Do we We Have Everything to Fear, Including Fear Itself?

Capt Walter Miller — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 13:27:32 -0500

"Under the presidency of George W. Bush, the so-called “Daddy Party” failed spectacularly on all major adult-male-gender-stereotyped fronts.

On the economic front, its record was terrible, even before it brought us the worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression; on the military/national security front, its failure to prevent 9/11—the worst foreign attack on American soil since the War of 1812—was only compounded by its fighting-fire-with-gasoline response, turning both Iraq and Afghanistan into incubators for new generations of jihadists. On the science front, it presided over a widening war on science. In short, the entire framework of the “Daddy Party” construct fell into disrepute by the time Bush left office in 2008."

http://www.salon.com/2015/11/27/this_is_the_entire_gop_plan_credibility_destroyed_after_bush_debacle_their_only_strategy_is_to_scare_us/

This is the entire GOP plan: Credibility destroyed after Bush debacle, their only strategy is to...

The party of security tanked the economy and unleashed Middle East disaster. Now they have nothing but fear itself

Response by Capt Walter Miller made Nov 27 at 2015 1:30 PM

Capt Walter Miller — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 13:30:40 -0500

"The panic over Syrian refugees is particularly revealing in this regard. Not one American has died at the hands of a refugee either during or since 9/11, although there have been 745,000 of them. Yet, irrational fear of these refugees has defined the only “coherent” policy response the GOP has come up with—both among myth-driven governors and in the shutdown-happy Congress. But when it comes to actually confronting ISIS, they’ve got nothing unified except a PC rampage against Democrats not using the phrase “radical Islam;” aside from that it’s a smorgasbord of proposals ranging from basically endorsing Hillary Clinton’s position (John Kasich) to cutting off their money (Paul and Fiorina) to grandstanding in Congress (Cruz), to reinvading Iraq, with a side of Syria (Bush, Graham and Santorum), to total war (“destroy them”—Carson) or multi-front bellicosity (Trump)."

Response by Capt Walter Miller made Nov 27 at 2015 1:50 PM

Capt Walter Miller — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 13:50:46 -0500

"Now let’s consider the situation of the “Daddy Party” post-Bush. Everything they once pretended to be had gone bust. The first time since Herbert Hoover that they controlled the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court had ended in utter disaster—disaster so bad that they no longer even knew what conservatism was. On the theory that “conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed,” many conservatives simply stopped counting Bush as one of their own. And yet, although they adopted that conscious dodge, a deeper part of them, subconsciously, could not escape the sting. Which is part of why there was so much animosity toward Obama, and such eagerness to lay blame on him for things that were actually Bush’s responsibility, or the fault of conservatism more broadly, such as rising debt/GDP ratios, a trend dating back to Ronald Reagan."

Response by TSgt Kenneth Ellis made Nov 27 at 2015 3:53 PM

TSgt Kenneth Ellis — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 15:53:34 -0500

You really hate Bush.