Re: Bush's Plane Ride Home
I'm with Garrick on this one. Granted, Bush won't be getting any streets named after him anywhere in the near future - but to completely write off his last 8 years as a total, abject failure is a bit shortsighted IMO.
No President has commited more effort and funding towards the African AIDS epidemic, it's not even close. His No Child Left Behind plan will be looked on in the years to come as the first steps towards revamping our sickly education system. And he is also the first President in recent memory to even attempt to address the Social Security fiasco. This has always been the "3rd Rail" and something past presidents (both D and R) have avoided like the plague. Now you may not [I]agree [/I]with the plan but it has at least started a dialogue - and that is always the first step towards meaningful change.
[quote=MJDub;701105]People really easily forget that 9/11 happened on his watch, too. [/quote]
People also easily forget that Bush was in office for a total of 233 days when the towers fell. Even if those scumbags began planning the attack while W was taking the oath, there is no way - no [I]possible [/I]way in the deepest pits of hell - that they could pull off such a coordinated, precise act of terrorism in 233 days. Something that huge takes months, if not [I]years [/I]of planning, preparation, practice. They had to case the terminals, take dry runs on those flights - hell even the records of their pilot training classes in FL were done [I]before [/I]Bush was even elected.
Sure it took place on Bush's watch, but this was something in the works for a long, long time. And i'm not saying it's Clinton's fault for not taking out Osama when he had the chance, 9/11 was a complete and total failure on all levels. To pin the blame on one person is just straight up naive.
[quote=MJDub;701105]]Don't even get me started on the whole erosion of our constitution thing[/quote]
[FONT=Arial][COLOR=silver]This is another one I have trouble agreeing with. I’m not trying to sound like a dick so please don’t take it that way but how have you – you personally – felt your rights eroded? What have you suffered as a result? How has your day-to-day, honest law-abiding citizen life been affected? If you say that you feel the hit we’ve taken on the international stage is a result of that, I’ll grant you that one, but if you think your life has been affected by something like the whole “illegal wiretapping” thing, I just don’t buy it. There was a thread a while back where I put my two cents in, so I’ll just cut and paste rather than rehash:[/COLOR][/FONT]
[quote]
[SIZE=2]The wiretapping issue just seems so overblown to me. I know we like to think that we're important and that our lives are worth all that trouble, but in the grand scheme of things 99.9% of us just aren't worth that much attention from Uncle Sam. If your concern is based on the idea that some suit in the pentagon is tapping your phone, take a second to think of the logistics of it:[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]Forget emails, let's just look at phone calls. How many do you make and receive on an average day[/SIZE][SIZE=2] - 10? 11? Maybe if you're the popular sort it could be close to 20. How about if your work has you on the phone all day, maybe its even as high as 40 - but let's lowball it for the sake of discussion that the average person makes and receives 5 calls a day. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]What's the population at now 300 mil? Let's cut that in half to exclude kids and old folks - so 150,000,000 average Americans on the phone an average of 5 times a day. That is 3/4's of a BILLION individual phone calls in a single day. A DAY! [/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]Now its no secret that there are programs designed to pick out key words in a conversation, "bomb", "assassinate", "mutha fukkin jihad" ect.. ect.. I don't know about you but I don't use those words very often and I'd bet that average Joe American doesn't either. So let's say, just for the sake of argument, that 1% of those daily calls include one of those key words. That is over 7 MILLION private calls each and every single day that only [I]hint [/I]at a possible threat - and those calls would require a second look by real live people locked up in the dungeons of the Pentagon, evil Rumsfield wannabe's patrolling the aisles [B][COLOR=#00ffff]whips[/COLOR][/B] in hand.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]Now, you live your day to day life like you always do. As far as I can tell, no one here is a terrorist, no one is involved in plotting the destruction of the West, we all just go about our normal, not-posing-any-threat-to-America way of life. When they have numbers like that to contend with, what interest do you really think we offer to the government? Do you really think they are [I]that[/I] intrusive that they would track [I]our[/I] phone calls? Read[I] our[/I] emails? Unless they're dying to know what the current feeling is on the state of post-progressive house music in America and Europe, why would they ever bother looking at this website? I'm sorry to say folks, but we just aren't that interesting as average, law abiding citizens.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]I understand why this issue still circulates though. It paints the government in Orwellian terms, offers a juicy espionage-laced story for mainstream media to run with, and gives Bush bashers a new tune to beat their drum to. But when one looks at it in an objective manner, its clear that the chance that one of our phone calls or emails ends up on the desk of some seedy government worker is just far too remote. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]But the results of these wiretaps and message tracking are evident - attacks [I]have [/I]been stopped, plots [I]have [/I]been foiled. And you have to believe that some of those plots were never made public for intelligence reasons. Where is the intrusion? Where are the trampled rights? We are not the target of these taps, hell we aren't even on the map.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]But perhaps these acts will lead us down a ahem "slippery slope", that the groundwork is being laid for a more penetrating means. Do you really think that would ever get through even the [I]most [/I]closed-door government meeting? Imagine all the hands that would be involved in such an act, do you really think [I]no one [/I]would stand up and say, "Is this necessary?". Capitol Hill has more leaks than a public toilet - do you really think that would go unnoticed?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]Like I said, its nice to think that our lives are meaningful outside of our little sphere of influence, that somehow we are on the radar of a high-tek tracking board - but when looked at from high above we are but a sea of faceless figures, one completely indistinguishable from the next. And if you truly believe that our government is more concerned with the comings and goings of each and every single American than they are with stopping another 9/11 - well brother, I think you need to loosen up that tinfoil hat of yours[/SIZE][/quote]
[FONT=Arial][COLOR=silver]Again, Bush has done less than admirable job as Commander and Chief and I think everyone in the US, hell everyone in the WORLD, felt a weight lifted off their shoulders watching Obama stand before that crowd on Tuesday, but to say Bush is the [I]worst [/I]president in the history of the universe is a bit of a stretch.[/COLOR] [/FONT]