Reflections on 9/11: America at war with itself?

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**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

Here is another interesting article (IMO) on the subject, which was published in Spiked magazine today. A few points to note:

1) The author is a campaigner for civil liberties in the USA

2) Please keep on topic. This discussion is not about 9/11 conspiracy theories.

I've always been interested in political debate, more so now that I teach history, and now that ten years have passed since that terrible day, it is a good time to reflect on the past. Also, having visited the USA recently, I was able to judge the mood (to some extent) on my travels. It's a great nation, but the contradictions in American society boggle the mind. The west really does seem to be gripped by fear of the unknown and a crisis of confidence. You'd think that with the the West winning the cold war, we'd be more confident than ever. On a final note, what was it that FDR said: the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Anyway, here is the article:

I write this under surveillance, or so it’s safe to assume. We are all suspects now; we all read, write, talk on the phone and travel under surveillance, or the threat of it.

A shadowy national security state has access to our emails, phone calls and web-surfing habits; government agents monitor our political activities and collect reports about our suspicious activities – photographing bridges for scrapbooks or art projects or attending political protests. Corporate and government security cameras record our movements in city streets, offices, airports (of course) and malls. Security guards are everywhere on patrol; they take our pictures and copy our licences before admitting us to office buildings. Federal agencies compile extensive, notoriously inaccurate blacklists that have denied innocent, unsuspecting Americans access to credit, jobs and housing, as well as the right to fly. Federal prosecutors employ an expansive, elastic federal penal code against people targeted for bad reasons instead of bad behaviour; and like other law enforcement and national security agents, they are rarely held accountable for abusing their power or the laws they swore to uphold.

None of this is news, and none of it generates significant public outrage. Civil libertarians persist in cataloguing the abuses of our repressive, unaccountable shadow government, undeterred by the futility of their laments about surveillance, illegal searches, summary detentions, torture or the routine invocation of a state-secrets doctrine to immunise the government from liability for illegal or grossly incompetent conduct. Sign up for the Bill of Rights Defense Committee newsletter and you’ll be barraged by articles exposing the escalating bi-partisan assault on liberty. Almost everything about post-9/11 abuses that can be said has been said, and almost every civil libertarian has said it. Their persistence may be less a triumph of hope over experience than a habit, an irresistible impulse, or an act of self-respect. Civil libertarians have little influence in Congress, no influence in the White House, and hardly any sway over public opinion, but at least we can decline to suffer the new security state in silence.

The creation of a national security state in the aftermath of 9/11 was predictable, and its steady expansion under Republican and Democratic administrations reflects the predictable, corrupting effects of power, especially the unprecedented surveillance power offered by new technologies. Public complacency about the loss of liberty is a more complicated phenomenon. Of course it partly reflects fear of terrorism, nurtured by government and private sector actors with ideological, temperamental and financial interests in the security state. It is, however, greatly exacerbated by general disregard for privacy in an exhibitionist digital age and, even more, by an economic crisis that has dramatic, immediate, practical effects on daily life. Financial woes and worries about the future are unavoidable for millions of people, but surveillance and illegal searches are often invisible (besides, many imagine, ‘if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear’); blacklists are often employed in secret; unlawful detentions directly affect a small minority of Americans, and a smaller minority of voters; legal debates about the state-secrets doctrine or laws and executive orders authorising torture are relatively arcane. It’s safe to assume that many Americans know more about Jennifer Aniston’s love life than extraordinary rendition or the state-secrets doctrine.

The attacks on 9/11 did not usher in the new era of seriousness that many commentators predicted. Instead of withering, the tabloid culture has flourished along with the security state. This is not surprising: both rely on the devaluation and diminution of privacy. Both are also, in part, forms of escapism: the security state offers the illusion of freedom from fear – the same fear the security state engenders; tabloid culture offers easily accessible, and for some, all-consuming distractions from economic and existential anxieties about a greatly diminished America.

‘Make Us Great Again’, ‘Restore Our Future’, fundraising arms for Republican presidential candidates Texas governor Rick Perry and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney demand. Bravado about TEAM USA and what Romney calls ‘the greatest nation in the history of the Earth’ does little to alleviate desperation about the nation’s decline. While the loss of liberty is obscured, ignored or rationalised, the loss of power pierces, with fearful clarity.

For many Americans in our post-9/11 world, facing the facts has rarely been more depressing, so many have retreated to fantasy land, led by politicians for whom facts are fictions and policies mere partisan postures. Congresswoman and presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann boldly claims that the Founders ended slavery. (Never mind that slavery was abolished during the Civil War, some 50 years after Jefferson and Madison died; fantasies about the nation’s Founders abound in the Tea Party.) Republicans who once favoured cuts in payroll taxes oppose them when they’re favoured by President Obama, and Congress seems generally incapable of entertaining a rational, empirical debate about economic policy. What a Bush administration official once derisively described as the reality-based community has rarely been less influential.

Logic as well as facts are anachronisms in our post-9/11 fantasy land. Obama administration talking points about the 9/11 anniversary advise celebrating our ‘resilience’, as if the nation weren’t ruled instead by fear. Right-wing extremists who dominate the news, and seem poised to take back Congress and the White House, rail against the big government they seek to rule, while, with a few exceptions, they ignore or support the security state, jealously guard their own entitlements to Social Security and Medicare, and demand a Christian government for this supposedly Christian country that outlaws abortions, gay unions, the teaching of evolution, and stem-cell research, among other heretical practices.

An increasingly public pro-Christian nationalism complements anti-Muslim biases generated by 9/11. The self-proclaimed freedom-fighting Tea Party is primarily a collection of religious, social-issue conservatives – white Protestant evangelicals who want to ‘put God back in government’. Mitt Romney, who faces opposition from evangelicals partly because he’s a Mormon, promises to govern prayerfully and to make decisions ‘on my knees’. Rick Perry, currently leading President Obama in one poll, promotes prayer as a policy initiative: while Texas was suffering a devastating drought earlier this year, he issued a gubernatorial proclamation designating a three-day period of prayer for rain. Just last month, as governor, he famously presided over a mass Christian prayer rally to heal the nation’s ills, declaring that his love of country was second only to his love of the living Christ. How does the presumptively patriotic Perry define liberty? His website proposal for restoring liberty focuses on repealing Obama’s healthcare legislation (‘the greatest intrusion on individual freedom in a generation’) and lowering taxes, among other vaguely described economic reforms, and ‘protecting the unborn’. It offers no comment on the national security state, much less a commitment to limiting it. For the ascendant, post-9/11, populist right-wing, freedom is just another word for low taxes and an invasive, religiously correct authoritarianism.

The sectarian culture war over individual freedom, which appeared to be subsiding before 9/11, has been reinvigorated; while for atheists and humanists, the faith-based 9/11 attack exemplified the potential viciousness of all religions, for committed sectarians it brought home the dangers of adhering to the wrong religions and the urgency of empowering the right ones. So, today, the culture war rages, and it’s an apt measure of our fractured, unhappy union. 9/11 was supposed to ‘bring us together’, And putting aside the extended, summary detentions of immigrants in its wake, the attack may have engendered some empathy and short-lived solidarity. Throughout the fall of 2001, the New York Times ran one- or two-paragraph obituaries of Americans killed on 9/11. I read them tearfully every morning, not knowing whether I was crying for myself or for thousands of strangers: my father was dying. For me and, I suspect, many others, private griefs flowed into a river of public mourning.

But if grief unites groups of people, it also isolates individuals: sometimes grief surrounds you, like a moat. Fear, too, both unites and divides. People seek out affinity groups for solace and solidarity; and fierce adherence to their own communities can engender fierce opposition to the communities of others. In other words, tribalism reigns. Interactions between once collegial members of Congress is now ‘more like gang behaviour’, one long-serving moderate Democrat remarked in the New York Times. ‘Members walk into the chamber full of hatred.’ At least in part, their enmity reflects the enmity of their respective constituents. These days, across political, cultural and religious divides, we don’t seem to like each other very much. Ten years after 9/11, America is at war with itself.

Wendy Kaminer is a lawyer, writer and free speech activist.

**daedalus**

Well, it's like I've often said, the REAL terrorists aren't people in a desert somewhere. They're the ones sitting in Washington.

**Ahtman**

And since they were voted in by the population then we are all the real terrorists, thus going back to the title of being at war with our self.

**biccat**

For the ascendant, post-9/11, populist right-wing, freedom is just another word for low taxes and an invasive, religiously correct authoritarianism.

I was done here.

It's an excuse to throw out left-wing talking points in the guise of "Reflections on 9/11".

Although I suppose it is worth noting that America just may be at war with itself. See the comments by Hoffa (introducing Obama) and Biden last Monday making the moral case for left-wing violence.

**daedalus**

Ahtman wrote:And since they were voted in by the population then we are all the real terrorists, thus going back to the title of being at war with our self.

You know. Sometimes I wonder. Honestly, I don't see how things can improve until we start demanding actual well thought-out plans for how they're going to tackle the "tough issues" out of candidates and not just empty campaign slogans ("Change has come"?)

I pick on Obama above, but really the Republicans are just as bad as the Democrats. I'm getting really sick of having to choose between the guy who says he wants big business and small government (run by businesses) and that it will solve all the worlds ills and the guy who says he wants small business and big government (run by businesses) and that it will solve all the worlds ills.

**Melissia**

A shadowy national security state

GAH!

I just... I .... no. I can't read past this point. can someone provide a summary that doesn't make my brain try to crawl out of my skull and close my eyes?

**The Foot**

I really enjoy reading essays like the one above. Not because I feel that they tell me anything I haven't already heard, but because they show a person's complete unwillingness to actually do anything meaningful. He talks about us being monitered by the government and corperations and having our rights taken away and all that fun stuff.

If they was really as upset they would go and fight to change what was unjust. In the declaration of independance and even some state constitutions it has, in wirtting, a person's right to rebellion once all other avenues have been exhausted. People who just sit there and talk about what's wrong but never get up to do anything about it make me mad, as if you couldn't tell by now

Edited to prevent a wall of text

**biccat**

Melissia wrote:
A shadowy national security state

GAH!

I just... I .... no. I can't read past this point. can someone provide a summary that doesn't make my brain try to crawl out of my skull and close my eyes?

9/11 turned us into a police state. It's all GWB's fault. Republicans are Bad People.

The Foot wrote:In the declaration of independance and even some state constitutions it has, in wirtting, a person's right to rebellion once all other avenues have been exhausted.

While there might be a god-given right to rebellion against an unjust state (perceived or actual), the case of Lincoln v. Davis (1861-65) pretty much settled the issue as a factual/Constitutional matter.

**Frazzled**

biccat wrote:
Melissia wrote:
A shadowy national security state

GAH!

I just... I .... no. I can't read past this point. can someone provide a summary that doesn't make my brain try to crawl out of my skull and close my eyes?

9/11 turned us into a police state. It's all GWB's fault. Republicans are Bad People.

The Foot wrote:In the declaration of independance and even some state constitutions it has, in wirtting, a person's right to rebellion once all other avenues have been exhausted.

While there might be a god-given right to rebellion against an unjust state (perceived or actual), the case of Lincoln v. Davis (1861-65) pretty much settled the issue as a factual/Constitutional matter.

No that wasn't it. That was only the initial case. I think you'll find the case of Lee vs. Grant (1865 writ denied) to be the definitive case in the matter.

**biccat**

Frazzled wrote:No that wasn't it. That was only the initial case. I think you'll find the case of Lee vs. Grant (1865 writ denied) to be the definitive case in the matter.

Good point.

But you shouldn't forget about Sherman v. City of Atlanta (1864).

**Frazzled**

biccat wrote:
Frazzled wrote:No that wasn't it. That was only the initial case. I think you'll find the case of Lee vs. Grant (1865 writ denied) to be the definitive case in the matter.

Good point.

But you shouldn't forget about Sherman v. City of Atlanta (1864).

Indeed, that case set precedent for several of the key underpinnings of Lee.

**Ahtman**

Wendy is a guy?

**Melissia**

biccat wrote:9/11 turned us into a police state. It's all GWB's fault. Republicans are Bad People.

Ugh.

Hell, I probably classify as pretty damn liberal (in most cases... stupid "liberal" positions on gun control and self defense which aren't actually very liberal in the traditional sense, but whatever) and I think this is dumb...

**murdog**

To tell you the truth, I'm a little worried as I peer across the border. How can the US maintain 1000 military bases, a defense budget in the neighbourhood of 500 billion and 17 intelligence agencies when unemployment is at 9% (40% for young black men!), there are huge racial wealth gaps, and workers, public and private, are taking to the streets to protect their rights (eg. Madison, Verizon)? There was that huge debt crisis, and the Pentagons' budget wasn't on the table in any meaningful way. More and more it seems like the rich and powerful down there are becoming more brazen in their attempts to control, and soon enough regular people will force some real changes at the top. Obama has been a real dissapointment (Yes We... Can't?).

Bases: http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175338/

Defence Budget: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175431/tomgram%3A_chris_hellman%2C_the_pentagon%27s_spending_spree/

Intelligence Agencies: http://www.intelligence.gov/about-the-intelligence-community/

Unemployment: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/9/obama_jobs_plan_bolder_than_expected

Education: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/26/poverty_is_the_problem_efforts_to

Wealth Gaps: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/7/28/wealth_gap_between_minorities_and_white

Brazen Fat Cats: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/2/reckless_endangerment_how_outsized_ambition_greed

**Pacific**

I think you'll find the defence budget is a bit more than 5 billion murdog.

An increasingly public pro-Christian nationalism complements anti-Muslim biases generated by 9/11. The self-proclaimed freedom-fighting Tea Party is primarily a collection of religious, social-issue conservatives – white Protestant evangelicals who want to ‘put God back in government’. Mitt Romney, who faces opposition from evangelicals partly because he’s a Mormon, promises to govern prayerfully and to make decisions ‘on my knees’. Rick Perry, currently leading President Obama in one poll, promotes prayer as a policy initiative: while Texas was suffering a devastating drought earlier this year, he issued a gubernatorial proclamation designating a three-day period of prayer for rain. Just last month, as governor, he famously presided over a mass Christian prayer rally to heal the nation’s ills, declaring that his love of country was second only to his love of the living Christ. How does the presumptively patriotic Perry define liberty? His website proposal for restoring liberty focuses on repealing Obama’s healthcare legislation (‘the greatest intrusion on individual freedom in a generation’) and lowering taxes, among other vaguely described economic reforms, and ‘protecting the unborn’. It offers no comment on the national security state, much less a commitment to limiting it.

I found this bit especially frightening. Brings to mind that old Bill Hicks joke where he is acting as the President and stood with his hand over the big red button, with his eyes rolled back up into his head, saying "Tell me when Lord, tell me when."

**Karon**

Rick Perry is a nutjob, its unbelievable people actually pay attention to him.

Meanwhile, the only Republican who doesn't seem flying rodent gak insane, Ron Paul, is laughed at and ignored by the media.

If Rick Perry, Romney, and Bachman are the best Republicans can do, with Ron Paul being ignored, Obama will be elected for another 4 years.

**dogma**

Karon wrote:Rick Perry is a nutjob, its unbelievable people actually pay attention to him.

I think he's a gifted politician, though perhaps he's been too heavily socialized by Texas politics to really work at the national level, he certainly wouldn't be the first Governor with that problem (being socialized by state politics). I'm actually a little surprised he ran in this cycle, he would have had a better shot in an open election and had 4 more years to get his name out.

Karon wrote:
Meanwhile, the only Republican who doesn't seem flying rodent gak insane, Ron Paul, is laughed at and ignored by the media.

You are literally the first person I've ever heard say that.

Karon wrote:
If Rick Perry, Romney, and Bachman are the best Republicans can do, with Ron Paul being ignored, Obama will be elected for another 4 years.

Romney will give Obama a real challenge, Perry might, but Bachman won't make it out of the primaries in any conceivable scenario.

**murdog**

Pacific wrote:I think you'll find the defence budget is a bit more than 5 billion murdog.

Oh ya, forgot a couple of zeros. Tx, I'll edit it.

**dogma**

murdog wrote:To tell you the truth, I'm a little worried as I peer across the border. How can the US maintain 1000 military bases, a defense budget in the neighbourhood of 500 billion and 17 intelligence agencies when unemployment is at 9% (40% for young black men!), there are huge racial wealth gaps, and workers, public and private, are taking to the streets to protect their rights (eg. Madison, Verizon)? There was that huge debt crisis, and the Pentagons' budget wasn't on the table in any meaningful way. More and more it seems like the rich and powerful down there are becoming more brazen in their attempts to control, and soon enough regular people will force some real changes at the top. Obama has been a real dissapointment (Yes We... Can't?).

I think you're overestimating how severe conditions are in the US. Things are worse than they were, but not really all that bad. I mean, I can still get federal loans for college, spend half of it on booze, and eat steak every day. My parents can rent movies, upgrade their computers, and care for a dog and a guinea pig while driving two cars and paying a guy to mow their lawn. These aren't conditions that spur "real change".

**RatBot**

Not having followed the Republican debates closely, Romney is the only candidate who hasn't said things that have left me completely and utterly bewildered. Paul has some good ideas, but there's plenty of serious "WTF" he believes in, too.

Perhaps it's cynicism or apathy, but I just don't care right now. I'm not a registered Republican and I can't vote in the Republican primary, so it doesn't really matter, for me, until an actual candidate is selected.

**Mr. Self Destruct**

RatBot wrote:Not having followed the Republican debates closely, Romney is the only candidate who hasn't said things that have left me completely and utterly bewildered. Paul has some good ideas, but there's plenty of serious "WTF" he believes in, too.

Perhaps it's cynicism or apathy, but I just don't care right now. I'm not a registered Republican and I can't vote in the Republican primary, so it doesn't really matter, for me, until an actual candidate is selected.

Romney isn't really catering towards the hard right, though. That's mainly peoples' problem with him, namely Romneycare.
Bachmann is starting to look more and more like Sarah Palin, though. I don't care really what I think of her, just after seeing the media shitstorm of Sarah Palin almost being second-in-command then I can't imagine how they would react if she actually became president. The last thing I want to do is support an unelectable candidate.
'Hey, I'm a woman! I'm going to say things that get more and more progressively stupid, and attempt to justify them in no coherent way possible! Yay!"
Then again, I wanted Donald Trump to be President so I might need to go get my flameshield.

**Karon**

dogma wrote:
Karon wrote:Rick Perry is a nutjob, its unbelievable people actually pay attention to him.

I think he's a gifted politician, though perhaps he's been too heavily socialized by Texas politics to really work at the national level, he certainly wouldn't be the first Governor with that problem (being socialized by state politics). I'm actually a little surprised he ran in this cycle, he would have had a better shot in an open election and had 4 more years to get his name out.

Karon wrote:
Meanwhile, the only Republican who doesn't seem flying rodent gak insane, Ron Paul, is laughed at and ignored by the media.

You are literally the first person I've ever heard say that.

Karon wrote:
If Rick Perry, Romney, and Bachman are the best Republicans can do, with Ron Paul being ignored, Obama will be elected for another 4 years.

Romney will give Obama a real challenge, Perry might, but Bachman won't make it out of the primaries in any conceivable scenario.

Well, I'll point you over to this thread about Rick Perry that went absolutely splendid, just for some fun memories. http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/391612.page

Anyone completely against Gay Marriage and Abortion won't get elected President, no way in hell.

I'm still skeptical on Romney, it seems the only reason he would be elected is because nobody better is running for the Republicans.

Jon Stewart pointed out the whole "ignore and laugh at crazy old Ron" thing on his show a couple of weeks ago, and it was very entertaining.

http://dailycapitalist.com/2011/08/16/jon-stewart-on-why-ron-paul-is-ignored-by-the-press/

Roughly 4 minutes long.

**chaos0xomega**

murdog wrote:To tell you the truth, I'm a little worried as I peer across the border. How can the US maintain 1000 military bases, a defense budget in the neighbourhood of 500 billion and 17 intelligence agencies when unemployment is at 9% (40% for young black men!), there are huge racial wealth gaps, and workers, public and private, are taking to the streets to protect their rights (eg. Madison, Verizon)? There was that huge debt crisis, and the Pentagons' budget wasn't on the table in any meaningful way. More and more it seems like the rich and powerful down there are becoming more brazen in their attempts to control, and soon enough regular people will force some real changes at the top. Obama has been a real dissapointment (Yes We... Can't?).

Bases: http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175338/

That source of information is a very clever instance of data engineering. While the writer to some extent acknowledges this, he doesn't make it clear. Not every base is like Bagram, in fact a lot of these installations are pretty much storage facilities/radar installations, etc. manned by very small numbers of personnel, if at all. In a lot of cases these installations are part of foreign/allied bases. The author alludes to this but tries to argue otherwise. Though RAF Mildenhall has a large US presence, nobody would ever try arguing its anything other than an RAF base that happens to have US units assigned. Also, as stated in the article, a lot of the bases in this count come from Iraq/Afghanistan, and are NECESSARY TO FIGHTING A WAR.

Rick Perry is a nutjob, its unbelievable people actually pay attention to him.

Meanwhile, the only Republican who doesn't seem flying rodent gak insane, Ron Paul, is laughed at and ignored by the media.

Ron Paul IS a nutjob, the only difference is that Ron Paul is looking in the right direction.

What about Jon Huntsman? He doesn't seem to be getting any media attention at all, yet he is the best (IMO) candidate on the GOP ballot. He has experience (Governor of Utah, Ambassador to China, Businessman), he has a good relatively clean record, isn't a right wing christian fundamentalist nutjob, etc. etc. etc.

http://www.jon2012.com/

**Kilkrazy**

Despite the "data engineering", it is still true that the USA has a a massive military budget and a huge budget deficit.

**mattyrm**

dogma wrote:
Romney will give Obama a real challenge, Perry might, but Bachman won't make it out of the primaries in any conceivable scenario.

I recently read an in depth article about Perry in the economist, he sounded pretty sensible until I got to the Jesus stuff.

Seriously, If Obama doesn't win the next election, I will be fething amazed. The standard of bloke the republicans are putting out is laugh out loud funny. I'd prefer Perry over Mitt Magic Underpants Romney, who I have thought was a tit ever since I saw this on TV when I was over in CA. I was watching it live with my missus and I dont think ive ever laughed so much at an answer to a question.

If either of those two wins the election, ill be genuinely stunned. I will have even less respect for the conservatives in the US than I do now.

And its a fething shame, because Religious nonsense aside, I'd rather see a conservative in than a democrat, and I've no love for Obama. Who do secular centre right people like me even vote for in the states these days?! It seems like your stuck between those hippy democrats or a bunch of Authoritarian Christians that come across as genuinely sinister. Some of the things that the main Republican runners have said just blow me away.

Either way though, US politics is way more fun than ours.

**dogma**

Karon wrote:
Anyone completely against Gay Marriage and Abortion won't get elected President, no way in hell.

I'm pretty sure Bush 2 was explicitly against both.

Karon wrote:
I'm still skeptical on Romney, it seems the only reason he would be elected is because nobody better is running for the Republicans.

He's pretty good, honestly. His weaknesses are Mormonism and the healthcare thing.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

chaos0xomega wrote:
What about Jon Huntsman? He doesn't seem to be getting any media attention at all, yet he is the best (IMO) candidate on the GOP ballot. He has experience (Governor of Utah, Ambassador to China, Businessman), he has a good relatively clean record, isn't a right wing christian fundamentalist nutjob, etc. etc. etc.

He didn't do a good job with publicity, and is probably too centrist.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

mattyrm wrote:
Seriously, If Obama doesn't win the next election, I will be fething amazed.

He is polling well thus far, so I agree that its an uphill battle for GOP candidate. Romney looks the best on paper, but Perry has been polling very well with the base. It will be a bloody primary, followed by an even more bloody general.

mattyrm wrote:
I was watching it live with my missus and I dont think ive ever laughed so much at an answer to a question.

No candidate who wanted to win would ever say anything negative about America, even if it was the most rational response.

mattyrm wrote:
Who do secular centre right people like me even vote for in the states these days?!

Ron Paul.

mattyrm wrote:
Either way though, US politics is way more fun than ours.

But you have Lucy Pinder, fair trade.

**Necroshea**

I'm not big on politics, as I usually don't any of the choices, but what's the status on Trump runnning? Last I heard he said he would run if the people who might make president sucked, or something to that effect.

Also curious about people's thoughts on him.

**Radiation**

For the ascendant, post-9/11, populist right-wing, freedom is just another word for low taxes and an invasive, religiously correct authoritarianism.

Amen brothers and sisters.

**mattyrm**

dogma wrote:

mattyrm wrote:
I was watching it live with my missus and I dont think ive ever laughed so much at an answer to a question.

No candidate who wanted to win would ever say anything negative about America, even if it was the most rational response.

Is that really true though? Don't you think that the politicians seem to believe that the electorate are far stupider than they actually are? The uber patriotic idiots that say "he hates America!" don't make up the majority of the population in my eyes. I think that It would look far better to the vast majority of people if he said "yes America is a fantastic nation and its citizens are some of the happiest and healthiest in the world, but we can always strive to do better and we need to do better in this this and this regard"

After all, whats the point in doing anything at all if everything is fething perfect? Why even get into politics if your main aim isn't to make things better?

Ive long believed that the US is full of smarter people than everyone seems to think. I dont for a minute believe you would be utterly unelectable if you were.. you know.. honest.

**dogma**

mattyrm wrote:
Is that really true though? Don't you think that the politicians seem to believe that the electorate are far stupider than they actually are?

I think that politicians don't know much of anything about the electorate, but the people that they employ to know things about it are pretty bright, and knowledgeable.

mattyrm wrote:
The uber patriotic idiots that say "he hates America!" don't make up the majority of the population in my eyes.

Certainly not, but they vote more than most other groups.

mattyrm wrote:
After all, whats the point in doing anything at all if everything is fething perfect? Why even get into politics if your main aim isn't to make things better?

I'm in politics and I'm not out to improve anything, its just a living to me. I probably picked it over economics because I'm better at it, and my dad is very political. For many of us its just a way of life we were socialized into.

mattyrm wrote:
Ive long believed that the US is full of smarter people than everyone seems to think. I dont for a minute believe you would be utterly unelectable if you were.. you know.. honest.

I think most politicians, at the national level, don't have strongly held beliefs because the absence of them is a large part of getting lots of different people to like you. The term "statesman" would not be amiss.

Also, randomly, it reminds me of this Bismarck quote:

I consider even a victorious war as an evil, from which statesmanship must endeavor to spare nations