the better part of me

"People complaining about others being glad Bush is gone, I'll be watching for your gleeful posts when Obama leaves office."

You won't see me gloating over it, any more than I did when Clinton left office. Which was not at all. I didn't agree with the man, much less with a lot of the stuff he did, but he deserved a minimum of respect because he was President. And the same will apply to Obama in 2013/2017. My post was aimed at people who were gloating over the fact that somebody they despised was no longer President, and that's just wrong, imo.

Edited Date: Jan. 21st, 2009 02:52 pm (UTC)

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mechaboydos.livejournal.com

I don't see anything wrong with it at all. Yeah, he was the president and he deserved a modicum of respect (that past tense feels so good to say). But as of noon yesterday, he was no longer the president, and I will gladly join the millions of people who are on their knees thanking God that he is no longer in office. Good riddance and goodbye to him, I say. And thank God I live in the United States of America, where I have the right to say exactly that, and more if I so choose. I'm glad he's gone, I'm glad he can never be president again, and he can rot for all I care.

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And thank God I live in the United States of America, where the government can't stop me from saying exactly that, and more if I so choose.

Fixed.

Look, my whole point is that there ought to be a certain minimum amount of politeness and respect in politics, because it shouldn't be the Big Thing that your life revolves around. The fact that so many people think it's okay to act like a jackass in public means we've lost that minimum, and I don't think it's good for people to be sneering and gloating all over the place instead of talking stuff out.

Edited Date: Jan. 21st, 2009 10:53 pm (UTC)

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mechaboydos.livejournal.com

Define "act like a jackass." You think it's unbecoming to celebrate when a politician that you fiercely loathe and whom you deeply feel has done immense harm to the country that you love finally leaves office? You might have a point if people were screaming obscenities and cursing him to burn in Hell, (which I'm sure some poeple have done, and no I don't approve of that) but jumping up and down and being excited that he's gone is hardly what I'd consider acting like a jackass.

And the thing about respect is that it has to be earned. I respect the office of President of the United States because it's our highest elected office and because the President is the representative of all the citizens of the United States. But respecting the person who holds that office is another matter entirely. Bush has done little to earn that respect in my humble opinion. I don't want to see people damning him to Hell or burning him in effigy or throwing shoes at him or whatever else, but I'll gladly join in a chorus of "na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye."

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Guess we're going to have to agree to disagree, then.

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I don't think it's good for people to be sneering and gloating all over the place instead of talking stuff out.

I dunno, man. Bush's opponents did all they could "the right way" during his career, and they still couldn't stop him from being elected/reelected/doing stuff they didn't like. All there was to hope for then was the day his term was over. This was one of the most disliked Presidents in history (if not the) most, and I don't see what's wrong with being happy he's out of office. A lot of people have been really frustrated for a long time, and talking it out never did any good, so why not allow them a moment of happiness and relief before moving on?

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Did they really? He came into office having been accused of stealing the election (despite recounts showing the contrary), he tried to meet Congressional Democrats halfway - and they got the credit while he got blamed for anything that went wrong. I could go on, but I doubt I'm going to convince you.

As for most disliked, he has a way to go to catch up with James Buchanan, Herbert Hoover, and Richard Nixon.

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I'm talking about individual citizens, here. Ideally, there's a lot the average person can do to influence their government, but in reality there's not much but to wait for the next election to roll around and vote again. Whether they actually are or not, a lot of people feel helpless in the face of The Man. So they voted, again, and Bush got elected, again, and then there was nothing for it but to wait for the next chance. And breathe a sigh of relief when the tables finally turned.

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There is a lot you can do to influence your local government, but that influence grows weaker the further away from your home you get. This is part of the reason people join groups like the NRA, or the Corn Growers Association, or contribute money to corporate PACs. Which is really a topic I want to address on my own LJ instead of bloviating in yours. :)

Short version: I think people have become too wrapped up in what goes on in Washington, partially because they've let so many things get taken over by the Federales when those things would be done better, less expensively, or both at the local or state level. This leads to the frustration you're talking about, because the President is no longer seen as the guy in the White House executing the laws Congress passes but rather as some kind of God-Emperor of America. That's not good.

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Hope you don't mind but I'm just going to jump in and respond to everything all at once.

Here's an example to start with: When Bush walked down the steps of the capitol and was announced to the crowd, what did you hear? You heard polite applause and sort of a stale quiet. But clearly no booing, nothing rude. When he took off in his helicopter, though, people were cheering and celebrating.

You want a show of respect, you saw it when Bush was announced. What you saw when he took off was 2 million people finally getting to express themselves to his face.

Now if you're going to argue whether or not people have a right to feel hurt or personally affected by this one man, you're going to lose. Sorry. There are probably 300 million different stories for how Bush has affected the lives of people on an individual level, and I guarantee it is not because they're lol overinvested in Washington politics.

People in the military are obvious, and so are their families and friends. But you want civilian examples? How about gays and lesbians who couldn't marry under Bush's policy, students whose schools that didn't meet inane requirements were left behind because of Bush's policies and the parents that had to help, the residents of New Orleans who didn't see quick federal action and are still dealing with the fallout, everyone who's gone abroad and had to deal with the backlash against the entire country because of the actions of one individual... the list goes on and on and on and on.

So when this person who has affected the lives of so many individuals (and who honestly cares if he affected me personally when I can see and empathize with the people he did affect very personally) finally leaves office, after one of the most unsuccessful, scandal-ridden, disliked, inept presidencies the nation has ever witnessed, don't be too shocked when people are glad he's gone.

The reason you didn't feel this way when Clinton or Bush took office? Neither of their predecessors came even close to how terrible this president has been for the country.

And I can always give you more examples of how and why.

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How about gays and lesbians who couldn't marry under Bush's policy, students whose schools that didn't meet inane requirements were left behind because of Bush's policies and the parents that had to help, the residents of New Orleans who didn't see quick federal action and are still dealing with the fallout, everyone who's gone abroad and had to deal with the backlash against the entire country because of the actions of one individual... the list goes on and on and on and on.

So when this person who has affected the lives of so many individuals (and who honestly cares if he affected me personally when I can see and empathize with the people he did affect very personally) finally leaves office, after one of the most unsuccessful, scandal-ridden, disliked, inept presidencies the nation has ever witnessed, don't be too shocked when people are glad he's gone.

The reason you didn't feel this way when Clinton or Bush took office? Neither of their predecessors came even close to how terrible this president has been for the country.

I don't even know where to start with this, except to say that you're sadly misinformed. I'm not going to shit up

dejana's LJ with a point-by-point rebuttal; rather, I recommend to you Paul Johnson's History of the American People, which is rather unsparing in its view of Federal corruption in both parties from the 19th century on. To say nothing of the Jimmy Carter Administration. :facepalm:

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You seem to be suffering from that illness where you can't judge modern events in comparison to the rest of history. I don't need to read a book by a man who thinks Oliver North is as innocent as his sparkley blue eyes to understand what I've witnessed over the past eight years in the context of my country's history.

I would say you're misinformed in turn if you believe what you do, but I think you've just had your eyes and ears covered.

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You seem to be suffering from that illness where you can't judge modern events in comparison to the rest of history.

I'm old enough to have watched JFK's funeral on the television, so I kinda resent that, quite aside from having wasted a good part of my life buried in history books. I'm also not recommending Johnson because I think "ZOMG this is the bestest history EVAR" but rather because his perspective on history is different from what's usually been served up in public schools these last 20 years. (I had two kids in the Minneapolis and Edina Pubilc Schools. The horror, the horror...) So yeah, I think I've got a good perspective on how W's administration stacks up against others in history. I don't expect you to share it, but I encourage you to check out some other points of view. As we all know from Rashomon and similar stories, everyone sees reality a little differently. Maybe very differently.

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You're also underestimating how much I've studied our history, so I can easily resent what you've said to me (or the assumption that because you're older than me, you know better). But I generally avoid books about history written by people whose views are equally skewed in a different direction. Having lived through this administration, and having a solid idea of how past administrations' actions have influenced future events, I have a very good picture of what Bush has left us with. And even if the damage isn't irreparable or doesn't take as long to correct as we fear, looking around at the current state of things domestically and internationally, it isn't any far stretch of the imagination to list W's time in office as one of the worst.

Even if people see and assess reality differently, there are still basic facts you can't avoid.

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...(or the assumption that because you're older than me, you know better). But I generally avoid books about history written by people whose views are equally skewed in a different direction.

imo, this is a mistake - I personally have learned a lot from reading what Giap, Marx, Lenin and others not so far to the political left have had to say about history. I don't always agree with their interpretations of the facts, mind you, but I find what they think and say informative.

I also think there's some benefit to having lived through bad times oneself as opposed to reading about them in books. Despite what you see on the TV, the 1970s were a pretty miserable time to be an American.

What are the facts, and what do they mean? The first question usually has a pretty simple answer. The second is the one that starts all the fighting.

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Marx and Lenin were talking about ideals, not interpreting history. That's something objective, and analyzing them in an objective way is important.

And yes, there's absolutely benefit to having lived through bad times, which is why I speak pretty decisively about the failures of this past administration. Whether or not you want the benefit of the passage of time before analyzing his impact, there are undeniable signs of his impact that exist right now and have existed over the past eight years.

That's what leads a lot of us to dislike him, and be very glad that he's finally done.

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nephthysmoon.livejournal.com

I don't consider myself as having gloated, but I am glad he's out of office. I don't respect him, and I certainly didn't respect him 2000 or 2004, and I'm not going to start respecting NOW, when he USED to be President. If I didn't respect him during his Presidency, I see no reason to do so now.

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sea_thoughts

Good God, if you're not allowed to celebrate when a thoughtful, literate man takes over from an impulsive, ignorant one, when CAN you celebrate?

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When you actually have something in your life to celebrate? As for being ignorant, you seriously misunderestimate the man. Ignorant people don't read two non-fiction books a week or get through the MBA program at Harvard.

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We celebrate when a man we like takes office. Why can't we celebrate when a man we dislike leaves?

The President of the United States affects everyone's lives.

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Maybe I'm behind the times, but my life didn't change that much when Clinton or W took office, and I'm still living much the same life I did before Obama was elected.

If the President affects your life so much, you're either in the military or very high in the civil service. Otherwise, he really shouldn't be impacting your life all that much. That's not the way the system's supposed to work.

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You don't have to be in the military to have your life affected by the President's policies. How about all those parents, and spouses, and children, and friends of the people in the military, who've seen their loved ones go off to Iraq? That's a lot of lives altered by President Bush's decision, through no personal choice of their own (the civilians, I mean, not the soldiers). And that's only the most obvious and clear example.

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Having been a dependent, I understand that this is part of the deal for a military family. When the CinC calls, you go, and the family gets along as best it can. Most of the time it works, better than it used to because there are better support systems now, but sometimes it doesn't. That's the way it is when you take Uncle Sam's shilling.

For people on civvy street like us, though, from day to day the guy sitting in the Oval Office just doesn't affect our lives that much. W didn't personally travel around handing out stimulus checks, and conversely didn't go around with a bucket collecting the taxes. Even for most civil servants working for the Feds, it just doesn't really make that much difference who's in the White House. Nor, realistically, should it. We're not supposed to be that kind of country.

Edited Date: Jan. 22nd, 2009 12:54 am (UTC)

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People do get along okay, and that's good. My point is that the President does have the potential to affect the personal life of the common individual, even if they never signed up for it (by voting for him or choosing a career within his influence). Iraq was President Bush's decision, and a case where his personal decision directly affected the lives of countless civilians in multiple countries. Having a man you trust and support in the President's chair is a serious matter. The office can affect you, whether or not it's supposed to be that way.

But we're getting off-track here. I honestly don't think it's that reprehensible to be happy an influential government official you dislike is out of office. I was glad when the boss I hated left, too.

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I don't have a problem with people being happy, but the gloating irks me.
I know, it's a fine line. But it has to be drawn somewhere; somebody has to at least make a weak attempt to support the concepts of politeness and respect in the public square. Lord knows the media aren't helping.

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I think we're all going to have to either realize we have VASTLY different ideas of what's gloating or we're going to have to clarify this point.

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This is the post that set all this off - if I'm wrong I hope

dejana will correct me. I give several examples of bad manners (IMO) there.

Oh, BTW - icon love. Sound advice there. :)

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It wasn't just your post, for the record. I've seen similar posted elsewhere.

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*nods*

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Okay, while booing while the helicopter takes off isn't classy, I still wouldn't classify it as gloating. Gloating/really unclassy comments were the Canadians in my office (I live up here) asking if they had, hope upon hope, loaned them some of the Canadian military 'copters (joke being, Canadian military copters are so old and dangerous that they are notorious for crashing) and other comments I wouldn't even repeat online, they were that full of vitriol.

As well, I don't think the examples you listed were very offensive or even that gloaty. More like saying 'Good riddance to bad rubbish' as one last expression of frustration at the guy and then turning away.

I can see where you'd get frustrated with the general anger if you felt that the man wasn't getting the credit due, however a great portion of the population was, and expressing it in their personal journals is probably one of the more harmless ways to express it.

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was rabidly unhappy with him*

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...the Canadians in my office (I live up here) asking if they had, hope upon hope, loaned them some of the Canadian military 'copters (joke being, Canadian military copters are so old and dangerous that they are notorious for crashing) and other comments I wouldn't even repeat online, they were that full of vitriol.

Grits or Dippers? ;) Not that it matters; it's no secret that a lot of our neighbors to the north hated W. It was the in thing, after all.

Maybe you're right and I'm overreacting. You'd think after eight years of constant pounding about what a moron/Evil Genius W was, I'd be inured to it, but the unfairness of it really burns my butt.

(Icon included to satisfy Canadian Content requirements)

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Word to the wise, even if it was the "it" thing for certain people, there are many of us with legitimate arguments against the man. He isn't evil, but fuck if he wasn't a shitastic president.

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I don't think any of us are going to be able to give the man a fair judgment until 20-30 years down the road when tempers have cooled and we've had a chance to see what the long-term effects of his actions are. I also think many of the arguments were based on misunderstandings/distortions of what was actually going on, no thanks to the press.

Personally, I think he was much better at foreign/defense policy than domestic policy, but clearly your mileage varies and I'm not going to argue with you about it.

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He was terrible in defense and foreign policy, just absolutely terrible. Everything that Clinton screwed up he decided to fuck up even more. Just seriously, unless you track the stuff daily don't talk to me about the absolute fiasco of military approriations. Don't believe me? Look at the LCS, the FCS, the slashing of F-22, the bungling of the F-35, etc. I asssure you the list is quite long.

I'm actually in the historical field and I can definately vouche that he's a horrid, incompetent fuck up, and that will ultimately be the verdict on him (how badly he's rated vis-a-vis "the worst" is the real question). 30 years didn't help Hoover, it didn't help Buchannan, and it certaintly won't help Bush once the full extent of the damage he's done becomes apparent.

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A lot of the high-tech weaponsry and systems you mention are of dubious utility in the kinds of wars we've been fighting since, oh, Bush the elder left office. And defense appropriations have been hosed since FDR, so you can't hang that on W. Perhaps most telling, most of the troops in the field seem to approve of him, as opposed to the DoD bureaucrats and CIA desk pilots. *shrug*

Evidently we're going to have to agree to disagree.

Edited Date: Jan. 23rd, 2009 09:22 pm (UTC)

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No seriously, why is it that civilians always have the mindset of fighting the last war? The high tech legacy systems we have in the pipeline (like the F-22) are what assures US dominance so we can steamroll any opponent with ease. If we surrender that advantage in favor of what amounts to a focus on COIN we're essentially throwing away our trump card. The key to winning the wars we're involved with now is not to have them in the first place.

Meanwhile utter stupid shit like the Little Crappy Ship gets pushed like candy because that's what we need to fight the terrorists. An extensive focus on "lighter, faster" has gotten us "excessive overweight, and reduced warfighting capacity". I can hang cnacellation of extremely capable systems (like the Crusader SPG) in favor of things like the NLOSC which don't do the job nearly as well. Meanwhile the Germans march in with Pkz 2000 and mop the floor with the Taliban. Yeah, dubious utlity my ass.

Defense appropriations have been hosed since Kennedy, but whose counting? The troops in the field are also lower quality, usually from conservative backgrounds, etc. I could make the argument that Ron Paul is also great for the military since he gets a great amount of support from the military. The rank and file is stupid, and it says it when they can't even get body armor but "approve of him".

You don't know the half of it. In fact, you don't know any of it.

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Are you even reading what you're posting? By your logic, our decisive nuclear edge should have kept the Korean and Vietnam Wars from happening. I agree that aging airframes need to be replaced, but I don't think more expensive gold-plated systems are necessarily the answer. Most of our edge over the Warsaw Pact forces since 1980 (to say nothing of less capable militaries) was in the quality of training our troops received, and continue to receive. A lot of people will be scared off by our tech edge, but the people we've been fighting lately just don't care about it, because they're not engaging us at that level.

As for the "Germans wiping the floor with the Taliban," LOL. The Germans have done no fighting outside their kaserne in Afghanistan; in fact, the much-maligned French have actually spent more time in the field fighting and dying than the Bundeswehr. The troop quality is not what you think it is, and if you think it all comes from conservative backgrounds then you have a very strange and overly expansive definition of "conservative".

Your claim that I "...don't know any of it." is ridiculous. I was born an Air Force brat in the middle of the Cold War, was doing military simulations in the 1970s, and served on active duty as well as in the Guard and Reserve. You don't know me, you don't know who I know, and you clearly have no idea what I know. Go back to CNN and listen to them, because I have zero interest in teaching someone who already has their mind made up.

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If we'd been willing to employ SAC in all its glory, there simply wouldn't have been a Korean War, or a Vietnam War.

NATO troops weren't all the more well trained the the Guards divisions or any other front line WARPAC divisions. It's not like Europe wasn't reliant on conscript armies as well. Nevermind the fact that NATO would've gotten it's shit kicked in in a conventional fight at any point in the Cold War. The only thing that kept WARPAC out of the Fulda gap were lots of tactical nuclear weapons and the willingness to employ them.

As for the PzH 2000, it was a Dutch unit that used it in A-stan. Nonetheless, the system has been used to great effect. Meanwhile the FCS is still trudging along, and even when it's operational we'll have a sub-standard weapons system. I don't know why the French are "much maligned" even though they have a proud warfare fighting tradition of excellence going back several centuries.

The troop quality has gone way down for the simple fact that the Amry has literally dropped most of it's standards for recruiting.

You're right, I don't know you, but what you're saying is stupid and stupid is as stupid does. I could give a shit that you were an air force brat and served (look up Sparky on Tanknet, he also served, should we listen to him too?) the fact remains you're completely in the dark about anything that relates to how the defense establishment, foreign relations, etc. are going in this country. Oh boy, CNN (even though I get most of my news via NPR or specialized services, but whatever) that has me shaking in my boots. Go back to Fox news, at least there you won't be asked to justify your insane assumptions as long as it fits with right-wing military worship dogam.

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If we'd been willing to employ SAC in all its glory, there simply wouldn't have been a Korean War, or a Vietnam War.

And you call my assumptions insane? Yeah, irradiate the USSR and PRC in response to their proxies' aggression. Not like they could have done anything back in 1950 or the '60s [/sarc]

The "proud French fighting tradition" stems from them getting whipped by the Germans in 1871, 1914-18, and again in 1940 through a combination of faulty doctrine, piss-poor leadership from generals and politicians, and crappy equipment. Oh yes, they also lost in Indochina and Algeria. So their proud traditions of victory pretty much come to a screaming halt in 1815.

I've never watched Fox News, and rely for most of my current military info on bloggers. The majority of those bloggers are on active duty, embeds who know their stuff, are career military, or all three. Michael Yon, for example. Also, find a new spell checker; yours is broken. "Dogam", indeed.

This has gotten way off topic, and since you seem uninterested in having a civil exchange of ideas I'm going to quit trying to have one with you.

Edited Date: Jan. 24th, 2009 03:11 pm (UTC)

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What? You could've conventionally destroyed the DPRK using non-nuclear weapons. Indeed, American commitment to Vietnam was ended when we unleashed SAC. So fuck your shit.

Some of us have a longer view of history then a mere 150 years. For example, French excellence dates from the Thirty Years War (since you don't know what that is I'll give you a date) that's 1643, the Battle of Roicroi. Nevermind the fact that they hung on through clossal losses and still played a major role in winnign the Great War, nevermind the Free French, etc. and if you think crappy equipment is a problem with the French you really don't know what you're talking about.

America has lost in Indochina too, and we're going to lose in Iraq that makes us even. Hell, the only country that's ever won a war like that is the British, and it took them a good decade (Malaya). It's insufferable Amero-centrisim when I hear "lol France lost" but the Germans, who lost the past two World Wars in crushing fashion are somehow held up as an example of excellent warfighting.

Michael Yon, blogs? Are you serious? That's just admitting you're a blatant right-winger. Taht's like saying you get your news from talk radio, which happens to be a massive outlet for right-wing propaganda.

As for a spell checker, it's scarcely relevant. People who split hairs about grammar in the middle of exchanges and/or figure their worth from it are simply useless. Like Jimmy Carter useless.

I'm being quite civil for my standards, it's that I simply don't tolerate idiocy. Especially not your kind. You've been threatening to quit now for the past two messages, go on and do so.

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Heh @ Canadian content.

Trust me, I've been an American in a country where it seems like the national sport to, when they find out you're American, to lambast you for Bush. Obviously not all of them but over time the consistency of unsolicited lectures became quite...like one of those new dung beetles they discovered now eats flesh crawled up my butt. Considering I wasn't even old enough to vote the first time he got in, I came to resent it. Then it made me angry. Now I just roll my eyes and move on. A long, emotionally tiring and frustrating, buildup of a water off a ducks back-itude.

I personally feel a lot of things about Bush, and odds are a good deal of those feelings are polar opposites of your views. But I think that they were allowed to express their sentiments because of the way they felt. You felt that it was disrespectful because of the way you feel. Feelings are a treacherous ground, even more so in politics because they can cause serious issues and rifts that can't be so easily healed over as even a blistering resentment from and older sister about who ate the taffy her first boyfriend gave her when she was young and the other sister was five (hint: I ate the taffy and I'm still getting shit about it twenty years later).

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Feelings are a treacherous ground, even more so in politics because they can cause serious issues and rifts that can't be so easily healed over as even a blistering resentment from and older sister about who ate the taffy her first boyfriend gave her when she was young and the other sister was five (hint: I ate the taffy and I'm still getting shit about it twenty years later).

Agree completely.
"Aren't feelings mysterious things?" - Shiro & Hanako Miaowara, "It's a Terminated Life", Samurai Cat Goes To The Movies

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