Huckabee E-mail
The Republicans are starting to pull out all the stops, and I guess it's clear by now that I think right now we need a break from Republicans, so I wanted to take a shot at this e-mail from Huckabee, exhorting people to come out and vote in Republicans. He gives a list of the things "Republicans believe in". Let's take them one by one, shall we?
We believe in less government not more.
...unless you're talking about regulating behaviors (such as gay marriage) or military spending. Republicans believe in less social spending for those less fortunate, that's true, but when was the last time Republicans actually cut the size of government at all? In this, at least, I agree with Ron Paul.
We believe in cutting taxes.
True, but I believe in being fiscally conservative. That is NOT, in spite of what we've been led to believe, synonymous. I believe in cutting SPENDING, and then if you have a surplus, cutting taxes to give back the surplus. I believe only an idiot believes that cutting taxes raises revenues when taxes are at the rates they're at now, especially when the only example of anything like a balanced budget during the last 30 years was under a Democratic President.
We believe in a constitutional amendment to protect the right to life.
...and here we are back to that "less government" thing. They're not about less government, they're about more micro-control over behavior. Look, I don't like abortions, and I'd like to see them minimized as much as possible. And I'm even reasonably convinced that Roe v. Wade should be overturned, this feels like a states issue anyway. But I do not believe that making abortion illegal will significantly cut down on the number of abortions, it'll just drive them back underground, so that the abortions which do happen will be done without counseling, without guidance, and in a significant number of cases will result in the death of both fetus AND mother.
We believe marriage needs to be defended from activist judges and a Democrat Congressional Majority.
...of course, they don't seem to have any problems what so ever with the over 50% divorce rate in this country. Perhaps not Huckabee, but how a man who has two or three divorces under his belt can say with a straight face that marriage is sacred and must be defended when two other people wish to make a solemn commitment to each other I just don't understand.
The gay marriage hysteria is no different than the miscegenation hysteria of fifty years ago. I truly believe that in another 50 years, our grandchildren will look back on the homophobia of today with the same lack of understanding that most of us have for the interracial prohibitions back then.
By the way, Republicans also have nothing against activist judges, they merely want activist judges who will change the laws in directions they wish, including the mythical "original intent" we've heard so much about, but which has no actual basis in historical fact. I firmly believe that if we have judges and Justices who follow the ACTUAL original intent of our founding fathers, they would be labeled by the current Republican party as "activist".
We believe in drilling today, tomorrow and thereafter. We believe in alternative sources of energy.
No, actually it seems as though for the most part Republicans believe in drilling IN LIEU OF alternative sources of energy. And by the way, if the Republicans believed so strongly in more drilling, why didn't they do anything to open up the banned areas when they were in charge? They had control of both houses of Congress and the Executive Branch for quite a few years there, but only in the last two years since losing control of Congress is this suddenly a huge issue.
We need to begin looking at alternative, renewable and clean sources of energy, and we need to do it before we pass any irreversible turning points, whether that's the eventual end to the supply of oil (sooner or later we will run out, even if that's not for another 100 years or more) or the warming effect of the pollutants of the petroleum based economy.
I've said this before, there simply is no credible reason to think that more local drilling solves any problem. It doesn't break our addiction to oil, it doesn't lower the price of oil by any appreciable amount, and by the way it doesn't even produce any additional oil at all, so long as there already exist millions of acres of leased land that are not being tapped. If you have low water pressure in your house due to small pipes, the solution is not to build a second reservoir, at least until you've figured out how to effectively use the reservoir you already have.
The only time a Republican is in favor of an alternative source of energy is when, like T. Boone Pickens, they have found a way to make money off of it and so have invested in it. Which is not an evil motive, but it certainly isn't the same as believing in research and development into new sources.
We believe that education is a key to America's future security and competitiveness.
There are four words which give lie to this: No Child Left Behind. Filled with unfunded mandates and teaching to the test, we have an nearly eight years of this abomination and we are in fact leaving children behind, and our children are getting ever further behind in education. Republicans, as near as I can tell, believe in talking about education, as long as it doesn't involve any spending.
Republicans are out in force right now, telling us what they believe in. But just remember, this is a desperate bid to hold on to some power, after having failed to move significantly on virtually any of the things they "believe in" during their years of power.
Liam.
posted by Liam at 8/29/2008 10:29:00 PM
5 Comments:
Interesting take you have on those points, Liam.
Here's my almost-tongue-in-cheek take on those Huckabee points:
"We believe in less government not more." -- he means cut out the parts they feel useless (and not benefiting the rich) and replace them with more wasteful Homeland Security.
"We believe in cutting taxes." -- he means for only the rich individuals and the big corporate entities.
"We believe in a constitutional amendment to protect the right to life." -- he means to protect the lives of the white upper class; he doesn't really care about the rest.
"We believe marriage needs to be defended from activist judges and a Democratic Congressional Majority." -- he means it's all about defeating anything related to gay marriage or gay anything.
"We believe in drilling today, tomorrow and thereafter. We believe in alternative sources of energy." -- using this rhetoric (and no action) as a smoke screen to hide their continued speculative ways of getting oil.
"We believe that education is a key to America's future security and competitiveness." -- meaning educating only the children of the very rich to the exclusion of others who might one day compete for their money.
..... Gee, that was fun! Thanks!
Friday, August 29, 2008 11:53:00 PM
Thanks. :-)
In the interest of completeness, I suppose I should add that there was one last one that I missed during cut-n-paste (noticed it when I re-read the Huckabee message). It was something like "We believe in strong border security".
Which, to me, means "We believe in keeping you in a constant state of xenophobic fear of one bogeyman or another, when in fact the vast majority of illegal aliens here help keep the prices of our crops low and the profits of our corporations high".
There's a disgusting news story about how... I think it was KBR, but don't quote me on that, I don't have it in front of me right now... is apparently essentially guilty of slavery, having "hired" a batch of workers to work in one area, seized their passports and then shipped them instead to Iraq and made them work there... all but one of whom were subsequently abducted by terrorists and executed.
So clearly they don't have any problem with violations of human rights if it helps their profit margins, and that seems to me to be emblematic of many of the current crop of neoconservative Republicans.
Does that tar all Republicans? Of course not. Nor all conservatives. But it feels fairly typical of the rot at the top of their current food chain, and part of the reason we need to elect Democrats right now.
In fact, I think I'll make this another post tonight...
Liam.
Saturday, August 30, 2008 1:23:00 AM
-Huckabee E-mail
-The Republicans are starting to pull out all the stops, and I guess it's clear by now that I think right now we need a break from Republicans, so I wanted to take a shot at this e-mail from Huckabee, exhorting people to come out and vote in Republicans. He gives a list of the things "Republicans believe in". Let's take them one by one, shall we?
-We believe in less government not more.
-...unless you're talking about regulating behaviors (such as gay marriage) or military spending. Republicans believe in less social spending for those less fortunate, that's true, but when was the last time Republicans actually cut the size of government at all? In this, at least, I agree with Ron Paul.
I agree with Ron Paul on a lot of those matters, too. I think marriage should remain a state matter and no federal agency or document should have a thing to say about it. However,
1) The expansion of government is in the redefinition of marriage. No one is talking about regulating behavior. They are talking about not changing existing policy.
2) I agree with military spending to optimize our defensive and deterrent capacity. But, I don’t favor expanding wasteful spending on what Eisenhower called “the military-industrial-complex, any more than any other federal bureaucracy.
3) I agree with you 100% about Republican spending, which is why I never voted for George W. Bush. I’m in Texas, and when he was elected I said, “Leviathan gets a night manager,” which was exactly the case. And, the Republican Congress escorted him along. But, that’s also why I will support McCain-Palin, whom based on history and rhetoric will so no such thing.
-We believe in cutting taxes.
True, but I believe in being fiscally conservative. That is NOT, in spite of what we've been led to believe, synonymous. I believe in cutting SPENDING, and then if you have a surplus, cutting taxes to give back the surplus. I believe only an idiot believes that cutting taxes raises revenues when taxes are at the rates they're at now, especially when the only example of -anything like a balanced budget during the last 30 years was under a Democratic President.
Sure sounds like you agree with McCain, whose history and agenda is cutting spending as much or more as cutting taxes.
-We believe in a constitutional amendment to protect the right to life.
...and here we are back to that "less government" thing. They're not about less government, they're about more micro-control over behavior. Look, I don't like abortions, and I'd like to see them minimized as much as possible. And I'm even reasonably convinced that Roe v. Wade should be overturned, this feels like a states issue anyway. But I do not believe that making abortion illegal will significantly cut down on the number of abortions, it'll just drive them back underground, so that the abortions which do happen will be done without counseling, without guidance, and in a significant number of cases will result in the death of both fetus AND mother.
I also don’t advocate for an amendment to the US Constitution which would ostensibly (if not factually) ban abortion. Congress should reassert the American inalienable right-to-life, but as with every other life, this should be regulated by states and localities. When American consciences have been appropriately modified, a constitutional amendment will follow, formalizing a fait a complit, as was done with abolition and clarifying civil rights.
-We believe marriage needs to be defended from activist judges and a Democrat Congressional Majority.
...of course, they don't seem to have any problems what so ever with the over 50% divorce rate in this country. Perhaps not Huckabee, but how a man who has two or three divorces under his belt can say with a straight face that marriage is sacred and must be defended when two other people wish to make a solemn commitment to each other I just don't understand.
Many do. They just aren’t always clear on what’s to be done about it.
-The gay marriage hysteria is no different than the miscegenation hysteria of fifty years ago. I truly believe that in another 50 years, our grandchildren will look back on the homophobia of today with the same lack of understanding that most of us have for the interracial prohibitions back then.
A lot of women and blacks are offended and insulted by the equation of their physical makeup with establishing special rights for personal practices.
-By the way, Republicans also have nothing against activist judges, they merely want activist judges who will change the laws in directions they wish, including the mythical "original intent" we've heard so much about, but which has no actual basis in historical fact. I firmly believe that if we have judges and Justices who follow the ACTUAL original intent of our founding fathers, they would be labeled by the current Republican party as "activist".
That is hardly clear. It’s certainly not in my case. And it’s certainly hard to crystallize the meaning of a suggestion that the framers of a document and no original intent in doing so. In that regard, you appear to have precisely NOTHING in common with Ron Paul.
-We believe in drilling today, tomorrow and thereafter. We believe in alternative sources of energy.
-No, actually it seems as though for the most part Republicans believe in drilling IN LIEU OF alternative sources of energy.
Again, you are speculating, seemingly blindly. An open-field for drilling would lower prices almost immediately, with speculators bidding down the future price of oil, just as they had bid it up, before. If alternative sources could be easily developed, they would be. Do you realize what a profit therte might be in such a prospect?
-And by the way, if the Republicans believed so strongly in more drilling, why didn't they do anything to open up the banned areas when they were in charge? They had control of both houses of Congress and the Executive Branch for quite a few years there, but only in the last two years since losing control of Congress is this suddenly a huge issue.
Because most of them are feckless cowards, like ordinary human beings: That the other guys now control Congress is exactly why it’s a huge issue now, not to mention the huge price escalation..
-We need to begin looking at alternative, renewable and clean sources of energy, and we need to do it before we pass any irreversible turning points, whether that's the eventual end to the supply of oil (sooner or later we will run out, even if that's not for another 100 years or more) or the warming effect of the pollutants of the petroleum based economy.
-I've said this before, there simply is no credible reason to think that more local drilling solves any problem. It doesn't break our addiction to oil, it doesn't lower the price of oil by any appreciable amount, and by the way it doesn't even produce any additional oil at all, so long as there already exist millions of acres of leased land that are not being tapped. If you have low water pressure in your house due to small pipes, the solution is not to build a second reservoir, at least until you've figured out how to effectively use the reservoir you already have.
-The only time a Republican is in favor of an alternative source of energy is when, like T. Boone Pickens, they have found a way to make money off of it and so have invested in it. Which is not an evil motive, but it certainly isn't the same as believing in research and development into new sources.
Of course making an investment and effort requires profit. How could it be otherwise? And, do you really think acres are untapped even though there is every reason to believe drilling would payoff? Now, that’s cynical!
-We believe that education is a key to America's future security and competitiveness.
-There are four words which give lie to this: No Child Left Behind. Filled with unfunded mandates and teaching to the test, we have a nearly eight years of this abomination and we are in fact leaving children behind, and our children are getting ever further behind in education. Republicans, as near as I can tell, believe in talking about education, as long as it doesn't involve any spending.
George W. Bush expanded federal education spending multiply! Federal education spending doesn’t work whether Democrats or Republicans do it. Spending should be dfetermined and implemented at the state level or lower.
-Republicans are out in force right now, telling us what they believe in. But just remember, this is a desperate bid to hold on to some power, after having failed to move significantly on virtually any of the things they "believe in" during their years of power.
Hopefully, they’re chastened after having blown it.
Monday, September 01, 2008 6:59:00 PM
Wow. Those other two comments reflect towering cynicism. I often ask myself who these supposed monsters might be who conspire to make rich people richer and couldn't care less about everyone else.
I'm sure there are such people. There are also people who claim to have been abducted by aliens in UFO's. But, I don't waste a lot of time worrying about them.
Monday, September 01, 2008 7:12:00 PM
I'll leave most of your comment for later, I've got limited time at the moment, but I had to answer this one:
A lot of women and blacks are offended and insulted by the equation of their physical makeup with establishing special rights for personal practices.
A lot of people are offended by a LOT of things, it doesn't make them right. The question is how are people INJURED by gay marriage. And by the way, I think you're mistaken in referring to homosexuality as a "personal practice" unless you're willing to relegate heterosexuality to the same bucket.
There are just too many studies which show biological/inate causes for homosexuality for me to buy that it's entirely a choice thing, which is why I have a hard time understanding why, if God made them that way, they should be afforded fewer rights than straight people. And in that regard, it is JUST like miscegenation laws.
And as to who are these people who might conspire to make rich people richer, I don't think anyone is out there solely to make the rich richer. They are out to make THEMSELVES and their friends richer at the expense of others.
Just look at the way Halliburton and KBR have been treated under Bush/Cheney. Lots of no-bid contracts, very little accountability when they (for example) put faulty wiring into a shower that electrocutes multiple soldiers or provide tainted water for the troops to drink instead of the clean water they were paid to provide.
Look at how many times the Bush Administration has hired lobbyists or insiders from industries to take the position of watchdog over the industry. Leaving a fox to guard the henhouse is never a good strategy, and yet it's been done time and again. What could possibly be the reaosn for that, except to essentially negate the oversight.
And why would you want to negate oversight, except to allow those businesses to make more profits by no longer having to follow the good neighbor policies we should all live under.
Excessive regulation may be a bad thing, but no regulation is even worse.
Liam.
Monday, September 01, 2008 7:35:00 PM
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