A couple of years ago, someone asked me if there were any Bush policies I supported, and I couldn't come up with any. After some searching, I kinda came up with a couple.

I saw a lot of Dean. And I read some of his book. Rather than merely make his case about Bush's policy, he uses hyperbole and vitriol where they aren't necessary. He's chanting.

My guess is that he is expiating his own guilt. "Worse than Nixon" is one of his talking points.

A rule of thumb is this...

If someone argues against Bush's policies, and makes arguments against the policies, that's good. That's what we are supposed to do.

On the other hand, if one assumes the evilest of motives, believes the wildest of theories, chants the stupidest of chants (it's all about oil, for example), and repeatedly chants personal attacks, the he is a religious antiBushite.
For these people, it wouldn't matter what Bush did, he would be evil.

Another general rule is to observe the willingness to believe any lie if it casts a negative light on Bush (They said Iraq was behind 9/11, for example). At this point, a deprogrammer may be necessary.

Now, let's pick a policy and criticize it. How about his immigration policy? So...

Is it wrong to be zealously against some of Bush's policies?

No. I'm not even saying that it is wrong to adopt the faith of religious antiBushism. It is what it is. It is the berlief that what Bush says is wrong and inspired by the lowest of motives, and that we can know that in advance.

The faithful are easily spotted by their absolute statements. And by their repetition of any talking point that comes along against Bush.

Side note: today I was listening to Prairie Home Companion, a Guy Noir episode. In the bit was a character who could only speak French because he had vowed not to speak English until George W. Bush left the White House. Funny bit. They got him to talk English by assuring him that Bush had left the White House to go to Crawford for the weekend.

I doubt health care experts or policy analysts who make a case for or against, say the French system, would do so without having a fairly good amount of knowledge on the subject.

My basic stance is that I basically see why health insurance and medical care are so much. It's actually not hard to see from a market perspective. I described it very briefly just a little below here in a post headed "MissL,".

Though it's brief, I think it's fairly accurate in giving a very basic explanation.

The way I see it, you go after components in that process to lower costs with deregulation of some parts or "reregulation"...some of kaligula's examples could be tried here...or you say "the hell with it" and try to make a government universal health care system of some kind.

The problem left unsettled in the latter approach is that the process I described isn't necessarily (and probably NOT) affected. And that's not really good.

I asked him the same question once and linked me to a long response he had given someone else who asked the same question.

I don't know where it is anymore. I think he said that those were simply the default positions when he signed up and didn't change them. I think he also said he claims no ideological leaning.

But I'll let him answer...

This is close to what i wrote.

1)When pressed, i like to say that I belong to the "Church of Libertarian Trotskyism, Reformed." I do this for sentimental reasons, having been at one time a member of the Fourth International. (I still visit their site regularly. At one time I could write that material in my sleep.) That is actually the only political organization I have ever been a member of, unless you count some Vietnam era anti-war groups, or my short stint with a Mao-ist group as sort of a soldier-on-loan.

But the fact is, I don't believe in political ideologies, discovering as I have that they are simply mind-closing systems of thought with many of the aspects of fundamentalist religions (they have a set of dogmas, a consequent doctrine, a loose, usually, except for Marxists, set of biblical canons, which may or may not be bound and printed. People of such religions tend to gather together to chant the teachings, which helps to strengthen the faith, and to ward of heretical thoughts. People of the faith are on the lookout for heretical thought and heretics, and often spend much of their time identifying these evils and evil people, and demeaning their very existence. The religion spends an inordinate amount of time with issues of purity of thought, ands can be given to the development of sects with divisions on key dogmatic issues (must a liberal be a pacifist?). Rites often develop, but these are not so important in secular religions. Also, priests and even bishops arise to keep track of the flock, to encourage collective action, and to promote the faith.

So:

2) I think that politics should be about solving practical problems with practical solutions. I think ideology gets in the way. "What will work best" is a more important question for politics than "what is the liberal answer" or "what is the conservative approach." We all have opinions on the role of government, and I don't seek to minimize them, but they belong on a continuum of rational people who should be encourage to seek commonalities, not their differences.

I try to look at things free of ideology, and I find the ascription of evil to those who disagree to be despicable and intolerable. (Examples: Calling someone that disagrees with your view on Iraq a "traitor" or a "warmongering killer.")

I believe we must treat political conflicts as things about with rational people can and do disagree, and nothing more. We should seek always to do as Shakespeare famously advises:

“Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.”

for then we will not lose sight of those who disagree with us as human beings, with authentic feelings, notions, and hopes and fears of their own.

Thus, I find it extremely frustrating when speaking to those who have only rip and read talking points from their ideology to offer, rather than timely suggestions for how we should proceed. I think we spend to much time seeking political advantage by examining the past, and the country suffers for it. I am saddened when I can reliably predict what someone will say on a new issue by their ideology.

Political ideology brings the will to stupidity to politics just as religion does, and for the same reasons. For every anti-intellectual believer who refuses to accept the scientific evidence on the age of the earth, there are anti-intellectual believers who refuse to accept the science on GMO food.

It is difficult here, but it is my policy to read essays and comments without looking to see who wrote them, to better give them a fair reading.

3) (bonus) That's what i believe at this time. It can and has changed continually over the years. But i will never again, so far as i can see, bend my knee to a religion or political ideology. I believe in free thinking. I believe in the idea of America. I believe that we in America prosper by tolerating horse trading.

I am not surprised that there is politics in politics, and have come to see it as necessary. So, "that's political" is no damnation to me.

(My campaign manager says I should not say more.)