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Everyone in this thread gets a SPECIAL cookie... just do not, I repeat DO NOT eat the stingy bits, and you will be just fine .

No not the bees!

NOT THE BEES!!!

Damn, it's too bad this isn't the wasteland...

BTW, Dogma is epic win.

dogma wrote:OH NO! CAPITALS! Eight years is nothing. For someone who discusses the lesson of history so freely, you seem horribly unable to actually apply them to your own observation.

Eight years is more than enough to begin to judge Bush on his Presidency considering how radical so many of his policy stances were and therefore the rapidity with which they took effect. I say "begin to judge" not "make a final judgment." Your protestations would only make sense if I said the latter. I didn't, and have not, therefore they don't.

dogma wrote:

Cairnius wrote:
You will usually hear me argue that the President has much less power and influence than most people think he does. Bush does not have to be a single, causal force to be judged. He is the Commander In Chief - Iraq and Afghanistan get laid on his doorstep. I am pretty sure that Gore would not have invaded Iraq, and that the retaliation against the Taliban would have taken a different form.

Wait, the President has little power, but can be blamed for major actions in foreign policy? That's contradictory.

Also, what would the retaliation against the Taliban have looked like under a Gore Administration? How would it have been different?

When you make straw man arguments you begin to lose points. "Has much less power and influence than most people think he does" does not equal "has little power." It's one thing to misquote someone and turn it into a straw man if you're misquoting a speech or a piece of text which isn't readily available to check for the literal quotation, but my post was right above yours here...

The statement was also a general one, and then we moved into a specific arena of Executive power, namely approval over military action. It's not contradictory if the two statements aren't properly related to one another.

The President is the Commander In Chief. By the letter of the law, any and all overt military actions taken require the okay from the President. So, when it comes to military action, yes he can be blamed for it.

What do I expect Gore would have done? Air strikes followed by special ops missions, and we might have had bin Laden by now, just maybe. Flooding the area with conventional troops and driving the Taliban "to zee hills" was a formula for failure from the get-go.

dogma wrote:

Cairnius wrote:
The tax cuts were more standard Republican ideology than Bush's idea, but he did push the cuts. He takes a large portion of the blame as he was leading a Republican legislative majority.

More waffling stupidity. If you're going to blame him, blame him. If not, make a case based on intellectual consideration.

Also, when did blame become useful? This looks more like catharsis than argument.

"Moronic" and "stupidity" in one post. Temper, temper, dogma. Don't lose face, here. Go hit the weights and you'll calm down a titch.

Blaming Bush solely for the tax cuts would be stupidity, hence I did not do it. He shares blame, hence "a large portion," not "all." Again, this is just how our government works. You can't give him more blame than the Legislature that passed the tax cuts.

Blame is never useful? Interesting world you live in.

dogma wrote:Cheney may have run the White House, but he was only able to do so as a result of the Neo-Con saturation of the Executive. Cheney had power because the Neo-Cons were everywhere, not because Bush delegated his authority.

Bush didn't have to let the Neo-Cons saturate the Executive. He was the President. It was his branch of the government for the time during which he held the office. The Neo-Con saturation, as you put it, was spearheaded by Cheney, and Bush could have reined Cheney in at any point.

He did not. Direct, causal event.

dogma wrote:

Cairnius wrote:
He did allow Guantanamo to become a clearinghouse for pissing all over our laws. He did champion the Patriot Act. He did give the right-wing religious whackos and extreme right-wingers access to the executive branch.

Oh, dear sweet Jesus. Shall I litanize the near comprehensive support for all of these initiatives? Or should I just point out the Realpolitik justification which underpins them?

In a state of war, the power of the bully pulpit increases exponentially. The Legislature would have pretty much gotten behind anything the President said at that point. They had no choice. Therefore, if you are referring to comprehensive support for Guantanamo and the Patriot Act that's pretty thin ice to stand on. The Democrats didn't have the numbers to oppose any of this, and couple that with the realities of wartime politics and they had no choice but to fall into line.

Had the President not put these things into play, however, they would have not had them to fall into line behind. You're letting Bush off very easy. Neither of these things would have taken place if Bush had stood against them. You wouldn't have seen them take place with Gore in office and Republican majorities in the Legislature.

dogma wrote:

Cairnius wrote:
If Bush's presidency were to be summed up, it would be "Took vacations and let other people run the country for him." He was "the decider," but who gave him the information from which he made his decisions and how much did he inquire, how much leadership did he show?

Sic Semper Obama.

"Thus always to Obama?"

dogma wrote:

Cairnius wrote:
History can blame Bush for all of this. His lack of leadership allowed the United States to be run by narrow interests for eight years, and that's his fault. He could have manned up and actually been a President any time he wanted, and he chose not to, probably because he knew he was hopelessly over his head.

History can blame him? When did it become history? I thought his policies were matters of current events?

I tip my cap to you, armchair intellectual. You remind me why I disdain the academy.

Cairnius wrote:"Moronic" and "stupidity" in one post. Temper, temper, dogma. Don't lose face, here. Go hit the weights and you'll calm down a titch.

Blaming Bush solely for the tax cuts would be stupidity, hence I did not do it. He shares blame, hence "a large portion," not "all." Again, this is just how our government works. You can't give him more blame than the Legislature that passed the tax cuts.

Blame is never useful? Interesting world you live in.

Hah... you said stupid. Wearing too many shades only makes you look like the Guvernator... and Dogma is cool, you good sir, are most clearly not .

I think watching dogma lose his cool in person would probably make me laugh with extreme merriment. Worth the price of a ticket

Sorry mate... but EXTREME merriment? Jolly old Sant-E Claus in this piece .

You have lost this fight... around... NOW!

Hell yes, extreme merriment! Watching people lose their gak is one of the funniest things imaginable, especially if it's over something trivial. You can't tell me you've never enjoyed the guilty pleasure, like watching someone lose their mind because their favorite sports team lost even though they had no bets placed. That cracks me up every time.

It's difficult to demonstrate true awesomeness online. The internet is a realm of bs, anonymous missives that hold little meaning as no one is really responsible for anything they have to say. I have that debate with my internet-famous wife all the time and it really pisses her off, but it's only when she actually goes out into the real world and does book readings or meetings or rallies and things like that, face-to-face, that I think she's really making a difference. Otherwise, it's just some kind of cross between pure entertainment or mental flossing expressed in words or pure rambling flowing into the text...

Definition of EXTREME merriment...



And when you are with all your best buddies...



Go EXTREME merriment GO!!!

What's that first clip from?

Advance it to the point where the guy's head explodes...

Worst acting... ever... I smell a troll .

Cairnius wrote:
Eight years is more than enough to begin to judge Bush on his Presidency considering how radical so many of his policy stances were and therefore the rapidity with which they took effect. I say "begin to judge" not "make a final judgment." Your protestations would only make sense if I said the latter. I didn't, and have not, therefore they don't.

You didn't say any of that. You simply made a claim to judgment, which is final by definition. Learn your words son.

Cairnius wrote:
When you make straw man arguments you begin to lose points. "Has much less power and influence than most people think he does" does not equal "has little power." It's one thing to misquote someone and turn it into a straw man if you're misquoting a speech or a piece of text which isn't readily available to check for the literal quotation, but my post was right above yours here...

We're turning our positions on logic now? I thought that went out the door when you cited 'people'.

Cairnius wrote:
The statement was also a general one, and then we moved into a specific arena of Executive power, namely approval over military action. It's not contradictory if the two statements aren't properly related to one another

The President is the Commander In Chief. By the letter of the law, any and all overt military actions taken require the okay from the President. So, when it comes to military action, yes he can be blamed for it.

I can also blame the public for having elected him. Blame is a funny thing in that it tends to spread like fire once its accepted as a logical construct. Hence it being useless.

Cairnius wrote:
What do I expect Gore would have done? Air strikes followed by special ops missions, and we might have had bin Laden by now, just maybe. Flooding the area with conventional troops and driving the Taliban "to zee hills" was a formula for failure from the get-go.

You haven't read much about Afghanistan, have you? Air strikes and special-ops missions is pretty much how the 'war' was conducted from the beginning.

Cairnius wrote:
"Moronic" and "stupidity" in one post. Temper, temper, dogma. Don't lose face, here. Go hit the weights and you'll calm down a titch.

Aw, look at the prof. trying to bait.

Cairnius wrote:
Blaming Bush solely for the tax cuts would be stupidity, hence I did not do it. He shares blame, hence "a large portion," not "all." Again, this is just how our government works. You can't give him more blame than the Legislature that passed the tax cuts.

True. I misread that segment of your post.

Cairnius wrote:
Blame is never useful? Interesting world you live in.

See above.

Cairnius wrote:
Bush didn't have to let the Neo-Cons saturate the Executive. He was the President. It was his branch of the government for the time during which he held the office. The Neo-Con saturation, as you put it, was spearheaded by Cheney, and Bush could have reined Cheney in at any point.

The Neo-Con saturation predates Bush, by several years.

Cairnius wrote:
He did not. Direct, causal event.

Bukharin could have killed Stalin. Direct, causal events.

Cairnius wrote:
In a state of war, the power of the bully pulpit increases exponentially. The Legislature would have pretty much gotten behind anything the President said at that point. They had no choice. Therefore, if you are referring to comprehensive support for Guantanamo and the Patriot Act that's pretty thin ice to stand on. The Democrats didn't have the numbers to oppose any of this, and couple that with the realities of wartime politics and they had no choice but to fall into line.

They had a choice. Again, the removal of agency becomes no argument.

Cairnius wrote:
Had the President not put these things into play, however, they would have not had them to fall into line behind. You're letting Bush off very easy. Neither of these things would have taken place if Bush had stood against them. You wouldn't have seen them take place with Gore in office and Republican majorities in the Legislature.

No, I'm simply refusing to remove causal impetus from the other actors in question.

Cairnius wrote:
"Thus always to Obama?"

Yep.

Cairnius wrote:
History - took place in the past. Bush is no longer President. His Presidency became history the moment Barack Obama took office.

And yet we're living his polciies...

Cairnius wrote:
For someone who professes disdain for the academy you do an excellent impersonation of the disaffected intellectuals who, upon realizing that thought is an ability rarely valued and rather useless in the world most of the time, adopt an attitude of smug superiority and hide within its ivory towers.

I'm self-hating.

Cairnius wrote:
Don't take this all so seriously, dogma. I'm having fun, and I hope I come across that way. Relax a little, you'll live longer.

This is fun. Aggression is amusing.

Cairnius wrote:
I’m not impressed thus far, but then again this is a pretty lightweight environment. I could count the number of serious debaters here on one hand, which is no criticism as this is a 40K site after all.

I'm always interested in how internet debaters would do in public. I'm much better in person than online...it's one thing to see people compose responses in text, another to see them think extremely rapidly on their feet. And also to be able to do so while entertaining and winning over a crowd.

Funny thing about public debate, facts cease to matter.

Funny thing about any debate, the opinion of the debaters never matters.

Cairnius wrote:
I think watching dogma lose his cool in person would probably make me laugh with extreme merriment. Worth the price of a ticket.

If you laugh, you won't be detached, If you aren't detahced, emotion will play. If emotion plays...well, it gets interesting.

Dogma wrote:You haven't read much about Afghanistan, have you? Air strikes and special-ops missions is pretty much how the 'war' was conducted from the beginning.

As soon as they ran out of Navy seals with lasers on their heads they started making Swiss cheese out of the mountains .

The fact remains that one of the most "media-frenzied" parts of the war (from my memory at least) was how many goddam passover ramadan Sundays with extra sour cream explosives they actually "happened" to have dropped... and drop they did ever so liberm... conservatively. Funny how the... okay I will leave now -HAH- ...

Out of curiosity could Cairnius be a "Concern Troll" ? Perhaps this a superbly suiting tangent to this conversation. I am interested in Troll research, especially the false Troll/ actually angry dude face... or something along those lines.

Anyway...

Wiki wrote:In a more recent example, The Hill published an op-ed piece titled "Dems: Ignore 'Concern Trolls'." Again, the concern trolls in question were not Internet participants; they were Republicans offering public advice and warnings to the Democrats. The author defines "concern trolling" as "offering a poisoned apple in the form of advice to political opponents that, if taken, would harm the recipient."

Yes, I choose to quote Wiki quite often, GET OFF DEEZ NUTZE!!!

Diggity-Dogmatic DJ wrote:If you laugh, you won't be detached, If you aren't detahced, emotion will play. If emotion plays...well, it gets interesting.

Speak wisely you do...

Cairnius wrote:Hell yes, extreme merriment! Watching people lose their gak is one of the funniest things imaginable, especially if it's over something trivial. You can't tell me you've never enjoyed the guilty pleasure, like watching someone lose their mind because their favorite sports team lost even though they had no bets placed. That cracks me up every time.

Well, I'm not big into schaenfreude, and eventually the reality of people losing their cool unnerves me more than anything. There are times it's amusing to be sure, but I'm not sure is the funniest thing imaginable.

It's difficult to demonstrate true awesomeness online.

Which makes it all the more impressive when it happens.

The internet is a realm of bs, anonymous missives that hold little meaning as no one is really responsible for anything they have to say.

Come now anonymity ain't what it used to be. Most of us post here in at best a thinly concealed way. We don't list out home addresses in our profiles, but not every internet site is 4chan. And that's ignoring the inherent value of a persona in an environment like this. I don't know who dogma is IRL, but I know what his person on Dakka is, and he has a very good reputation. That makes him perhaps a chimera, but not anonymous.

In addition, anonymous missives have had profound influence in history. The Federalist papers are a classic example.

I have that debate with my internet-famous wife all the time and it really pisses her off, but it's only when she actually goes out into the real world and does book readings or meetings or rallies and things like that, face-to-face, that I think she's really making a difference. Otherwise, it's just some kind of cross between pure entertainment or mental flossing expressed in words or pure rambling flowing into the text...

I don't know if the above is just the result of "I got beat so I'm taking my toys and going home," if it's an inability to connect current phenomenon with historical trends, or just plain old academic snobbery, but it's pretty clueless. Yes, the internet allows every jack off with an opinion to vent it. The comments sections in daily newspapers and youtube make me want to weep.

That does not mean everybody online is an idiot nor does it make the medium inherently less valuable than any other means of communication.

To go back to the Federalist papers, pretty much anybody could print up pamphlets to get a point across. I"m sure not every pamplet in colonial America was as good as Common Sense, but the medium allowed ideas to travel in new and interesting ways.

If you find internet arguments too rough and tumble, that's fine. It's not for everybody and also tends not to really accomplish much (unlike all those other forms of debate that regularly settle things with finality). If thinking being able to defend your positions on the Dakka OT forum is beneath you, well, maybe it'll help you sleep at night. We don't mind.

I think the outbreak of Swine Flu could have something to do with Obama rising to power...

Wrexasaur wrote:
As soon as they ran out of Navy seals with lasers on their heads they started making Swiss cheese out of the mountains .

Its all Predator Drones and Guinea Pig Soldiers...

Wrexasaur wrote:
The fact remains that one of the most "media-frenzied" parts of the war (from my memory at least) was how many goddam passover ramadan Sundays with extra sour cream explosives they actually "happened" to have dropped... and drop they did ever so liberm... conservatively. Funny how the... okay I will leave now -HAH- ...

Christ! Its an opium poppy! Kill it with fire!

Wrexasaur wrote:
Out of curiosity could Cairnius be a "Concern Troll" ? Perhaps this a superbly suiting tangent to this conversation. I am interested in Troll research, especially the false Troll/ actually angry dude face... or something along those lines.

Interesting point. He actually remind me of myself, to a disturbing extent. That's most likely the source of my hostility towards him. I really need to learn how to control that. Damned hormones, always getting the better of me.

Wrexasaur wrote:
Yes, I choose to quote Wiki quite often, GET OFF DEEZ NUTZE!!!

Despite what the old school says, wiki is pretty reliable. If only as a means of instigating deeper inquiry, or participating in debates on internet forums which are devoid of intrinsic meaning.

Wrexasaur wrote:
Speak wisely you do...

It seems I have my moments.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Polonius wrote:I don't know who dogma is IRL, but I know what his person on Dakka is, and he has a very good reputation.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the thread...

Orlanth wrote:
The New Labour junta, yes it is one has passed a lot of laws on the backs of unrelated bills. other bills have transparnet double meanings.

New Labor is an absolutist military regime? When did that become reality? Are you trying to be poetic?

Orlanth wrote:
The UK is sleepwalking into Stalinism, and most poeple are too blind to see it.

You can't sleepwalk into a mode of of governance characterized by the violent seizure of power.

In any case the road from liberalism to Stalinism runs through Trotskyism.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:
At the end of WWII the US had the largest empire in the history of mankind. To quote some nice LOTR, we had but to reach out our hand and the world would have been ours. But we gave it up. No other nation ever voluntarily did that.

Squick!?! We gave up our empire? Voluntarily?

1: We never gave up our empire. Its still alive and kicking.

2: You've proven yourself exceptionally fond of the notion that power can only be taken. Why are you positing otherwise here?

3: While we did avoid the acquisition of certain liberties, it wasn't as a result of charity. Following WWII the US was quite keen on the fronting it ideology of exceptionalism, which hinged on the notion that the old ways of Europe were immoral. Compound this with a general tendency to overestimate the strength of the Soviet Union (with a good deal of misappropriated ideological brotherhood) mixed with a fetish for American weakness (really just a poor assessment of forces all around), and you have recipe for business as usual with respect to the interaction of political realism/idealism.

dogma wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

Polonius wrote:I don't know who dogma is IRL, but I know what his person on Dakka is, and he has a very good reputation.

Don't get to excited, Polonius is heavily medicated after...the incident. He doesn't know what he is typing.

Wrexasaur wrote:Yes, I choose to quote Wiki quite often, GET OFF DEEZ NUTZE!!!

Aww...but as Vince says:





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gorgon wrote:

Zathras wrote:

reds8n wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

reds8n wrote: Wait, you're now claiming that you helped overthrow a violent dictator ? Bet those Chileans are feeling pretty stupid now eh ?

Hussein wasn't violent?

Before or after "we" sold him all those weapons ?

Oh, you mean all of that Russian, Chinese and Frence equipment that the Iraqi army was using? Don't recall any US equipment being used against us.

We gave Iraq substantial aid back when we considered them the lesser evil compared to the religious fundamentalists (mainly Iran) in the region. IIRC, there's a photo op pic out there from the 1970s with Saddam and (ironically) either Rumsfeld or Cheney (can't remember which). I can't tell you what percentage was weapons, cash, etc., but we absolutely did help fund Iraq's war vs. Iran. (Iran who was our enemy because they hated the Shah, whom the U.S. helped set up.)

We prop up a dictator, dictator turns on us or becomes less useful, we knock him down and prop up a new one, rinse and repeat. You'd think we'd learn eventually.

A while back I remember seeing a graph of which countries gave aid to Iraq during that time frame....the US's portion was about .2% of the total aid given. We did aid Iraq with satelite imagery during their war with Iran but other than that I'm not aware of what other aid we provided. And it was Rumsfeld that was in the picture with Hussein IIRC.

Frazzled wrote:1. Never proven to actually, you know, work or anything.

Sbuh? First up 'proven' is one of those terms that gets brought up all the time in political debates about one science or another, especially when it comes to soft sciences like economics. Nothing is 'proven' in science, because that isn't how science works. If you only consider what is 'proven' you end up with nothing, because science doesn't seek to 'prove' anything. It establishes hypotheses that it seeks to disprove, and then builds models with predictive power based on those models. 'Proven' is a political sleight of hand used by people when their politics don't line up with the intellectual consensus.

Second up, there is plenty of debate about how large the stimulus should be and what it should consist of, but outside of the Austrian School nutters and politicians with no economics background, who out there is claiming there should be no stimulus? The debate was over by the 70s, remember Nixon saying 'we're all Keynesian now'?

2. They've spent 10% of the "emergency funds" to date. Most of that money was in tax rebates/abatements (whatever you call it). The actual "spending side of it is materially insignificant. The emergency stimulus was Dem porkbarrel pure and simple.

I don't get it. You post graphs showing the Democrat blow out in the deficit, then later complain that they haven't spent the money. Pick one, they're spending too much money or they haven't spent the money.

Meanwhile, you're way off the mark when you claim the stimulus stuff was in the tax rebates, while the spending stuff is insignificant. Studies printed in The Economist put stimulus results from tax rebates somewhere around 30 or 40c return on the dollar, while infrastructure stimulus was somewhere around $1.20. Tax cuts are a political measure, so people can see an immediate benefit from the government's deficit spending, but the real meat of the stimulus is in the infrastructure.

I would like to say one thing.

Cairnius is a fool.

Your first impression is what people will judge you one. Obama has made his first impression and has proven himself to be surrounded by a cult of personality and is himself a master of puppets.

He's also a hipocrite, as with most politicians, but while bush went on vacation to his private(as in he owned it) ranch, Obama takes air force 1 to see fireworks and spends millions to send his wife and kids overseas. I believe that is more of a waste of taxpayer's money than bush going home to relax.

However, blame can be useful and can be superfluous. A scapegoat is bad, while blaming bernie madoff is good.

Hitler never killed anyone, but ordered the killings. So you can blame him for the holocaust.


In non-sequiter fashion I pose this question: Who would you blame, Darth Vader for ordering the destruction of Alderaan or the guy who pushed the button?

I'm sorry Sebster, I missed the US recession that "Government Spend" economics ever got us out of. Oh right, yea, there wasn't one.

Well, WW2 got us out of the depression because the government was buying arms and other countires were buying from america.

That's what we need, another world war. Someone in germany needs to start something up again, if not then we'll find someone else.

halonachos wrote:
In non-sequiter fashion I pose this question: Who would you blame, Darth Vader for ordering the destruction of Alderaan or the guy who pushed the button?

Neither. I'd blame Grand Moff Tarkin. Vader just stood there doing the "bad mama menace" thing behind princess hairdo. It was Tarkin who ordered the planetwide hit. (insert nerdrage here)







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halonachos wrote:Well, WW2 got us out of the depression because the government was buying arms and other countires were buying from america.

Wrexy I'm stealing that one too.

That's what we need, another world war. Someone in germany needs to start something up again, if not then we'll find someone else.

yea but thats not Keynesian spend economics. The people espousing keynesian economics generally hang out out at the local antiwar college coffee shop.

This message brought to you by hurr hurr, now with more Durr!

Hey, I never stole anything from that wrex guy.

Yeah, but you said government spending, not anything about it being keynesian government spending.

And in retaltiation:

Sorry I should have been clear in meaning Keynesian spending as noted by Sebbie.

No I'm the one stealing from Wrexy.

Thief, you have violated the law. Pay the court a fine or serve your sentence.

I like how in Oblivion that you can kill as many people as you want and if you have enough money you can just get off without jailtime. Just like in real life.

halonachos wrote:
Your first impression is what people will judge you one. Obama has made his first impression and has proven himself to be surrounded by a cult of personality and is himself a master of puppets.

His whole point seems to have gone right over your head; seeing as you just validated it.

The reason I disputed his position was that, prior to him, no one talked about judgment. He introduced that concept where it wasn't present. Judgment is final, especially in colloquial usage, and if you judge someone based on a first impression (an inherently limited set of information) you are probably an idiot.

There's nothing wrong with forming an opinion based on a limited set of information, so long as the recognize the inherent limitations of that set. Judgment doesn't allow this.

halonachos wrote:
However, blame can be useful and can be superfluous. A scapegoat is bad, while blaming bernie madoff is good.

Hitler never killed anyone, but ordered the killings. So you can blame him for the holocaust.

Blame is only useful if you feel the need to have an emotional reaction to an event. Otherwise it doesn't sense to reference anything beyond a specific decision.

Frazzled wrote:
I'm sorry Sebster, I missed the US recession that "Government Spend" economics ever got us out of. Oh right, yea, there wasn't one.

Reagan.

Tax cuts - check

Massive spending increases - check

Recession ended - check

Frazzled wrote:
yea but thats not Keynesian spend economics. The people espousing keynesian economics generally hang out out at the local antiwar college coffee shop.

Yes, it is.

You're assuming that the current association Keynesian theory with the left has any bearing on the theory itself. It doesn't.

Frazzled wrote:

halonachos wrote:
In non-sequiter fashion I pose this question: Who would you blame, Darth Vader for ordering the destruction of Alderaan or the guy who pushed the button?

Neither. I'd blame Grand Moff Tarkin. Vader just stood there doing the "bad mama menace" thing behind princess hairdo. It was Tarkin who ordered the planetwide hit. (insert nerdrage here)







Automatically Appended Next Post:

halonachos wrote:Well, WW2 got us out of the depression because the government was buying arms and other countires were buying from america.

Wrexy I'm stealing that one too.

That's what we need, another world war. Someone in germany needs to start something up again, if not then we'll find someone else.

yea but thats not Keynesian spend economics. The people espousing keynesian economics generally hang out out at the local antiwar college coffee shop.

This message brought to you by hurr hurr, now with more Durr!

Did you know a hurr durr is what Liverpudlian women go to get before a big date, a wedding or similar?

Well, dogma, he's saying that we shouldn't judge obama because he has had so little time in office. He then says to do so makes you an idiot.

However, I am not proving his point by saying that one is judged by first impressions, in fact I do believe that I am contradicting him.

This all goes unless you can prove 100% that I am an idiot, in which case then yes I am proving his point.



But how is blame useful ONLY if you want to have an emotional attachment? I mean if you look at history then you learn that things happen and that some things have a person responsible for them.

If I look back and remember the person that caused something(good or bad or neutral) then I am just remembering that a person has caused something.

Now the word "blame" itself is a negative way of simply saying "caused".
"I believe Hitler caused the holocaust." and
"I blame Hitler for the holocaust." mean the same exact thing but the latter makes it seem worse.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Did you know a hurr durr is what Liverpudlian women go to get before a big date, a wedding or similar?

Hold the freaking stagecoach up...what did you say? There's a real hurr durr?

halonachos wrote:Well, dogma, he's saying that we shouldn't judge obama because he has had so little time in office. He then says to do so makes you an idiot.

However, I am not proving his point by saying that one is judged by first impressions, in fact I do believe that I am contradicting him.

This all goes unless you can prove 100% that I am an idiot, in which case then yes I am proving his point.

I didn't say you were proving his point, I said you were validating it. His point was clearly based on the assumption that a lot of people will make a judgment based upon unnecessarily limited information sets, and that doing so is bad. By postulating exactly that, while doing the same thing yourself, you validated his point.

halonachos wrote:
But how is blame useful ONLY if you want to have an emotional attachment? I mean if you look at history then you learn that things happen and that some things have a person responsible for them.

If I look back and remember the person that caused something(good or bad or neutral) then I am just remembering that a person has caused something

Now the word "blame" itself is a negative way of simply saying "caused".
"I believe Hitler caused the holocaust." and
"I blame Hitler for the holocaust." mean the same exact thing but the latter makes it seem worse.

You answered your own question by discussing the person. When you focus on the individual, rather than the choice, you necessarily move any conclusion drawn to new ground. Now there are ways of justifying this, but they are emotional. This doesn't make them bad, just limited in their overall usefulness.

There's a difference between saying "I blame Churchill for this decision, and I blame this decision for the war", and "I blame Churchill for the war".

Halanchos wrote:Now the word "blame" itself is a negative way of simply saying "caused".
"I believe Hitler caused the holocaust." and
"I blame Hitler for the holocaust." mean the same exact thing but the latter makes it seem worse.

If I am not mistaken you would have to say.... no more Godwin goodbye.

Anyway, how about this one...

"Jervis caused us all to be broke."
-or-
"I blame Jervis for the lack of spending power I have left."

Blame is a tool used to relieve your personal responsibility from the equation. Saying "caused" does not infer a lack of personal responsibility. I do think this is a bit pedantic but hey... nachos are great!

Sure they mean two different things, it should be a matter of context really. In a debate, blame should be explicitly avoided, but the circus that always ensues does reinforce your general perspective on this one. There are many other ways to approach the situation, such as presenting alternatives to knee-jerk reactionism... which Obama does a half-assed job at. If you take some of the things he is saying out of context it can sound really bad. His biggest flaw seems to be his almost dyslexic approach to answering specific questioning.

"Well, you know that this suck so very bad, but we are in a situation that sucks even more because we are actually living in that situation... or something..."

Sorry Obama... but HUH? Did you mean what you said or are you trying to be all hyper-witty and... wait, he meant it . I need to get my dyslexinese handbook out for his next speech .