Talk:George W. Bush/Archive 1

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I suggest moving this to talk:Death Penalty.

Recently elected president of the United States who broke records for the number of prisoners legally executed during his tenure as Govenor of Texas.


Of note, every one of the executed felons was executed for murder. Also of note, studies guess that ~20% of executed people are actually innocent.


Why the emphasis? Do you claim to have a better figure?

Including the mentally retarded Oliver Cruz; Jesse DeWayne Jacobs, whom the state called to testify against the man who actually committed the murder for which Jacobs was nevertheless executed; several prisoners whose defense attorneys were later disbarred or suspended, or who called no defense witnesses...



And we must not forget Carla Faye Tucker executed in 1998 while Bush held the gubernatorial office in the Lone Star State.


She brutally commited murder. Feminists everywhere should be proud that she was treated equally with murderers that are men.

"Equal Protection Under The Law" - The Constitution -- read it -- understand it


I'm the one who added the note about about Cruz, Jacobs, et al. I agree--I din't find anything out of place or unusual about Tucker's execution. If one believes in the penalty at all, she was an exemplary case.


Don't get me wrong. I got no bones about what happened to her, either. It just happened on his watch.


A good question: Why did she receive so much more publicity from news organizations than the person legally executed just before or after? Was it because she was female? Was it biased to report that case much more than the execution before or after it?

The fact that you folks ask these questions, and "didn't find anything out of place or unusual" shows how pathetically uninformed you are, and that you don't belong anywhere near an encyclopedia article. Even if you don't believe it, and even if you don't think it relevant, you should at least be *aware* that many people felt that she should be spared because of the idea that she had been *rehabilitated*, that she had done *good works* in prison. Not simply that she was "female". Sheesh.


And we must not forget Bill Clinton who presided over executions whilst govenor of Arkansas.

And the relevance of this to an enclopedia article about George Bush is what, exactly? What's more important not to forget is what pathetic hypocritical ideologues Bush's supporters are. When Clinton ran back to Arkansas to oversee the execution of mentally retarded Johnny Perry, it wasn't the rabid right-wingers who were critical, it was the same people who are critical of Bush's numerous executions; consistent, principled people.

More controversial things: plans announced to drill for oil in an Alaskan national park. Renewed bombings against Iraq. A general chill in relations with Russia - pulling of diplomats, SDI. Giving copious amounts of money to churches as instruments of morality. Refusal to participate in a campaign against global warming. Cutting government funding to feminist organizations and some kind of general move against workers unions. I have a friend whose keeping a more thorough list of minuses and pluses (the latter being the tax cut, which Americans tend to like).

Drilling for oil in Alaska on a limited scale: A good idea - either we drill here or inefficiently buy oil from OPEC. Environmentalists have an unfounded fear that a few wells in Alaska will spoil the entire state.

Environmentalists know full well that the "few wells" imply many roads and other infrastructure, with very little return. Environmentists's fears are well-founded because they aren't ignoramuses like you and other knee-jerk right-winger ditto-heads. Turn off your Rush Limbaugh and seek more reliable sources of information.

No, definitely a bad idea. Undisturbed arctic nature is vulnerable. Very much so, even. Read http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-07/sfcb-aeb072201.php. Once the Arctic nature is destroyed it takes a long time to recover.
What you don't seem to realize is that there is a third, better option. It is possible to decrease the amount of oil consumed. The US consumes vast amounts of oil by driving absolutely everywhere. The bicycle has been discovered for about 150 years in the rest of the world, but hasn't yet made it in the US. For things like just going to the mall, taking a car (or worse, a SUV) is ludicrous. Going by bike will reduce oil consumption (thus improving the international trade balance), decrease pollution (making the air fresher), and improving your personal condition (Americans are notoriously fat; this is a health problem for the individual, a source of cost and also a reduction of life quality).
The US has had and still has extremely low gas prices, making the "American way" synonymous with "drive everywhere, and fuck the pollution". According to http://www.gaspricewatch.com/USGas_index.asp, you can buy gas for less than $1/gallon (average $1.4). This is less than a quarter of the price in Sweden. This is not the way to handle the world. Much of the rest of the world has already realized this. The US will probably also do this, the question is if it will do so fast enough.
Bush junior has made it increasingly clear that he is not interested in preserving the environment so long as it will cost one iota of his precious "American lifestyle". I am curious to see what will happen in the next election (not only to see if the vote-counting farce will continue); the appearance of Ralph Nader in the last election is intriguing.
The rest of the world is watching. As of this writing (July 2001), the US is failing in environmental care, failing in human rights, and going for magna cum laude in arrogance. Exams are held regularly. Prepare thyself. --Pinkunicorn

A chill in relations with Russia: A good thing because the prior administration freely let money flow from American taxpayers to corrupt burecrats in Russia. In effect, the prior administration lett Russians steal from American citizens. All forms of 'aid' money should be cut off until Russia cleans itself up. If they don't like it, they should refuse the money. American taxpayers should not give money to countries that don't do what we want. Tough luck. I don't recall any other countries sending us aid packages when a hurricane strikes, Dakota floods, etc. If, as most liberals want, the US should get out of telling other countries what to do, the US should get out of sending the money also.


Refusing to participate in a campaign against global warming: A good thing. The US government should not intentionally lower our standard of living by reducing the amount of energy we use in producing product. Conservatives actually want a cleaner environment...but not one mandated by government. Do you think conservatives want to buy oil from another country? A bad move for our economy. Why do you think Bush supports the $5000 tax credit for buying a gas/electric hybrid vehicle (supported by ford and environmentalists)?


Cutting government funding to femminist organizations: Bush recently closed the OWI office at the white house. The OWI was created by the prior administration to cordinate activities of other parts of the executive branch that involve women. In short, they were a redundant part of the executive branch and had no actual power to implement/enforce regulations. Liberals do not understand that conservatives want people to be treated equally by not awarding special rights to one group of people or another. Liberals also don't understand that conservatives do not split people into demographic groups like liberals do. Splitting people into demographic groups only serves to divide and cause conflict amongst groups. An example of this is where we celebrate a whole month to one group's history yet do not celebrate any others history for a whole month. Where is 'equal protection under the law'?


General move against workers unions: Bush has done two things: 1. When a government contract passes from one company to another, the new company is not forced to hire all of the union workers from the company that lost the contract. This is a good thing as it allows more competition and lower cost for the service. It also forces the union workers to do better jobs and improve productivity so that the company can continue to keep the government contract. In short, government is not telling people how to run their lives as much as before. I thought that liberals whanted government to not tell people how to run their lives. Larger government == lower personal freedome.


2. Allow union members to withold their dues that go towards political operations that the union member does not want to support. How can letting workers have more flexibility and freedom be bad?


The tax cut: It reduces the taxes paid by lower income workers and causes much more of the income taxes paid to be paid by higher income workers. In effect, the wealthy, which by government standards is any household with income above $60,000 (i.e., two union schoolteachers), pay much more of the income taxes. The fact that a worker earning $30,000 will get less of a reduction in dollars and a much larger reduction in percentage is completely lost on liberals. You cannot give someone that pays $1000 in income taxes a reduction more than $1000, but you can give someone that pays $100,000 in taxes a $20,000 reduction.


Why do liberals equate more government as better...more government results in less personal freedom...?


These are all very partisan responses. There are partisan responses to them, and partisan responses to those, and so on endlessly. I'd like to avoid the whole thing and point out I merely stated they were all controversial, and I think there can be no dispute on that. Your claim that more government is an intrinsically bad thing is far from a univeral sentiment - nor are the claims that feminism is unequal, relations with other countries don't matter, that environmentalism is paranoia, or even that tax reductions are good (though I had listed that under plus). Give me a break!


Reread carefully without generalization and you will see that it was not stated that feminism was 'unequal'. What was stated is that conservatives do not want special rights granted to any group of people. In other words, conservatives want everyone treated equally. If special rights are granted to left handed people for example, all right handed people are discriminated against because they do not have the special rights.

Conservatives are sexists and racists who transparently lie about their prejudices as you do here.

Feminism is supposed to be a movement about ensuring equality between the two genders. Admittedly it sometimes deviates from that a little, but as such, it is not granting anyone any special status. So I stick by that comment. The others are overgeneralizing a bit, for which I am sorry - rhetoric is hard to stop in mid-sentence - though the points in question do remain very controversial.


reply: Question: Is a special government office for a particular demographic group considered unequal protection under the law because the group gets speciall attention from the government and citizens not in the group do not get such special attention?


Citizens not in the group get attention from other departments. This particular one is dedicated to helping no given individuals but to ironing out a strong demographic inequity. Treating unequals as equals leaves them so, this is a balancing force. Hypothetically should the inequity go the other way, there should be an organization to fix that to. I can see how this could easily become problematic, and it frequently does, but I don't consider the principle unequal.


(reply) Citizens in the group get special attention from the agency/department that everyone uses as well as the department specifically setup for their demographic group. This extra government service is denied to people outside of the demographic group. Thus, giving a lower level of government service to people outside of the demographic group. Is giving lower level of service to people outside of the demographic group discriminating against them?


Two of the main sticking points:

  • defining strong demographic inequity and measuring it. Consider an industry that has 5% of the employees are of a certain demographic group and that demographic group makes up 20% of the population. Does that in itself make a case for systematic inequity? Is the industry responsible to make sure that the number of qualified entry level candidates (consider a specialized field such as neurology) matches the same demographics as the general population?
  • addressing strong demographic inequity without discriminating against other demographic groups
  • determining when to end the regulations/laws specifically made to address strong demographic inequity.


 Here are a couple of questions to ponder:

 1. If affirmative action is meant to repay people for past

    discrimination during the civil war era and before, does

    Alaska and Hawaii have to be subject to this also?

    Remember that Alaska and Hawaii became part of the United

    States in the 1950s and therefore could not be somehow

    responsible/participate in the discrimination that

    affirmative action was created for.

affirmative action is nothing of the sort. Why don't you go learn about it before asking fallacious questions?


 2. Should differencs in percentage amongst demographic

    groups in the general population always have to be

    reflected in university faculty, corporations, and

    government agencies?

 3. Should geographic discrimination be something that

    needs to be corrected?  Consider how many government

    employees live in and around Washington DC and the

    economic impact of their actions versus areas such as

    New Mexico which have almost no government employees?

 4. Same basic question for government ownership of land.

    2/3rds of some western states are owned by the federal

    government.  Does that mean that 2/3rds of each of

    the eastern states should be owned by the federal 

    government?  More basically, does government ownership

    of large amounts of land in a given state discriminate

    against the residents of that state? (very important

    in rural argicultural/ranching states on such things

    as water rights).



Relations with other countries do matter. The US should be diplomatically difficult with countries that abuse their relationship with us (e.g., how Russia's burecrats have stolen millions of us taxpayers dollars for their own personal purposes).


It was not stated that envrionmentalism is not paranoia. That was incorrectly generalized in your reply. We can drill in Alaska and not spoil the environment. Most of the environmental horror stories related to oil production are from perfectly legal practices the oil companies did in the 1920s and 1930s (e.g., open storage of oil in pits, etc.). Those practices are not legal anymore.


And actually, I forgot to mention this before, but spoiling the state is not the issue. The problem is that particular national park was set up to protect a particularly important area, one that the caribou habitually migrate to and from. Disrupting it will hurt the caribou even if it does not spread oil across the whole area.

Are the caribou endangered? How many will be killed directly from oil production? How does this compare with whatever animal habitats are affected by drilling wells in the Middle East? How much pollution is released when transporting oil from Saudi Arabia to the United States versus transporting oil from a new Alaska well to the Alaska pipeline?

What's the question here is if it's reasonable to start drilling for oil in a national park. To my mind this is ludicrous. A national park is set off as a piece of nature that should be preserved, not exploited as soon as someone sees the possibility of making a profit. I am very well aware that there are oil spills from tankers transporting oil. I think there are laws that govern this, but many states seem to have trouble enforcing them. This is a problem, but to me it's a problem that can be solved. If it makes the transported oil a bit more expensive, well... tough! Deal with it. Either you pay up or you walk to work. The costlier it is to use petrol indiscriminately, the less people will do so, of course. This is a desirable effect. Perhaps this discussion should be held somewhere else? Bush may be lax about environmental protection, but this is not really about him. He's just a symptom of the problem. --Pinkunicorn

Almost makes you think we are witnessing the "Malcolm effect" as it relates to the forthcoming extinction of civilization and, possibly, humanity (it's gotta happen sometime,

Its interesting that "Barbara and Jenna Bush have been arrested for attempting to purchase alcohol with forged photo identification" has actually resulted in some serious politicial discussions (at least in the media) about the stupidity of American drinking laws. -- Simon J Kissane

Though I agree with limited drilling, the reason it has such an effect on wildlife is that above-ground pipelining (that they would use) disrupts natural migratory patterns of creatures like Elk. That is why comparatively little drilling can have a large effect on local wildlife.

On another note, for whatever the american public says, they obviously agree by not actively stopping the president, and by taking no voluntary action to reduce consumption. This includes people who vocally disagree with the drilling. they might have protested a nuke plant next to their house, but they only benignly oppose environmental disruption in faraway places.

To The Cunctator:

re: Not "because the rich primarily pay all taxes";

Well.... I guess you're not considering that Bush supported raising earned income credit.. hmm?

Reference:

http://www.cbpp.org/311eitc.htm

You really think this is a neutral position? :) "Economy: deep tax cuts, primarily affecting the rich"

hahaha

Ed

it's factual; the facts are often not "neutral"

My understanding:

By any measure, Bush's plan benefited the middle-to-upper middle class the least; percentage-wise, superwealthy individuals and lower-middle class individuals benefited the most. In raw dollars, the gross bulk of the tax revenue lost is coming from the wealthy-to-super-wealthy. People who earn too little to pay income taxes also benefit the least, since they payroll taxes weren't affected under his plan.

Of course, the proposed tax plan and the passed tax plan aren't identical, but the passed plan is very nearly what Bush wanted. Some might even say it's remarkably so, but that would only be if you're surprised at how spineless the Democrats in the Senate are.

No, I don't think it's a neutral position, though it's accurate. Any incomplete characterization can't be neutral. Instead of paring down to limit information, I'm trying to contribute what I know to the collaborative effort. If you think that information is missing, then add whatever you know.

BTW, Ashcroft was a controversial appointee, though what the controversy was (and who considered him controversial) should be mentioned in the Ashcroft entry. --TheCunctator

The information on the 2000 presidential election is far from accurate or NPOV and has a pro-Bush slant. --Daniel C. Boyer

Be bold and change it then. :) --maveric149

This passage has a pro-Gore slant.

The Electoral College vote was so close that the change of any one state would change the election. That together with the vote in Florida coming in so close as to be statistically a tie, caused Al Gore to dispute the election results. (There were a number of overseas ballots filled out or postmarked in such a way as to be invalid under Florida law that were nevertheless accepted. If these illegal ballots had not been accepted Al Gore would have received Florida's electoral votes and thus won the election.)

I think the above is less a statement of fact than a Democratic Party argument in favor of awarding the election to Gore. Moreover, it ignores the issue of military absentee ballots that were arbitrarily discarded although the were postmarked in such a way as to be VALID under Florida law. I'm just not sure I can gain enough emotional distance from the issue to write about it neutrally. Any takers?

a) You haven't pointed out any error of fact. b) There were no such discarded ballots. The media analysis showed just the opposite -- that the Republicans successfully pressured the precinct boards to accept numerous invalid absentee ballots -- enough to secure Bush's slim victory. c) As for "emotional distance" -- no kidding. You're so overwhelmed by emotion that you can't get the simplest *facts* right. Go read Bugliosi's and Dershowitz's books before you say another word on the subject, here or elsewhere, if you have a shred of intellectual integrity.

Regarding the recently removed "Bad Reputation with Environmental Issues" section: I feel it certainly could have been NPOV'd further, and agree that having no non-liberal reactions to Bush can make even neutral coverage of liberal opinions seem biased. Nonetheless, I think it would be reasonable to try to capture how different types of voters/people do respond to the president. Is this really so flame-prone that we can't allow even fairly factual statements about what different people believe here? --Ryguasu

The issue of the environment is increasingly seen as cross-party neither left- nor right-wing, (see http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?UpWing). I remember reading something aloing the lines that some of his actions in this area could by a reasonable extent be classified as international crimes. At any rate, while NPOV is important, the idea that the "proper development of the economy" is more important than the Kyoto Protocol is a fine case of a head in the sand. -- Tarquin 19:55 Sep 13, 2002 (UTC)

Good points. Nonetheless, I think environmental issues are still usually seen in a left/right dichotomy, and this seems, at least from my totally naive perspective, to still have a very large impact on what choices end up being made. Of course, "proper development of the economy" can mean quite a wide variety of things, from "future interests must be sacrificed for present gain; technological developments will save us from any lasting harm" to "we must have a completely sustainable, non-waste-generating economy, or our very existence will surely collapse". Maybe "proper development of the economy" is not used very well in the article. Nonetheless, I think the Earth vs. Jobs dichotomy, whether or not a gross oversimplification, is still quite active in the minds of the American electorate. --Ryguasu

Sorry, Lee. I got caught in the "edit conflict". I was gonna change it back until I got some hard documetnation. I'll hold off.

--alan D

Someone added the claim:

Later recounts would show that Bush also won the popular vote.

That's a lie. In fact, all studies show that Gore even won the vote in Florida; the only Bush comes out ahead is with no recount, or only recounting the 4 counties Gore asked for; if all Florida votes are counted, Gore wins.

I am not aware of any such study. Please provide a link to evidence supporting this claim. As far as I know, the only "recounts" done were for Florida, which did seem to indicate that Bush won there. But the nationwide popular vote wasn't close enough for recounts to make a difference--it was clearly won by Gore, and I don't think anyone disputes that. --LDC

Grolier's says Gore won the popular vote:

In the final tally, Gore lost by 4 electoral votes but led in the nationwide popular vote by 337,576; he was the first presidential candidate since Grover Cleveland in 1888 to win the popular vote and lose the presidency. [1]

--Ed Poor

It was my mistake, I own up. I mixed it up with "bush won florida by recount, wins the electoral votes". I tried to fix it almost right away, but you guys are so good I got an edit conflict.

Alan D.

No problem. That's why we have lots of eyes...

209.155.42.182 seems to be determined nto to have anything bad said about Bush? He seems to keep trying to get rid of all tha things that environmenatlists see him done wrong. I could say that 209.155.42.182 is trying to get rid of them for propaganda. ie Pro Bush.

Look, I'm no fan of the man, either, but this bit is absolutely unclear:

  • Stopping reintroduction of endangered species. (could someone clarify what this means? does it refer to a particular bill?)

Does it refer to efforts to clone endangered species? I haven't heard anything about it either. --KQ 19:49 Sep 20, 2002 (UTC)

209.155.42.182, your "baby seals" comment here clearly shows you're not taking this issue seriously, and greatly undermines your credibility to the point where we will be forced to check everything you do here. If you want to make a positive contribution, then log in and participate in the discussion here and try to make the article better. Behaving like a 12-year-old doesn't accomplish anything. --LDC

Well i added a link to i cnat rememebr it now on the page about his environmental issues. Its all on there.

I think the section of bullet points, beginning with not signing the Kyoto Protocol should be labeled "criticism by Environmentalists" and also moved down below the foreign policy section. Moreover, these bullet points collectively could become a new article -- called something like Environmentalist agenda. --Ed Poor

This especially became an issue during the 2000 election. Critics often portrayed Bush as intellectually inferior to his opponents, though his academic record and background was by and large comparable to his opponents. For example, Bush's verbal SAT score was 566; Bill Bradley's was 485, and Al Gore's 625. Gore received lower grades in his sophomore year at Harvard than any semester recorded on Bush's transcript from Yale.

The college grades are relevant -- in fact, we should also mention that Gore flunked out of Vanderbilt Divinity School -- because they relate to the "intellectually inferior" thing. Generally, an intellectual inferior would get worse grades than his superior. This was not the case with Bush, who did better than Gore. --Ed Poor

Well then we are going to have to have an explanation of how some people don't think grades are a good reflection of intelligence and it all kinda seems mudslinging anyways. Lir 21:24 Oct 25, 2002 (UTC)

Also it would only be appropriate to list what grades they got in specific classes as they would certainly have bearing and do we have any evidence for these things at all? Lir 21:25 Oct 25, 2002 (UTC)

You raise some good points. You want to just make the article say something like this?
Democrats called Bush stupid because of grammar errors when speaking in public, and Republicans called Gore stupid because he flunked out of Vanderbilt Divinity School.
Anyway, I don't own this article. Do as you like, if you think it really improves the article. --Ed Poor

Yah I suppose so. If somebody shows up with some in-depth info on their grades-it would be of interest, but otherwise it seems a bit much to me. Bush's SAT score is of interest but this whole, "Bush did better than Gore did during his sophomore year..." its all a bit much Lir 13:45 Nov 1, 2002 (UTC)

It has a bearing on American politics, particularly the relationship between the Republican administration and Democratic politicians and journalists. If weren't so lazy, I would write about the 2000 presidential campaign, listing the various planks in each side's platform, as well as how they characterized the other candidate's character and platform.
Democrats made a point of characterizing Bush as "stupid", "dumb", "inept", "looks like Alfred E. Neuman" while portraying Al Gore as exceptionally smart. Yet Bush earned a Harvard MBA while Gore never got a graduate degree. Also, Gore's analysis of the environment has so many logical holes in it: the whole global warming thing.

So now you're an expert on global warming? Sorry, but you're just another pathetic ideologue. And the Bush camp (with the help of Repub-owned media) deftly attacked Gore on his *virtues*, painting him as an arrogant wonk, a stiff techno-head without common sense. Regardless of school scores, and regardless of any *comparisons*, Bush ain't exactly the sharpest tack in the world, and it's rather revealing of people who try to defend his mental accuity.

But this would take more energy than I have right now. So like Bush I'll just say "fuzzy math" and leave it at that :-) --Ed Poor

But Gore's math wasn't fuzzy -- that dismissal is intellectually dishonest.

Whether or not Gore is particularly smart doesn't address the question of Bush's own intelligence (or lack thereof). Person A doesn't suddenly become less stupid just because person B is also not very bright. Since this is an article about Bush, it seems to me that we should be focusing on his intelligence, not the intelligence of other people. And for what it's worth, I'm not sure that SAT scores necesssarily correlate with intelligence, and comparing gradesis exremely problematic, because they can depend a lot on the curiculum (easy versus hard classes), and sometimes very smart people run into personal difficulties while in college and their grades drop. None of this really proves anything about intelligence, and comparing Bush to Gore on this score really belongs in the article on the election, not in this article. (Also, going back in time more than 30 years might also be problematic for proving present-day intelligence. Sometimes the activities of, as the article so delicately puts it, a "misspent youth", can have a negative impact in that area.) :) soulpatch
You are right as usual, esp. about comparing Bush to Gore on this score really belongs in the article on the election, not in this article. Btw, did you see what I wrote in Talk:Walter_Mondale? --Ed Poor

Bush’s intelligence

When you have a word for how bad your speech is, e.g. Bushisms, then that says something about a) your grammar, and b) how you can coherently form sentences. Maybe falling off his bike did something to his head. so if you feel like criticizing gore's, or for that matter Kerry’s intelligence, then take a good hard look at your self, and maybe you should start criticizing your own intelligence. Hey, you voted for bush. ;-) -leftwinger4peace

I can't believe this.

I can't believe that this discussion has devolved into a discussion about George's intelligence. He's smart enough to get into office, so clearly he isn't stupid. He's been smart enough to snow the American people into believing that BOTH elections were legal, when Representative Conyers' report on the Ohio elections clearly shows that the election was rigged, both with the voting machines AND the bullying tactics that were used at Democratic voting venues. It's called "What Went Wrong in Ohio."

http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/ohiostatusrept1505.pdf

He may have gotten a 565 on the SAT, but he's no dummy. He's got Dobermans like Karl Rove and Tom DeLay doing his dirty work for him.