Conservatives for the Constitution

Just imagine if one of the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination endorsed this radical agenda:

• End the use of military commissions to prosecute crimes.

• Prohibit the use of secret evidence or evidence obtained by torture.

• Prohibit the detention of American citizens as enemy combatants without proof.

• Restore habeas corpus for alleged alien combatants.

• End National Security Agency warrantless wiretapping.

• Empower Congress to challenge presidential signing statements.

• Bar executive use of the state secret privilege to deny justice.

• Prohibit the President from collaborating with foreign governments to kidnap, detain of torture persons abroad.

• Amend the Espionage Act to permit journalists to report on classified national security matters without threat of persecution.

• Prohibit of the labeling of groups or individuals in the U.S. as global terrorists based on secret evidence.

Of course, it is difficult to conceive of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or even the somewhat more Constitutionally-courageous John Edwards going to such extremes.

They are, above all, cautious candidates. They don't want to be accused of getting too serious about maintaining the basic underpinnings of the Republic.

Only the nuttiest of radicals who ask that candidates for president would ask that candidates for nation's top job to start talking about the notion that the lawless presidency of George W. Bush has created a Constitutional crisis.

So what left-wing cabal is promoting the above assault on the executives excesses of the Bush administration?

The group that's advancing this so-called "American Freedom Agenda" is chaired by Bruce Fein, a former Nixon administration aide who served as deputy attorney general under President Reagan and who helped to formulate some of the serious -- pre-blue dress -- arguments for impeaching Bill Clinton. Fein is joined by former Georgia Republican Congressman Bob Barr, veteran conservative fund-raiser Richard Viguerie and David Keene, the former aide to Bob Dole who for many years has served as chairman of the American Conservative Union.

What gives? How come conservatives are taking the lead in the fight to restore basic Constitutional protections?

"The most conservative principles of the Constitution have been repeatedly violated in the last several years," says Fein. "[The] Founding Fathers engrafted a system of checks and review of one branch by another -- a system of due process safeguards against injustice that is likely to occur because of prejudice and fear. And those checks and balances have eroded enormously over the last several years, particularly since 9/11."

Viguerie is even blunter, suggesting that "a constitutional crisis... has developed to alarming proportion under President George W. Bush."

Rejecting the suggestion that conservatives must remain silent because Bush is supposedly one of their own, Viguerie says, "Conservatives must not fail to oppose the massive expansion of presidential powers out of fear they will be aid and comfort to the Left. Concern about one branch of government acquiring excessive power should not be the providence of liberals, moderates, or conservatives. It must be the concern of all Americans who value liberty…"

Barr echoes that view, arguing that, "[We]" cannot sit by and wait thirty years for court decisions. We cannot wait until another four-year election cycle is concluded to have the Bill of Rights restored and defended."

The American Freedom Agenda campaign is the vehicle that these conservatives have established, with a self-described twofold mission: "the enactment of a cluster of statutes that would restore the Constitution's checks and balances as enshrined by the Founding Fathers; and, making the subject a staple of political campaigns and of foremost concern to Members of Congress and to voters and educators. Especially since 9/11, the executive branch has chronically usurped legislative or judicial power, and has repeatedly claimed that the President is the law. The constitutional grievances against the White House are chilling, reminiscent of the kingly abuses that provoked the Declaration of Independence."

The agenda was launched two weeks ago. So far, one candidate has expressed support it: Texas Congressman Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican who explains that: "[They] say that the executive branch is always hungry. That's why it's up to the people, up to the congress to reign in the power of the executive branch."

Paul's right to sign on. The question now is whether any Democratic presidential contenders will join him in doing so.

The restoration of the Constitution's system of checks and balances ought not be a project of the left or right. It ought to be something that every presidential candidate can endorse. And, for Democrats, the American Freedom Agenda initiative creates a perfect opportunity to do the right thing with "political cover." After all, if Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John Edwards were to express support for the restoring the system of checks and balances and undoing the damage done to the Constitution during the Bush years, they tell the Democratic strategists who constantly counsel ideological caution: "Don't worry, I'm not taking any risks. I'm just making like the conservatives."

---------------------------------------------------------------------

John Nichols' new book is THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT: The Founders' Cure for Royalism. Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson hails it as a "nervy, acerbic, passionately argued history-cum-polemic [that] combines a rich examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of the 'heroic medicine' that is impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to 'reclaim and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most basic liberties.'"

Comments (126)

1. "After all, if Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John Edwards were to express support for the restoring the system of checks and balances..."

   what's interesting is that "if" in there.

   Always curious if the fear of the "imperial Presidency" on the Left....will be extended when it's a Democrat with a Democratic Congress?

   Barr, Fein, etc. see the handwriting on the wall...they want to cut down the Executive's powers, because they both philosophically don't like it...AND politically because they know that a "President Hillary" with such powers is anathema TOO!.

   But...WILL the Democrats step up to restore check and balances...if it's a Democrat in the Oval?

   or will that fear subside a bit, knowing that a "good guy" (or gal) has got the power and it's "not so bad now"???

   Posted by Mask at 04/05/2007 @ 2:47pm

2. It really is astounding that we haven't seen any prominent candidate in either party grab this mantle yet. It's a win, win, win proposition in that a "defend the constitution" stance gathers support from the entire spectrum of voters ala the earlier Code Pink to NRA spectrum that raged against the FCC ruling for increased corporate conglomeration of our media.

   Posted by b_kool_66 at 04/05/2007 @ 2:51pm

3. It really is astounding that we haven't seen any prominent candidate in either party grab this mantle yet.

   Posted by B_KOOL_66 04/05/2007 @ 2:51pm

   ARE you truly "astounded", B_KOOL?

   Didn't it cross your mind that "President Hillary", "President Obama", or "President Edwards" might....want the power too?

   Posted by Mask at 04/05/2007 @ 2:55pm

4. oh, pelosi is getting tough on white house smears. and the smears from EVERY conceivable voice on the right wing:

   [Pelosi spokesman Brendan] Daly pointed out that Pelosi was briefed by State Department officials before her meetings with the foreign leaders and that State Department officials also attended her meetings.

   So if Pelosi really committed foreign policy flubs of the first order, the State Department is in a position to confirm as much.

   The White House certainly received a read-out of what exactly Pelosi and the foreign leaders said in their meetings. Significantly, the White House has not openly accused Pelosi of the foreign-policy missteps the Post had accused her of.

   In an e-mail follow-up, Daly wrote: "WH has not said that because in fact the Speaker did not get the message wrong -- she included the necessary caveats and did not say or imply that this was a change in Israel's position."

   Posted by darladoon at 04/05/2007 @ 2:58pm

5. The expansion of the powers of the president must be checked. The position is far too powerful, as a result the world has suffered through an incompetently executed "war on terror" that has done more damage to the US than 10 911s could ever hope to achieve. Yet each candidate would rather defer that issue until they are beaten or served two terms. Barr is right that we do not have 30 years of court decisions to cure this situation. Nor do we have a SUpreme Court that is likely to provide remedies. The system has failed; the checks and balances are broken. And the newly elected Democratic majority is too obsessed with form over substance legislative wrangling to do anything about it. The Founders, especially John Adams, worried that the position of president would be too weak to stand up to the Congress. This would be a great problem in this day and age.

   Posted by sdslaw at 04/05/2007 @ 3:02pm

6. certainly, the right wing is so desperate to gain any traction whatsoever, but can't.

   the right wing is in a shambles, attacking at every angle with no substance to any of their arguments.

   watch this excellent clip:

   http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/05/rep-blackburn-doesnt-understand -compromise/

   this is precisely what i mean by "no argument"

   "we are at war with terrorists, chris. once they stop fighting us, then we can say this is all over."

   or this other guy on FoX this morning,

   "we have democrats that still don't think we are at war, bob"

   Posted by darladoon at 04/05/2007 @ 3:02pm

7. "we have democrats that still don't think we are at war, bob"

   I don't think we are at war. I think l'il georgie is playing toy soldiers with real live GI's.

   Posted by Dr Decibels at 04/05/2007 @ 3:23pm

8. Conservatives are still say "Liberal, Liberal, Liberal" every time they have an opinion about anything, that has to stop. You expect Americans to dis-associate what we just saw with Conservative ideology? Why should Americans suddenly become intelligent enough to distinguish - at the drop of a hat when its convenient - for a movement that wants people to understand Conservatism isnt about lying to Americans, dragging America into a Hell, appointing cronies to every position.

   Posted by conshame at 04/05/2007 @ 3:26pm

9. Has Barr officially apologized for his Clinton witch-hunt in the 90s? I respect his association with this group, but would respect him more if he recanted.

   Posted by BlueTexan at 04/05/2007 @ 3:28pm

10. What gives? How come conservatives are taking the lead in the fight to restore basic Constitutional protections?

    I believe it's called "Cover Your Ass". When the head of your party hasn't been north of 40% favorability in polls for over two years, you'll say some pretty desperate things as you contemplate becoming a permanent-minority party.

    Posted by nathanhale at 04/05/2007 @ 3:32pm

11. Posted by DARLADOON 04/05/2007 @ 2:58pm

    DARLA, does that include Israeli Prime Minister Olmurt who says she's mis-stating what he said about talks with Syria?

    Posted by Mask at 04/05/2007 @ 4:25pm

12. Off topic, but since DD has decided THIS is the place to continue her "Who ya going to believe Nancy or your lying eyes" Tour....it's not "the WH" or "the right wing" who's saying that Pelosi is "misquoting" Ehud Olmert....it's Ehud Olmert---

    Jerusalem Post---Apr. 5, 2007 0:34 | Updated Apr. 5, 2007 18:34 PMO denies peace message to Assad By HERB KEINON

    The Prime Minister's Office issued a rare "clarification" Wednesday that, in gentle diplomatic terms, contradicted US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's statement in Damascus that she had brought a message from Israel about a willingness to engage in peace talks.

    According to the statement, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert emphasized in his meeting with Pelosi on Sunday that "although Israel is interested in peace with Syria, that country continues to be part of the Axis of Evil and a force that encourages terror in the entire Middle East."

    Pelosi tells Assad: Israel ready to talk

    Olmert, the statement clarified, told Pelosi that Syria's sincerity about a genuine peace with Israel would be judged by its willingness to "cease its support of terror, cease its sponsoring of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad organizations, refrain from providing weapons to Hizbullah and bringing about the destabilizing of Lebanon, cease its support of terror in Iraq, and relinquish the strategic ties it is building with the extremist regime in Iran."

    The statement said Olmert had not communicated to Pelosi any change in Israeli policy on Damascus.

    Pelosi, who met in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar Assad over the objections of US President George W. Bush, said she brought a message to Assad from Olmert saying that Israel was ready for peace talks.

    "We were very pleased with the reassurances we received from the president [Assad] that he was ready to resume the peace process. He was ready to engage in negotiations for peace with Israel," Pelosi said after meeting Assad.

    She said the meeting with the Syrian leader "enabled us to communicate a message from Prime Minister Olmert that Israel was ready to engage in peace talks as well."

    According to officials in the Prime Minister's Office, however, this was not what transpired during her meeting with Olmert.

    The officials said Olmert had told Pelosi that he thought her trip to Damascus was a mistake, and that when she asked - nevertheless - whether he had a message for Assad, Olmert said Syria should first stop supporting terrorism and "act like a normal country," and only then would Israel be willing to hold discussions.

    Posted by Mask at 04/05/2007 @ 4:35pm

13. What gives? How come conservatives are taking the lead in the fight to restore basic Constitutional protections?

    I believe it's called "Cover Your Ass". When the head of your party hasn't been north of 40% favorability in polls for over two years, you'll say some pretty desperate things as you contemplate becoming a permanent-minority party.

    Posted by NATHANHALE 04/05/2007 @ 3:32pm | ignore this person

    To be fair, at least to Barr and Fein, they and a number of other conservatives and right-leaning libertarians have been raising these issues for several years now, including while Bush enjoyed substanial public support. Some of the same folks also opposed the Iraq War and Occupation before it even started. Following the fallout on the Right over Bush II over the last few years has sometimes been very interesting and even stimulating, intelectually and politically, but also alternately appalling and glee-inducing when I drop in on the Foxes and Coulters of the world. I imagine the more historically and intelectually engaged right-wingers felt much the same way as they watched the Soviet Union fall apart.

    Posted by cka2nd at 04/05/2007 @ 4:44pm

14. It sounds like the Repubs are getting prepared for the next election.

    Posted by mtspence05 at 04/05/2007 @ 5:19pm

15. "But...WILL the Democrats step up to restore check and balances...if it's a Democrat in the Oval? "

    Absolutely not, and it will get worse, like a snake wrapping around the freeedom of the individual, already endangered, and never will you hear a whimper from these pages, blogs or HVH.

    Posted by john maasch at 04/05/2007 @ 5:24pm

16. ""we have democrats that still don't think we are at war, bob"

    I don't think we are at war. I think l'il georgie is playing toy soldiers with real live GI's.

    Posted by DR DECIBELS 04/05/2007 @ 3:23pm

    And there is where the rubber meets the road...we have been at war, or I should say, the radical Islamists have been at war with the US and the West for over 15 years...and all the kook section sees is Bush..

    This is why you are so dangerous to our life, life style and nation, and you, too must be defeated, since there is obviously no hope of enlightening you...unless it is your office tower that goes down next....and there will be more towers down...whether or not we are in Iraq or never ever went to Iraq..

    And this is where we part ways with the lib loons and apologists of everything ...especially if defending America is on the table.

    Posted by john maasch at 04/05/2007 @ 5:29pm

17. I appreciate the respect that Messrs. Fein, Barr, Viguerie, and Keene have for the Constitution. But did it prevent any one of them from casting his vote for George W. Bush for President – twice?

    I doubt it. The Constitution is nice, but a fat tax break is even nicer, isn't it?

    The libertarians do have a point -- and it is the same point that John Nichols made with his article. Why haven't the Democratic candidates for President declared that they support the restoration of Constitutional checks and balances?

    Good question. As for me, I voted for Ralph Nader back in 1996 and may do so again in 2008 if none of the Democrats has the guts to stand up for the Constitution.

    Posted by JakobFabian at 04/05/2007 @ 5:33pm

18. Maasch-This liberal went to war to defend America.How about you?

    Posted by i'm nobody at 04/05/2007 @ 5:35pm

19. You don't have to destroy our Constitution to fight terrorists. Where were all these "defenders" of the Constitution back when the Repub Congress was rubber stamping Georgie's actions?

    Posted by mtspence05 at 04/05/2007 @ 5:35pm

20. Absolutely not, and it will get worse, like a snake wrapping around the freeedom of the individual, already endangered, and never will you hear a whimper from these pages, blogs or HVH.

    Posted by JOHN MAASCH

    Yeah, it was fine when they were locking "suspects" up down in Gitmo, but when it's your ass that's gonna suffer it's suddenly different, huh? All that indifference gets 'you' down in Gitmo.

    Posted by mtspence05 at 04/05/2007 @ 5:42pm

21. And there is where the rubber meets the road...we have been at war, or I should say, the radical Islamists have been at war with the US and the West for over 15 years...and all the kook section sees is Bush.. Posted by JOHN MAASCH

    9/11 happened on his watch. And what does the imbecile do? Rather than concentrate on cleaning up the problem in Afghanistan he invades Iraq! All those resources (and lives!) squandered in Iraq that could have been applied to the geniune threats.

    Posted by mtspence05 at 04/05/2007 @ 5:52pm

22. Maasch-In what way is Bush and the GOP defending America?The people who planned and funded the attack on us on 9/11 are still running around doing whatever they want to do.They aren't even being molested let alone in any real danger.They're laughing at us while making new plans and your boy bush is letting them.

    Posted by i'm nobody at 04/05/2007 @ 5:59pm

23. maasch's ludicrous response at 5:29 pretty much sums up the sheer, breathtaking lunacy of the neo-conservative PNAC "movement" (i put this in quotes because their "movement" does anything but move). first of all, to characterize the "enemy" as "radical islamists" is not adequate, because beyond their "radicalism" (we could say that THEIR enemes, israel and the US, are the true radicals), and their islamic faith, there is anything but continuity or unity. furthermore, not a single radical islamic group has enough strength to obtain recognition from the international community (and i don't include hamas or hezbollah in this category, as their plight is not only moral, it is necessary for their survival). i mainly include groups like al qaeda, who it should be mentioned, are ENORMOUSLY unpopular in iraq, pakistan and afghanistan.

    Posted by darladoon at 04/05/2007 @ 6:01pm

24. this is precisely why the house armed services commitee, led by a republican, are removing the term 'global war on terror' from the lexicon.

    Posted by darladoon at 04/05/2007 @ 6:02pm

25. Nothing left to say

    it would help that you had something to say before making the above claim.

    Posted by darladoon at 04/05/2007 @ 6:58pm

26. I will bet $1000 that with a Democratic Prez and Dem Congress in 2009....

    90% of the USA Patriot Act will STILL be intact in 2012.

    Posted by Mask at 04/05/2007 @ 8:34pm

27. Who cares if Barr doesn't apologize for Clinton. Though Bush is a total disaster as president, let's face it, there was a lot wrong in the Clinton administration--"Free" trade, a screwed up idea of health care reform, a failure to protect the environment, a personal libertinism at the expense of the serious business of governing, and many lies. I would be very pleased if Conservatives reassert the idea of limited government. This government is too big, too expensive, and too invasive of our personal lives. I applaud whatever common ground exists. Let's build on it.

    Posted by wmendenhall at 04/05/2007 @ 9:45pm

28. "Only the nuttiest of radicals who ask that candidates for president would ask that candidates for nation's top job to start talking about the notion that the lawless presidency of George W. Bush has created a Constitutional crisis."

    WTF? Could someone, somewhere please proofread this post? [curse word removed; see, even I can edit.]

    Posted by fromredbird at 04/05/2007 @ 10:19pm

29. Abosolutly unbelieveable that any one in public office refuses to support the Constitution and the rights guareenteed to we the people. Of course we also have the anally retentive who refuse to respect history while bleeting like stuck pigs about threats that have been blown up in the irrational furror of controlism.

    It's pathetic that history has been completely ignored every administration has had to deal with terrorists and now the cadre of anally retentives point their fingers at the threat and not at the past solutions which by the way didn't give terrorism a voice and power in the world's heirarchy's.

    We have been cowled by the threat of violance and forgot the simple solutions practiced by prior more resonable leaders to simple QUIETLY remove the threat, not this BS reign of fear created soley to empower those who preach the loudest about the threat.

    That the current democatic candidates haven't jumped on the save our rights bandwagon is a serious quantry, and one that should not be ignored.

    Posted by dycel8r at 04/05/2007 @ 10:27pm

30. "Who exactly are the fools who voted for this sorry excuse for an executive? "

    I can tell you they are not all conservatives, but liberals who found ALGORE whimpy, goofy, unpresidential, dim whitted and rightly so.

    And Frank, you really should learn to distinguish between conservatives and Bush with the congress he lead they call themselves republicans, but most of us call them RINOs..I can't identify with them very much...I am a conservative, and we haven't had a conservative govt or policy since Reagan...Clinton, in many ways, was more conservative than either BUSH...in my opinion.

    Posted by john maasch at 04/05/2007 @ 11:03pm

31. Maasch, you stupid, ignorant douchebag.

    Look in the mirror if you want to see the very definition of that which you have labeled "radical Islamist". You advocate the same thing they do; that is, if you don't believe as me.....you must die.

    I will dare to say it: we deserve to be bombed. We deserve to have our delicate illusion shattered by daily explosions. We live in an insulated fantasy land in this country. We think that we can do whatever we want, no matter how it affects everyone else in the world.

    There are consequences to every action. The enablers of our pathetic, dysfunctional, psychotic lifestyles have tried long and hard to insulate all of us from these consequences. It can no longer be done.

    I am sick of people like you. If you won't support the Constitution over your butt-buddy bush then GO AWAY. How easily you condemn others and condone the deaths of innocent people by the tens of thousands; all in the name of consumption. You and people like you ARE THE TERRORISTS.

    Tell me how we are now safer now. Tell me how we are "better than them". Explain to me the difference between "terrorism" and preemptive war, torture, murder, rape, destruction and dehuminization of an entire people that we perpetrate every day. You may disagree with me and my beliefs, but the fact remains that we are the most violent sociopaths on this Earth. The moment we can take an honest look at ourselves is the moment we begin to be great again.

    Posted by IndyMinded at 04/05/2007 @ 11:22pm

32. will dare to say it: we deserve to be bombed. We deserve to have our delicate illusion shattered by daily explosions. We live in an insulated fantasy land in this country. We think that we can do whatever we want, no matter how it affects everyone else in the world

    Posted by INDYMINDED

    Indy, I'll dare to say it...You should be hung from the nearest lamp post. I wonder which you hate most, America, or yourself......

    Posted by davebarlett at 04/05/2007 @ 11:47pm

33. "we have democrats that still don't think we are at war, bob"

    Posted by DARLADOON 04/05/2007 @ 3:02pm |

    And I am one. What we have in Iraq is, indeed, NOT a war but the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The so-called "war in Iraq" ended in April of 2003 with the U.S. victory over the armed forces of Saddam Hussein. Everything subsequent to this victory has been a military occupation not wholly unlike, in some respects, the occupation of Vichy France by Nazi Germany during WWII. If there is a "war in Iraq," it is the low-level civil war among the various Iraqi religious factions with the U.S. occupiers not even serving as a terribly effective peacekeeping force.

    This may seem like terminological wrangling but it is actually important to keep in mind that this IS an occupation and not a "war." For example, Bush keeps talking about a "new way forward" to a mirage called "victory" precisely because HE continues to think of the situation as "the war in Iraq." Interestingly, opponents of the U.S. Occupation of Iraq might actually be more effective if they, in fact, started CALLING it an "occupation" INSTEAD of a "war."

    Posted by w_m_bear at 04/06/2007 @ 12:40am

34. I will bet $1000 that with a Democratic Prez and Dem Congress in 2009....

    90% of the USA Patriot Act will STILL be intact in 2012.

    Posted by MASK 04/05/2007 @ 8:34pm |

    You won't get any takers from my side of the street, especially not if Hillary becomes dictatorette.

    Posted by w_m_bear at 04/06/2007 @ 12:56am

35. Posted by FRANKGRITS 04/06/2007 @ 12:47am |

    I left that out (except by implication in the comparison with Nazi Germany's occupation of France) only because it was not my point. I'm certainly more or less in alignment with the basic thrust of your comment. And the Founding Fathers were definitely the "insurgents" of their day (in the eyes of the King George's red-coated soldiery, certainly) and would have been hanged to a man for treason had they lost.

    Posted by w_m_bear at 04/06/2007 @ 01:11am

36. ". You advocate the same thing they do; that is, if you don't believe as me.....you must die."

    Really? I have advocated death to those who do not believe as me? Where? You mean to say that most of the people here, then, I would put to death? WOW!!

    How would I do that? Why would I do that?

    I would miss all the fun and the jokes, likr DR LOUDMOUTH, MT, Darla and her partner in confusion, Frank..... hell who would be left to call me a douchebag? Would I have to do the same to Bush then as I would do to you?

    Or

    Is it happy hour in your home town?

    Posted by john maasch at 04/06/2007 @ 01:28am

37. "Posted by INDYMINDED 04/05/2007 @ 11:22pm '

    Let me guess....unemployed grad student who majored in "World Peace Studies without the US" and minored in "How the Economy should work but doesn't'?

    Posted by john maasch at 04/06/2007 @ 01:31am

38. "I will dare to say it: we deserve to be bombed. We deserve to have our delicate illusion shattered by daily explosions. We live in an insulated fantasy land in this country. We think that we can do whatever we want, no matter how it affects everyone else in the world."

    1. We were bombed.

    2. we did not deserved to be bombed.

    3. We live in the rreal world ...you live "in an insulated fantasy land ".

    4. We think we can and should do whatever it takes to protect our way of life and intersts, shores and people.

    If you disagree, and you have that right, then perhaps the US is not the place for you to be happy...call Chimi...he can hook you up...and hot babes. too.

    Posted by john maasch at 04/06/2007 @ 01:36am

39. And for Gods sake, bring MT and DR LOUDMOUTH with you...I'll pay for all 3 one ways..by bus.

    Posted by john maasch at 04/06/2007 @ 01:37am

40. Indy, I'll dare to say it...You should be hung from the nearest lamp post. I wonder which you hate most, America, or yourself.... Posted by DAVEBARLETT 04/05/2007 @ 11:47pm

    America means different things to different people. I love the America that is hard working, independent, not afraid, open and free to all people regardless of color/gender/sexual orientation/religious beliefs and true to the very ideals that it was founded upon (ie, the Constituon and the Bill of Rights).

    I HATE the "America" you defend. Fat, uneducated, untraveled, lazy, afraid, money-grubbing, fast food-stuffing, reality tv watching, walmart shopping, big ass truck driving, hypocritical bastards who think that putting a yellow sticker on their suv and supporting the president no matter what is what it means to be "american".

    Put yourself in the shoes of an average Iraqi right now and tell me whether or not you would hate us. We have screwed people for a very long time so we deserve to get screwed with too.

    """""Really? I have advocated death to those who do not believe as me? Where? You mean to say that most of the people here, then, I would put to death? WOW!!""""" Posted by JOHN MAASCH 04/06/2007 @ 01:28am

    You advocate hate, death, destruction, torture, war, violation of international and domestic laws, rape, murder evey time you speak up in defense of the current administration. You haven't answered any of my questions. How is this war making us safer? How does violating the Constitution make us safer? How are we better than "them"?

    Posted by IndyMinded at 04/06/2007 @ 07:00am

41. "...hell who would be left to call me a douchebag?" Posted by JOHN MAASCH

    Oh, I'm sure there is an endless amount of such people out there, you old lying coward.

    Posted by mtspence05 at 04/06/2007 @ 10:30am

42. Once upon a time, before the crooks, neo-cons and fundamentalists destroyed the Republican Party, nothing was more conservative than unwavering support for the limitations placed on government by the Constitution. Read Barry Goldwater. Ron Paul is the most courageous and steadfast supporter of our rights in the race for the Presidency. Nobody in Congress can match his record. That list of items was easy for him to sign. He supported those things all along for the last 30 years, even when no one else was listening. ronpaul2008.com

    Posted by Sam Marsh at 04/06/2007 @ 10:31am

43. How about that idiotic, Conservative, Republican John McCain.

    John McCain will be taken by Jesus Christ and thrown into the Lake of Fire, in Hell, where he will be Burned Alive for Eternity. John McCain is going to beg Jesus to let him die, but Jesus is not going to be that nice.

    John McCain has killed at least 21 innocent Iraqis because of his photo op in support of the disaster in Iraq based on Republican lies.

    John McCain will be taken by Jesus Christ and thrown into the Lake of Fire, in Hell, where he will be Burned Alive for Eternity.

    Posted by conshame at 04/06/2007 @ 10:53am

44. Matt.10 [28] And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

    JOHN MCCAIN

    Posted by conshame at 04/06/2007 @ 10:57am

45. This is one more example of the dangers of letting people with an agenda redefine your lexicon. If you are intellectually lazy enough to let someone else jam your belief system into a black/white, liberal/conservative template, you can be much more easily misled.

    The current administration has disrespected our democratic system at every turn. And while they have been abetted by both "liberals" and "conservatives" along the way, BushCo has repeatedly proven themselves to be anything but "conservative".

    I applaud anyone of any political stripe who considers it their duty to help put an end to the constitutional excesses of the Bush administration, NOW.

    You may now return to your regularly scheduled splashing of pee-pee.

    Posted by drhammer at 04/06/2007 @ 10:57am

46. DONT BE AFRAID OF BUSH, MCCAIN

    Luke.12 [5] But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.

    Posted by conshame at 04/06/2007 @ 10:58am

47. Just think what God will do to a Demon like John McCain.

    2Pet.2 [4] For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

    Posted by conshame at 04/06/2007 @ 11:00am

48. 4. We think we can and should do whatever it takes to protect our way of life and intersts, shores and people.

    If you disagree, and you have that right, then perhaps the US is not the place for you to be happy...call Chimi...he can hook you up...and hot babes. too.

    Posted by JOHN MAASCH

    "We"? No, you old lying coward, you're more than comfortable will allowing others to do the fighting, bleeding, dying.

    Posted by mtspence05 at 04/06/2007 @ 11:06am

49. If you are intellectually lazy enough to let someone else jam your belief system into a black/white, liberal/conservative template, you can be much more easily misled.

    Posted by DRHAMMER 04/06/2007 @ 10:57am

    Doc, doesn't that intellectually laziness cut BOTH ways. In the sense that many jump to "You're a right-winger!" if they disagree with their own personal template for what is or is not "conservative/liberal/black/white"?

    Posted by Mask at 04/06/2007 @ 11:06am

50. Posted by CONSHAME 04/06/2007 @ 11:00am

    See I always thought the "Religous LEFT" was a term for guys like Barry Lynn, Jesse Jackson, Father Berrigan...

    I never realized there was a "Religious Left" that was....just as nutty and fundamentalist as the Robertson/Falwell/Dobson Crowd!

    LOL!

    Posted by Mask at 04/06/2007 @ 11:07am

51. May I help in making a correction? Bob Barr is now a card carring Libertarian. Granted most leftist think Libertarians are conservatives, but we aren't.

    Secondly, this a great thing. Finally some folks are getting behind what some of us have wanted sense F.D.R came into his Tyrannical rule. Pretty much what this is saying, is the simple fact, that the Constitution is the law of the land. Including the 2nd, 4th, and 10th amendments. (For my constitutionaly challenged friends, thats..Right to Bear Arms, Private Property, and State Governments, Not Federal)

    Now, you ask why aren't Clinton, Edwards, and Obama not signing on? That's easy, because they love Government. Period. You don't have to look any further than their voting records and statements. "Federal Government is good, Individuals bad".

    That's the way my freedom, liberty loving eyes see it.

    Posted by RegularRon at 04/06/2007 @ 11:19am

52. The Republican Party: Harnessing the power of prejudice to hold back social progress.

    Posted by conshame at 04/06/2007 @ 11:19am

53. Posted by MASK 04/06/2007 @ 11:06am

    Sure. That's all part and parcel of the same misguided thought process.

    Posted by drhammer at 04/06/2007 @ 11:27am

54. Hey Mask, I know that you do not believe in God - if you did you would think twice before saying ANYTHING even seeming like its in defense of the Damned Idiot John McCain.

    John McCain KILLED, no less than 21 completely innocent Iraqis, with his photo-op. Maybe he is too dumb to know he was going to kill that many Iraqis with his stunt. But who says God doesnt damn the stupid?

    For Mask to speak in defense of John McCain would be inexcusable, even if you dont believe in God, BECAUSE JOHN MCCAIN JUST SENT 21 INNOCENT IRAQIS TO THEIR DEATHS. You really ought to clarify what you meant, because nobody with any conscience at all would stand up for John McCain's murder of no less than 21 Iraqis - completely innocent. 21 murders is anyones definition of a serial killer, and here you are being somewhat ambivalent about not-fully condemning at least 21 murders by John McCain.

    Posted by conshame at 04/06/2007 @ 11:34am

55. At minimum 21 murders by the crazed, demented, psychopathic, pathological, disgusting, pathetic, craven KILLER John McCain.

    Posted by conshame at 04/06/2007 @ 11:35am

56. "...hell who would be left to call me a douchebag?" Posted by JOHN MAASCH

    Oh, I'm sure there is an endless amount of such people out there, you old lying coward.

    Posted by MTSPENCE05 04/06/2007 @ 10:30am |

    Of this I have no doubt..probably all related to you...we are up to our asses in guys like you, I was wrong about condoms......we just keep on working and feeding you and keeping you alive to curse us for entetainmemnt and man, do you entertain....you should thank us...

    Employed yet?

    I am sure WINDYMINDED ISN'T.... I would love to watch him tell a truck driver that little speech....and see what happens..especially a union teamster...

    Posted by john maasch at 04/06/2007 @ 11:36am

57. Disturbed, maniacal, homocidal,

    Posted by conshame at 04/06/2007 @ 11:38am

58. Twisted, thuggish, malign,

    Posted by conshame at 04/06/2007 @ 11:40am

59. Posted by REGULARRON 04/06/2007 @ 11:19am

    Praise Jesus...a soul mate..

    Happy Easter.

    Posted by john maasch at 04/06/2007 @ 11:40am

60. Anti-American,

    Posted by conshame at 04/06/2007 @ 11:40am

61. Con,

    What have you done? What did you drink? That wind you are feeling in your face is resistance...you have fallen off the cliff.....you are in complete free fall..WOW!!!

    You just shoved your way into the KOOK section with a well deserved front row seat...with honors(maybe a blue propellar).

    Posted by john maasch at 04/06/2007 @ 11:42am

62. PSssst!! CONSHAME,

    Hint:

    McCAIN ain't no conservative and never has been...sssshhh

    Posted by john maasch at 04/06/2007 @ 11:44am

63. Posted by JOHN MAASCH 04/06/2007 @ 11:40am

    And a Happy Easter to you my friend.

    Posted by RegularRon at 04/06/2007 @ 11:46am

64. Posted by DRHAMMER 04/06/2007 @ 11:27am

    What kind of "thought process" you think happens inside CONSHAME's brain?

    Something mirror-imaged politically, but nearly identical to RIO BRAVO, I'd say.

    Posted by Mask at 04/06/2007 @ 11:46am

65. Posted by REGULARRON 04/06/2007 @ 11:46am

    BTW, I am of the opinion that BUSH(both of them) are of the same problem...

    Posted by john maasch at 04/06/2007 @ 11:52am

66. Posted by JOHN MAASCH 04/06/2007 @ 11:52am

    John, Bush and his Father are nothing more than Democrats in my eyes. Just remember what one of my hero's said..

    Barry Goldwater..."A Government Big enough to give you everything, Is Big Enough to take it all away."

    Compared to Bush Jr..."When someone hurts, Government most move."

    Sounds like something out of FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Nixon,Carter, and Clinton would have said in a speech.

    Posted by RegularRon at 04/06/2007 @ 11:58am

67. REGULARRON,

    I believe the Constitution was set up to protect us from Governemnt and to protect our private property..and it did so very well for 200 years and only a handful of sheets of paper...but now, I think it weighs 40 pounds and protects government from the people(Judges creating rights and laws from the bench, Congress taxcing our labors and presidents running amock)...and private propery? What would the Founding Fathers say about the eminent domain law recently "endorsed" by the Supreme Court...taking of ones property is OK if it generastes more taxes than what is already there!!!!

    And no protest by the MSM or even the the Repubs...the law still stands....no people in the streets...

    Whats the line.... "Keep the powder dry and come running to the sound of gun fire?"

    Posted by john maasch at 04/06/2007 @ 11:59am

68. Indy, I'll dare to say it...You should be hung from the nearest lamp post. I wonder which you hate most, America, or yourself......

    Posted by DAVEBARLETT 04/05/2007 @ 11:47pm | ignore this person

    channeling Martin Borman or Joseph Goebbels? just as I thought, Dreckschwein.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 04/06/2007 @ 11:59am

69. Posted by REGULARRON 04/06/2007 @ 11:58am

    YUP.

    Posted by john maasch at 04/06/2007 @ 12:00pm

70. Indy, I'll dare to say it...You should be hung from the nearest lamp post. I wonder which you hate most, America, or yourself......

    Posted by DAVEBARLETT 04/05/2007 @ 11:47pm | ignore this person

    channeling Martin Borman or Joseph Goebbels? just as I thought, Dreckschwein.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 04/06/2007 @ 12:00pm

71. Off topic, but since DD has decided THIS is the place to continue her "Who ya going to believe Nancy or your lying eyes" Tour....it's not "the WH" or "the right wing" who's saying that Pelosi is "misquoting" Ehud Olmert....it's Ehud Olmert---

    Jerusalem Post---Apr. 5, 2007 0:34 | Updated Apr. 5, 2007 18:34 PMO denies peace message to Assad By HERB KEINON

    The officials said Olmert had told Pelosi that he thought her trip to Damascus was a mistake, and that when she asked - nevertheless - whether he had a message for Assad, Olmert said Syria should first stop supporting terrorism and "act like a normal country," and only then would Israel be willing to hold discussions.

    Posted by MASK 04/05/2007 @ 4:35bm

    Er, seems to be whether one wishes to keep the war going or not... as to what one is willing to see.

    Pelosi says has hope, no illusions over Syria trip

    Mon Apr 2, 2007 5:19PM EDT

    By Nadim Ladki

    BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Monday she had "no illusions but great hope" for her talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad this week which she said would focus on the fight against terrorism.

    "When we go there we'll be talking about the overarching issue of the fight against terrorism and the role that Syria can play to help or to hinder ...," Pelosi told reporters after talks with Lebanese majority leader Saad al-Hariri.

    Pelosi said she would also discuss Syria's role in Iraq and its support of militant groups like the Palestinian Hamas movement and Lebanon's Hezbollah group.

    "We know that for some of those problems, the road leads to Damascus," Pelosi said. She strongly backed the establishment of a U.N.-sponsored tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 killing of ex-prime minister Rafik al-Hariri and said she would take it up with Assad, whom she will meet on Wednesday.

    A handful of Republican and Democratic politicians visited Damascus and met Assad in December after the bipartisan Iraq Study Group recommended a stepped-up diplomatic effort involving Syria and Iran to help calm the violence in Iraq.

    The Bush administration has resisted that recommendation.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 04/06/2007 @ 12:43pm

72. Posted by MASK 04/06/2007 @ 11:46am

    I was a little surprised by the Hellfire & brimstone, but I understand where CONSHAME'S coming from.

    When I learned about the 21 executions subsequent to the market photo-op, I felt an absolutely gut-wrenching combination of sadness and outrage. I immediately set about blogging about it, and discussing it real-time with anyone who appeared willing to engage me on the subject. I had an urgent need to vent, and I did so. I just didn't do it through a Christian filter.

    So I'm not sure I need to dissect the thought process that lead to this passionate flare-up in great depth.

    And I see no need to insult him by comparing him to RIO DE AGUA RESIDUAL.

    Posted by drhammer at 04/06/2007 @ 12:48pm

73. Employed yet? I am sure WINDYMINDED ISN'T.... I would love to watch him tell a truck driver that little speech....and see what happens..especially a union teamster...Posted by JOHN MAASCH 04/06/2007 @ 11:36am

    Further evidence of your violence. You are trying to put me into some kind of box that will make it easier for you to ignore my point and my questions. What if I am a black unemployed construction worker? What if I am a white teenaged girl in an ivy league college? What if I am an illegal Mexican migrant worker? Truth is truth no matter who speaks it.

    The truth is we have brought all of our trouble upon ourselves. We have let our government (so called conservatives and patheticly spineless democrats) run wild for too damn long. Now the lines have been blurred, and if we do not stand up together and take the power back, the next administration (dem or republican) will blur it more.

    Why shouldn't they? We are so blind and stupid. We give away all of our freedoms so willingly. We think freedom means having 100's of cable channels, a fast food joint on every corner and gas under $3.00 a gallon. We are pathetic and the world deserves to call us on it.

    Some people are just lazy. Give them an IV filled with orange soda, some doritos and a remote control and they will give away all their freedoms. And then there's people like you, douchebag. You are the problem. You are why we were attacked. You continue the cycle of revenge and violence. You would so willingly give up what we value most (or should value most) in order to feel tough, to make more money, or for the love of your butt-boy bush. I really don't know why you are so blind.

    Again, anwer my questions: define terrorist. How is this war making us safer? How is ignoring the constitution good for us? What makes our actions (preemptive war, torture, rape, murder, destruction, disregard of international laws, etc) any better then those of "our enemies"?

    Posted by IndyMinded at 04/06/2007 @ 12:49pm

74. Why no outrage at the animals who actually commited this barbaric butchering...?

    ..and we should leave immmediately and let these butchers have the entire country..so we can sit down with them and negoiate a peace or nuclear arms or an oil treaty?

    seriously?

    Or should we help hunt the animals down and dispatch them to paradise?

    Posted by john maasch at 04/06/2007 @ 12:54pm

75. Windy,

    "Some people are just lazy. Give them an IV filled with orange soda, some doritos and a remote control and they will give away all their freedoms. And then there's people like you, douchebag. You are the problem. You are why we were attacked. "

    I work to take care of my family, I do not eat much fast food on the corner, I relish my freedoms and don't want to give the govt anymore power over my indivivual life...I prefer Coke,I am not a Bush fan and there seem to be experts on this site for some reason on douching.

    I agree on the blurring of the lines between Dems and Repus...I don't agree with your premise. I do believe we have been under attack for 15 years and it will not go away whether or not we ever went into Iraq or not.

    I think we are attacked because we are percieved as weak and will fight amonst ourselves..I think we are attacked by people who believe, not think, but believe they can win and wish to set up a system by which, you, and me, are to be eliminated...

    and not because we have cable with 100 channels, or because we have fast food at the corner or because I work hard to make X and someone else make Y...it is because we are a Western Culture, and somehow in their way of thinking they are intent on ruling the world from how they see God wants them to...it is that simple....

    as with the Nazis...we are expendable.

    and by the US just "going home" will not change this story...

    Posted by john maasch at 04/06/2007 @ 1:05pm

76. Why no outrage at the animals who actually commited this barbaric butchering...?Posted by JOHN MAASCH 04/06/2007 @ 12:54pm

    I don't condone these acts for one second. But I understand them. I do not want them to happen again so I have put my emotions and feelings for revenge aside and given some thought as to why the hell anyone would blow themselves up in order to kill "innocent" people. WHY? WHY? WHY?

    The reason is that violence creates more violence. War on terror creates more terror. How would you feel if your sons were tortured and killed and your daughter was raped by an Iraqi soldier in our country to "liberate us"? Would you care one bit that their overall intentions were good (I believe our intentions are definitely NOT good)?

    Our actions just create more and more people who now, legitamately, have a serious score to settle with us. We have ensured that the violence WILL continue.

    We cannot continue with our rediculously wasteful and damaging way of life. The cost of our lifestyle is paid by the rest of the world, especially in the Middle East where we have screwed them many, many, many times. We have created the conditions that breed extremism and hate towards us. You say if someone screws with us we should screw with them. Well, that's all they are doing.

    You are on the road of hate, ignorance, superiority, and violence that will eventually lead to commiting "barbaric" acts. While you will probably have many reasons to not go any further than some specific point (maybe family, upbringing, morals, etc), you are still on the same path as those you claim to fight against. What we have done is take away all of those preventative things for the people in the Middle East. We take away their family, their livelihood, their homes and their dignity.

    That is why they want to hurt us. It's the same reason you think they should be punished. You are them and they are you.

    Posted by IndyMinded at 04/06/2007 @ 1:19pm

77. "Why no outrage at the animals who actually commited this barbaric butchering...?"

    Posted by JOHN MAASCH 04/06/2007 @ 12:54pm

    To assert that CONSHAME'S post implied that he (?) feels no outrage at the executioners themselves is bullshit, and you know it. Being outraged by such an evil terrorist act, and being incensed by the clear evidence that it was spawned by the actions of a monumentally foolish campaign whore trying to spoon-feed the electorate a huge portion of alternative reality, are not mutually exclusive.

    Posted by drhammer at 04/06/2007 @ 1:19pm

78. Your belief that they want to take over our country stems from an American bias. That is what we want to do. We are the leaders of the world and we are setting the example.

    Posted by IndyMinded at 04/06/2007 @ 1:21pm

79. But...WILL the Democrats step up to restore check and balances...if it's a Democrat in the Oval?

    or will that fear subside a bit, knowing that a "good guy" (or gal) has got the power and it's "not so bad now"???

    Posted by MASK 04/05/2007 @ 2:47bm

    Google Results 1 - 10 of about 1,070,000 for democrats say bush unconstitutional. (0.11 seconds)

    House Democrats Say FY 2006 Budget Reconciliation Law Unconstitutional ... Eleven House Democrats on Thursday said they would file suit against the Bush ...

    www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=42460

    Bush challenges hundreds of laws - The Boston Globe Defenders say the fact that Bush is reserving the right to disobey the laws does not ... provisions of the Patriot Act, several Democrats lodged complaints. ...

    www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/ 2006/04/30/bush_challenges_hundreds_of_laws/

    BluegrassReport.org: Obama Visits Louisville To Help Local ... Barack Obama hammered away at President Bush's Iraq policy Thursday night, ... will recognize her tacit support of Bush's unconstitutional behaviors that go ...

    www.bluegrassreport.org/bluegrass_politics/ 2006/09/illinois_senato.html

    FEC Democrats say Bush exceeded legal spending limits during 2004 ... FEC Democrats say Bush exceeded legal spending limits during 2004 campaign ... Since the FEC is unconstitutional, I see no problem with anyone ignoring it. ...

    reddit.com/info/1cgjw/comments

    village voice > news > Nat Hentoff: Hillary Clinton Wakes Up by ... Hillary Clinton Wakes Up. Bush becomes commander in chief of Congress. ... to pretend to correct Bush's unconstitutional military commissions at Guantánamo, ...

    www.villagevoice.com/news/0643,hentoff,74798,2.html

    Pelosi: No Blank Check For Bush In Iraq, CBS News Exclusive: New ... Pelosi hinted that Democrats could deny funding if Mr. Bush seeks additional troops. ... "It's unconstitutional to say, you can go, but we're going to ...

    www.cbsnews.com/stories/ 2007/01/07/ftn/main2335193.shtml

    Sen. Russell Feingold: Bush's Warrantless Wiretapping Program is ... What Hillary Clinton Doesn't Know About Palestine. January 4, 2006. Ron Jacobs ... Bush's Warrantless Wiretapping Program is Illegal and Unconstitutional ...

    www.counterpunch.org/feingold02082006.html

    Conyers-Kucinich Bill Challenges Bush on Unconstitutional Military Tribunals ... Critics of the administration say Bush's order authorizing the tribunals ...

    archive.democrats.com/preview. cfm?term=Military%20Tribunals

    Democracy Now! | "A Total Rollback Of Everything This Country Has ... It is unconstitutional. It is un-American. It is designed to ensure the Bush-Cheney administration will never again be embarrassed by a United States ...

    www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/29/150254

    The War Profiteers - Bush Fleshes Out Iraq Strategy Details Pelosi and Reid told Bush in a letter last week that Democrats oppose additional U.S. ... "It's unconstitutional to say, you can go, but we're going to ...

    www.expose-the-war-profiteers.org/ archive/media/2007/20070107.htm

    John Edwards for President-Edwards Calls For Attorney General ... Chapel Hill, North Carolina - Senator John Edwards released the ... the Patriot Act to the unconstitutional imprisonment of the Guantanamo Bay detainees and ...

    johnedwards.com/news/press-releases/20070313-gonzales/

    CNN.com - NSA eavesdropping program ruled unconstitutional - Aug ... The Bush administration defended it as a necessary tool in the battle against ... as Democrats have raised objections to a number of its key components. ...

    www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/ 08/17/domesticspying.lawsuit/index.html

    Posted by hsuBfools at 04/06/2007 @ 1:22pm

80. It was stated earlier and I agree totally. We must stop believing that labeling something liberal or right-wing can accomplish anything. This is a game with which those in real power keep us fighting amongst ourselves.

    Posted by IndyMinded at 04/06/2007 @ 1:24pm

81. A problem/issue never before on the horizon-- emerges:

    Diageo/Hotline Poll conducted by Financial Dynamics. March 29-April 1, 2007. N=800 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 3.5.

    "Now I'm going to read to you a list of issues that the U.S. Congress may address. Which one of the following issues do you think should be the top priority for the U.S. Congress to address: [see below]?" If "All": "If you absolutely had to choose, which one issue would you say should be the top priority?"

    War in Iraq____________________________26

    Health care____________________________13

    Immigration____________________________9

    Economy/Jobs/Unemployment_____________9

    Social Security/Medicare__________________8

    Terrorism/Homeland security______________8

    Education______________________________6

    Gas prices_____________________________4

    The actions of the President___________3

    The environment________________________1

    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    CBS News/New York Times Poll. March 7-11, 2007. N=1,362 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.

    "What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?" Open-ended

    War in Iraq___________________________29

    Economy/Jobs_________________________8

    Health care____________________________8

    Immigration___________________________5

    Education_____________________________5

    Terrorism (general)_____________________4

    Foreign policy__________________________3

    President Bush_____________________3

    Posted by hsuBfools at 04/06/2007 @ 2:01pm

82. 2 to 1 more repubs feel it's better that the dems won a majority in congress than dems feel it was worse that dems won a majority...

    Cook Political Report/RT Strategies Poll. March 29-April 1, 2007. N=807 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 3.5 (for all registered voters).

    "Democrats gained majorities in the House and Senate in the 2006 elections. Do you think that the new Democratic majority in Congress is doing better, worse or about the same as the Republican majority that was in power before them?"

    Better____Worse____Same_____Unsure

    ALL reg. voters

    __28______18________44________10

    Republicans

    __4_______42________46_________8

    Independents

    __21______15________50________13

    Democrats

    __54_______2________36_________8

    Obscure, subtle-- but true.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 04/06/2007 @ 2:21pm

83. And the absolutely only reason we're in Iraq is 'for-profit' MIC BS and more people die everyday for this 'for-profit' MIC BS and the only reason we stay there is 'for-profit' MIC BS:

    "He took up residence there before we ever launched into Iraq, organized the al-Qaida operations inside Iraq before we even arrived on the scene and then, of course, led the charge for Iraq until we killed him last June," Cheney told radio host Rush Limbaugh during an interview. "As I say, they were present before we invaded Iraq."

    However, a declassified Pentagon report released Thursday said that interrogations of the deposed Iraqi leader and two of his former aides as well as seized Iraqi documents confirmed that the terrorist organization and the Saddam government were not working together before the invasion.

    The Sept. 11 Commission's 2004 report also found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network during that period.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 04/06/2007 @ 2:48pm

84. Give it up for Lvliberty everyone! He has been exciting the crowd with his "All who don't believe like me are lefties, liberals, democrats, and non-believers" one-man show for years.

    You are just a few more stupid comments away from my 'ignore this person' button you fool. There is no left or right you moron. There is only stupidity and ignorance that can be found in each and every group of people, no matter what they call themselves. You fat-head, you are the perfect example. You pollute those with whom you claim to identify with.

    You are worse than JM because you claim to be a pastor. You claim to be a religious person yet you are all for war, torture and murder. I'm sure Jesus would be very proud to have you by his side.

    Posted by IndyMinded at 04/06/2007 @ 3:11pm

85. Case in point for the argument that America is doomed if a leftist ever is elected president.

    Posted by LVLIBERTY1 04/06/2007 @ 2:55bm

    A good reason to get rid of the hsuB admin ASAP then:

    Bush's Socialist Disaster

    by Anthony Gregory

    Republicans have long dabbled in socialism, and our current president is no exception. His Medicare bill, his farm subsidies, and his enormous expansion of federal education spending all amount to "third-way" economic programs that constitute the injection of socialism into a capitalist economy. Social democracy, as Hayek observed, will inevitably push society towards serfdom and totalitarianism, and Bush is guilty of horrendous domestic policies in that direction.

    Bush's most disastrous socialist policy has been the war in Iraq. It has all the makings of economic central planning, and all the ill symptoms as well. No general criticism of government intervention in the economy fails to apply to his adventure in Mesopotamia.

    First off, this war, like almost all wars in history, has been funded through the coercive method of taxation – the forceful transfer of wealth to the tune of more than one hundred billion dollars from the private sector, from the hands that earned it, into the government sector. Libertarians and true free market advocates must oppose any such large coercive redistribution of wealth. Right at the beginning, only considering funding, the Iraq war is as immoral as any welfare program that steals from some to give to others. Furthermore, it suffers under the same economic incentive limitations: there is no reason for government to spend the money efficiently, because it can always use force to take more; there is no incentive for it to succeed in its ostensible goal, because then it loses its rationale for funding.

    It is telling that Bush and Kerry can't even agree on how much the Iraq war has cost the taxpayers. The true cost of government programs is often difficult to measure, almost impossible.

    And yet, funding of the Iraq War is only the beginning of its socialist qualities. The entire endeavor has been an attempt by the US government to centrally plan an entire sector of economic activity. The shortages of body armor and weaponry, the misallocation of massive resources, the failure to protect oil refineries and to predict rising costs of occupation – these were all inevitable symptoms of an attempt to centrally plan such a large undertaking.

    What's more, "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was always meant to involve more than a simple military victory over a foreign regime. It was meant to replace it, and to substitute Saddam's authoritarian regime with US central planning of an entire country's political economy. Conservatives brag about schools being built, electricity being installed, and water running, while liberals point out, correctly, that such infrastructure is laughably far from completion. Basic features of any modern civilization such as lights and running water become hard enough for governments to manage on their own soil; when one government attempts to plan and carry out the construction and maintenance in a foreign land, with almost uniform local opposition to such paternalistic meddling, it is predictable that such projects will be riddled with failure, incompetence, corruption, and inefficiency. That so many conservatives think it is the proper role of the US government to plan the Iraqi economy, to build Iraqi schools and manage Iraqi utilities, alone demonstrates their failure to grasp the limitations of socialist central planning. That they are convinced the US government is doing such a laudable job abroad in these activities, which they often consider beyond the proper role of government at home, demonstrates how delusional and hypocritical they have become. Blinded by war glory and partisan loyalty, yesterday's moderate advocates of domestic free markets have become today's loudest sycophants for US socialism projected abroad.

    The US military and its sponsored regime in Iraq have established numerous socialist goals and policies. They have censored the press, attempting to centrally manage the opinions and speech of the Iraqi people. They have instituted curfews and circumscribed towns in barbed wire, attempting to centrally plan the movement of the Iraqi people, as if the whole country were a prison. They have imposed an income tax and gone door-to-door confiscating guns, and have pursued numerous other policies with all the economic limitations and immorality of comparable policies in America, except without the tacit consent of the people being ruled. Without legitimacy in the minds of Iraqis, US socialism in Iraq is bound to fail even worse than at home, where there is at least pervasive acceptance, however passive, of that same government.

    Look no further than the new Iraqi constitution to discover whether this war is socialism. Aside from some obvious contradictions and hypocrisy, as well as goals of central management far more ambitious than what the Ba-athist regime attempted in its rule of the country, the constitution contains numerous socialist tenets that any conservative who supported this war must face:

    "The individual has the right to security, education, health care, and social security. The Iraqi State and its governmental units, including the federal government, the regions, governorates, municipalities, and local administrations, within the limits of their resources and with due regard to other vital needs, shall strive to provide prosperity and employment opportunities to the people."

    Whereas in the United States, most conservatives recognize that the government can neither effectively nor legitimately be charged with providing employment and healthcare to the American people, that same government has established a puppet government in Iraq that aims to achieve those very same socialist goals, only this time many conservatives cheer. Of course, these are utopian aspirations, not only given the inability of socialist systems to allocate resources efficiently, but also considering the reality of Iraqi life right now. The country is in the throes of chaotic bloodshed and on the brink of civil war. It is a delusional fantasy to establish healthcare as a positive legal right where the rule of law is not even sufficient to protect the rights of life, liberty and property. Indeed, most Iraqis consider the US-backed regime in Iraq to be the gravest threat to their rights, and so long as it remains, its egalitarian constitution notwithstanding, the "Iraqi state and its governmental units" will probably find the "limits of their resources" tied up in combating insurrection. The only way the government can manage healthcare in Iraq, let alone the schools and utilities, would entail further massive transfers of wealth from Americans to Iraq. Again, what conservatives might find a distasteful use of their tax dollars in America, they defend in another country, probably because they can't see firsthand the futility and damage done by such central planning.

    Of course, the US military engagement in Iraq has had one symptom far more egregious than even the hundreds of billions of dollars wasted and copious property destroyed: the loss of thousands of priceless, irreplaceable human lives. More than a thousand Americans have so far died in this ludicrous war. Tens of thousands of Iraqis appear to have paid a similar price. Uncounted human beings on both sides have been mortally wounded.

    These calculations are just statistics in the minds of the central planners – if even that. Wolfowitz was caught off guard months ago and didn't even know how many of his countrymen and women had died for his great experiment in Iraq. The Pentagon doesn't even attempt to keep accurate numbers for Iraqi fatalities. The loss of human life in a war, in numeric terms, is only of interest to the war makers in the crudest sense: for the weighing of strategic and tactical military successes and blunders. And yet, even in these crude terms, our rulers fail to keep up with the numbers.

    Human life is the most precious thing on earth, at least as far as most humans regard their own lives. The value is immeasurable, and entirely subjective from the point of view of those living and dead. When someone dies in another country from natural causes, it has no bearing on a stranger living here, and yet for the dead it literally means losing everything; for his family it can mean the entire world. The many thousands dead in the Iraq war can mean a lot to those Americans sympathetic and interested in the news, US foreign policy, and the uses of their tax dollars. But even those of us who consider such tragedies financed by our taxes to be particularly horrifying cannot begin to imagine what it would be like to lose a loved one in a destructive war, unless we have lost one ourselves.

    Government programs can't take in account the importance of a single human life, let alone the significance of thousands of such lives. The same government programs that lose millions, billions and even trillions of dollars to waste – money that would have been infinitely more productive value in the private sector – can't be expected to factor human lives into their operations in any meaningful way. The cruelty and disdain of socialist governments toward human life, most notably the full-blown socialist governments of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler and others, is something with which we are all familiar. And yet, even the smallest introduction of socialism into a relatively free economy is the difference between life and death for many human beings who are but faceless statistics, if even that, so far as the central planners are concerned. The Food and Drug Administration is one of the best examples of such antipathy toward human life in the American domestic sphere. As Robert Higgs points out, the FDA doesn't even maintain estimates of how many people it kills or supposedly saves. The best example we have now of such bureaucratic apathy toward human life, in US foreign policy, is the war in Iraq.

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory38.html

    Posted by hsuBfools at 04/06/2007 @ 3:44pm

86. It must also be remembered that the Iraq war is part of a larger socialist scheme to use US government force to remake the entire Middle East and all "terrorist-sponsoring" states into a friendlier mold. As the occupation yields more American casualties every month, the war advocates insist that the problem is not enough funding, and that the neighboring countries sponsor terrorism, allowing insurgents to cross the border into occupied Iraq. The answer, of course, is more funding and to spread the same type of war and occupation to adjacent locations. More funding is the same answer we always hear from the left when we point out the dilapidated public schools and defunct government healthcare programs. Extending the program to neighboring places is the same answer we hear when we point out the failures of rent control and gun control. It is no coincidence that the conservatives insist their own pet socialist project will work, once it's expanded and extended. Thankfully, the government can only do so much.

    The silver lining, as every libertarian thinker from Mises to Rand has understood, is that, in the long term, the inherent incompetence and inefficiency of central planning limit the scope of socialist disaster. Centrally planned systems are bound to fail, eventually. Without these economic limitations, nothing would stop governmental apathy or even outright contempt toward innocent human life from translating into infinite suffering on the part of the victims of socialist central planning. How many more millions would have fallen victim to the Soviet Union if communism worked? How many more thousands would die in the Middle East if the US government could effectively manage the affairs of other countries? The black market was all that kept many people alive in the USSR, and the same was probably true for Iraq during the 1990s when the US-UN sanctions deprived so many of food and medicine. It is a bright side that government's evils will always be restrained by its own incompetence.

    We have some reason to hope when we see that, just as all socialist programs eventually collapse under the weight of their own lack of sustainability, the war in Iraq is steadily heading towards its conclusive failure. How tragic that so much was lost to see the same inevitable lesson that other wars, and other socialist programs, should have taught us all by now.

    October 20, 2004

    Posted by hsuBfools at 04/06/2007 @ 3:48pm

87. So now I am wrong because I don't say that I am a liberal?

    How do you communicate with someone who takes as LITERAL the writings of some guys thousands of years ago, translated and retranslated over and over and over, changed to fit some idiot's needs, then retranslated again? What do you say to someone that does not need evidence, does not need to even leave his house, in order to have all of the answers to every single problem in the world? What could I possibly say to someone who would only listen if I was a burning bush?

    You are a murdering, lying, ignorant, hypocritical dick. That is the only thing I want to say to you. The time to communicate with the insane is over. The stereotypical liberal wants to listen to everyone's point of view and be inclusive. I don't care to hear from you ever again you sanctimonious fool.

    War is torture and murder you idiot; it's just a matter of point of view. That is the problem with you evil people....you always assume you are on the side of the righteous. You can kill innocent people as long as it's in the name of God.

    You gladly support this administration who tortures, murders, destroys, breaks international laws, lies, cheats, and makes a mockery of the christian religion. You gladly do this in order to make sure abortion is illegal (not gone, only against the law), gays are persecuted, people don't have sex before marriage, or any number of other insignificant and short-sided legislation is passed. By supporting them, you are a murderer, you are a rapist, you are a terrorist.

    Posted by IndyMinded at 04/06/2007 @ 4:00pm

88. I M,

    Don't mind LVL, he's the devil and don't even know it.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 04/06/2007 @ 4:12pm

89. You need not look further for evel than LV and people like him. HIS god is the only true god. If you don't believe in HIS god than you will be damned by HIS god FOR ETERNITY. HIS god believes in war, but only the kind of war where no "innocent"people get hurt, only the heathens who don't believe like HE does. Hey LV, Though shalt not kill you bastard!

    HE is right because of what HE believes and no matter what HE does it's OK because he is following the ONE TRUE GOD. Don't try to convince him to look any further than one book for any answers. Not even the book though, since much of it is filled with BS like you are allowed to sell your daughters and slavery is AOK. So people like him choose to cherry pick things out of the bible in order to advance their own sick and twisted agendas. We need to start calling Bullshit when we see it.

    Hey LV, you are just like "the terrorists". Can you not see that!! Really?!!! You just say Jesus instead of Allah.

    Posted by IndyMinded at 04/06/2007 @ 4:34pm

90. Case in point for the argument that America is doomed if a leftist ever is elected president.

    Posted by LVLIBERTY1

    No need to sweat that: Corporate America would never bankroll a leftist candidate; neither party would allow a leftist to win its primary; any third party candidate would be shut out of the process and vilified by the corporate owned media.

    Posted by mtspence05 at 04/06/2007 @ 5:34pm

91. but liberals who found ALGORE whimpy, goofy, unpresidential, dim whitted and rightly so. - maaaasch

    Oh, PULEEEZE. Grow up.

    Al Gore went to Vietnam while bush chased whores and booze in Houston.

    Posted by Dr Decibels at 04/06/2007 @ 5:51pm

92. Case in point for the argument that America is doomed if a leftist ever is elected president.

    Posted by LVLIBERTY1 04/06/2007 @ 2:55pm

    Too late, we've already been doomed by Wonderboy George. Your right wing hero. The draft dodging wimp.

    Posted by Dr Decibels at 04/06/2007 @ 5:55pm

93. But don't worry, after we finish cleaning house in '08, we'll fix everything you fools screwed up.

    AGAIN.

    Posted by Dr Decibels at 04/06/2007 @ 5:57pm

94. LvLiberty-America has had leftist presidents and we weren't doomed by their existence.Bush is one of the worst this country has had and we'll survive him.

    Posted by i'm nobody at 04/06/2007 @ 6:00pm

95. Posted by HSUBFOOLS 04/06/2007 @ 12:43pm

    Wasn't the point of the story, HSUB....point was...Pelosi wasn't HONESTLY stating what Olmert said and she was caught. Nancy doesn't get to speak for Israel OVER what Olmert, the elected leader, says.

    Posted by HSUBFOOLS 04/06/2007 @ 1:22pm

    On this....I KNOW the Dems and libs have SAID they want to roll back the Bush excesses....but will they DO anything about it when THEY get all the power?

    Again, my bet....$1000 that if we get a Dem Prez and Dem Congress in 2009....90% of the USA Patriot Act is still intact (as is) by 2012.

    Posted by Mask at 04/06/2007 @ 7:49pm

96. Pelosi wasn't HONESTLY stating what Olmert said and she was caught. Nancy doesn't get to speak for Israel OVER what Olmert, the elected leader, says.

    Posted by MASK 04/06/2007 @ 7:49pm

    You're not honestly reading the other side of the story that was misrepresenting what she was saying. Your story was leaving out the Isreali condition Pelosi clearly stated that was needed to move towards peace. A story in keeping with your method of debate which literally mangles the truth, cherry picks it to death, rendering the few bits of the truth left on it's bloody head, pulling its wings off, tortured, then you pronounce it pure and infallible. You are truely a new/old con.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 04/06/2007 @ 10:29pm

97. On this....I KNOW the Dems and libs have SAID they want to roll back the Bush excesses....but will they DO anything about it when THEY get all the power?

    Posted by MASK 04/06/2007 @ 7:49pm

    I bet you $1000 dollars you will continue to be a dishonest debater, use repub new con talking points, mangle the truth, and will attempt debating future events per losing most if not all of the current ones.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 04/06/2007 @ 10:36pm

98. I want to thank Ron Paul for defending the US Constitution from the day he swore to he would do so. We need to stop bickering on this board and direct that attention to getting this man elected.

    Posted by negemo at 04/06/2007 @ 11:03pm

99. ...when (Pelosi) asked - nevertheless - whether he had a message for Assad, Olmert said Syria should first stop supporting terrorism and "act like a normal country," and only then would Israel be willing to hold discussions.

    _______________________ + __________________________

    (Pelosi) said the meeting with the Syrian leader "enabled us to communicate a message from Prime Minister Olmert that Israel was ready to engage in peace talks as well."

    _______________________ = __________________________

    Syria's sincerity about stopping support of terrorism and to "act like a normal country,"

    Posted by hsuBfools at 04/06/2007 @ 11:11pm

100. You just shoved your way into the KOOK section with a well deserved front row seat...with honors(maybe a blue propellar).

     Posted by JOHN MAASCH 04/06/2007 @ 11:42am | ignore this person

     this from the man who just spent the last three days coming to the conclusion he just HAD to Spence on ignore...

     ...because all he kept doing was calling John names and issuing insults.

     Vintage Archie Bunker.

     hehe!

     Posted by Lillian at 04/07/2007 @ 12:06am

101. which wars did jesus support again?

     Posted by Will C. at 04/07/2007 @ 02:05am

102. I must have missed that one

     Posted by Will C. at 04/07/2007 @ 02:06am

103. Posted by HSUBFOOLS 04/06/2007 @ 11:11pm

     If I said to Nancy Pelosi "Tell HSUB, I'll say he was right about everything the minute you issue bills of impeachment and the Senate removes Dubya from office."

     And she goes to you and says "MASK is ready to say you were right about everything"....a WEE bit of difference exists...hehe

     Posted by Mask at 04/07/2007 @ 08:56am

104. Seriously, Mr Nichols needs to pop in and post a new article and knock this EMBARESSING one off the front page.

     Pelosi shown to have FLUBBED what she claimed Olmert said....and the British hostages now speaking out as to their REAL treatment by the Iranians....

     and John Nichols is STILL talking about great everything went?!?!?!

     Posted by Mask at 04/07/2007 @ 09:00am

105. Mask-Were you there when Pelosi and Olmert met?Are you aware that Olmert is a huge Bush supporter who has strong motive to set her up to look bad?It is difficult to believe that Pelosi would set herself up knowing that Olmert would deny he said it if ,in fact,he hadn't said it.

     Posted by i'm nobody at 04/07/2007 @ 11:13am

106. If I said to Nancy Pelosi "Tell HSUB, I'll say he was right about everything the minute you issue bills of impeachment and the Senate removes Dubya from office."

     And she goes to you and says "MASK is ready to say you were right about everything, because we've drawn up the articles...." WEE no bit of difference exists...hehe

     Posted by MASK 04/07/2007 @ 08:56am

     Mask-- you're use of propagandistic techniques and disingenuousness, as always, is conforting in it's consistency.

     Posted by hsuBfools at 04/07/2007 @ 12:18pm

107. Pelosi says has hope, no illusions over Syria trip

     Mon Apr 2, 2007 5:19PM EDT

     By Nadim Ladki

     BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Monday she had "no illusions but great hope" for her talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad this week which she said would focus on the fight against terrorism.

     "When we go there we'll be talking about the overarching issue of the fight against terrorism and the role that Syria can play to help or to hinder ...," Pelosi told reporters after talks with Lebanese majority leader Saad al-Hariri.

     Pelosi said she would also discuss Syria's role in Iraq and its support of militant groups like the Palestinian Hamas movement and Lebanon's Hezbollah group.

     "We know that for some of those problems, the road leads to Damascus," Pelosi said. She strongly backed the establishment of a U.N.-sponsored tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 killing of ex-prime minister Rafik al-Hariri and said she would take it up with Assad, whom she will meet on Wednesday.

     A handful of Republican and Democratic politicians visited Damascus and met Assad in December after the bipartisan Iraq Study Group recommended a stepped-up diplomatic effort involving Syria and Iran to help calm the violence in Iraq.

     The Bush administration has resisted that recommendation.

     Posted by HSUBFOOLS 04/06/2007 @ 12:43pm

     Posted by hsuBfools at 04/07/2007 @ 12:21pm

108. Here's a DO legal project

     http://www.prosefights.org/nmlegal/voidjudgments/voidjudgments.htm#void

     as opposed to writing more WORDS.

     Posted by billp at 04/07/2007 @ 12:30pm

109. I found this information from reading Lew Rockwell's site this morning. I usually jump in when I see the name Ron Paul and maybe Bob Barr. As a long time Republican, I worked with Barr when he tried to knock down the National ID cards. I was almost immediately put off when he came out so strongly against abortions. I'm a firm believer in limited government and individual freedoms and stormed out of the GOP when the religious right stormed in. I received a copy of Viguerie's "Conservatives Betrayed" and wrote him about it. I have such a fear of anyone claiming to be a Conservative because they seem to carry around a list of Prohibitions like banning abortions, gay marriages and death with dignity. Whatever happened to individual freedoms and the Bill of Rights! Has this combination been severed?

     Sandy Price www.capitolhillblue.com

     Posted by Sandy Price at 04/07/2007 @ 1:28pm

110. which wars did jesus support again?

     Posted by WILL C. 04/07/2007 @ 02:05am

     The Crusades....

     "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

     Mahatma Gandhi

     Posted by COProgressive at 04/07/2007 @ 3:09pm

111. Posted by SANDY PRICE 04/07/2007 @ 1:28pm

     I totally agree. The christian movement has been thoroughly misled, used and abused by a small group of so-called neocons. A few radical people have become the spokesmen for a whole, diverse religious group and have gladly traded in any credibility in order to get things like a ban on abortion and an ammendment against gay marriage.

     True conservatives should be outraged as well as true Christians.

     Posted by IndyMinded at 04/07/2007 @ 3:17pm

112. "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

     Mahatma Gandhi

     Posted by COPROGRESSIVE 04/07/2007 @ 3:09pm

     Exactly.

     Posted by hsuBfools at 04/07/2007 @ 4:31pm

113. Are you aware that Olmert is a huge Bush supporter who has strong motive to set her up to look bad?

     Posted by I'M NOBODY 04/07/2007 @ 11:13am | ignore this person

     IM, Mask is probably not even aware that the quotes he's been claiming came 'directly' from Olmert...didn't...they came from a 'spokesperson in Olmert's office'.

     Posted by Lillian at 04/07/2007 @ 5:25pm

114. Bob Barr, David Kenne and Richard Viguerie are conservatives??? I thought they were lefties! Right, LvLiberty?

     Posted by hhemwm at 04/07/2007 @ 9:10pm

115. Next thing I know you are going to tell me Chuck Hagel isn't a lefty either!

     Posted by hhemwm at 04/07/2007 @ 9:11pm

116. Or Dwight Eisenhower who warned us about that ole' military industrial complex.

     Posted by hhemwm at 04/07/2007 @ 9:12pm

117. What is so astonishing is not that a group of conservatives has the temerity to make these bold proposals, but that in the United States of America any of these proposals are even needed.

     Posted by Thunderstruck at 04/08/2007 @ 09:00am

118. Ron Paul is certainly the only person in Congress who has maintained his oath to protect and preserve the Constitution. Read more of the fine American at Posted by minorityofone at 04/08/2007 @ 11:38am

119. Ron Paul is certainly the only person in Congress who has maintained his oath to protect and preserve the Constitution. Read more of the fine American at www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul-arch.html

     Speaking as a follower of Christ, it is important for those of us who are Christians to educate ourselves on the orthodox anti-war position of historical Christianity. There is certainly a crisis in the Church in this country, which I believe centers about nationalism, rather than faith. Modern Christians are fed baby food in their churches and would rather be entertained than study the doctrines of the Bible. Like others duped by democracy, they look to government as an agent to make things better, if it is just in the right hands (any politician who talks about Jesus and prayer). True Christians cannot support an immoral, unjust war, nor should any true Christian in the military today obey any order to participate in such. To support this war as a citizen or a soldier is a great sin and reveals a lack of understanding of the teachings of the Bible.

     Posted by minorityofone at 04/08/2007 @ 11:40am

120. John Maasch and Regularron,

     Since you both seem to think that conservatism is synonymous with capitalism and that people who are concerned about equality and social responsibility somehow necessarily love government in place of God because regulation breaks the "natural law" of capitalism, I offer you the following observation:

     "As soon as state assemblies and Congress became captured by majorities favorable to regulr and frequent state intervention, the inconsistencies between the demands of capitalistic ideology and the demands of popular-rule ideology became clear. By the end of the nineteenth century the two were no longer reinforcing at all, and the entire constitutional epoch of 1890-1937 can be characterized as a dialogue between the two.

     "In the course of that dialogue, capitalism declined as an ideology and died as a public philosophy. It came to be called conservatism, but that is an incredibly obtuse misnomer that in no way contributes to an understanding of the decline. Capitalism never became conservative. It went into a decline because it became irrelevant and erroneous. The intellectual and theoretical core of the ideology became weakened by generations of belief in itself. Smith and the nineteenth-century liberal economists who followed him were not wrong; in fact, they still hold up for the phenomena with which their theories deal. Capitalist ideologuy became irrelevant and error-ridden because capitalist ideologues became disloyal to the intellectual spirit of liberal economics. Rather than risk incorporating the new facts of twentieth-century economics and society they closed their minds."

     -Theodore Lowi

     Posted by hhemwm at 04/08/2007 @ 1:38pm

121. Regularron,

     Criticize FDR all you want; you don't have to like him. But if you are going to go after people who expanded regulation, at least try and put it in its historical context and consider why it was deemed necessary by popular demand.

     Capitalism is not conservatism and popular rule is not fetishizing government. Quite the contrary.

     Besides, Bush and Reagan supporters should know better than anyone that both administrations expanded the federal government more than Carter or Clinton ever did. That is fact. Many conservatives still bemoan it.

     Posted by hhemwm at 04/08/2007 @ 1:40pm

122. As to the religious component, John Maasch, recognizing a higher authority than a government of men is not capitalist apologetics nor is it a demonstration that the message of Jesus is an endorsement of the "invisible hand" of capitalism. To suggest so is just bad history.

     Adam Smith's theory may liberate men and women from bureaucratic control but it is the spirit of the people that invites a social contract to mitigate the inequalities of capitalism. People come together to try to mitigate the unforeseen effects of their own behavior. We have government because we don't want to live in a chaotic "state of nature."

     You certainly would not suggest that government and faith cannot coexist because you, for one, believe in a higher order. In other words, you accept "order." What faith does is make the individual experience of the world meaningful and beyond the bounds of another man's laws or rules. Faith gives a person the ability to dissent.

     But faith cannot be appropriated by bad history. You can make Jesus endorse anything you want, but your world becomes ever more fragmented when you see the myriad things Jesus never spoke of happening around you. Faith is flimsy when it is too caught up in the temporal moment and becomes the tools of politics ie. the endorsement of parites and economic approaches to public policy.

     Surely your faith is not hemmed in by how you vote or your view of public policy. I am sure the world is far more complicated than filling spots on a spectrum of Right to Left.

     Posted by hhemwm at 04/08/2007 @ 1:48pm

123. Sure, if a set of ideas is sound in its programmed attempts to correct governmental error and/or misconduct, partisanship shouldn't inhibit progressives from signing on.

     Posted by lewwelge at 04/09/2007 @ 2:39pm

124. In a perfect world, there would be no need for laws. In a perfect world, people would always make the right choice. In a perfect world, people would never commit crimes or act in any way other than conducive to peace and harmony.

     Guess what? We don't live in a perfect world. Human nature forces us to submit to the authority of government in order to minimize the bad acts of humanity.

     Government regulation did not occur until actions of the wealthy ownership class created conditions that made such regulation necessary.

     Labor unions didn't spring up out of thin air; intolerable, inhuman and inhumane working conditions foisted upon the working class was the fertilizer for the labor movement.

     I'm sure every single person would gladly dismantle government and labor unions tomorrow if we lived in a perfect world.

     Sadly, we don't. Therefore, there will always be a need for some regulation and for collective bargaining.

     Tell you what - if the corporations agree to give up mistreatment of workers and the environment, the workers will give up their rights to fair treatment uinder the law and will forgo the structure of labor unions.

     Yeah...I didn't think so!

     Posted by Turk33 at 04/09/2007 @ 5:07pm

125. Yeah Turk, no perfect world here. A bit, no a lot less stark adverseness would be nice though, n'est-ce pas?

     Posted by lewwelge at 04/09/2007 @ 9:29pm

126. Maasch, Go FUCK yourself you obnoxious kool-aid drinking shit stain! You want to defeat some liberals why don't you try that shit on me. Grosse Pointe, Michigan. I'm sure you can find me in a coffee house and I'll be looking for a jackass with a flag-draped pick-up truck and a gun rack.

     Posted by Chris C at 04/10/2007 @ 12:11pm