[MrBS]

Without just bashing, is bush a patriot?

In my views, a patriot puts their own personal profits, their company's profits, their party's approval and their personal face behind what would be good for their country.

A patriot would strive to make America A) better and B) sustainable.


It is my opinion that Bush's actions profited him and his associates in the immediate future, but hurt the country in the long run. The war helped defense contractors and haliburton, but destabilized the region and caused lots of anti-american sentiment (not saying it was a bad choice, but those two premises I think are pretty safe). His economic plans help the very wealthy in the immediate future, but it's not sustainable. It's widening the gap between the ultra wealthy and the rest of us, it cuts social programs, it drives up poverty which directly correlates with an increase in crime and drugs, which funnels tons of money and power into drug cartels who already are quite adept at smuggling things into the country. Not people you want to be feeding resources to when you're fighting terrorists. I also think he's curtailed our civil liberties.

Anyway, I don't think he's a patriot. Not even going back to the spineless style of draft dodging, no protest or statement just sidestepping.

~BS

[greenamp]

I'm a patriot

[MrBS]

Also I don't think a patriot should, as commander in chief, allow private contractors to be inserted in the chain of command. Those people's responsibilities are to shareholders and their board, not the country. You don't hand them reign over our enlisted (wo)men.

~BS

[greenamp]

Originally posted by MrBS:
Also I don't think a patriot should, as commander in chief, allow private contractors to be inserted in the chain of command. Those people's responsibilities are to shareholders and their board, not the country. You don't hand them reign over our enlisted (wo)men.

~BS

a'ight

[vmarks]

Originally posted by MrBS:
Also I don't think a patriot should, as commander in chief, allow private contractors to be inserted in the chain of command. Those people's responsibilities are to shareholders and their board, not the country. You don't hand them reign over our enlisted (wo)men.

~BS

These people's responsibilities also are to their customers, in some cases the government who contracts them.

They have a service, we buy, we expect that service to be delivered upon, but we hand over management of that to the contractor, while retaining responsibility.

[MrBS]

That defeats the purpose of having a chain of command.

If it was the last hop of the COC going to subcontractors, that maybe debatable. But having a commercial civilian group in the middle with enlisted men subordinate to them is completely wrong.

~BS

[aberdeenwriter]

Originally posted by MrBS:
That defeats the purpose of having a chain of command.

If it was the last hop of the COC going to subcontractors, that maybe debatable. But having a commercial civilian group in the middle with enlisted men subordinate to them is completely wrong.

~BS

Got links?

As to your original question, it may be like asking if Abraham Lincoln were a patriot...before the end of the Civil War.

I won't go so far as to make a direct comparison...yet.

But, if you asked a Southerner that question in 1866 or today, what answers would you get?

If you asked a Northerner during the war (when Lincoln was desperately in search of his government's Grant) and then again in 1866 or today, what would they say?

Bush could very well come out looking like a visionary.

Or, maybe not.

Kennedy had his Bay of Pigs and Marilyn.
Nixon had Watergate.
Carter had the hostages and Afghanistan.
Reagan had a few little missteps.
Clinton had Monica and China and Somalia and Hillary.

Show me the patriot and I'll show you someone else's 'bum.'

It might be more useful to ask if they were effective. I'll leave that for others to decide. But as far as W on either question, it remains to be seen.

When I went to the dentist and he told me I needed more than just a cleaning I could have said no. But I wanted my dental problems to be addressed now rather than waiting to let them get worse.

It was far from being an easy next few sessions, but it was worth it in the long run.

If you'd have asked me during the procedure if it was worth it, I'd have replied, "uypoi hg jsm ditgwdh!!!"

[MrBS]

It seems you're defining a patriot as results oriented. The definition I was using was if they put their countries gains infront of their own, when they were elected to represent the country first.

I'm not simply talking about taking the path of least resistance. Yes. Get your teeth cleaned, it may not be pleasant but it's needed. But there's something to be said about going to an accredited dentist for the cleaning instead of taking the money you were allotted for the teeth cleaning and instead buying a new tooth cleaning cookie your buddies are selling that they assure you is almost as good. You would not be a good steward of your body at that point.

The motivations for this war (which is how I interpreted your metaphor) were not preemptive cleanings, they were all (in my opinion) personal goals. They did come at great cost to the country, including >1000 us troops, billions and billions of taxpayer dollars, credibility in the world, oil prices... There were some positive peripheral results, but not for this country. Iraqis may be 'liberated', but in the process we killed >100,000 of them in this revolution we forced on them and they're now living in the worlds biggest terrorist hotbed and are occupied by a foreign army they don't want and are caught in the crossfire. Some of Iraq's weapons were captured, but more slipped over to third parties that we don't know, can't negotiate with, can't trace back to a country and can't sanction. Saddam is out of power, which is good, but it destabilized the area and is pretty much a wash with the current situation.

Not to mention that we didn't need to be involved with this at all, and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. How can you say that it was in the country's best interest to go to war with iraq?

I don't think a patriot would lead us into this war.

~BS