Post by RS Davis on Oct 25, 2003 7:15:05 GMT -5
[glow=red,2,300]Ryan McMaken Wrote:[/glow] As the presidential election draws near, Bush’s challengers will begin to ask the American people the now politically essential question: "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" Of course, that question is always only applied to economic matters since the idea of being "better off" as something akin to being "more free" was banished from the mind of average Americans a very long time ago, but if we were to imagine a hypothetical world where most Americans were actually worried about freedoms other than the freedom to produce porn films and carve statues of excrement with taxpayer money, would we conclude that we are better off than four years ago?
The answer is no, of course, and if anything, the endless assault on American liberties has accelerated in recent years, and all with the blessing of the same Americans who decried the utter contempt with which the Clinton White House held the Bill of Rights. To claim that the Bush White House has any less contempt for the same liberties that Clinton trampled on so thoroughly would be laughable at best, and would probably be engaging in the kind of doublespeak that leftists long used to defend Clinton. For instance, giving the current president a pass on his super-sized government meddling programs just because he professes to be from "the heartland" or a "good Christian" or for "the American way" is no different than excusing Clinton from the fact that he treats women like garbage simply because he claims to like feminists. We should judge the tree by its fruit, and the fruit of the Bush administration has been more of the same government-run-amok that flowered under the Clinton administration.
The answer is no, of course, and if anything, the endless assault on American liberties has accelerated in recent years, and all with the blessing of the same Americans who decried the utter contempt with which the Clinton White House held the Bill of Rights. To claim that the Bush White House has any less contempt for the same liberties that Clinton trampled on so thoroughly would be laughable at best, and would probably be engaging in the kind of doublespeak that leftists long used to defend Clinton. For instance, giving the current president a pass on his super-sized government meddling programs just because he professes to be from "the heartland" or a "good Christian" or for "the American way" is no different than excusing Clinton from the fact that he treats women like garbage simply because he claims to like feminists. We should judge the tree by its fruit, and the fruit of the Bush administration has been more of the same government-run-amok that flowered under the Clinton administration.
- Rick
