Over the past few months I have asked the same question over and over and over again. I have yet to receive even a cursory response, much less a well thought out one. So let's try giving it its own thread and see if we can maybe inspire someone to respond.
The question is simple: What good has Mr. Bush accomplished in his first seven years as President that so inspires you that you continue to support him? What are the major accomplishments of his administration? This can be in terms of world initiatives, economic successes, or just about anything else you might care to list. What is there about his policies and what are his successes that make you so proud and supportive.
I want this to be fair, so I am asking the majority of you who don't like Mr. Bush (all 75-80% of you) to please not discourage people from posting by posting negative comments. I want Mr. Bush's accomplishments highlighted here for all of us to see and consider.
To those of you who worship Mr. Bush, please be very specific. I will give you huge tax breaks to the super wealthy one half of one percent, and huge corporate welfare checks to the most profitable corporations in the history of the world, so those are covered. My only caveat to you is to be specific. Please don't say (for instance) held elections in Iraq, unless you include what that elected government accomplished as a result.
I honestly want to hear of all Mr. Bush's accomplishments. Obviously I've missed them so your chiming in here will be your opportunity to persuade someone who thinks he's a dolt to change her mind. The floor is yours. Tell me exactly why I should like, respect, and admire this man.
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I repeat the question. What good has Mr. Bush accomplished in his first seven years as President that so inspires you that you continue to support him?
Francis: Please. I'm asking really nicely. I want this thread to produce some results. I've been asking this question for months. Someone has to have an answer. You don't just follow someone when they've done nothing constructive. I really am curious and want to see this list that's developing in someone's mind. Somewhere.
Today, three sub-Saharan African countries — Uganda, Sudan, and Ethiopia — are among the top 10 recipients of American foreign aid.
Saddam is no longer in power.
Millions of Iraqis are free.
Bush increased funding for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health .
Leading Republicans efforts to pass the Medicare Act of 2003, which added prescription drug coverage to Medicare and created Health Savings Accounts.
I'll have to post more tomorrow Carolyn,...it's late.
Bush appointees have been forced from all of these groups as they tried to inject religious fundamentalist tenets and anti-science prescriptions into research.
The same anti-science biases have compromised the AIDS work in Africa. Every outside measure of US efforts has reported that the idiotic restrictions that Bush has placed on AIDS work has reduced effectiveness by up to 33%.
There is a huge backlash to the miserable failures of this ineffective Administration.
Read :
http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=6
Mr. Bush's tax policy has created the most Progressive America yet seen.
The evidence is in the linked table.
In 2001, the top 10% of all taxpayers paid in 64.89% of all taxes paid.
In 2002, the top 10% of all taxpayers paid in 65.73% of all taxes paid.
In 2003, the top 10% of all taxpayers paid in 65.84% of all taxes paid.
In 2004, the top 10% of all taxpayers paid in 68.19% of all taxes paid.
In 2005, the top 10% of all taxpayers paid in 70.30% of all taxes paid.
In fact, the top 1%, the top 5%, the top 10%, and the top 25% ALL paid in more.
Meanwhile :
In 2001, the bottom 50% of all taxpayers paid in 3.97% of all taxes paid.
In 2002, the bottom 50% of all taxpayers paid in 3.50% of all taxes paid.
In 2003, the bottom 50% of all taxpayers paid in 3.46% of all taxes paid.
In 2004, the bottom 50% of all taxpayers paid in 3.30% of all taxes paid.
In 2005, the bottom 50% of all taxpayers paid in 3.07% of all taxes paid.
The richest in our country are paying consistently more in tax revenue, and the poorest HALF have been consistently paying less.
Pretty damn impressive. Now our Liberal friends really have nothing to complain about. The rich ARE paying more than ever.
Since 2001, Mr. Bush has nominated and gotten confirmed two Conservative Supreme Court Justices : Sam Alito, and Chief Justice John Roberts.
With a solid core of young Conservatives on the court, the long-term outlook for the court is Conservative.
Needless to say, we Conservatives are overjoyed with this, and we look forward to more of the same.
The Liberal Justices are both ancient, and the Moderates are mid-old. So the future looks bright for a Conservative judiciary.
Although I've said this many times before on Gather, we Conservatives like Mr. Bush when he does Conservative things. We don't like him when he does non-Conservative things. So, taken in context, Mr. Bush can only be classified as a part-time Conservative. He's done plenty of things we dislike.................his Immigration Policy of last Summer comes to mind immediately.
However, he does seem to rankle Left Wingers quite badly with his Texas twang and homey speech. Liberals seem to equate that with a lack of education. However, once you realize Mr. Bush has a degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard, you can't really point to education.
Maybe its the fact that no Liberal was able to impeach him, even though they had real blood in their eye for him, for many years. I can always support that, especially when there was no verifiable evidence for Mr. Bush's impeachment. Mr. Bush is hated by Liberals almost as much as Ronald Reagan was in his final year of office. Sour grapes? Probably.
The Democrats chose not to try for impeachment for two reasons: They don't have enough time and they don't have enough votes. Unlike Republicans, they were unwilling to subject the country to the trauma of an impeachment under those circumstances, despite the fact that the charges are a lot more serious than lying about a blowjob. I am not quite sure where you get the idea there was no evidence.
In the end, after eight years in office, appointing two judges is a pretty poor legacy.
"Bret: He got his degrees as a legacy. He was ineligible to even be admitted otherwise. He barely squeaked through, and if the truth be known....well, I won't even go there."
Former President of Harvard, Lawrence Summers, was already grilled on that hypothesis before the 2000 election, Carolyn. He basically dispelled this Liberal rumor. No one gets a free-ride at Harvard...............but we all knew that, didn't we?
"In the end, after eight years in office, appointing two judges is a pretty poor legacy."
Not if they're 2 of the 5 that eventually overturn Roe v. Wade.
Then it will be a spectacular legacy.
I refuse to believe you are so naive as to believe that overturning Roe v Wade will slow down the incident of abortion by more than the slightest amount. Rich women will go elsewhere. Poor ones will go to one of the tens of thousands of women in this country who are currently trained in a special technique that is so simple anyone can learn it in approximately 20 minutes.
" Bret: Read again. I didn't say he got a free ride at Harvard. I said he got in because his parents went there and donated a lot of money. Entirely different thing. He would never have been admitted under the standard academic criterion. However, legacies are automagically admitted no matter how bad their academic record. So we're not even discussing the same matter. As for how he got through his classes, I have a theory on that too based on some personal observations, but I won't go there now."
So you're just saying that Mr. Bush just followed the rules that Harvard laid out years before? Because I'm sure that if Mr. Bush followed those rules to get in, then thousands of others at Harvard have done the same. That doesn't sound like it was the "big deal" the media made it out to be. Sounds like just another college tradition, to get more people in and make a buck.
Please, if you feel you need to say more on this issue, go for it.
"I refuse to believe you are so naive as to believe that overturning Roe v Wade will slow down the incident of abortion by more than the slightest amount."
Your original question was : "What good has Mr. Bush accomplished in his first seven years as President that so inspires you that you continue to support him?"
As a Conservative, putting a majority of Conservatives on the Supreme Court inspires us. We continue to support Mr. Bush or anyone else who does that. Rescinding abortion is just one of our goals for a Conservative court............but an important one.
Personally, I think more important actions have been taken to slow the incidence of abortion in this country : the demonization of abortion has definitely reduced it........and that doesn't even have anything to do with the government. Many doctors have just been run out of business by its unsavory reputation. I mean, if you're an Ob-Gyn in a small town, do you really want to be known as the only baby-killer in town?
Rich women will go elsewhere.
Yep, maybe.
"Poor ones will go to one of the tens of thousands of women in this country who are currently trained in a special technique that is so simple anyone can learn it in approximately 20 minutes."
Well, then we get into the whole "Vera Drake" syndrome. If abortion went that way, I think you'd see a whole new set of laws be pushed to outlaw it. But now we're just speculating on a very uncertain future.
On the other hand, a Conservative Supreme Court is not speculation any more...............its just a matter of when, not if.
If the rich made 100% of the money, they would then be paying 100% of income taxes. Is that evidence of something good?
I hear you.
I also believe in something near what you do. Its tough to read some of these Chicken Little articles on Gather where Liberals just can't wait to label every daily political happening as a "Bush failure". It just simply isn't so.
I will feel exactly the same way 3 years from now after Obama is elected President, then abruptly runs the economy into the dirt.
"Bret, in this recession only the rich are making money so yes, they are going to pay more of the taxes."
At 4.8% unemployment, where did you get this idea?
Ever since 1980, the rich have paid a disproportionately large amount of this country's taxes. They do it silently, for the most part. But now, with a smaller and smaller percentage of the rich paying outrageous percentages of US taxes, I'm really starting to worry about the tax base of this country. How long will the rich pay for virtually everything? When the rich eventually do pay 100% of the tax money collected in this country, will you still say what you're saying now?
Will the poor and Middle Class eventually be completely locked out of a government bought and paid for by the top 10% of income-earners in the US?
Personally, I think this would be horrible.
The Middle Class and poor could have no representation, at that point. But then again, they will not be paying for any either. Its a tough situation.........
We'll see about the supreme court. They could surprise you. The awesome responsibility tends to moderate the views of people on all sides of the political aisle. As for abortion, my wish is that it would never be necessary. Personally I can't wait until that day. On the other hand, you're incredibly naive if you think you can stop it. It's been around for centuries and it won't go away just because a few bible thumpers want to punish women for getting pregnant.
Sarah: My hope is that the next president, of either party, has the good sense to listen to people who know more than he does; which in Mr. Bush's case is almost anyone. I don't expect them to be perfect, but I expect them to care more about the US and its people than anyone anywhere else. We need to put our own house in order before we go around telling others how to act.
Francis: I have a masters in Statistics and that book was and remains practically my bible where statistical matters are concerned It is brilliant and has so much for such a very small book.
Bret: according to the bureau of Labor Statistics, if you were to factor in all the unemployed who have given up looking or who have used up their unemployment and those who are working part time but want to be working full time, the unemployment rate would be 8.9%. Hardly anything to boast about. Why do you think Mr. Bush is resisting extending unemployment benefits? If he did that the true extent of unemployment would suddenly become apparent and right before the election. We can't have that.
"Bret: The legacy program is not there so that more people can get college educations, it's there so that the children of the rich don't have to meet the same academic criterion as the rest of us. The numbers are small but significant. Without this program Dubya could never have gotten into any major university."
No doubt, the rich have programs available to them that the common man doesn't. I honestly don't have a problem with that, as long as once they're in, they get the degree...............or in Mr. Bush's case, the Harvard MBA. I'd probably be down on him if he squandered the opportunity, though.
Sounds like he just used all the options available to him, given the rules of Harvard in 1968.
"As for abortion, my wish is that it would never be necessary. Personally I can't wait until that day. On the other hand, you're incredibly naive if you think you can stop it. It's been around for centuries and it won't go away just because a few bible thumpers want to punish women for getting pregnant."
As I understand, it is really only necessary a very small amount of the time.
Stop abortions? That's like trying to stop people from farting..........and almost as disgusting. I just want to limit it as much as humanly possible, and de-fund it as much as is governmentally possible. It will continue, but in much smaller numbers.
"Bret: according to the bureau of Labor Statistics, if you were to factor in all the unemployed who have given up looking or who have used up their unemployment and those who are working part time but want to be working full time, the unemployment rate would be 8.9%. Hardly anything to boast about."
Link me to that 8.9% statistic. I love statistics also.
My guess is that the 8.9% statistic, if true, is probably just about as low as its ever been.
"Why do you think Mr. Bush is resisting extending unemployment benefits?"
Probably because he's already extended them twice since the Clinton era. And he wants to hold down costs, which is what he should be doing..............here and in other areas of the government.
If you asked me who won the Laker game, I'd go get the paper and read the box score to you. Telling you about Kobe doesn't give you the team score, which would tell you about the larger picture. And in the political arena that is what most "true" Conservatives are all about............me included.