Posted on 08/29/2002 1:00:30 PM PDT by feelin_poorly
Shortly after 9-11, TV talk-show host Sean Hannity said, "Thank God, we have an honest man in the White House!"
And when you think about it, a great deal of what you might believe about the so-called War on Terrorism is based on statements from George W. Bush. You have only his word, or that of someone in his administration:
Since America is endangered by the "you're either with me or against me" tactics of the Bush administration, it becomes vital to know whether we can trust the man in charge of our government.
The record
So does George Bush's record inspire confidence in his honesty?
Unfortunately, this is the same man who has referred to trillions of dollars in budget surpluses – even though the federal government hasn't had a budget surplus since 1956. (The appearance of any "surpluses" was created by taking excess receipts from Social Security and applying them to the general budget, even as the politicians swore they were protecting Social Security.)
Mr. Bush even has the chutzpah to refer with a straight face (well not exactly a straight face, he loves to smirk) to corporate executives "cooking the books." He neglects to mention that many of the corporate bookkeeping methods the politicians are so incensed about today were motivated by rules imposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
And George Bush is the same man who in 2000 said he believed in "limited government." Most people assumed he meant a government limited by the Constitution. In fact, he took an oath in which he swore to uphold the Constitution.
But he's violated virtually every one of the first 10 Amendments – especially the Ninth and 10th Amendments, which are meant to impose precise limits on his power.
So his belief in "limited government" apparently means government limited to what he wants to do.
George Bush is the same man who in one breath tries to ingratiate himself with you by saying, "It's your money, not the politicians' money" – but in the next breath, he says he's entitled to one third of "your money."
George Bush is the same man who said he has learned more about political philosophy from Jesus of Nazareth than from anyone else. But he's proven by his actions that he doesn't really believe such things as "Blessed are the peacemakers." And "the meek" who Jesus said would inherit the earth are in Mr. Bush's eyes really just "collateral damage" in his plans to tell the world how it must live.
Is honesty important?
In these and in so many other ways, George Bush has proven that he's not an honest man – and that we shouldn't trust him with the safety of America.
In fact, Thomas Jefferson understood that we shouldn't put our trust in any politician. He said we should bind them down from mischief "by the chains of the Constitution." And a truly honest man wouldn't even ask you to trust him.
Contrary to what you might have thought, this isn't an article about George Bush. It's an article about you. Are you going to demean yourself by putting your faith in a man who has done so much to demonstrate the folly of such faith?
Are you going to let politicians stampede you into throwing away the Bill of Rights, based on "evidence" you never see, reassured by politicians who have proven that the truth is secondary to their own ambitions?
Don't you have enough respect for your own mind to make your own decisions, refuse to accept conclusions without evidence, and be something better than a cheerleader for a politician or a political party?
I repeat...Conservatives can stay.....Contrarians gotta go.
If you are a kneejerk Contrarian then whatever you ramble off to justify yourself is inconsequential to me...you gotta go.
Pretty intolerant huh?
I don't think so. I'd just like for those who are subverting this Country and standing everything it's every stood for that was sane and decent on its head to quit dragging the whole Country into these situations with them. The WTC wasn't attacked because somebody wanted to take away our Freedom. It wasn't freedom that was attacked (at least not by any 'terrorists'), it was the policians interventionist, empire building policies that were 'attacked' and while many here are busy deriding me for saying so, the power-elite in DC are busy making sure that you all have tent-cities (with AC, of course) to be herded into when the next "attack" (biological or nuclear) happens where you and your family can be given innoculations against who knows what whether you want them or not and where you can be locked up as a terrorist if you try to resist. Don't take my word for it (not that I think you would...). Try looking up all the new powers that FEMA has been granted lately under the watchful eye of the Bush administration. We used to talk about such things here on FR but I guess since "our" man's in the White House - some folks no longer believe it necessary to keep up with the goings-on in Washington. More's the pity. Gotta run - time to get back to work.
That's the problem, in a nutshell.
It's waaaaay beyond political parties at this point - the Repubs and the Dems are just 2 sides of the same coin. We're actually BEYOND what the founding fathers fought a revolution over now, today. And we've re-established the Ruling Class, which we (allegedly, and I hope it's still true) install by election. Most Americans don't even KNOW that the President doesn't legally have the authority, under the Constitution, to do most of the things that Bush, Clinton, Bush, and the rest have been doing the last few years. They're truly at a point where they make it up as they go along.
The current Steel on Steel radio program (last weekend) has an excellent treatment of this. Unfortunately, the website is no longer free - but it's well worth the $6 a month to listen to. John's point is that because Bush and Ashcroft are Republicans and claim to be born again Christians, the so-called conservatives turn a total blind eye to every unConstitutional thing they do. John Loeffler gets letters and emails - and phone calls - from people saying "Now, that John Ashcroft (or Bush) is a Born Again Christian - you just leave him alone and let him do his job." John's response is that it's HIS job, as a radio show host, to tell people when "their" leaders are flagrantly violating their oaths of office.
100 Trillion more times than ANY liberal's level of honesty. That enough for you?
No. I want "my" leaders to tell the truth and follow the supreme law of the land. That too much for you?
What percentage of the vote did Harry Browne get? What percentage did Pat Buchanan get? What percentage did Alan Keyes get? How about Howard Phillips?
According to posters here, these are the "true conservatives". IIRC, all of them combined didn't get more than 5% of the total vote.
What this says to me is that, even though we on FR want a more conservative federal government, the American people as a whole do not - in fact, they were about evenly divided on whether they favored Bush's moderate views or Gore's liberal views.
George W. Bush seems to be about as conservative as a politician can be at this time and still be elected.
Ridiculing and tearing down our President - even if he's not as conservative as some of us would like - is not constructive, IMO. Instead we need to be changing the hearts and minds of our neighbors and our young people, so that more conservative politicians have a chance of being elected. We also need to be helping conservative candidates at lower levels of government - because those are the foundations of our government, and because national politicians usually begin as local politicians.
I believe THIS was YOUR first post and the FIRST PERSONAL ATTACK thrown on this thread:
the self-described conservatives in this Country would be up in arms. I guess as long as it's "our man" doing the end-run against this Nation's founding principles, it's okay.
9 posted on 8/29/02 4:14 PM Eastern by KentuckyWoman
Perhaps it's YOUR attitude?
Yep. After generations of government schooling, most Americans haven't a clue what the Constitution says. You don't need a "true vision," OPH - it's black and white. It plainly and simply limits, specifically, what the federal government is allowed to do.
ROFLMAO
Precisely. And these people think we should be happy because we're not in Iraq, after all.
"If you're happy and you know it, clank your chains" has a truer ring to it every day.
Harry Browne is a joke. He's not unlike many other irrelevant wannabes out there that scramble for mattering by offering critiques to a small little huddling crowd of utopia searchers who will die waiting for whatever it is they think they want.
It's America's Fault!
Libertarian appeasers, creationism, Y2K catastrophism... What else? I'm forgetting a buch of stuff. Is there any lost cause that WND hasn't signed onto?
You are welcome, and you are so right. Thank God for President Bush.
Better question:
Should we trust Harry Browne?
Or is he GPAUI*?
*Grinding a Political Axe while Under the Influence...
Harry might be asking some good questions. But he gives away his game with this gratuitous comment: "that Iraq, which George Bush is dying to invade..."
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