Opinions on Kerry

[Squid]

so what's your big new idea for a system of world government? do you think the religious majority would take kindly to it? frankly I like majority rules with minority rights, free enterprise, and the like.

someone famous said (i think it was churchill) capitalism is not a good system, it's just better than everything else out there.

i'm not saying it has problems. but the big gluttenous people eventually go down (enron, mci/sprint etc).

force third-world poor into making our running shoes for cents on the day while the executives make tens of millions

there are problems with this as well. if those companies like nike weren't there giving them little in the way of pay they would go back to prostitution/thievery, etc. that kinda makes me think about Vieques and how much $$ our government is pouring in to the economy. that point is moot


do you like your gas prices? you'd say they're a little high, right? well, if you are all for equality and whatnot, you should have NO problem paying 1.20+ EURO for a liter (that's $5.56+ USD/gallon) of gas like my wife does in Germany. again, I'm way off track, long day so far. nothing personal.

 

[Fredster809]

One radio talk show I listen to (Glen Beck)summarized an expiriment. I think you will find this interesing. They put a group of strangers in a room to play a game for money. Nobody brought any money to the game, they all started from scratch, all had the same chance of winning. When the day was over they all had varying amounts. This is where it gets interesting (and very telling.) They offerred the people with $15 a deal. You give $5 of your $15 and I will destroy $100 of the top players winnings. And you know what America, they took the deal. This is how a lot of liberals think and it turns my stomach. Hate the rich, they are evil. Even when they saw with their own eyes that the people earned the money, some how they rationalize seeing it taken away from them. I don't understand this at all, I cannot even begin to force my brain to think this way. I used to get depressed walking in down town Charleston among the Million dolar houses, not angry at the peopl just depressed with my $10,000 truck, then I woke up. If I want a 5 million dollar house and I am not too lazy or too chicken S@#t to fail I can get it. My mother-in-law doesn't get this, or believe me, but she will come to visit some day and hate me for being rich too.

 

[utrico]

Going back to Kerry's Record...

The full article can be found here http://slate.msn.com//?id=2096127

Sorry it's long but worth reading. It is good to get your info. from a variety of sources.

John Kerry's Defense Defense
Setting his voting record straight.

Against defense? Not Kerry

Before George W. Bush's political operatives started pounding on John Kerry for voting against certain weapons systems during his years in the Senate, they should have taken a look at this quotation:

After completing 20 planes for which we have begun procurement, we will shut down further production of the B-2 bomber. We will cancel the small ICBM program. We will cease production of new warheads for our sea-based ballistic missiles. We will stop all new production of the Peacekeeper [MX] missile. And we will not purchase any more advanced cruise missiles. … The reductions I have approved will save us an additional $50 billion over the next five years. By 1997 we will have cut defense by 30 percent since I took office.

The speaker was President George H.W. Bush, the current president's father, in his State of the Union address on Jan. 28, 1992.

They should also have looked up some testimony by Dick Cheney, the first President Bush's secretary of defense (and now vice president), three days later, boasting of similar slashings before the Senate Armed Services Committee:

Overall, since I've been Secretary, we will have taken the five-year defense program down by well over $300 billion. That's the peace dividend. … And now we're adding to that another $50 billion … of so-called peace dividend.

Cheney proceeded to lay into the then-Democratically controlled Congress for refusing to cut more weapons systems.

Congress has let me cancel a few programs. But you've squabbled and sometimes bickered and horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend money on weapons that don't fill a vital need in these times of tight budgets and new requirements. … You've directed me to buy more M-1s, F-14s, and F-16s—all great systems … but we have enough of them.

The Republican operatives might also have noticed Gen. Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the same hearings, testifying about plans to cut Army divisions by one-third, Navy aircraft carriers by one-fifth, and active armed forces by half a million men and women, to say noting of "major reductions" in fighter wings and strategic bombers.

Granted, these reductions were made in the wake of the Soviet Union's dissolution and the Cold War's demise. But that's just the point: Proposed cuts must be examined in context. A vote against a particular weapons system doesn't necessarily indicate indifference toward national defense.

Looking at the weapons that the RNC says Kerry voted to cut, a good case could be made, certainly at the time, that some of them (the B-2 bomber and President Reagan's "Star Wars" missile-defense program) should have been cut. As for the others (the M-1 tank and the F-14, F-15, and F-16 fighter planes, among others), Kerry didn't really vote to cut them.

The claim about these votes was made in the Republican National Committee "Research Briefing" of Feb. 22. The report lists 13 weapons systems that Kerry voted to cut—the ones cited above, as well as Patriot air-defense missiles, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and AH64 Apache helicopters, among others.

It is instructive, however, to look at the footnotes. Almost all of them cite Kerry's vote on Senate bill S. 3189 (CQ Vote No. 273) on Oct. 15, 1990. Do a Google search, and you will learn that S. 3189 was the Fiscal Year 1991 Defense Appropriations Act, and CQ Vote No. 273 was a vote on the entire bill. There was no vote on those weapons systems specifically.

On a couple of the weapons, the RNC report cites H.R. 5803 and H.R. 2126. Look those up. They turn out to be votes on the House-Senate conference committee reports for the defense appropriations bills in October 1990 (the same year as S. 3189) and September 1995.

In other words, Kerry was one of 16 senators (including five Republicans) to vote against a defense appropriations bill 14 years ago. He was also one of an unspecified number of senators to vote against a conference report on a defense bill nine years ago. The RNC takes these facts and extrapolates from them that he voted against a dozen weapons systems that were in those bills. The Republicans could have claimed, with equal logic, that Kerry voted to abolish the entire U.S. armed forces, but that might have raised suspicions. Claiming that he opposed a list of specific weapons systems has an air of plausibility. On close examination, though, it reeks of rank dishonesty.

Another bit of dishonesty is RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie's claim, at a news conference today, that in 1995, Kerry voted to cut $1.5 billion from the intelligence budget. John Pike, who runs the invaluable globalsecurity.org Web site, told me what that cut was about: The Air Force's National Reconnaissance Office had appropriated that much money to operate a spy satellite that, as things turned out, it never launched. So the Senate passed an amendment rescinding the money—not to cancel a program, but to get a refund on a program that the NRO had canceled. Kerry voted for the amendment, as did a majority of his colleagues...

 

[nittany03]

Wow. Almost midnight and I have a stage check tomorrow. So I guess I better get my licks in now! Akamai, your comment brings to mind my freshman macroeconomics class, where I learned that America is not strictly a capitalist society. Yes, free enterprise is the best thing out there, but it's not perfect. That's why we have governments, to keep people from overstepping the bounds of their personal liberties. If my right to swing my fist stops where your nose begins, the job of the government is to keep me from punching you in the face, or to punish me if I do. The government (should) put bounds on the limits of greed so that other's rights are protected. That doesn't mean that capitalism is bad because it is flawed. I'm all for developing new ideas, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Capitalism in itself is not problematic and disgusting. There are, however, problematic and disgusting people taking advantage of it. In the same way, there are problematic and disgusting people in Communist societies as well (read the Chinese Politburo). But as an average Joe I'd take capitalism any day of the week, and twice on Sundays, even if we do need to throw some CEOs in the clink.

With regards to the abortion debate, I have a difficult time believing that life begins at physical birth. I myself popped out into the world 10 weeks before I was supposed to, and spent a good deal of time in the incubator before my parents finally took me home. I guarantee there's probably someone out there born a month or two after me that might have been in the same situation in some alternate universe. To argue that life begins at birth is to argue that the theoretical two of us were somehow of differing humanity at the same stages of our development. Not very logical. Mizzoufan, I also agree totally with you, up until the part where you say that life beings at conception.

I also have a problem for the idea that life begins with conception. I've done a little Googling of just what happens after an egg gets fertilized. If there are any docs here, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Yes, the zygote created at fertilization does have the unique genetic makeup of a human being. However it doesn't have a 100 percent chance of implanting in the womb even without the influence of any drugs. Thus, statistically there must have been many "silent miscarriages" throughout human history where a woman's system flushed out a fertilized egg along with everything else at the appointed time, and she had no idea she was close to being pregnant. Yet no one has ever raised a hue and cry about it. If I had to pick a time when I would say life began, it would be then, at implantation. Akamai, sperm do not grow on their own. Implanted embryos do. Very important distinction. Tumors do not have their own unique genetic makeup. Embryos do.

I think the question we need to ask ourselves is whether, if we do not interfere, the fetus growing inside the mother will be carried to term and born. If so, we have no right to mess with it. It is a human being, and a helpless one. I'm sick to death of hearing feminists talk about the right to regulate their own bodies because it's a load of crap. Your children are not part of your own body, even if they depend on you for survival inside it. Thinking so is a pretty cold and heartless way to look at your family if you ask me. Regulating your own body means knowing where and when to keep your legs together and your pants on. Children depend on their mothers for survival inside AND outside the womb for a very long time (years). Just because they are nourished through a placenta as opposed to a breast or a bottle or a dinner table does not obviate parental responsibility. Screw your brains out if you want, but live with the consequences like an adult. Don't go around whining about a career or life "ruined" because of an unexpected child. It's not the kid's fault you made him/her. If one person doesn't want their kid, I'm sure that there are other couples who would take him/her in a heartbeat.

 

[ben]

Holy :censored_ guys - I quit watching this thread for a day or two and people start writing novels!!! Eventually I'll catch up and chime in - until then it's back to my accounting homework...

 

[kevin]

"Yes, and that 'point' is the moment when 'it' could live on its own if removed from the mother. Before that point, it is dependent on the mother's life for its life, and is not separate. Life begins at conception, huh? So then why aren't individual sperm and eggs life too...they could become human life too..? Suppose I should start naming all my millions of sperm individually..."

well i just got back to my computer, and mizzou pretty much said what i was going to. you clearly have no idea about genetics, so here's a quick lesson: sperm and egg are haploid cells, meaning they have only half the chromosomes necessary to make a human being. a better argument by your line of reasoning, which turns out not really working anyway but what the hell, is that every other cell in your body is diploid (under normal conditions) meaning that it is potentially a human being by your chain of reasoning. which happens to be the idea behind cloning. oh im sorry, youre probably having trouble reading this.

There, better? This philosophical argument dates back to before the abortion issue even came into being. The real problem is that you can keep going back further and further until saying that if you take a whole bunch of random proteins from mother nature, along with a thousand other compounds, you if you put them together, they will ultimately become a person. So doesnt a single protein have the potential to become a full person? No. Every cell in your body has the "potential" to become a new human being, because every cell (not gametes) can be reprogrammed- in theory- back to an embryonic stem cell, which can then form a blastocyst and continue onward. Does that mean that the millions of skin cells you lose every day are lives being lost? That's absurd. The difference between this and an embryonic cell is that under nature, that one cell will become a full multi-cellular breathing being if left to nature......whereas all other instances will not.

As to the other part of the argument, you basically said that life (we already proved this) starts at conception. You argue that life only becomes a human life when it is capable of living outside the uterus? Why? This seems like a pretty baseless statement. What's your line of reasoning? Mizzou already took some of my arguments, but I'm curious where the science is behind your rationale.

As to the sodomy thing.....yes, you're correct there. That was invasion of privacy and the court said as much. Now what does that have to do with gay marriage? I already gave my reasoning why that issue is not a privacy issue.

 

[kevin]

"I also have a problem for the idea that life begins with conception. I've done a little Googling of just what happens after an egg gets fertilized. If there are any docs here, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Yes, the zygote created at fertilization does have the unique genetic makeup of a human being. However it doesn't have a 100 percent chance of implanting in the womb even without the influence of any drugs. Thus, statistically there must have been many "silent miscarriages" throughout human history where a woman's system flushed out a fertilized egg along with everything else at the appointed time, and she had no idea she was close to being pregnant. Yet no one has ever raised a hue and cry about it. If I had to pick a time when I would say life began, it would be then, at implantation. Akamai, sperm do not grow on their own. Implanted embryos do. Very important distinction. Tumors do not have their own unique genetic makeup. Embryos do.

I think the question we need to ask ourselves is whether, if we do not interfere, the fetus growing inside the mother will be carried to term and born. If so, we have no right to mess with it. It is a human being, and a helpless one. I'm sick to death of hearing feminists talk about the right to regulate their own bodies because it's a load of crap. Your children are not part of your own body, even if they depend on you for survival inside it. Thinking so is a pretty cold and heartless way to look at your family if you ask me. Regulating your own body means knowing where and when to keep your legs together and your pants on. Children depend on their mothers for survival inside AND outside the womb for a very long time (years). Just because they are nourished through a placenta as opposed to a breast or a bottle or a dinner table does not obviate parental responsibility. Screw your brains out if you want, but live with the consequences like an adult. Don't go around whining about a career or life "ruined" because of an unexpected child. It's not the kid's fault you made him/her. If one person doesn't want their kid, I'm sure that there are other couples who would take him/her in a heartbeat."

wow, nittany, I just read this and you took the words right out of my mouth. great points. problem is our society is allergic to taking responsibility for personal actions.
see also: super bowl halftime show. then certain groups of people make up for not taking responsibility when they shouldve by trying to take "responsibility" when they have no right to.
as to the argument about implantation, this is definitely a tough one. it's one reason science and medicine look differently at the 2 different points. "Yet no one has ever raised a hue and cry about it." because this is part of nature (besides the fact you dont know about it), not someone's doing. same could be said of a mature miscarriage, except you know about that. my only argument in this case is that while the actual division of cells doesnt happen until implantation, the process of genetic replication begins before implantation....so what would the real distinction be. you could say then that human life doesnt begin until cells start dividing, but that doesnt seem logical to me considering that the process of cell division is so much more than just cytokinesis (cell parts splitting apart).

 

[cricechex]

Kevin, Kevin, Kevin!
I'm sure there are some good points made in your posts, but you have it hidden among a bunch of useless junk in the form of slander towards other posts. Not needed. Just make your point and shut up.

 

[Daedalus]

"So then why aren't individual sperm and eggs life too"
They are life, have you ever seen a rock swim like a sperm?
Abortion is wrong, children, or fetuses are the most helpless things on the earth, how could you kill them, this I don't understand. It seams obvious to me.
"live with the consequences like an adult"
There are many in the US that like to blame everyone else for their problems, I also find it ridiculous that people are trying to sue McDonalds for making them fat. Can I sue GM for hurting myself if I drive my car into a wall? Should I be able to sue my parents because I didn't have 20/20 vision? That wasn't even my fault, eating big macs every day is your fault. Can I sue addidas if I run too long and get shin splints? Can I sue Hanes if I get hypothermia because I went out in 0 degree weather with only an undershirt?

It doesn't matter when the "life" of a child starts, it is human. To say it is not human you have to say what it is. Will a human fetus grow up to be a cow 1 out of 100 or 1 out of a billion times? No. Why? Because it is human.

Do you know what partial birth abortion is? They half deliver a baby and chop its head off, if it is crying screaming or looking at you and blinking, how could anyone say this is not wrong? Maybe we could make a guillotine and say they are french revolutionaries to justify killing. I would think Americans who put such energy into freedom and rights would be against abortion. You know what I love? liberals who say they are vegetarians because killing animals is wrong, but are for abortion, if this is so does that mean fetuses were not alive or human? This means they can be a food item.

To put a philosophical spin behind it, also very logical:
Abortion is legal...but not under all circumstances, when life starts is subjective, one doctor will say it is at fertilization one will say it is at implantation, one will say at 3 weeks, 5 months, before birth, or halfway during birth. Who is right? Because we are all human and it is a subjective thing, no one can say for sure, so when is it ok to kill a baby? ( or a fetus if you want to distance yourself from the truth.)

Why to pro abortion people call it pro choice? choice to do what, we're not choosing to eat a big mac. They should call it pro death, because whatever it is, a child a fetus or some cells, it is life and it is killing.

Don't put your laws on my body!
We put plenty of laws on your body, and its ok. You cant murder you can't steal, you can't kill yourself (even though it is your body to attempt to kill yourself is a crime) you can't always improve on your home or paint it a certain color. You can't stand in the middle of a highway if you want to. Laws are for people who can't control themselves or can't be responsible for themselves. If everyone could we wouldn't have any laws (except traffic laws and the like I took philosophy too)

 

[Squid]

I believe there are certain circumstances where abortion is permissable(sp?).

What if you are raped?
What if being pregnant would mean imminent death to you, the mother?

I don't however condone the use of abortion as a birth control. Just as I believe the government helping the genuinely 'down-on-their-luck' people is good, I believe abortion has its place. It is overused, used as birth control, etc, though.

The abortion issue hits very close to home with me in a number of ways. I refuse to make a big discussion of it. It is not black and white, there is a very thin grey area to abortion.

I also do not think life begins at conception. I don't believe it starts at birth either. I believe it is somewhere down the line in the development cycle. Maybe just before week 10 I would say it is truly a life, since the fetus can respond to stimuli (nervous syetem working, etc)?

http://www.w-cpc.org/fetal.html

I dunno, I believe if an abortion is to happen, it should happen as soon as it is found out and not the last minute (end of 1st trimester, right???), or not at all. There is no time to think about it... hmm do I want a kid now? let's think about this for 12 more weeks before I decide if i want to keep it or not....

beep. wrong.

 

[kevin]

"Kevin, Kevin, Kevin!
I'm sure there are some good points made in your posts, but you have it hidden among a bunch of useless junk in the form of slander towards other posts. Not needed. Just make your point and shut up."

rice chex: eat me. that pointed enough for you?

a couple other points brought up, squid. if you're correct about a gray area, which i obviously dont agree with, but let's assume you're right, that's just as good a reason for NOT allowing abortion. the fact would be- you simply dont know....and this is what i said previously about erring on the side of caution. that said, nervous response to stimuli etc are very poor markers of humanity. im sure you can think of a million examples of people who can't respond to certain stimuli (light, pain, etc). secondly, if we are talking about human life, partial birth abortion is no more morally wrong than abortion at anypoint....life is life. it's just a lot crueler and more graphic. morally it has the same degree of severity.

as for the rape and danger to mother points. pregnancy from rape- it's unfortunate when it happens, no doubt....but it accounts for roughly .1% (maybe .01% i cant remember) of all pregnancies (not just abortions). is that enough to justify the killing all the others? no way. how about those individual cases...is it justified then? i would still argue no because it's, as i said, a very unfortunate thing but nevertheless is still a human being. would it be ok for you to kill youre neighbor because he killed your parents (as in, it already happened). no. however, would it be ok for you to kill your neighbor as he was trying to kill you or your parents? to an extent, yes. which is where your second point is going. this is absolutely the only situation where abortion is morally and ethically justified. i think most women would still choose to give birth even if their lives were at serious risk, but in that case, the right to self defense (and this refers to when your LIFE is in danger, not your LIFESTYLE) qualifies. then it comes down to a personal decision. there are a couple arguments to this though, which Jane English has done a good job summarizing. the actions of self defense have to match the severity of what is being done to you. for instance, it's perfectly justifiable to kill a person who's aiming a gun at your head. it's not justified to kill a person who's only trying to punch you in the stomach. in the case of the fetus, there is no other method of self defense except to kill it. and the other question is, is it ok to kill someone who is defenseless in self defense? in other words, the fetus cant run away or put it's hands up and fight. regardless, this still is a very small percentage that can't possibly be used to make legalization for abortion- it's simply a possible exception to what should be the rule.

 

[Squid]

so pretty much you said I'm wrong, but you agree with me? I'm a little lost now.

also, would you mind using [ quote ] and [/ quote ] so we can see when you're really typing and not quoting?

I'm saying the gov't should not prohibit abortion but I do believe people should be well educated before making that choice. Again I said, it, along with welfare and the like, are absurdely over-used and abused. Does that mean we should get rid of both? Not necessarily, but some serious changes must take place.

What about birth control? The pill, IUD, the morning after pill? That changes the body so that it thinks it's pregnant and in the case of the morning after pill, forces the body to cycle. Should those individuals taking birth control be told to cease and dissist(sp?) because they are preventing the natural course of things and it's just not 'the way things should be'?

I'm making a point. I'm all about birth control and I have serious issues with abortion, but I am an advocate of not prohibiting it. Don't look at me like I'm some left wing quack; I'm conservative but I just don't take a hard line on some key points.

enough about this issue, kerry is not getting my vote.

did you catch his little "slip" on republicans being "crooked"? buwhahaha. With any luck he'll hang himelf a la Howard Dean.

 

[nittany03]

I know we've hit on some touchy issues here, and are probably pushing some people's buttons. But please, everyone, take a deep breath and try not let this thread degenerate into a flamewar. Just a suggestion from one of your friendly neighborhood moderators. We're all entitled to our opinions.

 

[Squid]

i agree it got a little carried away from the original topic. so, let's talk kerry and how he will probably screw up the homeland defense thing.

 

[ben]

i agree it got a little carried away from the original topic. so, let's talk kerry and how he will probably screw up the homeland defense thing.

Wow, I just read the last two days worth of posts... Suffice it to say that there is a reason they say "no politics or religion in the wardroom." That is the saying, isn't it? Anyway, I think that everyone had some valid points that they made and everyone is entitled to their own opinions. I also think that no one is convincing anyone of anything. People have just been hashing out their reasons for why they believe what they believe. I think the best word to describe the situation is "unproductive." I doubt anyone changed their opinions on abortion or when life starts because of what was posted. Please people, let's try to keep things a little more civil.

Back to Kerry... Thank you BigSkyGuy and utrico for your posts on voting records. These two posts are what I would call productive; they are informative instead of opinionated. While there is definitely a proper place for opinion, I don't think opinions about abortion and the like are appropriate for being hashed out on a Naval Aviation forum. Just my opinion, off the soapbox now. Anyway, the above mentioned posts about Kerry's voting record (from Hannity's website) and about the Republicans' record for reductions in Defense spending were definitely eye-opening posts. I consider myself a strongly conservative person (definitely a Hannity fan), but I think that utrico's post pointed out that the media (liberal or otherwise) can and often does take things out of context and/or blow them out or proportoin.

So back to Kerry... This past Sunday I was flipping through the channels and happened upon CNN. The weekly presidential radio address was being aired, followed by the weekly democratic response. (I really wish that the freaking mainstream radio stations would BROADCAST THESE ADDRESSES, but I digress...) I only cought the tale end of GWB's speech and it didn't really stick out in my mind as spectacular. However, Kerry's speech hit home with me pretty hard. Read the full transcript here: http://www.democrats.org/blog/comment/00010478.html

Without typing Kerry's entire speech, let me sum up the main point. According to Kerry, the recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have been conducted by an undersupplied, underprepared American force. He laced his speech with some political rhetoric, but one can read between the lines and gleam out the real facts. I think that, based on this speech, Kerry is not against the military. He is in fact, as stated in the speech, IN FAVOR OF A TEMPORARY MILITARY EXPANSION. Why do things like this get left out of the nightly news reports on the major networks?

Onward... President Bush is a man who I respect and admire. He is getting my vote short of some major catastrophe between now and November. I only brought up the speech by Kerry because I think that we, as voters, should be well informed. Kerry is not necessarily against the military and we (conservatives) should not put words into Senator Kerry's mouth or take his comments out of context. Unfortunately, the political machine just doesn't work that way, and in thre real world it never will. Let's just be sure we know what we're talking about before we go and say something ignorant or incorrect.