"I am a proud Marine's mom and aunt."
Sounds like some inbreeding is going on. Behold: the family tree has no branches.
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." - Theodore Roosevelt, 1918.
Soldiers are dying because Bush is a fool, and because enough of his supporters are suckers enough to have fallen for the iraq=al qaeda lie.
No one thinks Bush a greater fool, and Rumsfeld a more criminal idiot, than do the soldiers whose lives are being so cheaply spent right now.
Bush gets more of them killed every day for a doomed bid to put Ahmed Chalabi on a throne, simply because enough people are stupid enough to think following fools, and giving them carte blanche to pour American blood over Iraqi rocks, is somehow "patriotic."
"No one thinks Bush a greater fool, and Rumsfeld a more criminal idiot, than do the soldiers whose lives are being so cheaply spent right now."
The ones I have spoken to say just the opposite...who told you this?
Also perhaps we should take everything TR said as the truth...you can't just use one quote and leave out the rest...
There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100 % Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else.
A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.
The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.
"There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100 % Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else."
It's that love-it-or-leave-it attitude that makes me sick. I highly doubt that your ancestors were Native Americans, so that makes you just as much an offspring of immigrants as the rest of us. You're no more American than I am. In fact, people who speak out against the war and whatever else are exhibiting 100% Americanism. It's our right to speak freely like that. To not take advantage of rights and press for new freedoms (and protest the freedom-squashing bullshit we're enduring right now) is 0% Americanism.
So 100% Americanism is unquestioning, slavish, moronic support of a fraudulent idiot man-child dry drunk coke-addled "President" and illegal war of occupation?
100% Americanism places oil and "avenge mah daddy!" and a foreign policy that is cleared through a foreign nation that supports terrorists that attack us ahead of actual American interests?
100% Americanism means anti-intellectualism, xenophobia, racism, homophobia and (pace Rantophilia) facist theocracy above representative democracy and the rule of law?
100% Americanism means slashing taxes for the über-wealthy while destroying the very fabric of the social contract that made this the greatest country in the world ever?
100% Americanism means that White Supply-Side Jesus And His Fundamentalist Misinterpretations are of greater importance that our basic governing document?
Count me out.
WF
100% Americans respect the Constitution above partisanship.
Those who follow Bush, who support Ashcroft, who shrug off lies about war, certainly aren't patriots. Teddy Roosevelt would have more colorful language to describe that kind of milk-sop.
Seems interstingly prophetic how the words Jello Biafra used to describe right wingers on his 1991 album I Blow Minds for a Living still apply.
"Bush-happy, flag-suckling jack asses," he said.
Talk about Bush-happy, I spent the night of the actual 2000 election watching the results come in at a bar that was packed with lesbian republicans. Strange days indeed.
Most peculiar, mama...
"[...] I should cover my face and weep for the red slayer and the slain;for the lying bulletin makers at the front and the cruel pillagers in the rear; for the thrifty patriots of the forum and the valliant non combatants of the press; for the blood thirsty chaplains and their blasphemous brethren of the pulpit, who figure God in the uniform of a Major-General [...]but most of all for my loud, camp-haunting, flag-waving sisters diligent in the deviltry of the time!- Ambrose Bierce, 11.27. 1898.
Nice quote. There's no end to the flag-waving sisters, then or now.
Sorry, forgot the quotation marks...theodore roosevelt said each of those quotes for those of you that are confused.
B.R., actually yes my ancestors were native americans...cherokee actually.
Quotes or no, where is it written that I have to agree 100% with anything ANYONE says? That's a straw-man, Nathan.
WF
Yep, I'd rather have a surgeon operate on me who knew the bible than one who actually went to med school.
Oops, somebody else said it first and you forgot quotation marks. I guess you're completely absolved.
If one is going to use a quote from theordore roosevelt it is also important to know many of the other things he said...what he truly thought.
So you're implying then that one quote ISN'T what he truly thought, but another one (that just happens to be more in line with what you might think) IS?
I would have disagreed with TR on some foreign policy issues (though I suspect if you brought TR back from the dead - after all, Dick Cheney proves we have the technology - he'd have made less of a clusterf*ck of the Middle East than the Chimperor), no doubt. And that's ok - because no one is right 100% of the time. Doesn't make any one quote more or less valid than any other quote - just means that he was a complex human being. You seem more interested in trying to disprove the quote Covington put out there than in recognizing that complexity.
So what if he believed in reading the Bible? How does that diminish his call against the stifling of dissent? Does that mean he was just saying it to kill time/fill quote books? Using your logic, no quote can ever be used anywhere at anytime unless the quoter is completely aware of the totality of the quotees output, views, etc.
Straw man.
WF
I think if you are going to use the quote of an individual you have to take into account everything that individual stood for. I am sure Hitler at some time said something that was powerful, intelligent, and logical yet no one quotes him...
Would you ever quote George W. Bush (in a good way) to prove a point? Some people seem to have this idea that TR would handle things differently today...even if he had one of the most aggressive foreign policies that we have seen.
I would quote George W. Bush in a good way when he said something worth quoting in a good way. Hell, I still quote Dennis Miller, even though he became a turncoat.
WF
And TR's foreign policy, agressive as it was, did more than pay lip service to liberty and democracy. He helped engineer the end of the Russo-Japanese War, among other things.
I can't see Bush trying to end the wars in the Middle East...and given that his base seems to think a war in the Middle East is necessary for the Second Coming, I can actually see him working hard to keep it on edge over there. He's doing that extremely well.
WF
Have you ever heard of Elihu Root, Alfred Mahan, the panama canal, the phillipines, the great white fleet...TR was probably in the top 3 in terms of expansionist presidents...his foreign policy focused nearly entirely on the ability to project American power anywhere.
I have heard of all of them - among the many biographies I own is Edmund Morris' Theodore Rex, thankyouverymuch - and my point is TR's expansionism, whether or not it was right (see the speeches of William Jennings Bryan for a nice counterweight to Rooseveltian foreign policy), was not viewed as a toy to avenge Roosevelt's father and create cushy positions for campaign contributors. TR often spoke of "malefactors of great wealth" - Bush seems determine to give them all Cabinet posts and Iraq reconstruction contracts.
Also, and I shouldn't have to point this out to a history major, THE WORLD WAS DIFFERENT IN 1904. Even if Bush was running this EXACTLY like TR would have, it's not necessarily the right path.
WF
Nathan, I just have to say that after reading your inconclusive and asinine comments throughout this post that you have thoroughly lacked to prove any point or defend any subject. I think you are a coward and an ignoramous. Teddy Roosevelt did not treat ethnic groups with equality. He lived at a time before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He was a blatant racist and sexist. However, according to some of your and Covington's quotes, TR did favor Constitutional rights. Bush and his cronies do not respect the Constitution. I stand for equality of freedoms, the inherent human right of life, thought, and happiness, and secularization.
What, Nathan, if anything, do YOU stand for?
Agree with free speech. But do we have to grant that to Teddy? He is a loser perhaps bigger than any loser in modern history. Kerry should criticize but drop Ted otherwise you are known by the company you keep. At least Bush and his staff are honest and have a philosphy to implement which they believe is in our long term interest. Teddy only implements what is good politically. Now that's a real dangerous person.
Hmm...40+ years of service (and, from what my friends in Massachusetts tell me, incredible constituent service) and an unswavering loyalty to progressive causes. Faults or no, sounds like a loser to me!
< /sarcasm >
WF
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