Why I'm a Democrat (Long)

[Beet]

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MarkDel,

I guess our difference lies primarily in where we see the threat. I see a greater threat coming from the cost, in fiscal, moral, and repuatational terms, of an unprovoked invasion broadly percieved as unjust, than the former Iraqi regime itself, which was one of the least dangerous of a number of potentially dangerous regimes. I see not an unstable philosophical enemy but a self-interested, small minded brute crippled by the time you beat the sh*t out of him when he tried to pick on the little kid (who did not die). I see a lot of other weak kids around the playground (or wherever this fantasy analogy world is) who hate you just as much and are getting stronger every day, faster than this brute who you crippled is. I see a lot of other strong kids too, not as strong as you, but you have a "strong kids club" with them. You are strong partially because, unlike the brute in question, you and them share a common philosophy and friendship. Your proposal to go kill the crippled brute genuinely tears them... on one hand their loyalty to you, on the other hand, they see this as an abdication of some long-standing principles in the name of misguided interests. Now, what do you think most of the dangerous little kids in the playground (call them "North Korea", "Iran", "Libya", "Syria", or worse, "Al Qaeda") are hoping happens to your big kids club? They are hoping it breaks up. Together you are unbeatable, their only chance is divide and conquer. Suppose there are a bunch of undecided kids on the block. Call them "The Arab masses", and "Al Qaeda" is trying to get them to join HIS club. What do you think they are thinking? Will they not judge whether or not to help you, based on whether you commit this murder or not?

[MarkDel]

Beet,

Well, first of all, the other "naughty kids" like Iran, Syria, etc...now know that they are not above getting the living sh*t beat out of them either. Plus, they also realize that if Iraq is turned into a "nice, strong kid" and part of the club, that their position with their own family might be weakened. And in fact, their family might begin to realize that they are in fact ABUSED children who have been distracted from their misery by the demonizing of the club, and when it comes right down to it, the head of their household might need to GO.

The problem with your analogy is that "The Club" is not populated by friends who are looking out for our best interests. Some of those friends have grown to resent us for being bigger, stronger, better looking, dating the best looking cheerleader and driving that nice new Porsche. And their resentment had NOTHING to do with ambivalence towards us taking care of the bully...

[The Duke]

Beet is the epitome of a cu=ynic.  He knows the cost of everything, but the value of nothing.

He also is paralyzed by consequences.

He knows, and I agree, that together the western powers are invincible.  The problem is that some of the western powers are not on the same page, and try to stop the US from acting rather than actually getting off their arse to make the world safe.

Acting together, we are invincible.  Not acting at all, we are vulnerable.  Acting alone, we are almost invincible.

The first option does not exist in the real world.  Between the second two, I chose the latter, Beet chooses the former.  I, of course, am right, and Beet is wrong.

[Beet]

Beet,

Well, first of all, the other "naughty kids" like Iran, Syria, etc...now know that they are not above getting the living sh*t beat out of them either. Plus, they also realize that if Iraq is turned into a "nice, strong kid" and part of the club, that their position with their own family might be weakened. And in fact, their family might begin to realize that they are in fact ABUSED children who have been distracted from their misery by the demonizing of the club, and when it comes right down to it, the head of their household might need to GO.

The problem with your analogy is that "The Club" is not populated by friends who are looking out for our best interests. Some of those friends have grown to resent us for being bigger, stronger, better looking, dating the best looking cheerleader and driving that nice new Porsche. And their resentment had NOTHING to do with ambivalence towards us taking care of the bully...

Well, before the people of these other dictatorial regimes sponatneously rise up upon success of the Iraqi experiment, the Iraqi experiment it has to be successful and legitimate. I have serious doubts about both. Also, I think that most other rich nations, the EU, Japan, Russia, and even China, see it in their interest to be friendly with us and admired us far more than they disliked us. Especially after 9/11. The Bush policy really did change a number of things in that area. Looking at public opinion polls shows a massive shift which has been masked by the stability of the governments. But when these opinions come to the forefront, like they did in Germany and Korea 2002, or Spain and the Philipinnes this past year, they can have real impacts. Winning the global war on terror means getting the Arab people and our allies to feel that we are part of the same solid alliance, and that will happen because our way will be genuinely more attractive than the terrorists' way. Right now Bush's way is not very attractive to a lot of people. I've already said why I don't think the Iraq experient will be the "light at the end of the tunnel" that justifies it all. Well I'm going to bed, its been a good convo...I'll dream of Lord of the Flies. Talk to you later.

[The Duke]

Nym,

I think you made a good case against Republicans if we assume your premises are true.  I don't really think they are.

I don't think corporation rule the Republican Party.  We are more pro-business, but that's only because being pro-business works for generating growth.

I don't think the Religious Right controls us either.  I am working in GOP politics, like MarkDel once did, and there just isn't a Religious Right constituency outside the south.

[MarkDel]

Nym,

I think you made a good case against Republicans if we assume your premises are true.  I don't really think they are.

I don't think corporation rule the Republican Party.  We are more pro-business, but that's only because being pro-business works for generating growth.

I don't think the Religious Right controls us either.  I am working in GOP politics, like MarkDel once did, and there just isn't a Religious Right constituency outside the south.

John Ford,

And even if there IS a Religious Right Constituency, it is without firm coordination and leadership, and what few "leaders" there are, have ZERO power and influence on the party.

[M]

BAsically, this is why I think we went into Iraq. After September 11, those of us who were defeatist fools looked around and said, "Why do they hate us? What must WE do to appease THEM?" Those of us who were not blinded by seeing what we hoped to see said "How do we stop these killers?"

The first problem was to define the parameters of the enemy. George Bush took less than a weak to do this. The foe here was Terrorism, and the Rogue States that sponsored It. The foe was not whoever te individual perpetrators turned out to be- as it happens, Al Qaeda. In the same way in WW2 we faced not only the Japanese who bombed us, but the Germans, Italians, and minor Axis partners (save Finland) that never had attacked us, here too we face not only Bin Laden and his cronies, but also the Hezbollah, Hamas, the IRA, the ETA, FARC, ELN, Sendero Luminoso, the Tamil Tigers, and mny many more. In addition our enemies are the states that succor them, notably Iran, Syria (which occupies Lebanon), Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Lybia, North Korea, Cuba, the Palestinian Authority, and of course, the former Taliban regime of Afghanistan and Baathist regime in Iraq. Our goal is no less than the elimination of the scourge of Terrorism and the ideologies that supported it, notably fascist Pan-Arabism and Islamism, both Shi'ite and Sunni, from the face of the Earth.

We have accomlished no less before, three times in the last century. Fiirst in the Great War, when absolutist monarchism was delegitimized in the West. Second in the Second World War, when fascism and its relatives were delegitimized. And thirdly in the Cold War, when the same was done to Communism. All of these monstrous ideologies sought to oppress mankind and snuff out the embers of freedom. Howeverm while none of these ideologies has been completely exterminated as a form of govt (even today, Saudi Arabia and Bhutan are absolute monrachies, Syria is National Socialist, and North Korea and Cuba are Communist), all were wiped out as serious contenders for global domination, and greatly reduced in their scope, to the benefit of Global Democracy. Yet a new monstrous ideology of tyranny and oppression, that of Islamism, has appeared in portions of the post-colonial world that as yet have had no experience of democracy.

This is unbelievable. In the year 2001, 225 years after the Declaration of Independence, 56 years after the surrenders of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, a decade after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there are still places in the world where people are not free to live and be governed freely. Intelligent, historied and cultured peoples, like the Cubans and the Iranians, are degraded, oppressed, murdered, raped, and enslaved. Years after the spirit of Lockean representative democracy seemed to have sweeped the world, there are still people suffering under the lash and the iron boot of Authoritariansm.

If one takes a brief look at history in the past 200 years, one will find only one war in which two democracies fought one another: Great Britain on the one hand and Finalnd on the other, as part of the Second world war. In this conflict Britain did launch a single raid on Finnish soil at Petsamo, but specifically targeted Nazi personnel, not Finnish. As a general rule of thumb, democracies do not go to war with one another. This lends practical security value to the defeat of dictatorship worldwide. It is even possible that World Peace is an accomplishable goal, but it is as a facet of the far greater goal of World Freedom.

Many have criticized this vision as unattainable in the Middle East. Arabs, they lecture us, are unfit for democracy. The Islamic temperament is suited to three things- anarchy, war, and oppression; never freedom. These allegations, not to put too harsh a word on them, are racist. Similar claims were made about Germans, Asians and specifically Japanese and people of Chinese ethnicity, of Catholics and especially Latin Americans, of Russians and those strongly influenced by their cultire and history. These accusations were all proven to be, if you will apologize the bluntness, DEAD WRONG. Freedom is a universal aspiration, a universal state of dignity, and anything else is a perverse travesty of humanity, stripped of all dignity nd hope and treated like beasts. I have absolutely no compunctions or regrets about declaring loudly, we, the (small l and d) liberal democrats, are RIGHT, and they, the tyrants, terrorists, and killers, are absolutely and always completely and totally WRONG!

Therefore we must not rest until we make the world safe for mankind, ensure that Life, Liberty, and Property are inalienable rights for every human being, and that governemnt of the people, by the people, for all peoples and people, shall not ever perish from the Earth.

And I'm sorry, but up to that lens, abortion, stem cell research, tax breaks, health care, school prayer, and all the rest seem like the tantrumms of a little child. We must acquire a sense of perspective as a nation, because we are in the middle of the Fourth World War in an ideological sense, and either Democracy or a new and hideous (though no less so than the last two, Nazism or Communism), will, in the end, triumph utterly. And I know one man who will not rest until the crawling things creep back into their holes and sufficate their until the people of the Middle East and elsewhere can raise their heads and say I am a Human Being, and I have my own life to live, and no one is going to make me live it to suit their own twisted vision, because I am Free. And the name of that man is George W. Bush.

G-d bless you, Mr. President.

[MarkDel]

BAsically, this is why I think we went into Iraq. After September 11, those of us who were defeatist fools looked around and said, "Why do they hate us? What must WE do to appease THEM?" Those of us who were not blinded by seeing what we hoped to see said "How do we stop these killers?"

The first problem was to define the parameters of the enemy. George Bush took less than a weak to do this. The foe here was Terrorism, and the Rogue States that sponsored It. The foe was not whoever te individual perpetrators turned out to be- as it happens, Al Qaeda. In the same way in WW2 we faced not only the Japanese who bombed us, but the Germans, Italians, and minor Axis partners (save Finland) that never had attacked us, here too we face not only Bin Laden and his cronies, but also the Hezbollah, Hamas, the IRA, the ETA, FARC, ELN, Sendero Luminoso, the Tamil Tigers, and mny many more. In addition our enemies are the states that succor them, notably Iran, Syria (which occupies Lebanon), Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Lybia, North Korea, Cuba, the Palestinian Authority, and of course, the former Taliban regime of Afghanistan and Baathist regime in Iraq. Our goal is no less than the elimination of the scourge of Terrorism and the ideologies that supported it, notably fascist Pan-Arabism and Islamism, both Shi'ite and Sunni, from the face of the Earth.

We have accomlished no less before, three times in the last century. Fiirst in the Great War, when absolutist monarchism was delegitimized in the West. Second in the Second World War, when fascism and its relatives were delegitimized. And thirdly in the Cold War, when the same was done to Communism. All of these monstrous ideologies sought to oppress mankind and snuff out the embers of freedom. Howeverm while none of these ideologies has been completely exterminated as a form of govt (even today, Saudi Arabia and Bhutan are absolute monrachies, Syria is National Socialist, and North Korea and Cuba are Communist), all were wiped out as serious contenders for global domination, and greatly reduced in their scope, to the benefit of Global Democracy. Yet a new monstrous ideology of tyranny and oppression, that of Islamism, has appeared in portions of the post-colonial world that as yet have had no experience of democracy.

This is unbelievable. In the year 2001, 225 years after the Declaration of Independence, 56 years after the surrenders of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, a decade after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there are still places in the world where people are not free to live and be governed freely. Intelligent, historied and cultured peoples, like the Cubans and the Iranians, are degraded, oppressed, murdered, raped, and enslaved. Years after the spirit of Lockean representative democracy seemed to have sweeped the world, there are still people suffering under the lash and the iron boot of Authoritariansm.

If one takes a brief look at history in the past 200 years, one will find only one war in which two democracies fought one another: Great Britain on the one hand and Finalnd on the other, as part of the Second world war. In this conflict Britain did launch a single raid on Finnish soil at Petsamo, but specifically targeted Nazi personnel, not Finnish. As a general rule of thumb, democracies do not go to war with one another. This lends practical security value to the defeat of dictatorship worldwide. It is even possible that World Peace is an accomplishable goal, but it is as a facet of the far greater goal of World Freedom.

Many have criticized this vision as unattainable in the Middle East. Arabs, they lecture us, are unfit for democracy. The Islamic temperament is suited to three things- anarchy, war, and oppression; never freedom. These allegations, not to put too harsh a word on them, are racist. Similar claims were made about Germans, Asians and specifically Japanese and people of Chinese ethnicity, of Catholics and especially Latin Americans, of Russians and those strongly influenced by their cultire and history. These accusations were all proven to be, if you will apologize the bluntness, DEAD WRONG. Freedom is a universal aspiration, a universal state of dignity, and anything else is a perverse travesty of humanity, stripped of all dignity nd hope and treated like beasts. I have absolutely no compunctions or regrets about declaring loudly, we, the (small l and d) liberal democrats, are RIGHT, and they, the tyrants, terrorists, and killers, are absolutely and always completely and totally WRONG!

Therefore we must not rest until we make the world safe for mankind, ensure that Life, Liberty, and Property are inalienable rights for every human being, and that governemnt of the people, by the people, for all peoples and people, shall not ever perish from the Earth.

And I'm sorry, but up to that lens, abortion, stem cell research, tax breaks, health care, school prayer, and all the rest seem like the tantrumms of a little child. We must acquire a sense of perspective as a nation, because we are in the middle of the Fourth World War in an ideological sense, and either Democracy or a new and hideous (though no less so than the last two, Nazism or Communism), will, in the end, triumph utterly. And I know one man who will not rest until the crawling things creep back into their holes and sufficate their until the people of the Middle East and elsewhere can raise their heads and say I am a Human Being, and I have my own life to live, and no one is going to make me live it to suit their own twisted vision, because I am Free. And the name of that man is George W. Bush.

G-d bless you, Mr. President.

M,

As you know, I always liked and respected you, but with this post, your stock just went WAYYYY up in my eyes. Extremely well said...

[The Duke]

freedom is a universal aspiration, a universal state of dignity, and anything else is a perverse travesty of humanity, stripped of all dignity and hope and treated like beasts. I have absolutely no compunctions or regrets about declaring loudly, we, the (small l and d) liberal democrats, are RIGHT, and they, the tyrants, terrorists, and killers, are absolutely and always completely and totally WRONG!

Bingo.

[12th Doctor]

Eric, I'm sorry that fear is what motivates your vote, I really am.  I intend, before the end of the week to write a counter thread stating why I am a Republican.  This is not to copy-cat, but to show how to perfectly resonable people can arrive a seperate conclusions.  I only hope that I can invest the time to make mine as thoughtful as yours.

[Citizen James]

BAsically, this is why I think we went into Iraq. After September 11, those of us who were defeatist fools looked around and said, "Why do they hate us? What must WE do to appease THEM?" Those of us who were not blinded by seeing what we hoped to see said "How do we stop these killers?"

The first problem was to define the parameters of the enemy. George Bush took less than a weak to do this. The foe here was Terrorism, and the Rogue States that sponsored It. The foe was not whoever te individual perpetrators turned out to be- as it happens, Al Qaeda. In the same way in WW2 we faced not only the Japanese who bombed us, but the Germans, Italians, and minor Axis partners (save Finland) that never had attacked us, here too we face not only Bin Laden and his cronies, but also the Hezbollah, Hamas, the IRA, the ETA, FARC, ELN, Sendero Luminoso, the Tamil Tigers, and mny many more. In addition our enemies are the states that succor them, notably Iran, Syria (which occupies Lebanon), Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Lybia, North Korea, Cuba, the Palestinian Authority, and of course, the former Taliban regime of Afghanistan and Baathist regime in Iraq. Our goal is no less than the elimination of the scourge of Terrorism and the ideologies that supported it, notably fascist Pan-Arabism and Islamism, both Shi'ite and Sunni, from the face of the Earth.

We have accomlished no less before, three times in the last century. Fiirst in the Great War, when absolutist monarchism was delegitimized in the West. Second in the Second World War, when fascism and its relatives were delegitimized. And thirdly in the Cold War, when the same was done to Communism. All of these monstrous ideologies sought to oppress mankind and snuff out the embers of freedom. Howeverm while none of these ideologies has been completely exterminated as a form of govt (even today, Saudi Arabia and Bhutan are absolute monrachies, Syria is National Socialist, and North Korea and Cuba are Communist), all were wiped out as serious contenders for global domination, and greatly reduced in their scope, to the benefit of Global Democracy. Yet a new monstrous ideology of tyranny and oppression, that of Islamism, has appeared in portions of the post-colonial world that as yet have had no experience of democracy.

This is unbelievable. In the year 2001, 225 years after the Declaration of Independence, 56 years after the surrenders of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, a decade after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there are still places in the world where people are not free to live and be governed freely. Intelligent, historied and cultured peoples, like the Cubans and the Iranians, are degraded, oppressed, murdered, raped, and enslaved. Years after the spirit of Lockean representative democracy seemed to have sweeped the world, there are still people suffering under the lash and the iron boot of Authoritariansm.

If one takes a brief look at history in the past 200 years, one will find only one war in which two democracies fought one another: Great Britain on the one hand and Finalnd on the other, as part of the Second world war. In this conflict Britain did launch a single raid on Finnish soil at Petsamo, but specifically targeted Nazi personnel, not Finnish. As a general rule of thumb, democracies do not go to war with one another. This lends practical security value to the defeat of dictatorship worldwide. It is even possible that World Peace is an accomplishable goal, but it is as a facet of the far greater goal of World Freedom.

Many have criticized this vision as unattainable in the Middle East. Arabs, they lecture us, are unfit for democracy. The Islamic temperament is suited to three things- anarchy, war, and oppression; never freedom. These allegations, not to put too harsh a word on them, are racist. Similar claims were made about Germans, Asians and specifically Japanese and people of Chinese ethnicity, of Catholics and especially Latin Americans, of Russians and those strongly influenced by their cultire and history. These accusations were all proven to be, if you will apologize the bluntness, DEAD WRONG. Freedom is a universal aspiration, a universal state of dignity, and anything else is a perverse travesty of humanity, stripped of all dignity nd hope and treated like beasts. I have absolutely no compunctions or regrets about declaring loudly, we, the (small l and d) liberal democrats, are RIGHT, and they, the tyrants, terrorists, and killers, are absolutely and always completely and totally WRONG!

Therefore we must not rest until we make the world safe for mankind, ensure that Life, Liberty, and Property are inalienable rights for every human being, and that governemnt of the people, by the people, for all peoples and people, shall not ever perish from the Earth.

And I'm sorry, but up to that lens, abortion, stem cell research, tax breaks, health care, school prayer, and all the rest seem like the tantrumms of a little child. We must acquire a sense of perspective as a nation, because we are in the middle of the Fourth World War in an ideological sense, and either Democracy or a new and hideous (though no less so than the last two, Nazism or Communism), will, in the end, triumph utterly. And I know one man who will not rest until the crawling things creep back into their holes and sufficate their until the people of the Middle East and elsewhere can raise their heads and say I am a Human Being, and I have my own life to live, and no one is going to make me live it to suit their own twisted vision, because I am Free. And the name of that man is George W. Bush.

G-d bless you, Mr. President.

That seems quite the oversimplification.   The world is not a matter of black and white where we have hawks on one side and the 'wimpy appeasers' on the other.    Often it's honest disagreement about the means to achieve the goals.   Usoma and Co. want us to view this as a war of peoples - a new crusade, Christian vs. Muslim.   When we act heavy-handedly, we play into thier hands.   Terrorism is a cancer, and needs to be removed with a scalpel, not a chainsaw.   The terrorsits are a minority group in the region, with a sizable minority sympatetic to their cause.  I'm not nieve enough to believe this fight won't be won without shedding some innocent blood, but the more 'colateral damage' we inflict, the more sympathy for the enemy grows in the region.   That's not to say we shouldn't act, but that we need to carefully reason out our actions in a mini-max analysis to weigh the benefits of a particular action (Killing or aprehending terrorsts, cutting of their financial lines, etc), while keeping the colateral damage and harm to our reputation in the region to a minimum.

The neo-con error is assuming that the terrorists are funded entirely by rogue states.   Sure, many of them to provide token support or a blind eye (Including several of our 'allies', such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan).  And Afganistan provided them open harbor, and our actions there were fully justified.   Unfortunately,  instead of working to stabilize the region there, we took a detour into Iraq, which had at most a token support of terrorism (at about the same level as the Saudis, and a lesser extent than the Pakistanis (who leaked nuclear information to 'rogue states' and other undesirables).

It is indeed a shame that much of the world lives in undemocratic governments.   It is a further shame that some here would make us more like our past enemies (more authoritarian, intollerance of those who disagree with curent policy, etc).

I never particularly liked chairman Mao, who might as well be an honorary neo-con - as both seem to think that political power comes from the barell of a gun.  That may work for authoritarian states, but democracy and true love of country (rather than just fear of leaders) comes from the heart.

A agree that we should work to make the world safer and freer, but we need a practical, well reasoned out approach - a scalpel for the terrorists, a carrot and stick to motivate the rest - using a sledgehammer only undermines our biggest assets, our reputation  of being an honorable nation and our moral leadership.  If we lead well, other nations will follow.  If we bully and insult our allies, we become more like the old soviet empire based on soley sheer millitary might.

I see Kerry as being willing to show that leadership, and act with that pragmatism.  We accompish more, while putting the bulk of our troops at less risk (and the thinly veiled contempt that the neo-cons have of our troops is a whole other rant - Kind words are nice, but body armor is a whole lot more useful in combat than the ICBM defence shield which gets a higher funding priority).

So God Bless America.  God Bless John Kerry.  And God Bless our right to respectfully disagree.

[The Duke]

James,

Three things.

We obviously don't have the same goals.  You look the other way when Saddam gives his "token" support for terrorism.  You think thats just fine, and that we should leave him be.  M and I think he needs to be dragged from his palace and fed to wolves.  We don't have the same goals, stop pretending otherwise.

Second, Mao is not a neocon, since neocons believe in capitalism and democracy promotion.  Nice job not making an "oversimplification" of things!

Third, if you think having a reputation as a cold blooded killer is a negative in the Middle East, you aren't ready for a serious discussion of terrorism.  Being liked and being respected are two fdifferent things.

[M]

This sort of argument typifies what has been called the "September 10th" perspective. Indeed, this point of view was held since modern terrorism arose sponsored by the Soviets in the postwar era.

For years, leaders in the Free World tended to assume that terrorism was like a hurricane, or an epidemic. One could try to contain it. One could attempt to lessen its effect, and the lives it took. But you couldn't end it. After all, one angry man with a bomb in the right place and the right time and it's all over. It's the "we only have to be lucky once" mentality.

This attitude was first challenged by a young Benjamin Netanyahu in 1980. Only in his early 20s, in 1980 he called an international counterterrorism conference in Jerusalem that attracted major world figures including George Bush and George Schultz. There he propounded that terrorism, a human phenomenon like any other, could be stopped.

And first in starts and then in a major movement, the West began heavily to crack down on terrorim. If you visited Italy in the mid 80s as my parents did for their honeymoon, you would see security guards at evry turn in the airports. Armed ones. And with very good reason, too- an Italian PM had been kidnapped and murdered by terrorists. Similar actions were taken by the governments of West Germany, Britain, Spain, France, and others, to great effect. The Lebanon War also took place against this context. Although the PLO and Hezbollah terrorist groups were successfully disrupted and remained so until more recent times, this was largely a failure and resulted in the end in the last puppet state in the world today.

Nevertheless, terrorism suffered a grievous defeat and was successfully wounded, though not slain. The fall of the USSR finished the terrorists at last, ot so it seemed at the time. Then the world fell asleep for 10 years, a perios of isolation comparable in recent history to the 1920s. And like the 1920s, the undefeated foe returned to the fray with a vengeance. First against Israel (they always come for the Jews first). Then against Western targets at places like Luxor, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Aden. At last in DC and New York. As with the interwar era, the revived adversary will be infifnnitely more difficult to defeat then it could have been beforehand. But, like last time, if Freedom is to survive, we have no choice.

We have no choice but to crack down at home, and to surrender some of our cherished civil liberties. Believe yu me, Mr., if you dared protest some of these things in 1863, you'd be in prison for the-next-thing-to-treason as a Copperhead. But the Union was successfully preserved.

But what does it mean abroad? There too Bibi Netanyahu was the founder of an entire school of thought, as you can read in his own words in his book, "Fighting Terrorism". No, terrorists are not funded entirely by rogue states. They get a lot more out of the deal. Weapons. A safe haven. Recruitment grounds. A planning center. Indoctrination. And more.

To this day, Iran hosts publicly, every year, an international terrorist conference, attended by everone from Corsicans and Basques to Tamils and Aymaras, and everything in between, which consists largely of Islamists. Syria hosts the HQ for the vicious Islamic killers of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP-GC, and along with Iran organzes the Hezbollah terrorist militia in the Beqaa Valley of Lebanon. Many have also argued that Iran is the new nexus of Al Qaeda terrorist activity,  with evidence indicating they host Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Ayman al-Zuwahri, Sa'ad bin Laden, and others. The defeat of these terror regimes will mark the Saratoga or Stalingrad of the War on Terrorism, when it is clear that the final defeat of thsis scum is only am matter of time.

Black and White. Hmmm. I only wish. More like a police movie where there are the good guys- the police, the bad guys- criminals, low and vile, and the useful idiots. These consist mainly of bureaucrats and ignorant bystanders, who try more often than not to hamper the officers and protect the criminls. Unfortunately, it is obvious that the vast majority of people in Police Movie World are ignorant bystanders.

Or take the famous Treaty of Munich. Neville Chamberlain, anxious to ensure that there would not be another war in Europe, gave an entire democratic ally, Czechoslovakia, to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. This in fact failed to prevent a war, as Aolf Hitler proved by invading Poland less than a year later. In fact history has proven time and again that giving more and more to killers neither sates nor appeases them; rather they take it as a sign of weakness and pursue their dark objectives more aggressively. Witness the recent examples of Osama bin Laden and Yasser Arafat.

But was Chamberlain "evil?" Was he "black" to Churchill's "white"? Not; there was a "black" in this story, but it was Adolf Hitler, as well as Hideki Tojo, Benito Mussolini, Miklos Horthy, Marshal Antonescu, Francisco Franco y Bahamondes and yes, Joseph Stalin. The dictators and killers who would stop at nothin to achieve their filthy objectives and were, in most senses, not even really human anynmore. Chamberlain was an ignorant bystander in a very important place, where a Churchil was needed as soon as possible. Thank G-d, he got there just in time. But Chamberlain, though he undisbutably has the blood of 50-60 million people on his hands, was not evil. But by doing what he was doing, he inadvertently helped evil. George Orwell correctly noted that the "pacifists" in wartime hurt only their own country's war effort, and indirectly aid their nation's enemies.

The good news is, this time, although we repeated the Slumbering Twenties, we effectively did not take the Remilitariztion of the Rhineland sitting down. to paraphrase the president, allied troops battle killers in Kandahar and not Kansas City, in Baghdad and not Boston. And thank G-d for it! Of course, without much of  a Battle of Britain or a Fall of France, the national rally has been unfortunately brief. Too brief. Still, we have no choice but perseverance.

Now to our allies, and the rest of the world. What we see here is a severe case of envy and worse. One especially nasty aspect is that the Europeans and other realize that by rights they owe us an extreme level of gratitude for saving them thrice in one century. Most people are terrible at that particular emotion, Instead the Europeans and others have acquired a strong sense of entitlement. Witness German liberals doing the unthinkable as of mere years ago; ignoring the Holocaust and bemoaning the Dresden fire bombing. Another problem with Europe is it's own awful insecurity about its place in the world, without a major goal in world affairs except, according to some, to be a "counterweight" to the United States. Except for occasionally saying a good word for a rogue totalitarian tyrant like Yasser Arafat or the Ayatollahs, thopugh, they don't even seem sure what this means. And then of course there is the dependence on us, military and otherwise; without a common foe, this is anachronistic and should be remedied. We should remove our troops from Europe largely and allow a new, more mature relationship to develop with the adolescent European Union.

However, one thing we should not and must not do is gove in to our allies' demands simply to keep them hapy. Some of these demands are extremely dangerous- go soft on the Khomeinite atomic bomb project, respect Yasser Arafat as a statesmen, Ain't gonna happen, and thank G-d for it. If Kerry were elected, he would have to reconcile his beloved multilateralism with his oft stated support of Israel. He fear Paris would preside over Jerusalem for Mr. Kerry, to the detriment of the entire free world, indirectly including France.

We have not seen from Kerry that he is a man of courage and determination willing to lead our nation against all odds to the extermination of the twin perils of terroristm and rogue states, particularly Iran, acquiring nuclear weaponry. What we have seen is irresolution, flip-flopping, and a strange desire to bend over backwards for Chirac's neo-Gaulliste decidedly anti-American and, as regards the Middle East, anti-liberte, anti-egalite, and anti-fraternite agenda.

At the last, we must consider pragmatism. Was Lincoln a pragmatist when he stated that "a House Divided cannot stand", or was Roosevelt for demanding nothing less than the total destruction of the "war machines of Germany and Japan"? I would say, yes indeed, the best kind of pragmatist. The one who realizes we're in this life for the long haul, and that the forces of doom must be extirpated totally for their to be the thinnest chance of peace. So too with Bush's great realization that, as he so eloquently puts it:

Freedom is not America's gift to the world. Freedom is G-d's gift to humankind.

[Nym90]

MarkDel—

Regarding McCain, I should have made it clearer that I was referring to why the GOP base hated McCain, not the rank-and-file, more moderate members like you. I never said that McCain was “my buddy” or that he would necessarily be a great President (notice I mentioned that I would still agree more with the Democrats on the issues), but overall, his willingness to stand up to the two parts of the GOP that I loathe the most would have made voting for him potentially worthwhile simply to fundamentally change the GOP, and would have allowed me to at least trust him in the war on terror (the issue of the costs of the war vs. the benefits would still be there, but we wouldn’t have had tax cuts for the wealthy under McCain, so we’d be able to afford to do a lot more). I certainly have heard of the Keating 5; however, that wasn’t brought up by the Bush campaign in 2000 as a reason to vote against McCain. The case against him was that he was too liberal. What was this based on? The only things I can see are tax cuts and reduction of corporate power (i.e. campaign finance reform) and his criticizing Pat Robertson. Other than that, he’s not liberal at all. Once again, as with the war, I’m going by what Bush himself said, whereas you are saying “Bush is wrong, here’s the REAL reason.” I trust and respect you a great deal Mark, but when what you say the reasons are and what Bush says the reasons are conflict, I’m afraid I have to go with Bush’s reasons as a stronger basis for my political views. It may also be that, as you mentioned on the phone to me, the real reasons are too complex for the average voter to understand, so Bush chooses instead to fabricate reasons that are easier to understand, both on the war and with McCain. However, I don’t see that as really being morally better, deceiving the voting public for their “own good”. I also think that your assumption that McCain started championing campaign finance reform simply as a reaction to the Keating 5 business is a bit of a stretch. Now you seem to be falling back on the strategy of saying “He’s been proven dishonest, so now we can’t trust anything he says anymore, it just HAS to be for political gain.”

I realize that I used this strategy somewhat regarding Bush as well…but still, no one on this thread has answered me this…name just ONE issue in which Bush and the conservative ideology in general opposes the interests of corporate America and the wealthy. I admit that there is no one “smoking gun” which proves that the GOP is controlled by corporations and the religious right, but the fact of the matter is that on every issue, the GOP is closer to what’s best for corporate America than the Democrats are, and that on social issues the GOP won’t nominate a candidate who disagrees with the views of the religious right. It’s a preponderance of evidence rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt, I’ll admit that, but I still think the evidence strongly points in that direction. Folks like John Ford deny that these groups have that much influence, but I see no evidence to suggest that they don’t. I don’t think that it’s just a coincidence that the GOP supports their agenda across the board, without exception. I think it’s hard to deny that on every issue, the Republicans support the wealthy and corporate interests.

Regarding the religious right….look at McCain again. One of the key turning points in the campaign was when he went to Virginia and criticized Pat Robertson. That alone brought the wrath of the religious right against him, even though he supports most of their agenda. He’s pro-life, but he just doesn’t think the religious right should control the party. If the religious right doesn’t have significant influence in the party, then why can’t a pro-choice, pro-gay rights Republican get the party nomination?

Now, I know many will respond that the Democrats won’t nominate a candidate who is pro-life or anti-gay rights, either.  You’ll say the Democrats are just as bad in pandering to their base, and I’d agree. I realize that all of my criticisms of the GOP apply equally well to the Democrats, but, as I said in my first post on this thread, personally I don’t oppose the Democratic base as much as I do the GOP base (again, not you MarkDel or the other sensible rank-and-file members, I’m talking the religious right here) as I see them as trying to impose their values on others. I’ll admit I’m a bit uneasy on abortion, and I have a fairly moderate position there, I certainly don’t support the concept of abortion personally, but I completely fail to see how throwing people in jail is going to solve the problem. However, the entire gay marriage issue is, to me, a clear cut case of denying equal rights to a group of people with really no justification other than a religious argument that homosexuality is wrong, combined with the view that religious values should be imposed on the population as a whole. Yes, there ARE other arguments that can be made (moral breakdown of society, etc.) but I feel the rights of the individual should matter more here, especially since I can’t see any convincing evidence that denying equal rights to gays makes the world a better place.

I have spent a lot of time around the religious right. I used to go to church weekly (and this was when I was in college as an undergrad, I was raised as an agnostic, but found God myself after I had left the home). I was turned off of organized religion by the vile hatred that I received from many in the church for daring to be a Democrat, and also the constant overtly political statements included in sermons by the pastor. I’m still very religious and very much a Christian, but I’m no big fan at all of organized religion. Now I realize my church may have been an aberration, and not typical of church going folks in general, and I do know that most church goers are very good, moral, upright citizens, but overall, the main reason I feel threatened by them is the social environment that they seek to create, a return to “old-fashioned” values which were often quite bad. Namely, not talking about feelings and emotional issues, especially if you are a man, and not talking about sex. Those two things I think are extremely destructive to many families, and create far more problems for children than they solve. That’s not to say that old-fashioned values weren’t also quite good in many regards; they were, and throwing the baby out with the bathwater certainly is a horrible option as well. But overall I think that many families do not do well at all under the model that they would like us to use.

Regarding teachers unions, they support vouchers as long as no money is taken away from public schools at all in the process. My father was vice president of the local NEA chapter, so he does have inside knowledge here about the views of the union that cut through the political demagoguery of the unions. The real solution to education, I believe, is to increase teacher pay and reduce class sizes through hiring more teachers, with vouchers used as a stopgap measure in areas where public schools are seriously failing, but without taking away needed funding from public schools. The wealthy can afford to send their kids to private school, so they don’t really care, and would prefer not to pay more in taxes to improve public schools. Since public schools receive funding on a per pupil basis, vouchers can be used to shift money away from public schools and into private schools instead, eventually leading to the destruction of public schools. Also, many private schools are religious in nature, and thus there are no legal restrictions on how much they can indoctrinate religious views into their students. So that’s another example of how I feel the two forces I cited before are coming together.

Regarding trial lawyers, they are not the ambulance chasers they are made out to be. Most of them don’t come to you; you come to them when you have a case. If anything, blame the people putting forth the lawsuit, not the lawyers…the job of the lawyer is to promote the interests of his or her client, not to make a moral judgment about whether the case is right or wrong. That’s the job of judges and juries, not of lawyers. Lawyers make a convenient scapegoat, but it ignores the true problem, which is corporate excess and callous disregard for consumer rights. Lawsuits are needed as a check against this, to keep corporations honest, which otherwise would run rampant and we’d eventually have a complete “caveat emptor” environment for consumers. Corporations don’t want to be able to be sued, they want to be able to do whatever they please.

[migrendel]

I have read all the arguments here, and I must say, I disagree with them completely.

I never understood this talk of a "cultural elite". It's a virus that I now know has infected its share of Democrats. I'll preface this all by saying that applying the word elitism to this situation makes no sense. I believe that insisting that people be treated equally is far from elitism, it's simple fairness.

But all that aside, let's look at what you said about affirmative action. You say that it draws average, working class, middle American votes away from our party. Well, it's really quite simple why people bear such intense umbrage to affirmative action. Working class people, considered as economic class, are part of the proletariat, perhaps the heart of the proletariat, and I believe they are entitled to their fair share and a measure of financial security, just as anyone would be. But in a capitalist system, they are alienated from their institutions of government because those institutions are controlled by the well-to-do. Understandably, they feel frustrated and alienated. However, there is one class system that they can still feel secure in. That is the racial class system, where they are favored over minorities. In that sense, racism is the snobbery of the hard-up. If minorities are favored for hiring and positions in higher education, and thus acquire the education and skill to become part of the bourgeoisie, that would displace the old hierarchy of race. In short, it is a resentment of upward mobility. Are all opponents of affirmative action racists? No. Just from reading Nym's post, I can tell he shares most of my ideals, though not my means to the end. But I wouldn't put it past a significant proportion of racially-based affirmative action's opponents that it is a case of envy, and they constitute the same class of individuals who try to defund welfare by linking it to race. For those reasons alone, I would never back down from saying that racial politics have no place in our society, and this "middle American strategy" has no place in the Democratic party.

Now, I will write a bit about the war. I opposed that war for two primary reasons. First of all, I feel that alienating our allies, and the UN, was very imprudent. We depend on those nations and that institution at many junctures, and it was simply not worth it to go into Iraq with that at stake. That was really quite simple. But the second reason why I opposed going to war is somewhat more complex. To put it simply, I believe the human rights motivation behind the war was illegitimate. To export democracy and civil rights throughout the world, acting like the global ACLU, is not a road we should go down. Iraq is not a fundamentally democratic nation. The system it had was an Islamic one, with clerics holding sway and with religious courts. That was the system for centuries, before all this talk of terrorism came to the forefront. I will admit to not wanting to live under a system where religion and government are anything but mutually exclusive. But I do not have the hubris within me to impose that judgment on every nation in the world. Perhaps a majority of Iraqis wanted Saddam Hussein to go. That's understandable. He committed unspeakable human rights violations. But also, it is difficult to believe that we are a welcome prescence. We undid the previous stability of Iraq (albeit that stability was at the barrel of a gun), and we are now trying to remake that nation from our perspective, the flaw being that the actual people who live in Iraq do not share that perspective. So, Saddam Hussein is gone, and that's probably what the Iraqis wanted. But now the curtain has fallen on our part in this conflict. I would suggest letting the Iraqis plan their own government, even if it is an Islamic one, even if it doesn't allow women suffrage, because we are not a moral authority, with a right to declare the cultural mores of a nation invalid. We must accept the character of the people of Iraq, and their self-determination. To sum it up best, freedom is not a universal concept, but it has a meaning all its own to all the persons in the mass of humanity. Let us now step back, and let those directly affected define their own concepts of liberty and justice.

[English]

Great Post Nym90. That pretty sums up why I support the Dems too. I pro-business, however at the same time I hate corporations. Corporations become parasitic the larger they get. Small business and entrepreneurism just doesn't stand a chance against corporations. They get squeezed out and stifled. Oil is the best example. Clean fuels and renewable energy could be a boom sector however it's constantly crippled and supressed by oil giants.
As for the religious right, it would be fair to say I hate them with every bone in my body. It's not really their opinions that bother me, it's the fact they use religion as a weapon to justify their extreme bigotry. First and foremost they are bigots who hate gays and lesbians or anyone else who doesn't fit in with their twisted view of the world. Religion just serves as a convenient tool to brandish at those who oppose them. God says this, the bible says that, so therefore it must be true!!
They make me sick. They're of the same ilk as Islamic fundamentalists.

[??????????]

If you are going to join or be part of any organization it should be expected to at least go along with some of the rules that are written. You can call Christians bigotted, hateful or whatever nasty phrase you want. But if you aren't following the bibles statements and beliefs on a particular issue then you can't call yourself a true Christian. And again, Islamic fundamentalism and Christianity have NOTHING in common. Islam is a religion of Death.

[Nym90]

M—

I completely agree with what you said except for one BIG thing. You say that all of the other issues don’t matter compared to the global war on terror. Agreed; obviously the security of our nation IS absolutely paramount above all else. But, unlike you, I look at Bush’s positions on all of those other issues, and I just can’t bring myself to trust him. You seem to say that as long as he’s right on terrorism, it doesn’t matter if he’s wrong on everything else. I say that you can’t compartmentalize things like that. If Franklin Roosevelt and his friends had much to gain personally from the liberation of Europe, I certainly would have trusted him a bit less to lead that War. To me, it is a fundamental issue of character. I agree with EVERYTHING you said, except that Bush is not the man to lead this. The defeat of dictatorship and the victory of democracy can only be led by a person who has the courage to stand up against the forces of evil in their own nation. If Bush turns a blind eye to evil at home, how can we trust him to fight evil abroad? Charity begins at home, as they say.

I also have seen no response in this thread to my assertion that the real way to defeat terrorism is reduce dependence on the Middle East. We are supporting terrorist sponsoring states such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, so that compromises our moral authority in this war quite a bit. We need Saudi oil. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t have to support them. But Bush isn’t going to take us down that road to energy independence, because he needs Saudi oil, too.

Regardless of whether the Middle East’s perception of us is right or wrong (and I’d argue it’s very wrong) it is a sign of strength, not weakness, to be willing to turn a critical eye on ourselves, and not blame others for everything. If reducing our dependence on foreign oil would hurt us greatly in some other way, I would argue against it, and not say that we should do it simply to increase security. But, we have to do it eventually anyway! What better time than now, when we can kill three birds with one stone…increase national security AND make for a better environment AND solve a problem that needs solving eventually anyway since someday we’re going to run out of oil. The only thing standing in our way is the oil companies; they’ll lose out big time, but everyone else will gain immensely.

I absolutely and utterly oppose with every fabric of my being those who blame America for everything, but it’s just as foolish to hold America entirely blameless for the massive incorrect perception of us that the Middle East holds.

If we are going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to defeat terrorism, a much more cost effective way to do it would be to undercut the root causes of terrorism. Pour a much greater share of the money into promotion of alternative energy instead. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Instead of dealing with them after they already hate us, let’s remove the source of the hate at its base.

If we spent hundreds of billions on alternative energy research, I think we could rid ourselves of oil quite quickly. Then we wouldn’t have to support terrorist states in the Middle East as allies of convenience, like we do with the Saudis now and with Iraq in the 1980’s. We could take a morally consistent stance and oppose all dictatorships, not merely those we don’t like. That moral clarity would help us greatly to win over those who are unsure of us.

Also, there was a flaw in your analogy of Chamberlain. Chamberlain allowed a nation to be invaded and taken over. I absolutely would not agree with allowing that one bit. I completely supported the first Persian Gulf War in 1991, because Iraq invaded and took over Kuwait. I completely agree that we should have entered World War II as soon as Hitler invaded a neighboring country. In the case of the first Persian Gulf War, however, Europe was willing to stand with us and support the removal of Iraq from Kuwait. We had a UN coalition then. If the UN had refused to go along with the first Persian Gulf War, I would agree with you that they are defeatist fools and we shouldn’t care what they think. The Europeans are not the appeasers you make them out to be. They are willing to stand with us when the threat is clear; they have proven themselves to be discriminatory, and willing to support us when the cause is just.

[Nym90]

Migrendel—

I agree, we have fundamental agreements on the problems, and what the solutions should be, but just not on the implementation. I feel that true racial equality can only come about when all people are treated as equals regardless of their race in the eyes of the law. Otherwise, reverse racial discrimination, no matter how noble its intentions, can never solve the problem of racial discrimination. Discrimination must be eradicated completely by forever destroying the concept of race as a divider within the minds of the people, not by encouraging it.

Also, I’d say that ultimately class is a much bigger divider than race. There is racial discrimination, to be sure, but class-based discrimination is far greater. You say that affirmative action is needed to get blacks to become a part of the bourgeoisie; well, what about blacks who already are part of it? Why should they get a benefit over poor whites that are still part of the proletariat? I fail to see how racial affirmative action will do a better job than class-based affirmative action in solving what is fundamentally at its root a class-based problem. On average, blacks have lower incomes than whites, so there appears to be great racial discrimination, and I’ll agree, overall blacks suffer more discrimination than whites, but I think it’s because they tend to have lower incomes much more than it is because of their race per se. Certainly past racial discrimination has largely caused them to have lower incomes today, but the only solution that I see working long term is to attack the problem of class discrimination, and allow everyone equal opportunity regardless of their family background.

Regarding my criticism of the cultural elite, I certainly don’t feel very threatened by them on a personal level; I know that they have great intentions and truly are wonderful people; however, it is more the attitude that is the problem than it is the actual positions on the issues. There seems to be somewhat of a condescending air that these people have, that they know better than everyone else what the solutions are. I’ve been accused of being a member of this crowd myself on numerous occasions, despite my rather ordinary upbringing, and I’ve at least learned somewhat what to look out for to avoid this perception. The perception, regardless of how wrong it may be, is hurting our party greatly, as we are seen as out of touch with average people. It’s not enough to just say “Well they are wrong, so who cares what they think.” You have to take a slightly more pragmatic view of the issues and not be so idealistic, otherwise you won’t even be listened to by a lot of people, and thus you can’t go about changing their minds. Unfortunately that’s the reality of the way things work in my experience. You have to earn that basic fundamental trust first, and you have to do it by respecting and in fact celebrating the culture of the working class; certainly not promoting its worse elements, but at least acknowledging the positives too, rather than focusing only on the negative and then assuming the worst of them in other areas.

Regarding the war, you have some good points, though I don’t take the whole “moral relativism” as far as you do. I do believe that when given an honest choice between freedom and tyranny, people will always choose freedom. That being said, I do agree that we need to have more local involvement in the formation of a new government in Iraq; we can’t impose our form of democracy on them and just hope that they’ll accept it. However, ultimately, we must ensure that any government that does form there is a democracy, and that the fundamental right that should belong to all people to choose their leaders and their own destiny rather than have it forced upon them is upheld.

StatesRights—

I disagree that one must accept the Bible in its entirety in order to be a Christian. I am a Christian because I believe in Jesus Christ as son of God. I, personally, see this as the only absolute tenet that must be adhered to. I am not a member of an organized church because I could not in good conscience support the requirements that they lay out for membership—I do agree with you that one should adhere to the rules in order to join an organization, but I see the rules of Christianity as a whole as defined by what God tells each of us personally, not by what He chose to tell those who wrote the Bible. Ultimately I feel no animus whatsoever towards those who have different religious views, as long as they came to them honestly as a result of an assessment of their own personal faith. Having done that myself, I, and others like me I’m sure, are going to be insulted that we aren’t true Christians in your eyes. Certainly you have a right to your opinion and to your own beliefs, but ultimately one can only go by what God himself chooses to reveal to us. He alone knows when the time is right, and what one should know. I can’t bring myself to believe that He would hate me simply for following my own intuition, logic, and faith in my beliefs that He himself created for me and has given to me.

[The Duke]

migrendel,

Where do you get the idea that Iraq was an overwhelmingly religious place?  You are wrong that the courts were religious, they were Ba'athist kangaroo courts.  The clerics stayed out of politics, and have for over a hudnred years.  This was how Sistani stayed alive, he stayed out of politics.  All the political clerics (Sadr) had been in exile before the 2003 war.

[dazzleman]

As for the religious right, it would be fair to say I hate them with every bone in my body. It's not really their opinions that bother me, it's the fact they use religion as a weapon to justify their extreme bigotry. First and foremost they are bigots who hate gays and lesbians or anyone else who doesn't fit in with their twisted view of the world. Religion just serves as a convenient tool to brandish at those who oppose them. God says this, the bible says that, so therefore it must be true!!
They make me sick. They're of the same ilk as Islamic fundamentalists.

The same as Islamic fundamentalists?  What was the last act of terrorism committed by the Christian right?  And don't say Oklahoma City - Timothy McVeigh did not do that in the name of Christianity, and he was not a Christian.

You are seriously out of kilter if you can compare the Christian right to murderous bloodthirsty violent mass murderers like the Islamic fundamentalists.  You need a serious reality check.

[W in 2004]

Here are some of my thoughts on affirmative action and equality.

I believe that government should enforce legal equality not social equality.  These two forms of equality are diametrically opposed to one another.  Liberals would enforce social equality by having the government give different segments of the population preference.  In the process legal equality is trampled upon and governmental impartiality is abandoned.  Do we really want governmental rulers to have the power to rule that one group of people is more deserving of the rewards of hard work than the people who worked for it themselves are?  People who do not value legal equality, but instead want everyone to be separated into ethnic and social categories and given different rights based upon what governmental rulers deem to be fitting, are racists.  This is what Adolph Hitler did.  He ruled (without a trial or any recognition of legal equality) that all the Jews had committed wrongdoings against the Germans.  He ruled that, because these alleged wrongdoings, the Jews did not have legal equality with the Germans.  He ruled that, because of the alleged crimes committed by the Jews, they did not even have the right to exist.  Liberals allege that crimes have been committed by the ancestors of certain groups.  I would ask them, assuming that without a trail, a father of two children is ruled guilty by governmental rulers should a son or daughter of this man be thrown into jail for the crimes that their father committed?  Should all Americans be punished for the crimes against African Americans that the ancestors of some have committed?  What about those whose ancestors fought to liberate the enslaved African people?  Should they be punished also?  What about those whose ancestors did not even arrive in America until the 20th century?  Even if people should be punished for the alleged crimes of their ancestors, how can people who have committed no alleged crime and whose ancestors have committed no alleged crime be punished solely on the basis of the color of their skin or the country of their origin?  To liberals this is the grandeur of their ideology.  The crowning glory of liberalism is that people should not be held responsible for their actions, instead other people who have not committed those actions should be held responsible for those actions.

[Beet]

I do not agree with affirmative action or basing policy on what happened generations ago. However, I still believe in both legal and social equality.

[Nym90]

I had this next post as one big long post, but I tried to submit it and was told it was too long. So it was broken into two posts, but it should be just one, really.

Well, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking (AGAIN). Yeah, I’ve just been on a good old philosophical kick lately. Anyway, I was thinking more about my reasons for starting this thread, how I explained that trust and character were the main reasons why I didn’t support Bush and the Republicans. I do have a confession to make here.

I finally understand what Republicans were getting at, somewhat, with Clinton. At the time, Republicans seemed to say (not usually in so many words, but the strong implication was clearly there) that it doesn’t matter what Clinton says, because you can’t trust the guy. Sure, all of this moderate stuff SOUNDS great, but he’s an untrustworthy liar who will do anything for political advantage, so it’s all irrelevant.

Well, the problem with that line of thinking, of course, is that once you’ve convinced yourself that it’s true, you can’t POSSIBLY be unconvinced, as ANYTHING Clinton says or does MUST be for political advantage only, because he’s a liar and untrustworthy. It makes for nice defense mechanism, since it requires no thought on your part….if Clinton says something that sounds good, all you have to respond with is “He can’t be trusted!”.

Ok, so back to my point. At the time, I dismissed this completely. I believed that trust and character didn’t matter, and that all that was important was a candidate’s position on the issues, and his performance in office. The rest was all just BS, I thought. Since I agreed with Clinton on 95% of the issues and the economy was doing great, I thought that the rest didn’t matter. Well, I was wrong. Trust and character DO matter, especially in times like we have now, where we are, let’s face it, leading a MORAL crusade against terrorism, more than anything. Our nation’s moral authority, and the trust and respect of people all around the world (yes, in Europe, but not just there, more critically in the Middle East, since they are the ones being liberated) are absolutely essential to leading a successful war. So, there, I admit it, I was wrong; trust and character matter, sometimes more than a candidate’s position on the issues or his record.

Now, that being said, I still trusted Clinton. Why? Because to me, trust and character are about more than just what the Republicans were trying to make them out to be during the Lewinsky scandal. To me, trust is earned by being able to stand up for what’s good for the people, even when it’s not popular with the big corporations or the big money power brokers. Now before you stop reading, thinking “There he goes, that Nyman, into another anti-corporate rant” hear me out. Money DOES control politics, on both sides of the aisle, on the GOP side much more than the Democrats, but still both sides are afflicted, and the one issue on which I passionately disagreed with Clinton on was in extending Most Favored Nation trading status for China for that very reason, and Clinton did make a big mistake by allowing the Democrats to fall somewhat into that trap of chasing big money contributors and then becoming beholden to their whims. Anyway, that sidebar rant aside (in case you haven’t noticed, I’m fond of them), money makes the world go ‘round, especially in a capitalistic system such as ours (and that’s not ALWAYS a bad thing by any means, I’m not a socialist, I believe in capitalism, but it needs to be strongly regulated). That’s an undeniable fact, I think, the strong influence that money has on all aspects of human life, especially politics. Again, not that I’m saying that’s bad per se, because we need money to motivate us sometimes, but it’s gone waaaay too far, such that we’ve lost sight of what really matters, and that’s people, not profits.

Anyway, enough ranting on that for now, I’m getting off topic again, and this post is going to be long enough as it is. Bottom line is, Clinton earned my trust, because he was willing to stand up for the people against the powerful (most of the time, as I noted earlier). Bush, on the other hand, won’t do that. All of his political and policy moves end up benefiting big corporations. Now, you might say that’s just a coincidence; maybe it just HAPPENS to be that everything he does benefits big business, because what’s good for big business is ultimately always good for America as a whole (remember, that was a question on Political Compass; how many of you answered strongly agree?), and that he really cares about America, not actually business per se. But I don’t buy it. What’s good for corporate profits is not always good for everyone else, because when motivated by money, people tend to get selfish. It’s only natural. So anyway, that’s why I don’t trust Bush, because I see him as standing up for big business, not the people.

(This next paragraph gets a bit philosophical, if you want to skip that part and just see my basic point, go to the next paragraph after it).

Now, the other realization that I came to, was that I think this issue of trust ultimately motivates ALL of us, at least somewhat. Let’s face it, folks; if EVERY person in the USA was a good, decent, honest, trustworthy individual, who cared about his or her fellow citizens, it wouldn’t really matter which party was in power, because everything would work out fine. If the wealthy genuinely cared about the poor, it would be a good idea to give them big tax breaks, because they’d use the money in ways to help the poor, simply out of the goodness of their heart. We wouldn’t need a minimum wage or unions at all, because business owners would just voluntarily give their workers a good wage and safe, clean working conditions, because it was the morally right thing to do. In fact, we wouldn’t need any government at all; everyone would just be nice to each other, and there would be no need for laws, the police, the military, etc. In that sense, I think, libertarianism could be described as the most optimistic of all political philosophies, in that it essentially believes that everyone is good, and will do the right thing without being told that they have to. But anyway, my point being, if the wealthy could be trusted to care about people, not profits, then we could have an extremely conservative economic philosophy, and everything would work just fine. Likewise, admit it conservatives, you really don’t trust government to work hard and do what’s right, because you think that people need that profit motivation, or else they will be inefficient and lazy. Communism would work spectacularly well, you all must admit I think, if everyone just worked hard on their own, voluntarily, because it was the morally right thing to do. Now, as I’ve said many a time, I am a capitalist, because the conservatives are right on that, people do need at least some profit motivation; the poor aren’t necessarily any better than the rich in this regard, people ARE motivated by money (unfortunately) and you have to force them to do what’s right sometimes because they don’t want to, because it’s not in their personal interest. However, the reality is that the MORE money people earn, the worse it gets, because the potential for abuse is greater; as people accumulate more and more wealth, their desire for more and more becomes insatiably greater, I think; not that there aren’t plenty of people who are able to resist this quite well, a lot of rich people are great people who care about others deeply, but it’s not easy to resist the temptation to fall into this trap of thinking that you are rich and others are poor because you are a BETTER person than they are, you worked harder, they are lazy, you earned it, and thus you have the right to walk all over them if you so choose. I think hard-core capitalists, I’m talking the folks who are strongly in favor of complete laissez-faire economics, essentially hold that view, that ANYONE can become wealthy if they are willing to work hard enough, and thus the poor are simply lazy and don’t deserve any help at all. So, if you want a Lord of the Rings analogy here, my worldview is that the Ring represents big money.

Ok, so my point is, we are all motivated by who we trust more. Liberals believe that (basically) government workers and small business owners are good, honest, hard working individuals (in the case of government workers, because most of them are giving up higher salaries than they could be earning elsewhere; as an example, civil engineers I work with for the City of Marquette make a lot less money than they could doing the same job in private business, but money is not their #1 priority), and that big business leaders, while they do a lot of good for society along the way, are basically untrustworthy because they are motivated by profits only. Conservatives, likewise, believe that big business is what makes America great (as Calvin Coolidge said, the business of America is business), and that big business owners are good, honest, hard working individuals, while government (and more generally, the poor as a whole) is lazy and inefficient, and can’t be trusted to do what’s right.

[Nym90]

On foreign policy, we see this too, I think. Republicans seem to just trust Bush to do what’s best for America; if Bush says it’s so, it must be so, because he truly has the best interests of the nation and the world at heart. As I said earlier, I don’t buy that for a second, but anyway, admit it Republicans, that’s a big part of the REAL justification for a lot of this stuff (WMDs, etc.). If Bush does screw up, I think Republicans just assume it must be an honest mistake, because Bush would never intentionally deceive people. Now, some Republicans on this board seem to be finally seeing through this, as evidenced by recent posts from John Ford and Clay (formerly GWBFan).

I highly commend John Ford for his recent post in which he was very honest about this. Obviously there was still a lot that he said that I don’t agree with, but I can tell that John is a great guy who really cares about America, and doing what’s right. I would trust John Ford 100% to be President and lead this War on Terror. But Ford was willing to come out and say the truth about how there is too much influence from special interests in this Administration.

And that’s the real problem here with this War on Terror; big business is controlling our foreign policy. Why don’t we go into the Sudan and do something about that situation? Because it wouldn’t really be too beneficial to corporate America to liberate Sudan; there just isn’t much money to be made there. Thus, it’s not worth spending the money to do it; the humanitarian incentive isn’t enough, there has to be money to be made. Again, it’s profits ahead of people.

We are willing to turn a blind eye to terrorism and dictatorship when it suits our purposes. We don’t oppose all dictators; that’s the real problem here. The rest of the world doesn’t trust us, not because they are jealous or any of this other BS, but because they can see that corporate American runs our foreign policy; our foreign policy is NOT morally consistent, we don’t oppose all dictators. We are willing to ignore China’s human rights abuses; we are willing to support Saudi Arabia; we support Pakistan; we don’t care about the Sudan. Why? Because corporate America hasn’t deemed it proper. Big business needs Saudi Arabia and China, and countries like them, because of the products we get from them, products that could be made perfectly well here in the USA, but that would be more expensive, thus reducing profits.

Now, I haven’t given up hope completely on Bush. If he could prove that he did care about people and not what’s best for corporations, he could earn my trust in this War. If he had been willing to rescind the tax cuts for the rich in order to pay for the war, for example, or if he were willing to support military action for purely humanitarian reasons. Heck, if he had simply made the humanitarian argument for this war in Iraq the main argument, and not all of the other BS, I think I would have been willing to support it.

As I said earlier, I have no problem with corporations making money, as long as people come first. People should come before profits; I don’t believe profits are evil, but they shouldn’t be our nation’s first priority.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Feel free to tell me how much of an idiot I am, and how I don’t know my arse from a hole in the ground. I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching, and I realize I’m really opening myself up to attack by being so blatantly honest with people about my views and world philosophy. I hope you all appreciate it, and enjoy reading as much as I enjoy typing. Flame away.