Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

I am not saying the article is false, I was pointing out that particular statement had an easy explaination. There were no Karl Rove tricks involed I'm not even a Republican, I'm a Libertarian. The person who wrote the article was trying to spin the fact against Bush. I'm not a big fan of Bush but he is the only one who will defend America...

I'm no big supporter of Bush, either. But there is this tendency in politics that makes people want to stick it to the rich. God forbid if someone happens to do something that benefits them in any way. They already pay the majority of our nation's taxes, and nobody wants to cut them any slack whatsoever. Yes, you do have evil overlords like WIlliamus Gatius, but there are some cool rich people, too. I just thought Prof had an interesting point.

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Then why aren't you supporting Badnarik?



How do you spin a fact just by printing it? The author didn't editorialize at all, didn't provide any leftist annotations. How was it spun?

Maybe you're upset because the author didn't provide a list of all of the great things that Bush has done for his country. I challenge you to produce such a list with even a tenth of the weight of this one. But sadly, we both know that's not possible.



Against what? Homosexuals who just want to get married? As you know, Iraq was never a threat to the U.S. (and Bush was never under any other impression, though he misled millions of Americans to that effect) and considering that Saddam is in custody and we're currently occupying the entire country, it's not like they pose a threat in any event. Bush has proven completely incapable of successfully directing efforts to capture Usama Bin Laden, much less mention his name in public. If you read the whole article you'll know that Bush has done next to nothing to protect our ports. Bush knows about as much about defense as Clinton knew about marital fidelity. The only difference is that Clinton almost destroyed his marriage and Bush is destroying entire countries.

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Hey, IJ. Is that the dude who invented the comma? And whatever happened to the Pizza Spider?

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So, I support Bush and I'm a Libertarian I consider national defense more important than any domestic issue. The author spun the fact to infer that the tax cuts were for the rich, I was only pointing out that when taxes are lowered the rich get a higher tax cut in the progressive income tax system. Whats wrong with takeing issue with one part of an article, once again I found the article to be factual...

No, Didymus, it's the guy who discovered the comma.

Anyway, Professor No, you've yet to mention any good that Bush has actually done in terms of defense. All we've seen thus far is failure after failure. He hasn't eliminated any threat to the U.S., and in fact, by absolutely decimating world perception of our foreign policies, he's done his part in creating new threats by fueling hatred toward the U.S. and encouraging terrorist recruitment. Bush is a defense disaster.

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What?!?!? Encouraging terrorist recruitment? Show me evidence that those lies are true. I hope you know that we have troops in afganistan an other countries that have already dismantled al qaida training cells across the middle east.

I can't understand what you mean by "failure after failure" in terms of defense. If you want to talk about failure in defense, look at Bill Clinton. He promised year after year that the terrorists responsible for their various actions will be "hunted down and punished." We never saw that. I find it appalling that when George W. Bush says he will hunt down and punish terrorists and actually does hunt down terrorists, people get angry and oppose it... strange.

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While I laughed out loud at the second sentence, I'll take the time to explain the first to you in the simplest terms I can muster: A = Terrorist organizations recruit people who hate America. B = Bush's policies have significantly increased the number of people around the world who hate America. A + B = Terrorist organizations are able to recruit many more people.



Which terrorists has he "hunted down"? Some guy with a laptop? He certainly hasn't punished any terrorists in any way that has reduced the terrorist threat in the slightest. And what about the ones that actually attacked our country? Y'know, the ones who are still at large? The ones that Pakistan admits we're nowhere close to capturing?

You can parrot Bush as much as you want; it doesn't make his statements any less false.

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And you still haven't told me how Bush has quantifiably improved national security. (I hope it goes without saying that nebulous statements about terrorism don't quite cut it, unless you're one of Bush's speechwriters.)

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The problem with terrorism is that it is an entirely nebulous enemy.

I think the war in Afghanistan helped to reduce the resources available to the al-Qaida.

The problem now is the Iraq war. Prior to the 2002 invasion, Iraq was a minimal threat to us. Despite Bush's mantra to the contrary, THERE WERE NO WDM'S IN IRAQ. At least none that could be effectively used against us. Nor were there any direct links between al-Qaida and the Iraqi regime.

Now, with the war continuing, despite the declared victory of two years ago, both American and Iraqi casualties are mounting up. Al-Qaida is now actively at work in Iraq, having slipped into the country in the chaos and finding many willing Iraqi recruits to their cause.

In other words, the invasion of Iraq essentially took a negligible threat and turned it into a real one. Meanwhile, the al-Qaida thrives on the unrest created in its wake.

IJ has a valid point.

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Thanks, Didymus, and I couldn't agree more. The trouble is that Bush is fighting his War on Terror in an entirely unfeasable way. He thinks that he can destroy terrorism (or maybe he can't, depending on which way his flop is flipping this week) with conventional military thinking, and that's exactly what (or what little) he's been trying to do. But terrorists aren't conventional enemies, and Bush is entirely unprepared to stop them. But he thinks that if he keeps bombing the homes of civilians that might contain terrorists, it just might work.

It won't, of course. For every handful of terrorists (and children) he (potentially) kills with a bomb in a civilian neighborhood, twice as many vow revenge.

P.S. In a week or less we should be reaching the thousandth U.S. military death.

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As a great supporter of one Mr. Michael Moore, I can say a few things that I found out while reading his two books, "Dude, where's my country?", and "Stupid White Men."

For one thing, this whole thing about Bush going after the terrorists? It's all false. The fact is, Saddam (He WAS a really, really bad leader, I'll give you that, but then, so are countless other leaders throughout the world today. No-one does anything about the lack of Human Rights, in countries such as Saudi Arabia, which is where the whole Bin Laden family is from. In fact, Saudi Arabia is one of America's favourite allies.) never had any ties with 9/11.Why? Because Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein HATED each other. Hard to understand? Osama considered Saddam to be an infidel, as Saddam tolerated the building of churches synagogues inside Iraq, a sin in the eyes of Osama, who desired a total Muslim fanatic state in the "holy Lands".
Also, if that wasn't enough, Osama was furious that Hussein invaded Kuwait, as it provoked an imminent invasion from American troops, trampling across holy ground. Saddam and Osama, although they are without a doubt both evil, would never join forces to attack America. Therefore, Bush not only uncovered no links to Al-Qaeda, but he actually made them happier by eliminating one of their potential enemies!!!
Because of this, you shouldn't justify the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that it was "doing something about Terrorism". The fact is, it weren't.

Oh, and to back up IJ, Moore also explains that to win the war on Terror, don't give the terrorists anything to hate America about.

If anyone's got some sources (backed up by evidence, like the book was) that say that Iraq was a terrorist threat to America, I'd gladly listen.

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Move sig, move sig, move sig, move sig. For great justice take off every sig. Move sig, move sig, move sig. You know what you doing take off every sig.

I sincerely hope you're not calling me a troll there. My faith in your moderator status would be greatly affected.



Maybe you're right, but when I was in London and Spain this summer I was impressed with their comprehensive world news coverage, except when it came to the US. The US news source in Spain? A pirated satellite feed of Fox News. How "fair and balanced" is that?

Anyway, I understand your feelings about morality and the views of others. But I still hold to the idea of a "silent majority" that's going to re-elect Bush this fall. Liberals tend to speak their mind more often, a quality I wish more conservatives had. I consider myself a leaning to the right moderate. I tend to go toward candidates who are more socially liberal and fiscally conservative. I suppose I'm a libertarian, but I don't agree with all they have to say either.

Anyway, my bottom line in voting is:

Democrats: Pro-Killing babies.
Republicans: Anti- ""

I vote for the non-baby killing guys.

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"Hey Dudes, thanks for rescuing me. Let's go for a burger... Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

1,000 people dead. That's a shame. I'd say most knew they were heading into danger. One of my best friends served in Iraq and said the experience changed him. He's still voting for Kerry, because he wants his guys back, you know.

I think this morning it was 992.

Did you know 55 million died during and as a result of WWII?

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"Hey Dudes, thanks for rescuing me. Let's go for a burger... Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

My status as a moderator does not preclude my having an opinion. But like any good system, we have checks and balances. If I screw up, I've got three other moderators on my back, and they beat me with sticks.



That's kind of funny. But even if you listen to the BBC World Service (which is available, it seems, everywhere; I always get a kick out of it when they have callers from Botswana or something while I'm listening in Dubuque) you get fairly good U.S. news. Of course they don't spend as much time on U.S. news as.. well, as U.S. news stations, but they do have an entire world to report on.



I wish I could agree, here, because it would be good news, but have you listened to talk radio lately? Or watched evening editorial news shows? I've said it before, but the liberal media is a myth (and I'll bet you can guess who created that myth); that's why you see Democrats (and Libertarians, and Socialists...) taking to the streets in protest: because it's the only way they can get fair representation in the media.



There you go with the trolling again. Ugh.



Well you don't join the military without at least comprehending the possibility of danger to your life. But what about the ones who joined before Bush's Crusade began? How would you feel if you joined the military with the noblest intentions (i.e. to defend your country) only to be sent off to bomb civilians or to die settling your Commander in Chief's vendettas or defending his business interests? How much would that suck?



998. Yesterday it was 993.



Yes, and 300,000 of them were U.S. troops. The thing about WWII is that we were actually attacked by the country we declared war on. Imagine that. We lost a lot of lives, and I have a hard time justifying that, but at least we did it with a clear conscience.

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So, are you saying it wouldn't have been wise to have had a preemptive strike against the Empire of Japan to prevent Pearl Harbor. You see there is evidince that Saddam's WMDs were shipped to Syria or destroyed in the waiting period for the U.N. to rule if the war was legal. What would people be screaming Saddam had attacked us...

If we had had a crystal ball that told us Japan was going to attack us: Sure, we should have attacked them pre-emptively. Guess what: there are no crystal balls. We didn't think they were going to attack us, and that's why we didn't attack them.



Did you just seriously say "Saddam's WMDs"? Without being sarcastic? And I thought I was out of touch. Let's try this one more time: Saddam never had any WMDs (or Weapons of Mass Destruction Related Program Activities for that matter), there was never any evidence that he had WMDs, we never had any reason to believe he ever had WMDs, we never had any reason to believe he was ever going to attack us, and he didn't attack us. What part of that is so difficult to understand?

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Yes, of course we didn't have a crystal ball I was infering that if the U.S. knew that Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked would it have been wise to have preemptive strike on Japan.

Saddam did have WMDs he used them in the Iran War and on the Kurds...

If Saddam had attacked us, people would be "screaming" to declare war on him. I might easily be among them. But he didn't attack us, and we knew he never had the capacity to attack us, so fortunately we never had to attack him -- but wait a second, we did anyway! What fun!



The Iran-Iraq war? You mean that war in which the U.S. gave Iraq chemical and biological weapons, and some nuclear-related technology? Oh, right, that war.

So you're telling me that despite the fact that in the years immediately preceding the Iraq war we knew that Iraq had access to no WMDs and no capacity to attack us, we were justified in attacking them because some 16 to 24 years previous we had given them WMD-related technologies? Even though, 16-24 years later, they clearly and without a doubt no longer had the capacity to build weapons with it?

Man, you live in a weird little world.

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OK, forget it. This is my last post in this section of the forum. I'm not going to debate anything with someone who cries "troll" every time they see something they don't agree with.

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"Hey Dudes, thanks for rescuing me. Let's go for a burger... Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Maybe you haven't been paying attention. Maybe go back and compare the number of times I've disagreed with someone on this forum, and the number of times I've called such a person a troll. I "cry" troll when somebody says "Democrats support baby-killing!", because it's trolling, just as much as if I had said "Republicans support killing baby seals!" If you had said, "Unlike many Democrats, I believe that abortion is wrong", maybe it would have started a useful discussion, but you chose not to.

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I agree with InterruptorJones, that was a blanket statement and calling it trolling was correct. Its a debate you can't just stand down, one must stand firm and not give up...

I've skimmed this topic quite a bit and been reading the news lately for any mention of what is often over-looked. Despite the fact that we are "at war" with many nations, I wonder how many people realize that the United States has not officially been at war since World War II? The last direct Declaration of War to be issued by both houses of congress occurred during the American entry into World War II.

Despite the lack of a declaration of war, the United States has been "at war" in numerous situations long pre-dating the current deployment of US troops to Afgahnistan and Iraq. The waging of unofficial wars has always made my skin crawl. Maybe it is the lack of a direct acknowledgement that the United States is infact ingaged in warfare, or maybe it is just my desire for formality - but either way it should be required before such decisions to the extent of deployment to Afgahnistan and Iraq are permitted. A declaration of war may simply be a formality, but I believe it is a necessary one. Am I out-dated and just a skeleton wandering around from a time long past? Perhaps nations do not go to war any more in the fashion of declaring where they are fighting. I highly doubt the United States is alone in it the manner it wages war.

I am an American, and I am proud of what my country aspires to be and what potential it could be - but I am ashamed of the situations it repeatedly gets mired in.

Well said. And democrats aren't "Pro-Baby Killing" either, they are pro-choice, which essentially means the right to CHOOSE whether you want to have an abortion for possible reasons such as rape, etc. Republicans taking away this right is essentially like taking away someone's right to choose which religion they belong to, and forcing everyone to become Christian. Although this isn't the best analogy..I'm pretty sure you get my point. Taking away a right of choice from someone is wrong and undemocratic, for whatever reason.

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"well, I'll just uh, put these pants on." ~Homestar

I'd just like to request that if you guys want to talk about this issue in depth, you start a new thread. Abortion is certainly an important topic, but it's also such a large topic that I don't want it to completely overwhelm the theme of this topic as a whole.

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I read recently one Democrat's reasoning for voting for Bush. I can't recall the exact location of the article - but it was a rather interesting argument. It went something to the degree of: the Republican Party and its' current resident of the White House have gotten themselves and this nation into the sticky situation in Iraq, it is only just that they should have to deal with it and have the opportunity to redeem themselves in some fashion (if it ever all possible). To place John Kerry in the White House would place the Democratic party in similar situation but trying to solve and fix a problem that was not their sole responsibility for instigating. Now, if they succeeded, the problem and solution would still likely aid the strength of republicans by giving them "righteous support" in the cause.

Maybe I am making no sense, or maybe the author made no sense, maybe only I seem to gain some grain of interest in this - but it is an interesting perspective. A Democratic victory in this presidential election could be a long-term Democratic party loss? A Republican victory is the most likely way for the Republican party to undergo a huge loss?

Actually, the Democrats are partially responsible for the war in Iraq. In fact, John Kerry supported the war until it became one of the key issues in the election.

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Sad but true. A lot of Democrats made the mistake of assuming Bush was fit to lead, and followed him, as any trusting American might. It's a shame that when it came time to learn from our mistakes, it had to be one so tremendous.

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Pardon, I didn't mean to state that Republicans and the president are solely responsible for the war in Iraq - although sometimes it would appear that they would like to take the full claim on the situation and at other times pass it off to other people. It is a situation that involves everyone - and I do not forsee a simple solution.

Video of the week: A Nation Remembers.

Quite a few others worth watching, too.

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