[clue-talk] How do CLUEbies vote?

[Sean LeBlanc]

On 09-24 21:38, David L. Willson wrote:
 
> I'm still not sure you've convicted the President of lying.  That's "lying".  Let's
> check one of your own goalposts, for example:  Did you ever believe that Iraq ~might~
> have WMD, and that the UN couldn't do squat about it?  You yourself said you were bought
> in, so I'll presume the answer is yes.  Then, unless the President is assumed to be
> omniscient, prescient, or significantly brighter than you and I, (which is impossible)
> he might have been telling the truth when he said that very thing, that Iraq ~might~
> have WMD, and that the UN couldn't do squat about it.  We were all wrong, you, me, and
> GWB, but that doesn't make us liars.  No, I'm not equating.  Clinton molested an intern.
>  Bush did what I might have done in his position, he placed a bet.  He lost the bet, and
> we are disappointed, and having to make the best of a bad situation.  Once and for all,
> call a spade a spade, but know a spade from a club.  GWB is a poor military leader, but
> he's not necessarily a liar.

I don't think he's omniscient, or brighter, etc....but he did have
privileged information that I did not have. Honestly, I should have known
better, given my upbringing, that most wars have "good reasons" and then
there are the "real reasons", and this was no exception. 

In my defense, I WAS watching a lot of Fox News and listening to right-wing
radio in those days. I might as well have been watching the Cartoon Network
to get my facts. Given polls of people who got their news from facts from
Fox, it's not surprising I was wrong...

Anyway, rather than repeating all the arguments, I'll link to  this, which
delineates all the Bush (and admin) lies and the real story behind them, and
not just for Iraq. 

http://www.bushlies.net/index.html

One example, from the site: 

The Bush administration repeatedly has constantly tried to link Iraq to the
September 11th attacks. In fact, Bush submitted the following certification
to Congress to authorize the use of force against Iraq:

I have reluctantly concluded, along with other coalition leaders, that only
the use of armed force will accomplish these objectives and restore
international peace and security in the area. I have also determined that
the use of armed force against Iraq is consistent with the United States and
other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against
international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those
nations, organiza-tions, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or
aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. United
States objectives also support a transition to democracy in Iraq, as
contemplated by the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (Public Law 105-338). 

THE REAL STORY:

Both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the 9-11 Commission found .no
credible evidence of a collaborative relationship between Iraq and Al
Qaeda..  The Commission stressed that .it had access to the same information
[that Vice President Cheney] has seen regarding contacts between Al Qaeda
and Iraq prior to the 9/11 attacks.. This finding led Jon Stewart to quip,
.Mr. Vice President, it.s my duty to inform you that your pants are on
fire.. (63) 

At the same time as the release of the 9-11 Report, a former Bush
intelligence official revealed that the White House knew there was no basis
for the link.  Former State Dept. intelligence official Greg Thielman stated
that the intelligence agencies agreed on the .lack of a meaningful
connection to Al Qaeda. and reported this to the White House..  The CIA, FBI
and British intelligence have found no link between Al Qaeda and Iraq.  One
FBI official stated that .[w]e.ve been looking at this hard for more than a
year and . . . we just don.t think its there..  British intelligence reports
that Hussein and fundamentalist Bin Laden are ideological enemies.  (6)  The
director of the State Department.s Bureau of Intelligence & Research
dismissed the alleged link, claiming that the Bush administration .has had a
faith based intelligence attitude..  (20)

 

In September 2003, Bush finally admitted that there was .no evidence.
linking Iraq to 9-11. (36).


In my world, that is lying. I just picked what I remember as the first goal
post of this admin in selling this war. That failed, so they moved them to
WMD, IIRC. 



As far as I'm concerned, it's pretty cut and dried he lied about Iraq, which
is much more than a "bet", and much more serious than a BJ from someone not
his wife. 
 
> [...]
> 
> Sean, you're right in everything else you said.  Those issues are used by politicians to
> manipulate voters, and then the politicians don't actually follow through.  Fair enough,
> but what is a voter like me to do, drop my biggest issue?  I'd give up my next year's
> income to save one person from living with the guilt that so many people can never be
> rid of, I'd give up another year to see a kid, instead of being destroyed, get out of
> his mother's womb, get his chance to breathe, run, and try to make friends.  I'd give
> anything to take back a choice I made years ago, but since I can't do that, I'll vote
> every vote I have in me to change the picture as much as I can.  It's too easy for a
> desperate and scared kid to think it's OK, or maybe it's OK, or maybe it doesn't really
> matter...  When you're desperate and scared you can tell yourself that it's just a
> simple, safe, medical procedure, and you can stop yourself from thinking about the other
> person, the one you just made, who is about to die.  It's not OK to choose abortion, but
> we can't teach kids that, because if we admit that it's not OK, we might lose the right
> to an abortion.  Pregnancy is temporary, abortion is permanent.  You don't get another
> chance to raise that baby, or at least to let it live.  And last, there is some hope for
> an honest politician; you may remember that GWB ~did~ do everything he could to fix this
> issue.  On this, he followed through, or tried to; our other elected officials stopped
> him.  So, in this case, I lose, but I wasn't manipulated.  Nonetheless, better that I
> should vote my conscience, as the saying goes, at the risk of being manipulated, than
> give up and vote on insignificant things while the killing continues.

Obviously, you feel strongly about abortion. I remain pretty ambivalent
about it. I don't like the idea of abortion much myself - but I think the
current situation is probably the best compromise considering all the
options.  

I agree with another poster (forget name) that said more education would
probably equal less abortions carried out, but many social conservatives
(not necessarily you) seem not to be able to get past the "all sex outside
marriage is bad" meme to see what the benefits of a full and realistic sex
education might be...I try to understand other mindsets, but one that would
even argue against inoculations against HPV because they think it would
encourage sex just baffles me.

Oh well, we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I find foreign policy
decisions definitely involve much more critical choices about sanctity of
life than abortion, even if I would concede that life begins at conception.
I happen to think life outside America matters - not to imply that you
don't.

You have to agree that some of those other issues are frivolous in the big
picture. 

Flag burning? Gay marriage? School prayer? Intelligent design vs. science in
the classroom? Snore. These are the Paris Hiltons of issues. Maybe these I
just find relatively low on the priority list because I don't think
government should be involved in marriage at all[*], other than at the
contract level, and the others are pretty cut and dried when it comes to
constitutionality, and I don't have a personal stake in gay marriage because
I'm not gay, and I don't happen to think marriage is some sort of magical
institution that can be violated by allowing people of the same sex to get
married.   

[*] In a secular society, that always puzzled me. I can understand being
involved when it comes to blood tests and contracts, but it becomes obvious
there is a problem even before the gay marriage thing came up because of
polygamy, the really, really old-fashioned form of marriage. :) That seems
to be a violation of church and state separation to me. IANAL, but something
just seems wrong there. Someone can get divorced and remarry these days w/o
much problem anymore, but they just cannot skip the divorce part before
remarrying. :) Gov't and marriage being intertwined seems to be an odd
artifact left over from days of yore, similar to some of the blue laws still
on the books. Then there's this "civil union" which sounds like what I'm
talking about, but maybe I don't know enough about it, as it doesn't sound
universal, or doesn't cover enough. I know gays have problems where
relatives come in after the death of one of them, and claim EVERYTHING as
far as property because law doesn't recognize the other, or worse, one is
dying, and the other doesn't have visitation rights that a "normal" spouse
would have. I have to admit I don't really "get" the gay thing, but as a
human being, I find that situation just sick in a modern society. 
 

-- 
Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at comcast.net  
http://sean-leblanc.blogspot.com/
What the mind attends to, the mind considers. What the mind constantly 
considers, the mind believes. What the mind believes, the mind eventually 
does.