hating his politics.

[laughinghatter]

But why is all that hate/rudeness focused on just Bush (or maybe the Bush family).

Between the Florida election scandal and the constantly appearing votes for Gregoire in the 2004 Washington Gubernatorial election I really feel there are two options for belief (I'd love there to be a better 3rd option, so if so drop me a line)

1) Any given election can be corrupted by partisan officials, and there are officials that are willing to do so.

2) The election system is so broken, that it doesn't really measure anything meaningful, so my vote is worthless.

I don't really like either of those options, and they are both depressing, but I don't see why I should hate Bush because of it. Even positing that the Florida election was rigged, does that mean he had anything to do with it, just because he was the beneficiary? It could have easily been organized by anyone in the Republican party.

[beatrice_otter]

Yeah, but the thing about the Florida election recount is twofold: one, you have to remember that a vote has to be extremely close for that kind of thing to happen. I mean, if either candidate has a clear majority (i.e. more than a couple of percentage points), it's just not going to work. If the number of people who wanted Gore were significantly larger (significantly when compared with the total number of voters in the United States), the mess in Florida would have been irrelelvant. So it's not a matter of someone winning the election who has no claim to it. This is the political equivalent of having a horse race decided in a photo-finish by which one got there nose under the wire a hair earlier. Which means that both horses were really close. You don't see people going around after a race like that saying that the horse that won is a horrible horse that doesn't deserve anything and badmouthing him.

Second, the Democrats were the ones proposing alternative methods of counting the vote/legal appeals that were unconstitutional

[laughinghatter]

I haven't read the Patriot Act, and all I've heard of it have been highly partisan reviews, so I don't really know what exactly it does in reguards to constitutional rights. But besides that, if I recall correctly didn't Congress pass it both times, it wasn't enacted by Presidential fiat, correct? So then why is all the anger directed at Bush?

Also, do you think the Patriot Act's intent was the take away your constitutional rights, or do you think that it's intent was at least to protect America from terrorism? Because if it is the latter, I still don't understand the hate, yes it may be a bad law, but all sorts of bad laws get passed.

[laughinghatter]

For Padilla, it seems like it is bad precedent but not necessarily a travesty of justice.

As for the domestic surveillance hullabalu, I'm not sure it violates any law. My understanding was the government asked the telecommunications companies nicely, and they handed it over. No search, no seizure.

As for the FBI looking at the contacts of news organizations, they are investigating a felony and certainly have probable cause to believe the jounalists who published the leaks communicate with the leakee, so I don't see the problem there either.

As for the never using a veto, that seems to me to be more a function the hihgly partisan politics of our day, than anything else.

And frankly, I'm not sure why I should fear the government any more or less with Bush as President.

[sesaworuban]

Can't talk for Bush but I have very strong feelings about Blair.

For me, it's that I personally feel duped and screwed over by him. I believed in him once and voted for him. I cheered when he got in.

Actually, on Bush, I guess it's that I feel personally upset and scared that someone that dumb has *that* much power.

[laughinghatter]

Yeah, I don't really know much about Blair, so I really cant' speak to him.

As for Bush being dumb, I really don't know that. I know his english is sometimes horrible, and he makes up words to get his meaning across, but I don't know if that makes him dumb. I have a friend, who I swear repeats things 3 times, in 3 different ways on right after the other. I would imagine that that would make him look dumb to a lot of people, but he's actually quite a smart guy and working on his Ph.D.

And on the other end, I certainly wouldn't call Tom Cruise smart because he is smooth spoken every time he is in public (well, maybe except when he's jumping on Oprah's couch ;-) )

[sesaworuban]

I guess he just comes out with stuff that seems very very dumb and ill-educated... the whole tribal sovereignty 'sketch' for example.

And yeah, despite being a fairly smooth talker, I wouldn't rank Tom Cruise up there with the smart bods either but he doesn't have and use the power to send sons and husbands off to die in an illegal war so I'm not so worried about how intelligent and 'switched on' he is.

(And yes, I appear to be getting a bit ranty - heheh.)

[laughinghatter]

Actually, by my understanding, the War in Iraq is not illegal, in its inception or its current state which isn't really a war.

As part of the treaty ending the Persian Gulf war, Hussein agreed to allow UN weapons inspectors in his county to monitor him and prevent the development of nuclear weapons. Many times since the end of the Persian Gulf war, he has thrown those inspectors out, and in fact, at the time of the our second invasion he had thrown them out 6 months ago and been told if he didn't let them back in, the US was going to overthrow his government by force. So really, he violated the terms of the peace treaty, so the second invasion was a continuation of the first war.

As for currently, my understanding is that we are there at the behest of the lawfully elected government to provide security to their government until they have trained a completely new military, since obviously the old Iraqi Guard is not really fit for the job :-)