----- Original Message ----- From: "David Brin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, October 15, 2004 10:40 AM Subject: Re: brin: My big salvo
> Find one brave or selfless act ever performed by W, > beyond allowing his dad's friends to buy him fighter > jet lessons and then to buy him a baseball team. After 9-11 he went out of his way to ensure that American Muslims would not feel the brunt of the public's anger. He surprised me with how strongly he reacted to those who attacked Muslims in the US, calling them as bad as the terrorists. His record after that, supporting Ashcroft, is more suspect, but at the time he did a great deal to forestall the chances of a lynch mob mentality taking over the US. It may not seem like much to you, but in the Evangelical community, where Islam is considered by many a false religion, his actions would be controversial. Indeed, we lost a good fraction of the conservatives members of our church for hosting a multi-faith Thanksgiving observation at our church, because it included religions other than Christianity and Judaism. He did something that I think a significant fraction of Evangelicals thought was wrong in order to show his support of American Muslims. There are plenty of areas in which I think GWB is just wrong. I think his administration is incompetent. But, like Paul Begala, I have a mostly positive personal view of him. (Paul said...and this is from memory... "George Bush is a very likeable guy..._I_ like him, and I'm opposed to most of his policies...I think he is a genuinely nice guy") I agree with you that his tax policy is very wrong. But, unlike you, I think he is just a true believer in Reaganomics. Listen to him in the debate..."by cutting taxes you put money in the hands of the people who create jobs." Sure it involves the suspension of disbelief, but no more so than some of the ideas my Libertarian and leftist friends have floated. Unfortunately, while I have a better view of Kerry's potential than Gautam (I think his is from F to C- and mine is from D- to C), I am not happy with our choices. It appears that we now have a choice between people who believe what they will in the face of all facts, and people without much conviction....that's not just left/right, BTW. Its that the centrists seem to have left conviction to the unreasonable true believers of all stripes. To twist a Yeats poem, its as if: Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, ....... The competent lack all conviction, while the incompetent Are full of passionate intensity. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
