Take The No (GW) Bush Challenge

[TheGreatGatsby]

The attempted character assassination continues!

(cool icon)

I'd have to see some character before I could assassinate it.

 

[TooTall]

Spin tool? What is a bigger "deflection" than asking people to stop mentioning the lies, unjustifiable war, and torture prisons of the GOP? Bush lied this country into war with Iraq. Bush lied. To you, to all of us, to the entire world. They lied to give their war the appearance of legality. It wasn't legal by any stretch of international law, common sense, or basic human morality. They lied. Trillions of dollars wasted, thousands of Americans dead, scores of thousands of Iraqis dead, and what is victory? Iraq is still a hellhole awash in blood.

Where is all of that "personal responsibility" that the GOP keeps rambling on about? Own up to your wars and torture crimes. Progressives own up to our mistakes. Obama was elected to change Bush's epic failures, but he didn't. He gave us more of the same, proving that he isn't the Progressive that we all hoped he would be. So if liberals can say, "Barack Obama is wrong," then it shouldn't be too hard for Conservatives to admit that Bush was wrong, too.

Join the rest of the world, Republican voters. Admit that George W. Bush was wrong for using 9/11 as an excuse to lie to the UN to start a war with Iraq.

Do you consider this a lie?

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..."
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003 | Source

How about this:

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002 | Source

Now, post a few quotes from George Bush that you consider lies!

 

[oldfart]

I took the prudent step of doing opposition research on myself. In the last 30 days I have made 102 posts, most on economic matters, without a mention of GW Bush. It seems to me you have been hanging out in the wrong threads. The Gang of Seven only trashes Rothbard, the Austrian School, Ayn Rand, austerians, confidence fairies, bond vigilantes, R & R, A & A, inflationistas (Zimbabwe! Zimbabwe!), Larry Summers, Alan Greenspan, conspiracy theorists regarding government economic statistics, and others who richly deserve ridicule. I even said nice things about Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Romney's chief economic advisor.

I don't know who the Gang Of Seven is. I don't intricately follow pop political culture like before. I'm guessing that's the latest group of Senators to screw us over. That's fine, they're all screwing us over. They just find it convenient to put a face on it for the sake of promotion. It's a touch of Machiavelli genius when you think about it.

Nor do I spend so much time in political or economic threads any more, generally. But a big part of that is because both sides are throwing out propaganda. Now, I often confront the conservatives who do so. But I find it especially prevalent among the left. The majority of liberal posters on USMB actually justify Obama's actions through blame Bush nonsense. And Bush deserves whatever blame he deserves. But I'm sorry, there comes a time that an administration be responsible for its actions. And in my mind, that is year one. If things are still broken, it's cos they didn't get fixed. Not merely because someone broke them.

Your bruised ego is damaging your ability to make accurate perceptions.

It's so ironic that you made your erroneous ad hominem accusation, and then you so blatantly use ad hominem in this way.



NO. YOU ARE UTTERLY WRONG. NOW PAY ATTENTION, COS I'M NOT GOING TO EXPLAIN THIS OVER AND OVER TO AN ALLEGEDLY EDUCATED PERSON WHO SHOULD ALREADY KNOW THE DEFINITION OF AD HOMINEM. An ad hominem attack is based upon rejecting a person's thesis upon an irrelevant 'fact' (or opinion) about the author of a point. It is not merely based upon what you categorize as a 'deflection.' (How you don't know this and claim to have taught logic is beyond me).

E.G. 1

Person 1: Obama was the 43rd president.
Person 2: Obama was the 44th president, moron.

Person two did not commit ad hominmem. He rightfully addressed the logic, and merely added an insult (and an insult in and of itself is not a logical fallacy). By your erroneous definition of ad hominem, moron could be considered a 'deflection' and thus be ad hominem. But that is not the definition, and were it the definition, and the rigors of logic not so defined, then virtually anything could be considered a 'deflection' and be considered ad hominem.

E.G. 2

Person 1: Obama was the 43rd president.
Person 2: You're a moron.

Now, person 2 did commit a fallacy as he did not effectively refute person 1's claim in a logical manner and merely relied upon the insult as an argument.



With or without context: These paragraphs drip condescension. You're seriously droning on, man.

Now this actually has the seeds of a good point. I do see the world in an "us vs. them" frame of reference. I have earlier today been very upfront about who I consider us and who I consider them. IMHO that is the reality of the world. And I know which side I am on and I am not afraid of defending that side. All this would make an interesting debate, so if you agree, reply to that post and I'll respond.

Everyone has an us vs. them mentality to some degree. Us humans are more tribal than most of us would ever want to admit. However, my point is that the more you can disassociate yourself from that state, the more honest of a poster you can effectively be. If you can't tell an rdean to stop posting propaganda because he is on your 'side,' then you have severely limited yourself.

Conversely, you'll notice in this very thread, I've routinely taken on conservatives for not abiding to stated means of posting for this thread. It didn't matter if I was on their 'side' or not. Things don't get effectively constructed via taking sides, imo. None of that is to say that I won't have a 'bias' of being more sympathetic to certain posters, who are more aligned to my way of thinking. But I will not disassociate myself from the truth just because one is a kindred spirit.

Why this hangup about who I call out? Who made me Emperor of the Left? Are you Emperor of the Right? Why should either of us be responsible for other people's behavior? One of the major tenets of my faith (Taoism) is that we are not responsible for other's bad behavior. It's a part of what is called wu wei. I thought you righties were big on individual responsibility and against groupthink.

It's not a matter of being emperor or being responsible for someone else's bad behavior. But continued silence in the wake of BS is a means of support, and you know that's true.

Well it doesn't seem that you are getting anywhere so I'll check in from time to time while your thread dies a well deserved death. After incessant whining about our obsession with a former president, you don't seem to be able to talk about anything else. I have better thinks to do than throw you more life lines into other topics for you to ignore.

 

[TheGreatGatsby]

I took the prudent step of doing opposition research on myself. In the last 30 days I have made 102 posts, most on economic matters, without a mention of GW Bush. It seems to me you have been hanging out in the wrong threads. The Gang of Seven only trashes Rothbard, the Austrian School, Ayn Rand, austerians, confidence fairies, bond vigilantes, R & R, A & A, inflationistas (Zimbabwe! Zimbabwe!), Larry Summers, Alan Greenspan, conspiracy theorists regarding government economic statistics, and others who richly deserve ridicule. I even said nice things about Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Romney's chief economic advisor.

I don't know who the Gang Of Seven is. I don't intricately follow pop political culture like before. I'm guessing that's the latest group of Senators to screw us over. That's fine, they're all screwing us over. They just find it convenient to put a face on it for the sake of promotion. It's a touch of Machiavelli genius when you think about it.

Nor do I spend so much time in political or economic threads any more, generally. But a big part of that is because both sides are throwing out propaganda. Now, I often confront the conservatives who do so. But I find it especially prevalent among the left. The majority of liberal posters on USMB actually justify Obama's actions through blame Bush nonsense. And Bush deserves whatever blame he deserves. But I'm sorry, there comes a time that an administration be responsible for its actions. And in my mind, that is year one. If things are still broken, it's cos they didn't get fixed. Not merely because someone broke them.



It's so ironic that you made your erroneous ad hominem accusation, and then you so blatantly use ad hominem in this way.



NO. YOU ARE UTTERLY WRONG. NOW PAY ATTENTION, COS I'M NOT GOING TO EXPLAIN THIS OVER AND OVER TO AN ALLEGEDLY EDUCATED PERSON WHO SHOULD ALREADY KNOW THE DEFINITION OF AD HOMINEM. An ad hominem attack is based upon rejecting a person's thesis upon an irrelevant 'fact' (or opinion) about the author of a point. It is not merely based upon what you categorize as a 'deflection.' (How you don't know this and claim to have taught logic is beyond me).

E.G. 1

Person 1: Obama was the 43rd president.
Person 2: Obama was the 44th president, moron.

Person two did not commit ad hominmem. He rightfully addressed the logic, and merely added an insult (and an insult in and of itself is not a logical fallacy). By your erroneous definition of ad hominem, moron could be considered a 'deflection' and thus be ad hominem. But that is not the definition, and were it the definition, and the rigors of logic not so defined, then virtually anything could be considered a 'deflection' and be considered ad hominem.

E.G. 2

Person 1: Obama was the 43rd president.
Person 2: You're a moron.

Now, person 2 did commit a fallacy as he did not effectively refute person 1's claim in a logical manner and merely relied upon the insult as an argument.



With or without context: These paragraphs drip condescension. You're seriously droning on, man.



Everyone has an us vs. them mentality to some degree. Us humans are more tribal than most of us would ever want to admit. However, my point is that the more you can disassociate yourself from that state, the more honest of a poster you can effectively be. If you can't tell an rdean to stop posting propaganda because he is on your 'side,' then you have severely limited yourself.

Conversely, you'll notice in this very thread, I've routinely taken on conservatives for not abiding to stated means of posting for this thread. It didn't matter if I was on their 'side' or not. Things don't get effectively constructed via taking sides, imo. None of that is to say that I won't have a 'bias' of being more sympathetic to certain posters, who are more aligned to my way of thinking. But I will not disassociate myself from the truth just because one is a kindred spirit.

Why this hangup about who I call out? Who made me Emperor of the Left? Are you Emperor of the Right? Why should either of us be responsible for other people's behavior? One of the major tenets of my faith (Taoism) is that we are not responsible for other's bad behavior. It's a part of what is called wu wei. I thought you righties were big on individual responsibility and against groupthink.

It's not a matter of being emperor or being responsible for someone else's bad behavior. But continued silence in the wake of BS is a means of support, and you know that's true.

Well it doesn't seem that you are getting anywhere so I'll check in from time to time while your thread dies a well deserved death. After incessant whining about our obsession with a former president, you don't seem to be able to talk about anything else. I have better thinks to do than throw you more life lines into other topics for you to ignore.

Wow, you go from pretentious wanna-be refined instructor to whining butthurt pissant in no time.

Obsession? You're a butt fucking moron. I've stayed true to the thread. If I was 'obsessed' don't you think I would have been droning on about GWB and joining the debate instead of constantly posting that's neither here nor there? If you're going to take a cheap shot, at least be on the money, I always say. Otherwise, you look a total goon. And in fact, you are.

And yea, you do your 'thinks,' bro.

You were ignored? LMAO. I damn near wrote an epistle for you whilst individually responding to a great many points. I just put you in your place, and ya gotz to run now, bitch.

P.S. Glad you know what ad hominem is now. Now, you can stop throwing out false ad hominem accusations towards people. You're welcome.

 

[Faun]

Spin tool? What is a bigger "deflection" than asking people to stop mentioning the lies, unjustifiable war, and torture prisons of the GOP? Bush lied this country into war with Iraq. Bush lied. To you, to all of us, to the entire world. They lied to give their war the appearance of legality. It wasn't legal by any stretch of international law, common sense, or basic human morality. They lied. Trillions of dollars wasted, thousands of Americans dead, scores of thousands of Iraqis dead, and what is victory? Iraq is still a hellhole awash in blood.

Where is all of that "personal responsibility" that the GOP keeps rambling on about? Own up to your wars and torture crimes. Progressives own up to our mistakes. Obama was elected to change Bush's epic failures, but he didn't. He gave us more of the same, proving that he isn't the Progressive that we all hoped he would be. So if liberals can say, "Barack Obama is wrong," then it shouldn't be too hard for Conservatives to admit that Bush was wrong, too.

Join the rest of the world, Republican voters. Admit that George W. Bush was wrong for using 9/11 as an excuse to lie to the UN to start a war with Iraq.

Do you consider this a lie?

"Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..."
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003 | Source

How about this:

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."
- Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002 | Source

Now, post a few quotes from George Bush that you consider lies!

I consider this a lie ...

“We gave him [Saddam Hussein] a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power.” - George Bush, 7.14.2003​