Our political leaders are definitely not to be trusted; this has been the case for a long time. In numerous situations, they have betrayed our trust so many times that they no longer deserve it. The scary side of the issue is this: What if a bad situation arises and action is needed, and our leaders tell the truth for once? Who will believe them? This breakdown of trust may well have severe consequences some day, and we have liars like Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Tony Blair, and countless others to blame for this sad state of affairs.

Iraq may well be turning into (to plagiarize from Saddam Hussein) "The Mother of All Quagmires". I still believe that getting rid of Saddam Hussein was a good thing to do, but the way it was done was horrendously botched. We would not be having nearly as many problems if we had been patient and worked for international support. Then, it would have been a UN-sanctioned, international affair and would have been less likely to stir up Islamic rage, and the post-war occupation government would have had more legitimacy. George W. "Redneck" Bush was just too impatient - he couldn't stand to wait. Now, because of his arrogance, numerous innocent people are losing their lives. History will judge this idiot very harshly.

Heather H.

Ladies--

As I sit here, I wonder: I am just barely old enough to remember Vietnam. I have read enough of it, even with revisionist histrionics thrown in, to begin to see a chilling pattern here.

How long will it be before we wake up and pull what's left of the troops out...or, have we already condemned another batch of young people to die without truly having a just cause?

Luv 'n hugs,

Jayne Sakura
"Almost-Angel, T-Girl Genius, and Ultra-Flirt"

Stevie, hon--

There's only one problem with that analogy: I don't kill people in my line of work, nor do I expect to be killed at my job today.

I don't disagree that Hussein needed to go. Tyrants should not be allowed to continue.

My questions was, is, and remains: How much longer will the futile part of this continue? I have me a sneaky hunch that if we really wanted to, we would have both Hussy AND Osamama by dinner tonight.

But, because we have to maintain a "presence" in that region for "stability" (read--Shrub wants another crack in the Oval) we will not hesitate to keep our young bucks over there and getting shot at.

I still support the C.I.C.--why I do sometimes escapes me--but I am really getting tired of hearing all the crap. Is there any good thing coming out of this, or are we going to hold this like we did in 'Nam for too long a time?

In short--let's finish this operation and go home.

Luv' n hugs,

Jayne Sakura
"Almost-Angel, T-Girl Genius, and Ultra-Flirt"

Stevie, hon--

What makes you think that the region was stable before we started over there? The area has been unstable since before the time of Christ! I don't buy that argument in totality, but only in part--we do need to clean up our mess before coming home, I suppose. Wouldn't want the UN calling us dirty names or anything...!

I don't think Hussy will come back. Powerbroker or no, he has too big a bounty on his little red beret to return to formal power. (He could end up like Arafat--a "leader" without a country--but I highly doubt it.) Besides--if we capture him, he becomes a martyr. You think it is ugly now?

I guess what I'd like to hear is some of the good things that are happening there, and I'd like to have some reassurance that we will be done with this sooner than later, and could we PLEASE get the rest of the world in to help "stabilize" the region? I am kinda tired, I 'spose, of it always having to be our battle, our mess.

Jayne Sakura

I miss a lot when I drop out for a few days...

The Middle East is the greatest quagmire the world has ever known, and it has been that way for ages. Unfortunately, they had to be sitting on top of oil. If not for that, they would still be fighting their battles with swords and rusty guns rather than chemical weapons and rocket-propelled-grenades.

There was no good solution to the Iraq situation, but I am not convinced that ours was the best. As I stated earlier, international consent and participation would have been far preferable to the present situation. The present situation is plagued by poor planning and a lack of international support, and I believe these problems would have been mitigated if the United States had been more patient and less arrogant.

In the long run, however, we must find a way of reducing our dependence on limited natural resources from bad parts of the world so that we can pull all of our money out of these regions and allow them to sink back to the stone age so that they cannot threaten us anymore. In the 1960's, President Kennedy stated a strong national commitment to sending a man to the moon before the end of the decade, and against all odds, we made it. Imagine if we had the same commitment to finding a replacement for oil, with considerable government and private investment. We would then not have to worry nearly as much about some of the nastiest parts of the world, and those places would lose their source of funding. Imagine not having to depend on the Middle East, Central Asia, Russia, and Africa for oil - that would go a long way towards solving many of our national security problems.

In the United States, we have a great deal of technical expertise and a lot of well-educated people. We could solve this problem once and for all - if we wanted to.

Heather H.

Hi everyone:

Well Stevie if you don't think bush was unelected maybe I can sell you some swamp land for your new house. First, lets start with the "electoral college". I understand why this convoluted monstrosity was originally started but in reality it has no use or relevance in today's world and needs to be done away with. The truth is that Al Gore got more votes than bush. That's true democracy and bush lost.

Second and more entertaining is how the state of Florida was fixed (I was living there at there time). Let's start with the then venerable secretary of state kathren harris. Her first step toward trying to fix the election was to take the name of ex-convicted felons (which can't vote in FL) and expand this list to ANY name that was similar in spelling thus eliminating many black voters. I remember interviews with many black voters on local tv screaming about how they weren't allowed to vote and they had never been convicted of anything. So with part of the opposition eliminated they were on their way but so many people in FL didn't want an unbalanced fool like bush in the white house they had to go a few steps further to cement the fix. Now it get's even more creative.

Now let's look at West Palm Beach that that miraculously had 19,000 votes that weren't counted or went bush's way either because of hanging chads or the wierd way their ballot was set up (mine was set up differently). Peter Deutch, the West Palm Beach congressman and an extremely liberal Democrat runs "UNOPPOSED" every time he's up for re-election. No republican will even waste their time or money to try to unseat him yet the final count had bush winning West Palm Beach. Sounds more than a little fishy to me.

Now lets check the voting machine fraud that went on. I read a detailed article a while back where (and I do forget the name of the county-it begins with a V) the first upload had Gore ahead by roughly 10,000 votes. The author of the article was at the upload sight when a second upload (and no one knows where it came from) with the exact total of votes as the first authentic upload replaced the original upload with new totals that miraculously had bush ahead by about 9,000 votes. This was caught and corrected but how many of these phantom vote uploads weren't detected and how many were there. No one knows for sure. The really neat thing about all this FL mess is that coincidentally the shrub's little brother jebbie just happened to be the governor of FL. But even this wasn't enough to totally insure the chimp's coronation so further favors had to be called in.

Enter the Supreme Joke (er I mean court)who abruptly put an end to the FL recount and crowned the venerable guardian of freedom and democracy we are now cursed with even though the count was extremely close despite the previous fixes in baby george's favor. The fun thing is that they weren't even subtle about the way they did it and even better than this is that a good percentage of them were appointed by..... you guessed it "big daddy george bush". Now we have a real family affair going that all Americans can be proud of.

GEORGE BUSH IS UNELECTED!

The results of all this effort have done nothing less than intensify a culture war within the U.S., alienate most of our major allies, cause an invasion of a non hostile country (and yes bush did say he was invading because of WMD so please stop trying to justify the unjustifiable by changing the story. bush could care less about the people of Iraq and Saddam actually did what he was supposed to do and get rid of the WMD's-now he's in prison for it not that he wasn't a major creep to begin with), kill roughly 10,000 non combatants in Iraq (women and children too), kill over 500 and counting U.S military personel, run the ecconomy into the ground with ecconomic policies that never have and never will work (no Stevie they won't work even if you want them to), loose roughly 3,000,000 jobs, establish the record for a governmental deficit from what used to be a surplus prior to the coup, hand his vice president's company over 8 billion dollars of our money in a contract they didn't even have to bid on. There's alot more but I think this post is more than long enough and you should get the general idea.

Hugs

Betty

Stevie, I thought everyone knew that Bush thinks all trannies are homosexuals.
It is certainly the position of our attorney general and his Assembly of God church, who believe that Homosexuals are not only sinful but also evil.
The dead cat for president is looking better every day.

Hi again:

I honestly don't know if George Bush is personally against Trannies or not. I do know that he ran into a post-op TS at his class reunion and treated her (from all accounts I heard) very nicely. On the other hand, from what I know and have heard of his religious background, I tend to think he definitely would be against us.

Now the marriage issue (and I'm sure Bush absolutely hates to have to address this in an election year)is something different. The bottom line is that no where in the U.S. constitution does it leave room to deny equal rights to some just because they choose to be committed to a certain gendered individual as opposed to another which is why all this talk about a marriage amendment is going on. Bush has done nothing but indicate that he'll support this discriminatory addition to the constitution.

The truth is, that with his support base shrinking and the results of many of his decisions crashing down around his ears, the one group he can still kind of count on is the extreme religious right wing and they will demand he support the discrimination amendment. He will ultimately support it. He almost has to.

The concept of marriage, as I see it is strictly a function of the various churches and they should be able to make their own decisions as to who they want to marry. The rights and responsibilities are a function of civil law and at this point there are no constitutional grounds to deny these to gay couples not even if the individual states would like to do so.

Hugs

Betty

Geez!

This started off about the lack of a war, and ends up being a battle over old news.

Like him or not, Bush is still the Prez.

Like it or not, there will be a push for some form of Constitutional Amendment on Marriage. We as TG's will lose, if we don't get out and vote with our minds, not with a party affiliation. Just because someone is running against Bush does not imply that they are any better for the job.

Like this or not, the Patriot Act has eroded many civil rights. And if Bush is reupped, bet your bottom yen that it will become permanent, and that many sheep will go along with this in the name of "National Security", which is a sad, sick commentary on the state of affairs we find ourselves in.

This kind of jingoism I thought went out 100 years ago! We live on a globe...we cannot be this kind of Nationalistic; it affects others as well. (Hold on--I do love the country, and support the ideals that made it great. All I am saying is that I am seeing a really nasty trend that threatens to attempt to send us back to a time when TGism was considered a disease and/or a crime, and we got locked up for it.) If we want the benefits of being part of a global community, then we have to be a bit less egocentric than we are.

Get this, if you get nothing else, luvs...I DO NOT AGREE with the Pres. I am not sure I trust anyone left running against him.

Sadly, I am not so sure you shouldn't any of them, either!

Sorry to be such a b*tch about it...

Mina Sakura

Stevie--

I notice there's a lot of stuff in those acts re: handguns.
This isn't a sore spot with you or anything, is it?

Mina

I have to agree with much of what Rachel says about Bush, although I don't think he is quite as bad as that list of evil dictators (but maybe he would become that bad, given the opportunity). But he is bad. I have come to the conclusion that he is easily the worst president of my lifetime - by a longshot. I remember the days when most people regarded the president with respect as a leader, even when they didn't vote for him or agree with him. I typically felt this way. But recently, that respect has gone out the window. My respect for the president began to erode under Clinton, but Bush has completely destroyed it. I cannot respect a president who pushes his religion at every single opportunity, behaves in a secretive way, does not listen to others, stirs up divisive culture wars, and has a total disregard for the longterm health of this country. Most other presidents have exhibited some of these characteristics to some degree, but Bush has raised them to a higher art. I cannot imagine that anyone else could master those particular "skills" as well as he has.

I hope the public sees fit to remove him from office this time around. Four more years of the damage that he causes could be more than this country can bear.

Heather H.

Bush will loose and loose badly provided he and his gang of thugs don't try some nonsense with the voting machines which I wouldn't put past them for a heartbeat. I have friends both Democrat and Republican. Now I generally disagree on most issues with the Republicans but even they, for the most part, think this guy is a disaster. In a fair election he doesn't have a chance not to mention his rival John Kerry is far superior to Bush in every respect with the exception to being prone to treasonous activities and blaming everyone else for his poor judgement. But I guess if you don't have poor judgement you don't have to lay the blame it on anyone like Bush has done time and time again.

Little George Bush is BY FAR the sickest excuse for a president ever to inherit the white house. I couldn't stand Johnson primarily for the way he handled the Vietnam war although he did some good things namely the civil rights act which is what I remember most.

Nixon tried and almost succeeded in ending the free press (although now the corporate owned press hardly strikes me as totally free especially when the parent companies can be blackmailed with government contracts) while he let the Vietnam war drag solely to use it as a tool for re-election.

Carter was a good man but lacked experience and decisiveness. Bush senior was more interested in playing golf than handling the ecconomy or much of anything else for that matter. Clinton went with the flow. I respected his attempt to institute national health care but after it failed he seemed to not want to try anything else. All in all the U.S. was far far better of under Clinton than we are now.

Again, in a fair (and I emphasize fair) election Bush will get decimated.

Hugs

Betty

I've read and really enjoyed this thread. It's really interesting to read what Americans think about the Iraq issue and 'The Shrub'. It something we in France rarely hear about and the BBC don't give a truly unbiased opinion either.

I'm not going to get involved other than to post a couple of quotes which sums up politicians perfectly.

"Mr Ryan, I am a politician. Which means I'm a liar and a cheat, when I'm not kissing babies I'm stealing their lollipops."
Hunt For Red October (Secretary of Defence to Jack Ryan)

"Politicians! Don't vote for them it only encourages them!" Billy Connolly

Alex
xxx

"Politicians! Don't vote for them--it only encourages them!"

Truer words were never spoken, methinks.

Bush is not necessarily weak on those points, Stevie--I'd say that they are not as much interest to him.

I feel the real issue is that he is a "strong" President, and as such, we are not used to it. We find him abrasive, annoying, close-minded...everything that Clinton and Bush 1 wasn't. It is that dogmatism that I think many of us find annoying. The last "strong" President we had was Reagan...and I didn't like everything he did, either.

My beef is that we have had killed a number of our "best and brightest" for something other than what we were told. It has not really helped the stability in the region as much as we all had hoped, and all it seems to have done is driven up gas prices.(Makes me glad the Princess flyer is a sake-sucker!)

I still feel that this Iraq mess has overtones of Vietnam all over it.

Mina Sakura

Sadly, I fear that Stevie might be right - Bush will be hard to defeat.

The Democrats have made a classic mistake yet again. They have nominated someone from a liberal state (Massachusetts) which doesn't have a good image in many parts of the country. They have nominated someone who comes from Congress, which is not a very popular institution. All Bush needs to do is to connect him strongly with his home state and to dig through his voting record in the Senate to find some embarassing votes. Anyone who has been in Congress for very long will have some embarassing votes to explain if they get brought up. Kerry may be somewhat popular now, but gullible people will eat up everything in Bush's inevitable attack ads and he will gradually lose popularity.

Edwards may have been a better choice, if only because he hasn't been in the Senate long enough to build up a massive number of embarassing votes - there are probably only just a few.

My only hope is that something will go very wrong for Bush between now and the election. Otherwise, we will have to live with him for another four years. The thought is unbearable.

Heather H.

It looks like it will be a close race, at the present moment most of the polls give Kerry a slight lead over Bush, but that could easily change between now and November.
I just voted in Palm Beach using our new touch screen machines, hopefully we won`t have another fiasco here like we did in 2000.
I can`t help wondering what would happen if an independent ever did get elected President, would they really be able to get anything done with a Congress and Senate made up of Republicans and Democrats?
How far would Bush have got without a Republican majority in both houses?

Hi Everyone:

So most Americans support Bush regarding Afghanistan and Iraq? First of all these are two totally separate issues done for two very different reasons. As much as some folks try to link them together it can't be done with any degree of accuracy.

Afganistan was done for a very very good reason. Their leadership condoned and participated in an attack that killed thousands of our people including many foreigners as well. Anyone in the Whitehouse at the time would have done the same thing including me. Yes, I would think most Americans support this action as do I.

Iraq on the other hand hand is like Vietnam, a politician's war, (in particular Bush's war), having absolutely nothing to do with terrorism or national security. Although Saddam was a jerk in many respects he had absolutely nothing to do with what happened on 9/11. In fact, he was Bin Laden's mortal enemy. They hated each other. Bush in his infinite wisdom actually took out the one guy who would probably never have supported Bin Laden and his cause thus leaving the country open for the more negative elements who will support terrorism. Basiclly we may have created another enemy where we didn't have one before. We also know there were no WMD in Iraq so what was accomplished besides killing alot of people (including our own) and giving Dick Cheney's company a big fat no bid contract? Nothing that I can see and "no" Iraq wasn't about to attack anyone especially us.

Rather than rely on speculation let's look at the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll regarding our fearless leader's approval ratings: ecconomy 39% approve, Iraq 46% approve (hardly a majority), budget 30% approve, feel the U.S. needs to be steered away from Bush's goals 57%. Interesting stuff for the guy who is assured, according to some folks, to win the next election.

I really have a hard time seeing Bush as a strong president. I tend to see him as a personal coward ie his little escape train when he was at the U.N., the fact that he had to be goaded into going to Iaq for his 2 hr photo-op during thanksgiving because he was afraid (this was in an MSN news article), and his joining the National Guard during Vietnam while Kerry put his life on the line even though he didn't believe (as did many of us at the time) that he war was right or justified.

Now I also joined the National Guard at that time (I actually attended my drills) but then again I was vehemently against the war. At the same time I would have fought in a national defense situation in a heartbeat. Bush on the other hand says he believes the Vietnam war was right but still ducked out of it. A real hero! By the way, there is no "early out" program (save death or severe injury) for the National Guard. If there was, many people would have taken it. Perhaps this is only for people with influential daddies like Bush.

As I see it, just because Bush is stubborn and boneheaded, (for mostly the wrong purposes I might add), this doesn't make him a strong president. It just makes him stubborn and boneheaded which amplifies the need to defeat him in he next election.

Hugs,

Betty

This war ended too soon before the election, and Bush will probably not be able to benefit from it because the economy will rise to the surface again.

Perhaps he will start something else in order to win the election. I don't trust any political leader to do the right thing, but I trust all of them to do whatever they have to do to take the public's attention away from whatever is going badly in order to win the election and hold onto power.

Or maybe Bush is stupid enough to think that he can win on domestic issues alone, or perhaps he is counting on the fact that the Democratic candidates are dismal at best.

I certainly am cynical.

Heather H.

Jayne dear, I guess you didn`t see my post on the patriot act 2 coming out soon.

Cyndi, hon--

Please rise and cease bowing. We have enough troubles with delusions of goddesshood as it is!

Your point is well taken. While I am not much for partisan politics, I agree that holding up a judge on either end is bad form. Of course, when you get down to brass tacks, they are all lawyers anyway...what does that tell you?

I do have to agree up to a point. If Gore had won the election, then 9/11 might not have happened. On the other hand, it might have happened that much sooner.

The issue with Iraq starts off with WMD, but here again Stevie is correct: Iraq was not in compliance with UN resolutions. That and that alone makes it all worthwhile, I guess.

And what if we found WMD? Would that have been enough? Or is there something else?

Never be afraid to speak your mind. If you are right, you are considered visionary. If you are wrong, you are considered a political commentator!

Much luv 'n hugs, hon--

Jayne Sakura

Okay, so now the "war" seems to have ended...or at least, fizzled out. Why am I not all that surprised?

NOW what happens? Where will the next Phantom Manace be? Under what Bush (pun fully intended)will we find the next threat to "The American Way?" Now that there really isn't an excuse, will the Patriot Act slink off quietly into the sunset, or have we lost those rights for good?

And does anybody really care? Really?

Is anyone else disgusted besides me?

Is anyone even out there?

Jayne Sakura

Diana, honey--

I did see that on "Patriot 2". And unless it slipped under my radar, it had been shut down (for now at least) because word got out about it.

Everyone knows that sequels aren't as good as the orignals, anyway.

As for what we do next: Nah. I'm gonna leave it go for now. I'm just not up for it today, luvs.

Jayne Sakura

Stevie,

You still haven't grasped the fact that what the USA sees as 'fighting for peace' is what many other countries see as American world domination.

Trouble makers are in the eyes of the beholder (an interesting phrase that I have just invented) and while you may feel that it is America's duty to sort out world peace, many countries see the USA as the trouble maker.

Whilst I rejoiced at the sight of Iraqi people being freed from tyranny, the reason for the war was the supposed threat of WMD. I have still yet to see evidence of this.

Bullying could be defined as going to war with a country which doesn't have the resources to take the war back to the attackers home country!

At the end of the day, Sadaam is still free. He and his sons may have lost their palaces but they have taken their fortunes with them and remain as much as a terrorist threat to the USA as they ever did.

I am sure that there will never be world peace, but if we are to aspire towards it, then we must begin to understand why the likes of Iran and Syria hate the west so much. Military strength does not make us right!

This is not USA bashing by the way because I love America and hoiday there every year. It's politicians in general that I do not trust!

Lisa

Jayne Sakura wrote: Okay, so now the "war" seems to have ended...or at least, fizzled out. Why am I not all that surprised? NOW what happens? Where will the next Phantom Manace be? Under what Bush (pun fully intended)will we find the next threat to "The American Way?" Now that there really isn't an excuse, will the Patriot Act slink off quietly into the sunset, or have we lost those rights for good? And does anybody really care? Is anyone else disgusted besides me? Is anyone even out there? Jayne Sakura

Jayne, sweetie,
It's all about greed and power. The story we've been able to put together is that OPEC decided to use the Euro instead of the US dollar. As punishment there was an attempted coup in Venesuela and Iraq was basically destroyed as an example of the power of the US might. It's not working because the EU is expanding and getting more powerful each day. Countries not in the EU yet are dumping the dollars and buying Euros. What goes around, comes around. It looks as if Mr Blair is on the way out.

....and here's naive little me thinking it was all so that "Dubya" could finish off what Daddy didn't!


Jayne
A TV's TV

Dear Stevie,

I still think you make a super lady - even if we do disagree sometimes!

Lisa

cyndi wrote: It's time for regime change ......in America! The SOB steals the election, floods the courts with right wing fascists...One man one vote has turned to pocketbook politics... The screams of terrorism <are> a facade to strip the last freedoms from our masses. The last curbs to total control. Empires require an Emperor. We freely surrender the very soul of our constitution for alleged security. The riches of all are given to a select few. The truth become lies. Too late we will find we have no freedom and no security. We shall find the horror, and it will be us.

Cyndi:

Hold it right there, missy.

Flood the courts? Steal the election? I don't think so!

First off, the election was 2 plus years ago; it might as well be ancient history. Gore lost--deal with it. While I am no fan of Bush's, I'm no fan of Gore's, either. Each person has their good and bad side. While I am not sure Bush is the right man for the job, I am somewhat convinced that Gore would not have done as well.

Congress hasn't voted on a judge in quite some time because the litmus test seems to be whether or not that judge is "Pro-Life" or "Pro-Choice".
Candidates who are quite qualified to hold office are being locked out of their confirmations because the Congress has gotten so partisan. Give me a break!

However, I do agree with the pocketbook politics charge. While I am for some sort of Governmental fiscal responsibility (hey--if I have to live on a budget, why can't Uncle Sam?), I am also tired of having my clutch emptied by Uncle every time some third world country blows its nose. We have poor people in America, too. Homeless, hungry--we need to take care of our own.

Finally...while I agree that we are tossing our freedoms overboard for "security", I am not ready to conceed that we have lost everything...yet. While there are still people who care, that will be a mighty hard stunt to pull. The fact that you even posted your comments show me you are one of us. You care. I care. We may not be a majority...but we can slow down or stop the train.

I am not quite ready to thank the Almighty for the EU, either. (Sorry, folks--there are some things I just won't do!), I'd like to remind you that they aren't perfect. Continued internal bickering and centuries old rivalries that will not die out insure that the EU will not totally be a force for much good until they start acting as a unit, and not like the UN.

Or the US Congress.

Luv 'n hugs,

Jayne Sakura
"Almost-Angel, T-Girl Genius, and Ultra-Flirt"

It's quite interesting to look back through this thread.

Now that the war is over - Is it? I think that the battle is over but the war has just begun. More US and British soldiers are being killed now than during the initial onslaught.

The war was clearly justified on the basis of hyped up intelligence and has incited more and more people of the Islamic nation to become terrorists.

Apart from the initial desire to show the world how easily America could flatten Iraq, what has been achieved?

Does anyone actually believe any of our politicians? Does anyone still believe the war was justified? Does anyone think that the world is now a safer place? Does anyone think that our troops will be able to withdraw from Iraq within two years?

If your aanswer to any of the above is 'yes' then I think that you are living in cloud cuckooland.

Lisa

I hate getting up and going to work each morning, but when it comes time to pay bills and buy dinner, I'm glad I decided go to work. There's only one person who's obligated to take care of me.

I hate seeing our soldiers killed in combat, but sometimes war is also necessary. Tyrants and terrorists don't go away because we want them to, they only go away when we make them go away. I'm glad we're in Afghanistan and Iraq.

There's no free lunch, and that applies to freedom, liberty, and democracy more than anything else. If we don't protect ourselves, who will?

Aren't the armed forces supposed to kill people? I didn't think we sent them over there to give makeovers (now there's a thought...).

I don't see this as another Vietnam situation. Our mistake in Vietnam wasn't in being there, it was in letting politicians play as Generals.

Anyway, are you suggesting that we just bail, now that we've overthrown a dictator? Should we just leave a vacuum over there for another tyrant to fill (or for Saddam Hussein to come back)? Don't we have an obligation to help stabilize Iraq (and Afghanistan) before we leave?

It's difficult to argue with that last paragraph. I also get tired of the USA and UK having to do 99% of the work to keep things stable, but it's either that or wait around for another world war against an enemy who might actually be able to defeat us. It didn't take Hitler long to take Germany from shame and defeat after WW1 to being the strongest single nation on the planet (at least until the USA woke up). How much would it have been worth to have avoided WW2? How much to avoid WW3?

Some say we're in WW3 now against terrorism, but that would imply that the majority of the world is involved, and as we've noted, most of the world's nations seem to have other interests these days.

I disagree completely. LOL

So, Rachel, why do you hate Bush so much, aside from your disagreement with his policy in Iraq? You say he was "unelected," yet he won the electoral vote. Do you think he's intolerant? For example, what do you think of his opinion that gay marriages are "wrong"? Do you think he would consider us "wrong" for being trannies, as well?

Regarding the election, I don't think it's realistic to cry foul just because the election was close. The fact is that we do have the electoral college, like it or not, and candidates design their campaign strategies based on that reality. Had the popular vote (either a majority or a plurality) been the goal, each candidate would've campaigned differently. Who's to say how the popular vote would've gone had the campaigns been based on a different set of requirements?

It's comparable to being checkmated in a game of chess. The goal is not to have the most pieces left on the board when the game is over, but to checkmate the King. The player who wins could actually be down by a Queen and two Rooks, but as long as he can checkmate the enemy King, he wins, and his opponent has no business claiming that the win isn't valid just because the winner had fewer pieces. Both players entered the game with checkmate as the goal, and they spent the game working toward that end. If the rules were to change, so would each player's approach to the game.

By the same token, the overall national popular vote has never been the goal in Presidential elections. Betty, I don't care for the electoral college, either, because I think it's outdated, but the time for changing the rules is before the election, not after.

If you want to blame someone for placing Bush in office, look no further than Al Gore. He couldn't even win his home state, which would've won him the election. Fortunately, those of us in Tennessee knew him better than voters in the rest of the country, which is why we voted against him. Tennessee, not Florida, kept Gore out of the White House. As for the conspiracy theories regarding election fraud, I dismiss them as sour grapes on the part of the Democrats. Besides, there are just as many stories of Democrats trying to deny military votes and throwing out obvious Bush ballots in Florida that they subjectively deemed questionable. Also, the post-election recounts proved that Bush won Florida, any way you slice it.

I was going to reply to the rest of Betty's political statements, but as much as I enjoy doing that, I think I've covered most of those issues in previous posts. I want to get back to the tolerance issue, because that's something that should be relevant to most of us here. I asked whether any of you consider Bush to be intolerant. Do you think he's a generally intolerant person? Do you think he is specifically intolerant of those who are gay, bi, and/or trans? Why?

What about anyone else who is against equal rights (specifically marriage, because it's the hot topic these days) for those who are gay, bi, and/or trans? Is a stance against gay marriages a sign of intolerance, or just a matter of opinion?

Well, I think we agree 99% on that one.

While the "religious right" is certainly against gay marriages, many on the left, including John Kerry (who appears to have his party's nomination) are also against gay marriages. Kerry (and 13 other senators) voted against the federal Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, but now he says he's against gay marriage (he favors civil unions instead). Bush has come right out and said that he supports a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages nationwide, and he would need the support of both major parties in Congress to see it happen. Let's hope Congress doesn't let it go that far.

We started losing rights long before the Patriot Act...

National Firearms Act of 1934
Federal Firearms Act of 1938
Gun Control Act of 1968
Law Enforcement Officers Protection Act of 1986
Crime Control Act of 1990
Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1994
Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994...

I can think of five worse presidents in my lifetime - Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Clinton, and Bush's father. I think it's unlikely that Bush will be defeated in 2004, unless something new comes up that causes his support to vanish. I'll be voting Libertarian again, but I doubt that anyone running this year has a chance to beat Bush.

Alexandra, if there's a bright spot for Bush in my eyes, it's the way he handled Afghanistan & Iraq, and most Americans are behind him on that issue, even if many Americans here at Trannyweb aren't. Domestic policies are Bush's weak points, mainly his weak immigration stance, his socialist position on the Medicare prescription drug issue, and his general lack of urgency in trying to reduce deficit spending. I think those blunders will hurt his popularity to some extent, but not enough to lose the election. Something new would have to come up for that to happen.

We'll just have to disagree on that.

Hi Jayne

No. I'm not out there, I'm in here.

If Bush does want to undertake another expedition it's likely to be without us. Our military has left Blair in no doubt that they will be in no position to undertake anything else of significance for two years. That'll be too late for your next election campaign.

Sarah

What do any of you think about the possibility that our action in Iraq will prevent the need for further actions elsewhere? Do you think it's possible that we are now in a much stronger position to negotiate for peace?

I've spoken with others on this issue who consider "negotiating from a position of strength" bullying. However, I don't see how good guys can really bully bad guys.

Of course, we'd have to agree on the definitions for "good guys" and "bad guys," but I think it's pretty clear that nations (at least their governments) such as North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Libya have been trouble makers for the past few decades. Shouldn't we (not just the USA, but all nations who desire peace and stability in the world) be tough with other nations who really are the bullies and bad guys?

Lisa, I grasp it just fine, but it seems that few on your side even want to admit a remote possibility that the USA might actually be correct in this case. Just because someone (or some nation's government) says he hates the USA, that doesn't automatically mean there's a logical and/or justifiable reason for it. Too many want to assume that the USA was wrong to invade Iraq just because we are the stronger force. Being weak (relatively speaking) doesn't make one innocent.

There also seems to be some confusion over why the USA invaded Iraq. It wasn't because of WMDs, it wasn't because of the plight of the Iraqi people, it was because Iraq violated (time and time again) the terms that ended the first Gulf war, and the current USA administration had enough. The other reasons given are all nice, but they are secondary. Saddam played Clinton like a violin, but he couldn't do that with Bush.

Regarding world domination on the part of the USA, we could've already conquered the world, had that ever been our goal. The fact that we haven't proves that we do care about establishing and maintaining peace. That's what we can't do alone, though, and it would be nice to have more help from other nations who claim to be for peace but don't want to roll up their sleeves and do anything about it. Thank goodness for the UK and Tony Blair!

Jill, Blair might really be on his way out, but so was Churchill, once he cleaned up Chamberlain's mess. Sometimes grattitude is hard to come by, but that's politics for you.

Anyway, I know we disagree, but that's why we have elections.