Down With Emperor Bush!
For those of you that like to classify people into little boxes based on predefined notions, I'll say that I'm a liberal Democrat. This, however, does not mean that I blindly agree with everything the US Democratic Party does, nor that I think that all Democrat politicians are pure good. It's just the easiest way to group my set of opinions in a way that is understandable to the average person. This is the most generic of my opinions pages; for more detail on my religion and abortion opinions (which are sometimes part of politics), check out their respective pages.
Of course, what use is a web page if all you do is state your opinion? This page would have much more of a point if I explained why I think what I think, attempting to use logical, straightforward arguments (unlike most politicians). So that's exactly what I'm going to do.
The first major issue that divides the Democrats and Republicans is the environment vs. the economy. Democrats are generally for protecting the environment at the expense of profits if necessary, while Republicans generally resist environmental policies in favor of placing the least restrictions on business. I firmly believe that protecting the environment should always come before big business and the economy. It is always worth a reduction in profits to keep the planet we live on in good working condition. Think about it, people - money comes and goes, and you can almost always think of a new way of doing things to make more of it, but everyone needs a planet to live on and there is currently no other option than Earth. If we damage the environment to the point where the ecosystem collapses and the Earth is no longer habitable to humans, that's it. We all die. Just because the planet has supported us so far doesn't mean it will necessarily continue to do so - it is our responsibility to take good care of it, if for no other reason than to ensure our own survival. And the reasons people have for cutting our life support out from under us are...what? Making a few bucks? It seems incredibly conceited to me for someone to think that the survival of their business is more important than the survival of the human race. And of course they don't see the fatal logic error there: if we all die because there are no longer enough oxygen-producing plants to keep the atmosphere breathable, it doesn't matter if they died a billionare or a beggar. I don't see how anyone could honestly think it's worth sacrificing the Earth we live on for the sake of their corporation, especially when in many cases the steps necessary to reduce environmental impact are low-cost compared to the profits of the business that needs to take them.
Okay, I'm sure you've all been wanting to know what I have to say regarding the title of this page, and I've probably put it off a little too long. The second major issue that has polarized just about everyone in this country is the problem of the president. To a Democrat like myself, George W. Bush is the worst president to ever be elected - if you even call what he did "getting elected." In the first election he used underhanded tactics such as having Republican-hired absentee-ballot counters fill in incomplete ballots with Bush votes to wrestle Florida onto his side; in the second he used emotional scare tactics to convince the crucial 1% of voters that John Kerry would not protect the country from terrorist attacks and that Republicans were the only good Christians. Not only has Bush hoodwinked his way into office, he has done an abysmal job directing the country once he got there. "President" Bush is incredibly stupid (he was a straight-C student who only got into college by making large cash donations), and it shows in his many blunders and ignorant policies (not to mention the fact that he can't speak proper English). The most blatant example of his uninformed mismanagement is the economic recession the country has suffered throughout his term of office. Despite the fact that he suceeded one of the best presidents ever (I mean in his actions in office - Clinton's quality as a husband is another story altogether) and began his term with a country out of debt for the first time in its history, Bush quickly ran up an enormous national debt by giving tax breaks to the rich. Consumer confidence plummeted as he began his endless series of foreign wars while completely ignoring high unemployment at home, and the stock market came the closest to crashing it has been since the 1920s. To add to the problem, his interference with the oil-producing Middle East has driven up gas prices, meaning that already-unconfident consumers have less spending money since they have to use more of it on gas. And then, having gotten the economy into such dire straits, what does our president do? He uses it as an excuse to back out of the Kyoto Protocol, saying that "the economy is too weak and putting restrictions on our businesses would hurt it too much." I've already explained why the money-before-environment argument is stupid, but the sheer hypocrisy of this sort of double-dealing disgusts me.
Another major blunder Mr. Bush has made while in office is his botched and reckless invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, as part of his ridiculous "war on terror" (I mean, come on, you can't have a war on an idea. But leaving that alone...). After smashing through Afghanistan and shattering the few semblences of stability their war-torn state had left, we have still failed to find Osama bin Laden (our original purpose for the invasion) or bring peace to the common people, who are still caught in the midst of the conflict between the drug cartels and the police despite us setting up a "modern democratic" government in Kabul. That unfortunate country disappeared from the headlines while the situation was still unstable, as we proceeded to leave it in the dust and invade Iraq. Our justifications for invading Iraq were shaky at best; most of them centered around "confiscating weapons of mass destruction" and "freeing the Iraqi people from Saddam's evil dictatorship." But Bush had the same justifications available to him at the beginning of his term - the only thing that changed between 2000 and 2002 was that Saddam Hussein stopped selling the US oil at low prices. Additionally, once we actually invaded Iraq, we found absolutely no weapons of mass destruction or the facilities for making them. Now, I will not say that Saddam Hussein was a fair, kind leader or that it would have been better to leave him in power - deposing him was a just action in the sense that it destroyed a tyrannical, oppressive government. However, America's efforts to institute a democratic government have been so botched that we have not improved the situation for the Iraqi people one bit. They suffer just as much during this long "transition period" as they did under Saddam's rule. Meanwhile we are continuing to destroy our credibility in the Middle Eastern countries, which increasingly view us as self-righteous imperialists who don't respect other cultures and stick our nose into other people's business. President Bush places all the blame for terrorism on "radical Islamic jihadists," but he never considers that he might be making the problem worse by giving terrorists more excuses to attack the United States.
Well, that's about all I can think of for my general political opinions. More may be added later if I think of something else, but for now I want to just publish this page and move on. My opinions on more specific topics (such as religion) can be found under the other links in this category.