President Shrub
16-06-2005, 02:34
Take a look at a website called The American Taliban (http://www.reandev.com/taliban/) and you tell me. All of these people vote for (or ARE) Republican. They support removing separation of church and state, they oppose gay rights, they oppose feminism, they believe simply learning about Communism is evil, and many other hateful ideologies.
People sometimes ask why they're called, "Republicans." Well, a Republic was originally meant to mean a representative democracy (originally from Rome), where officials are either appointed or elected, to represent the people, because the people aren't intelligent enough to make decisions for themselves. The philosopher, Plato, wrote about this in, "The Republic", an essay explaining that we need a 'philosopher king' to lie the people, or else immorality and stupidity will lead to societal collapse. I believe the Republic-ans ideology stems from this: That, because they percieve themselves to be 'good' people, that it is their duty to be authoritarianly moralistic in their policies, except rather than seeing themselves as philosopher kings, they see themselves as Judeo-Christian Gods of morality.
Democracy, however, first began in Greece. And it was direct-democracy. Their Congress was formed of the first 6,000 people to show up, every day. So, I'd say that Democracy inherently supports freedom. Yes, they're tough against business, but that's because being weak against business hurts freedom. Because then it's not "every man for himself", but "some hardworking men against some major corporations who make major business mistakes like producing the Britney Spears reality show, and yet still stay in business because of their immense wealth." Liberals simply try to keep things "fair and balanced."
Someone asked, recently, if Liberalism is destroying America. Well, ladies and gentlemen of Nationstates, I'd like to take a look at the past several years of the Bush presidency.
#1. Voting fraud? During Bush's first and second elections, we faced the first major allegations of "voting fraud" in history. This does not go without evidence, as the people who owned corporations that designed the electronic voting machines were Republican. Because there is no government agency to oversee voting, they faced little or no oversight. In Florida, it's accepted that there were "unlawful" methods of counting-votes, as every single inconsistency in Florida favored Republicans, and the President. Coincidentally, the governor of Florida is Bush's father. They have not found anyone guilty, but there have only been selective investigations into voting fraud, never a full and accurate re-count (especially since the many machines had no paper-trail). Right before the elections, an independent organization was able to prove that a monkey was able to hack the electronic voting machines. Though criminal activity was never conclusively proven, the limited investigations showed that they threw out a large disparity of votes from Hispanics, Blacks, and poor Caucasians. The NAACP, an organization largely founded by Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks only 60 years ago, demanded that the President answer to this. He refused to even meet with them and soon after that, the I.R.S. threatened to start taxing the NAACP if they didn't stay out of politics.
#2. Public support? President Bush also holds the record for being the first President to have eggs thrown at his limo during his inauguration ceremony, and also, the first President to not even perform an inauguration ceremony, after being elected. The creators of South Park also had a show called, "That's My Bush!", on Comedy Central, continuously mocking him, through a parody of the President as an imbecile. No President in history has ever faced such public humiliation. No, in the past, while many disagreed with the President's policies, being the President was a noble and honorable position. Now, it's become the equivalent of being the head of a corporation. And yet, despite this clear public disapproval, in 2004, Bush recieved a "mandate." Exit-polls are not done simply for fun. They are so accurate, in fact, that they are used to determine whether an election has been fixed in foreign countries. In the United States' 2004 election, exit-polls showed Kerry winning with a slight lead. But the actual election results showed that Bush had a "mandate" (for having more than 50% of the vote, which is extremely rare). According to recent Gallup polls, Bush's public support is at an all-time low (44% approve, 55% disapprove) and a record low, for a two-term president at this point.
#3. The economy? President Bush gave the largest tax-cut in history. Basic economics tells you: If you do a massive tax-cut, you need to make up for it by decreasing spending. To pay off the national debt, Bush should've actually cut spending by even more than the tax-cut. So, Bush's tax-cut (almost all towards the top income brack) was $664 billion. Conservatives, did Bush reduce spending by $664 billion? No. In fact, Bush's own economic advisors were disturbed. U.S. Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, was asked to resign because he disagreed with Bush's tax-cuts (and he was appointed by Bush). White House Chief Economic Advisor, Larry Lindsey, also resigned because he agreed that Bush's tax-cuts simply weren't economically sane. And what happened? We didn't reduce spending, went on two wars, and as expected, the national debt increased by several trillion dollars, continuing to grow at an exponential rate. Before Bush was elected in 2000, he claimed he had a plan to pay off the national debt in 15 years. He lied.
#4. The PATRIOT Act. It was almost unanimously put through Congress, but afterwards, all Democrats and several Republicans opposed it, declaring it unconstitutional. According to the ACLU's website, resolutions have been passed in 377 communities in 43 states including five state-wide resolutions. These communities represent approximately 56.9 million people who oppose sections of the USA PATRIOT Act. The ACLU also documented numerous Republican Congressman who supported revising or repealing the PATRIOT Act (found here) (http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=12632&c=206). Many have said Democracy is no more in America, and that we've turned into a police state. I'd agree. A while ago, a U.S. Army Muslim Chaplain, named James Yee, who worked at Guantanamo Bay was jailed for almost three months, falsely accused of espionage. After being released, he has since left the U.S. Army, but then again, who wouldn't? And just recently, the U.S. sent a Canadian citizen to Syria, because he's been accused of terrorism. The Canadian government has demanded evidence, but the United States refuses to provide it. If you read up on the Office of Special Plans and the Office of Strategic Influence... Yes. We are a police state.
#5. "Liberal" media? The President also set a political precedent by being the first President to use propaganda (and only the second politician to do so, since William Randolph Hearst). President Bush paid TV show host, Armstrong Williams, a quarter of a million dollars to talk about how great the "No Child Left Behind" program, which has been largely underfunded, and criticized by African-Americans.
#6. Privatizing Social Security. According to one news report I'd read, President Bush went on several months of campaigning to increase support. But polls shows that it had the opposite effect, actually decreasing support and currently, the legislation has been described as "dead." Republicans claim there is a Democratic filibuster, but polls show that there is most of the public don't support Bush's social security policies.
#7. "Improving" intelligence. Despite millions of dollars of extra funding, the PATRIOT Act being passed, and Bush's own personal agency ("The Office of Special Plans"), that outranked all other agencies and oversaw all U.S. intelligence, we've still had numerous embarassing intelligence failures (which he cites, I'm sure, as reason to renew the PATRIOT Act and add new provisions), and rather than taking responsibility for it, or even having Under Secretary of Defense Feith take responsibility, the blame was shifted solely upon Tenet's shoulders, which he had originally strongly denied, but later admitted their faults, and resigned, becoming "the fall guy."
#8. The Environment? I asked my mother once, who is a moderate Republican, "What's Bush's environmental policy?" She responded, "DRILL!" Since Bush has taken office, he has started drilling for oil in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge. And while it's true that almost all of global warming is caused by natural causes, rather than being honest about the issue, he hired an oil-lobbyist as the head of White House Department For Environmental Quality, who had revised scientific reports against the scientists' wishes. After it was discovered, the official resigned, claiming his resignation had nothing to do with it. Right.
I have nothing against Conservativism, as it's a distinct political idealogy with its own strong, philosophical arguments behind it. But "Neoconservativism", in America, has become a euphemism for Fascism. The Republicans are no longer a 'Conservative' party, but Neoconservative. Is Neoconservativism destroying America? Yes.
People sometimes ask why they're called, "Republicans." Well, a Republic was originally meant to mean a representative democracy (originally from Rome), where officials are either appointed or elected, to represent the people, because the people aren't intelligent enough to make decisions for themselves. The philosopher, Plato, wrote about this in, "The Republic", an essay explaining that we need a 'philosopher king' to lie the people, or else immorality and stupidity will lead to societal collapse. I believe the Republic-ans ideology stems from this: That, because they percieve themselves to be 'good' people, that it is their duty to be authoritarianly moralistic in their policies, except rather than seeing themselves as philosopher kings, they see themselves as Judeo-Christian Gods of morality.
Democracy, however, first began in Greece. And it was direct-democracy. Their Congress was formed of the first 6,000 people to show up, every day. So, I'd say that Democracy inherently supports freedom. Yes, they're tough against business, but that's because being weak against business hurts freedom. Because then it's not "every man for himself", but "some hardworking men against some major corporations who make major business mistakes like producing the Britney Spears reality show, and yet still stay in business because of their immense wealth." Liberals simply try to keep things "fair and balanced."
Someone asked, recently, if Liberalism is destroying America. Well, ladies and gentlemen of Nationstates, I'd like to take a look at the past several years of the Bush presidency.
#1. Voting fraud? During Bush's first and second elections, we faced the first major allegations of "voting fraud" in history. This does not go without evidence, as the people who owned corporations that designed the electronic voting machines were Republican. Because there is no government agency to oversee voting, they faced little or no oversight. In Florida, it's accepted that there were "unlawful" methods of counting-votes, as every single inconsistency in Florida favored Republicans, and the President. Coincidentally, the governor of Florida is Bush's father. They have not found anyone guilty, but there have only been selective investigations into voting fraud, never a full and accurate re-count (especially since the many machines had no paper-trail). Right before the elections, an independent organization was able to prove that a monkey was able to hack the electronic voting machines. Though criminal activity was never conclusively proven, the limited investigations showed that they threw out a large disparity of votes from Hispanics, Blacks, and poor Caucasians. The NAACP, an organization largely founded by Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks only 60 years ago, demanded that the President answer to this. He refused to even meet with them and soon after that, the I.R.S. threatened to start taxing the NAACP if they didn't stay out of politics.
#2. Public support? President Bush also holds the record for being the first President to have eggs thrown at his limo during his inauguration ceremony, and also, the first President to not even perform an inauguration ceremony, after being elected. The creators of South Park also had a show called, "That's My Bush!", on Comedy Central, continuously mocking him, through a parody of the President as an imbecile. No President in history has ever faced such public humiliation. No, in the past, while many disagreed with the President's policies, being the President was a noble and honorable position. Now, it's become the equivalent of being the head of a corporation. And yet, despite this clear public disapproval, in 2004, Bush recieved a "mandate." Exit-polls are not done simply for fun. They are so accurate, in fact, that they are used to determine whether an election has been fixed in foreign countries. In the United States' 2004 election, exit-polls showed Kerry winning with a slight lead. But the actual election results showed that Bush had a "mandate" (for having more than 50% of the vote, which is extremely rare). According to recent Gallup polls, Bush's public support is at an all-time low (44% approve, 55% disapprove) and a record low, for a two-term president at this point.
#3. The economy? President Bush gave the largest tax-cut in history. Basic economics tells you: If you do a massive tax-cut, you need to make up for it by decreasing spending. To pay off the national debt, Bush should've actually cut spending by even more than the tax-cut. So, Bush's tax-cut (almost all towards the top income brack) was $664 billion. Conservatives, did Bush reduce spending by $664 billion? No. In fact, Bush's own economic advisors were disturbed. U.S. Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, was asked to resign because he disagreed with Bush's tax-cuts (and he was appointed by Bush). White House Chief Economic Advisor, Larry Lindsey, also resigned because he agreed that Bush's tax-cuts simply weren't economically sane. And what happened? We didn't reduce spending, went on two wars, and as expected, the national debt increased by several trillion dollars, continuing to grow at an exponential rate. Before Bush was elected in 2000, he claimed he had a plan to pay off the national debt in 15 years. He lied.
#4. The PATRIOT Act. It was almost unanimously put through Congress, but afterwards, all Democrats and several Republicans opposed it, declaring it unconstitutional. According to the ACLU's website, resolutions have been passed in 377 communities in 43 states including five state-wide resolutions. These communities represent approximately 56.9 million people who oppose sections of the USA PATRIOT Act. The ACLU also documented numerous Republican Congressman who supported revising or repealing the PATRIOT Act (found here) (http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=12632&c=206). Many have said Democracy is no more in America, and that we've turned into a police state. I'd agree. A while ago, a U.S. Army Muslim Chaplain, named James Yee, who worked at Guantanamo Bay was jailed for almost three months, falsely accused of espionage. After being released, he has since left the U.S. Army, but then again, who wouldn't? And just recently, the U.S. sent a Canadian citizen to Syria, because he's been accused of terrorism. The Canadian government has demanded evidence, but the United States refuses to provide it. If you read up on the Office of Special Plans and the Office of Strategic Influence... Yes. We are a police state.
#5. "Liberal" media? The President also set a political precedent by being the first President to use propaganda (and only the second politician to do so, since William Randolph Hearst). President Bush paid TV show host, Armstrong Williams, a quarter of a million dollars to talk about how great the "No Child Left Behind" program, which has been largely underfunded, and criticized by African-Americans.
#6. Privatizing Social Security. According to one news report I'd read, President Bush went on several months of campaigning to increase support. But polls shows that it had the opposite effect, actually decreasing support and currently, the legislation has been described as "dead." Republicans claim there is a Democratic filibuster, but polls show that there is most of the public don't support Bush's social security policies.
#7. "Improving" intelligence. Despite millions of dollars of extra funding, the PATRIOT Act being passed, and Bush's own personal agency ("The Office of Special Plans"), that outranked all other agencies and oversaw all U.S. intelligence, we've still had numerous embarassing intelligence failures (which he cites, I'm sure, as reason to renew the PATRIOT Act and add new provisions), and rather than taking responsibility for it, or even having Under Secretary of Defense Feith take responsibility, the blame was shifted solely upon Tenet's shoulders, which he had originally strongly denied, but later admitted their faults, and resigned, becoming "the fall guy."
#8. The Environment? I asked my mother once, who is a moderate Republican, "What's Bush's environmental policy?" She responded, "DRILL!" Since Bush has taken office, he has started drilling for oil in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge. And while it's true that almost all of global warming is caused by natural causes, rather than being honest about the issue, he hired an oil-lobbyist as the head of White House Department For Environmental Quality, who had revised scientific reports against the scientists' wishes. After it was discovered, the official resigned, claiming his resignation had nothing to do with it. Right.
I have nothing against Conservativism, as it's a distinct political idealogy with its own strong, philosophical arguments behind it. But "Neoconservativism", in America, has become a euphemism for Fascism. The Republicans are no longer a 'Conservative' party, but Neoconservative. Is Neoconservativism destroying America? Yes.