Bush and his Father

[andyfox]

Referring to his father, the former president, Geroge W. Bush told Bob Woodward, "He is the wrong frather to appeal to in terms of strength; there is a higher father that I appealed to."

God, that's frightening.

[imported_Chuck Weinstock]

[ QUOTE ]
God, that's frightening.



[/ QUOTE ]

Don't you mean "God--that's frightening"?

And I agree with you.

[daryn]

wow, you scare easy huh?

[andyfox]

Appeals to a higher father than one's own sometimes can lead to preemptive wars based upon flimsy evidence.

[andyfox]

Your punctuation is better.

[Jimbo]

Not nearly as frightning as the possibliity of Kerry being elected President.

Jimbo

[daryn]

Massachusetts Senator John Kerry.
Hairstyle by Christophe's: $75.
Designer shirts: $250.
Forty-two foot luxury yacht: $1 million.
Four lavish mansions and beachfront estate: Over $30 million.
Another rich, liberal elitist from Massachusetts who claims he's a man of the people: Priceless.

[Clarkmeister]

[ QUOTE ]
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry.
Hairstyle by Christophe's: $75.
Designer shirts: $250.
Forty-two foot luxury yacht: $1 million.
Four lavish mansions and beachfront estate: Over $30 million.
Another rich, liberal elitist from Massachusetts who claims he's a man of the people: Priceless.

[/ QUOTE ]

As opposed to a rich conservative elitist who thinks that Big Brother knows best?

[daryn]

yes, as opposed to that

[andyfox]

I''m by no means a Kerry fan, but the Bush administration has earned my opposition. I will hold my nose and vote for Kerry.

I've just read John Dean's book (Worse Than Watergate), an article about the Bush administration's environmental policy, and excerpts from Bob Woodward's book. The lunatics are running the asylum.

[daryn]

personally i think lewis black said it best when he said:

"what's the difference between republicans and democrats? republicans suck and democrats blow."

[BruceZ]

This is precisely why the government finds it necessary to lie. You f***'n people can't handle the truth.

[andyfox]

Bravo!

[John Cole]

I wonder if he taped the conversation.

[Josh W]

Andy -

You know I respect you. And, you know I don't jump into this forum that often. So, if this thread is in reference to something that it doesn't reference, please forgive my ignorance.

And, please understand that I am in no ways a Bush supporter.

But, I am a Christian. And, I believe in giving credit where credit is due.

It seems that this quote is just Bush giving credit where it is due.

Now, I don't know the entire context of the quote, but I'm guessing that the 'strength' he is referring to isn't so much the muscular ability to curl a 12 oz. brew. Instead, I'd guess it has something to do with mental and emotional strength.

Whether you love, hate, or are indifferent towards Bush, you have to acknowledge that he hasn't had the easiest 4 years in office. I'm not saying he's done a glowing job, but after 9-11, it would require a lot of STRENGTH for any president. And, if he gets his strength from God, so be it.

So, I really don't see why this upsets you so much. To help me understand your point...are you more upset at the source of his strength? or him verbalizing the source?

[andyfox]

God has no place in government decision-making. Nobody's God. When a person says, as Bush has, that he takes his primary considerations on what to do in a crisis from his religion, when his best friends says he sees the war on terror as an Armageddonesque religious crusade of good vs. evil, this is scary. This is the same attitude Osama bin Laden has. It leads to a Manichean worldview in which whatever we do is right because simply because, we, on the side of right as ordained by God, have done it.

When a person's God tells them that pre-emptively invading another country is the correct thing to do, that is scary. Base your decision on facts, on reason, on politics if you will. But please don't base it on what your God tells you to do. Isn't that what the radical Islamists do?

While I am no fan of the president's father, I'd much rather he take advice and get strength from him.

I remember Mehachem Begin saying that he wasn't going to give back any land because it had been promised to his people by God. How can such a belief be reconciled with justice for other people? The case is already closed: God has decreed it so.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

From my favorite libertarian columnist:

CATHY YOUNG
The attack on secularism
By Cathy Young | April 26, 2004

THE NEW BOOK "Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism," by writer and social critic Susan Jacoby, is a historical work but it is also an unabashed polemic on an acutely topical issue: the role of religion in public life in modern-day America. In the opening pages, Jacoby cites President Bush's presiding over an ecumenical prayer service at Washington's National Cathedral three days after the Sept. 11 attacks as evidence of "the erosion of America's secularist tradition." The book's publicity emphasizes this theme: The publisher's press release and four of the six blurbs (including ones from eminent writer Arthur Miller and historian Arthur Schlesinger) assert that free thought in America is under "unprecedented attack" from a rising tide of official religiosity.

ADVERTISEMENT

The history in Jacoby's book is fascinating. She makes a convincing argument that, contrary to the assertions of many conservatives today, the Founding Fathers did in fact intend to create a secular government. The Constitution's lack of any reference to God or divine sanction was not an accidental oversight, or an omission of something that everyone implicitly took for granted anyway. On the contrary, the godlessness of the Constitution, along with its rejection of a religious test for public office, was a source of major controversy during the ratification debates. Religious traditionalists warned that the Constitution's irreligiousness would bring God's wrath down on American citizens -- in language reminiscent of claims by some of their modern-day descendants after Sept. 11 that God withdrew his protection from America because Americans have turned away from him.

Jacoby also cites evidence that Thomas Jefferson championed religious liberty not only for different religious denominations but for nonbelievers, and that James Madison wanted not only the federal government but the state governments to be prohibited from making laws that would either interfere with or promote religion.

And yet Jacoby's account also demonstrates that today's antisecularist backlash is far from unique -- rather, it's part of a cyclical pattern that has persisted throughout American history. At the end of the 18th century, the climate in which the Founders' Enlightenment rationalism flourished, gave way to the first "religious reaction." Indeed, Jacoby acknowledges that "had the Constitution been written in 1797 instead of 1787, it is entirely possible that God, not `we, the people,' would have been credited with supreme governmental authority." Jefferson's and Madison's secularist views became a political liability; Thomas Paine, the British-born American patriot, was vilified and ostracized because of his opposition to organized religion.

Of the Civil War, Jacoby writes that "the intensity of the Christian imagery associated with the Union cause [was] never equaled before or since the war." ("The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is a prime example.) Even in the late 19th century, which she calls the "Golden Age of Freethought," when outspoken atheists and agnostics such as attorney and orator Robert Ingersoll enjoyed success as public speakers, tolerance definitely had its fairly narrow limits. In an editorial after Ingersoll's death, The New York Times noted -- with approval -- that his irreligion had effectively barred him from a career in public service for which he was otherwise highly qualified.

The present-day backlash against secularism is a reaction to the decline of traditional religion in the 1960s and '70s, and to the secularist victories in the courts -- from the ban on school prayer to the legalization of abortion. Despite the religious revival of the past 20 years, in some ways our society is more secular than it ever was. With a few exceptions, the courts have maintained fairly solid barriers to religious intrusions in the public sphere (sometimes, arguably, to the extent of discriminating against religion). Jacoby deplores the use of tax-funded vouchers for parochial schools as an unprecedented breach of the church-state wall -- but it's useful to remember that for most of our history the curriculum of public schools was explicitly infused with Protestant Christian teachings.

Jacoby makes a powerful plea for a civic language that does not exclude nonbelievers. She notes that while religious references in public life today are emphatically nonsectarian and inclusive toward Jews, Muslims and Hindus, the nonreligious constitute a far larger segment of the population than any of these religious minorities. This is an important reminder. Intolerance toward atheists and agnostics, who are often viewed as less moral or even less patriotic than believers, remains one of the few forms of socially accepted bigotry.

But, for better or worse, there is nothing new about this bias. We live in a time of tension and conflict between secularists and religious traditionalists. As "Freethinkers" demonstrates, this tension is as American as apple pie.

Cathy Young is a contributing editor at Reason magazine. Her column appears regularly in the Globe.

© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

[Josh W]

[ QUOTE ]
God has no place in government decision-making.

...

While I am no fan of the president's father, I'd much rather he take advice and get strength from him.



[/ QUOTE ]


Ah, I thought as much. I agree, that, in this world, you are right. God shouldn't play a role in governmental decision making.

But that's not what Bush said in his quote. He didn't say he got his DIRECTION from God. Just his strength.

Like I said, if this whole thread is referencing something else altogether, then forgive my ignorance. But it really looks to me like you dislike Bush (fair enough), and are using that as an excuse to dislike everything he says.

And I still don't see how what he said is wrong. He didn't say he gets his direction from God. He didn't say his foreign policy is based on God's will. He didn't say he passes bills based on what God tells him to do.

Am I missing something?

Josh

[andyfox]

I had posted before on Bush's belief that he is getting direction from God. But I also find danger in him getting strength from God.

Throughout history, those who claimed they were getting either strength or direction from God have wreaked havoc on those who they felt were non-believers in the correct God. Bush speaks like both an out-of-control cowboy and a man on a mission, a crusade, and I find this dangerous. It manifests itself in an obsessive secrecy that pervades the administration's decision-making process and in a holier-than-thou attitude that says if you're not with us you're against us. There's no room for shades of gray in this worldview, only black and white.

I do dislike Bush. But I didn't make up my mind to dislike him a priori. It's what he says and what he does that I don't like often enough.

BTW the Bush quote is in Bob Woodward's book. Woodward told Bush that Tony Blair had told him (Woodward) that when he gets a letter from a family that has lost a loved one, it pains him and he has doubt. Bush said he never has doubt because he gets strengeth from not his [biological] father, but from a higher father.

Dangerous stuff, IMO, whether it is sincere (which I believe it is) or feigned.

[MMMMMM]

Andy, I really can't agree that someone saying they get strength from God is dangerous stuff. The other stuff you are referring to may be closer to the danger zone-- but come on, there are millions or billions who draw strength from mere belief in God, and IMO that in itself doesn't make them any more or less dangerous than anyone else. I don't even think you can rightly say that on average it makes them more dangerous--because if you want to compare numbers, the atheistic communists murdered more people than possibly all others combined in the history of the world (no other numbers even approach the 80-100 million murdered by the communists, although combined they might). So I think you may be falling into the fallacy of using the special case (or cases) to generate conclusions about the general case.

[MaxPower]

Does Kerry claim to be a man of the people?

Two funny things about Bush. One I heard from Bill Maher. Bush criticizes Kerry for being a "Washington Insider". Uh, George, you are the president. You don't get any more inside than that. Being a Washington insider means you are close to the president. When you are the president you are by definition a Washington insider.

Second, when Bob Woodword mentions to Bush that many of his friends had concerns about the aftermath and long term consequences of the War on Iraq, Bush tells Woodward that it is because Woodward is one of the elite. OK, your father was President, you went to Andover and Yale, you were Governor of Texas and President of the US. These things don't make you part of the Elite?

Is Bush trying to present a certain image of himself for political purposes or does he really believe these things about himself? I don't know, but I find it funny.

[Boris]

I don't get it. Why does the government have to lie?

[andyfox]

I agree that merely saying one gets strength from God is not a problem. But saying it and then acting on it is a problem. It's what the hijackers believed, that it was ordained by their God that what they were doing was right. It's what bin Laden believes.

Now you have a man who's the President of the United States who believes it. And he is acting on it. He belives, according to his closest friends, that this is the ultimate battle of good vs. evil. And he has started a preemptive war against the evildoers. He started using that very term a few days after he read the term in the bible.

I'm not using a special case to generalize. I'm saying Bush is dangerous because of his belief. I used other examples to show how the belief system works.

[Josh W]

[ QUOTE ]
I had posted before on Bush's belief that he is getting direction from God.



[/ QUOTE ]

Like I said earlier, forgive me if I'm jumping in late here...I'm just trying to find out what about that quote (source of his strength) is so bothersome...

[ QUOTE ]

But I also find danger in him getting strength from God.



[/ QUOTE ]

Why? AH, look, here's the answer...


[ QUOTE ]

Throughout history, those who claimed they were getting either strength or direction from God have wreaked havoc on those who they felt were non-believers in the correct God.

[/ QUOTE ]

See, here's where you and I differ. Who, throughout history, has claimed getting strength AND NOT DIRECTION from God? Who among this short list has created havoc?

Bin Laden et al got direction from their god. And whether or not Bush does is not shown IN THIS QUOTE/THREAD. Strength and direction are entirely different.

I'm leaning towards voting for Kerry. I'm still very undecided. And I believe it was you who said you'd vote against Bush, more than for Kerry, saying you'd hold your nose as you vote.

And, I'm guessing you write a lot of stuff here as some light-weight propoganda, hoping that it may persuade a few more to vote the same way as you. I have no problem with this at all. Honestly.

But if you dislike Bush that much, there must be some REAL REASONS for it, so you don't need to try to manufacture some by adding words ("direction") where there are none...

I guess my whole reason for bringing this up has little to do with Bush, and a lot more to do with God.

Bush said he gets his STRENGTH from God. To me, that's admirable. I, too, get my strength from God. And, I know that through life, the closer I am to God, the stronger I am.

Leaders should be strong. I'd vote for an anemic quadraplegic who gets his/her strength from God before I'd vote for an atheistic Adonis. One has strength. The other has nothing.

Josh

[Matty]

[ QUOTE ]
Referring to his father, the former president, Geroge W. Bush told Bob Woodward, "He is the wrong frather to appeal to in terms of strength; there is a higher father that I appealed to."

God, that's frightening.



[/ QUOTE ]Funny, God told the Pope and I to protest the war. What the [censored] is that guy up there doing to us?

[jokerswild]

Besides the fact that Bush was not elected President, I find it frightening that someone who is so red white and blue (unless it's worshiping murderers like Tony Accardo) would find the current administration anything other than a total anathema to the constitution of the USA. Maybe you are heavily invested in Halliburton, Bechtel, and the Carlylye group. The Bush family is. That makes the phony WMD be seen in a completely different light.

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree that merely saying one gets strength from God is not a problem. But saying it and then acting on it is a problem. It's what the hijackers believed, that it was ordained by their God that what they were doing was right. It's what bin Laden believes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Again you seem to be (unintentionally) muddying the water by glossing over the distinction between getting strength and getting specific direction. If one gets strength from God to fight cancer, then acts on it, that isn't a problem.

[ QUOTE ]
Now you have a man who's the President of the United States who believes it. And he is acting on it. He belives, according to his closest friends, that this is the ultimate battle of good vs. evil. And he has started a preemptive war against the evildoers. He started using that very term a few days after he read the term in the bible.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, if you look at the Koran and at the history of Muhammad, I don't see how you could think that there isn't something evil in the violence against non-believers which is repeatedly espoused therein. Furthermore, even if there isn't anything inherently evil about Islam, since Islam is meant to be inextricably entwined with government, it generally leads to an evil form of government. That isn't its goal, but that's what it does, since in literal Islam there is no room for the secular. The goal of Islam, besides personal submission to God, is to bring the worldly under the control of God as well. Secularizing government from Islam is an immensely difficult task, because Islam really has no space in its worldview for that. It's rather amazing that secularization has succeeded in limited fashion in Turkey.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not using a special case to generalize. I'm saying Bush is dangerous because of his belief. I used other examples to show how the belief system works.

[/ QUOTE ]

What you've done is expand the specific case of Bush's beliefs to the general, IMO, and used this expansion to criticize the very general, e.g., to criticize getting strength from God and acting on it. As mentioned above, a cancer patient can do that too, which is in no way a problem, and which may actually be a good thing.

Your problem seems to be with the Manichean worldview, which is more specific, and with Bush's views in particular. However bear in mind that any philosophy which calls for violence against non-believers may indeed be partially evil, so if the other side does not hold the same prescription, one side's worldview may actually be more moral or less evil than the other. Just because both sides think the other is evil does not mean that one side is not more correct than the other (e.g. Hitler thought he was fighting for good, and against the evil Jews; we thought he was doing evil. The existence of such opposing views does not imply that both sides are equally right, nor that Hitler's view and actions were not evil.)

So IMO Bush is actually partially correct, although he may understand it in more simple terms. Islam espouses violence against non-believers, the oppression of women, the forced dominance of the Islamic theology, the complete marriage of Mosque and State...how can you say those are not evil precepts? At the very least you must agree that attempting to put those precepts into practice leads to evil results.

Moreover, the actual terrorists are indeed, and unquestionably, "evil-doers." So overall Bush is actually pretty much correct although the reasons for his beliefs are not as scientific as you would care to see.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Funny, God told the Pope and I to protest the war.

Not only that, but he also told Mohammad Atta et. al. to fly those planes into the WTC.

[superleeds]

Just my 2c

In a secular system of government the president should never invoke a spiritual power. It will be used as a propaganda tool.

'Look at the US, they wish to replace our faith with theirs. That is their motive and that is why the infidels must be destroyed, blah blah blah.

[andyfox]

You, sir, are a very good reader, in a number of senses, as I'm sure you know. I need to be very careful in placing my bets.

And you know I mean this as a compliment.

Bush believes that he's on a mission. That we are the good and righteous and that our opponents are evildoers. He takes his inspiration for this viewpoint from the Bible. Jesus Christ is not just his source of strength, his religious views color his assessment of the world situation. He believes we are on a crusade against the evildoers. I have not manufactured this out of whole cloth. His closest friends told this to the authors of a Hoover Institution (right-leaning think tank very sympathetic to the Bush administration) study about Bush's faith.

Bush credits his faith with amending his own evil ways, when he was a younger, wilder version of his current self; in paticular, he credits his faith with weaning him from alcoholism.

So his faith plays an important part in his life. And he extends that to his "calling." He talks about the United States' destiny, its mission. It's dangerous stuff.

I haven't, either on thess pages or anywhere else, hidden my "real reasons" for opposing Mr. Bush. It's his policies. His tax cuts helped me a great deal, but not those who needed help more than I. His environmental policy is hideous. The lies and distortions that led to the war in Iraq are monumental. The unpreparedness of our trooops, because of Rumsfeld's inability to listen except when he himself is doing the talkiing, is well-documented. Afghanistan has fallen by the wayside, rapidly deterioriating into near-disaster, with Taliban and other warlords controling more and more of the country, making it once again an excellentg breeding ground for terrorism. The administration is filled with "vulcans" (Condi Rice's term) who were hellbent on invading Iraq well before 9/11; Perle and Cheney and Wolfowitz had been calling for it for a long time.

Leaders should indeed be strong. I have no problem with a leader getting his strength from an appropriate role model. While I am not Christian, and have, at best, a rudimentary understanding of Jesus's teachings, my sense is that he is a wonderful role model.

But to take that and then translate it into a viewpoint of the world that mirrors the other side's, namely, that God is on our side, invites disaster.

BTW, no propaganda, just a bunch of guys discussing politics, sports, poetry, and other things that interest us.

Anyway, never mind all this crap, how's the poker going?

Regards,
Andy

[andyfox]

Both MMMMM and Josh W have taken me to task for apparently confusing getting strength from God and getting direction from God. Certainly there is a case to be made for this distinction. One might say Ghandi felt he got strength from God, but Mohammed Atta felt he got direcction from God.

Bush said to Bob Woodward that he got strength from God. There is no question, based on Bush's actions and other statements, that that strength has led Bush to believe he gets his direction from God.

http://www.middleeastinfo.org/article2136.html


Those close to Mr Bush say that on 9/11 he discovered his life's mission. He became convinced that God was calling him to engage the forces of evil in battle

"There is wonder-working power in the goodness and idealism of the American people," he said in one of his SoU addresses.

Journalist Arnon Regular wrote, in the June 26, 2003 edition of Ha'aretz, that he has minutes of a meeting among top-level Palestinian leaders, including then Prime Minister Mahmoud Abas. The minutes are apparently quite detailed, because Regular wrote a long article recounting very specific conversations. The last paragraph of the article reads:

"According to Abbas, Bush said: 'God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.'"

Bush told religious broadcasters that “the terrorists hate the fact that ... we can worship Almighty God the way we see fit,” and that the United States was called to bring God’s gift of liberty to “every human being in the world.”

Called by whom? Bush's strength, derived from his belief in God, leads to his actions, also dervied from his belief that God is on his side.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Bush told religious broadcasters that “the terrorists hate the fact that ... we can worship Almighty God the way we see fit,”

I don't mean to pile on here, Andy, but how does that statement differ from saying "The terrorists hate us because we have freedom of religion."?

the United States was called to bring God’s gift of liberty to “every human being in the world.”

Again, similar to saying the US is "making the world safe for democracy."

The Declaration of Independence says, "....all men are created equal and...are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among them being Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness." (mea culpa for any misquote)

Now, you've read enough of my posts to know I'm an avowed non-believer. Yet does the fact that I not believe in a 'creator" per se invalidate those words in my mind?

[andyfox]

The fact that Bush considers his god Almighty is worrisome to me. The fact that Bush believes liberty is a gift of his god is worrisome to me. When Bush says the terrorists hate us becaue of our freedom of religion, it is to deflect attention from any political reasons they might also have for hating us. When Bush says that we are making the world safe for democracy, he is an out-and-out liar. When he says we were "called" to do so, presumably by his god, he is a lunatic.

The Declaration of Independence was written nearly 230 years ago when god was invoked constantly to, among other things, alienate those rights from certain peopleseen not as equal by, for example, the man most responsible for the Declaration of Independence.

It's time to get god out of our foreign policy.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

When Bush says the terrorists hate us becaue of our freedom of religion, it is to deflect attention from any political reasons they might also have for hating us.

Well, lets be clear about one thing. The terrorists do not believe in freedom of religion, nor do they believe in anything that remotely resembles the concepts outlined in the bill of rights. They believe in a world where women are property, and anyone who questions the words of the holy Qu'ran deserves death. Andy, you don't like Bush, and I don't much like his holy-roller talk either, but please don't let that feeling suggest that this Islamist scourge that wants to usher in a new dark ages has one shred of validity in its hatred for the west.


The Declaration of Independence was written nearly 230 years ago when god was invoked constantly to, among other things, alienate those rights from certain peopleseen not as equal by, for example, the man most responsible for the Declaration of Independence.

So, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness are *not* inalienable rights?

Bush says that we are making the world safe for democracy, he is an out-and-out liar.

While this is certainly debatable, I am certain that allowing Islamism to intimidate us does not promote liberty either.

It's time to get god out of our foreign policy.

On this we agree.

[andyfox]

I agree with your characterization of the terrorists. But the United States is an empire, and has acted in imperial fashion in many parts of the world. To deny that United States foreign policy has not precipitated blowback, is not realistic. This in now way validates or justifies terroristic activities, but it does lend a clearer view towards the reasons for it.

By way of analogy, the terror activities of the Palestinian groups against Israel are to be condemned. But to simply say they hate Jews or hate Israel because they do not believe in freedom of religion, etc., is to miss the entire picture, the history of the relationship between the two parties for over a hundred years now.

On the Declaration of Independence, I do believe those rights are inalienable. My point was that the creator of that Declaration of Independence, despite those magnificent words, did not. He justified his treatment of blacks with recourse to god's plan, that the black race was just made by the creator as an inherently inferior race. And that's how he treated them.

I am not arguing an equivalence between Bush's thinking and that of the terrorists. What I am arguing is that recourse to god as a justification for policy, or as a source of strength to give one confidence that that policy is a correct one, is inherently dangerous.

[Josh W]

[ QUOTE ]
Anyway, never mind all this crap, how's the poker going?

Regards,
Andy

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't know I could win 94 bets in a session. Now I do. And that was after giving back 18 bets.

[John Cole]

You remember the story. A general consults Apollo through the Delphic oracle and asks whether he should engage in battle the next day. The oracle responds, "If you engage in battle, a great army will win a great victory." Naturally, the general leads his army into battle and is soundly thrashed. Wrong army.

God (or Gods) moves in mysterious ways.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

To deny that United States foreign policy has not precipitated blowback, is not realistic.

I agree we have made foreign policy mistakes, and thus enemies. Some of the issues are indeed valid, many are not. I am reminded of the quote from a Ludlum novel where a character explains the depth of anti-american sentiment in the world, adding "the strongest character of the weak is their hatred of the strong."

But to simply say they hate Jews or hate Israel because they do not believe in freedom of religion, etc., is to miss the entire picture, the history of the relationship between the two parties for over a hundred years now.

What I was saying was they don't believe in freedom of any kind *and* they hate the Jews. I am perfectly willing to address any of their concerns once they 1) stop the terrorist attacks on Israel for a reasonably long period of time, and 2) accept that Israel has a right to live in Peace. Until they do those two things, their claims have precisely zero validity.

He justified his treatment of blacks with recourse to god's plan, that the black race was just made by the creator as an inherently inferior race. And that's how he treated them.

And we have evolved since then. That his beliefs on race were wrong does not invalidate the premise of the Declaration now that we have addressed (or are addressing) the historical errors on race.

I am not arguing an equivalence between Bush's thinking and that of the terrorists.

Fine. At times it seems that way, maybe not from you, but from others. I find the liberals hatred of Bush to be identical to the conservatives hatred of Clinton. That being said, I am also troubled by too much God talk in politics. Did you get to check out the Globe column I posted on the attack on secularism?

[andyfox]

[andyfox]

I can't remember whether I read the Globe article or not (duh!); but I will (re?)-read it soon.

[moondogg]

[ QUOTE ]
He belives, according to his closest friends, that this is the ultimate battle of good vs. evil.

[/ QUOTE ]

Where, exactly, are you getting this from? Do you know any of them?

[MMMMMM]

I'm actually more curious to know how Andy can be so sure that this isn't part of the ultimate battle of good and evil;-)

Salman Rushdie titled his book The Satanic Verses. He wasn't trying to be funny. A closer inspection of the Q'uran might give some support to this view--at least more weight than most Western liberal intellectuals would commonly presume.

[Duke]

I figure if we're up against people these days who draw power from invisible men, we may as well have someone on our side with that same superpower.

~D

[andyfox]

A Bush family member told authors Peter and Rochelle Schweizer that "George sees this as a religious war. He doesn't have a PC view of this war. His view is that they are trying to kill the Christians. And we the Christians will strike back with more force and ferocity than they will ever know."

A recent article called "Fundamentally, Bush Works on Faith" by Peter Schweizer and Rochelle Schweizer. Peter Schweizer is a felloow at the Hoover Institution, and he and
Rochelle Schweizer are the authors of "The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty." There are many more quotes from family members and friends about Bush's religious beliefs in the article. I read the article in the L.A. Times a while back.

No, I don't know any of his friends. Do you?

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
A Bush family member told authors Peter and Rochelle Schweizer that "George sees this as a religious war. He doesn't have a PC view of this war. His view is that they are trying to kill the Christians...

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, IMO anyone that doesn't have a PC view of something is probably on the right track;-)

By the way, a lot of Muslims are trying to kill the Christians...in Africa, Indonesia, etc. In fact wholesale slaughter has been going on for quite some time in--what African nation is it? Talking hundreds of thousands or more. Sudan is it? The Northern Muslims have been butchering and enslaving the Southern animists and Christians at an unbelievable rate. Also very recently in Indonesia(?) Muslim mobs wielding machetes just slaughtered hundreds of Christian homeowners. Google them both if you care to.

[andyfox]

I'm a kneejerk anti-religious atheist. Maybe all religions that have a god in the sky and a written bible go through a phase where they have to seek out and destroy the heathen non-believers. I hope I'm wrong. I'm pretty certain it's not just religion, that there are probably other factors (political? social? economic?) at work besides the religious factor. Sometimes maybe religion is the justification, rather than the cause?

In the 1400s the Chinese went out in search of worlds to discover/conquer with the biggest and bestest fleets known to man. They came back and decided it wasn't for them, there was nothing out there as good as what they had. Whether they were right or wrong, if only others could see things that way. . .

[MMMMMM]

I agree with your sentiments (except that I view atheism as the vastly premature drawing of a possibly erroneous conclusion. Heck even cosmology changes rapidly...in Scientific American this month it says that physics (string theory) is now leaning towards the view that the Big Bang hapened, but it wasn't really the beginning of everything...the theory now is that time stretched back infinitely before the Big Bang and that it wasn't the start of all matter, etc either. Or something like that--I'll have to read it more thoroughly, I just scanned it briefly) ).

Now although I agee with your overall assessment of the evils man has done under theistic religions, that doesn't change the primary pragmatic problem that Islam has not yet finished its phase where it generally considers infidels to be heathens worthy of destruction or subjugation (if they don't convert), and that Muslims are worthy of elevated treatment socially and legally. And it doesn't look like this phase will end anytime soon.

Hence Bush, while perhps viewing things too simplistically, is in many ways correct to view this as a struggle between good and evil, for the above (Islamic) slant is an evil view, even if it stems from ignorance. Actually however it does not stem from mere ignorance but from study of the Q'uran.

The fact that Christians underwent similar evil delusive thinking centuries ago does not matter at all in the present context, because most of the evil delusive thinking is currently coming from the Islamic side. The Christian delusive views are far less pernicious or malignantly destructive and aggressive. Hence it is in many ways a struggle between good and evil, although that doesn't mean all Muslims are evil or anything like that of course. It is a fact however that their base ideology is currently far more aggressive, violent and confrontational than Christian ideology. Even hard-core bible-thumping Christians accept secularism (though some may be a bit unhappy about it, and try to tweak small legal changes. They don't, however, call for abolishing the Constitution and replacing it with the Bible).

So given the current state of Islamic ideology, I would say that Bush is more correct than Western intellectuals who say that things are just two sides of the same coin. If you and I both hold equally delusive views, but I live my own life in peace with mine, whereas you try to force your views on others including via violence, since your idelogy espouses that too, then whose ideology is more evil? It isn't even close.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

So given the current state of Islamic ideology, I would say that Bush is more correct than Western intellectuals who say that things are just two sides of the same coin.

Which has been my take all along. Lets eliminate this threat first, then we can deal with the fundamentalist threat here at home later.

[MaxPower]

[ QUOTE ]
Sometimes maybe religion is the justification, rather than the cause?



[/ QUOTE ]

I think that is absolutely true.

[MMMMMM]

Right. The two threats are of different magnitudes and degrees of virulence.

Interesting too that your take on the Libertarian Platform seems about the same as mine: I too think it is hopelessly simplistic regarding foreign affairs/military matters, and I consider the LP stance on immigration far too permissive. Other than that I can't recall anything from the website with which I disagreed significantly.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I consider the LP stance on immigration far too permissive.

In a perfect world, what purpose would borders serve? I myself believe that anyone who wants to come here to work and better their lives should be welcome, but I recognize that there are dangerous factions we must try to keep out.

[andyfox]

As you know, I have a problem with the good vs. evil thinking. This doesn't deny the evilness of people who think flying planes into buildings is a good thing.

What is does is to gloss over history and politics and social issues and make everything seem dependent on the fact that the other side is bad simply because it is the other side. It also leads to "either you're with us or you're against us" thinking. Both of these things can be destructive and counter-productive to our goals of trying to thwart the other side. We saw this in the Cold War. Those who wanted to do anything to the left of where we wanted them to be (for example, land reform or support labor unions) were demonized as Communists and a lot of harm was done that both hurt the people in the countries involved and came back to haunt us later on. It led to actions which demonized us in the eyes of many people in the world and made the Soviet Union appear as heroic. Not an easy thing to have done.

I know politicians like to deal in black and white; shades of gray don't sell well. So I know the black and white case that is usually made to sell a war is usually two parts PR to one part truth. And I know Bush likes to play the amiable dunce, the simple down-home guy ala Harry Truman. But the world is a complex and complicated place and a policy that pretends we're not an empire and simply going about doing the right thing all the time can lead to trouble. And has.

[MMMMMM]

I do not disagree with those points.

It appears a balance is required, between self-criticism and resisting those who follow pernicious ideologies and would do us ill. That balance must not be static, though: it must be adjustable in accordance with the circumstances.

Don't be staring at your navel when the enemy is training his sights on you, but neither forget to glance at it occasionally when you can afford the luxury. That's my take on it all.

[ACPlayer]

It's time to get god out of our foreign policy

.. and domestic policies.

[andyfox]

"Don't be staring at your navel when the enemy is training his sights on you, but neither forget to glance at it occasionally when you can afford the luxury."

I expect to see this, along with "hypocrisy is the handmaiden of tyranny" in the next Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[MMMMMM]

Please document them both. Maybe we'll start our own Book of Quotations. /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[MMMMMM]

There is actually something to be said for the concept of considering that our most inalienable rights inhere from God rather than from men--even if you don't believe in God.

Considering all rights as being derived from our fellow humans, those rights can more easily be swept away, than if we consider those rights as intrinsic to our natures and to whatever concept of God we might acknowledge.

God doesn't necessarily have to be the Creator, or be endowed with all the attributes humans commonly ascribe God (which tend to give rise to contradictory philosophical speculations).

Somewhere in the Bible, it says God is a Spirit. My loose personal interpretation of that is that God is the Spirit of love, of forgiveness, of kindness, and is also entertwined with the mysterious creative force or spark.

Jesus says that whatsoever ye have done to my smallest children or creatures, ye have also done unto me. If you consider that in the most general sense, I think you will see the point.

As all this relates to our legally guaranteed rights, I think it is a more certain, less mutable guarantee, if we hold that those rights are instrinsic rather than derived merely from human agreement. And I think that that little spark, or soul, or whatever, which is within all of us, and which is like God (or even like that which an atheist might consider to be a hypothetical conception of God), would approve of such rights being an intrinsic birthright rather than merely in passing.

[andyfox]

I would imagine that's what Jefferson had in mind when he said that the rights are inalienable, derived from the creator, rather than from the actions of man. That he was merely codifying that which is "natural."