Sweet Victory - Boring Political PostFollow

What, he calls us commies and I can't call him a neocon?

Blow me.

Oh my. Well, seeing as how I have no way of knowing what the liberals you've dealt with have said, I suppose I can't really argue with any of that, but I've got to say it sounds at least a bit exaggerated. We tend to more easily take note of the faults in our enemies than our allies, wouldn't you agree?

To share my own experiences with conservatives, mainly from the people I've spoken to at work, the three main pro-Bush arguments I've heard are:
-We needed to go into Iraq to get back at Osama bin Laden
-Bush will protect our families and the integrity of America (which I can only assume is a reference to the evil homosexuals)
-Some sort of uneducated BS on how Kerry would have destroyed the economy while Bush will undoubtedly save it

Not to say there aren't any good conservative arguments, but hey, you shared your experiences with liberals, and those make up the majority of mine with conservatives. I think the main thing to keep in mind here is that the vast majority of all people are uninformed and not really even that smart. It's just the ones we disagree with whom we tend to notice.

Heh. Ok. I'll bite. Where have you heard this?

See... I hear a hell of a lot of Liberals saying that's why Conservatives suppport Bush, but interestingly enough, when you actually talk to Conservatives, they never say that. When you actually listen to them on their radio talk shows, they never say that. Sure. Maybe the occasionaly ignorant call in guest might parrot that, but I have personally *never* heard even a tiny percentage of Conservatives anywhere make those statements.


I have repeatedly, however, heard liberals claim that's why conservatives follow Bush. But then I've repeatedly heard Liberals tell me that the reason I'm a Republican is because I'm either an evil person, or I'm being taken advantage of evil people, so that should give you an idea of how much stock I put in that...


Maybe you're coworkers are morons? I have no clue. I'm certainly not trying to say that there aren't people who believe that. But that is *not* the reason the administration did what it did. That's not the reason Congress authorized the war (have you read the resolution? Doesn't once mention current possession of WMD by Iraq as a reason).


If you want to ***** about the reasons that some people *think* we went to war, and perhaps argue that there's a lot of misinformed people out there (something I would agree with), then that's fine. Say *that*. But that's not the argument I see and hear. What I hear isn't that "some conservatives believe X". I'm hearing "The Bush administration did X".


Can't you see how that's at a minimum misleading? That's what a strawman argument is. You argue against the "weakest" form of the oppositions position. So instead of arguing against what the Bush administration has actually done and said, you argue against the most fringe ideas "about" what the Bush administration has done.


That's still a fallacy, not matter how you slice it. You want to argue that we went to war for false reasons, you need to show that the reasons listed by Congress for why we went to war are false. You can't just argue that since some people *think* we went to war for <X reason>, and <X reason> is false, that therefore the "real" reason must be false. But that's *exactly* the illogic that the entire anti-war argument is based on.


Give me a real argument. I have repeatedly stated on this forum that I would have absolutely no problem debating the correctness of the criteria we did use for war in Iraq. There's a whole ton of debate that *could* occur on that topic. But it's not happening, because the debate never gets to that point because those against the war never make that argument. They always go for the strawman thing, and never address whether the actual reasons we went to war were sufficient justification.


So our political debate devolves into an argument over stupid semantics and the real issue never gets talked about.







Yup. So then stop arguing against the uniformed guys, and argue against the "actual" position. You disagree with a decision by the Bush administration, then argue against *that* decision and the reasons *they* say they made it. Just because you can find some nutjob with an easy to debunk reason for supporting the decision doesn't give you a valid argument to debunk the decision.


The difference here is that I'm arguing against people on this forum, and statements they have made in threads right here. I'm not picking some guy in some other state, who I read on a web blog made some claim, and that's just silly so I'll bash everyone who's on the same political "side" as that guy. I'm not the guy who goes scanning the internet for amusing stories about some guy on the "other side" who said or did something stupid, and then trying to imply that he's representative of everyone on that side, or that since his argument is weak, so is everyone else on that side.



I've already shown you a clear example of this methodology and poor logic right in this thread, with the assumption about the connection between the Iraq was and the tarrif. Heck. I just showed a second example in Ambrya's response in this thread. If you'd like, I can easily dig up a handful of threads in order to show you that Ambrya's argument is not an exception or even particularly unusual on this forum.

Where's the counter? Sure. You can show me a Varrus post, but we all know he's a nutjob. And in any case, since at least in terms of US politics, the Conservatives are controlling the government, we can see the "official" actions and critique them, right? It's not a balanced equation. We have the official actions of the government on one side, and the percieved counter position of any critics on the other (cause what else is there?). While it's inaccurate to argue against the administration by pointing to nutballs on the Right, even the vocal ones, since the *entire* point of the Left right now is opposition, then it's quite accurate and "fair" to respond to the most vocal arguments coming from the Left. That's what I have to argue against, so that's what I'm going to do...

i am happy to see this also. the canadians deserve some respect for taking the political boitch slapping we put on them for not shouting "hiel bush" and marching off to an illegal, immoral, unjustified slaughterhouse. they stood on their convictions, and are being vendicated for it.

so many laws have been broken by this addministraition. the biggest being the war itself. without imminent danger there is no justification for a preemptive war or any other kind of war for that matter. we clearly know there was no imminent danger now, thus no legal grounds for the war itself.

should there not be any punnishment for what we did? over a hundred thousand people are dead, tens of thousands of them totally innocent civilians as a result of our action.

what happened to accountability?

while these small legal victories give me hope the rest fo the world may still hold some values, what happened to OUR country? should we not be held accountable for our actions? why are we so complacent to let this happen, and complacent still ot do NOTHING about it when the truth is finally brought to bear?

america will have no integrity untill we hold ourselves accountable for our action.

how can any country lead without integrity? how can we be complacent to accept this new path we are on and still call ourselves Christian, or moral, or just?

enemy combatants? torture? illegal war?

the moral majority? try satans children. thats what the middle east refers to us as. we certainly have not shown them or the rest of the world any reason to believe otherwise.

God bless America? why would he?

Sigh. I kinda wanted to just ignore this, but...



Frankly it's amazing that even though it's been established in this thread that the tarrifs had *nothing* to do with the Iraq war, you still make this statement. The saddest thing is that this kind of head burying seems common. I'm always amazed at how many times the same people involved in a thread 3 months ago, will conveniently "forget" key facts in that thread and continue to parrot incorrect information. Does no one actually *learn*?



Um... No. The war is legal if Congress votes and authorizes it. They being the legistlature, and being granted the Constitutional power to declare war, they get to decide when a war is justified and when it's not.

You do highlight yet another strawman from the Left though (that's three and counting in this thread alone!). The whole "But Iraq wasn't an imminent threat" strawman. *cough* That was never a requirement for war either.

2003 SoTU clearly debunks this btw.

Relevant part:
Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?

If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

Neither the Bush administration nor Congress ever declared Iraq to be an "imminent threat". Both did, however, decide that Iraq represented an "ongoing threat", and if not stopped would in the future *become* a threat. And when inspections and sanctions clearly produced no change in Iraq's policy towards WMD, that left us only one choice. Ok. Two choice. We could have burried our heads in the sand and hopped the problem went away, but that's not really a solution (and Bush clearly states this).

Could it be the Liberals making false assumptions again? Yup. Just another strawman in a whole long list of them. Heck. It almost seems like the Liberals have gotten so used to the strawman method of argument that they don't even realize it's illogical even when it's pointed out. This is easily the 4th or 5th time on this forum that I've quoted that particular line in the 2003 SoTU speech, and yet some idiots still continue to argue that same strawman...

Edited, Tue Aug 16 18:48:26 2005 by gbaji

Just to break things down for people the story goes like this:

The US Commerce Department imposed punitive tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber stating that under nafta law that canadian soft wood lumber posed material threat to US softwood lumber industry.

NAFTA trade board rules in favor of Canada

US run International Trade Commission comes out with statement supporting US stance. US appeals to a Extraordinary Challenge Committe of Nafta

NAFTA ECC committee find that original ruling was fair and within NAFTA's power

US asks for negotiations but keeps claiming that NAFTA ruling is not binding. Canada after 2 clear legal decision in their favor call off negotiations and prepares either legal action in courts or appeal to World Trade Organization

If successful US would have to pay back 5 billion dollars in tariffs gathered. Canada may also be allowed to place punitive duties on certain american imports as a result also

Nope this is a picture of courtney love My avatar is merely Spears and Madonna.

I was at a summer rock festival many moons ago when I was a teenager and Hole was one of the last bands on that evening. Courtney Love was teasing the audience about flashing them and the audience was actually cheering for it. She eventually did flash us unexpectedly. Talk about a bad way to ruin a good day


/blech

On that note, Shirley Manson looked me in the eye and thrusted her hips at me.

..and the stage was high.. and her skirt was short...