Contempt for Dissent -- jason's message board

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Subject: Contempt for Dissent

Author:
Steven Melling

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Date Posted: 17:31:33 09/19/02 Thu

As far as I can tell, I disagree with just about everything the Bush administration espouses. However, that alone is not the reason why I dislike them so much.

What really bugs me about them is the dogmatic manner in which they support their opinions.

For instance, consider how Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recently reacted to protestors. While telling congress how neat it would be to bomb Iraq, he was interrupted by the chants of "Inspections not war. Inspections not war." After order was regained, Rumsfeld asserted that the dissenters did not get it.

He explained that Bush and his buddies wanted to disarm Iraq, not inspect it for "weapons of mass destruction."
That retort does not even make sense. If you want to disarm a country, wouldn't you want to first assess what it has?

But Rumsfeld could not stop there. He also felt the need to marginalize the protestors, by saying: "People like that are not able to go into Iraq and make demonstrations like that because they don�t have free speech."

That's correct, but his use of the phrase "people like that" suggests expressing dissent is a strange thing to do. In the administration's view, freedom of speech is an unfortunate element of society ... a real pain in the ass.

It would be nice if the administration could once in awhile show respect for democracy. Just once I want to hear Bush say "While I don't agree with you, I respect your right to have a dissenting opinion." Instead, he seems to always be saying "You are stupid for not seeing things my way."

Is this what it means to be compassionate conservatives? It seems more like the behavior of a totalitarian regime.

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