DescentBB

Just so you know:

.I attacked and took over 2 countries.

.I spent the U.S. surplus and bankrupted the US Treasury.

.I shattered the record for the biggest annual deficit in history (not easy!).

.I set an economic record for the most personal bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period.

.I set all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the stock market.

.I am the first president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.

.In my first year in office I set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history (tough to beat my dad's, but I did).

.After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, I presided over the worst security failure in US history.

.I set the record for most campaign fund raising trips by any president in US history.

.In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their jobs.

.I cut unemployment benefits for more out-of-work Americans than any other president in US history.

.I set the all-time record for most real estate foreclosures in a 12-month period.

.I appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.

.I set the record for the fewest press conferences of any president, since the advent of TV.

.I signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any other US president in history.

.I presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.

.I cut health care benefits for war veterans.

.I set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.

.I dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.

.I've made my presidency the most secretive and unaccountable of any in US history.

.Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (The poorest multimillionaire, Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.)

.I am the first president in US history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously struggle against bankruptcy.

.I presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud in any market in any country in the history of the world.

.I am the first president in US history to order a US attack AND military occupation of a sovereign nation, and I did so against the will of the United Nations and the vast majority of the international community.

.I have created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States, called the "Bureau of Homeland Security"(only one letter away from BS).

.I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any other president in US history (Ronnie was tough to beat, but I did it!!).

.I am the first president in US history to compel the United Nations remove the US from the Human Rights Commission.

.I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Elections Monitoring Board.

.I removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history.

.I rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant. I withdrew from the World Court of Law.

.I refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.

.I am the first president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors access during the 2002 US elections.

.I am the all-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.

.The biggest lifetime contributor to my campaign, who is also one of my best friends, presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).

.I spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history.

.I am the first president to run and hide when the US came under attack (and then lied, saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1)

.I am the first US president to establish a secret shadow government.

.I took the world's sympathy for the US after 9/11, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).

.I am the first US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.

.I changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.

.I set the all-time record for the number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling their huge investments in corporations bidding for gov't contracts.

.I have removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history.

.I entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.

.RECORDS AND REFERENCES: I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available).

.I was AWOL from the National Guard and deserted the military during time of war.

.I refuse to take a drug test or even answer any questions about drug use. (wink,wink)

.All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my fathers library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

.All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

.All minutes of meetings of any public corporation for which I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

.Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.

With Love,
GEORGE W. BUSH
The White House, Washington, DC

There's definitely a job waiting for you at the Democratic National Committee...or assistant producer at CBS or ABC News...or you could hold out for the coveted spot as Michael Moores personal towel boy!

What an enormous load of crap!

Nice try Kuff-job...better you stick with carrots.

Disprove them then.

You know Kuf, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that all of that is a bunch of crap. You are so simple minded its unbelievable.

Then take his challenge Top

Its just so easy to pull something like this out of your ass that's been spreading around like wildfire all over the internet and then sit back and say "prove it". I have more important things to do than waste my time with misleading claims authored and supported by mindless idiots. Why dont you take the time to come up with something origonal rather than pulling spam from your inbox?

It's not like I ever claimed that it was original.

You want me to disprove them? Fine. Download and read this file:

http://www.filestash.net/The_Truth.pdf

But chances are, you will continue to live your life in a fantasy world of ignorance and reject the things presented in the above file as false because of the life that you choose, so whats the point?

This isnt the first time ive seen this and its rather old for an internet gag. Again, try to come up with something origional next time rather than pulling random things out from out your rear. It will make you appear to be a smarter person than you really are.

nm

kuf, I've seen this list (or some variant of it) maybe half a dozen times. At least twice, people here have gone line-by-line through it and sorted out the good and bad points. The vast, vast majority of the points in this list are bad ones. I'm not interested in wasting my time either going through the list again, or trying to find previous threads. But, suffice it to say, I've seen the list dismantled enough times that it's just plain worthless to post.

What's sad is that your position would be a lot stronger if you did the work yourself -- determine which of your OWN points are good and which are bad before you go trying to convince us. Instead of giving us a list of 50 statements, most of which are bogus, misleading, or irrelevant, give us a list of 3 or 4 *good* criticisms.

Here's the reason: if you give people a list of 50 things but 40 of them are bogus, they're going to dismiss the whole list. It doesn't matter what the list is about; people aren't going to waste their time trying to dig through a list to find good arguments if they can spot even a few bad ones right off. I mean... I see the line about the "most personal bankruptcies" and I know there's a lot more to the story there, and the line about the "biggest drop in the history of the stock market" and I know there's a lot more to THAT story, too. I see the statement about the UN human rights commission, and I know that's a total joke (I can't find a list of members on the UN website, but I recall something about Iran and Iraq co-chairing the HRC a couple years ago). So my inclination is to simply ignore the rest of the list -- there might be good criticisms in there, but I don't want to bother digging them out. You want to make the point, so YOU dig out the criticims.

So, kuf (or a kuf supporter), here's a challenge for you:

you go through the list you posted, and evaluate the criticisms. Which of them are actual falsehoods? Which of them blame the president for something he had nothing to do with? Which of them rely on carefully tweaked statistics? Which of them do you think are actual policy decisions or actions you disagree with?

I've already demonstrated why I don't trust the list -- just at first glance, I can tell that a lot of it is bogus. If you're not capable of determining the same thing -- if you're not capable of spotting the bogus arguments on the list and reducing it to only the good, solid arguments -- then, frankly, you probably wouldn't understand anybody else's critique of the list, either. So there's no point in any of us going through it line-by-line. If you think there's enough substance here to make a good argument, you take the time to dig it out and give us the substance without all the fluff. I don't think there's enough there for you to even make a good argument -- the list is almost ALL fluff. Now, since you're the one who came on here trying to prove something by posting the list... YOU prove me wrong.

O.K. I'll answer a couple:

.I attacked and took over 2 countries.

I think "liberated two countries would be more apropos


.I spent the U.S. surplus and bankrupted the US Treasury.

Burst internet bubble on Clintons watch led to the largest stock fall since the great depression which led to the recession Bush inherited. Last time I checked the tresury is not bankrupt

.I shattered the record for the biggest annual deficit in history (not easy!).

9/11 happened and wars are notorious for creating deficits.

Kinda easy to reply but as others said...why bother.

kufyit wrote:Just so you know:

.I set all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the stock market.

The stock market was poised for a crash for well over 2 years before it happened. Analyists KNEW it would happen. It was a matter of time .. not if. The economy as a whole was on the down-turn when clinton left office.

Putting the burden of healthcare and the economy soley on the shoulds of the President is ludicrous.

lol.. it's kinda funny. in the span of one hour, three people from the right come in more or less as a team and post attacks.

Just thought I'd mention that.


I'd like to contribute more but I haven't had much time for this board because almost all of my day is taken up by work.

Maybe we should get little clan tags for the whole team... :P

-[RW]Lothar

Mine would be [MG]

Ferno wrote:lol.. it's kinda funny. in the span of one hour, three people from the right come in more or less as a team and post attacks.

Well I can't help myself, when I see someone defecate in public I feel compelled to complain a bit.

Heh.

woodchip disputes three things, which are pretty valid...but everyone else just kinda spouts something mean about it but don't say anything to refute it other than "it's stupid"....whatever happened to Ken Lay?

Um...did you by chance miss Top Wop's link?

http://www.filestash.net/The_Truth.pdf

This thread is officially a waste of time. What I want to see from the candidates is what they are going to do now. You know, it's nice that they drag each other's past in the mud and all, but what's more important is what they plan on doing from here forward.

Zuruck wrote:woodchip disputes three things, which are pretty valid...but everyone else just kinda spouts something mean about it but don't say anything to refute it other than "it's stupid"....whatever happened to Ken Lay?

You missed:
1) TW's link
2) my statement that this ENTIRE list was disputed before here in E&C
3) my statement that even at first glance, a few of the list items stand out as glaringly false

Now, I can understand you missing my points because you rarely seem to read anything longer than 3 sentences... but there's no excuse for missing TW's link.

Let me repeat my challenge to kuf or any of the rest of you:
Go through the list yourself, and figure out which criticisms are clearly valid, which are disputable, and which are completely worthless (and why). Instead of giving us a list that's 5% substance and 95% filler, give us just the substance. Demonstrate that you actually have a clear enough grasp of the issues to know what's substance and what's fluff.

To reiterate: I live near enough to missouri to use their punchline: "Show me." When you can actually drag up FACTUAL EVIDENCE to back up that load of month-old-balogny, tell me, and we can have something of a discussion.

Stryker wrote:To reiterate: I live near enough to missouri to use their punchline: "Show me." When you can actually drag up FACTUAL EVIDENCE to back up that load of month-old-balogny, tell me, and we can have something of a discussion.

maybe you should go looking for it yourself?

God is going to strike you down if you tell another lie. Don't believe me? Prove it.

I did prove it. Just now, by lying. Whoops, that means I didn't prove it. Which means I did. Which means I didn't, which means I'm lying. Which means...

*smoke begins to pour out of LotharBot's circuitry at an alarming rate*

Awww geez, why'd you have to do that to me again? You know how expensive it is to replace the recursion fuse?

P.S. to Vertigo99: I refer you to my post and TW's link. Read please.

I don't need to prove them, I agree with most of it. Some are a little iffy, but a lot of right on target.

1. Did he not accept more campaign money than anyone else?

2. Did he not have us removed from various UN committees, and yes I know, the UN is worthless so it doesn't matter anyways right?

3. Did he not snub his nose at the Geneva Conventions for prisoners?

4. Does Kenneth Lay remain free?

Lothar, now I have a serious question. I was talking to someone at work about this. Bush claims to be a born again Christian, I guess that means you realize you made bad decisions up to a point and then you decided to change your life. I would like to know, since it's pretty much undebatable that Bush was an alcoholic, coke snorting fiend at one point, where does he get the holier than thou attitude? How can he claim to be such a religious based person? That'd be like Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy saying, "I'm a Christian, everything I did was bad but I'm ok now"...how does that work.

Sorry, but I have not seen a holier-than-thou look in anything Bush says or does. He gets facts and reasons for things, and then acts based on the facts and reason. Besides, if he didn't have the support of the overwhelming majority of people, he wouldn't be able to get anything done. Look at the blockade the dems set up on his judicial nominees... If the House of Representatives didn't agree with what the president has been doing, they wouldn't have allowed him to do it in the first place.

Vertigo, why should the defense in a case be forced to disprove, time after time, the same rhetoric that has already been disproved? Besides, I think the accused is innocent until proven guilty. The defense should not have to look for proof that the defendant is guilty. That information should be provided by the prosecution.

Now if yall will excuse me, there's a squirrel outside trying to get into the squirrel-proof birdfeeder. That's at least more interesting than repeating-eating-eating myself over-over-over again.

I just wanted to put in another 2 centsâ?¦

Last time I checked this was still the United States of America, so that means production of proof is the duty of the accuser and not the other way around.

Vertigo 99 wrote:

Stryker wrote:To reiterate: I live near enough to missouri to use their punchline: "Show me." When you can actually drag up FACTUAL EVIDENCE to back up that load of month-old-balogny, tell me, and we can have something of a discussion.

maybe you should go looking for it yourself?

Lol. Maybe you should go back and read the rest of the thread. Kufyit is the one who's trying to prove something. It isn't Stryker's responsibility to prove anything for Kuf.

Zuruck wrote: Lothar, now I have a serious question. I was talking to someone at work about this. Bush claims to be a born again Christian, I guess that means you realize you made bad decisions up to a point and then you decided to change your life. I would like to know, since it's pretty much undebatable that Bush was an alcoholic, coke snorting fiend at one point, where does he get the holier than thou attitude? How can he claim to be such a religious based person? That'd be like Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy saying, "I'm a Christian, everything I did was bad but I'm ok now"...how does that work.

Lothar's working on something else just this minute, but I'll give you a short answer to this. I don't know about Bush's alcoholic past or holier-than-thou attitude specifically, but as to how that works in general...

In a nutshell, you can claim to be a true Christian even if you have a very dark past. That's due to the solution to a problem created by the nature of man and twin characteristics of God. On the one hand, God is holy and cannot abide anything less than moral perfection in me. On the other hand, God is loving and wants to have a close relationship with me. The problem is that I can't be anything remotely resembling morally perfect. The solution is called being "born again"--I apologize and turn away from my misdeeds, and God forgives me for them. I give up my love of evil things, and God replaces it with a love of good things. I give up control of my life and surrender it to God, and God leads and changes me. It is a one-time thing, a fundamental character change.

It works very much like a relationship from there on out. When I first came to know God, it was like he said, "Catherine--you know how you sometimes hate other people passionately and insult them to their faces? That offends me. I want you to stop that." And I said, "Okay, I give up my right to do that--but it's going to take a while to change the habit. You're going to have to be patient and help me." He forgives me--he's like that, he never gets tired of forgiving. But I also have to make an honest effort to change. And he supplies the power for the change. And of course, if I totally disregaurd what he said, it kills the relationship.

There are many Christians in the church with terrible backgrounds. Some were gang members, drug dealers, and muderers. Some were thieves, some were adulturers, some were prostitutes, some were abusive parents. All of them gave up those things when they came to know God. In fact, one of the most famous Christians of all time--a guy who wrote about a sixth of the Bible--was originally famous for killing Christians! He changed and began preaching about Jesus. That's the sort of change that comes from God; that's the hallmark of the Christian life. Though Christians come from every moral depth possible, God changes them--and thereafter, they strive to be holy. It's not a "you strive to gradually become good enough for God" sort of deal. It's a "you give up and God totally changes you" sort of deal. Not that you become immediately perfect, but the change is so vast that it's like you literally die and are reborn a different person.

So I guess, to put it into practice, this means that absolutely anything (no matter how terrible) that you did before you met God is forgiven and forgotten. Anything you do even after you meet him is forgiven and forgotten as soon as you apologize and turn away from it. But the pattern for a Christian over a long period of time should be continuously walking away from those immoral actions. If someone doesn't do that, or if they take up sins--not just once, but as a pattern--odds are good they were never a Christian in the first place.

I don't know if your example of Jeffrey Dahmer was intentional here, but he makes a good example. Not only could God in principle forgive him, as a matter of fact, Dahmer did become a Christian while in prison after his conviction. God forgave him and he went to heaven. In fact, there was a Christian band that wrote a song about the incident, titled "Jeffrey Dahmer went to heaven."

Room Full of Walters wrote: [Some lyrics compressed]

Jeffrey Dahmer went to heaven,
or else he lied on television.
He told us that he found you;
he told us your word was true.

Jeffrey Dahmer went to heaven,
or else he made a wrong decision
He told us that he saw you;
he told us you were true...

But what did he tell you?
What did he tell you?
Did he just bow down before you,
did he just say that he was wrong?

And what about us?
What about all of us?
Can we just bow down before you,
can we just say that we were wrong?

And we know he's no better than we are,
and we know all sin's just the same.

If it makes you sad and blue,
and if it makes you mad,
then shame on you.
If it makes you question God,
maybe God should question you.
How do you think you'd do?

That song made a lot of people in the church mad, which is telling. It shouldn't have. Christians believe that God can forgive even Jeffrey Dahmer. I believe that: in God's eyes I bear exactly as much guilt as Jeffrey Dahmer does, no more and no less.

So at least in principle, extremely terrible past crimes have nothing to do with being a good Christian. (In practice, sometimes the church doesn't accept "terrible" past sinners. This is hypocracy. It is a sin. Both I and the Bible loudly condemn it.)

On the flip side, though, recent or continued immoral action is a -very- serious thing for a Christian. It's the sort of thing that gets you kicked out of churches, and has the whole community questioning whether you really are a Christian, or are just posing. Furthermore, the older and more serious of a Christian you are, and the more you are in leadership in the church, the smaller a sin it takes to count as "major".

In particular, a "holier than thou" attitude is a sin--specifically, it's pride. It's also a fairly serious sin. It's directly contrary to some of the most basic beliefs of Christianity, specifically that forgiveness comes only as a free gift of God and you did nothing to earn it. Any righteousness you've attained was with God's help, and was mostly his work. You have nothing to brag about. Anyone that *does* brag about it is showing that they've either forgotten, or never learned, some of the most elementry points of Christianity. And spiritually, it's one of the few sins that you actually *have* to give up immediately when you become Christian--by definition, you have to acknowledge that you are guilty before God, and then he can forgive you. And furthermore, anyone (absolutely anyone!) who thinks they are very righteous simply cannot be spending much time with God. All in all, righteous pride in a Christian is a sign of Very Bad Things.

Righteous pride is completely out of place for a serious Christian. It's like a Descent player cheating. The younger ones do it from time to time, but a serious one? We all have our vices, but a serious Descent player would not cheat. It would be a big shock. Likewise, a serious case of righteous pride is a serious thing. Sure, subtle cases happen, but a sustained and serious case--a lifestyle and attitude--is the sort of thing that pastors lose congregations and jobs for. In a Christian as mature as Bush appears to be, even a single serious instance of this sort of pride would be totally unexpected. It would probably cause most of the church to turn against him instantly as a poser.

[Edit: LOL, look what qualifies as "short" for me. ]

Zuruck wrote:I don't need to prove them, I agree with most of it. Some are a little iffy, but a lot of right on target.

I'm waiting for someone from your side to dig out the "right on target" statements from the "a little iffy" statements and from the "totally bogus" statements -- there are a few in there (if you can't see that, you either haven't looked, lied to yourself, or just plain aren't very smart.) The fact that you state it the way you do tells me you haven't even attempted to dig through the list (at least, of the 3 options I gave above, that's the kindest assumption.) You just gave it a reflexive read -- glanced it over, smiled because it said things you already agreed with, and didn't give it another thought. But dig deeper. It's a propaganda list, just like if I got a list from Rush Limbaugh. Can you cut through your own side's propaganda list? If not, that's a very bad sign.

I'm also waiting for someone to state the actual relevance of some of the lines there. For example, most of the ones you brought up don't seem at all relevant. Why does it matter that Bush raised more money than anyone else in history? Why does it matter what UN committees we're on? If you're going to give me a list of good criticisms against Bush, please, give me *relevant* criticisms. There are sure to be some in the list above. What I'm wondering is, are you capable of finding them, or are you so strongly anti-Bush that you're incapable of rationally evaluating criticisms of him?

Bush claims to be a born again Christian [so] where does he get the holier than thou attitude?

I don't particularly trust your ability to evaluate whether or not people have "holier than thou" attitudes. Aren't you the one who's accused pretty much every Christian and/or Republican in this forum of having one?

I've listened to a lot of Bush speeches and read a lot of his interviews, and I don't get a "holier than thou" vibe off of him. I know a lot of people I do get that from, but he's not one of them. He actually strikes me as pretty humble, though not ridiculously much so -- and I say this in particular from reading a lot of candid interviews with him where he's asked about his place in history and things like that (see, for example, this article.) So I agree with Stryker -- I haven't seen the attitude you say is there. I've seen the opposite.

Perhaps you could be so kind as to tell us what makes you think Bush has that attitude. What things has he said or done that make you think "Bush thinks he's better than everyone else"? Do you think his actions can be reasonably interpreted in another way?