Brainwashed Extremists - What A Waste Of Time
Posted on: Wednesday, June 29th, 2005 at 12:00 amRead more about Idiots, Morons, & Fools
President Bush gave a speech on where America stands on Iraq right now. The President of the United States addressed the nation on how our brothers and sisters, neighbors and friends, were progressing on their mission - a mission that was supported by the United States Congress in December of 2002 and that has been supported by the majority of Americans under the age of 50 since it began.
Bush simply told us once again what he’s been saying all along - we’re in this fight to win this fight and we’re not going to go away or give the enemy any hint as to when we’re going to leave other than for them to know that when they stop the shit, we’ll pack up and leave Iraq…and continue to fight against terrorism worldwide.
Nothing really different in that message than the fundamental Bush Doctrine from after September 11th, 2001. That is, of course, unless you’re a brainwashed extremist.
These are the people who immediately responded to the Bush speech by saying, “What a fucking moron! Can’t he see that zillions of people are dying because of his policies? Can’t he see that he’s ruining the world???”
To you folks I say - go to hell. Not because you disagree with the President, but because you’re a brainwashed sheep who does whatever the extreme left-wing websites, the Hollywood lobby, or the “cool people” tell you to do. Again, I don’t hate you because you disagree with the President (I, for one, think that the Bush administration needs to be more proactive on preserving the environment). I strongly dislike you because NO ONE - and I mean NO ONE - just randomly comes to the thought one day, “You know what? President Bush is ruining the world and I think he is a complete and total disaster as President.”
Someone had to tell you that or you had to hear someone say it before you jumped on the bandwagon and repeated what you heard in a public forum. People - why can’t you just use that lump three feet above your ass and think for yourself?
And this goes both way, folks. For all of the crazy neoconservatives out there, you’re no better. You just recite what the daily talking points are and then all of a sudden everything that anyone left of center does is automatically wrong.
Thankfully, neocons are much less prevalent in today’s society than left-wing extremists (you might as well call them neosocs aka neosocialists). These neosocs are everywhere you look - the college campuses (you’re talking to someone who is on a gigantic public campus), the media (Dan Rather anyone?), entertainment (notice the completely unfunny caricature of Bush on Family Guy the other day?), and in the worst place of all…the public school teacher’s lounges.
So to all of you extremists - left, right, or anarchist - I say up yours. If you want to have your opinion mean anything then I challenge you to sit down and read through the issues (as I’ve had the opportunity to do in Graduate School). I am confident that once you read through the REAL meat and potatoes of the issues, you won’t see a red and blue world where 5 minutes after the President of the United States speaks you feel compelled to say that he is wrong just because of who he is, rather you’ll see a world littered with a little blue, a little red, a little green, and a little bit of every other color out there.
Give it a try.
June 30th, 2005 at 12:22 am
Thanks for telling me to go to hell and informing me that I’m an uninformed idiot just because I don’t happen to like your President. Honestly I like you man, I find you entertaining to read and the few times we’ve exchanged emails or comments it’s always been friendly and civil but I can honestly say that what you wrote here was completely off base and arrogant. What you’ve done is pretty much tell me that my opinion doesn’t count because I blindly follow one side of an argument and because it happens that it’s the side that doesn’t agree with you and Bush that I’m completely wrong and my opinion has no validity. Thanks, I appreciate that, and I’m sure a lot of other people do too. And I can’t believe that you can actually write in a serious tone that just because you’ve gone to grad school that it somehow makes you better qualified to talk on the proper side of an issue. Some of the biggest dickheads I’ve ever had the misfortune of dealing with were products of grad schools and a lot of the reason for that is their holding of the same assumption as you seem to have that grad school makes you a better smarter person. I should probably clarify at this point that I’m not counting you among them before somebody tries to accuse me of it and start something. I’m just stating my experience in order to deflate the grad school makes you smarter than everybody argument which I find to be a complete line of bullshit.
Let me say this. I don’t dislike Bush because Al Franken tells me I should, I dislike him because he wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him on the ass and introduced itself. I dislike him because of things like the Patriot Act and similar legislation that makes me proud to be Canadian. I dislike him because I’m not a fan of faith-based initiatives or faith-based anything other than church, which I’m not even that high on to begin with. I dislike him because of his corporate ties that leave him firmly planted in the pocket of big oil and big everything. I dislike him because he can’t speak English. In short, I disliked him before disliking him was cool because I used my head and took in the information from all sides. I realized that any time he could spend running your country would be a complete and total mess that would almost certainly impact the entire world. I don’t think I’m too far off the mark there, even you would have to agree with that. IF not, answer me 1 question if you will, and this will just scratch the surface. If the war was over in 2003 when Bush said it was, why have more people died since it supposedly ended? Don’t make me bust out statistics to back that up, just answer the question for me, a guy who understands the concept of far right and far left all being nuts and prefers to keep an open mind. I understand the concept of shades of grey and I understand that either side, no matter how much I may disagree with them, is capable of having a good idea every now and then. The problem that I see in America and everywhere else for that matter is that the nature of the political system has created this us against them mentality. Nobody can stop and see that maybe one side is half right but that the other might have some valid points too. Politics is designed in such a way that nobody will ever get anywhere. No fresh ideas based on cooperation between parties will ever get anywhere because if it comes from the other side, it has to be evil unless it helps out a corporation and completely fucks over the general population. If you need evidence of that one, look no further than brilliant laws like the DMCA. Great for the RIAA and MPAA, horrible for consumers and technology.
But to sum up, thanks again for calling me a liberal nut job, I really do appreciate it. Because Joe, what you’ve done by displaying such a crazed attitude is prove my point that one side is no better than the other. Those on the far left are just as guilty as those on the far right. I really thought you were smarter than that, smart enough not to buy into the partisan political bickerinn. It’s one thing to support 1 side of an issue and argue for it, but it’s another thing entirely to accuse half the world of falling into a trap that you’ve just fallen into yourself while not even realizing it.
June 30th, 2005 at 8:52 am
Typical response from a political discussion these days - even to the extent of taking personal offense from a the discussion. Extremely off base.
You apparently read the post and took it solely as a bashing of liberals, which it clearly is not. It is an obvious statement that people who blindly follow one ideology over another are misinformed and need to wake up. If you state that you have statistics and honest intellectual thought that brings you to dislike Bush, then any simple reading of the post would tell you that it doesn’t apply to you.
I’m not going to jump into an off-base politics argument, either. Quips such as, “I dislike him because he can’t speak English,” show me the level of hatred that you have for the man. Which - by the way - is fine with me as long as you weigh each issue for and against him (or any political figure for that matter, which you say you already did so I respect it).
I’ll just repeat the main point of the post again - which you seem to have completely missed: “So to all of you extremists - left, right, or anarchist - I say up yours. If you want to have your opinion mean anything then I challenge you to sit down and read through the issues.”
Sounds like liberal bashing when I tell those far right extremists to stick it up theirs, right? And if you already read through the issues and made up your mind - again, as you said you did - how does the post apply to you? It simply doesn’t.
June 30th, 2005 at 3:32 pm
Well, part of the problem is that it caught me at a bad time. Really sleepy, maybe I misread it. But it really looked as though you were honestly trying to say that grad school made you smart, and that attitude is something that I can’t stand. But I’m glad we agree that either side blindly supporting something just because is bad. Maybe I could have made my points better, ok, I definitely could have made my points better but I’ll still say that I’m not a fan of Bush or his policies. He may not be 100% wrong on every issue, but I find myself in disagreement with him more times than not. I won’t apologize for saying that the guy can’t speak English though. He can’t say nuclear properly, , misunderestimate wasn’t a word last time I checked, and disassemble didn’t have anything to do with dishonesty. But if you think he’s a great leader, you have every right to think that. I don’t happen to agree with you but you’ve got a right to your own opinion. I apologize for coming off so harshly on your post and I odn’t want to get into any sort of a pissing contest either because it won’t solve anything. But we’ll have to agree to disagree on who we see as fit to govern. I personally wish that you guys had a serious candidate for third or even fourth party. Having to choose between something that sucks or sucks more, well, that sucks. Given the choices you have, it’s no wonder that voter turnout is so low. In some ways it’s the same way here, but we have a few wild cards thrown into the mix that can shake things up every now and then. It doesn’t count for much a lot of the time, but it’s better than nothing.
June 30th, 2005 at 5:28 pm
Steve, on the language issue - it’s really small of the rest of the world to think that this man is stupid because he can’t say this word or that word. I worked with a 65 year old die-hard liberal from Texas for two years and she had worse grammar than Bush. And I met her Texan daughter - same thing. I spoke to her Texan son on the phone - same thing.
Everyone needs to get over the fact that he “can’t speak English” because if you’ve ever met anyone from Texas, they speak the exact same if not worse than Bush. And don’t even get me started on the language here in New Jersey - we fight over whether it’s “cawfee” or “coffee” and between “waaader” and “water!”
In any event, I believe that Grad School does make me smarter than other people! However, my Master’s Degree in Public Policy ONLY MAKES ME SMARTER THAN THE AVERAGE JOE in areas that I’ve received excessive study on. For instance, I don’t study international politics so I only know what the slanted media shows me. I don’t study broadcast radio so I don’t know much about that either. But if anyone wants to talk public policy in America or, much more specifically, education and community economic development policy in New Jersey…well call it being cocky, but due to the nature of my educational setting, I just know more about those areas than the average person.
And I don’t think that that should be a contentious point - I mean I go to the Doctor’s office because they know what the pain in my side is and I don’t! I don’t harbor any ill will or bad feeling towards those who are in or have achieved a higher degree. It’s when they use that degree for purposes outside of its scope that they become arrogant. But simply knowing something that an average joe wouldn’t know - what’s wrong with that so long as you’ve done the research required to know that fact?
June 30th, 2005 at 6:28 pm
Ok, now we don’t have a problem. You said it right that time. Rather than saying “hey, I’m smarter than everybody about everything because I went to school for a long long time,” you said “hey, I know more about areas X and Y because they happen to be my chosen field of study.” That’s different. The people that get ot me are the ones who think that they’re across the board smart just because they’ve done what you’ve done. You’re admitting that international politics isn’t your bag, the ones I’m dealing with, well, everything is their bag no matter how little they actually know about it. That’s what burns me, people who make me feel like a friggin dope because they went to school longer than I did. People who look down on me, even though I consider myself reasonably smart and well spoken just because I haven’t done what they’ve done. I can’t handle that. But the way you framed it this time, I’ve got no problem with that. I’m sure you would end up kicking my ass in a debate on your home turf even if I managed to hold my own and make it interesting. And at at the same time, there are certain things that I consider myself to know more about than lots of people because I’ve involved myself in them in some way. So yeah, it was your wording that got to me by the looks of things, not your actual point. It’s cool, it happens.
As for the English thing, it’s not about the accent, it’s about the misuse of words and phrases that the so-called leader of the free world should know how to employ. But we could go round and round on this one and probably never agree so I won’t spend a long time getting into it. But it all comes down to what you look for in a leader in the end. You like Bush, I’m not a fan, it’s ok. I don’t mind agreeing to disagree, and I don’t mind apologizing for the way I worded my first comment. And now I have to go out and have fun, the long weekend is starting now and I want to take advantage of it.
September 23rd, 2005 at 3:49 pm
you sound like the kind of person who dislikes people when they dont agree with you. you know the kind that thnk their opinion is the only opinion.
September 23rd, 2005 at 7:55 pm
I’m the kind of person who dislikes people who think that their opinion is the only opinion.
It’s obvious enough to get that from the rest of my entries in the blog.