Thinking further on this earlier question you raise, Bin Laden and Pan-Islamicism. I can't help but compare with the German student movements of the Metternich era. Their broader solution to German nationhood - the "Grossdeutsch" solution - has a corollary, I would argue, in Pan-Islamicism. It is important to keep in mind that at one time, the idea of linking all German-speaking people into one state was as alien to those people as the idea of religious conversion, for example. The allegiance of the pre-unification "German" was to the local prince, to the principality, as personal subjects, not to other "Germans" as defined by language. Unification changed all that. Hitler's experiment with the same broader national solution failed - but it might not have. I would say that an argument for a definition of nationhood based on religion, across many of today's national boundaries (such as is being promulgated by our pal Osama) is not really all that different, in my imagination, from the cross-border calls for nationhood, based purely on language, as put forth by the Grossdeutsch intelligentsia of the first half of the 19th century. In fact, some might say, religion as a cleaving force (in both senses of the word) may be even stronger. I should apologize to the thread starter...way off topic. Will close with this.
Haha that is so true. He has got to be the President with the lowest IQ ever, I can't even bear to hear him give a speech.
http://election.about.com/b/a/121198.htm And to think, if Kerry had been elected, we'd have higher taxes and a good draft plan for all these young bucks
Will had it right somewhere else - Bush scored 1206 on his SAT, and his IQ has been estimated around 115. I could care less. If this land is about applying yourself to make the most of what you have in the way of native talents, any president who boasts to a conclave of college students about his abysmal academic record is a bozo, in my book. There appears to be an intellectual schism going on: those most vociferously proclaiming that the American way of life rewards hard work and applying oneself are curiously quiet about a president who has thumbed his nose at both (working hard, and applying oneself).
I think you've made it abundantly clear that no matter what he does, or doesn't do, you don't like him one way or another. Duly noted. Try not to let the hatred blind you though. Perhaps because not everyone shares in your sentiment. After all, it's simply an opinion. You are entitled to it. There's many who share it and many who do not.
Gtech, as is becoming patently obvious, the things you are accusing all who disagree with you, are the very things you are most guilty of. I have laid out specific facts in support of my position. I have not wildly cast aspersions, though you would (you may recall that when you were accused of "not caring about ruining innocent lives, etc., I posted this). But I am afraid that though I have appreciated what you have had to say where you have said it cogently, your baseline tactic - baiting - is leading me to conclude you simply don't have the goods. My problems with the president stem from his specific actions, and I have called him out on in specific ways - I have detailed the myriad ways I feel this president has led this country poorly. You have termed it "Bush Hating." I'm not asking for anyone to share a sentiment. I'm asking for a look at the facts. Again I ask (please try not to avoid the question): if what you are after, if what you believe we are about as a nation, is individual enterprise and reward for hard work - as one example - I would think a fairly clear one to make a judgment on - why haven't you castigated the president for actually extolling the virtues of being a lousy college student, before a collected assembly of college students? Who is blind?
Indeed, you have wildly cast your aspersions. These are not facts, they are simply your opinion. No matter how many fluffy terms they are dressed in, it's nothing more than opinion. It cannot be "again I ask." You did not ask in the first place. Before asking, given that much of what you present seems to be personal opinion, provide a source that asserts your question is valid in the first place. Source? Who is blind? One whose hatred for something or someone is so great, they ignore reality.
Actually, I haven't nor have I heard of the incident. I figured it was something to do with the nutjob at the Central Piedmont Community College in North Carolina that happened this week. What school was it? What city? If it's a video to perpetuate hatred for Bush, I'm sure it will be easy to find. Even a news story should be easy to find, if it's bad about Bush.
As a start, how about: "And remember what President George W. Bush told a group of graduates in 2001: "To all the C-students, I say, you too can be president of the United States."" Bushism on College As I recall the video clip (it might have been the news at the time; I don't recall whether it was there, or on the web - I just recall sitting slack jawed as a sitting president told a group of college students - "relax, don't worry; Hey LOOKIE ME! I sucked as a student, and I made PREZ!" (paraphrase mine)), he was met by a middling applause - I would guess, from, well, C students.
Or "When he returned to Yale to deliver a commencement address in 2001, a few months after taking office, Bush was self-deprecating about his academic performance during his college days. 'And to the C students, I say, 'You, too, can be president of the United States,' he said then." Another source
Outlaw humor now! Let's all behave like pretentious asses -- that will make America a great country. You see, this is one of those things I like most about George. He's a big enough man to have a bit of fun with himself. Let's compare this to say... John Kerry. John's college grades became public when he finally filed a release for some (but not all) of his military records. It turns out that John had a worse GPA that George, but he hid it in shame. John still hasn't authorized the release of his full military records. John is just ashamed to be John. We're all human. We all screw up at times. George is a big enough man to admit that. That earns a lot of respect from me.
Will, believe it or not, I largely agree with you in this area. Much to Gtech's probable dismay, I like the man, on a personal basis, to the extent I have been able to discern that he is a truly warm, personable guy. Much like I wept when Reagan died, though I disagreed with much of his policies while alive. But I ask: if we are a land which values doing the most with what you have, why isn't there at least an objection raised when the President said what he said, among those like yourself, Gtech, others who have so consistently declared this is what our country is about? For me, the problem is broader than this statement. He has played to the lowest common denominator at denigrating all I hold of value - culturally, artistically, intellectually. And I don't appreciate the view. I appreciate the view of a John Kennedy, who, on inviting an august gathering of intellectuals to dinner one night, reportedly said "welcome to the greatest gathering of brilliant thinkers since William Jefferson dined alone." Kennedy didn't spurn excellence in science, culture, art - he embraced it. This president has done what he can to display the opposite point of view. I do detest the president's policies. It is easy enough to cast this as simply Bush hating, but this is, sadly, the easy way out. I believe we are heading in a woefully wrong direction. I believe he has the arrogance of religious, unflagging faith in the rightness of his mission, and even supporters have found themselves stupefied by his obduracy in this area. I fear the consequences of this misguided, zealous sense of mission will last into the indefinite future.
That's an easy answer. We're Americans. It comes back to that. Americans are naturally egalitarian. Yes, the Kennedy clan can at times be pretentious and snobbish, but that does not really represent America. Most Americans just aren't that type of folk. We are a practical people who are interested in practical things. One of the reasons John Kerry lost the last election was that he failed to make that connection with the American psyche'. John's value system prioritizes European fashions and culture. It prioritizes style over substance. George, on the other hand, releases photos of himself clearing brush on his ranch in Texas, by himself, in blue jeans. That hits Americans right in the heart. We love George because George is us. George is the walking talking embodiment of all that it means to be an American. And so yes, some people don't like George. They don't like his sense of humor. They don't like his sense of humility. They don't like his sense of his own inner strength. They don't like the way he talks, they don't like the way he dresses, they don't like the way he lives. The thing these people need to realized is that when they attack George, they attack all of us George's. When they rudely assault everything George stands for, we feel it deep in our bones. When they attack George's inner strength, we feel our inner strength is under attack. When they insult the way George dresses, we feel that our sense of style is under attack. When they assault George's talk, we feel they they are insulting the way we talk. When they assault George's humility, we think "I'll show you some Goddamned humility!" The Democratic Party could learn a lot about America by switching off NPR and turning on King of the Hill.
Will, then, respectfully this is where we part ways. This is not the America I am a part of. I would argue the public persona George Bush has put forward is as much a "style" as anything else. He got it from Reagan, for one (specifically, the "clearing brush like an American" thing). It's all a construct. We stand alone among the Western industrial democracies in having no true national arts program (please don't bring in the NEA; I speak of a truly national commitment to the arts). No National Theatre. No National Opera. Nothing of what that greatest of conservatives, Edmund Burke, would have said is the very jewel of the society, to be fostered, and cared for as a legacy to pass onto the nation's young. I don't call it practicality, I call it laziness, and shortsightedness. And George Bush has merely tapped into that - whether he actually believes in the ethos or not. You see, I don't know why we can't love both NPR and King of the Hill. I thought this is what it was to be a part of a pluralist democracy. I own Dumb and Dumber, as well as La Nuit de Varennes, for instance. I am equally passionate about both works of genius.
For all of these things, I am very happy. I am happy for every dollar that my government does not steal from its citizens to use to force "culture" down their throats. I am joyful that I have the freedom to select my own art and literature, without government censors and sudsidies deciding what is good for me. That's why I am not a conservative, in the historical sense. Like Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, I am a classic liberal. Only in the topsy-turvy world of post-FDR newspeak could I possibly be labeled a conservative. I don't need some ignorant well-meaning fascist beauracrat telling me what to watch, read, or listen to. And I definitely don't need to be paying for that "service." The "jewel" of our society isn't art, theater, or opera -- the jewel of our society is freedom.
Our priorities are different. I do not in any way, shape or form believe in the current debacle we face in Iraq. It is killing my countrymen for a junket, in my opinion. Yet I am paying for it. And so may my son, god forbid. (and I am a religious atheist). I don't need someone cramming religion down my throat, putting god at the helm to bring our "soldiers, sailors and airmen" to their deaths - please remind me - why? Yet I must accept their deaths, as part of being an American. Personally, I'd rather shed a few dollars in support of a national arts program than shed my countryman's blood to rid the world of Saddam. I also say that "classic liberalism," as we've sparred a bit elsewhere, can have absolutely zero sense of nation-state boundary. The two are antithetical to each other, in the same (if reversed) way that Marxist internationalism would be. I believe you have read widely and thought hard. I respect you for your opinions, Will, though I come to different conclusions from the same history. That being said, I cannot put the notion of classical liberalism within the construct of today's America. How do you respond to my post elsewhere - that our capitalism is a the child of heavy industry, heavy finance, and the government itself, in concerted marriage, in interventionist marriage, in what would otherwise be a freely motile labor market under a liberal model? This collusion was what birthed our industrial might from the last half of the nineteenth century on. It was anything but the "invisible hand" at work. The history is there and it is patently not an "upside down" reading to see it this way, from all that I can tell. Is this capitalism?
No, I had not heard of it. And apparently with good reason. That the president can invoke humor, along with humility, to make others feel more comfortable around him is noble and uplifting. Yet, you'd try to portray it as something else. How shameful can the hatred be? I take it you are too young to have watched Good Morning Vietnam. Scroll down to: Last day in country Third paragraph Sixth Sentence
Well, thanks for the offer but I don't swing that way. You know, you're right - I can't think of a more appropriate thing to bring up at a Yale Commencement than how a legacy student who spent his entire, what some would call, precious opportunity (liberal saps though they be), blowing beer bombs and maintaining a low-c average, can, with the right connections, grow up to be Prez some day. It's just this kind of "folksy wisdom" which is really suited to putting some meaning into the work that the geeked-out A-students performed over their time while at Yale. Problem is, since I was a high-school dropout who, by my own desire to learn, by my own efforts, and by the grace of some compassionate and gifted professors, ended up as an honors grad at UC Berkeley, it wouldn't even occur to me to think of things this way. Misguided as it is, I think it's important to be grateful for the gifts that college bestows. I worked my ass off, maintained a 3.97 and this is obviously why I'm not president. And by the way, I am just young enough to have missed the Saigon pullout, and old enough to have been on the mobilization list for a possible invasion of Iran, following the embassy takeover. This, while in the uniform of the U.S.N. and corpsman to my fellow sailors, and brothers in the Corps. Your service to the country?
That would suggest his whole speach was about one line, which it wasn't. Not everyone has a dislocated corn cob. I think it was great what he did. A little self-deprecation and humility to put others above himself. I suppose he could have been like Kerry and boasted of band-aid scratches and how easy it is to put yourself in for a purple heart. Maybe you should have gone to a different school. Two enlistments in the U.S. Army, from 1983 - 1990. 13b (Field Artillery) with secondary of 71L (clerical). Served in Germany, Fort Sill, OK, Korea (1 year, unaccompanied without family. My youngest son was 3 months old when I left and missed his first year). Selected for Recruting duty, finished out my service in Dallas, Texas as a recruiter.