Arrogant, Activist Judges Threaten the Monarchy
Here. How they think we can conduct an effective War on Terra (WoT?) without an omnipotent leader is beyond me. Only ScAlito and Thomas stood up for principle of unlimited presidential power. My God, why do these liberal extremists hate America so much? When will they learn that we are a timorous, stupid people who need a strong, confident leader, no matter how clueless and mean-spirited, to provide us with the illusion of safety through decisive, no matter how unjust and irrational, commands? What will we do now? Who will lead us? Who will protect us from wolves? Who will shear us? All is lost...
Here. How they think we can conduct an effective War on Terra (WoT?) without an omnipotent leader is beyond me. Only ScAlito and Thomas stood up for principle of unlimited presidential power. My God, why do these liberal extremists hate America so much? When will they learn that we are a timorous, stupid people who need a strong, confident leader, no matter how clueless and mean-spirited, to provide us with the illusion of safety through decisive, no matter how unjust and irrational, commands? What will we do now? Who will lead us? Who will protect us from wolves? Who will shear us? All is lost...
posted by Winston Smith at
7:20 AM
24 Comments:
What if there were no rhetorical questions? What would we do then? Huh?
"I have just come from America, where I saw Roosevelt. Make no mistake, he is a force - a man of superior and impenetrable mind, but perfectly ruthless, a highly versatile mind which you cannot foresee. He has the most amazing power complex, the Mussolini substance, the stuff of a dictator absolutely."
---Carl G. Jung, 1936
One cannot envison FDR having to tell the citizens of the Republic that he is "The Decider".
Quite right. Bush is a piker next to FDR, who simply tried to expand the size of the Supreme Court, adding enough friendly votes until he had a majority.
You could look it up.
And Jung is an authority on FDR because he could divine FDR's anima through the collective unconscious? Maybe Kos will defend that, though I doubt it.
LOL --Yeah, FDR did all that. He also subsidized jobs for folks who would otherwise starve, oversaw the building of public roads and buildings -- the planting of trees!
And Bush freed 50 million people. Whatever.
Look, I'm putting food for thought on the table, not throwing scraps on the floor to fight over.
William Allen White, one of the most renowned editorialists of [FDR's] day, reached this conclusion Feb. 6: "Because he is adroit and not forthright, he arouses irritating suspicions, probably needlessly, about his ultimate intentions as the leader of his party and the head of government."
Still confident that he could win the public's backing despite opinion polls that indicated otherwise, Roosevelt ignored much of the criticism.
Yeah, Jung's not what you'd call a reputable source... How did Vielikovsky feel about FDR? How about Edgar Cayce?
Did he look into his soul and see that he was a good man?
Anyway, you can probably find one quote like this for just about any president. Thing about Bush is that we all have lots and lots of evidence about his...er...tendencies by now.
I'm disappointed, WS. I mention Carl Jung and I get saddled with all his baggage.
He was a smart fella and did not get by on bullshit alone. He knew a little bit about people.
But the story is FDR, and Jung was by no means a lone voice in the wilderness. FDR was a strong and rather autocratic leader, as evidenced by his move to "pack" the Supreme Court and occupy another branch of the government. And we weren't even at war at the time.
So please, man, work with me here. I have plenty of volunteers to bite on my ankles as it is. There's a whole universe above the knees.
"Quite right. Bush is a piker next to FDR, who simply tried to expand the size of the Supreme Court, adding enough friendly votes until he had a majority."
Of course he attempted to do it VIA A BILL INTRODUCED IN CONGRESS AND WHEN IT WAS REJECTED ABANDONDED THE ATTEMPT. Quite a bit different from Bush's naked power grabs, power grabs animated by Cheney's fevered belief that the presidency was somehow not powerful enough.
There really is no comparison, at least to the intellectually honest.
Sorry, I just can't muster any respect for Freud or Jung. Serious pseudo-scientists in my book.
As far as FDR's court-packing effort goes--you're right, it's awful.
But seems like anonymous has a good point about it.
It's always different. There is never any comparison.
But like Bush, FDR was secretive and autocratic, or accused of same by his opponents. That's the distilled point and the rest is sophistry.
Well, frankly I don't know enough about FDR to say one way or another. If FDR was as bad as Bush in these respects, then it's not likely that I would have been a supporter of his. But I have no reason to believe the antecedent of that conditional.
FDR was also smart, knowledgeable, and adept at his job. He was the right man at the right time in terms of both domestic and foreign policy. So that, of course, makes comparison...uh...difficult to say the least.
But, look, you seem to be relying on a supressed premiss, to the effect that I and others are committed to backing FDR. That's not true in my case, anyway. Again: were I to find out that he was as bad as Bush, then I'd judge him to be a bad president. Sadly, my knowledge of the time is heavy on the military stuff and light on basically everything else, so I'm not in a position to say.
The only relevant thing I know something about is his stretching of the truth in re: lend-lease. FDR knew that we had very strong moral and prudential reasons to enter the war, but he couldn't be up front about that.
I suppose you want to argue that Bush pushed to go into Iraq for moral reasons. I have some doubts about that, but my guess is that they were part of his reasons. But, again, I've made it clear that I accept the moral reasons. I object to only the fact that Bush screwed it all up by going in at the wrong time, alienating people he needed on board, and ignoring the threat from al Qaeda.
So, suppose that FDR spun things to get us into WWII and Bush spun things to get us into Iraq. Why the differential moral assessment of their actions? I think it's a very good question, and I take it very seriously.
Maybe this requires a whole post, huh?
And Clinton's "lies" (note scare quotes) about the number of deaths in Kosovo that got us into war and killed as many as we saved.
(I apologize for the WND link, but I'll vouch for Larry Elder and the article is heavily sourced.)
I'm sure there's a way to make Bush different and reprehensible. But perhaps you'll surprise me.
We've been over this before. Nobody denies that other presidents have lied and exaggerated. To point out one or two such instances is not going to matter--esp. when they were for good reasons.
The problem with Bush's lies was that they were so patent, numerous, and harmful. We're talking about differences of degree here--VAST differences of degree.
Clinton seems to have got the numbers wrong about Kosovo, but it's unclear that he lied about it. He was eager to stop the genocide. And, incidentally, his actions made the world a better place, and made Europe safer.
Bush, however, instituted a massive campaign of lies for reasons that we still don't understand. And, incidentally, his actions made the world a worse place, and made us all less safe.
You can't win this one, Tom, not if you're going to argue comparatively.
Clinton didn't lie; neither did Bush. You simply assert he did.
I'm uncomfortable with the riff that either degree or result creates qualitative difference.
TVD, you seem to repeat a pattern of coming up with some outlandish direction to take the discussion in, and then holding onto your hat and yelling, "whoa!!!!!!!" when it doesn't go the direction you wanted it to.
The next time WS posts something declaring GWB less than perfect, deal with his argument without bringing in WJC, FDR, TRR, HST, DDI, TNR, TRB, DDT,da-da-da-da-DA, etc., and some of us can take it from there.
Bush lies on display
You're kidding with that website, right, DA? It's hard to tell whose intelligence is more insulted by invoking it, yours or mine.
(If you can only pay 3/4 of your bills, you're bankrupt, right? I just can't spend the tme on such nonsense, especially when not even written by my friends, like you.)
I only change the subject when the discussion is going nowhere, so we might find something more useful to do than trade assertions.
And the next time you engage one of my points at its core rather than its periphery, I'll be happy to engage you. I've even occasionally taken the trouble to distill them for you. But you seem to be content to pick at the label on the bottle.
I do apologize for my boneheaded attempts to put things in perspective. But the history of politics didn't start when Bush stole the 2000 election. Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to vote Democrat.
It's hard to tell whose intelligence is more insulted by invoking it, yours or mine.
I dunno, anyone who has asserted things about Ann Coulter that have been found to be falisifiable(as I've done here), shouldn't be talking about insulting intelligences, nihil obstat?
even written by my friends, like you.
Sorry, I'm not your friend, you're assuming things not in evidence.
I only change the subject when the discussion is going nowhere
Yes, defending the Shrub on his actions is usually a discussion that is on the way to nowhere.
But you seem to be content to pick at the label on the bottle.
Well, I've always had a facination for patent medicines, especially those where you find the words "snake oil" under the label.
I do apologize for my boneheaded attempts to put things in perspective.
Saying, "You think Bush is bad? Look what X did" doesn't help your cause, because then you open the floor to everyone being able to point out what X didn't do that Bush did, or the deficiencies of Bush compaired to X
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to vote Democrat.
And those who cannot change their tactics in the face of constant defeat are unable to learn from experience.
YMMV.
Just repeatedly asserting that Bush didn't lie won't make the facts go away.
True, we are trading assertions.
What facts?
Tom,
Seriously, man...is your strategy to just keep denying the evidence until we get tired of repeatedly producing it?
No, my strategy is to get someone to present some evidence (aside from batshit crazy websites with broken links), but it isn't working.
All I've heard in a year is Joe Wilson, a chain of argument refuted by the Butler Report. Otherwise I get the mantra "Bush lied," but such prayers won't make it so.
Christ, we've been over this so many times...can't you just go back over the old discussions? I know you're fervently committed to defending this conclusion, but I just can't keep going over and over this stuff...
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