Why I am scared for america

[Neil D]

Typical neo-conservative retoric...doesn't this make you feel secure???

Election Reflections: Why Vote Republican

By

Oct 11, 2006

History shows that in the midterm election after a President is re-elected, the opposition party makes gains in Congress. History showed the same thing as to the midterm election after a President is elected, but in 2002 President Bush and the Congressional Republicans made history as Republicans increased their Congressional majorities.

In 2006, control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives is at stake.

What do voters need to know?

With...

(1) November 7, 2006 less than six weeks away;

(2) the stock market near the all-time high (having recovered from the Clinton recession and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack);

(3) employment up and unemployment down;

(4) gas prices way down (hurricanes have not plagued America this year and President Bush rejected Democrat advice as to how to manage the national strategic reserve);

(5) terrorists not having succeeding in making a follow-up attack on the American homeland (President Bush wisely having treated the terrorists as war enemies instead of common criminals, gone on the offensive, deprived Al Qaeda of its Afghanistan sanctuary and, as even Osama bin Laden concedes, made Iraq the central front in the War on Terror); and,

(6) President Bush and his fellow Republicans having joined the political battle to counteract the poisonous effect of Democrat lies constantly repeated by Democrat politicians concerned more with taking political power than taking out the terrorist enemy, buttressed by the reporting of the Leftist mainstream media led by Al Qaeda's favorite America newspaper (The New York Times) and televisions's NBC, CBS, CNN and ABC (shows like Chris Matthews' "Hardball" and Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" are virtually overlong Democrat campaign commercials larded with tripe and lacking in truth),

...the leftist mainstream media, having tried to push voters away from President Bush and Republicans on a daily basis since President Bush became a presidential candidate, is preparing for an election in which the Republicans keep control of both the Senate and the House.

Every House race is a contest between Speaker Dennis Hastert and Speaker wannabe Nancy "San Fran Nan" Pelosi. Does America look to San Francisco to set the tone for the nation? I doubt it.

Every House race also is a contest between Republican House Committee chairman and the Democrats who aspire to replace them. Would America benefit from THAT kind of change? NO!

Every House race also is a contest to determine whether the Bush administration should be distracted by investigations galore and impeachment proceedings instead of focused on winning the War on Terror? The Far Left Dems are salivating at the thought of paralyzing the Bush administration and impeaching President Bush, as retaliation for the impeachment of former President Clinton. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, lives in the hope of becoming chairman and seizing the national spotlight by leading impeachment proceedings.

Is THAT in America's best interests?

No. It's in Al Qaeda's best interests.

Every Senate race is a contest between Democrat Senate leader Harry "I killed The Patriot Act" Reid of Nevada and the conservative Republican Senator who will replace the retiring Republican Senate Majority Leader, Bill First of Tennessee.

Imagine a Senate led by Senator Reid! Then vote Republican.

Pennsylvanians, Senator Rick Santorum could well by the Senate Majority Leader if the Democrat political trickery of nominating State Treasurer Bob Casey Jr., mostly pro-life, to block Senator Santorum's re-election by winning back Santorum Democrats.

The question in Pennsylvania is whether this cunning strategy will work. The reality is that Mr. Casey would be an ineffectual rookie Senator who would vote with the Democrats to block pro-God, pro-life judges anathema to the Democrats' Far Left judicial activist/secular extremist base. Stay tuned.

With America smartly focused on terrorism and the contrast between the Republican and Democrat approaches, it is not surprising that President Clinton (intent on having Hillary run for President in 2008) has been drawing public attention and demonizing Fox News and Chris Wallace for an interview that did a bit more than give him a forum to speak (or shriek).

Dick Morris and Eileen McGowan reported it this way (and deftly let voters know that putting the Democrats in power was NOT desirable):

"From behind the benign facade and the tranquilizing smile, the real Bill Clinton emerged Sunday during Chris Wallace's interview on Fox News Channel. There he was on live television, the man those who have worked for him have come to know - the angry, sarcastic, snarling, self-righteous, bombastic bully, roused to a fever pitch. The truer the accusation, the greater the feigned indignation. Clinton jabbed his finger in Wallace's face, poking his knee, and invading the commentator's space.

"But beyond noting the ex-president's non-presidential style, it is important to answer his distortions and misrepresentations. His self-justifications constitute a mangling of the truth which only someone who once quibbled about what the 'definition of "is" is' could perform.

"Clinton told Wallace, 'There is not a living soul in the world who thought that Osama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk Down.' Nobody said there was. The point of citing Somalia in the run up to 9-11 is that bin Laden told Fortune Magazine in a 1999 interview that the precipitous American pullout after Black Hawk Down convinced him that Americans would not stand up to armed resistance.

"Clinton said conservatives 'were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day' after the attack which killed American soldiers. But the real question was whether Clinton would honor the military's request to be allowed to stay and avenge the attack, a request he denied. The debate was not between immediate withdrawal and a six-month delay. (Then-first lady, now-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) favored the first option, by the way). The fight was over whether to attack or pull out eventually without any major offensive operations.

"The president told Wallace, 'I authorized the CIA to get groups together to try to kill bin Laden.' But actually, the 9-11 Commission was clear that the plan to kidnap Osama was derailed by Sandy Berger and George Tenet because Clinton had not yet made a finding authorizing his assassination. They were fearful that Osama would die in the kidnapping and the U.S. would be blamed for using assassination as an instrument of policy.

"Clinton claims 'the CIA and the FBI refused to certify that bin Laden was responsible [for the Cole bombing] while I was there.' But he could replace or direct his employees as he felt. His helplessness was, as usual, self-imposed.

"Why didn't the CIA and FBI realize the extent of bin Laden's involvement in terrorism? Because Clinton never took the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center sufficiently seriously. He never visited the site and his only public comment was to caution against 'over-reaction.' In his pre-9/11 memoirs, George Stephanopoulos confirms that he and others on the staff saw it as a 'failed bombing' and noted that it was far from topic A at the White House. Rather than the full-court press that the first terror attack on American soil deserved, Clinton let the investigation be handled by the FBI on location in New York without making it the national emergency it actually was.

"In my frequent phone and personal conversations with both Clintons in 1993, there was never a mention, not one, of the World Trade Center attack. It was never a subject of presidential focus.

"Failure to grasp the import of the 1993 attack led to a delay in fingering bin Laden and understanding his danger. This, in turn, led to our failure to seize him when Sudan evicted him and also to our failure to carry through with the plot to kidnap him. And, it was responsible for the failure to 'certify' him as the culprit until very late in the Clinton administration.

"The former president says, 'I worked hard to try to kill him.' If so, why did he notify Pakistan of our cruise-missile strike in time for them to warn Osama and allow him to escape? Why did he refuse to allow us to fire cruise missiles to kill bin Laden when we had the best chance, by far, in 1999? The answer to the first question -- incompetence; to the second -- he was paralyzed by fear of civilian casualties and by accusations that he was wagging the dog. The 9/11 Commission report also attributes the 1999 failure to the fear that we would be labeled trigger-happy having just bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by mistake.

"President Clinton assumes that criticism of his failure to kill bin Laden is a 'nice little conservative hit job on me.' But he has it backwards. It is not because people are right-wingers that they criticize him over the failure to prevent 9/11. It was his failure to catch bin Laden that drove them to the right wing."

Osama was certifiable, but the Democrats did not certify him.

To put the Democrats in charge of Congress during the War on Terror, voters would have to be brainwashed, or certifiable too.

The Clinton administration treatment of Al Qaeda as a criminal nuisance was the biggest mistake.

Worse, it reflected the Democrat mind set and the Democrats and their media allies have not learned and remain determined to deny THEIR monumental mistakes and to pretend that Republicans are the gravest threat to America: to the delight of the terrorists, they have (1) tried to kill and weakened The Patriot Act; (2) exposed the immensely successful terrorist surveillance program; (3) exposed the vital monitoring of international banking transactions; (4) declared the terrorist surveillance program both unauthorized and unconstitutional (Democrat federal district judge Anna Diggs Taylor); (5) magnified every misstep and minimized or ignored every accomplishment in what President Bush and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld rightly warned would be a long and difficult war, with setbacks, and "a long, hard slough"; and (6) published out of context part of a national intelligence estimate leaked by a criminal with a political agenda that dovetailed nicely with the political agenda of The New York Times.

During the election season, Republicans need to overcome the "big lie" effect of the Democrats' constant misinformation campaigns (aided and abetted by their many mainstream media allies) and focus voters of reality.

Misinformation: President Bush deliberately misled the American people because he really wanted to be a war president instead of the education president.

Reality: There is no legitimate dispute that Saddam Hussein was a brutal tyrant who invaded Kuwait and failed to fully comply with seventeen United Nations resolutions and it was generally believed (in large part because Saddam wanted it to be believed) that he had an ample stock of weapons of mass destruction as well as a willingness to work with terrorists--example: paying the families of homicide bombers). Al Qaeda's declaration of war (which the Clinton administration failed to take seriously enough and the Bush administration finally did after September 11, 2001) made it wise for the Bush Administration to do what the Wilson administration did during World War I, the Franklin Roosevelt administration did during World War II, the Truman administration did during the Korean War and the JFK and LBJ administrations did during Vietnam: fight the enemy away from America instead of in America.

Republicans are not perfect, of course. No war ever was conducted perfectly, and no one ever will be. But the villains are the terrorists, not the Americans; appeasement is slow surrender; "cut and run" is defeat; and unconditional victory is the only sure solution.

Michael J. Gaynor is an independent columnist

IMHO, people like this should never have a microphone nor be lead to one. I can have sympathy for those who moved to Canada in reaction to this type of rant...Here is someone who has swallowed the Republican spin, hook line and sinker. With these kind of blinders, it's no wonder that US politics are so polorized.

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

Typical neo-conservative retoric...doesn't this make you feel secure???

Anyone know what "neo-conservative" means? It means new-conservative. Its use was started back in the 60s as many Democrats started to leave the party as they saw it become soft on defense. These new-conservatives embrace Democrat ideology for domestic policy but are conservative when it comes to forgien policy.

Since GW Bush has become President, liberals have been using the term "neo-conservative" in an insulting, inflamatory way much like some conservatives use the term "bleeding heart" to describe liberals. In such a context it has really lost its meaning. Many that are labeled "neo-conservative" today are not neo-conservative in the original meaning of the word. It has really just become an inflamatory term.

I am scared for America when I see it reduced to this kind of name-calling.

[Neil D]

As a rule, the term refers more to journalists, pundits, policy analysts, and institutions affiliated with the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) and with Commentary and The Weekly Standard than to more traditional conservative policy think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and Heritage Foundation or periodicals such as Policy Review or National Review. The neoconservatives, often dubbed the neocons by supporters and critics alike, are credited with or blamed for influencing U.S. foreign policy, especially under the administrations of Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) and George W. Bush (2001-present). Neoconservatives have often been singled out for criticism by opponents of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, many of whom see this invasion as a neoconservative initiative. source for the blue post

Commentators across the spectrum have finally clued in to neo-conservatism as the intellectual framework of the Bush administration. We are suddenly faced with long think pieces on the role of political philosopher Leo Strauss in influencing the architects of the Iraq war and Bush's governance in general. We are also learning about the ideological path taken by former college Trotskyites into the Republican Party of the 1970s. It’s an instructive example of tenacity and dedication in translating ideas into practice.

Along with the political victory of the neocons (by victory I mean the reality that they now control many levers of power) has come shock and alarm of those who disagree with their policies. Their critics left and right regard their use of domestic police powers as contrary to constitutional guarantees, and their foreign policy as nothing but untrammeled aggression that violates human rights and makes us ever more vulnerable.

Despite its political victory, the future of neo-conservatism rests with the war on Iraq and its aftermath. They brought about this war over the objections of most of the world, and relied heavily on the crudest form of chauvinistic sloganeering to sell it to the American people. Iraq has been destroyed, with most people living amidst appalling wreckage that neocons apparently failed to anticipate. Their raw military power unleashed utter chaos, barbarism, and fanaticism in what was once the most secular and liberal Arab state.

The neocons had a limitless faith in two tools: bombs for destruction and dollars for reconstruction. With their appalling ignorance of the complexity of society, they believed that these two tools were enough to reconstruct the region, and maybe the whole world. It was only a matter of political will, so they believed. The bombs caused the regime to flee, but the dollars have not been able to put it back together again. As only a slight symbol of the Pyrrhic victory, the Saddam dinar is now at its highest value relative to the dollar since 1996. No WMDs were ever found, and terrorism in the region is getting worse.

Seeing this disaster, and sensing that they are losing the propaganda war, neocons are scrambling to control the spin. This has taken several forms: 1) defending neocon policies, 2) denying that such a thing as neo-conservatism exists, 3) admitting that neocons do exist but claiming that they represent nothing really new and thus pose no threat, and 4) accusing critics of neo-conservatism of bigotry.

That these claims cannot be reconciled is hardly surprising: the goal is to relieve the new pressure, not to sort out confusions. For years, they've labored in journals and journalism, and their sudden defensiveness is precisely what one would expect now that they have seized and exercised power with such awful results. Naturally, the critics go to great lengths to examine the ins and outs of the neocon philosophical orientation to discern what disaster we can expect next.

Source for the green post

[Neil D]

Quote:

I am scared for America when I see it reduced to this kind of name-calling.

So, you generally agree with what Michael J. Gaynor wrote regarding why voters must vote republican? Or did you just see the word neo-conservative and the blinders went up?? [as supposedly when "a bull sees red" ]?

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

you generally agree with what Michael J. Gaynor wrote regarding why voters must vote republican?

I don't read books on the internet. I skip over long posts. I don't even know who Michael Gaynor is.

Politically I fall into a conservative Democrat/moderate Republican camp. I would like to see some conservative Democrats in control of Congress or to win the White House. I am not crazy about the idea of a liberal, San Fransisco Democrat being Speaker of the House. If the Democrats win control this cycle I doubt they will accomplish much. They are likely just to be obstructionists and give the Republicans a number of issues to run on in 2008 which may lead to another Republican in the White House.

I don't have any advice for people how to vote. I agree strongly with Republicans on judicial philosophy. The idea of the Constitution being a "living document" is quite scary to me. So perhaps that issue would tip me in favor of the Republicans.

[Neil D]

Quote:

I don't read books on the internet. I skip over long posts. I don't even know who Michael Gaynor is.

Hmmmmmmm....So, are you saying that you responded to my post by desiring to be argumentative? Because the origional post was mostly written by Michael Gaynor. Take a look at the bottom of the first post and this is what you will see.....

Quote:

Republicans are not perfect, of course. No war ever was conducted perfectly, and no one ever will be. But the villains are the terrorists, not the Americans; appeasement is slow surrender; "cut and run" is defeat; and unconditional victory is the only sure solution.

Michael J. Gaynor is an independent columnist

IMHO, people like this should never have a microphone nor be lead to one. I can have sympathy for those who moved to Canada in reaction to this type of rant...Here is someone who has swallowed the Republican spin, hook line and sinker. With these kind of blinders, it's no wonder that US politics are so polorized.

Those blue comments are mine...The rest are Michael's....Do you agree with Michael's comments or not?

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

are you saying that you responded to my post by desiring to be argumentative?

I wouldn't say argumentative. I would say informative.

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No war ever was conducted perfectly, and no one ever will be. But the villains are the terrorists, not the Americans

I agree with that completely.

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"cut and run" is defeat

I suspect that is true but unless we do cut and run we will not know if it is true or not.

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unconditional victory is the only sure solution.

Problem I have with this is that it doesn't define what unconditional victory is.

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people like this should never have a microphone nor be lead to one.

I disagree with censorship. I have no problem with people of different idealogy participating in the arena of ideas.

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With these kind of blinders, it's no wonder that US politics are so polorized.

I am not sure the US is more polorized than it has been in past times in history. I do, however, agree that idealogues contribute to the polirization.

[lazarus]

Politically I fall into a conservative Democrat/moderate Republican camp.

oh come on...shane......really......arlen spector? susan collins? I see you as more of Santorum man. I guess Neils powers of persuasion are working....hmmmmm!

[Dr. Shane]

Democrats basically believe an active government can help the people. Republicans basically believe that an active government takes away the liberties of its people. So Democrats tend to be in favor of big government programs and Republicans tend to be in favor of reducing the size of government. Of course it is more complex than that but that is the gist of American politics.

I tend to be in the middle of that idealogy. I agree that too much government does take away people's liberty. However I agree that government can be used as a source of good to help out the people. I have problems with both ends of the political spectrum and yet I see that both ends have some legitamate concerns.

[Neil D]

Quote:

Democrats basically believe an active government can help the people. Republicans basically believe that an active government takes away the liberties of its people. So Democrats tend to be in favor of big government programs and Republicans tend to be in favor of reducing the size of government. Of course it is more complex than that but that is the gist of American politics

And that ONLY thru the eyes of a Republican.

Typically, that premise is NOT true. Just as the premise that democrates raise taxes and republican decrease taxes...

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I guess Neils powers of persuasion are working.

*Cough, Cough* I think someone has been sipping a bit too much some of thier members medicinal wine...

[Dr. Shane]

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And that ONLY thru the eyes of a Republican.

Typically, that premise is NOT true.

Actually that is textbook civics. I learned that in Introduction to Politics in college. My professor pointed out that it doesn't carry through on every issue but in general it is the case. The example of an exception given in my college class was that of abortion. On the issue of abortion Republicans want an active government and the Democraats want an inactive one.

[Neil D]

Quote:

And that ONLY thru the eyes of a Republican.

Typically, that premise is NOT true.

Actually that is textbook civics. I learned that in Introduction to Politics in college.

No, this is your textbook civic lesson-

Democrats basically believe an active government can help the people. Republicans basically believe that an active government takes away the liberties of its people.

And I am not sure that even this is not biased a bit.

I would like to clarify more, but it just isnt' worth the bandwidth to do so....

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

No, this is your textbook civic lesson-

Well, I guess is Minnesota State University, Mankato is my university than it would follow that this is my textbook civic lesson. That's cool.

We also had to take a test in that class to see where we were on the political map. At the time I was between a Republican and a Libertarian. Now, after the years, I fall between a Republican and a Athoritarian. :|

[olger]

Advent believers would be better off memorizing John 17, then getting passionate about politics.

olger