I’m finally getting a chance to respond.

I would like to see term limits set to six for representatives and two for senators. In my opinion, I rather them be out on the campaign trail rather than screwing up things in Washington. The biggest problem is the pork they can throw into any spending bill. They are basically buying votes.

We are in agreement on government bailouts of corporations. It is another example of the nanny state.

I have no problem with a city/town giving tax abatements to businesses. If they want to bring in more jobs, then more power to them. Also, there is no such thing as a tax on corporations. They just increase the price of a good/service to cover the tax costs.

I also have no problem with Wal-Mart. They are probably the best anti-poverty tool in America. They provide savings to millions of poor Americans. I wish I could find the Wall Street Journal article I once read about it. Your Libertarian friends Penn & Teller did a great episode about Wal-Mart for their show Bullyouknowwhat.

Bush is NOT a fascist. You’ve never said why he is a fascist, just that he is one. I just want to hear some examples.

“Bush initially resisted the idea of a new department, which had been championed primarily by Democrats in the wake of the attacks. But Bush embraced the concept in June and used the issue effectively on the campaign trail this past fall, criticizing Democrats who differed with him over the issue of labor rights within the new department. “ From CNN, http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/11/25/homeland.security/ , hardly a conservative news source.

Oh no, the Patriot Act took away the rights of a terrorist. Sounds like it is working to me.

My sense of compassion does not outweigh my common sense. You want to talk about taking a citizen’s civil liberties away, then this is the perfect example of it. Government should have no say in healthcare. Government programs are making healthcare more expensive. Out of those 45 million people that don’t have healthcare, how many of them have TVs? Cable for the TVs? DVD players? Cell Phones? Internet? Expensive clothes? They just need to learn to prioritize. Compassion comes from people giving. It doesn’t come from taking someone else’s money then giving it away.
I don’t work for an insurance company. There is nothing that says that you have it.
All companies should be in the business of making a profit. That is why our healthcare is the best in the world. What else is a company (unless not-for-profit) suppose to be in business for?

The FSA is good except for the use it or lose it. I think that people should be able to keep what isn’t used. Not having the funds to take it out of their paychecks comes down to priorities. A person supporting taking money away from “rich” people to give to poorer people is not compassion. You don’t know what money I have given; so don’t question whether or not I care.

On the 2% issue, you don’t know where that money goes. We do have the lowest tax rates. We also have the strongest economy. Why would you be against lowering rates and getting rid of government healthcare spending? It would give you the opportunity to put your money where your mouth is and give to all of these charities. It would be interesting to see how giving liberals are when they aren’t giving away other people’s money.

I couldn’t agree with you more on asinine spending. You’ll like this criticism of Bush. Every year during his State of the Union Address, he promises foreign aide to Africa when there are Americans that are uninsured. I am sure that you’ll agree with me that that is moronic. I am against any government healthcare, but why put Africans ahead of Americans? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

There was not a pre-emptive strike on Iraq. The Gulf War had never ended. A cease-fire was signed. Saddam decided to break that cease-fire repeatedly. Therefore, there was no pre-emptive strike.

I know we’re competing with India and China. You still haven’t answered how Iraq was blood for oil. Ethanol is a global warming alarmist solution to our energy woes. We have just as much oil as the Middle East. They just don’t have to deal with environmentalists over there. Let our oil companies start drilling where they want, then watch those prices go down.

As for buying off Bush, quit making baseless charges then asking your opponents to prove otherwise.

bring it on.

Sorry I haven’t had a chance to respond in a while. I’m enjoying our debate also. Let me know if you are still even reading this thread. I don’t want put the effort into writing something that someone might not even read.

Yeah, I remember reading the State of the Union address in which President Bush first unveiled his support of ethanol and thinking, “WTF? Of all the things he could have said… ethanol?”

I really do respect your attempt to enter the profession of arms. My sister is probably going to be medically discharged from Air Force technical training, and it is a very emotional and disappointing experince for her and we (the family) are hurting with her.

You know, my faith in the principles which led us to war is not as solid as it once was. When America was going to war, I was still working for my family and listening to talk radio and hopping on the band wagon. I’m not the same person I was then politically or spiritually, so, looking back, I might have been more cautious in my support of the war. However, troop levels, poor planning, and unrealistic expectations probably wouldn’t have disuaded me (the me of today) in the face of an unfriendly and unstable dictator who possibly controlled a nuclear arsenal. To this day I have not heard a single credible argument against the idea that virtually the entire global, multi-national intelligence community agreed that Saddam likely controlled some form of WMD. I would have made the choice to support the invasion then based on that fact alone.

Were troop levels too low? Yes. Were troops put in the field without the proper protection from the most (strategically) predictable threats (IEDs)? Absolutely. However, there is a mission still going on in Iraq right now, and I for one want a realistic goal and a practical solution for getting there. I hear good news everyday about how the surge is making security a reality across Iraq, and I personally see MRAPs being airlifted to the AOR from my home station of Charleston AFB (those things are freaking amazing btw – I’ve seen pictures where one ran over an IED and the only injury was that the driver got a couple broke ribs – just incredible). Bottom line, I see real progress towards victory and if the military gets it legs cut out from under it by politics (left or right) it’s going to piss me off. I don’t want to tell my grandkids I served in OEF with a sense of embarassment – I want to be proud of what got done. That’s all I want, to “get ‘er done” – to win with honor. If you’re on board with that, then I call you my political ally and I honestly think we agree at least on that point.

Next, I don’t agree with the “everyone’s not cut out to be a soldier” thing. At all. I fully believe that there should be a draft… THEN let’s see where we go to war and what for.

I can understand your logic here and I might even agree with you, but I just can’t see my wife fighting a war, or my 300-lb. brother-in-law. I don’t know, maybe it would be for the better, but it’s not a position I’m ready to take yet. But still, my point that the military is purposefully under the control of civilians still stands. I don’t want a military establishment entrenched in the lives of every able-bodied American. Soldiers are federal employees too, and with a mandatory draft, that is an awefully big teet for the nation to be suckling at. Just a thought.

Just because I want you to be alive with all of your limbs intact doesn’t mean that I wanted to see you sent to Iraq.

Fair enough.

I appreciate your candor and your contribution, I just don’t always see the point in personally attacking political figures or persons when their logic is easily more interesting to disrespect There was a little too much spite in my first comment to you, but I am sorry and I do appreciate your voice here.

You are loved,
Brandon

first off, thanks for the mostly civil discussion. Most folks on the right either ignore the other side or call them names. So you don’t get too much chance to get any meaningful discussion done. And it’s usually during those meaningful discussions that you realize that there ain’t that much ground between us.

But, on to the arguments…

1) Well, we both agree with term limits then. That, and the representative term should probably be pushed to four years. At two years, they get in, they get about a year’s worth of work done, and then they’re back out on the campaign trail. Limit them to a single four year term, and let them actually work without bowing to monetary interests.

If we did that, I am sure that we’d see more noble conservatives AND liberals. And there’d probably be far less name calling from us and corruption from them.

corporate welfare: government bail outs. Maybe I could see them for companies doing business with the government. But outside of that, if a business can’t make it on its own, it shouldn’t be getting any help from the government to prop itself up.

And, oh yeah, Wal-Mart constantly getting tax free deals on their new stores for 5-10 year stretches is just another reason why I despise Wal-Mart. But, if a town is dumb enough to have one, more power to ‘em I guess…

Bush IS a fascist, and it ain’t name calling if it’s true. It’s name calling if I call him a chimp, the boy king, shrub, or any number of other things. However, fascist and moron are both true, and therefore not name calling. If this falls into Denny’s category of egregious violations of righteousness and reason, then y’all need to read more newspapers.

The Democrats did not initially suggest the Homeland Security Office. The Republicans came up with that bit of needless bureaucracy all on their own.

As for the Patriot Act, it did accomplish some good, I won’t lie. But Ben Franklin said it best: He who would sacrifice his liberty for his life deserves neither. And like I said before, it’s just a matter of time. The patriot act allowed the AG to treat Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant. While he might have trained with Al Quaeda, he IS STILL A CITIZEN! Our criminal justice system is certainly good enough to deal with the likes of an idiot who can’t pronounce his own name. If our rights as citizens are in jeopardy for one of us, they’re in jeopardy for all of us. Alberto Gonzalez was able to wipe out Habeas Corpus during his tenure due to the patriot act. What’s next? And, certainly, you cannot tell me that you’re both a right winger AND a supporter of laws, acts and signing statements that infringe upon ANY citizen’s liberty.

As for your quip about health insurance, I feel the need to ask, where is your sense of compassion? Numbers are misleading because people are out of work? No, sir, those are still people who are one injury away from going bankrupt. And I can tell you from personal experience, I was one of them. I would much rather be in a higher tax bracket and know that neither you, I or anyone else who is here legally would be able to get decent health care when they need it.

As for what’s wrong with medicine I can only say the following. I have multiple relatives in the medical field that range from CNA’s all the way up to hospital administration. There ARE problems with regulations. We can agree there all day long. But to say there’s no fault to be found with the insurance companies? Either you work for one of them, or you’re smoking better stuff than I ever did in my teens. If you want to hear doctors (with consciences) scream, ask them about insurance companies that cut corners on what they’ll pay for or how long they’ll pay for it.

The problem is, you have companies in for profit roles that shouldn’t be. The second that an health insurance company is a for profit entity, someone is going to pay the price for that, either with higher premiums or lack of care. And that’s scary. Really, really, really scary.

As for S-CHIP, maybe it does enlarge the welfare state. So what? You mentioned some options, and some of them are viable. I don’t know much about the EIC, as I’ve never qualified for it. Flexible Spending is cool, provided that you’re in a position to have that money taken out of your paycheck in the first place, and provided that you know you’ll use it (as I am sure you know, it’s a use it or lose it proposition). Which gets us back to square one: how do Jane and John Doe making just enough to support themselves survive when they find out that little Jenny Doe has cancer? Or don’t you care?

OOOOH! Americans (the richest country on earth!) give TWO PERCENT of their salaries to charity! And, I am sure that the number is skewed by the fact that people give non-charitable charities like alumni endowments and the such. And then how many more “charitable donations” go to the likes of televangelists and stuff like that. So, of that two percent, how much actually goes to charities that would use it on things like kids with cancer or heart problems or the like? And I tire of the bit about our “insane tax rates.” Are you yet another person that has to be reminded that we have the lowest tax rates of any first world country? And how much better could that tax revenue be used if we wiped out the asinine programs that our yearly spending budget is littered with?

Fine, Japan bombed us. And, we were right to go to Germany, as Germany had declared war on us. That’s different than a pre-emptive strike on a country with an ornery dictator.

I addressed the military stuff upthread.

And, also, there is a difference between free trade and free. I figured you would know that difference. Oil is at $91/barrel because we’re now competing with India and China for a finite amount of product. And the U.S.’s solution to our energy woes? Let’s drive up the cost of corn by using ethanol!

At least the “let’s see who can buy off Bush this week” game is fun to watch…

rf2r2,

First off, thanks for enlisting and protecting us. Sincerely. I tried to enlist about 10 years ago, but medical issues kept me out. I do consider it one of the great disappointments in my life that I wasn’t able to serve.

Secondly, I know that it’s not your job to be safe. However, it IS the government’s job to ensure that you and everyone else that is in the armed forces are as safe as possible. Rumsfeld’s quip about “sometimes you go to war with the army you’ve got” upsets me beyond belief because of that. Deciding that Hummers and people don’t need the proper armor is downright offensive, and threatening to deny death benefits to any soldier who might somehow get that armor is doubly so. While you know far better than I ever will, from my seats, it simply looks like you got the short end of the stick twice:

1) you got sent to go fight a pre-emptive war that didn’t need to be fought (sorry guys, another 100K troops in Afghanistan would have been a far better use of our troops IMHO), thusly, you’re getting shot at, risking life and limb for a war that we can’t say for certain was necessary.

2) you can’t even get your hands on the proper protective gear to give yourself a better chance of survival once you’re stuck fighting (what I perceive to be) a pointless war.

So, while I guess it’s not right to wish you safety, I can wish you more safety than you have now. And had we had responsible people in office, you might just have that safety.

Next, I don’t agree with the “everyone’s not cut out to be a soldier” thing. At all. I fully believe that there should be a draft. No college deferments, no getting out of it because your mommy or daddy is a big shot, no, as Dick Cheney said, “I had better ways to spend my time (or something to that effect)”. And that’s spoken as a Mennonite. THEN let’s see where we go to war and what for. When it’s Republican Senator X’s kid going to war, let’s see if we make another pre-emptive strike on a target that didn’t have anything worth striking.

Finally, I don’t think I was wrong it what I was saying, but I think I just didn’t get it out as well as I could have. Mark had said that there’s no such thing as supporting the troops without supporting their mission. Which is absolutely wrong. Just because I want you to be alive with all of your limbs intact doesn’t mean that I wanted to see you sent to Iraq.

I get tired of these armchair chicken hawks who say all of the right buzz words, but they don’t do anything about it. If we’re fighting such a noble war, then they should go fight it. After all, the armed forces recruiters aren’t making their necessary recruitment numbers. So, either go to the local recruitment office and sign up, or quit mocking the left when we say that we shouldn’t be there. But don’t say that we absolutely should be there and then do nothing for the effort.

I hope that there’s more solid logic to be found here than in my previous post.

This is the most idiotic logic I have ever heard in my life. Not everyone is cut out to be a soldier – wanting our military to suceed even if you are not in it is perfectly reasonable and neccessary in a society where civilians control the military anyway. Logic 1, You 0.

I really like you, Paul (you add variety to the speech here and you are generally well thought out) but this is not your caliber of thought.

“There is no such thing as supporting the troops but not their mission. I am thankful for their sacrifice and don’t use it as a political tool.”

Wrong. I want our troops to be safe, and I will support them with donations for phone cards and body armor that their own government doesn’t supply them with, but I hate the fact that their bosses sent them to fight a pointless war.

I happen to be active duty military and I have to question the logic that says the very purpose for my existence (as an airman), to fly, fight, and win, is to be counter-balanced against the notion that I should be safe. My job is not safe. It is not supposed to be. My job is to win and if you want to support me in that endevor by giving me body armor or phone cards, that’s great, but don’t do it to make me safe. I’m an airman and my job is to defend my country with my life. If you want to support me, tell me you want me to win with honor and help me do that.

I still believe that there are plenty of good conservative Republicans in Congress. I think the problem has been the leadership. People that have been in Congress too long. I believe there should be term limits because over time they learn that they can buy votes with our tax dollars.

I’m not exactly sure what you mean by a welfare state for corporate CEOs. Are you talking about tax cuts? Please clarify.

Bush is not a fascist. Quit with the name calling already.

Thanks to the Patriot Act we have stopped countless terrorists attacks on our nation. You can’t give one credible example as to how the Patriot Act has taken anyone’s civil liberties. The only people it has hurt are the terrorists.

The Department of Homeland Security is exactly what you say it is, a worthless bureaucracy. It is one example of Bush not standing up to politcal pressure from Democrats to create it. My recollection is that he was initially against it.

The 45 millions Americans without health insurance is a misleading number. A lot of those people are between jobs or they are young and don’t believe they need it. The problem is not the insurance companies, but the regulation on the healthcare industry. People don’t have the freedom of choice. Ron Paul makes some very good points on this issue. My belief is that my healthcare is my responsibility and no one else’s.

Another thing to add. Americans are a very giving people. On average, Americans give 2% of their salaries to charities. Imagine what that number would be if it weren’t for insane taxes.

The S-CHIP program is just another example of politicians extending the welfare state. In my opinion it is unnecassary. Anyone (including illegals) can show up to a hospital and get the healthcare for free. The poorest Americans also benefit from the Earned Income Tax Credit which gives them free money without paying taxes. They can also raise the limits on Flexible Spending Accounts so that their wages allocated to healthcare are tax-free. You can call me whatever you want to. If you don’t want to use words that you ” wouldn’t dare write on this blog to describe me, ” then feel free to e-mail me at Mark@odysseyis.com.

Japan went on their own and you have nothing to prove otherwise.

I addressed Canada.

Isolationism didn’t work too well in the 1930s and 1940s, did it? Japan sure didn’t mind bombing Pearl Harbor. According to your point of view, we shouldn’t have ever fought Germany.

Since you wish to ridicule my support for our military personnel and their mission, I thought you might like to know why I support their mission. My father has always taught me the greatest admiration for the military. His opinion was that when our guy’s are in harms way, your job is to support their mission. My dad was a United States Marine, and I think he knows what he is talking about. If you think I don’t have the right to support them, then you don’t have the right to believe their sacrifice was a waste. You can tell me their service was worthless, but I would like to see you tell them to their face that their service was a waste. Also, tell the 100,000 Marine and Army recruits that join every month they are signing up to fight a pointless war.

” I am sure that you support them with a little yellow ribbon on your minivan and a hearty “oo-rah!” whenever they play the ballad of the green berets on your local radio station.”

I drive a gas-guzzling Jeep Grand Cherokee and a hearty “oo-rah” would be reserved for the Marince Corps Hymn. The Green Berets are a part of the Army and they would get a hearty “hoo-rah.”

NAFTA is irrelevant when it comes to my challenge of your “blood for oil” comment. If we are in Iraq for oil, then where is all of the free stuff? Why is oil at $91 per barrell?

if you’re going to delete my comment, it is only fair that you would delete Clint’s as well. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, and it’s not my fault that y’all elected an autistic chimp to the white house.

(my apologies to chimps and people with autism)