Yeah, and if your a real libertarian, you might support multiple marriages between numerous men and women...which i agree on.
On that one, I don't. It's
very complicated when it comes to divorce.
No...prohibition, as in the feds telling you what you can, and cannot put in your body, when you make something illegal, you create a black market...and since buying in a black market is a federal crime in most developed countries, the only way to solve a dispute is with the point of a gun, so of course there is going to be violence when you make something illegal...anything illegal, especially drugs which have an addictive tendency.
Ok, I hadn't seen the definition used so broadly before. That's not something that the liberals and libertarians would agree on. And are you defining it as anything that gets made illegal or simply things that you can put into your body?
I mean the Second one, not the first one, the second one...the one that was really started under Clinton in operation dessert storm, and continued by the Bush administration.
And the Afghan War...this idea of nation building, and policing the world, has always come down to bite us in the butt. We made this fundamentalist into extremist when the USSR invaded Afghanistan. If you read the 911 commission report, our CIA considers our foreign policy as "blowback." It has unintended consequences.
Operation Desert Storm was the First Gulf War.
You're thinking of Operation Desert Fox which was in 1998 and nearly as separated from the Second Gulf War as it was from the First. It was a single event and we withdrew, only to invade with a complete ground complement nearly five years later. There had been a second bombing campaign months earlier, but it was against terrorists in Sudan and Afghanistan.
Predictably, both were laughed off by the Republicans who accused Clinton of manufacturing threats.
Not all police action or nation-building is doomed to screw up. Part of the problem in Afghanistan is not giving them non-military aid after the Soviets gave up on the invasion. Instead, we left them to pull together whatever sort of government and infrastructure we could. It wouldn't have done anything to make bin Laden more friendly with us, but it might have given the Afghans options besides the Taliban. The Taliban isn't particularly popular there, but there isn't much of an alternative - even now.
Our first police action in Iraq went fine (other than encouraging the Kurdish uprising) and the nation-building in Afghanistan was going smoothly until we decided to leave the job half finished. "Nation building" also worked out pretty well in the republics of former Yugoslavia although they are still struggling. What's burned us in the past is our tendency to build them as puppet states (or what looks like puppet states) or to fight proxy wars.
Yes...after many years of Democratic leadership...even under the Clinton administration...African Americans are still marginalized based on the color of their skin. Im not saying that the Republicans have been good, im just saying...the Democrats haven't been better.
I think the Congressional Black Caucus would disagree with you. The blacks haven't forgotten Nixon's Southern Strategy. Heck, Republicans are still using it. They're just using code words now.
The Republicans can get the Hispanic vote (or a sizable chunk of it) back pretty easily. Lots of Hispanics have fairly conservative values, but they get turned off by the anti-immigrant rhetoric - not that it's exclusive to Republicans, but the further right and Tea Party block are particularly virulent about it.
Srsly...wow...Democrats just lost that seat...and the filibuster majority...not to mention that some Democrats who lack guts...will look at this, and start running scared...so much for Michael Moore saying that the majority of Americans want socialized medicine...
Massachusetts citizens do have universal health coverage (which I assume is what you mean by socialized medicine even though it's nothing like it*) and their voters do support it. However, they already have it. This vote isn't going to change it. So how does that translate to a majority of all Americans, which includes voters in other states, don't want universal health coverage?
'Sides, there was a poll in early January that showed a lot of the opposition to the bill coming from those that didn't think it went far enough.
Obama and Congress have solid disapproval ratings on their performance over health care.
32% think that the bill goes too far in trying to provide universal coverage. 22% think it's just right. 35% think it doesn't go far enough.
24% think it goes too far in trying to control costs. 21% think it's about right. 39% think that it doesn't go far enough.
27% think that it goes too far in trying to regulate the industry. 18% think that it's just right. 43% think that it doesn't go far enough.
The rest in each case weren't sure or said it wasn't clear yet. In each case, it's a solid majority in favor of health care reform and in each case, they think that the Democrats are being too weak.
And yeah, I expect some Democrats to run scared. The problem with Democrats is that they don't have the courage to do what Americans want because they're afraid of looking bad or like they aren't being inclusive.
*Or was that what Michael Moore actually said? If so, you're still comparing apples to kumquats since socialized medicine was never on the table except in a very watered down form of a public option. I personally try to ignore him since he's ridiculously biased. He's about as bad as Fox News.
Edited by Nick Soapdish, 20 January 2010 - 04:32 AM.
