The people who cry "disaster disaster disaster" frankly don't impress me with their thinking. The "disaster" they seem to have in mind always seems to be better said as "a setback to the [il]liberal agenda." O'Reilly calls these people "Secular-Progressives," if you'd rather use that term, and reckons they don't got it. He makes a pretty solid case.

Item: refusal to pass gun control legislation -- good for the Republic, bad for increasing the chances of genocides, and for criminals generally. Gun rights are a most potent expression of human rights -- a right not to be murdered or robbed, a right not to suffer genocide. Fundamental, I should think.

Item: demolition of undemocratic regimes, plural -- better for good government worldwide; the greatest part of human miseries stem from bad governance, as looking for correlations of bad national quality of life with undemocratic governance will show.

On a related note, it's one option for making a better world that isn't taking in millions of illegal immigrants: make their home places better than they were, and where's the wrong in removing those human obstacles to that idea that invariably present themselves, with their guns, their goons, their clubs and gas? That we're about the best country around is evidenced by how many millions of people are literally breaking into the place to partake. About eleven million illegals these days.

Item: not being buffaloed by environmentalist lobbies promotes efficient business by ensuring the cost of doing business is not so excessive it is no longer worthwhile -- that way lies European stagnation. Business is something humans do, and GWB understood that in his bones.

Item: Federal-level government almost entirely engrossed in foreign policy reduced any temptation to meddle with domestic affairs, to the benefit of those affairs and of civil rights also, unlike his predecessor, who clearly viewed the Bill of Rights not as a guide to his behavior in office, but as a stumbling-block to his ambitions. His predecessor was never out of disgrace, couldn't do foreign policy (very scant legacy -- his lone foreign-policy success seems to have been handing the Balkans fighting over to Europe to settle), and had the DoJ completely suborned with Janet Reno. His predecessor got two terms, neither with my vote, I can tell you. Unlike his predecessor, your own civil rights have never been imperiled nor eroded with GWB, whatever the pretenses of the ravers have been. Look at what they say happens, then look at really does happen. This is why I'll defend GWB's record.

Item: GWB kept me happy enough with him to vote for him twice. He did things I wanted done. This cannot be dismissed as just UG being crazy -- it's UG thinking better than most of the people who yell at him around here.

Did he do anything that you would be critical of or didn't like? I am seriously interested in your answer.

Well, it's pretty hard to say there is no disaster happening in this country when millions of people are losing their jobs and homes, while Wall Street execs give themselves 18 billion dollars in bonuses after taxpayers paid hundreds of billions to bail them out. I think we should just nationalize all the banks and be done with it. That's what many other countries have done. Those morons caused us to lose, what? 3 TRILLION dollars in the stock market over the past 3 months? Frankly, I think there should criminal investigations, and people should go straight to prison. I also think their money and assets should be confiscated and sold off to help pay for this mess.

I'm all for gun rights, but the NRA are extremists in their positions, as much as some people on the left are in theirs. There should be responsible gun control. Why is it such a problem to require certain things to make sure guns don't fall into the wrong hands? And why is it such a problem for certain kinds of weapons to require a special license? And I seriously doubt we need to worry about genocide in this country.

And why should be it OUR JOB to judge bad governance, or to police the world? WE certainly wouldn't want some foreign regime coming into OUR country and telling US how to live. At least I know I wouldn't. So why should we think any other country would want us to do that to them? IF there is genocide going on somewhere, or some form of apartheid or something, of course we should help. But any military action should be done through NATO, not with US military control. For one thing, we can't afford it. And for another, it simply isn't our right to force our form of government on other countries. How is that any different from what Germany did, or Russia?

Ummm, condescending much? Most of the illegals who are breaking into the United States are poor, and live in places that leave much to be desired. But there are lots of other countries out there that are at least as good as ours, and many of the people who live in those countries think theirs is better than ours. You are looking at the world through a very small looking glass, and with a very big filter.

What? You don't care about drinking fresh, clean water, or having wholesome food that isn't laced with pesticides and toxins, or breathing clean air? I'll tell you what. Go find your own planet to live on, then you can pollute it as much as you want. This planet does not belong to US, or to INDUSTRY. We SHARE IT with a world community. The fact that we have organizations that fight for our safety is one of things that made this country great. But I guess you don't mind getting contaminated crap from China...

WHAT? Are you KIDDING ME? Haven't you been listening to the news? Do you not realize how deep the wiretaps went into spying on Americans? bush threw out the Constitution. He pissed on it, and gave us all the finger while doing it. Clinton's foreign policy put bush to shame, and I'm not even a fan of his. The fact that people on the right can't get over him getting a blow job in the Oval Office is just stupid. So what? The man liked sex. I would rather have someone in office getting some on the side than someone misleading the American people into a needless war, and then completely demolishing our reputation around the world with his arrogance. And let's not forget the torture...

Great. So we can blame you for financial meltdown, and the torture, and everything else bush did to ruin this country. I'm so glad he made you happy though.

Hey sugarpop - do you think congress has any culpability in this mess? Are they responsible at all for any of the financial issues we are dealing with? I'm interested in your opinion.

Of course they do. And anyone in Congress who was complicit in any way that could be deemed illegal or unethical or neglectful should be dealt with in whatever way is open to us. I'm sick to death of corruption and greed, and Congress (and politics in general, just look at blago) is ripe with it. But people in Congress did not write all those mortgages, knowing they were probably going to be bad, and then sell them over and over and over. And Congress did not give billions of dollars in bonuses and salaries to a few executives while they were driving us into the toilet. This global meltdown started HERE, with OUR financial system. And it all started with mortgages and banks and Wall Street. I'm wondering if they even teach ethics at Wharton or Harvard Business School anymore.

They need to put reasonable regulation, transparency and oversight back into law. I believe ultimately, deregulation caused a lot of this.

Did you read the thread "How a 'perfect storm' led to the economic crisis"

I find it ironic that those calling for investigations were themselves as involved in the oversight as those they are accusing. Dodd, Frank...

No the congresspeople didn't write the loans - that we agree upon. But it sure seems that the financial lobbyists they were very close with knew what was going on. They sure as hell have a lot of explaining to do and should stop the finger pointing.

I posted a reeeeally long response to that article. (Because I felt the need to go into a whole lot of things that I see as being contributing factors to what happened. :D) Thanks for guiding me there.

Sorry honey. That was a Bush plan completely approved by a Democratcially dominated Congress. The Democrats approved it the first time as well but the Congress was controlled by the Rebublickins and Bush carried it out. You can't blame Bush for that one.

Some of them may have approved it for what it was supposed to be for, which in my understanding was to listen in on Americans who were suspected of terrorist associations on phone calls from other countries, but they completely misused it and simply spied on everyone and anyone. They were even listening in on personal phone calls our SOLDIERS were making from Iraq and Afghanistan to their wives and husbands. And you can't possibly believe Bush told them everything about how he was using it. He had the most secretive administration ever, and he thought he was above the law.

I can picture Bush and Cheney sittin in the office with headphones on
listening to me talk to my mom... can you?

Somebody grab the butterfly net!

House approves Patriot Act renewal
Approval sends measure to Bush's desk before expiration

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/07/patriot.act/

As a matter of fact, the Democrats did not approve the FISA abuses of warrantless wiretaping "the first time".

Bush did it unilaterally, using the congresionally approved Authorization of Use of Military Force (AUMF) as a legal justification.

An AUMF authorizes military force...NOT NSA wiretapping.

Gonzales lied to Congress about it and Bush as much as acknowledged that there was no Congressional approval, which was why he called for a new and expanded FISA bill after the abuses became public.

they did go along with the amended FISA (Protect America Act) in 07, but were instrumental in including greater Congressional oversight and far greater limitations on wiretapping American citizens.

I had to come back here to correct the revisionist history :)

Correct. Not the first time. But they did approve it a second time as well as the protection of the large telecoms. It was the courts that rebuked Bush on FISA, not Congress.

It was the Congressional oversight hearings by the Democrats that brought it to the attention of the courts....oversight in many areas that was sorely lacking for 6 years.

And I was disappointed in the Democratic caving on the telecomm immunity, but pleased that at least the new FISA has more oversight and limitations.