Resolved: Bush has been a brilliantly successful President

quote:

Originally posted by Don Atkinson:
Fred,

Now I see it. Anybody who voted for Bush is, by YOUR definition, stupid, ignorant or ill-informed.

No, I didn't say "anybody" I said "a significant portion."

quote:

My guess is that each candidate has a similar proportion of supporters who could be classified as stupid, ignorant or ill-informed

While there are certainly members of each candidate's contingent who can be described in this way, I don't think the proportions are at all equal.

quote:

based on the more conventionally held definitions of stupid, ignorant and ill-informed.

Which are what?

All best,
Fred

George, people judge others all the time. You're judging me. Fine.

"Ignorant" in the sense of someone who believes that people of color are inherently inferior, or that all Muslims are bad, or that Obama is a Muslim Manchurian candidate who will force Americans to become Muslim when he takes office, or believe, as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson claimed, that 9/11 was God's punishment for civil liberties groups, feminists, homosexuals, abortion rights supporters, etc. How would you describe people who believe that?

"Ill-informed" in the sense of the 70% of the American public who once believed that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were responsible for 9/11, thereby justifying BushCo's illegal, immoral war. How would you describe people who believe that?

If you are claiming that you don't recognize or make these sorts of judgments then you are being disingenuous. And, yes, that's a judgment.

Sincerely,
Fred

quote:

Don said....Anybody who voted for Bush is, by YOUR definition, stupid, ignorant or ill-informed.

Fred said....No, I didn't say "anybody" I said "a significant portion."

Errr....sorry Fred, your reference to "a significant portion" was to the American electorate as a whole. You stated, and later confirmed, that BY DEFINITION the half of the electorate that voted for Bush was stupid, ignorant or ill-informed etc.

Your self-induced make-believe is obviously quite advanced.

Cheers

Don

I wrote:

"Members of all three groups [ignorant, stupid, ill-informed] made up a significant portion of the pro-Bush contingent."

So, what are your definitions?

Best,
Fred

Dear Fred,

Actually I tend to make a huge effort to avoid being judgemental [for all that not always with success], particularly if the person is not known to me, and thus I only am comfortable with it when I have enough evidence to take a reasonable approach to offering helpful advice, to a colleague or friend perhaps. I tend to think that the Bible's advice, "Judge not lest ye be judged," has an awful lot going for it whether the person reading it is a practicing Christian or not ...

I am not going to pretend that I can admire your self-confessed wish to judge people, particularly people who you cannot, in the millions you generalise about, possibly be acquainted with, and yet you seek to analyse their motivations by your own standards. There is another wise old saying which when you grow more mature, you will see as profoundly true. "Do not judge others by your own standards." In time you will see with humility that you cannot quite be sure your own standards are right!

Perhaps you should try carefully explaining why you believe that you are right, and after all History, not you, will be the real judge of that, rather than preaching to people, and patronising them. People prefer persuasion to preaching. If you come across as sympathetic, you may even persuade people to share your view, even where it runs contrary to their initial position. There is no guarantee that this will work, but then I am yet to be convinced that you are making any sense at all on this. In other words you hardly come across as a man with a sympathetic attitude, which compels admiration, but actually seem to demonstrate a rather self-satisfied, judgemental and patronising attitude, which is unsympathetic and apt to upset even those who may have open to persuasion to your ideas.

By these latter methods you will only alienate people from listening to you at all, and you have succeeded entirely in this over Obama in my case.

Perhaps I should remind you of another proto-political musician: Richard Wagner. Perhaps the parallel is an uncomfortable one. He was a deeply unsympathetic character, and it is beginning to appear that with your judgements of those who disagree with you makes you only less so by a degree.

I sincerely hope that Mrs Clinton get the Democratic mandate, as though she may have shown some characteristics that are less than Saintly, she would be a safe pair of hands, and the US needs that in the near future.

Obama is an unknown quantity in uncertain times where a steady hand on the tiller will be essential, not just for the US [which I have already said is not my business] and the rest of the World, which certainly is the interest of the rest of the World.

George

quote:

I wrote:

"Members of all three groups [ignorant, stupid, ill-informed] made up a significant portion of the pro-Bush contingent."

Fred, keep up. you wrote that this morning!....when you were trying to dig yourself out the hole you are in. You need to go back to 3rd April to see when you started your derogatary remarks about Bush voters claiming they were all ignorant, stupid etc.

Any descent dictionary will help you sort out the true definition of these derogatory lables.

Cheers
Don

quote:

Originally posted by Don Atkinson:

Fred, keep up. you wrote that this morning!....when you were trying to dig yourself out the hole you are in. You need to go back to 3rd April to see when you started your derogatary remarks about Bush voters claiming they were all ignorant, stupid etc.

Any descent dictionary will help you sort out the true definition of these derogatory lables.

Yes, and any decent dictionary will help you sort out the true spelling of "decent" and "labels."

As far as what I wrote on April 3, here it is:

A combination of any or all of the following factors ... a significant portion of the electorate is generally ignorant, a certain portion fearful, a certain portion semi-educated, a certain portion ill-informed, and a certain portion just plain stupid. Do keep in mind, however, that these subsets comprise less than half the American electorate.

I stand by what I wrote, no matter how you try to twist my words and my intent.

As far as my definitions, take a look at my posting from earlier today at 20:40. If you don't agree with those definitions, then please tell me how you would describe people such as those.

Sincerely,
Fred

quote:

Do keep in mind, however, that these subsets comprise less than half the American electorate.

Fred,

You manage to twist your own words all by yourself, without any help from me. I had to remind you where to find your original words, which I now see you have done. Success!

You also seem perfectly capable of changing the intent of your words all by yourself. I merely seek clarification, in order to be certain that I understand precisely what you are trying to say.

You are saying that less than half the American electorate support Bush. This portion of the American electorate is generally ignorant, plain stupid etc. The rest of the American electorate is less generally ignorant, plain stupid etc. US Presidential elections are rigged by the party that is comprised of and supported by the ignorant, stupid etc portion of the American electorate. Please correct me if I have misunderstood.

We don't vote for our Prime Minister. He/she is chosen by the succesful party. The electorate turnout is about 50% of the electorate, The succesful party usually polls about 40% of the votes cast. Quite often the winning party polls far fewer votes than the runner-up. The chosen Prime minister probably enjoys the support of about half of his party. If Bush picked up just less than 50 % of the popular US vote, TWICE, he seems to enjoy an awful lot more support than our Prime Minister.

I simply don't accept that the electorate that voted for Bush is more ignorant and more stupid etc than those who didn't vote for Bush. They clearly hold different values to you and perceive different priorities, but that's life. On this basis, EVERYBODY who holds views different to YOU is BY DEFINITION ignorant, stupid, less well-informed etc etc. This simply isn't true. I imagine you will find this fact somewhat hard to comprehend.

Cheers

Don

*

I accept that W has been and will be recognized as having won 2 presidential elections. I believe, however, that the reported results did not reflect the actual votes.

Phil Barry