<p>NB: I'd just like to say that you've taken the time to try to prove an entirely different point than what I asked you about. You've sought to shown that Bush is a terrible President, but that has nothing to do with "destroying the basis of our nation." Bush is merely following the lead of others in his policies, whether they be Reagan or Wilson. You've yet to demonstrate a radically new policy that he's implemented.</p>
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First off, Bush uses a policy known as "trickle down economics", which has been so clearly proved to be absolutely flawed (it's actually one of the major reasons our country was swept into the 1930s Great Depression). This is again proven by the fact that our economy is NOTHING compared to what it was during President Clinton's presidency.
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<p>I actually agree that supply-side economics has its flaws. I agree even more that President Bush's specific economic policies have been poor. I oppose his policies on other, more technical grounds, however.</p>
<p>Your characterization of the Great Depression, is on the other hand, simplistic and inaccurate. The depression was caused by an amalgam of factors, none of which had to do with supply-side economics (the economic theory underlying modern economics had only recently been elucidated by Keynes, and the supply-siders were decades away). To draw from McConnell and Brue's staple undergrad text, here are the more accurate causes of the Great Depression.</p>
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A sagging level of investment spending was the major factor that pushed the U.S. economy into the economic chaos of the 1930s. In real terms, gross investment spending shrank by about 90 percent. We would depict this decline in investment as a large downward shift in the nation's aggregate expenditures schedule. The outcome in the 1930s was a historic decline in real GDP and a severe recessionary (depressionary) gap (196)
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<p>They then go on to discuss the factors leading to this collapse in aggregate expenditures. The first was a massive over-expansion of the capital resource base, due to the high level of consumer spending and prosperity. This saturated the market with products and thus forced prices to go artificially low. Furthermore, both businesses and consumers had gone deeply in debt to finance spending (on capital and products respectively). "So by the late 1920s, much of the income of businesses was committed for the payment of interest and principal on past capital purchases and thus was not available for expenditures on new capital." Low prices meant low profits, which left cash reserves dangerously dwindled and companies unprepared for a rapid downturn in economic conditions. This primed the pump for the catastrophe that followed.</p>
<p>One of the industries that had fueled the prosperity was the construction industry, building houses that had been put off due to World War I. This new home construction "began to level off as early as 1926, and by the late 1920s the construction industry had virtually collapsed." This significantly reduced aggregate spending alone. Two other events severely exacerbated the situation, though. The first was the round of global trade battles unleashed by the Smoot-Hawley tariff act. This was designed to protect US industry while it got back on its feet, but backfired miserably. In response, other countries applied their own tariffs, and world trade volumes collapsed. This caused a marked downturn in aggregate expenditures, which further reduced the nation's ability to trade, and thus created a continually worsening loop. The Federal Reserve made matters even worse. They contributed greatly to the shrinkage of the money supply by 30% between 1929 and 1933. Such a monetary change resulted in severely depressed economic growth and spending, further reinforcing the negative trend.</p>
<p>As you can see, the Great Depression is a much more complicated and convoluted occurrence than you suggested. It wasn't even a natural product of the capitalist system, which, while unstable and known for marked downturns, could not have produced such an event as this alone.</p>
<p>As for prosperity under Clinton, you're confusing correlation with causation. Clinton promoted high quality government policies to be sure (I was a fan of his, personally). However, he was fortunate enough to have presided over the internet bubble, a naturally occurring economic phenomenon. (The economy is an independent force, and the President has only a rather limited ability to influence it, with the Fed having much more power, by the way.) So Clinton presided over the internet explosion, and then left right before the bubble naturally burst. Bush not only inherited a economy naturally in the recession part of the business cycle, but 9/11 occurred early in his term. It placed severe stress on the economy, which is one of the reasons that recovery has been so delayed.</p>
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you know that 90% of the fcking world hates us, literally? Do you know that the way we have waged acrimony and hostility across the globe is just like what all the bigshots centuries ago tried to do, and oh boy was it laughter for the groups of people that have been on this earth for thousands of years to watch empires like Caesar fall, Great Britain, et cetera.
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<p>First of all, you have to differentiate between hating America and hating Bush. 90% of the world probably hates Bush. However, that cannot be directly translated into hating America. As Presidents have come and gone in the past, views toward the US have also waxed and waned. Public opinion is much more about the here and now than any long term set belief. Second, world public opinion is pretty irrelevant. Foreign policy is dominated by elites and elite institutions in all states, and all of them have a strong tendency to act in their national interests. They can and will continue to work with the US when it is opportune to do so. French opposition to the war in Iraq, for instance, did not prevent them from signing up for the Proliferation Security Initiative.</p>
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We are just becoming one of them with our imperliastic, and totally ignorant/self-indulgent ways.
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<p>The US has acted as a quasi-imperial power for decades, serving as the global guarantor of the Western world order. This role, despite Bush's rather public embrace of it, is declining rather than growing. With China and India becoming great powers again, the US will be forced by circumstance to become a leader among the great powers, and will no longer be able to claim superpower status.</p>
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We have isolated ourself from the world, and we have gained what?
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<p>That is patently untrue. The issue of Iraq was a transient tension point in relations between Washington and others, and it has since been eclipsed by more conventional great power concerns. France, for instance, has maintained an active working relationship throughout, and is indeed now making overtures toward a closer relationship. Their position is a smug "we told you so," not "we refuse to do business with you." The only key relationship that Bush has done some damage to is our relationship with Russia, but that's a much more complicated matter.</p>
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No sir, we just needed a stronghold in the middleeast, and we DEF. needed that oil.
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<p>That's part of the explanation, but not the entire explanation. The US was also motivated by a desire to demonstrate power and resolve; demolishing Saddam sent the message that uncooperative states will suffer consequences if they cross the United States. As for oil, I disagree. The US could've simply allowed the embargo on oil sales to die (France, Russia, and China all wanted that) and then taken advantage of the additional cheap oil flowing into the world market. See Libya for a slightly different but related case. As it is, Iraq has become an unstable supplier of oil due to terrorist attacks. But replacing our military bases in Saudi Arabia and establishing a "stronghold" are all right on the mark.</p>
<p>I vehemently disagree with much of the President's domestic policies, so I won't really comment there.</p>
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Secondly, your criticism of my statements on freedom of speech. Well, let me explain. What happened during the 1780/1790s was that the U.S was trying to ratify the constituion that we made, and the fact was many people were not ratifying it because it did not contain a Bill of Rights. And Alexander B. Hamilton (who was a major central gov person, but still stuck by his word) stated that their would be a bill of rights, and that basic rights would not be lost. This of course occured when the first 10 amendments were established, I of course was referring to amendment number 1, which states my freedom of speech, religion, press, et cetera. If that doesn't help then I advise you to use a search engine called google.com and look up the Bill of Rights, it's a major thing in our country if you didn't know..
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<p>Hamilton certainly agreed to allow for a Bill of Rights. But that's it. He did not believe they were necessary, as he thought that the Constitution limited the government's power to an extent that could not include infringing those right. He did not write the amendments either, and was not the major intellectual voice behind their passage. That's why I say you misrepresented history, because his role was marginal at best. If you want to talk about the spirit of the Bill of Rights, talk about the Antifederalists. Or at least Mr. Madison, I suppose. In any case, I really just dislike such rhetorical simplifications.</p>