| | No problem Duncan. I'm sure we have disagreements, but I consider us allies nonetheless. And it's been a pleasure working with you on the Free Radical site.
The pro/anti Bush debates on this site have mostly centered on the foreign policy (a number of exceptions noted), which is what this generalization of mine is all about. But I made another comment over a year ago. At that time, I said the Iraq war was just the current concrete thing to argue about in the context of hating America. Before 9/11, the argument was very broad. It was about the nature of government vs. anarchy (with anarchists being anti-American). The two sides argued all the time, but it wasn't very concrete. They thought the other people wrong, but not necessarily enemies. 9/11 happened, and the anarchists celebrated, while the minarchists denounced it and call for retribution. That's when it broke open as far as I'm concerned. Afghanistan was the first concrete to argue over, but it only lasted a couple of weeks. Not much chance to get into heated exchanges. Plus, the moderates generally sided with the war. And the success was beyond even the optimists dreams. There were arguments over details, but it wasn't Vietnam as predicted.
Talk of Iraq happened soon after, building up forever. This wasn't a morally clear-cut as Afghanistan, so the anarchists jumped at it. The arguing hasn't ended, but the debate for many people was just a more concrete argument of the anti/pro America views. And since Bush started that war, he's the natural target. A single person who embodies not just the war in Iraq, but also the United States of America. Of course there would be strong dislike. But being anarchists, they don't really have their own man for the job. Anyone but Bush.
You can see how radically different this is from people like yourself, Adam Reed, Chris Sciabarra, Ed Thompson, the people who vote for none of the above, etc.
There are others that have commented on the wider social generalization, about it being pro or anti America. I'm not sure how it applies to domestic policy. Foreign policy you can usually see the action being geared towards America, or someone else. That's because the parties involved are nations. Domestic policies usually affect people in a country, so I'm not sure how much it can be ascribed to anti-America vs. pro-America.
But certainly it can be based on whether you're for what America stands for, or against it. It's anti-Capitalist. And in some sense it's anti-America. Those who hate or feel guilty about our general wealth, our right to pursue happiness, the fact that we live our own lives and don't care about what's going on in other parts of the world (we're not altruistic enough), etc. You'll find plenty of those people.
They're full of hatred. They want to destroy, not build up. It's more about the things they hate then the things they like. The excuses are plentiful, but they're just excuses.
(Edited by Joseph Rowlands on 11/02, 4:59pm)
|
|
