Clinton Beats Bush in a Walk

[Doug]

CNN.com

(CNN) -- In a new poll comparing President Bush's job performance with that of his predecessor, a strong majority of respondents said President Clinton outperformed Bush on a host of issues.

On the economy, foreign policy, taxes, etc. Clinton was way ahead of GW Bush. However, on honesty, Clinton only won by a slim margin:

When asked which man was more honest as president, poll respondents were more evenly divided, with the numbers -- 46 percent Clinton to 41 percent Bush -- falling within the poll's margin of error.

Given all the lies and spin the Republicans did to try to demonize Clinton, and all the lies and spin they have done to try to exonerate Bush, the fact that Clinton still beats Bush on honesty must stick in the conservative craw.

[Dardedar]

A chart comparing Bush and Clinton:


.
.
Source:

http://toopoortovoterepublican.com/
.
Found this here:

http://www.wikithepresidency.org/?tr=y&auid=1666466

a wiki style page devoted to exposing Bush.

[Hogeye]

I've read several sources who say that Bush has spent more than all previous presidents combined. Bush is a high-spending big government guy. With Reps like him, who needs Dems?

Where is the comparison on foreign interventions? Clinton intervened in Kosevo, Bosnia, Somalia, Iraq (remember bombing the aspirin factory and the embargo that killed a half million women and children?). Bush intervened in Afghanistan and Iraq. But in actual murders, Bush may be pulling ahead.

Conclusion: Both factions of the Welfare-Warfare Party are despicable.

[Dardedar]

Where is the comparison on foreign interventions? Clinton intervened in Kosevo, Bosnia,

DAR
I was lukewarm about that at the time, (having been a Quaker for a while and all) but considering the genocide, I think Clinton did the right thing. Consider:

***
During the next three and a half years, Bosnian Serb forces, with the support of Milosevic in Belgrade, laid waste to large parts of Bosnia, killing more than 200,000 civilians and forcing half the population, two million people, to flee their homes. Tens of thousands of women were systematically raped. Concentration camps were set up in Prijedor, Omarska, Trnopolje, and other areas. Civilians were shot by snipers on a daily basis in Sarajevo, a city left without heat, electricity, or water.

Radovan Karadzic, a psychiatrist and poet originally from Montenegro, became president of the Bosnian Serb Republic, with Ratko Mladic as his military commander. Both have since been twice indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for their command role in genocide.

http://www.friendsofbosnia.org/edu_kos.html
***

Rather bizarrely, not a single American was killed in combat (there were a few killed in accidents). If you are going to spend obscene amounts to have such a large military standing by, it seems reasonable to use them as a positive force for humanity when genocide pops up.

HOG
Somalia,

DAR
Actually, papa Bush started that one a couple of weeks before leaving office and left it for Clinton to clean up.

HOG
Iraq (remember bombing the aspirin factory and the embargo that killed a half million women and children?).

DAR
The aspirin factory was in Sudan and based upon Republican (post) approved, very faulty "intelligence." I don't doubt that the Monica thing might have been an influence. The Iraqi embargo was a fiasco and disaster. As was the lack of action in Rwanda, which Clinton apologized for. I wonder if shrub will ever apologize for Darfur.

HOG
Bush intervened in Afghanistan and Iraq. But in actual murders, Bush may be pulling ahead.

DAR
"May be"? Bush admitts to killing 30,000 Iraqi's on the way in to Iraq. Plausible numbers put Iraqi civilian deaths at 120,000+ but we don't even bother to count. Bush is closing in on causing the deaths of more Americans than Osama, and perhaps 35 times the number of deaths of innocents worldwide. No comparison.

HOG
Conclusion: Both factions of the Welfare-Warfare Party are despicable.

DAR
A simplistic black/white over-generalization in my mind.

D.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Worse than just a "simplistic black/white over-generalization" - just plain ignoring facts to "burke a thesis" - under Clinton the stats show increases in jobs, wages, household incomes, real GDP, Standard & Poor, and consumer confidence; decreases in poverty (both people in and rate of), people without health insurance and federal debt; and balancing the budget accruing a surplus. Those kinds of numbers are definitely NOT despicable, and have nothing to do with a "welfare/warfare party".

I am a mortgage holder because of the Clinton administration - I am able to maintain my mortgage under Bush, but I would not have been able to get one in the first place under this administration. My credit cards rates are under 10% (9.99%)- under W's daddy they where 19%, under Clinton they went down to 7%, but are climbing under Jr. Clinton had problems - he was largely stymied on most energy and environmental programs he tried to get passed by the R-controlled congress, not to mention the witch-hunt that started in 1990 and is, to a certain extent, still going on today, but culminated in the impeachment and trial - but he managed to help America follow Molly Ivin's "first rule of holes - when you're in one, stop digging". Then he left office and W brought in a backhoe.

[Dardedar]

Current polling comparison:

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Isn't it scary that most Americans are so disconnected to reality they can give the Dems +50% rating on things connected to the terrorism problem (economy, budget, Iraq) , but only 46% (still better than Bush on his one and only "strong" point) on the terrorism problem itself? Two things that either are not taught at all or are not taughy properly in America are history and logic. (Of course, if they taught logic they couldn't have kitten fits about evolution, which is logical, over CD, which isn't.)

[Hogeye]

Bush admitts to killing 30,000 Iraqi's on the way in to Iraq. Plausible numbers put Iraqi civilian deaths at 120,000+ but we don't even bother to count.

Right. Under Clinton's administration 500,000 women and children died due to "economic sanctions." Bush has a lot more killing to do before he catches up with that. Face it: They are both mass murderers. They both are war criminals that deserve the same as Milosevic or Saddam.

[Dardedar]

HOG
Right. Under Clinton's administration 500,000 women and children died due to "economic sanctions."

DAR
Once again, it's not so black and white and your statistic is bogus. I recommend you read this cogent rebuttal written by your rightwing friends at Reason mag:

***

The Politics of Dead Children
Have sanctions against Iraq murdered millions?

By Matt Welch

Are "a million innocent children...dying at this time...in Iraq" because of U.S. sanctions, as Osama bin Laden claimed in his October 7 videotaped message to the world? Has the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) discovered that "at least 200 children are dying every day...as a direct result of sanctions," as advocacy journalist John Pilger maintains on his Web site? Is it official U.N. belief that 5,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5 are dying each month due to its own policy, as writers of letters to virtually every U.S. newspaper have stated repeatedly during the past three years?

The short answer to all of these questions is no. The sanctions, first imposed in 1990 after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, are administered by the U.N., not the U.S....

...

The Rest

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

I'm still boycotting Nestle (not that my little pittance of a food dollar makes any difference to them) for the infant deaths resulting from their "self-interested" propaganda to illiterate 3rd world women convincing said women to switch from breast feeding to bottle feeding. That combined with (in the babies' case, literally combined with) contaminated water from Gulf I itself, are the source of a large part of those "excess" deaths, whose numbers are considerably lower than half a million - the upper estimate currently (read article Darrel provided the link for) stands at 373,000 - the lower 100,000. The other sizable source is Saddam's refusal to do "oil for food" trades until 1997. Might be well to remember that the comparison isn't valid due to time constraints - the embargo lasted 10 years, the war 3 and counting.

There are few tools in the chest of those attempting to convince countries acting in anti-social manners to change their ways - disapproval, embargo, and war. The first only works if the country in question respects those disapproving. The second may or may not work, but will cause problems, including some deaths, with civilians. The third always kills lots of civilians, plus causes other problems - some of which lead to more deaths - and may or may not work. None are good choices, but unfortunately, voluntary socially-acceptable behavior is not universal.

[Hogeye]

The article agrees that many deaths occurred due to the sanctions - it simply gives a lower estimate of the death toll. Clinton "only" has the blood of 100,000 people on his hands for this particular intervention. He's a mass murderer, just like Bush and Milosevic.

Yet the basic argument against all economic sanctions remains: namely, that they tend to punish civilians more than governments and to provide dictators with a gift-wrapped propaganda tool. Any visitor to Cuba can see within 24 hours the futility of slapping an embargo on a sheltered population that is otherwise inclined to detest its government and embrace its yanqui neighbors. Sanctions give anti-American enclaves, whether in Cairo or Berkeley or Peshawar, one of their few half-convincing arguments about evil U.S. policy since the end of the Cold War.

It seems awfully hard not to conclude that the embargo on Iraq has been ineffective (especially since 1998) and that it has, at the least, contributed to more than 100,000 deaths since 1990.

There are few tools ... disapproval, embargo, and war.

You forgot one of the best: assassination of political rulers. That harms no civilians, if done correctly. But of course the ruling elites don't like this idea - they'd rather civilians die.

[Dardedar]

He's a mass murderer, just like Bush and Milosevic.

DAR
Someday Hogeye might consider having his on/off, black/white, up/down switch replaced with a potentiometer. Sometimes his false dichotomies are just too limiting. Just a suggestion.

He'll even like the abbreviation!

D.
----------------------------
From dictionary.com

po·ten·ti·om·e·ter n.

2. A three-terminal resistor with an adjustable center connection, widely used for volume control in radio and television receivers. Also called pot

[Hogeye]

Are you denying that there is a dicotomy between mass-murderer and non-mass-murderer? Or are you denying that Bill Clinton had people killed (in Serbia, Kosevo, Iraq, Somalia...)?

[Dardedar]

Are you denying that there is a dicotomy between mass-murderer and non-mass-murderer?

DAR
No. But I would deny that because Clinton a role in the UN sanctions (as aptly described by Barbara above as one of the few methods available to "convince countries acting in anti-social manners to change their ways") he is therefore "...a mass murderer, just like Bush and Milosevic."

HOG
Or are you denying that Bill Clinton had people killed (in Serbia, Kosevo, Iraq, Somalia...)?

DAR
Now you are equivocating between killing and murder.

D.

[Hogeye]

So you're saying that, despite Clinton ordering US planes to bomb civilians, using his military to enforce starvation and disease in the embargo, and various kidnappings and murders in Somalia, that it is all okay with zero moral culpability simply because the UN blessed his actions???

If so, then I have a different theory of moral culpability than you.

(Murder is immoral killing. Clinton's killings were immoral. Thus, Clinton is a murderer. Permission/praise from UN chumps doesn't change that.)

[Dardedar]

If so, then I have a different theory of moral culpability than you.

DAR
A point of agreement. I also don't think greed is a virtue, as Ayn Rand cult members do.

Your Rothbard fellow agrees: The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult.

(Murder is immoral killing. Clinton's killings were immoral. Thus, Clinton is a murderer. Permission/praise from UN chumps doesn't change that.)

DAR
I thought he was a mass murderer? Oh well, let's see you prove your second premise before getting too excited about supposedly establishing your conclusion.

Be specific.

D.

[Guest]

Hogeye> If so, then I have a different theory of moral culpability than you.

Darrel>A point of agreement. I also don't think greed is a virtue, as Ayn Rand cult members do.

Your Rothbard fellow agrees: The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult.

Critical thinking exercise: Did Darrel respond relevantly? What common fallacy does he employ?

Answer: No; argumentum ad hominem (circumstantial). He says nothing whatsoever about moral culpability. Instead he puts down Ayn Rand and her "cult." He writes that Rothbard agrees - with what is uncertain, since he doesn't discuss moral culpability, nor even rational self-interest ("greed") in the essay cited. I guess his fallacious reasoning goes: Hogeye agrees with some of what Rand has to say; Rand led a cult; therefore Hogeye's theory of moral culpability is wrong. Weak.

(BTW: Most people who agree with Rand's objectivism would agree that she was a much better novelist/philosopher than movement leader. Most would agree that her Objectivist group was cult-like. But they realize that has no bearing on her philosophical/political claims.)

Hogeye> Murder is immoral killing. Clinton's killings were immoral. Thus, Clinton is a murderer. Permission/praise from UN chumps doesn't change that.

Darrel> Let's see you prove your second premise.

There can be no proof until we agree on some axioms. Any proof must start from a set of agreed-upon premises. Do you agree with the NAP (non-aggression principle)? If not - if your assumption is that certain groups of people may rightly aggress against others - then I doubt if I can prove to you that Clinton's killings were immoral. If you think that UN bureaucrats or priests can absolve moral guilt, then again I doubt that I can convince you.

[Dardedar]

HOG
He says nothing whatsoever about moral culpability.

DAR
No, I was simply agreeing with your suggestion that you have a "different theory of moral culpability than" me.

Instead he puts down Ayn Rand and her "cult."

DAR
Better than that, I provided two links where very strong evidence is shown that this is the case. The cherry one top is that one of these fellows making the case is a hero of yours. This may cause some cognitive disonance.

Most would agree that her Objectivist group was cult-like.

DAR
Another point of agreement. You agree that most people agree her group is cult like. I'm not sure why you use the past tense.

HOG
I guess his fallacious reasoning goes: Hogeye agrees with some of what Rand has to say; Rand led a cult; therefore Hogeye's theory of moral culpability is wrong. Weak.

DAR
That would be weak. But of course I never suggested such a syllogism and you are just stuffing straw.

Hogeye> Murder is immoral killing. Clinton's killings were immoral. Thus, Clinton is a murderer.

Darrel> Let's see you prove your second premise.

There can be no proof until we agree on some axioms.

DAR
Perhaps I should have said "provide good evidence for your second premise." So you're not even going to try?

Any proof must start from a set of agreed-upon premises. Do you agree with the NAP (non-aggression principle)? If not - if your assumption is that certain groups of people may rightly aggress against others - then I doubt if I can prove to you that Clinton's killings were immoral.

DAR
You seem to, regularly, use words differently than normal people. I am not fluent in anarcho-randian and don't feel it has enough merit to spend the time learning it. I can certainly think of instances in which groups can rightfully aggress/intervene against others (i.e. instances of rape rooms, genocide, ethnic cleansing etc.), so if you are saying there are no instances in which a group may rightfully aggress/intervene against others, then we are not going to agree. Unless you can make a good case that such action is never morally permissable. Perhaps you NAP, being a principle, allows for sensible exceptions.

If you think that UN bureaucrats or priests can absolve moral guilt, then again I doubt that I can convince you.

DAR
I can think of only two reasons you might not convince me:

a) You won't try to defend your claim
b) You do try and I don't find your argument persuasive.

Here is your syllogism again. Since your number one is a simple tautology you will want to focus on providing evidence for 2:

1) Murder is immoral killing.

2) Clinton's killings were immoral.

3) Thus, Clinton is a murderer.

If Clinton is "a mass murderer, just like Bush and Milosevic" then it shouldn't be too much to ask that you back this claim up with good evidence.

Be specific.

D.

[Guest]

Hogeye> Most people who agree with Rand's objectivism would agree that she was a much better novelist/philosopher than movement leader. Most would agree that her Objectivist group was cult-like. But they realize that has no bearing on her philosophical/political claims.

Darrel> You agree that most people agree her group is cult like. I'm not sure why you use the past tense.

Because she is no longer living - she died in 1982. Her cult-like "collective" no longer exists - it ceased operation in the late 1970s. Today there are two main objectivist groups, one run by a guy named Peikoff (Ayn Rand Institute), and another called The Objectivist Center, founded by David Kelly. Peikoff's group is rather intolerant, and has strayed from some of Rands main theses. E.g. It came out for the Iraq occupation, while Rand was strongly anti-war (i.e. in Viet Nam.) The Objectivist Center seems to be quite good, and tolerant of dissent and new interpretations and additions.

Hogeye> He says nothing whatsoever about moral culpability.

Darrel> No, I was simply agreeing with your suggestion that you have a "different theory of moral culpability than" me.

Hogeye> Instead he puts down Ayn Rand and her "cult."

Darrel> Better than that, I provided two links where very strong evidence is shown that this is the case.

There you go again with your poisoning the well. You provided zero evidence that we have different theories of moral culpability. Instead you attempt to disparage the arguer by shouting "cult, cult!", which of course is totally irrelevant. Who cares about a cult that died decades ago?

The cherry one top is that one of these fellows making the case is a hero of yours. This may cause some cognitive disonance.

In your attempt at "guilt by association," you overlook that Rothbard agrees with Rand substantially on just about every philosophical, political, and economic point. He just didn't like the autocratic way she ran her group. Needless to say, the way she ran her group has no bearing on the validity of her philosophy.

Trivia: Rothbard was part of Rand's group for a while. Rand, being a hardcore atheist, didn't like the fact that Rothbard's wife was a theist. Rand demanded that Rothbard divorce his wife! Rothbard quit the group instead, and wrote some pieces (and even a satirical play) criticizing Rand and her cult for such intolerance.


My argument:
Clinton ordered bombings in Serbia. Non-combatants died as a result. The predictable killing of non-combatants is immoral. Ergo, Clinton is a mass murderer. There you go. Are you convinced? (Of course, I could also show he was a murderer in various other interventions, but this one will do.)

Hogeye> Do you agree with the NAP (non-aggression principle)? If not - if your assumption is that certain groups of people may rightly aggress against others - then I doubt if I can prove to you that Clinton's killings were immoral.

Darrel>You seem to, regularly, use words differently than normal people. I am not fluent in anarcho-randian and don't feel it has enough merit to spend the time learning it.

You don't need any special dictionary to find the meaning of "aggression."

Merriam-Webster sez: aggression - 1 : a forceful action or procedure (as an unprovoked attack) especially when intended to dominate or master

Die.net aggression - 4: the act of initiating hostilities


The Die.net definition is the one I use. Ayn and I define aggression as the initiation of (interpersonal) force. The initiation part is very important, i.e. the retaliatory use of force (esp in proportion) is not aggression. The initiator of violence is the aggressor; the recipient of such violence is the defender. All pretty standard stuff. This is the way "aggression" is used in Just War theory. Thanks for asking. Feel free anytime to ask me what a word means.


Darrel>I can certainly think of instances in which groups can rightfully aggress/intervene against others (i.e. instances of rape rooms, genocide, ethnic cleansing etc.)[/quote]
Huh? Are you claiming that the rapists are not aggressing??? By the standard definition: the perpetrators of rape/genocide are aggressors; those that retaliate against these aggressors are not. Again, initiation is critical. If Clinton had killed only genocidal rapists rather than innocent non-combatants, then he would not have killed immorally, and would not be a murderer. But in fact he bombed civilian areas knowing full well he would kill innocents.

[Hogeye]

Sorry, I wasn't logged in and I screwed up that last quote and answer. Let me try again.

I can certainly think of instances in which groups can rightfully aggress/intervene against others (i.e. instances of rape rooms, genocide, ethnic cleansing etc.)

Huh? Are you claiming that the rapists are rightfully aggressing??? By the standard definition: the perpetrators of rape/genocide are aggressors; those that retaliate against these aggressors are not. Again, initiation is critical. If Clinton had killed only genocidal rapists rather than innocent non-combatants, then he would not have killed immorally, and would not be a murderer. But in fact he bombed civilian areas knowing full well he would kill innocents.