Simple question re. Anti Bush sentiments..

[BOUNCER]

When Europeans express anti Bush sentiments do American's view us as anti-America too?.. I know he's the leader of your country untill November and as such I hold his office in the highest regard, but the guy himself makes my skin crawl. But I believe America is truely a wonderfull country... A little story in the news here last week. It was told by the mother of a dying child, the child asked about dying and going to heaven andwhen all was explained the child told her mother she believed heaven was in America!. Although the story in the news wasn't about America I thought it was a beautifull thing to hear a child say that.

So anyway, does Anti-Bush mean Anti-American?.

[navydevildoc]

I would certainly hope not... but many people here in the USA continually start saying that you are "un-patriotic" and "un-american" if you bad mouth Bush.

It was the framers' intentions to have the populace constantly question their government, but we have long since stopped that.

"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

[Cycleon]

Not so much perhaps - for example, on the whole I think that the French are spineless hypocrits who will soon pay the price and who now live to act as a counter to the US, while crying "fraternite" they scheme with Germany to take over the EU to pay for their own sad economies - but I do like France itself - its just the French are the problem

But anyway - I liked the Irish, bouncer

[apocolypse]

Here's my take on it bro. A lot of us, myself included, have a tendency to tie "President" and "America" together. So perhaps unfairly, an attack on the President is viewed as an attack on America? I dunno, it's all I can think of, and I'm no psychologist.

[sin]

i also like the stance that you dont support our troops if you dont agree with the war. not necessarily true, but that seems to be the way it is viewed.

[Benches505]

I for one think he will still be our president after November. I don't like everything about "W" but the alternative is much worse!

[Benches505]

And to answer your post (sorry)

Many of us do take it as an attack on the country as a whole even though we probably should not.

[symatech]

And to answer your post (sorry)

Many of us do take it as an attack on the country as a whole even though we probably should not.

you definately should not. think about it, when Clinton was underfire were all the people bashing him 'anti-american'? nope. The president is not the country. he is a man like you or me. The great thing about our country is that we can openly criticize the president and the job he is doing. That's what makes america a great country. When people try to suppress that or label you as unpatriotic, then you know we are headed into trouble. next step is putting secret police on the corner to herd all the dissenters into camps for re-education.

[sigrabbit]

I agree that you can criticize the president of our country if he is doing a bad job, but some the crap I see is making me have violent thoughts. For example, there is a van in my neighborhood, and on the rear window is a bumper sticker with a picture of Bush with the words "American Terrorist" next to him. I was so morally disgusted when I saw the bumper sticker that I was 2 seconds away from going to the owner's front door an punching in his/her teeth. Talk about skewing and belittling the meaning of "terroist." I am disgusted with some of these Bush bashers, even though I don't agree with all of his beliefs.

[symatech]

Thats very true sigrabbit. there are always people who take it to idiotic extremes. But what you must understand is that they are on both sides of the political spectrum. The problem with the extremists is that they never concede that perhaps they are wrong, and often when confronted with this fact they turn to personal attack.

The other problem lies with the people who take one extremist view and project it onto the entire people. Like when somebody makes a claim about bush -assuming its a credible claim- the extremists on the one side proclaim it as fact, and the extremists on the other denounce it as propaganda and bullshlt. Same goes with muslims these days, I hear a whole helluva lot about muslims being terrible people and they all want to blow up women and children. Thats bullshlt as well. of course you will have people who go to extremes like this, it is up to the people who can see what is really going on -usually the people who know they are not always right and can admit mistakes- to correct it. even then they are generally grossly outnumbered, and even though majority may rule, majority is not always right.

never forget that 1 million are not smarter than 1.

question everything