The Burning Bush

[athelind]

The events of the last two and a half years make much more sense if viewed from the following hypothesis:

Like many Protestant Fundamentalists, George Walker Bush is a millennialist, and believes that he is doing God's work by bringing about the Apocalypse.

Comments

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

Oy! Now I know why Hitler's reign was the third Reich.

Thanks. I always thought Dubya talked through his fundament. Before Blair started crawling up there steadily...

[hafoc.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know about that. Wasn't it Heinlein's Razor which said "Never attribute to conspiricy what can be adequately explained by incompetence?" Or words to that effect.

I do know, though, that in my field it's spooky trying to protect the environment when the Commander-in-Thief's policy seems to be based on the idea that Jayzuss is going to come back in six months or so and take all good little Texas Oilmen to Heaven, so they'll never have to deal with the consequences of their actions.

[xylen.livejournal.com]

That does make a frightening amount of sense when you look at it like that.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Always a cogent observation. However, as I consider Fundamentalist Millennialism to be primarily an example of the latter rather than the former, the Razor cuts in my favor in this instance.

[stormydragon.livejournal.com]

This is a rather poorly written Wikipedia article. It mashes together premillennialism and postmillenialism as if they were one concept, which they aren't.

There's also a rather blatant undistributed middle fallacy (http://www.fallacyfiles.org/undismid.html), where it tries to draw a connection between Christian theology and Nazism.

[araquan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, basically.

[stalbon.livejournal.com]

I've heard a saying: 'Everyone believes the time they live in is the worst.'

Thus, we all believe Bush is the worst president we can imagine, and I'll admit that I don't like him at all. But he's likely no worse than Nixon, or Grant, or Clinton, or the guy who came after Nixon (I can't believe I cannot remember his name). Is he a good president? No, he's not. But there have been plenty of bad presidents.

I don't know. I just want to give my opinion on things. No, I don't like Bush or his administration at all, but there are others who've done bad things as well. My apologies.

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

Carter was the one after Nixon; peanut farmer from Georgia.
did some good with the Arab/Israeli thing but of course they soon reverted to type....
Surely Ulysses S Grant was so long ago that whatever type of President he was (Generally drunk apparently) is rather moot?

[stalbon.livejournal.com]

No, no. I meant Ford, now that I remember his name. Everyone pretty much made fun of him, too.

And with Grant, well, there were still people complaining a lot about his character. We're not talking purely about administrative ethics here, we're talking about the presidents themselves, and what they did or how they presented themselves.

[hafoc.livejournal.com]

There are many flavors of bad. Nixon was psycho and immoral, Nixon's successor Ford was not bright and not at all a leader, Carter was a poor manager and unlucky, and so on.

W's form of bad is that he ignores unpleasant facts. He acts not according to what is true, but accoding to what he _wishes_ were true. And then he compounds the error by saying that he has to stick to an unsuccessful course because that, to him, is the same thing as having moral principles.

But no, I wouldn't say he is the worst president we've ever had. Millard Fillmore and James Buchannan come to mind as two who were worse, and I'm sure there have been others.

[hafoc.livejournal.com]

An interesting distinction. Let's suppose-- difficult as it may be-- that W were intelligent. Let's suppose that he applies his intelligence in a deliberate attempt to bring about Armageddon. That would be conspiricy toward a stupid goal. Does that count as stupidity or as conspiricy?

Personally, I still find it more believable that he's just banging the control levers of the government at random, jug-eared-monkey-at-the-typewriter style. But then I've worked in government for years, so I have perhaps met more world-class idiots than you have -- as well as having poisoned my mind with a permanent case of cynicism.

[silussa.livejournal.com]

I personally take faith in the American governmental system in that, no matter how bad the Presidents elected are....the country has survived them.

The Optimist

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

The optimist fell ten stories
And at each window bar
He called out to his friends
"All right so faaaaaaar..."

Re: The Optimist

[silussa.livejournal.com]

We survived Ulysses S. Grant, who probably had the most corrupt administration ever.

We survived Richard Nixon, who certainly had the most deliberately hostile administration ever.

We survived Woodrow Wilson; a good man, who was stricken with a stroke and incapacitated for an extended period of time in the office.

We survived Bill Clinton, who with a former Watergate attorney wife proved himself the stupidiest by having forgotten that it isn't the actual activity that gets you....it's the coverup.

I don't think we're managing to create better incompetents...so I'm reasonably comfortable. And if not...that's why there is impeachment, conviction, and removal.