Text 12157, 210 rader
Skriven 2008-03-09 22:16:02 av Jeff Bowman (1:229/500)
  Kommentar till text 12150 av Ross Cassell (1:123/456)
Ärende: Re: Economy (was Bush vetoes Waterboarding Bill)
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> With the founding of the WWW only a mere handful of years before (Thanks
> to Tim Berners Lee), chip manufacturing technology improving, read:
*chop*
> None of these which either sparked or came to be naturally through
> innovation, which represented the boom years, resulted from anything the
> Clinton did.
 
Nor were any of the pre-Clinton presidents responsible for the home computer
explosion of the 70's, personal modems, consumer hard drives, the video game
industry (which was spawned directly from computers), the cassette, the VCR,
the movie rental industry, the CD, Microsoft in general and all the products
they contributed to boost the computing world into popularity, the continued
following of the path along Moore's Law for processing power in home computers,
etc etc etc.  Not necessarily in that order, but you get the idea.
 
These revolutions happen regardless of who's in charge. The economy can still
be in bad shape and new technology can still be introduced.  Look at Blu-ray
and HD-DVD.  Look at modern internet business in general as it continues to
expand and change, despite the current economy.  A leader can still suck and
still have everything in horrible shape, but technology moves on anyway. I
don't account for the technology of Clinton's time period being the sole reason
for the economy to have done as well as it did.  It probably helped, sure, but
so did every other aspect of the economy that was also improved.  Technology
isn't the only thing that makes the world go 'round.
 
 
> You do know that the current Democratically controlled congress has a
> lower approval rating than Bush now, dont you?
 
I don't know what their numbers are, but I never said I liked them, either.
Quite the opposite at times, in fact.  But if I had to weigh them against who
was in there prior, they might look a little less crappy in my own view.
 
 
> The Democrats dont believe in holding teachers and students responsible
> or rather accountable for basic standards.
 
That's a bit of a blanket statement.  But the solution isn't garbage ideas like
Bush with his No Child Left Behind, where schools go through red tape and
hoops, struggling to stay on par or risk being punished for things that are
sometimes out of their control due to the already crappy state the school
system is in.  I've seen NCLB in action from when my brother was in school,
it's useless.  The teachers don't even want to deal with it.  They just need
the funds to do their jobs, not to fill out a bunch of forms about every move
they make.  It was just another useless Bush program to make it look like he
was fixing things in the public's eye.
 
 
 
> If Al Gore had won the Whitehouse in 2000, you can take this to the bank,
> there still would have been a 9/11, I doubt a Iraq.
 
> You must remember, the reasons for the attack had nothing to do with Bush
> and perhaps the Clinton, but us overall having troops in Saudi Arabia and
> Kuwait and our support for Israel.
 
I do agree that the middle east was already upset with us for our prior
actions.  But if we had been doing our jobs, not overlooking things which we
now see were there, we might could have prevented it.  I'm not saying we
definitely could have, but the fact that such information was ignored is really
disappointing.
 
 
> Let me guess, you dont believe we put men on the moon either?
 
Let's not go pointing fingers to silly things like that.  I may have a
difference of opinion with you about things, but I'm not that some conspiracy
theorist.
 
 
> Can you provide evidence that this administration was well aware of the
> method of attack and the identities and whereabouts of the 19 men whom
> wrestled control of those 4 airplanes?
 
We may not have known the exact plan and the exact people, but we knew they
were considering and planning these sorts of things, yet we had set up no
defense at all against it. Then after it happened, we started locking down the
country and airports like it was going out of style.  We've lost more freedoms
under Bush than I care to name.
 
 
> We also could point a fickle finger of blame towards the Clinton...
*snip*
> See how that works Jeff?
 
I do believe that Clinton was too soft on the realiatory aspects.  I even
remember thinking so at the time, when I was far younger to really fully
contemplate much about politics in general.  Firing a few cruise missiles is
not the solution to our problems.  But invading two countries while eyeing a
third isn't, either.  
 
 
> JB>   Yet we get Bush lackies like Condoleezza Rice standing up
> JB> there giving us a bunch of blatant falsehoods to make it sound like
> JB> it wasn't their fault, and that they "hate our freedom".
 
> Actually they do..
 
> Just as radical Christians would prefer everyone to be like them, the
> radical muslims prefer the same, only that they are willing to both cause
> death and die for that aim.
 
I really don't believe they hate our freedoms as Bush tries to make us believe.
They just hate us.  Plain and simple.  They hate us for our religions.  They
hate us for our actions in the middle east.  They hate us for killing their
family members and friends.  They hate us because of all the general mistruths
that are spread by religious leaders.  They probably just hate us for being
more successful than them too. I've always considered jealousy is probably part
of it.  I mean, if you were living in a pile of dirt, and your mental image of
America was everyone eating till they were fat, driving fancy cars, having lots
of money, etc, while you were busy praying to your God multiple times a day and
getting nothing, you'd be a little bitter too. Not that I'm excusing them for
their actions, but my point is, they just hate us.  Us having personal freedom
doesn't amount to a hill of beans compared to those other reasons for hating
someone.
 
 
> The economists stated plainly and clearly that the recession as it was
> started roughly in March 2001, thats 1.5 months after Bush was sworn in,
> recessions take a helluvalot longer than a month and a half to develop,
> he had not the time to enact any policy to spurn one and shit, he didnt
> even have all of his cabinet confirmed by then either.
 
> However, what happens under ones watch is what one gets blamed for.
 
> With the economy the way it is now and if we get a President Obama or
> Hillary, will you apply the same logic to them??? I doubt it.
 
Economists say lots of things depending on which side they want to look better,
just like polls and everything else.  I don't know enough at the moment about
the exact economic state of the country at the end of Clinton's terms to pass
judgement.  Even if we did hit a recession inevitably though, it wouldn't have
been Bush's fault. At first. But when the president goes and makes the
situation far far worse, I do start to blame them.  Bush did this, and you
yourself have agreed with it to some extent in terms of spending and the war. 
Even after 9/11, we managed to pull ourselves back up and weren't doing too bad
for a while.  But the economy got much worse towards the end of his second term
here, where he had plenty of time to try and fix things, yet merely made it far
worse.
 
I'm not some die-hard liberal who thinks no liberal can do wrong.  I don't even
entirely agree with everything the party stands for in general sometimes.  But
if Barack or Hillary, neither of which I particularly care for either, screwed
up as bad as Bush has, you can bet I'd be all over them too.
 
 
> JB> of the current administration, that's all.  The money would have
> been
> JB> better spent on education or healthcare.
 
> and who says that the people arent free to put the money towards those
> things?
 
Sorry, but a couple hundred bucks isn't buying you any healthcare, and it's not
going to fix the educational system, which I believe you and me both seem to
agree is in bad shape.
 
 
> JB> Agreed, but another Bush wouldn't improve things.  That's why if it
> JB> weren't for McCain being so war hungry, I might actually give him
> some
> JB> consideration for president.
 
> Who says he is war hungry?
 
> He knows that a sudden withdrawal from Iraq will again send the wrong
> message.
 
> Since he and his 2 Democrat rivals are all US Senators, he is the only
> one whom has demonstrated a willingness to reach across the aisle to get
> certain legislation passed, even if he was misguided.
 
McCain himself has infamously proclaimed that he'll stay another 10 years if
necessary.  Win at any cost, is it?  But at what cost?  I don't agree with some
kind of overnight withdrawl, but come on.  The Iraqi troops have had ages now
to get prepared.  If they're not ready to take over their own country by now,
they never will be.  We screwed it up, but there comes a time when we have to
bow out and let them sort the place out themselves.
 
Anyhow, I actually somewhat respected McCain for his
against-the-Republican-grain decision making until he started tossing out the
typical anti-liberal stuff.  This was also before I knew of just how bad he
wanted to stay in Iraq.  I don't think he's a particularly bad fellow, but like
I said, we can't afford it, and we're only making more people hate us with each
passing day.
 
 
> JB> Another avoidable situation, but not the upper level government's
> JB> fault so much.
 
> Yet many liberals blame the levy deficiencies on Bush.
 
Liberals blame conservatives for one thing, conservatives blame liberals for
everything else.  In the meantime, nobody's getting anything done. It's all
crybaby politics in that regard.
 
> New Orleans is years away from having all of its levies built up enough
> to withstand a Cat5 storm.
 
> Complacency was the problem and all the policy makers since Hurricane
> Camille(?) can share blame.
 
Sort of like our bridges falling down just from general wear and tear.  It
actually did wake people up a little bit, and they did some work on one of the
bridges around here, but I think it was just something to appeal to the public.
 We've got a lot more than one bridge that needs some work.  But we're busy
building back all the ones we're blowing up in Iraq to afford it.

--- D'Bridge 2.98
 * Origin: FyBBS (1:229/500)