State of the Union, 2003

[Typhoon1244]

Okay guys, brace yourselves: this forum's foremost George W. Bush opponent was pleased...pleased I said...with tonight's speech!

My opinion about a war against Iraq has been that it's the wrong battle at the wrong time...but if the President gave me some good reasons, I'd support it. Finally, after weeks of wasteful and unnecessary silence, George II explained why this battle is necessary. You say "let's go get Saddam right now?" Okay, fine. I'm convinced.

My jaw really hit the floor, however, when the President spoke of pursuing the hydrogen-powered automobile! Is George W. Bush actually taking a small step toward ending--or at least dramatically reducing--our dependence on oil? IF the President is serious about this--and given his close ties to oil, I suspect that's a big "if"--I'll take back most of the dirty, rotten things I've said about him.

(The "talking heads" have thus far laughed about the "H-car," revealing more than ever their short-sightedness and stupidity...but I suppose there were similar reactions to J.F.K.'s famous challenge to NASA that resulted in the Apollo 11 landing.)

I was furthermore pleased with George's insistence that we take the lead in the fight against HIV. Worldwide, this problem is almost as serious as the oil problem...probably more so.

I hope...I fervently hope...that these ideals were not TSA-style "window dressing." Liberal, utopian ideas that were designed to make us all feel better about George II's presidency. I have to believe that after "Monica-gate," the President wouldn't lie directly to our faces!

I still violently disagree with the President about a few things.

(1) America had to pay dearly for it's own freedom. I don't agree that it's our responsibility to pay for the rest of the world's freedom as well.

(2) Cloning is not inherently evil. It could be dangerous in the wrong hands...but so are guns, cars, and nuclear weapons, and we haven't outlawed them.

(3) (A lot of you aren't going to like this, but I can't be the only one who thinks this.) Continuous, passionate references to "faith in God" do not belong in a State of the Union address.

 

[surfnole]

I didn't see the address, but I have a hard time with the HIV thing. I realize its a tragedy, but its 99% preventable. Nobody seems to want to address that though, instead spending billions on research for new drugs to cure it as our first action..

 

[jergar999]

I saw the address, and also approved of the points the president made. I fly with a guy who does missionary work in the Sierra Leon (spelling?) region of Africa, and heard the percentage of HIV positive people in the region is almost 40%. It's a global epidemic, and I think fighting it is one of the most important things we as a country can contribute to. There are people in this world who don't have the health care and education we do, so I have a hard time with the thinking that everone knows what they are getting into. As far as Iraq goes, I am still riding the fence, but see the need for action to prevent terrorism.

End of rant.

 

[FastPilot]

<(3) (A lot of you aren't going to like this, but I can't be the only <one who thinks this.) Continuous, passionate references <to "faith in God" do not belong in a State of the Union address.


Try reading the Declaration of Independence and the Federalist Papers. Separation of Church and State as exposed by the fanatic left is a farce. This Nation was founded on the principle of FREEDOM OF RELIGION not freedom FROM religion.

"If the Army and the Navy ever look on heaven's scenes,
they will find the streets are guarded by United States Marines!"

Semper Fi,
Steve

 

[Typhoon1244]

I knew I shouldn't have said anything about religion!

Try reading the Declaration of Independence and the Federalist Papers.

The men who wrote those documents were Deists, a belief system that has very little in common with what the President calls "faith."

Please...I'm sorry I even brought up the "God"-thing. Can we try to be open-minded and confine this thread to the relevant political issues and not turn it into another Sunday school session?

 

[AV8OR]

"(2) Cloning is not inherently evil. It could be dangerous in the wrong hands...but so are guns, cars, and nuclear weapons, and we haven't outlawed them.

(3) (A lot of you aren't going to like this, but I can't be the only one who thinks this.) Continuous, passionate references to "faith in God" do not belong in a State of the Union address."


Put point "3" before point "2" and it makes for very understandable flow from one philosophy to the other.

Also, I agree about not paying "the world's" price for freedom. Even though the talking heads tried to make it sound as though GW had made a case for bringing back the crusades, I don't think they were listening. I think what he means is that, although we might appreciate global freedom, we are commited to bringing freedom to the people of the nations whose tyranical dictators are bent on destroying ours.

Thought it was pretty good. The Democratic response, on the other hand, was LAME. Come on, didn't anyone in the Senate or the House have the balls to go head to head with this speech. Sending that Washington state governor lackey out to do their job was weak!

See yall in 04.

 

[Kaman]

Hello,
I as everyone else on this forum probably make references to things that some of you disagree with or feel that it has no place here. So, I think it's appropriate that the Preisdent of the United States, who is also is no less an American than John Q. Public has the right to express his own values in a speech. Some would say that the President is a public figure and a direct representation of the government and his party every time he makes a speech. I disagree.
No one feels war is a desirable thing, but sometimes it's an unfortunate outcome of circumstances that are not in our control. We as a nation and a way of life paid early for attempts to be an isolationist nation. There are people who hate us (Americans) simplay because of the freedoms we enjoy. A simplistic view would be that we merely want to control the oil fields to drive our energy greedy economy. To some extent it's true we need to keep the oil and gas in the middle east flowing, however, it's truly about maintaining our way of life. If we are so bad, why do so many people want to emigrate to the US? Answer, for the same reason that they did 100 years ago. To live a better life and enjoy the freedom that being an American gives.
God Bless America, and let light of freedom shine brightly.

Regards,

ex-Navy rotorhead

 

[Typhoon1244]

Cloning: when the technology that eventually allowed IVF and "test-tube children" first appeared, many of the nations most conservative thinkers were in an uproar. There were concerns that without normal conception, we would be creating children without souls. Now these procedures are commonplace.

Today, people are once again in an uproar about cloning. Look people, cloning does not mean duplicating human beings! Even an exact genetic copy of me will not have my life experience. We may look and sound the same, but we will be very different people. The President either doesn't understand that, or he realizes that most of the people who may vote for him don't understand that.

Cloning is a lot like nuclear power. In the right hands, it could advance our capability to fight disease a hundred years. In the wrong hands...well, it could be very ugly. But the risks (in my opinion) do not outweigh the potential benefits.

You guys are jumping all over AIDS, cloning, and religion! Didn't you listen to the address? President George W. Bush is talking about a serious effort to move away from fossil-fuel cars! That's big f___ing news! Doesn't anybody have anything to say about that?

 

[Chunk]

Didn't you listen to the address? President George W. Bush is talking about a serious effort to move away from fossil-fuel cars! That's big f___ing news! Doesn't anybody have anything to say about that?

Yeah...what's the price of a gallon of H2? Also, Does the thing accelerate?

 

[AV8OR]

You guys are jumping all over AIDS, cloning, and religion! Didn't you listen to the address? President George W. Bush is talking about a serious effort to move away from fossil-fuel cars! That's big f___ing news! Doesn't anybody have anything to say about that?

Yeah. I think it's a great idea. I'd be willing to pay a reasonable amount more for my Henry Ford Model F150 to be cryogenic. At least it's a positive idea. If Al Gore had been giving it he would have just told us how greedy we all are to be driving our SUVs and then sped away back to the White House in his "2 miles per gallon" limo. I wonder how much Jet-A Airforce One's APU burned while Slick was gettin his locks clipped on the ramp right after his first election. Please. At least Wellstone was a believer and not just a hipocrite.

Ok, that's all, I'm done now.

Cary on gents!

 

[Full of LUV]

""(2) Cloning is not inherently evil. It could be dangerous in the wrong hands...but so are guns, cars, and nuclear weapons, and we haven't outlawed them.""



Conservatives have taken the same stance against cloning as Liberals take about abortion.

Liberals will defend a 14 year old girl to have a partial birth abortion the day before her due date without her parents knowledge. They will say it is a "slippery slope" that even stopping some of the obviously outrageous abortions that take place is the first step towards roe vs wade overturned.

Conservatives see cloning as the slippery slope of creating life for "experimental" reasons. Cloning is considered inherently evil because creating a human life for whatever mutilation/experimentation is considered wrong.

Although you try to seperate morality and intent from the law, there is a fundamental disagreement between conservatives and liberals on the basic value of life.

Apparently Liberals only value life above all else in the case of death penalty murderers.

Gotta Go

 

[mike]

It's not what you say....

It's not what you say, it is what you do. Your actions will always betray your true feelings.

Let's see what Dubya does in the next eighteen months.

 

[Snoopy58]

Typhoon wrote,

> The men who wrote those documents were Deists, a belief system that has very little in common with what the President calls "faith."

Common answer, but wrong... the Founding Fathers, with about 3 exceptions (Thomas Jefferson being one of them -- he may have been a Deist) were Bible-believing Christians. Their private writings make it absolutely clear what they believed, and it was very, very much in line with President Bush's faith. They also expressed their belief in God publically & in their "official" capacity far more than public officials do now.

The First Ammendment's freedom of religion/establishment of religion clause was intended to prevent a "Church of England" type of situation where one *denomination* was an official, sanctioned state religion. The Founding Fathers wanted to permit all *denominations* to worship as they saw fit, without the oppression that the Church of England had created over there. They never intended to put atheism/Islam/whatever on an equal platform with Christianity. They firmly believed that this would be a Christian nation, with each believer free to worship as he pleases. And for most of the nation's history (first 150+ years), that's exactly what the USA was. What we've all grown up with is NOT the way things have always been nor the way they were intended to be.

The present "separation of church & state" concept would have been completely foreign to the Founding Fathers; it was introduced, without precedent or basis, by the Supreme Court. It isn't in the Constitution and wasn't what they had in mind.

If George W.'s references to God bother you, you'll be REALLY upset when you read some of the speechs of an earlier President George W. ... they have references to God throughout.

I agree the State of the Union was a good speech.

 

[TXCAP4228]

From Chunk

Yeah...what's the price of a gallon of H2? Also, Does the thing accelerate?

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe... the cost is pretty low. As for acceleration? They would use it to create electricity so this would really be some kind of electric car with a hydrogen fuel cell. I think technology will improve the current performance.

Typhoon1244, a few comments.

My jaw really hit the floor, however, when the President spoke of pursuing the hydrogen-powered automobile! Is George W. Bush actually taking a small step toward ending--or at least dramatically reducing--our dependence on oil? IF the President is serious about this--and given his close ties to oil, I suspect that's a big "if"--I'll take back most of the dirty, rotten things I've said about him.

I was suprised by this too. A number of people on this board have disparaged W' for being an "oil man." I'd say those criticisms fly in the face of this proposal.

I still violently disagree with the President about a few things.

(1) America had to pay dearly for it's own freedom. I don't agree that it's our responsibility to pay for the rest of the world's freedom as well.

(2) Cloning is not inherently evil. It could be dangerous in the wrong hands...but so are guns, cars, and nuclear weapons, and we haven't outlawed them.

(3) (A lot of you aren't going to like this, but I can't be the only one who thinks this.) Continuous, passionate references to "faith in God" do not belong in a State of the Union address.

Yikes! You might choose a better word than "violently." How about vehemently?

1) America has paid dearly for its freedom, but we were helped (I hate to say this but its true) by the French during our Revolutionary war.
2) If we eliminate these pockets of despotism like Iraq and North Korea we will go a long way to making sure that no terrorist will have a safe haven or be given resources to harm us. Think of this more as an investment in our continued security.
3) I agree with you on cloning. I think we need to encourage stem cell research which is not the same thing but somehow gets lumped together with cloning. Stem cells may be the answer to all kinds of problems.
4) You shouldn't have said number 3. I am affraid we are going to get into this debate all over again. For what its worth I agree with you.

For FastPilot and Snoopy58: don't get caught up in Typhoon1244's comment. There are WAY more important things in this State Of the Union Address than this.

Typhoon, my rubber band hit you squarely in the forehead.

 

[Chunk]

From Chunk

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe... the cost is pretty low.

And carbon is the 8th most abundant. but it still ain't free. What do you think oil is made of?

I'd like to see H2 powered cars and such...how much does it cost to refine a gallon (I know, volume isn't measured in gallons...)?

 

[FastPilot]

Typhoon wrote,

What we've all grown up with is NOT the way things have always been nor the way they were intended to be.

The present "separation of church & state" concept would have been completely foreign to the Founding Fathers; it was introduced, without precedent or basis, by the Supreme Court. It isn't in the Constitution and wasn't what they had in mind.

I agree the State of the Union was a good speech.

AMEN

Steve

 

[Typhoon1244]

Typhoon, my rubber band hit you squarely in the forehead.

Boy, it sure is a good thing that I'm right and the rest of you are wrong...otherwise this thread would be really discouraging!

Regarding H-cars: at the time JFK insisted we go to the Moon, we could barely get a rocket out of the atmosphere. Look where we ended up.

I like to think that ten years from now, we'll be able to say "when GWB insisted we turn to Hydrogen-power, an H-car would only go about fiftem miles per hour. Now, in 2013, H-cars preform as well as their fossil-fueled ancestors."

Chunk, are you trying to say that we Americans are so technologically bankrupt that we couldn't make this idea work in a decade? We got to the Moon in ten years. I'll be we could get out of Saudi Arabia's oil fields in ten years, too.

Cloning: why do so many of you think "cloning" is synonymous with "human experimentation?" That's like saying "we shouldn't build airplanes because people might use them to drop bombs."

And I'll tell you this: I value human life a whole lot more than a hardcore right-wing Republican who's willing to kill nurses and doctors to stop abortions! Since my son was born, I'm on the fence about abortion...but I know that making them illegal isn't going to stop people from having unsafe sex. Is everybody with a "Pro-Life" bumper sticker going to adopt three or four unwanted children? And help heal all those distraught women who try to do their own coat hangar abortions in back alleys and bathrooms? And care for the huge number of babies abandoned in dumpsters and public restrooms?

 

[Typhoon1244]

P.S. I'm not responding to any more religious arguments. It's fruitless. Many of you insist on taking everything we don't understand and calling it "God." I choose to believe differently. That doesn't make me un-American, it makes me exactly American! Un-American is denying or belittling my right to believe what I choose.

You'll notice that I made no remarks about the President's faith...only that it doesn't belong in the State of the Union address.

Or this forum.

 

[FlyingSig]

Just some random thoughts to add to the thread (which btw, is one of the better ones I've read in awhile)...

Hydrogen car: We're alot closer then most realize. My wife's 5th grade class took a field trip last year to a place in Houston that's working on it. From what she reports the last big "hurdle" is figuring out out to refill the cells in a safer more mass produced way. Probably best not to have your new product explode the first time you fill it up though... but the scientists told my wife's class it's about 5 years away from production.

AIDS/HIV $ to Africa: Don't get me wrong here, this is certainly a noble cause, but where are we going to get this "new" money (yes, Bush said new) to fund this? Tax cuts + new spending doesn't equal the "we'll only spend as much as we take in" philosiphy also touted in the speech. I guess Author Anderson math still lives on...

Faith based charity: Gotta go with the bad idea on this one. I'm all for shifting the reponsibility away from the tax dollar and letting the private sector take on the burden (in exchange for tax releif)... but to actually fund religious groups with tax dollars goes against the basic foundations of this country.

Cloning/stem cell: Sorry fellas, I'm with GW on this one. Before I had my son I was really indifferent on the whole thing. But my son was born at just 24 weeks gestational age (almost 4 months early) and weighed 1 lb 14oz. He's now a 15 month old normal 23 lb kid that terrorizes our house. During all his time in the hospital I saw kids smaller and born earlier then my boy... all now healthy and normal babies that got to go home. One was born at 20 weeks and weighed 10 oz. , and now is also home and happy. It is fundimentaly wrong to think it is ok to "grow" babies...no matter what gestational age they may be...in the name of science. Nothing could ever convince me otherwise now. I sincerly hope GW's proposed laws are passed.

 

[Mr. Irrelevant]

I agree as well that it was a good speech. Even though I'm not a Bush fan, I like the idea of going into Iraq to get rid of Saddam. To those guys that blamed this stuff on Clinton, please wake up!! To blame all of it on Clinton or any democrat is to put all the blame on the lousy economic conditions we're in on Bush. And I don't believe he is to blame for the economy at all. Although the $300 billion dividend cut is clearly aimed at the very, very wealthy. It won't do a god**CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** thing to help 90% plus of americans. That part of his plan is D.O.A.

Going back to Iraq and Al-Quada, I was dismayed to not see that many democrats stand and applaud Bush's comments on where many of the Al-Quada members are now; those that were captured and those that went to a place hotter than the lousy desert they come from. A standing O was the only appropriate response in that situation.

As for the separation of church and state, no doubt the founding fathers had other ideas in mind but sometimes I wonder if George W. even realizes that not everyone in the U.S. practices the same faith as he does. To compare what the founding fathers thought over 200 years ago and how things are today isn't relevant.

Lastly, the hell with the French. Having read an abundance of WWII material, their legacy of being wimps goes far past capitulating in three weeks time to a horse driven army! Tough horse driven army though.


Mr. I.