I’ve had this question emailed from multiple people: Who am I behind for the upcoming Presidential election?
First of all, let me say that while I occasionally make inflammatory remarks regarding the political scene, I am reluctant to endorse a candidate publicly for several reasons.
- No matter who I choose, my endorsement is a pronouncement of doom.
- There are no candidates worth endorsing.
- I still don’t know.
Let’s run through a bullet list of hot-ticket items, shall we?
The War in Iraq
This is a big one, and most of the candidates completely miss the boat on this one. Bottom line (in as few words as possible), we started it, we’ve paid for the country in blood, let’s finish what we’ve started, take some of the luscious black gold from their sands, and help them use the profits from their petroleum refining to rebuild their country. As I said in another thread, we can rebuild Iraq. We just need a leader who will commit to doing so. The Marshall plan worked in Europe. Perhaps someone can come up with something similar for the Middle East.
Healthcare
I’ve talked about this one until I’m blue in the face. The answer here is not socialized medicine, but reforms to the current system that still provide for innovation. These reforms include, but are not necessarily limited to, patent law, tort reform, elimination of cooperative cost structuring by insurance companies, and government subsidies/loans for independent practioners and specialists.
Abortion/Stem Cell research
Although I profess a Judeo-Christian ethical system, I am too much of a scientist to truly buy into the notion that life begins at conception. Talk to me when you can identify differentiated tissues and a heartbeat. Anything past the six week mark becomes dicey for me. Partial-birth abortion is murder, not a woman’s right to choose. As for stem cell research, I say go for it. I want to have a heart waiting in a tank for me when this one is clogged with all the grease from those enchiladas I ate yesterday.
Immigration
The Republicans would have you believe that we can round up all the Latin Americans and send ‘em south of the border with a boot in their ass. As a Texan, I know how absolutely devastating that would be to our economy. We need a realistic solution to this problem. I like my own, home-grown remedy: Let those who have held a job for six months or longer have an indefinite green card. Give their children citizenship if they complete high school and pass whatever state test Texas currently uses. Boom. Productive members of society. If you are of adult age and want citizenship, I would say that a term of service in the military of not less than four years is a great idea. Would-be citizens could learn the language, learn a skill, become assimilated, and prove that living in this country is worth them risking life and limb. If you can’t hold a job and don’t want to go into the army, don’t complain when your arse tingles.
What I am continually amazed at is that the quality of service that I get in Texas (especially in restaurants) is extremely high. If I’m waited on or assisted by someone who doesn’t speak the language, they still smile and use gestures to get their point across. Never do I get comparable service outside the state of Texas. This leads me to my real point–most of the men and women here from south of the border want a better life and are willing to work hard to get it. This is what made America great in the past. For better or worse, it’s what keeps the lower echelons of our economy running now. Don’t talk to me about service in the Northeast, and certainly don’t talk to me about the deep south. Service with a smile in Georgia means that the french fry girl in McDonald’s doesn’t give you the finger for being white.
The Economy
Who are we to blame for the mortgage market fall-out? I personally blame our overly-materialistic culture. I sure don’t see a clear-cut path to blame for either Congress or the President. Bush’s incentive package, while certainly nice, is just a gesture of goodwill for all the good it will do the economy. What the administration is responsible for is spending, and that, quite frankly is out of control. Our growing deficit weakens our currency abroad and leaves us ripe for inflation.
The absolute best thing for our economy would be another boom. I predict that this boom will occur in the biotech sector. When healthcare becomes socialized and talented medical researchers can’t make their fat checks anymore, I expect to see them flocking to some place where patents and licensing fees can give them the notoriety and the money they think they deserve. Thank me for the stock tip later.
The Second Amendment
If I’m ever to be pigeonholed as a one issue voter, this is the issue I’d pick. I want to have the legal ability to own firearms roughly equivalent to those used by our armed forces. The framers of the constitution were smart men who recognized that an armed population was the best future insurance against tyranny. It remains so today.
The Patriot Act
This is the heaviest blow to our constitution since FDR started the WPA and began our transition to a welfare state. This piece of trash needs to be repealed now. The Congress that voted for it and the President that signed it should be remembered in history as the government that used the Constitution for toilet paper. I’ll take a little less security with my liberty, please.
And Finally, the Endorsement…
So after all that, who is my candidate? No one. I’m left with picking the least of the evils out there and compromising my viewpoints on a few items to get things that I believe are necessary.
![Let’s Kill Hitler [HD]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51hESmStH-L._SL160_.jpg)
With so many issues, some with more than one position, it doesn’t surprise me there isn’t one candidate that is a perfect fit. I am a little surprised Net Neutrality didn’t make you list.
If only Chuck Norris would run for office, he would “roundhouse kick” this country back into the shape that our fore fathers might just recognize…
I truthfully don’t know much about the net neutrality issue, other than the alarmist things I read on Slashdot. Drop me a line and tell me about it.
I’m in agreement with most of your items. I respond, carefully, concerning Abortion/Stem Cell Research. I don’t respond hoping for a verbal fight, but I respectfully disagree with some of your points.
I totally agree that partial birth abortion is murder. Also I certainly don’t want the government, our wise and infallible government (sarcasm added), to have the power to overrule me in the care of my own body. Between these two extremes I will tread gently, as I have no desire to subsidize murder for any cause… least of all convenience. If your heart fails because you ate too many enchiladas, who says you deserve another heart?… apparently you were too foolish or lazy to care for the one you had. Giving you another would be an irresponsible waste. (I realize that your comment was levity, but convenience will be the eventual outcome.) Thanks for playing and thanks for leaving the gene pool. Game over. In fact, once your gone, we can harvest your stem cells.
Stem cells can be harvested from adults, from the umbilical cords of newborn babies, etc. There’s no need to hunt down abortions. Putting a positive spin on a possible outcome from abortion, is a poor attempt to justify the practice… an ends justifying the means mode of thought.
“When life begins” and “tissue differentiation” are red herrings. The beginning of life is a cultural viewpoint tied to the more important outcome. Whether at conception, the first heartbeat, or the first breath, the ignobly labeled “tissue” is a human offspring… not a tumor, viral invader, blob of unorganized flesh, vestigial organ, or any thing else. Even prior to tissue differentiation, does the zygote organize itself into anything other than a human? If differentiation determines life, by what means does a zygote’s cells achieve differentiation? Would it not be by a process of life? By the way, in Roman society, a child was not considered fully human or fully alive until after it’s first year after birth. High infant mortality (disease) led to this view, which in turn led to a culture of acceptable infanticide (abandonment, exposure, murder, etc.). By such a late date one can safely assume that these Roman offspring exhibited signs of life and tissue differentiation, in spite of their cultural stance. But by no means did Romans ever consider such a child that died before the first year (and not fully human) to be partially walnut, or a slough of skin, or a dolphin, or a cancerous growth. Does a human zygote ever complete the 40 week gestation period without tissue differentiation or without attaining the form of a human child? Achieving a proven, demonstrable, and repeatable outcome is the essence of scientific method. Human reproduction results in human children… talk to me when a woman with “undifferentiated tissue” gives birth to a skin culture, a puppy or a cheeseburger… or maybe a nice ficus.
The Second Amendment issue is moot… Congress doesn’t have the power to decide what weapons you are allowed to own. That is a matter for the states. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The Supreme Court holds the view that Congress cannot infringe these rights, and therefore, by the 10th Amendment (The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.) it is a right of the states. You want a bazooka? elect a state legislature that is open to such a prospect. Good luck… even in Texas.
Personally, I’m OK with rifles and shotguns. They’re survival tools and rifles are the basis of any infantry. I am completely against private citizens owning explosives, napalm, NBC weapons, artillery, chain guns, depleted uranium armor piercing 30mm rounds, tanks, nuclear subs, war ships, attack helicopters, fighter jets, puff the magic dragon, etc. After using crew served, tripod mounted 50mm machine guns, I’d really like to have one… but I’m not ready to let the rest of the populace own one. On principal I am against handguns. Mind you, I’m familiar with them, I like them and I’m fascinated by them, but they are specifically designed to kill people. They aren’t effective hunting tools, nor effective in defense from a tyrannical government… good points are light weight, standardized ammo, and easily concealed… bad points are limited range, limited ammo capacity, and too easily obtained by criminals. In close quarter/urban combat usage you’ll get more mileage from a shotgun.
Oh those cute little zygotes that originate from the loving relationship between a woman and her attacker. They are just SUCH a bundle of joy to have inside of your body for the greater part of a year. Of course those zygotes could give a damn about the emotional anger, pain, tiredness, shame, and money that the woman must cope with. BUT HEY! Who are we to take the life of an innocent cute little zygote? Right?
I would assume by now you can see where I stand on the issue. Think about it this way, if you outlaw abortions you’re not saving the lives of future humans, you’re generally dooming them to something far worse. The woman who uses a coat hanger, the man who beats his wifes abdomen every night until she miscarries etc. People who don’t want a child will find a way to get rid of that child regardless if it’s legal or not. I’m not sure about your family, but if I had a daughter that was of child bearing age, I would rather have her alive and well so I could yell at her for having an abortion at a doctors office without telling me, than to have her lying in a pool of blood in the bedroom of some wannabe outlaw abortionist.
The gun thing, I have no arguments with. However, you’ll have a problem outlawing handguns. Drugs have been outlawed for how many years now? And how many criminals have a drug dealer within 1 phone call? Hmmm. that whole outlawing thing doesn’t really serve the purpose it was meant to serve does it?
I did not want to get into the whole abortion thing but I have to shed some light on these paper thin arguments.
A vast majority of pro-lifers allow exceptions for rape even though I read somewhere that a vast majority of rape cases do not result in pregnancies. I wish I knew where. It is rather counter intuitive.
The “abortion” issue has nothing to do with how welcome the baby is. No new law should be created. The question is an interpretation of our constitutional rights. Does the phrase “all men are endowed by God with certain unalienable rights” include unborn babies? Historically it has. A criminal charged with the murder of a pregnant woman has always had 2 counts of murder brought against him–one for the unborn baby.
You act as if any woman with an unwanted pregnancy will crawl down a back alley. I had many friends that wanted to do drugs and have sex with prostitutes, but don’t because they feared the law. Laws will protect the babies and while I have sympathy for those harmed during a back alley abortion who can protect someone so determined to hurt themselves? We’ve all played Chutes and Ladders, right? You do bad things, there are bad consequences.
My apologies to all. Apparently I did not tread carefully enough. Damian is rather upset… perhaps overlooking this part of my response:
“Also I certainly don’t want the government, our wise and infallible government (sarcasm added), to have the power to overrule me in the care of my own body.”
Although I find abortion abominable, my response above (#4) had nothing to do with repealing Roe v. Wade or forcing women to take their children to full term. My objection was to the encouragement of, and thereby subsidizing, abortions by justifying their use in research. I believe such research will inevitably serve the vanity of our culture of convenience. That research has other means of acquiring its stem cells.
Abortion in cases of rape and incest are areas that are accepted by the lion’s share of people on both sides of the abortion issue. But your argument is an emotional appeal, diversionary at best, and not legitimate. Abortion is a convenience method for birth control, rarely used for reasons of rape, incest, or even endangerment of the mother’s life. I notice in the life-of-doom scenario that you described, you failed to mention a practical, obvious, and humane alternative to abortion: adoption. This would leave one’s daughter free from life-risking back-street abortions, or the risks of legalized abortion (desanguination, infection, infertility, etc.), as well as any emotional trauma of having to put one’s child to death. I come from a family that has been blessed by adoptions, and have friends that were adopted, who in turn have their own adopted children. Adoption works. Our society is lazy, self-absorbed, and loves the quick fix. Abortion is a quick fix, but rarely the right fix. I am not arguing that Pro-Choice folks love abortions. I think most folks on both sides of the issue regard it as a last resort, to be avoided if at all possible. But this is not what it has become. I don’t want to compound the tragedy by approving laws that encourage it to become an industry.
I also did not say I would outlaw handguns. I said: On principal I am against handguns. Therefore, I will not use them. Should I need to hunt to survive, or should I need to defend my family, I’ll use a rifle or a shotgun. I agree with your assessment that outlawing would not be practical or feasible. To enforce such would require a fascist state.
For a moment, lets say that abortion is illegal. A young unwed woman has a one night stand and discovers in a week or two that she is pregnant. For the sake of argument, we’ll say that she’s in her late 20′s and past the irrational woman phases.
Her choices are as follows.
1. Carry to full term and keep the child.
2. Carry to full term and give the child up for adoption.
3. Somehow abort the child on her own.
Now, since abortion is illegal let’s say that she decides to carry the child to full term. She has to pay the doctors bills, she has to endure people talking behind her back, she may suffer medical complications, she will have to take a leave of absence from her job for the birth. These are all minor complaints to you and I, after all she made the mistake so she should have to live with it. To this young lady though, those minor complaints may not be so minor. Depression could lead to suicide, or a sense of hopelessness could lead her into a relationship with a man who wouldn’t treat her like a woman, perhaps she simply doesn’t have enough money or the health insurance to properly care for herself and the child during the pregnancy.
To simply look at a case like this (and I would bet money that there’s more than a few) and shrug your shoulders with the snide comment “She deserved it.” tells me more about you as a person than I would ever want to know.
Now, take the scenario and make abortion a legal solution to her crisis. She’ll have to pay for an abortion or the tax payers will have to pay for it. She’s going to feel some measure of shame and guilt, and if she has to go to a clinic to have an abortion, she’s going to feel some measure of pain as well. The benefits however are that she is more careful in the future (we hope), her career can continue without interruption, and hopefully the abortion doesn’t put her into the same depression that carrying the child would have. Additionally, if the woman agrees to it, let’s say that the aborted fetus can be used for genetic testing, stem cell research, etc. I think that would be a much better alternative overall.
As for the fetus, or zygote, or whatever you’d like to call it, who is to say if it’s murder? You say that as soon as the egg is fertilized it’s considered human, and this is true as it will develop into a human form if allowed. However, you can not deny that at that point in time, the zygote is not sentient. So what’s your real motivation for being against an abortion at this stage? Is it religion? Is it because you “just know it’s wrong”? Is it because you’ve been told it’s wrong by others?
The end result in the grand scheme of things is that the woman in this case should be entitled to make that decision on her own. She is a grown adult with free will and a sound mind. She should be allowed to have the choice. When you take that choice away from her and put it in the hands of lawmakers and judges, you have robbed the human race of the one thing that every single person on this planet is entitled to. The right for a person to make choices to decide their own fate.
Damian, you continue to miss the point. This is the third time I have had to note that I support a woman’s right to choose. You’ve demanded to know my rationale for being against abortion, but you’ve never acknowledged or asked for my rationale on that stance (a woman’s choice). Why is that? I’m not sure that you’re reading my responses all the way through before you begin writing your own. You’ve escalated from your previous emotional appeal to a plausible appeal with unsupported personal attacks. There is nothing I’ve written to support your claim that I somehow believe that “She deserved it.” I’m not sure how you arrived at that conclusion, or the assumption that I argue from religious grounds. [If there are others of you in agreement with Damian's characterization of my remarks, please point them out to me. Perhaps I'm not intending the same meaning in my words as you are reading.]
Aside from choice, we share, at least, a view that murder is wrong. Where we differ is timing. My timing is absolute (from conception). Yours is arbitrary; whether it be at 6 weeks, 1st, 2nd, 3rd trimester, at crowning, or after birth. I feel that Pete shares this arbitrary timing (excluding a fetus of older than 6 weeks), which was what I argued against in my original comment. You concede that the developing child is alive and human, but call to question sentience. This is another diversionary tactic. Does lack of sentience justify murder? I hear the battle-cry of Eugenics sounding. Who gets to decide how sentience is defined? The government, perhaps?… the same one we don’t want to be able to commandeer our own bodies? You tread more dangerously thin ice than you suppose. I don’t need high moral ground or religious rhetoric to argue against those foes. History is a far better teacher.
Damian, I accept that you believe passionately and sincerely in your position. I just don’t agree with it. Let us agree to disagree, shall we? Or if you wish to rationally debate off of this site, please let me know. Though, I fully expect you to refrain from insult as a form of argument.
For those who missed my point the first and second times: We have other means by which to obtain stem cells for research. My opinion is that allowing them to be collected from abortions will eventually subsidize the practice. Even blood banks give money for a pint of blood… what will researchers give for the stem cells of an aborted human fetus? What would a medical firm give for the ephemeral hope of being credited with reversing some malady? Should any wish to debate these points, please respond.
“Now, since abortion is illegal let’s say that she decides to carry the child to full term. She has to pay the doctors bills, she has to endure people talking behind her back, she may suffer medical complications, she will have to take a leave of absence from her job for the birth.”
It’s called living with your mistakes.Oh and me and you would foot the bill via title 19 . If youths were held accountable for there actions these days America would be a MUCH better place. Even if abortion was legal It would still be the young girls choice to go to a back ally, every bad choice a young person makes that can be fixed by a government program =bad. It starts at home, or thats the way it was in the past but not these days. Parents are not allowed to spank for fear of DHS, schools can’t punish in a manner fit for a child. Nature has its way of letting fathers know if there daughters have been hoe’in around at 15. I know I am a real jerk for asking that people be held accountable for there actions. my .02
Hey Dez, your arguments are well structured and focused and you write well. Would you mind shooting me an email, in case I ever want to chat outside Pete’ board? In fact, anyone here that wants my email is welcome to send a message to supchris@pookmail.com. I’ll read the contents of that account in a few days and reply with my real email. Can’t let the spam bots know where I live. I look forward to more.
…so to bring us back on topic, which candidate do you all support?
I don’t normally hang my political endorsements out for the world to see, but I hope to vote for Obama, assuming he makes the democratic ticket. The democrats are better motivated to work for oil independence compared to republicans. He matches my sentiment on illegal immigrants close enough. And he supports net neutrality. (I’ll shoot you a quick run-down on the topic when I find a free moment, Pete.) I think Obama has the potential to be a democratic “Reagan” figure.