lumrant
Thursday, April 22, 2004
The Case Against Bush (work in progress)
Primary Strategic Issues Facing America:
- Ensure our global security
- Problem: fundamentalist terrorism and rogue people/powers
- Solution: effectively promote free-market, liberal democracy worldwide with multilateral initiatives
- Preserve and promote Life, Liberty, and Happiness for all Americans
- Problem: yawning gap between rich and poor means “wage slavery,” poor standard of living, denial of modern civil rights such as health care
- Solution: promote success of the little guy by reigning in the excesses of the biggest guys with more oversight of market economy, tax laws, and special-interest lobby
- Promote ethics-based technology innovation
- Problem: unenlightened thought both from the top down (President) and bottom up (populace) is preventing America from understanding and preparing for the future
- Solution: reshape public education to focus on science, critical thinking, and a global worldview; open up a public dialogue about science and philosophy that exposes people to ethical issues and encourages discussion
Why Bush is the wrong man for the job
Global Security
Bush has the right strategic idea (free societies don’t favor terrorism), but his unilateral “solutions” have set his freedom-spreading cause back by decades.
The benefits of removing Saddam Hussein from power have been more than negated by the costs of the operation: dead American soldiers, a hostile world, billions diverted from critical domestic causes, and an Iraq that seems destined to become a terrorist-harboring Islamic state.
It is the worst kind of 19th-century reactionary thinking to presume that global opinion is unimportant and America can succeed ...
