Ahhh, Toblerone, your infinite ability to tackle a serious topic with cutting humour, while still making a valid point never ceases to amaze me. The angrier you get, the funnier.
As many people like Draginol et al have pointed out before, the great thing about debating with Right wingers, as opposed to "the Left" (aka Satan) is that right wingers stick to actual debate rather than shrill, emotive arguments. Lefties constantly resort to insults to avoid the topic. May I commend the follwoing excellent examples of debating skill:
ParaTed2K: “Idiot.”
Island Dog: “You have lost it.”
DrMiler: “Get real Klink!”
Dr Bailey: “Thats because so many of them seem to be the same; "Blah blash, bash bush,etc..." I could count off almost 5 right now, there are those who IMO are a lot nicer, and that i enjoy debating with, the others......”
Intellectual stuff guys!
Cakgogka, thanks for clearing that up for me, but the Kyrgyzstan referred to in the video is actuall fictional, because they place it in the Middle East and many of the respondants admit to never having heard of it before and then proclaim that they agree with Bush that we should go to war with them. How accurate a picture of the voters this is we'll never know.
"When Hitler was appointed in January 1933, Germany was a democracy. Germany had fair elections; nobody had their right to vote abused; there were numerous political parties you could vote for etc. To pass a law, the Reichstag had to agree to it after a bill went through the normal processes of discussion, arguments etc. Within the Reichstag of January 1933, over 50% of those who held seats were against the Nazi Party. Therefore it would have been very unlikely for Hitler to have got passed into law what he wanted. Many saw Hitler as a fall-guy politician who would have to shoulder to blame if things got worse under his leadership." http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/Nazi_Germany_dictatorship.htm
He then gained absolute power by getting a democratically elected Parliament to vote to grant him rights that meant he no longer had to bother with usual constitutional demands. It was after all a state of emergency. (Interestingly, it was the Social Democrats that opposed this move).
Mr Brehm, I do not concede to you that Iraq was a threat to the USA, and therein lies our disagreement. Saddam was worth removing because he was a threat to the Iraqi people.
Has it ever occurred to anyone that debating with drmiler is like debating with google.com? ...Sorry .... I got distracted...
Quite frankly I think this debate is straightforward:
Did Bush denounce those who disagreed with him as unpatriotic? Yes.
Did he manipulate information to create the impression that Saddam was a threat to the USA? Debatable, depends whether you believe they geneuinely believed that Iraq had WMDs, and whether they genuinely believed he would use them against the USA..
Are people easily manipulated? Always have been, always will be. No matter what side they vote for.
Were the Nazis' tactics as simple as Gioering makes out? No, there was more to it, but there were elements of these tactics in what the Nazis did, as there were elements of it in every country.
Is it ethical to lie to the people to get them to agree to a just cause? Matter of opinion.
