[bgates]

ybc, that’s not a stat, it’s something you made up. There are at least 3 congressmen with children who have served in Iraq: Sen Tim Johnson, Sen Chris Bond, and Rep Todd Akin. That’s 3 out of 535, or just over 0.5%. By comparison, there are about 200,000 who have served in Iraq, and bgates

Participant

[bgates]

Deadzone, are you a pediatric oncologist? If not, why aren’t you opposed to children dying of cancer?

Does it take an expert to say that people who murder children and disembowl aid workers are evil?

It’s generally understood that your weak “why don’t you sign up” argument is a way to imply that the target of the attack is a coward. If that’s how you meant it, hey, we’re both in San Diego, why don’t you suggest a place we can meet so you can say it to my face?

[bgates]

That’s right. Our nation is not evil, because we punish criminals in our society, and apologize to their victims.

Individual Americans committed war crimes during the invasion of Europe in 1944. Were FDR’s forces no different than Hitler’s? I say they were different, because the Americans punished those who committed crimes, while the Germans celebrated them.

Sometimes police officers murder people, but the police aren’t evil because they punish criminals in their midst. Do you think the police and the mafia are indistinguishable? Who would you call if you were robbed?

[bgates]

Why do I get the feeling you would have voted against Lincoln in 1864 or FDR in 1944?

[bgates]

Socal, we have not ‘bombed an entire country’. If we had, there would be no more Iraq. Get a grip. I’m not trying to justify Bush here. I am not the one who started talking about Clinton’s record. Clinton is. And he lied about it.

[bgates]

socalalarm, we allied with Stalin in WWII. Does that mean Hitler wasn’t evil? Does it mean FDR and Churchill were?

[bgates]

We are trying to minimize the number of civilians killed. Our enemy is trying to maximize the number of civilians killed. We build schools. Our enemy kills teachers. And students. We imprison soldiers who remove the clothing of captive enemy combatants. Our enemy glorifies those who remove the heads of captives whether combatants or aid workers. We fight to give the Iraqis a chance to build a nation as free as ours. Our enemy fights to impose a totalitarian system where every action must conform to the commands of God – as defined by our enemy.

They are evil, we are not.

If Bush was only concerned with oil, it would have been a simple matter to broker a deal with Saddam the way the French and Russians had done. Failing that, we could have invaded Canada.

[bgates]

I had the opportunity to thank a wounded veteran for his service last week. First thing he said was, “no problem.”

Second thing he said was, “Don’t believe the media.”

Perry, this story is an attempt by the CIA to influence an election by leaking classified information. [McCain said he knew nothing about the report, because it hadn’t been released to the Senate.] If you were a patriot, that would bother you, no matter which party you supported.

You left out some of the McCain quote, by the way: “I would argue that we need to prevail in Iraq and that, if we fail, then our problems will be much more complicated,” McCain said.

[bgates]

If Clinton ‘really knows his stuff’, why did he repeatedly lie during the interview? Why does it never bother a Clinton supporter if Clinton lies? I’m not talking about foreign policy actions taken on the basis of flawed intelligence (like Clinton’s bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan), I mean situations like that interview where Clinton had to know the truth, about what Republicans said on the record during his administration, and chose to say the opposite.

Perry, Bush looks at an ideology that has followers who have murdered thousands, including civilians, children, and nuns, and called it evil. You scoff at that. That says more about you than about him.

[bgates]

Perry – “There’s a federal law requiring treating all emergency room patients regardless of ability to pay. That’s only a one time treatment, there’s no follow-up to chronic diseases at the doctor’s office.”

What prevents the uninsured from coming back to the ER for treatment of the chronic disease?

[bgates]

Clinton’s as brave for going on Fox as Bush is for going on ABC/NBC/CBS/NPR, ie not very. He gets tough questions. Big deal. A bigger deal is how dishonest his answers were (besides the ad hominem of trying to claim that the questions were suspect because they were asked on Fox). For instance, “And I think it’s very interesting that all the conservative Republicans, who now say I didn’t do enough, claimed that I was too obsessed with bin Laden.”
-that last is a tiny bit less ad hominem as it purports to be a factual claim, but it’s wrong. See transcript of noted rightwing news outlet PBS quoting Republican reaction to the 1998 bombing of Afghanistan and Sudan coincident with the Lewinsky scandal:
JIM LEHRER: Sen. Kyl, the right thing to do?
SEN. JOHN KYL, (R) Arizona: Yes, I support the president’s action, both because of the connection of Osama bin Laden to past terrorist activities, as well as the threats that he has made against Americans around the world in the future.
JIM LEHRER: Sen. Grams, how do you feel about it?
SEN. ROD GRAMS, (R) Minnesota: Well, I agree as well, and I think we needed to send a very strong and very clear message to terrorists around the world that Americans will not stand for this type of terrorist activity or terrorist threats, either the ones on the embassies in Africa recently, or any planned threats in the future. So I very strongly support this, and I think these raids were carried out, I hope, very successfully.
Likewise cnn reported that
House Speaker Newt Gingrich quickly sided with the adminstration, saying the president “did the right thing” by ordering the simultaneous attacks against facilities believed linked to terrorists suspected in the Aug. 7 bombings of U.S. embassies in east Africa.
“Just a few days ago in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, we saw what happens when people who hate America and hate freedom decide to kill Americans,” Gingrich said. “They did so in a way in which we have to respond.”
“We have every reason to believe that this terrorist organization will try to hurt other Americans,” Gingrich said.
Other key members of Congress also quickly voiced their approval for the decisive military action, including Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas), House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), and Sens. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).
…
Clinton’s 2006 claim about Somalia was “They [all the conservative Republicans] were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day after we were involved in Black Hawk down, and I refused to do it and stayed six months and had an orderly transfer to the United Nations.”
The truth reported by RW Apple of the New York Times was
“On Capitol Hill, such senior figures as Senator Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana, expressed support for the President’s policy [‘in the aftermath of heavy American losses in a United Nations military operation in Mogadishu’]. But there was also sharp criticism, with Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, calling for an immediate end to “these fatal cops-and-robbers operations,” and Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican who sits on the Armed Services Committee, stating bluntly, “Clinton’s got to bring them home.”
Is McCain the winger, or is it Byrd?

Perry, you are right that Bush was opposed to nation building in 2000. Does the fact that he changed his mind in response to events disturb your caricature of the rigid unchanging Republican?

[bgates]

Irony Watch:
I find that progressives are quite open minded and accepting of other people’s viewpoints.
[one sentence later…]
The preachers of America aren’t much different from the Mullahs of Islam.
[one sentence after that…]
I believe that the incident of sinful acts is sky high in conservative areas.

Interesting word, ‘believe’. Christians use it in reference to God, whose existence is beyond the ability of human beings to prove. Christians’ belief in something greater than themselves inspires humility and service to others.

Perry uses the word ‘believe’ in reference to crime statistics, which could be established as true or false if he wanted to take a minute to find the facts. His belief that conservatives are lesser than himself justifies his contempt.

[bgates]

PS, what clued you in that he’s white? Would you feel comfortable throwing around slurs against any other ethnicity?

[bgates]

Non sequitor du jour:
I’d hate to see a return to the kind of vigilantism that leads to public lynching.
Because that’s what led to lynching in 19th century Alabama, was not leaving crime fighting to the 19th century Alabama professional law enforcement community.

I can imagine you or FutureSDguy getting mugged:
instead of “Help! Help me!” you’d yell
“Return to your homes! Return to your homes and let the police take care of it!”

[bgates]

That’s a good point.

[Author]

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