Democrats versus Republicans

[Sailormon6]

Originally Posted by danjarch

To me, it boils down to some simple issues. If some one disapears in America, her territories, or any where in the world, I want to know my government is doing what it can to find them. I don't want to even begin to belive that my government is the one who may have taking him, who may be holding hold him without charges, may be turturing him without a trial or access to other men who know the laws that he is accussed of breaking.

This is what seperates America from Iraq, Russia, Cambodea, Cuba, and plenty of other countries.

Dan, if the police arrested people in this country for committing a crime, then you're absolutely right that they should have the benefit of legal counsel, they should be promptly brought before a neutral magistrate, they should be advised of the charges against them, and they should be accorded all the rights safeguarded to an accused under the Constitution and laws of the US. But, that's not the fact situation we have here.

Most of these people are not being arrested and held as criminals. They're being captured, as enemy combatants in a war. The administration's position, and I generally agree with it, is that when you capture an enemy combatant, you don't have to charge him with a crime, or read him his rights, or provide him legal counsel. You only have to put him in a POW camp, and hold him, and prevent him from returning to the battlefield to kill your countrymen, and keep him until you are able to deal with him on a more permanent basis, usually by repatriation, but occasionally by charging him with war crimes.

In WWI and WWII and other wars, it was easy to understand and apply that concept. Most enemy combatants could be easily identified, because they wore uniforms, and they generally spoke a common language, and were citizens of one or two specific nations.

In this war, the enemy doesn't wear a uniform, might be from any number of different nationalities, and might be a pregnant woman or a child with a bomb strapped to him or her. In this war, the enemy even includes some of our own countrymen! What was clear in the past is not so clear now. These factors raise all sorts of novel legal questions. Courts don't deal in hypothetical questions. In order to address a legal question, there must be a specific fact situation before the court. The only way you can create a fact situation, so as to get a decision from a court, is to take someone into custody, and let him sue you. After the court decides a legal question, and both parties have had an opportunity to appeal it, then that issue is resolved. In the future, the government knows how it must deal with all persons who are similarly situated. That doesn't mean that all possible legal issues have been resolved. Only the specific issues are resolved that are presented by the unique facts of that particular case. That's the reasoned and methodical way in which new and unique applications of law are crystallized by the courts.

We must allow our President the latitude to raise these difficult legal questions and to require court decisions.

If you could sit in on a meeting between the President and his legal advisors, you would hear him ask them how he should deal with a specific legal situation. If that situation has been addressed by a previous case, then they'll tell him "This is the law. This is how you must deal with the situation." If there is no previous precedent case in which that issue has been resolved, then they can only tell him, "I don't know what the law requires. Based on my training and experience, I think a court would resolve the matter in a certain way, but that's just my opinion. If you'll ask the same question of a number of different lawyers, you'll undoubtedly get a number of different opinions." That's not an adequate answer to meet the needs of a President in conducting important national business. The only way to get those specific answers is to let someone sue you, and fight it out in court.

You have a choice. You can either have a President who wants to know the correct answers to these difficult questions, and who is willing to accept the criticism that he knows will flow from his pursuit of those answers, or you can have a President who would rather wallow in uncertainty, while basking in the warm glow of approval by his doctrinaire supporters. For my part, I want a President who wants the correct answers, and who is willing to take the heat needed in order to get them.

Government isn't nearly as uncomplicated as many people think it is, and it's certainly not evil. That was no less true of President Clinton than it is of President Bush. Although they have different thoughts about government and life and values, their concern for the welfare of America and Americans is paramount. Officials don't go to work each day thinking, "I wonder how I can violate the human and constitutional rights of people today." Their concern is with how they can solve the problems of their nation. That's what a liberal president would think, and it's what a conservative president would think, and it's what you and I would think. The people we elect are not that different from us.

I don't expect people to stop criticising President Bush. That's human nature, and it's their right. But, when they impute evil motives to the American government and to the President, they demonstrate the lack of a mature understanding of government and they make their own credibility suspect. It would be nice to see at least the more reasonable people among us dial the venom down a bit, but I don't really expect it to happen.

[RAGNAR]

hhh

[chucklesR]

Damn, I'm drawn like a moth to a flame..

The currrent uniformless enemy we are facing on the streets are to a large (and I might add, legal) extent the same as the partisans of WWII. They consider themselves either patriots defending their country or religious zealots defending something that to them is far more important than a country, their beliefs.
History is replete with what happens when religion turns violent. People burn. Almost every religion that includes a 'turn the other cheek' passage also includes a 'burn the infidel' or similar passage for folks not in your tribe.

In the past Partisans in war were stood up against the wall and shot by both sides. Often with family members watching, sometimes the family went to the wall first, sometimes after. Morals changes, life in the field does not.
Don't believe me, ask a few veterans. I grew hanging out in American Legions and VFW's. We shot 'em too. "I surrender" sounds a lot like "F*&^ you" when your buddy just got blown away.

It's nice to be able to hold on to quaint ideas of a peaceful world where no one wants to hurt you and you can play nice and share toys; that usually gets stomped out of kids sometime around kindergarten the first time the teachers aid turns her back. Some of you grow up and still believe that the rules live on the battlefield. That's all right - I agree you have the right to believe that - now get out of the way and let those of us that have a grip on reality save your silly asses so you can save the world in some later, post utopian world time and place
That time and place isn't yet, isn't now, and isn't likely in our lifetime, which is a shame for I should like to see it.

[sck5]

Dont forget the guys in Guantanamo who were scooped up by Afghan tribesmen when word got out that the Americans were paying cash for "al Qaeda members". It seems there was a fair bit of score settling and just outright fraud that went on with the result that there are an unknown number of just plain innocent people locked up and seriously mistreated.

This is exactly why we are supposed to have due process. This is exactly why in America people are supposed to be allowed to go before a judge and protest their innocence. Because some of them actually ARE innocent. As for the truly bad guys, sure, lock them up, but what did they think was going to happen when they starting offering dirt poor people thousands of dollars in return for live bodies? They went and found some live bodies!

[RAGNAR]

nnnn

[sck5]

On the Obama topic

Chucky and PB are right that Obama has been vague at best on a lot of issues (except Iraq where he has said pretty clearly he will at least start to get out as soon as possible). But on health care he actually does have a plan out there on his website (or so I hear, I havent actually read it, just accounts of it).

It is important to note that ALL of the Dems health plans share some common aspects:

1. They arent free. They are paid for by taxes just as Medicare is and Bush's prescription drug plan is.

2. It is, however, a mistake to pretend that this is all additional cost - The idea is to REPLACE the insurance you are now paying for at least in part. That is, everyone would get a guaranteed basic coverage that would make that basic part of your current insurance redundant, so that you would pay less for your current insurance or nothing at all for it if all you want is the basic coverage. If you want more you are free to get it, much like my parents have some sort of Medigap coverage to add to their Medicare.

Of course, if you LOVE your current insurance company, then by all means keep shoveling your money to them. They are using a third of it to hire people to find reasons not to pay your claims. I, for one, would really like to see those assholes out of business.

So there may be some additional cost or maybe not, since money will be saved by not paying the assholes to hire people to not pay our claims. Actually, countries which have systems like this pay less per capita for health care in taxes than we do in insurance premiums.

3. NONE of this means doctors or hospitals would be nationalized like the Brits or other countries which do this. There are plenty of countries where only the insurance is government, not the doctors. I cant imagine that happening here and nobody is proposing it anyway. So you can still go to any doc you want and can afford.

4. The government would be allowed to negotiate lower prices for drugs just like the VA does and the Canadians do. Why should we pay more for medicine than the Canadians do? I live close enough to Canada that I know people who do the three hour drive across the border to buy prescriptions - that were originally manufactured here!. That is just plain stupid to have to do that.

5. You worry about wait times? You dont wait here already? Check this:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/94080.php

or this

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=3322309

Or check this one from Business Week, which is certainly no left wing rag, and which says that WE wait longer than people do in other countries

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...8/b4042072.htm

So you may not like the idea of a better health insurance system than what we have now, but it is very likely to happen when Obama beats McCain like a drum!!!!!!!

[sck5]

chuckles

"moth to a flame"

I know. Why do I do it? You guys are just impossible to convince. Some are even amazing in the extremity of the things they say, even to the point of going beyond what the average sailnet rightwinger thinks. But its kind of like eating potato chips. Once you start ........

However, I think it is fun. And maybe you guys will benefit from talking to an actual lib rather than a hypothetical handwringing guilt ridden whiner. Or maybe not

[PBzeer]

So why, one may ask, have you determined you'll vote for Obama, when you, in essence, admit you don't really know what he stands for, other than the "audacity of hope". Or, to put it another way, do you vote for the candidate or the party?

[RAGNAR]

bbb

[chucklesR]

I don't try to convince I just unload If my reality can't be your reality I can deal with that myself and at least offer a chuckle or a sniffle depending on the topic.

As to insurance plans, I'm retired navy and pay nothing for my insurance today - I have in fact paid via 22 years of being underpaid and overworked. If you want me to pay for yours and others, join the military of refuse to take a job that does not offer health care at a reasonable rate. At 5% unemployment it is a workers market, use it like one.

It's not 'Bush's prescription plan' it is the compromise prescription plan that got a majority vote in the houses of congress after much lobbying and handwringing and changes. Nothing passed as law is one persons or one administrations anything.
Drug companies spend a lot on research to make those miracle drugs that make our lives good and livable (and even the ones that aren't so good), bring them to market etc..I for one would be dead many times over without the advances of just the past ten years (my health has been related in other threads often enough).
Those companies have a right to make a profit and a demand from shareholders that they make a good profit. Negotiating the price to a point where research stops or is stifled is self defeating. Surely you don't think Uncle Sam should be doing the funding for new drugs - that brings back the 30's when sulfa and penicillin were top of the line.
This is a society based on capitalism - not socialism. Socialism is one foot in the grave of communism - didn't we just prove that societies that base themselves on that are doomed to economic failure and third world status?

Since when did america become the world of 'gimme' instead of 'I can do that'? There are those that REALLY can not for themselves, sure I'll help them - but most of the mass of people getting checks from my taxes are just plain lazy assed bums looking for a hand out based on some percieved right to live as they see fit on the underside of society as dolee's. When the welfare system that is America is free of that I'll consider reconsidering, until then please keep your liberal - socialistic hands out of the pockets of my work stained, hard working pants pockets just because I have more than most. I earned it, it's mine - and that's an American attitude learned from my fore fathers.