WingColors

Thank you.

WOW, That's mature. :)

Sorry, I'm on the other side of the fence. (In so many ways.) But I agree with the general sentiment.

I'll agree that he's not the best President we've ever had but in no way does he "out suck" Jimmy Carter.

I also don't think Bill Clinton deserves the "best President" title that our media loves to give him. Personally I wouldn't give ANYONE "best President" because no one has done a perfect job at it. The one President I admire the most would happen to be Reagan.

I'm Canadian (please don't hate) so I'm going to ask a question here: is it the President who is properly credited and/or blamed for what goes on during their time in office, or the Presidency (i.e. the President plus the senior administration and decision makers)? Is the President more of a figurehead than we're led to believe, or is his still the office where the buck stops?

I thought 9rules was a bit above this?

I've got plenty of disagreement with bush and his administration, but I've had problems with most administrations in the past few decades. I understand venting though! Maybe rethink it and make it actually mean something next time.

That was basically my point.

But I have been very glad to see the Politics Community not turn out like most of the political blogging world and I hope I can help keep it "sane".

"is it the President who is properly credited and/or blamed for what goes on during their time in office, or the Presidency"

Personally I would have to say the Presidency/Administration. The President isn't as powerful of a man as many Americans (and foriegners) think he is.

Fuck on the front page of 9rules? I'm offended!

Josue was having a moment yesterday so I let him slide with his Note. But honestly, there isn't much to like about Bush. I know people like to argue and that's the only reason politics exist, but the bad definitely outweighs the good here. Whenever your best solution is to send people over to get killed I fail to believe that the people in power have put their brains into work.

If it was their best solution then do you really believe nobody else could do better? I support our troops and everything they do because they act under the pretense of protecting our country. It would just be nice to believe that our Leader is doing the same.

But who knows, Gore could've done the same thing...

Yeah, you're right. I can agree with a policy or two but overall I'm embarrassed by him.

Some of the members curse in the titles of their blog entries and it is on the front page, in the communities, etc. We could moderate entries, moderate notes, but that doesn't change how people feel? Of course not. Would it be better to have a clean title and cursing in the discussion? Google has over 1M items with the same term and members have said the exact same thing on their blogs, which showed up on our front page, which is why I let it go yesterday.

If the discussion degrades then I'll start ending away but if I edited ever curse word I'd be editing all day.

I might as well throw my political 2 cents into the arena.

I hate saying, "picking the lesser of 2 evils", but when it came to Gore versus Bush or Kerry versus Bush, I think Bush was the right pick for both cases.

I voted for Bush, but I do think he has done a crap load wrong. At the same time, I don't think Gore or Kerry would have been able to pull the moxy needed to stand up to the terrorist after 9/11. Maybe they could have, maybe not but news flash people...THEY ARE NOT PRESIDENT, so many people need to leave that dream world and deal with the reality which is Bush for the last 8 years. In his defense, his position is by far the hardest job on the planet. As Carlos Mencia says in many of his skits:

"Nobody can even begin to fathom what its like to be the President of the United States. A plumber has a bad day and accidently pokes someone eye out, the President has a bad day and EVERYBODY FUCKING DIES"

Now he is joking in a sense, but its true, the decisions that come across this mans desk everyday is beyond what us "average" people can remotely fathom.

Sure he makes stupid ass decisions and seems to be stubborn, especially on his stance with Iraq, but you do have to give it to him on "staying the course".

Also, one other problem our world faces are the young people. All these young people really have no other administrations besides Clinton to compare against, unless you are in your social studies or world history class, all you might hear are your parents talk about Reagan, Bush Sr, Kennedy, etc...

If your parents were liberal hippies, most likely they hate Bush and love Clinton.

If you parents were pro war back in the same era, and/or have strong family military ties, they probably back Bush and agree with his stances.

If someone wants to criticize Bush at the age of 25, that is perfectly fine, but they need to stray from doing administration comparisons because what they knew of Clinton at the age of 16 might not hold a whole hell of a lot of weight unless they were on the political debate team their sophmore year.

Politics suck, but the truth is there is a "I hate Bush" bandwagon in this country and its only going to get worse.

I listen to the Sean Hannity show from time to time, and he has this feature called "Man on the street thursdays". It is incredible what the average bumfuck on the street knows about our society and politics.

When asked who are vice president is, 1 in 5 would get it. the answer usually was "Oh, he is that guy that went hunting and shot someone". When asked who the Secretary of State is, or who Kerry's running mate was, they did not know the answer. Oh, but when asked who they voted for, it was Kerry. Why? Because "anyone but Bush" was the typical answer.

I'm sorry, but if you can't answer some basic questions of our political process or system in this country (just some basic questions), there is no reason you should have a chance to vote.

Why people are against Voter ID cards is beyond me? You need an ID to drive a car. You need an ID to access certain buildings. You need an ID to buy alcohol. Oh, but to vote, Nah...not needed.

Sorry, I went off on a tangent. Anyways, politics suck and most people can't think for themselves, so they drink the koolaid and move along.

How it looks over here in the UK, the sentiment: fuck bush expresses a point of view which is much more thought-through and eloquent than the actions of the people who voted for him in the first place, and certainly more intelligent than than those who are still justifying his position.
Get rid of the guy, please. He's a liability for the whole planet. The time for worrying about the fucking language is way past.

"I hate saying, "picking the lesser of 2 evils", but when it came to Gore versus Bush or Kerry versus Bush, I think Bush was the right pick for both cases."

Ya know, there's a saying... "The lesser of two evils, is STILL EVIL"

There ARE other viable options that have been proven throughout history. We have not been the US under Republicans or Democrats the whole time. If enough people stand behind a different philosophy it IS possible to break "the system".

"Get rid of the guy, please. He's a liability for the whole planet."

It's not that simple. You can't just say "oh, you have a low approval rating, you're fired". Unless someone is able to make something surface that is an impeachable AND criminal offence and make it stick, the best you're going to get is the Presidential elections in 2008.

The PROBLEM is this 25 year old "Impeach Bush" movement has NO idea what the word even means or how complex and drawn out and unsuccessful the process is. They lived through an impeachment and they were still stuck with the man in office, yet a mere 7 years has gone by and they forget. You can impeach a President and not remove him from office. There have only been TWO people who have ever been impeached as a US President and neither of them were removed from office.

...and by "25 year old impeach bush movement" I mean the movement made up of political kids, not a movement that has been here for 25 years :)

Thanks for the clarification, RightOn--I was kind of scratching my head here saying "Has it really been 25 years of 'Impeach Bush'?" Mind you, if I look in the mirror, I could start to believe it! :)

I was half-kidding Tyme, but I remember some discussion about a family-friendly blog site where kids don't need to be subject to that stuff. Perhaps just 'hide' all entries that match ____, _____ and ____ words. If your passion can't be expressed in a better way do you deserve the attention from the front page?

Just some thoughts..

I should have clarified, I am an independent. Some issues I am down the middle, some issues I am on the right, and other issues I am on the left.

When it comes to a presidential election, realistically speaking 1 of 2 people are ACTUALLY going to win. The Republican or the Democrat.

That is just the reality we have to live with unless we can convince 60 million people to vote for neither. Believe me, I fully understand that there are other viable alternatives, but for getting someone into office, its just not realistic to think they will win.

WOW, just WOW. This note should be deleted.

Haha, word.

you started the note, why censor it or delete it? Did you not expect to see a lot of responses with a title of "Fuck Bush"?

cmon now...

Now he is joking in a sense, but its true, the decisions that come across this mans desk everyday is beyond what us "average" people can remotely fathom.

That's probably why he has thousands of people working under him who help with those decisions. If I had 1000 people on my staff, I would be making some really great plumbing decisions.

Majorchamp, the note was meant as a joke, which clearly everyone missed.

I assume you're not a novice at using the internet. Surely you realize that with a few simple words you can't convey tone or sarcasm. How was anyone supposed to realize it was a joke, especially when that's such a popular phrase among the youth these days?

exactly

"especially when that's such a popular phrase among the youth these days?"

My favorite conversations are one where you talk to someone who just turned 18 and has NO clue about politics.

You get something like this:

18: I HATE BUSH!
You: Why?
18: Because he's evil.
You: How is he evil?
18: He just IS!
You: Who do you think was the greatest President in the history of the US?
18: Clinton baby! He was on SNL! and he got a hummer in the White House! Yeah!
You: Do you happen to have a gun so I can shoot myself?

The sad thing is that the wave of younger folk who are ACTUALLY going to the polls know nothing outside of Clinton / Bush Jr.

They see the world as before Bush / after Bush and latch on to anything the media slings their way rather than absorbing any information they can find, researching and getting as many opinions as they can before opening their mouth or voting.

That's right along the lines of what I was getting at.

My initial point was saying "fuck bush," however good your reasoning behind the sentiment is, will just get you lumped with kids and imbeciles. You may have an excellent argument against bush but it's completely wasted starting out like that.

I dislike Bush Jr. as a president, but my reasons are not the common ones. I voted for him. Given the same choices again, I'd vote for him again. That doesn't mean I like him, it was just the best available decision I had at the time.

Excellent over-generalization of the youth.

latch on to anything the media slings their way rather than absorbing any information they can find, researching and getting as many opinions as they can before opening their mouth or voting.

I think it's incredibly unfair to target "the youth" when you say that.

I don't believe in "unfair"... I'll come right out and say it... I'm 27... I was one of those "Clinton is cool cause he plays the Sax" guys in the early 90's but I took the initiative to dive in instead of floating on the surface.

Too many of the "youth" get thier "news" from MTV and The Daily Show and there is data out there to prove it.

I'll be the first to say there ARE exeptions but it doesn't take 5 min. to find a multitude of examples of the uninformed young voter.

Too many of the "youth" get thier "news" from MTV and The Daily Show and there is data out there to prove it.

I'll be the first to say there ARE exeptions but it doesn't take 5 min. to find a multitude of examples of the uninformed young voter.

And there are no uninformed voters who aren't young? It's just us crazy kids who can't think for themselves?

I will just say that not every member of "the youth" thinks like me. And not every member who's not in "the youth" thinks like you. To target younger people when other generations make the same exact mistakes (whether or not you yourself make those mistakes - other people in the same age bracket as you do) is hypocritical.

"And there are no uninformed voters who aren't young? It's just us crazy kids who can't think for themselves?"

Of course not... the world is full of uninformed people... and there ARE people stuck in much older generations than I who vote with no information... my point is that of ALL the generations out there the young ones (13-20) have the skills to access the most information than any of the others because they were basically BORN connected. Yet since "cool" and "politics" don't seem to go hand in hand, they seem to be wholly uneducated on the REALLY important information.

Ask anyone on the street aged 13-20 who the Speaker of the House is and I can bet you that almost ALL of them won't say "Dennis Hastert".

Ask them who punched Paris Hilton in the Jaw and they'll finish the answer before you even finish the question.

Ask anyone on the street aged 13-20 who the Speaker of the House is and I can bet you that almost ALL of them won't say "Dennis Hastert".

I guess what I was trying to say since the beginning was that you could ask someone who's 35 or 65 the same question and get the same response as you would to someone who's 20 (like me). And that's why it was unfair to target the youth.

you're far more likely to get a correct answer from someone 35-65 than you are from 13-20... it's simple statistics.

I'm sure you'd get empty stares from the 35-65ers if you pulled the Paris Hilton question.

Is it a generalization? Yes. Is that wrong? I don't think so, generalizations may be insulting to the minorities within a group, but they exist because they are true to the group as a whole... in a GENERAL sense! Yeah there's tons of exceptions, but they only apply on an individual basis.

It's the same with stereotypes, and profiling. They don't tell you anything about individual people, but they are statistically true to groups of people, so shouldn't be offhandedly brushed aside as "unfair."

No one ever said the truth had to be fair.

We have quite strayed from the topic, but it's been interesting.

People who are 13-17 don't vote.
People who are 18-25 may be misinformed. And some don't vote.
People who are 35-120 may be misinformed. And some don't vote.
You'd get the same empty stare if you asked me the Paris Hilton question. Or maybe a look of disgust.
I never liked statistics.

When I say misinformed, I don't mean in terms of democrats/republicans - both sides are playing the game.

You can have the last word.

"People who are 13-17 don't vote."

No, but MTV knows they COULD soon... the "Rock The Vote" series they love to run every 4 years is marketed to 18 and under.

"No one ever said the truth had to be fair."

DING DING DING! NOW we see my point. Stereotypes had to come from something... no one just makes up crap and assumes it belongs to a certain group... there has to be truth to the statement or it gets ignored.

Generally speaking an 18 year old voter TODAY really does not have much perspective on politics and whomever gets to them first with information usually gets the vote as they are VERY impressionable. Voting is new to them and they tend to vote for the candidate that got in their face the most.

"Fair" is just a term coined by the minority in a specific group to get attention. Nothing is "fair".

Wow, I like the conversation here, seriously.

I hate stereotypes as much as the next person, because it really does make a paticular person look bad even when they are not even remotely close to being part of the stereotype.

However, its the truth and the truth often sucks.

RighOn is correct. I bet if you were to take 15,000 18 year olds and thrown them political questions, and then take 15,000 35 year old + with the same political questions, the group with the correct and more informed answers would fall on the side of the older crowd.

And I say that as a 25 year old. Chris, when it comes to the youth per this conversation, you are an exception. You study up and get yourself informed. Our point is that a good chunk of the youth do not think independtly like yourself, rather they follow a particular train of thought in this country versus informing themselves.

My mother in law and Aunt are about as knowledgable in politics as the average 15 year old.

I asked them what was happening on American Idol and they could name me 6 out of last 15 contestents, but when I asked them who was the vice president, they didn't know. They really did say, "he is that guy who shot another guy". I asked them who Secretary of State is. They had no clue. This is family I am talking about. So yea its unfair to lump the youth like we do, but when you are talking about statistics and the ultimate final outcome, its logical to say the youth is less informed then the older crowd.

The youth is much more likely to follow what their peers do then someone who has their own family.

Scrivs, Tyme, Mike, ET AL: I'm very serious when I say it's threads like this that make me proud to be a 9ruler. That's not sarcasm. I love how we can have so many views under one roof. This is, perhaps, one of 9rules' greatest strengths. The notes section provides a place to flex that muscle.

I'm a liberal, and it's not just because my parents are (because they are conservative). But, first of all, war is inevitable. Study history, it always happens. Peace is impossible, I don't want to stick to that any longer. Second, I feel for Bush. He is somewhat a victim of circumstance--he walked into a country that had been ignoring terrorists for a decade. Honestly, let's not be so ignorant. We knew they were there. We knew they were coming. It was just a matter of time before it would happen.

Finally, to end my rant, anyone in their right mind who blames President Bush for 9/11 is absurd.

"Get rid of the guy, please. He's a liability for the whole planet. The time for worrying about the fucking language is way past."</blockqoute>

I second that with "Fuck Bush AND his entire gang of thugs AND the horse he rode in on!"

America has NEVER EVER been in such a bad state of affairs as now! As long as Bush and his cronies are in power nothing positive can happen.

These guys keep going on about how "the youth" are uninformed, by which they mean, of course, that they themselves are informed. How naive can you get?
Information is selected. We decide to be informed in a certain way. Someone gets to be 27 and decides to be middle aged, politically reactionary, blind to the catastrophic policies of Bush and his gang, and to blame all his itches on some minority or other, in this case "the youth".
In order to do this and to keep up the stance, he has to close his mind to all other possibilities.
But these same arguments have often been applied to other groups, blacks, women, any kind of political or religious opponent, and they've always been wrong because they amount to little more than a slur.

Figgy, what about Vietnam, Korea, Cuban Missile Crisis? That's just a handful of decades.

John, I don't see anyone in this thread blaming "the youth" for any of our country's problems. I do see people ragging on "the youth" for having an opinion without backing it up with anything other than emotion. In fact it's already been discussed to good detail, and we've even conceded that we were speaking generally and not on an individual basis.

I don't see anyone here that's acting close minded, or blind to policies. In fact I don't really see any policy being discussed at all! Maybe we should start some new notes where we actually discuss issues?

Ozone is correct. Nobody has said the youth is to fault for our issues. Not liking what is happening in our world and replying with "Fuck Whomever", joking or not, will never fix the problem. I know all about releasing emotion when it has built up and eats away at your insides. It happens to all of us and I would be a hypocrite to say "don't say Fuck Bush, or Fuck whomever". Its natural.

All I am getting at is that there is a natural "follow the leader" type of mentality in our country (at the present time) where a group of people have a thought process and people just latch on to it because "its the current wave of mentality" versus being an individual thought process.

The last thing people often want to do is be the "ugly duckling" that stands out in a group, especially at a young age where acceptance seems to be a vital part of life. Again, believe me I know.

Pierre, I have one thing to say... THANK YOU. Far too often people take rhetoric over logic and it's refreshing to find someone who can put aside the muck and call it like THEY see it.

John... as Ozone and Major have put it I am NOT blaming one segment of society for the current situation we are in. Calling me naive and reacting the way you did just tells me you didn't actually READ what I wrote, you REACTED to it.

Read what I wrote and show me where I blamed the "youth" for our situation. Also, please point out where I'm a 'supporter' of all things Bush? He AND his fellow Republican congressmen have done nothing but use up all the good faith they had left and come November 2006 we're going to see at LEAST the House of Representatives hand over the reigns to the Democrats.

These guys keep going on about how "the youth" are uninformed, by which they mean, of course, that they themselves are informed.