I just can't resist...
Bush wants to extend the portions of (the patriot act) set to expire and add more to it.
This doesnt change the fact that Kerry voted for it.
Your complaint was with the Patriot act; now it has shifted to something related, but different. If you oppose Bush because of its creation, thgen you must also oppose the people that helped create it.
Not so. It is possible to decide that the Patriot Act was a bad decision, regardless of who voted for it to begin with. If someone believes it was a bad decision, and you have two candidates - 1 who will attempt to strengthen the act, and another who will not attempt to strengthen it, then logic dictates you vote for the candidate who will take the course of action more in line with your beliefs. If a candidate was not in line with your way of thinking previously, but now is while the other candidate remains contrary to your position, then it is illogical to follow the line that "you must also oppose the people that helped create it."
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Because he will allow more countries to do more work rather than throw a flaming bag of... on their doorstep.
Whats this supposed to mean? When has Bush ever denied anyone an opportunity to help out in Iraq?
and (slightly out of order but from your same post) . . .
Canada isn't a bystander. I believe they have sent something in the neighborhood of $190 million to Iraq and they have troops in Afganistan. Bush doesn't like the fact they wouldn't stand behind him at the UN.
And so I ask again:
Why should a country that did not participate in the war bve allowed to profit from it?
Aren't these two essentially contradictory statements of yours? On the first hand you ask when Bush has ever denied anyone the opportunity to help out in Iraq (implying that he has not denied anyone that opportunity), then you ask why a country should be allowed to profit from the war which implies that Bush is within his rights to deny someone the opportunity to help out in Iraq (apparently as justification for having done just that). Perhaps I misunderstand your perspective here. You certainly could squeak by on this one with semantics, but the spirit of what you said certainly seems contradictory here.
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"Kerry believes human life begins at conception."
Yes, he does. And so do I. However, I think that women should have the right to choose. So does he.
Interesting.
A mother has the right to choose to kill a human life before birth, but not after? How does that make sense?
This sure is a tough moral decision, but it is a consistent belief set. The thinking goes something like this:
a. I believe abortion is murder.
b. I believe that belief is my own personal set of moral values (shared by some, not by others).
c. I believe it is not my place to impose my own moral values upon another. Persuade, counsel, inform... sure. To impose? No.
d. Therefore, though I believe abortion is murder, I do not believe my country should outlaw abortion, as it is not my decision to make for another person.
There's lots of points of view to discuss about this, and I'll segue briefly about them, but they are not the main point here. The main point here is that it is entirely a consistent set of beliefs and moral code to believe that abortion is murder while also believing that it is not something anyone should dictate to another.
RE: Abortion. Did you know that the Jewish faith believes a fetus is not a person until it is born (
http://www.religioustolerance.org/jud_abor.htm)? It is potential for life until then. Don't forget that Christ was a Jew who stated (I am not a biblical scholar, take my quote with a grain of salt) "think not that I've come to destroy the law and the prophets - I've come not to destroy them but to fulfill them." (
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/matthew.html). Does that mean traditional Christian views on abortion are misguided? I don't know, that's something for more spiritually minded scholars than I to debate.
Another perspective is that if I believe that abortion is murder, then I should do everything I can to prevent abortions, including voting to outlaw them. Certainly a valid perspective, if one I do not agree with. To those who believe that though, one must ask: If you believe in outlawing abortion because it is murder, then why are you not (assuming you're not which is a fairly safe assumption based on public trends but obviously not a guarantee because I don't know you as an individual) demanding of our government, with the same fervor that you are demanding the outlawing of abortion, that our government step in immediately to stop genocide and atrocities in the many places around the country in which it is taking place? I often hear that America needs to be responsible for taking care of it's own issues and cannot be the world police. How can stand before God and declare that one child is worth saving because that child lives in your country, while a child in another country wasn't worth your efforts? What kind of moral belief system is that?
I personally admit to being very torn over abortion. I do believe abortion is murder. I believe a fetus becomes a life sometime around when the brain and nervous system begin to operate. I don't know when that is, I don't know when the soul enters the body. If I can't come to grips with where I stand, who the hell am I to dictate to another?
Abortion is an issue where I can truly get a feel for what each side believes, and really wasn't the point of this response. The point of this response, and the above background material, is to state (restate?) this: The fact that John Kerry believes life begins at conception, and the fact that he is pro-choice, are not mutually exclusive. They are the same or very similar to the beliefs that I hold today. That would be a valid reason for me to consider voting for John Kerry versus George Bush. It does not have to be a vote against George Bush's point of view, it can be a vote for John Kerry's point of view.
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Bush rips on him because Kerry wouldn't vote for a bill that would require a girl to inform her father she wanted an abortion even if he was the one who raped her. That's plain wrong.
Why? We all know that the rights of children are nowhere near as strong as the right of adults. You're specifying a single, unusual instance where such a thing might be a bad idea - does that outweight all of the ways its s GOOD idea?
This has to be one of the most dishonest and disingenuous forms of campaigning and opponent smearing that is ever used (I mean in general, not necessarily this instance specifically). A candidate will vote against a particular bill because of a single or small group of line items or clauses in a bill. The candidate can be an outspoken proponent of the rest of the bill, but strongly opposed to the final results of the bill after the various committees and amendments are finished with it. Then the candidate's opponents use that vote to state that the candidate is either lying about their belief on an issue or to state that they are against something that they are in fact for. This is one of the lowest form of politicking around (is that a word?) and I repeat what I've said before, people should be ashamed of themselves for engaging in it. That's not a slam at you, that's a slam at campaigns who use such tactics.
A bill that is widely supported in general, but voted down because of specific phrasing or clauses, stands a good chance of being reintroduced in a slightly different form. The overall intent is passed while the specific objections are defeated. This is the way our legislative system works. I personally think presidents should have line item veto power, and that amendments should not be possible if they don't pertain to the bill at hand (adding for instance funding for a weapons program as a rider to a social welfare bill, to give a fictitious but plausible example). That's another issue however (who decides what is and isn't pertinent?.
In this specific case, I agree whole heartedly that this was a flawed bill based on what has been presented here. There should be a clause in the bill that allows for the court to step in in place of the notification of the parents. This is something for which we have plenty of precedence. The legal system frequently takes parental rights away and assigns them to the court or to a court appointed guardian. I'm all for adult supervision of some kind over a child facing the decision to abort or not to abort. However, it should be possible for the child to seek out, through the help of a doctor or social worker or other legislated process, assistance from the court in granting permission for an abortion that does not require parental consent or notification. I would hope that it would rarely be used, and that the courts would have the wisdom to distinguish between a child who is ashamed or illogically afraid of telling a parent (in which case they would require parental notification) and the case in which a child is genuinely in a position where going to the parent is a bad idea (rape/incest, absentee parent, etc...). You indicate that this is a single, unusual instance... God I hope that's so, but I fear it's not nearly as unusual as you believe.
It wouldn't have been difficult to meet the spirit of the bill (parental oversight and rights) while still protecting the rights of the child. Children do have rights, and when a parent is abusing their own rights, that child should have the right to have society step in and help, superseding the rights of the abusive parent.
The fact that John Kerry voted against this bill does not necessarily make him a bad person or unwise leader. Sometimes voting for something that's "close enough" is not good enough, when you intend to hold out for a better version of the bill. Now, I don't know whether he did or didn't have in mind a better version of this bill. Knowing what I know of John Kerry I suspect he did, but I don't know the specifics of this particular bill and vote. I can however state that George Bush using this vote as a weapon against John Kerry, without describing the context of the vote, is mudslinging politics as usual. NOTE: I believe the Kerry campaign is capable of the same tactics and probably has used them -- two wrongs don't make a right, shame on them both and anyone who uses this kind of political double-speak and lying by omission.
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Kerry will respect the International Laws that we agreed on.
"At the expense of our national security."
Maybe, maybe not. Backing out of the Kyoto treaty had nothing to do with national security though. We went from mandating a 33% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to offering financial incentives to US companies to reach a goal of 4.5% reduction instead (CNN:
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/globalwarming/. Fox News with much different numbers but essentially same story:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,26665,00.html). Bush believes the goal was too hard (so why even try? I really don't understand that) and damaging to the US economy. I understand the concern about the damage to the US economy, but don't believe that fear was sufficient to back out of the treaty that 37 other industrialized nations are committing to. I believe in a strong defense including our right to pre-emptive action when warranted (without voting one way or another on whether or not it was time for pre-emptive action in Iraq), but this is a global economy and a global ecosystem. America is one of, if not the, biggest forces in the world politically, militarily, economically, environmentally, etc... With that kind of influence comes an enormous responsibility to be responsible stewards of that kind of power. We damned well better learn to become responsible members of the world, and frankly moves like backing out of the Kyoto treaty and restarting nuclear weapons development is the exact opposite of responsibility. The consequences of not being good global citizens can and probably will be further declining of the environment (possibly to life-threatening levels), continuing decline of support for America globally, economic sanctions on America (the EU has already made overtures in that regard), and possibly even military and further terror actions against the U.S. If someone is causing you harm or demonstrating the potential and likelihood to cause you harm, and cannot be reasoned with to a level that you find acceptable, then forcing them to modify their behavior is the next logical step through one of the means just listed. That's essentially the reasoning we used for invading Iraq. It scares me that more people, particularly political leaders, don't seem to understand or believe this.
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--- saint