Text 7280, 132 rader
Skriven 2006-08-29 19:50:00 av Robert E Starr JR (7777.babylon5)
Ärende: Re: My presidential pick
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<kruegerb76@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1156857888.783336.91230@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> Carl wrote:
>> One could argue that "Bush lied" is an example of exactly the same thing.
>
> Well, all I can say is:
>
> There seems to be proof that Bush was planning to attack Iraq pretty
> much from the moment he became president.
>
> He and his administration picked informants who would tell them what
> they wanted to hear, while ignoring more solid evidence which wasn't
> what he wanted to hear.
>
> Some might say that kinda sounds like he lied.

Nope.  They would be wrong.  Intelligence agencies around the world thought 
the same thing. People (including many Dems) said he had WMDs long before 
Bush got in to office.  Of course selective memory and revisionist history 
is commonplace for both sides fo the isle.

Saying he lied means he KNEW there were o WMDs and said there were anyway. 
There's no defiitive evidence that there weren't WMDs;  Not finding them 
doesn't mean they didn't exist any more than not finding Bin Laden means 
that he no longer exists.

A lie is *very* different than being wrong (or possibly being wrong). In 
this case, the Dems keep repeating it and it gets treated as fact and even 
defended through "kinda sounds like..."  I just thought that was an example 
of what you were talking about.


>
> But I know: those convinced the war is great and Bush is great will
> never stop fighting that point.


Unfortunately, the way you phrased that was sophistry and not fair.  I don't 
think that was your intent, but I think the argument has been put forth that 
was so often as to become a common mantra... "If you don't think Bush is 
evil then you're deluded too so your opinion doesn't count."

I argue the point because there is no evidence to say that he lied. He may 
have been predispoised to war.  He may have cherry picked his intelligence. 
He may have dismissed some contrary evidence that he heard as being 
outweighed by the evidence that he did believe... but there is no proof that 
has been presented that I've heard that suggests that he didn't honestly 
believe there were WMDs in Iraq, or that he doesn't believe that a stable 
democracy in Iraq wouldn't be better for the world.

BTW, it is quite possible to not like the war, not like Bush and still think 
that he wasn't lying.   You can disagree with the decisions and still not 
think he's evil.

> Maybe we don't care anymore if he lied or if he was deluded or whatever 
> name you want to give what he did.

If Dems don't care what you call him and have decided you'll call him 
everything you can think of without caring if it's true, then that's sad and 
diminishes any arguments that you put forth.  I don't really think that's 
true in your case; I think you're just frustrated that "wrong," ... or in 
your mind "absolutely, completely and totally wrong" ... is not a 
sufficiently damning phrase to match your emotion.


> All I know is that if I did something similar at my job, I'd be accused
> of lieing.  But then I don't have highly paid spin-doctors working for
> me.  :)

Actually, it was a spin doctor that probably first accused Bush of lying. 
Both sides have them.

If you did what exactly?  Make a decision when presented with opposing 
arguments and facts and are required to make a decision?  People make such 
choices all the time.   There are times when you just have to pick what you 
consider to be  the best choice and do the best you can.  Will everyone 
agree with you?  Not unless the choice was so obvious that it really wasn't 
a choice.

Politics is *never* that way.  If you truly believe that your side has ALL 
the answers and the other side doesn't have any valid points, I would 
suggest that you re-evaluate your beliefs.  If you accept that the other 
side has some points, then you've decided that your beliefs  and the facts 
that support them outweigh whatever facts the other side brings up.  That 
has dangers associated with it; you may allow that to taint future decisions 
and not allow a fair evaluation of the facts in the future because you've 
already diminished the other side's worth.

Most people these days seem unable to accept the idea that the other side 
has some valid reasons for their position, or that their own position has 
some weaknesses.  "How dare the other side point out a weakness!  How can we 
possible discredit them?  What fact can we point out that counters theirs? 
What exceptions can we raise that plays well emotionally?  How can we 
portray them as just bad people that should never be listened to?"   All 
that venefic nonsense happens constantly.

I bring this up a lot because I hate the idea that true political discourse 
is gone...replaced with name calling and political hit squads researching 
every possible weakness the moment a candidate becomes threat to either 
side.  We get legislation with unrelated things put in specifically so that 
when the other side tries to vote against the major issue, they get clubbed 
as being uncaring because they voted against the motherhood and apple pie 
side-issue.  Institutionalized fallaciloquence with rules. Both sides do it. 
Disgusting.

I used to appreciate that at least in the Senate, when one Senator is 
speaking about another they used a certain degree of civility.  There were 
rules of behavior that they had to follow when they were in session. 
Unfortunately, these days any Senator is just as likely to go on a Sunday 
morning show and say "My esteemed colleague for the state of xzy is a [Pick 
one: racist, traitor, etc]. "

I've raised a lot of this before. Sorry if I sound like a broken record, but 
I think that throwing words like liar, traitor, unpatriotic, evil, etc. make 
things worse.  They force people to think in terms of "political enemy" 
rather than "someone with a different view."

Carl
"With my shield or on it."
                                                           
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