Thursday, October 25, 2007

Good question

Rosa Brooks of the Los Angeles Times asks this insightful question:
What's a constitutional democracy to do when the president and vice president lose their marbles?

...Impeachment's not the solution to psychosis, no matter how flagrant. But despite their impressive foresight in other areas, the framers unaccountably neglected to include an involuntary civil commitment procedure in the Constitution.
She, like many others in this country, have concluded that Bush and Cheney et al's relentless attempts to bring us to war with Iran is nothing short of insanity. Not metaphorical looniness, but the real thing. Actual certifiable illogic to the point of flaming irrationality.

This is a very, very scary thing in men with their fingers on the nuclear button.

8 comments:

Coldfoot said...

Ha ha ha ha ha ahhhhh ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ahhhhhhhhhh....... ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Whew.


You look at the existence-of-homosexuality-in-Iran-denying, holocaust denier, vocal Jew hating, nuclear bomb seeking, sabre rattling, brutal-seventh-century-religious-law-upholding, tin horn dictating nut in power in Iran and have the audacity to single out our administration for admonishing?

Wait wait wait. Just to be totally over the top the next thing you should write is that the tin-horn bigot, Jew and homosexual hater in Iran would actually allow you, a mere woman, to publish such radical views as yours in such a blog. Dangerous views such as women are equal to men under the law with reproductive rights and the same right as men to sleep around without being stoned to death.

Count your blessings. Berate the men who would actually kill you for questioning their authority.

This is just too good.

Please. What ever you do, do not delete this thread. No one will ever believe me.

To your readers: Please, pile on me. You know you want to. And don't do it just because you hate Bush (seething Bush hatred got old 7 years ago and there has been nothing new in 5), do it because you think the thug in Iran is a better man than Bush.

Deirdre Helfferich said...

So, by your reasoning, because Iran is run by a fruitcake, the US isn't and couldn't possibly be? That because there are dictators and insane tyrants and horrible religious zealots elsewhere in the world, that critiquing our own administration is "audacity"? sorry, Coldfoot, although it's nice to know you're cruising the blog, there's a few gaps in your logic.

Because slaves existed in pre-civil war US, women shouldn't have worked toward suffrage, and the ability to own land, say?

You've arranged a straw man argument here. You are not refuting my position--which is that there may indeed be a possible loss of rationality in the current administration, as Rosa Brooks posits, or that there appears to be no way to remove a president by reason of insanity--you are instead merely telling me to shut up because I'm lucky to live in a country where I, as a woman, can express my opinions. Quit sidestepping the issue.

The Iranians aren't in power in the United States. They aren't the ones corrupting our legal system. They aren't the ones who have power over our judicial appointments, or over our use of nuclear weapons, or over whether we follow the rule of our law.

We are--you and me and George W. And if we ignore our own laws, our own ethics, and allow our administration to repeat over and over the same mistakes with larger and larger bangs associated, then we deserve what we get. I, for one, do not plan to sit back quietly and meekly and just let that happen and "count my blessings" that I can express my radical views (of course, I have to put up with illogical drivel from people such as yourself in order to do it, but I won't get stoned for saying these things). By your logic, we should have the right to critique and question our administration, but, apparently, it's really poor social form to actually use that right.

A right unused can disappear.

Ultimately, the responsibility for what Congress and the White House do rests with all the rest of the US citizenry. And they MUST be accountable for the actions, or we do not have a government, we have a tyranny.

Coldfoot said...

Interesting rebuttal in which you move from the absolutely absurd notions you presented in the original post to a more rational position.

Glad to have brought some sensibility to the topic at hand. You are welcome.

Deirdre Helfferich said...

Excuse me? I quoted Rosa Brooks, who thinks that Cheney and Bush may be mad. I'm pretty much in agreement that it's a strong possibility, and a scary thought at the very least, which is why I quoted her. (And if they're not mad, then they are nefarious, but that has tons to do with a lot of other issues.) However, YOUR argument was nonsense, and you STILL have not done anything to refute either the original couple of positions, nor my rebuttal to your straw man discussion.

Coldfoot said...

I have to refute the notion that Bush and Cheney are suffering from psychosis?

Sorry. I have a life and better things to do. Like laugh at bloggers who print the most absurd nonsense and their readers who take it seriously.

Keep writing. I'll keep reading. And when you're over the top I'll let you know.... if I have time.

Ishmael said...

Coldfoot, you have a life? Looks like all you do is video gaming. How lame is that? I'm surprised you can communicate in complete sentences; heck, you must be the president of gamers just because of that. What a loser: got nothing better going for you than to defend George W. Bush. That's just sad.

Coldfoot said...

Video gaming?

Defending Bush?

Not that there may be a distinction to you, but I haven't played a video game since Atari PacMan was big, and I was in junior high. Boardgames are my vice.

Laughing at the notion Bush is suffering psychosis is "defending Bush?" Bush is a weak kneed, big government, liberal pandering bitch. The only thing he has going for him is he is honest, and he is right on one major issue: the war on terror.

I would submit that people with nothing better to do than obsess to the point of delusion over Bush and Cheney are the ones with no lives.

Deirdre Helfferich said...

I agree that Bush is right that terrorism is a serious problem, but right on the "War on Terror"? No way. His approach has been a domestic and foreign policy disaster from start to finish: ineffective, meandering, outrageously (and unecessarily) expensive, and downright stupid. It's also been inane in execution, with exactly the opposite effect than that intended: it is directly responsible for an increase in terrorism.

But "honest"? "liberal pandering"? Uh, you are obviously vacationing on some other planet right now....he's pandering, all right, but not to liberals.

Guess you're in that six percent...