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wavyarmsThis is a really excellent article that my brother forwarded me on why Bush is not incompetent. It also points out that focusing on Bush's perceived incompetence is very dangerous, because it deflects attention away from the fact that it's conservative policies, not Bush in particular, that are doing damage. Quote:
"Bush’s disasters — Katrina, the Iraq War, the budget deficit — are not so much a testament to his incompetence or a failure of execution. Rather, they are the natural, even inevitable result of his conservative governing philosophy. It is conservatism itself, carried out according to plan, that is at fault."
The essay also brought to my mind the fact that the more educated a US citizen is, the less likely they are to be conservative, and brought up some reasons why. Another quote in the article speaks well to this issue:
"Many of the miscalculations are the result of a conservative analytic focus on narrow causes and effects, rather than mere incompetence. Evidence for this focus can be seen in conservative domestic policies: Crime policy is based on punishing the criminals, independent of any effort to remedy the larger social issues that cause crime; immigration policy focuses on border issues and the immigrants, and ignores the effects of international and domestic economic policy on population migration; environmental policy is based on what profits there are to be gained or lost today, without attention paid to what the immeasurable long-term costs will be to the shared resource of our environment; education policy, in the form of vouchers, ignores the devastating effects that dismantling the public school system will have on our whole society."
The more you learn, the more you discover how complex and interconnected the world around you really is. A lot of conservative policies are fixated on coming up with direct, simple, powerful solutions...that really don't work, because the world isn't that simple, and if you want life to be easy, and easily analyzed, then you're kind of shit out of luck.
I realize that saying "people who support Bush and his administration's policies are stupid" is considered a fairly extreme statement, but as time passes, I have less and less respect for anyone who supports the current administration, or their ideology. I really believe you have to be stupid, immoral, too lazy to figure out what's going on, or willfully blind. I have tried to find things that I supported, and I have failed.
Not convinced? Here's another link to throw on the pile - federal guidelines have been released asking women to regard themselves as "pre-pregnant," and act accordingly. That's all women, not pregnant women, and not hoping-to-be-pregnant women. Someone at the DailyKos has a nice rant, and a disturbing link to a woman who can't get proper medical treatment because although she never plans on having another child, the medication she needs might cause an increased risk of birth defects. Apparently the government now supports this sort of thinking.
"Bush’s disasters — Katrina, the Iraq War, the budget deficit — are not so much a testament to his incompetence or a failure of execution. Rather, they are the natural, even inevitable result of his conservative governing philosophy. It is conservatism itself, carried out according to plan, that is at fault."
The essay also brought to my mind the fact that the more educated a US citizen is, the less likely they are to be conservative, and brought up some reasons why. Another quote in the article speaks well to this issue:
"Many of the miscalculations are the result of a conservative analytic focus on narrow causes and effects, rather than mere incompetence. Evidence for this focus can be seen in conservative domestic policies: Crime policy is based on punishing the criminals, independent of any effort to remedy the larger social issues that cause crime; immigration policy focuses on border issues and the immigrants, and ignores the effects of international and domestic economic policy on population migration; environmental policy is based on what profits there are to be gained or lost today, without attention paid to what the immeasurable long-term costs will be to the shared resource of our environment; education policy, in the form of vouchers, ignores the devastating effects that dismantling the public school system will have on our whole society."
The more you learn, the more you discover how complex and interconnected the world around you really is. A lot of conservative policies are fixated on coming up with direct, simple, powerful solutions...that really don't work, because the world isn't that simple, and if you want life to be easy, and easily analyzed, then you're kind of shit out of luck.
I realize that saying "people who support Bush and his administration's policies are stupid" is considered a fairly extreme statement, but as time passes, I have less and less respect for anyone who supports the current administration, or their ideology. I really believe you have to be stupid, immoral, too lazy to figure out what's going on, or willfully blind. I have tried to find things that I supported, and I have failed.
Not convinced? Here's another link to throw on the pile - federal guidelines have been released asking women to regard themselves as "pre-pregnant," and act accordingly. That's all women, not pregnant women, and not hoping-to-be-pregnant women. Someone at the DailyKos has a nice rant, and a disturbing link to a woman who can't get proper medical treatment because although she never plans on having another child, the medication she needs might cause an increased risk of birth defects. Apparently the government now supports this sort of thinking.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-02 12:10 am (UTC)WHAT IN THE WORLD!!! Now I know the jerk of a doctor I saw a couple of months ago was just following federal guidelines, but... OH MY GOODNESS!!! This doctor told me that he treated all women between the ages of 12 and 50-some as if they could be pregnant tomorrow (this after I told him I was a virgin, did not believe in sex before marriage, was not dating anyone, and if I did start dating anyone it would be a good year before I'd marry anyone - I don't believe in short engagements unless you already knew the guy - the point is - I AM NOT GOING TO BECOME PREGNANT! And I'm 24 - I don't think I'd be lying to you at this point because I was afraid you'd tell my mommy on me!
(so now the government doesn't believe that anyone believes in abstinence either?)
Not to mention the fact that I agree with the other points about how stupid that is (people who aren't planning on having kids, etc) Its not the government's job to tell us not to do and take certain things just because we MIGHT have kids...
no subject
Date: 2006-07-02 05:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-07 03:22 pm (UTC)I think that liberals are typically accused of this trait as well, particularly in the flavors of pcness and government regulation; and in fact I believe ideologues in both directions do engage in such behavior (that is, controlling) towards other people's beliefs and behavior. I tend to see a lot of hypocracy, though, in the case of right wing voices that won't acknowledge the issues mentioned above and in our conversation yesterday.
Also, I listened briefly the other day to an NPR show with a guest who, though self-described as conservative, opposed the Iraq war and a number of Bush's other policies. In fact, his new book is apparently about what he perceives as the imminent decline of "conservatism" in terms of political power, one of the main causes being its current hegemony and the hubris that tends to accrue.
Thanks for the links.