Damage To Our Nation: Introduction

At the behest of my lovely wife, I’m going to start a series of essays on why I think the Bush administration is actively damaging to this country, using references to past stories to try to justify my arguments, rather than starting with those stories and then commenting. In thinking over the last hour or so, I’ve come up with a list of 9 bullet items which I think Bush, his Administration, and the Republican Party in the hands of the so-called “Neo-Conservative” movement have done or are doing which damage our country. I think what I’ll probably do is take them down one or two at a time over the next week or two, and of course as I go, I may come up with more, or I may decide that some of them are small enough that they detract from my argument, and may decide to drop them from the list.

That said, here’s a taste of what I hope to show is damaging about the current political majority (President, Administration, Congress, etc):

• Made us less safe from terrorist attacks, and actually helped breed a new generation of terrorist martyrs.
• Distracted us from the “War on Terror” and our definite enemies in this regard, Al Quaida and Osama bin Ladin, with a completely unrelated war in Iraq.
• Continues to push for more power to override basic rights in this country (the Patriot Act).
• Horrible on the environment, putting Philip Cooney (an Oil Industry lobbyist) in charge of Environmental policy, a Timber Industry lobbyist in charge of the Forest Service, a Mining Industry lobbyist in charge of public lands, a utility lobbyist in charge of the EPA’s air quality division. Regulatory bodies should not be run by those who would most be restricted by proper regulation.
• Undermining our Constitution and our core values.
• Spent the good will of the world after 9/11 and turned it in record time into what appears to be near universal enmity.
• Returned us from a balanced budget to the world of record deficit spending.
• Consolidating power in the Senate from a distributed structure, with power resting largely in the hands of the committees and their chairmen, to a structure where power rests largely with a few individuals at the top.
• Trying to fundamentally change the balance of power in the government, limiting the power of the judiciary as a check/balance on the other branches of government.

Hopefully after a series of essays, I’ll be able to convince you that at least some of these bullet items are happening. Whether you choose to ascribe the actions to malicious intent, unintended consequences or plain old stupidity is up to you. I’ll try not to ascribe motives, merely actions taken and how I think they harm the United States.

In the mean time, if other topics strike my fancy, I will probably post them as well. This series of essays will all have “Damage To Our Nation” as part of the title.