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A person who is smart and who is otherwise a good friend of mine considers himself a Compassionate Conservative, and is pro-Bush. We do not usually discuss politics, but he jumps on me every time I post a reference to Bush in a political thread at the board both of us are members of. Like I said, we usually see past this, but recently he asked me in a PM what my problem with Bush was, and so I started a discussion via private message.
I am glad to say that although I disagree strongly with his views, we have both stayed rational up to now. My reason for posting here is that I am in some kind of fix: I see his argument, know it to be wrong, but don't know how to pick it apart and counter it. I do not know any reliable source that he would trust. If I fell to discussing it in a way I knew to be irrational (such as cynicism or ad hominem), I would have effectively lost the discussion (as well as a friend ;) ). If I didn't respond, both of us would think we had insulted the other. If I backed down and either accepted his view or gave up defending mine, I would be dishonest with myself.
So here's his latest reply. Please suggest to me how to respond to this, and perhaps link to (neutral!) sites that can be trusted and that support the counter arguments.
Like you, I do not agree with either candidate, forcing me to support what I see as the lesser evil (which goes against my nature, unfortunately).
It has been proven by people on all sides of the political divide that the actions of the U.S. government have far less of an effect on our economy than is generally believed. Clinton could be blamed for our current problems as much, if not more, than Bush, if one looked at the trends at the end of his term. I tend to avoid accusing either. The economy will heal itself in time, whether Bush or Kerry is president.
As I have probably said before, Iraq and abortion are the two major issues in my mind, and I agree with Bush on both. I believe that we were right to remove Saddam by force, for the very reason that you call Bush's excuse. Saddam's reign was a reign of terror, and many of the "lies" that Bush has told are not, in fact, lies. It is a well-known fact that Saddam possessed and used WMDs, including biological and chemical weapons. It is ridiculous to believe that a leader such as Saddam would use every WMD in his arsenal, leaving himself defenseless (in his own mind). We are now told that Saddam was not seeking nuclear missles - then why did spiteful Iraqi scientists try to discredit us by telling us that they had told Saddam that they were much closer to building an actual nuke than they actually were, to save their own lives and those of the families? The anti-Bush argument that Saddam had no active nuclear program is completely blown away by the facts, and yet it is a widely held belief.
And terrorist ties - nobody seems to realize that al-Qaida is not the only terrorist organization in the Middle East, that there is proof that Saddam was actively aiding at least non-al-Qaida terrorists who would gladly have attacked the U.S. and Israel. But this fact, too, is ignored in the quest to discredit Bush.
Abortion I will leave for another time, but I cannot allow myself to sink so low as to support Kerry in his policies regarding that. It is dangerous to support someone because of who they are not rather than because of who they are, and Kerry, to me, is a prime example of this danger.
I hadn't thought of the Middle East as the "Near East" to Europe, I admit, but to tell you the truth, it doesn't seem to matter. The Atlantic didn't stop al-Qaida on 9/11. Spain and Russia have been attacked; so has Indonesia, so has the U.S., and so have many other countries world-wide; even Japan and South Korea have been attacked indirectly. In today's world, proximity is almost redundant. I will not deny that the U.S. agitation in the Middle East has stirred up terrorism and inspired some attacks that may not have happened otherwise, but what is the alternative? Terrorism existed before 9/11, before Iraq. It had to be taken care of eventually. How better to eliminate (or at least diminish) it than to knock out its footholds, to offer better oppurtunities (which we are trying our hardest to do in Iraq, as a simple Google search will show you)?
We cannot sit back and let such atrocities occur; if we must stick out our necks, and even the necks of our allies, then so be it. The risk of death now is better than sure and unavoidable death later on, you must admit.
Bush did not use this "excuse" as his reason because, simply, the American people do not care enough about humanity to do something for the sake of our foreign brothers and sisters if it does not directly benefit us as well. FDR did the same thing in WWII, with amazing results; Bush is nowhere near as good a president as FDR, and therefore could not do it as effectively. A pity, surely, but Roosevelt is dead, and we must make do with what we have. At least Bush has the resolve to carry it through, unlike Kerry.
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"Mission Accomplished" was a mistake, surely, but what people seem to forget is that the war is won. The war was to remove (capture or kill) Saddam and defeat his Republican Guard; this has undeniably been accomplished. Sure, the larger mission is an ongoing process - it will be that way for years - but the war is won.
The election scandal was no fault of Bush's, although it may have benefitted him; but, again, most people don't seem to realize that by our democratic republican system, Bush won. As simple as that.
I am as against Fundamentalism as you are, possibly more so because it tarnishes my own image, but I certainly do not think that Bush is a theocrat. Maybe he could back off from the religion in politicas a bit, but again, the republican system is set up to elect a leader and allow him or her to govern us. We knew that Bush was Christian, and that no one can be expected to keep their own personal beliefs out of politics; if America would really suffer from having a Christian leader who actually believes in his religion, which is something I'm questioning more and more in Kerry, then he would not have been elected.
As I've said for years, you cannot clean up a mess without first making it worse. Think of your bookcase - would you be able to reorganize it without first removing everything from the shelves and scattering it on the floor? I know I cannot. Yes, Bush will bring troubles to the world, or more accurately will uncover the world's troubles and expose them to the light so that they can be healed. Bush has the international interventionalist spirit that I respect so much in FDR; unfortunately he is nowhere near as competent in its use, but at least it's there. Kerry is a career politician, no more than a tool to remove Bush from office. I do not want a tool as my leader, possibly the most powerful man in the world.
Reading it gives me a little of a headache, because this is someone I know to be a rational person, not an idiot like most people who support Bush these days. That means that rather than telling him to "fuck off", I will have to face his arguments and discuss it rationally.
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