Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

Hey Dawn,

Are you able to provide any sources that are right wing conservative.
You know, unbiased………
If you go to the about Heritage Foundation, the first thing you see is an endoursment from Rush Limbaugh. And Varney works for FOX
not very unbiased……..

According to what experts? And do you mean slow the recovery more then it is already slowed, and balloon the deficit more then it already is; the highest in the history of the country under Bush’s stewardship? Or is that okay, because Bush is a Republican?

Let’s put things into perspective shall we? Kerry if elected, could not, even if he wanted to—raise the tax on a single American, only Congress has the power to raise or lower taxes. All he can do is submit the bill to the House, and then sign it into law. His plan notwithstanding, he alone has not the power of the purse. And if elected and the Republican still control Congress, what chance to you think his tax plans will come to fruition?

The country needs tax reform; I am all in favor of the flat tax, but neither man has put forth such a plan, and neither, I suspect, will.

some who have actually taken the time to figure out what Kerry’s Tax Plan and Bush’s Tax Plan really mean for everyone.

Based on what assumptions, Dawn? we’re talking about economic forecasting here, aka “guesswork”. And as earlier posters point out, these authors are hardly unbiased.

It’s also worth pointing out that the latest date mentioned in those discussions is 2014, ten years away. My biggest concern about W’s economics is his complete disregard for fiscal responsibility. I guess it’s easy to keep our taxes low if we can pass the buck to our children.

Dawn,
Right now the index of leading economic indicators has declined for the fourth month in a row, the economy is only creating about 75% of the new jobs that are needed to keep up with population growth, and we have record deficits. We already know for sure that this is what the Bush plan brings. So, why not give Kerry a try?
-gilgamesh

V Ed:

One major disagreement and one major agreement with your post. Perhaps I read it wrong, but it seemed as if you are attempting to mute criticism of Kerry’s tax plan by saying it probably won’t get enacted anyway, due to Republican control of Congress. Personally, I don’t want a President who is ineffectual. Bush managed to push through a fair amount of legislation when the Senate was not Republican controlled, and Clinton did his thing with a Republican Congress. Seems to me you should either support Kerry’s tax plan, or not support it, rather than suggest it just wont come to pass. That’s a kiss of death of another kind for Kerry.

Flat tax——I’m with ya on this. I dont see the negatives to it, though I’ll admit to not being extremely well versed in it. I would suggest having three gradients to it though—-a bell curve if you will. The highest end gets a slightly higher rate, and the lowest end gets a slightly lower rate. But 80-90% of the people get the same flat rate. Works for me…..lets hear from those who think its a good or bad idea and give the reasons why.

V. Edward, you suggest putting things ‘into perspective’ yet put the blame of the current economy on the President’s feet (I’ve always maintained that the president is the least likely to control the economy than congress and business).

Are you factoring in the economic effects of 9/11, the end of the y2k boom (millions of IT jobs created soley for the purpose of fixing a bug), the internet bubble burst due to the wisening up of venture capitalists and the Clinton recession that was in part manipulated to happen close enough to the end of his term that he could walk away from it?

Sure, Bush has failed in a lot of ways (like not putting in a flat tax and not making the tax cuts bigger) and if we could have ignored Iraq and Afghanistan we could have saved a lot of money, but to say that it ‘happened on his watch’ isn’t matcthing the ‘keep everything in perspective’ suggestion.

The truth, as usual, is somewhere in the middle.

Joe, Bush has floated some trial ballons about flat taxes. I remember linking to a story on it in my “Love Amid the Ruins Post”, http://www.watchblog.com/democrats/archives/001583.html

Joeb-

My opinion is still out on the flat tax too. Same for the VAT, although I lean that way everytime I’m here in France.

The advantage of a more complex tax code is that it is easier to “target” tax policy to promote certain economic priorities. We’ve seen both the good (capital gains cuts spured growth under Clinton) and the bad (class warfare) of targeted cuts, but they can have short term impacts on the economy. I think the advantage of the VAT is that it rewards savings verses spending. The advantage of the flat tax is fairness, but I don’t think fareness will ever be a part of the left.

Speaking of France, you should see how they portray the U.S. on the news. No wonder they have such a high opinion of us yanks.

Dawn, you are right on target.

Kerry’s tax increases (the ones he will admit to) will hit job creators, American small business, squarely between the eyes. The effect of this will likely be more job losses.

No matter how you slice it tax increases are not the way to get the country out of recession.

Let me repeat this for those of you who refuse to believe the truth: Government does not create jobs. The President doesn’t run the economy.

Neither does Bush’s rhetoric match his plan. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, except for write in candidates and third party candidates.

Eric, at least you’ve gotten one sentence right in the last several hundred. The president has little effect on the economy.

JBOD, I like the idea of a flat tax. The problem with it is how do you define income? A simplification of the tax code is in order here. Perhaps someone should write a tax constitution, one that promotes business development and protects the poor, does away with accounting tricks and stops being a corporate welfare/ political pig trough program.

Dawn, I think the left has had it’s input on the use of politicized analysis. I don’t need to add to it.

Eric said,
“Let me repeat this for those of you who refuse to believe the truth: Government does not create jobs. The President doesn’t run the economy.”

He may have an influence over things but he does not create jobs.

The heads of these large companies have to smarten up and keep jobs in our country. Just because the loopholes are there doesn’t mean they have to take advantage of them to please the stockholders and give themselves a big bonus.
Blaming the President for decisions made in board rooms across America is not going to fix the problem.
Other than Lou Dobbs, I don’t really hear anyone blaming the people who actually move the jobs overseas.
It is no different than any other issue. Both sides want to be right and prove the other side wrong and refuse to meet in the middle.

Kerry’s Tax Plan will still hurt MY FAMILY no matter who talks about it.

Dawn

Actually, I believe Kerry’s plan is to have a hold-harmless provision for earners who make under 200K, so they can figure out their tax based on the old or new plan. So your tax burden would be the same or less if your family makes under 200K.

If you have children, then you will pay less if you make under 200K, because Kerry is introducing a slew of new tax cuts oriented towards families, as well as health credits and education credits. So if you are saving for college, have kids, and/or pay for your own health insurance, you’ll get a cut in taxes.

If you earn more than 200K, then you’ll pay an additional tax.

Julia

Electing John Kerry would truly be the triumph of hope over experience.

The LA Times estimated the Kerrys net worth between 900 million and 3.2 billion. (Bush is a relative pauper at about $24 million). The Kerrys’ won’t fully disclose their wealth, so we don’t know for sure. This money was inherited, not earned by either John or Teresa.

Kerry is an example of what the rich will be able to do (i.e. avoid taxes) under a Kerry plan. The Kerrys pay taxes at a 12.8% rate. If John and Teresa Kerry manage to pay less than you do with taxes at today’s rates, why do you think they will pay more than you do if rates go up? John Kerry knows the tricks of wealth from personal experience. He knows that he will not be able to balance the budget by taxing only those making more than $200,000. But he also knows that if he can fool hard working people into believing that they can soak the rich, or at least get a free tax ride he will look like a hero. The ostensible target is the idle rich, living off the work of their (or their spouses’) dead relatives. The burden will really land on people growing their businesses and creating jobs. And the burden will fall on us. It will barely touch those who already got their piles of money and luxury homes. That is “the plan.”

Dawn,

here’s an economic paper about economic stimulus over the past 4 years. (See page 4):

http://www.economy.com/dismal/economycom_bushfiscalpolicy.pdf

Or you can look around at http://www.economy.com

It says we had 3.9% of GDP growth this year, and that 1.1% of that GDP growth was due to Alan Greenspan’s policies, and .4 % had to do with Government spending, and .4% was due to tax cuts to lower income taxpayers, and .1% was for tax cuts to small businesses, and less than .1% was for tax cuts to the wealthy.

Since the wealthy tax cut represents 40% of the tax cut dollars, if you had moved those tax cuts to the lower brackets, then you would have seen (according to this model) an additional .4% of economic stimulus if you switched the tax benefits to the lower class rather than to the wealthy.

Julia

I especially like the second paragraph:

To ascribe this performance entirely to the president’s economic policies would be incorrect, however. The economy has suffered a string of misfortunes from the bursting of the Y2K stock market bubble and corporate accounting scandals to 9/11 and the war on terrorism. Indeed, the economy’s travails would have been substantially greater if not for the aggressive easing in monetary policy, and the fiscal stimulus provided by the president’s tax cuts and surging government spending. The president cannot be faulted for his willingness to use all of the economic resources at his disposal to lift the heretofore flagging economy.

It is precisely what I’ve been saying (and getting slammed for) for quite a while.

Thanks!

Julia,

I can’t go into personal financial detail.

Death Tax:
Does anyone here think that a gift from a dead relative should be taxed?
If you think it should … why ? and how much tax?

Which groups are the most against a flat tax?
Accountants?
Charities?

Dawn, I do believe the U.S. Government is the largest single entity employer in the United States. I believe the homeland security agency employs folks and wasn’t that agency created by the Whitehouse?

Does the President as Commander In Chief not have control over the number of personnel in the intelligence agencies and the military?

And what of all the other agencies, EPA, FDA, Interior, etc. etc.? Does the President not have final say on growing and hiring in these agencies based on his budget which he submits to Congress?

I’m sorry, but the statement that President does not create jobs, is simply not factual. That a president chooses to or not to create jobs, may be factual, but the office of President does have the power to create jobs through budgeting, agency creation or deletion, etc.

Then, also through the budget, the President can push through programs like no child left behind which created jobs. Then there is seed money for R&D through the DoD and Pentagon and NASA. There the President creates jobs.

Then there is war. Invading Iraq created a number of civilian jobs both in Iraq and here at home supporting the war effort and making all them bullets and bombs, and replacing downed aircraft and blown up Hum V’s and tanks.

No, in all, I would say the President can and has created jobs. Just not the kind many would like, nor in the numbers many would like.

Dawn said: “Kerry’s Tax Plan will still hurt MY FAMILY no matter who talks about it.”

That may be true, Dawn. But, surely you are intelligent enough to realize that Bush’s refusal to use the veto pen is going to hurt American families as well as the amount of taxes required to service the national debt continues to climb toward 9 or even 10 Trillion dollars under another 4 years of Bush.

If anyone thinks Bush hasn’t raised their taxes for decades to come, they simply don’t understand the concept of interest on the debt. Now I will admit, it may be possible to avoid raising taxes for decades by cutting social security and Medicare, and federal subsidies of many kinds to farmers, roads, states, municipalities, education, etc. etc., but that will only mean your taxes remain at the same level while return on your tax dollar diminishes steadily for decades.

It is simple economics 101 and a little math.

Thanks Julia, especially for that last tidbit.

Too bad Jack and Rhinehold have been duped into thinking Bush’s tax cut is actually a meaningful economic stimulus or that the tax burden has been reduced for most Americans, when in fact, the tax burden of the middleclass has actually increased under Bush.

David

We may have to modify it to say that the President cannot create productive jobs. There are many things a president could do to create jobs. He could directly hire all the unemployed to do useful things like pick up litter in the parks, or just hire them to do nothing at all. The easiest way to increase employment would be to outlaw things like farm machinery and information technologies.

A century ago, most people were employed on farms. Farm machinery “stole” all those jobs. The same has been happening in our lifetimes with industrial jobs as machines reduce employment. So the best way to save high paying jobs in industry would be to reduce technology.

The problem with all these job-creating strategies is that they consume rather than produce wealth. Employ two men to do the job of one; you increase employment by making each job half as useful. Job creation like this (to borrow a phrase) is the road to serfdom.

Employment in government is necessary, but it is a “support activity.” A good analogy is a tall building and stairways. Without stairs the building is worthless. If stairways are too narrow or crowded, the people in the building can’t do their work. But after a while adding more stairways can’t help and begins to take up too much space. You are asking the building owner to build new stairways that don’t go anywhere.

Dawn,

Neither Bush nor Kerry has a tax plan that won’t negatively affect your family.

It is my understanding that on the one hand, Bush’s tax cut would have worked to stimulate the economy if he hadn’t spent so much money.

On the other hand, Kerry’s plan to roll back taxes would work if he didn’t have so many plans to spend money.

It’s not tax revenue that’s killing our economy -and will continue to kill us-, it’s spending.

Which candidate will be fiscally responsible and will pay as he goes during the next four years? I can’t be sure of that. What I do know is that for the past 4 years, Bush hasn’t demonstrated any ability to veto spending. He’s too used to getting bailed out financially at the last minute by shadowy investors.

Greg

I won’t argue statistics with you, but I do have a concrete example.

I am middle class by all conventional measures. Last year I did my taxes using H&R Block Tax software. I put in all the numbers; deductions etc and it came out with a number that the IRS found acceptable. This number was a couple thousand dollars less than I paid a couple of years ago. That worried me, so I used an add on program to compare what I paid this year with what I would have paid under the previous tax regime. Sure enough, I paid a couple thousand dollars less, especially because of the child tax credit and the easing of the marriage penalty. I am not voting for Bush because of that money, but if his tax cut put more money in my pocket, I expect it did so for most Americans.

Maybe it is true that someone who makes half of what I make only gets half my benefit and I guess that if I made twice as much money, I would get twice the tax benefit. Of course, I would also pay twice the taxes. I don’t see how this is unfair, it is only arithmetic. Maybe I saved 5%. Simple math tells me that 5% of 1000 is more than 5% of 100. That is how the rich got a bigger tax break. All I know is that my family and everyone else who paid taxes paid less than they would have.

“Personally, I don’t want a President who is ineffectual.”- Joe- are you sure about this one? I mean we all want a president who is effective and active in terms of going after terrorists, but would it really be a bad thing if we could get some ineffectualness out of our president on domestic issues? I mean, if Bush was less “effective” we wouldnt of had the huge increases in medicare give aways to seniors to buy votes in Florida, the huge increase in the federal government’s role in education, ect. ect. I gotta say that knowing that kerry would likely be ineffective is one of the few things that keeps me from being terrified at the thought that he might actually win.

Jack:

Kerry is an example of what the rich will be able to do (i.e. avoid taxes) under a Kerry plan. The Kerrys pay taxes at a 12.8% rate. If John and Teresa Kerry manage to pay less than you do with taxes at today’s rates, why do you think they will pay more than you do if rates go up? John Kerry knows the tricks of wealth from personal experience. He knows that he will not be able to balance the budget by taxing only those making more than $200,000. But he also knows that if he can fool hard working people into believing that they can soak the rich, or at least get a free tax ride he will look like a hero. The ostensible target is the idle rich, living off the work of their (or their spouses’) dead relatives. The burden will really land on people growing their businesses and creating jobs. And the burden will fall on us. It will barely touch those who already got their piles of money and luxury homes. That is “the plan.”

Jack, this sounds about as sensible as “Kerry’s a flip-flopper”. In spite of any evidence to support it, and multiple statements from Kerry to contradict it, you’re: saying Kerry plans to tax the middle class. How do you know? because Bush said so? and how does he know? a hotline to God?

If by “John Kerry knows the tricks of wealth from personal experience” you mean to say, the wealthy never pay taxes anyway, they have accountants - I think you’re wrong, Jack. If that’s the case, then how come W’s worked so hard to save their tax cuts?

Eric:

No matter how you slice it tax increases are not the way to get the country out of recession.

Hey, are we in a recession? I don’t think it’s quite that bad, personally. Gee, you must be pretty fed up with a president that can’t lift the country out of a recession after 4 years, after all that deficit spending and stuff.

Dawn- Almost every single special interest group in washington, both left and right, is against a flat tax. Almost every single one. Do you know why that is? Because they have all spent millions upon millions of dollars buying loopholes in the tax system, and they will be darned if they are gonna let all that money go to waste. This is why the flat tax, while a great idea, has no chance of happening.

I found this article interisting..

http://factcheck.org/article280.html

You need to read the entire thing to get to the truth.

I’m a little confused about something here … Reds are saying, “The President can’t be blamed for the economy,” and then they’re saying, “If Kerry’s elected the economy will be destroyed.” Then they say, “Bush didn’t lose jobs during his administration, he created them,” then they say, “The President doesn’t create jobs.”

Just how many ways can you have it? Look, we all know Bush can’t be blamed for everything that goes wrong. But we can look back over the last four years and realize that the country is worse off environmentally, economically, domestically, diplomatically, educationally, and probably some other -ly’s I’m not thinking of.

Kerry’s plan will have to be changed, will have to compromise to fit what we have and what we can do. At least I know he’ll be willing and able to make those compromises instead of sticking to a plan that’s clearly not working.

Misha:

I understand your point. However, I wouldn’t ever plan to vote for a candidate whose positions I disliked, only because I thought he might not be able to enact them. That would be rather ridiculous.

I’ve often said that we probably couldn’t do worse as a country if we got rid of the whole bunch of politicians. When the govt shut down a few years ago, I offered up this thought.. “well, at least they arent screwing things up!!”

But in reality, we vote for people whose ideas are more in common with our own. That’s not to say we agree with everything they think.

My intent was simply to urge people like V. Edward to say what they think. I thought I detected a sense of him saying that Kerry’s plan wont get enacted, so it doesnt matter if its good or bad. I may have read that into his post in error; if so, I gave him the opportunity to correct it.

Good point Alejo..
But I seem to hear the people bashing Bush saying Clinton created jobs and he gave us a great economy.
It seems to me that no matter who is in the White House.. the President before them has an effect on their Presidency and the economy, good or bad.
It’s not like we stop and start over.
If the economy is on an upswing when a President takes over they claim they did it.
If the economy is going into a downswing the President who took office gets all the blame.
If Gore had been in office the bubble would have still burst and I doubt he could have stopped 9/11. What would he have done - raise taxes?
If what Bush has done to try and stimulate the economy continues the upswing and the growth gets bigger will he be given any credit for it if Kerry becomes President? I doubt it.

I don’t know how anyone can claim that educationally we are not better off. How can you possibly know that already? Some of the programs were targeted at children starting school. They are still in Elemetary School.

I remember when they tried to teach us the Metric System and tried to phase out the one we use. That didn’t work. I remember when they came out with the ‘New Math’. That didn’t go over very well.
I know of a school system that would let kids listen to books for book reports and they did away with that because it turned out some of those kids couldn’t read - in High School. This same system was letting kids use calculators when they were supposed to be learning basic math skills.
This same system did away with all that and require kids to learn and show they have learned. It took years before the changes were proven to have worked.
The number of kids going on to college went from very few to about 80%.
Things like that show me that having National Standards and Achievement tests is the way to go.
If teachers don’t like having to prove they are actually teaching that’s too bad.

Maybe Clinton will replace Kofi. That might be good.

Why are we worse off domestically? Because of our ‘divided nation’. I tend to blame most of that on our politicians themselves.

the mere fact that the title of this post is a heavily used bush talking point shows that there’s not a lot of thought put into this. i guess this side of the site has now been officially sponsored by BC04?

Oh, and since we’re talking economics:

AP: “The Index of Leading Economic Indicators, a widely watched barometer of future economic activity, edged lower in September for the fourth month in a row, indicating a slowing in economic growth, a private research group reported Thursday … Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein called the September decline a ‘clear signal that the economy is losing momentum heading into 2005.’

that happened on Bush’s watch. You can’t blame Clinton, 9/11, The Yankees losing or anything else on it.

AP NEW YORK - The US dollar slumped to an eight-month low against the euro, before regaining some strength, amid concerns about the US economy and a widening American trade deficit.

The unemployment rate is currently in worse shape now than when Bush took office in January 2001. I wish it weren’t the case, but it is.

More people have given up looking for work, and the economy has not been stimulated as expected by the tax cuts. Another round of Bush cuts at this point would severely hinder the chances at full recovery.

Just to clarify.

It took me awhile to find the report from Varney. One of the reasons it even caught my attention enough to post it was that when it was aired on FOX, the Dems had been offered a chance to come on and dispute,explain,clarify, whatever and they had no one available. They seem to have people lined up and ready to Bash Bush but when it comes to defending Kerry’s Tax Plan there wasn’t anyone available. Makes me say Hmmmm?

I looked for sites explaining the difference in the plans for the two men and the one I used went into alot more detail than any others I found. I could have put opinions from either side but that would not have shown anybody much.

Alejo:

Allow me to modify a thought that you present, in terms of how I see it. You might agree or disagree, but it will nonetheless provide you with an alternate viewpoint. You said above, “At least I know he’ll (Kerry) be willing and able to make those compromises instead of sticking to a plan that’s clearly not working.”

I see our economy improving over the past year or so. Unemployment is down, job creation is up, GCP has been up etc. I dont see a plan that is “clearly not working”. I see a plan that has resulted in growth, but has not had the test of time for us to know if the growth is temporary or more permanent.

To assess it as not working in the light of the last year is incorrect, in my opinion. Likewise, to assess it as definitively working in that same light, is certainly incomplete. If the upsurge that we have seen in the last 12-18 months continues, then it will indicate that the plan is in fact working.

Face it, our economy has suffered numerous blows in the past 4 years that are not attributable to Bush policies. 9-11, the simmering accounting scandal, the bankruptcies, the tech bubble burst—these are all issues that have happened during Bush’s tenure, but only the most partisan would claim they occurred as a result of Bush policy.

It takes time for actual policies to have an effect on the economy. The improvements we have seen have occurred largely after the tax cuts were enacted, which might mean the cuts actually did create the improvements. On the flip side, its possible that the cuts have created a short term improvement which is countered by long term debt.

I don’t claim to know economics well enough to unequivocally state which way things are. And even the most learned economists disagree anyway. But I believe we have turned a corner and have seen the improvement over the past year. I will vote for Bush to continue a plan that I see working.

It takes time for actual policies to have an effect on the economy.

Joe, how much time do you give? isn’t four years enough? if it’s not enough, how can be evaluate a president?

I agree that actual performance depends in part on luck, so past performance imperfectly predicts future performance. But it’s the best indicator we’ve got. And if you look at the numbers for Bush the last four years, or even the last one year, they’re pretty darn mediocre.

And back to Dawn’s post - I still don’t see any evidence that Kerry’s not planning to carry out his stated plan (as the post suggests).

Blame Bush because you didn’t get the raise you expected? The middle class and lower income workers aren’t better off because of Bush?

Take a look at what just happened at K-Mart.

An outgoing CEO is getting a 90 MILLION dollar exit bonus.
The people being hired in are still going to make minimum wage or slightly higher and the people who have been there for years will still only get their 15 cent cost of living raise.

Take a good look at these companies and tell me that Bush is in every board room meeting where CEO’s get these enormous compensation bonuses and then I will listen when you blame Bush.

jbod —

I apologize, I should have been more specific; I don’t presume to know whether Bush’s economic policies will work in the long term or not. What I meant by implying that he will stick with a plan whether it works or not is that’s what his record shows. When he believes he knows how a thing should be done — Iraq, for example — he’ll proceed with it no matter how many of his own people advise against it. While some see this as strength of conviction, I see it as a brittle stubbornness. A president has to be able to change his mind and his views when a situation changes, and I believe that even if it could be empirically proven that Bush’s economic policies were failing he would continue to push them.

That explanation probably won’t meet any more approval from you, but that is what I meant to say. My knowledge of economics is limited to what I was required to take for marketing classes.

Dawn,

If you are concerned about the tax plan, and want true details, then you shoud go to this site:

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/home/

It’s non-partisan and it covers both tax plans. Actually, my previous link is non-partisan as well, and extremely informative if you’re new to economic stimulus debate:

http://www.economy.com/dismal/economycom_bushfiscalpolicy.pdf

I also have to say, I strongly agree with the technical Kerry campaign paper about the failures of Bush’s economic stimulus policy:

http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=34532

You don’t see this paper a lot, because most voters get bored with straight, unvarnished factual debating. But it’s a strong, strong argument.

To whoever was talking about education:
As for the education comment, the Bush administration is essentially flipping back to an education policy we had in place decades ago (the famous “drill and grill” policy). There’s nothing wrong with this approach to education, but it’s sad that the new group has chucked out “the baby with the bathwater” of the “whole learning” policy. Luckily, teachers don’t turn on a dime, so they’re probably going to incorporate some of the lessons they learned under the old format. However, we’ve got to alter the “Leave No Child Behind” act to be a little more flexible within the next 4 years, instead of repeating the past mistakes of the “drill and grill” policy (which consistently shows gains flatlining after approx 4 years).

Also, Leave no Child Behind consistently leaves children with disabilities behind. We’ve just gone backwards so far on that front. But, you know, Head Start and other groups are used to government’s reversing effective policies, so, they’ll just start over. They already are.

Still, it would be nice if we had a government that wasn’t so black and white on EVERY SINGLE ISSUE. You can incorporate drill and grill with “whole child” learning and incorporate children with disabilities. It just requires putting actual educational experts with long-term experience in charge, who actually read educational policy papers.

This is what I like about Kerry. As compared to Bush (and compared to Clinton), Kerry actually spends a lot of time making sure he appoints qualified people, instead of rewarding political cronies *who consistently seem to have rigid mindsets* with a job.

Julia

Dawn, let me paint a picture for you. the three biggest budget items are the Social Security adminstration (at 400 billion) Defense (around 300 billion) and Treasury (300 billion).

What is it about treasury that makes it so expensive? Paying back our debt.

That’s right: 300 billion dollars a year doesn’t build our armies, defend the homeland, pay for our entitlements, fund education in any form, send us to space, or anything else. All it does is pay the debts we didn’t pay for the first time around. In recent times, the three biggest contributors to this mess have been Reagan, Bush Sr. and Dubya. Of those three, two of them felt it necessary to raise taxes. Reagan did so three times. Bush’s father did it once, and did so because he knew the economic havoc that would follow otherwise. As it was, the big recession at the end of his term came about anyways.

That’s right, Reagan raised taxes three times. It wasn’t some cockeyed version of raising taxes, as per the administrations definition. Your candidates on the Republican side seem to consider any number of votes on one tax bill to be separate instances of raising taxes. They also consider voting for a tax cut of insufficient size to be raising taxes. Don’t take my word for it, take the word of Cheney’s favorite site.

Joe: Of course you are right- its not like I would vote for Kerry just to lead to gridlock (i could never put my name next to someone like that), I am just saying that maybe it wont be as bad as we think if he wins. Maybe i am trying to rationalize, because the other day it really hit me that he COULD win, and it scared the crap out of me. i still do not like Bush and wont be voting for him, but Kerry does scare me and I am trying to think of ways maybe it wont be so bad :)

William:

It takes time for actual policies to have an effect on the economy. Joe, how much time do you give? isn’t four years enough? if it’s not enough, how can be evaluate a president?

Perhaps you stopped reading my post after you read the above first sentence. Had you continued to read, you would have seen my explanation. But since you didnt, I’ll rehash it just for you.

Bush enters the presidency with the economy heading downward. 8 months into his presidency, 9-11 happens, creating chaos in the economy. The acctg scandals along with major bankruptcies happen also.

Bush THEN implements a plan for recovery, focusing on tax cuts, which get introduced. For the last year+, the economy has been moving upward in general.

Now William, I’m trying to take it slow for you, so what part of this do you not understand? A policy gets implemented, and then improvement happens. As I said, this alone does not represent a cause/effect FACT, but it suggests one. Its simply too early to know if it truly is fact.

I hope this clarifies things for you.

There is nothing factual about an interpretation other than it exists. So far the only proof you have that the economies improvements are creditable to bush is the fallacious post hoc propter hoc argument: After this, therefore because of this. Meanwhile, we’re bumping against the legal upper limit of our credit, having to accommodate future budgets where more and more of our tax dollars go to pay off debt.

I want you to think about that for a moment because ultimately, what your people in their ideological inflexible may very well be doing is producing (at best)mild improvements in today’s economy, at the price of a much worse recessions or even depressions in the future. Why? Because one day, the bill will come due. Do you like the idea of a nation having to fight a war on terrorism, maybe even a war in Iraq, with a debt burden exploding at the same time?

This is the Problem with your leadership in the Republican party. They’re so damn shortsighted. This president in the first in American history to cut taxes during an election, an act usually not done because of the combination of unpredictable revenue flows and all-too predictably out of control rises in war budgets.

I mean, DUUUUHHH. It’s no wonder that Bush never headed up a successful company. You don’t cut revenues right when you’re anticipating a huge rise in costs. Fiscally it’s about as asinine of a decision as one can find.

I’m no economist either Joe, but I know the stock market ain’t smiling.

I find it somewhat interesting Misha that you seem to want to post a protest vote. Still jousting with windmills I guess.

While Joe and Misha drift off into dreamland, I hope those of us still willing to see the world with open eyes will recognize that a Bush second term will likely result in a Supreme court change so that the separation of church and state will cease to exist. That Bush will likely sell off our children’s future to the military industrial complex. Bush will likely entrench us further into the political quagmire of the middle east, thus raising the oil business profits, killing off more Americans and middle easteners and for good luck he’ll probably destroy our healthcare system except, of course, for the very wealthy.

I been watching carefully when Bush bends over to see the 666 in his bald spot.

In his worst nightmare, Kerry wouldn’t and couldn’t be that bad.

Hmm, I kind of remember the same thing being said of Jimmy Carter before he was elected, Greg…

You’d think people would learn from history, but they just keep wanting to repeat it.

Kerry may be better, he may be worse, but the attitude that ‘he can’t be that bad’ is almost always proven wrong by anyone who utters that nonsese.

Do your homework, vote for who you want, but drop the silly rhetoric.

Greg- its not a dream world- its a fact that I can support neither of these guys. Under Kerry we would have (1) a floundering foreign policy based on public opinion polls of the moment; (2) appointments of supreme court judges that will continue to invent the right to kill unborn children instead of letting the people decide on the issue; (3) huge increases in spending on extraconstitutional programs; (4) more campaign finance law destroying the first amendment; (5) tax increase.

Under Bush we will continue to have (1) ever-increasing spending with no end in sight; (2) re-entrechment of the patriot act and “enemy combatant” designations; (3) more homophobic rhetoric and attempts to move the judiciary in that direction.

Do not get me wrong, I would FAR perfer Bush to Kerry, but that is only because I think Kerry is rather dispicable in almost every policy position he holds (in fact, the only policy on which I agreed with him on- this support for free trade- he has completely gone back on to engage in economically illiterate outsourcing rhetoric). Kerry winning would be a nightmare for me- but I choose not to be the lesser of two evils this time around. i guess that means I live in a dream world.

Can someone pelase explain to me, since I’m not an Econ major, how anyone can call Democrats “tax and spend” politicians when the last three Republican presidents ran up more deficit than all the other presidents in history combined? It just doesn’t make any sense to me that someone whose label would logically be “spend and spend” politicians can cast economic aspersions on the party that proposes to find a way to pay the money it spends. I’ve never once heard Bush mention how he plans to cut the deficit as he has claimed he will do.

“Tax cuts will stimulate the enonomy.” Let’s take a quick poll: How much did everyone get back in taxes? Anybody here get back more than $2000? Because I sure as hell didn’t. I was one of those “odd men out” who actually paid more in taxes than I did the year before. The rich got plenty back, sure, but is there anyone rich on this blog? If there is, could you please explain to me how your money is going to trickle down to me?

I am continually baffled as to how average people can support tax cuts to rich people during a war. I mean, sure, we’d all like to not have to pay taxes, but the simple fact is that libertarianism isn’t economically feasible. It’s a pipe dream like communism. We need roads and sewers and water, and if we don’t pay taxes we don’t have them. So we are going to continue to pay taxes. How about we don’t allow the rich to wriggle out of their burden in the strange and vain hope that they’ll give some money to us average folks?

Rhinehold,

“Fiscal stimulus provided by the president”

That’s not rhetoric? Well, only if you prefer to classify it as complete and utter nonsense.

As I recall, Jimmy Carter was a former governer like Bush, not a senator. Perhaps you prefered Reagan/Ford commiting and pardoning burgalries in their spare time. Maybe you supported the illegal and stupid arms deals that Reagan made with Iran before he was president and while muling drugs from Panama after he was.

Is that the history you want to repeat?

Misha, perhaps you discuss Roe v. Wade as aprivacy issue which it was, rather than lyiung and saying it was “right to kill children” which it wasn’t. Perhaps your religion calls a woman’s fetus a child, but where again in the Constitution is a fetus called a person? You wouldn’t want to be extra constitutional or anything. Or would you?

Thanks, Misha, but I prefer the constitution to the theocracy you want.

Kerry will actually provide some sanity to our foreign policy rather than the crusade policy we seem to be under currently. If you choose to think voting for third party candidate will provide you with something better, be my guest. I choose to deal withn the world as it is, not as I wish it to be.

greg- your method of arguing about abortion i intellectually dishonest and I would ask you to stop with that. I am not religious in any way- so you are arguing against a straw-man in order to not have to address the serious issue at stake- how sad.

Lets say, for example, you met someone who was for allowing killing of newborns until 6 months old- and they said “how dare you impose your RELIGIOUS views that newborns are human beings on me!” That is just as intellectually dishonest as your argument here. There is nothing religious in saying that a being that is a homosapien, that is just another stage of development of a full adult (just like a newborn is another stage of development from an adult) ought to be protected. Is your view that newborns are human beings also “religious”? If not, why is my view that unborn children are human beings “religious”? Try to answer that without using a tautologial argument of “well they are already born”! Seriously, think about the issue before throwing around accusations and tag-lines without intellectual depth to them.

Where in the constitution does it say that newborns are PERSONS but unborn children are not? (I admit they are not citizens, but equal protection of the laws applies to all persons). Please point out the phrase in the constitution that says that. (Let me ruin the suspense for you, there is no such phrase).

You want the judiciary to impose YOUR narrow-minded view of what a “person” is on your fellow citizens- without any constitutional basis. I want to let the people decide whether they want to protect unborn children are persons as it is their right to do. I am not religious in any way- I just do not think that the location of a person (womb or not a womb) matters in whether they should be legally protected. It is sad that instead of addressing the issue you would rather delute yourself into thinking that everyone who is against you on abortion is a religiuos nut. Its not a intellectually honest way to argue.

In any case, I do not think I should get into an argument about abortion if you are going to just assume my position and say that I want a theocracy because I disagree with you. Perhaps you are I should stick to discussing other issues if you cannot even grant me the respect of addressing my position on face value instead of accusing me of having a “religious” view on abortion despite the fact that I have repeatedly told you that I am not religious in any way.

It is rare that I get personally offended by an argument made by someone on watchblog, but your claim that i am “lying” simply because I think unborn children’s lives matter did offend me- so I think I better take a day off from this thread. good day.

Sure enough, I paid a couple thousand dollars less, especially because of the child tax credit and the easing of the marriage penalty.

The irony is, Jack, you would have paid even less under Gore’s tax plan.

The child tax credit, expansion of the 10% bracket, and marriage penalty relief are the parts of Bush’s tax program credited with stimulating the economy. Unfortunately, those cuts make up only about 25% of the total tax cuts. The other 75% went to the wealthy and didn’t contribute anything to economic stimulous.

That’s why Kerry’s plan keeps and enhances the cuts that made the biggest difference for you - and me, and about 98% of all Americans.

And I have to laugh when I see someone say the president doesn’t create jobs. The Bush administration has overseen record growth in government bureaucracy.

The whole argument about whether Bush lost 1.6 million private sector jobs or 850,000 total jobs is all about the offsetting 800,000 public service jobs Bush created.

greg- your method of arguing about abortion i intellectually dishonest and I would ask you to stop with that. I am not religious in any way- so you are arguing against a straw-man in order to not have to address the serious issue at stake- how sad.

And yours is?

1. You don’t have to belong to an organized
religion to spout their concepts.
2. I don’t care about your personal life, Misha, just the phoneyness of your “constitutional” arguments.
3. The constitution doesn’t address fetus, dogs, cats and many other organisms. Where exactly does it address this issue? Why do you continue to say that Roe v. Wade was about “Aborting unborn children”” From a legal perspective it wasn’t. That’s what makes your constitutional arguments specious.
$. Where did you decide to confer personhood on a nonviable fetus? No law does, Misha. If that isn’t narrow minded or dishonest, and religious bigotry then what is?
4.You do not address the real constitutional issue of Roe v. Wade, rather your rewrite the issue in your “religious” context. It is about the governments intrusion into one’s private and personal familial decisions. It was about inequitable laws on the books. You claim to be a “strict constutionalist”, except with this issue. Then you want to foist your narrow, revisionist, and theocratic leanings upon the majority of Americans who don’t agree with you.
4. Your representations are dishonest,Misha, and that is what I refer to when I say you are “lying”. You have the right to believe what you will. But don’t make the argument that Roe v. Wade was about your beliefs. It wasn’t, and as a law student, I presume, you know better than that. That tactic offends me. If you wish to make arguments based on your beliefs then make them. But don’t use the Constuitution like your personal doormat.

Misha, personally I like your ability to make strong and intellectual arguments.

What I don’t like, is when you take the low road and dismiss opposing views as dishonest or anti intellectual. I will respond in kind whenever i see that.

What bothers me most about the abortion arguments that I have seen you make have nothing to do with the Constitution, yet you continue to claim that Roe v. Wade creates a right that doesn’t exist in the constitution. But NONE of that was at issue in Roe v. Wade. Abortions existed long before the Constitution was ever even concieved. I frankly see this “unborn child” gamit as a religious movement that continues the male oriented subjugation of women by claiming to be about a “life” issue. The entire issue is intellectually dishonest, in my opinion. I was born in the fifties. I’ve watched this movement develop. I’m not under it’s spell nor am I stupid.

Misha, you have the intellect to make your arguments clearly. I may never agree with them, but I’d like to hear them rather than this distortion of the Roe v. Wade issue.

I found these comments to be quite interesting:

Scott McConnell is the executive editor of The American Conservative.A Ph.D.in history from Columbia University, he was formerly the editorial page editor of the New York Post and has been a columnist for Antiwar.com and New York Press.His work has been published in Commentary, Fortune, National Review, The New Republic, and many other publications.

By Scott McConnell

There is little in John Kerry’s persona or platform that appeals to conservatives. The flip-flopper charge—the centerpiece of the Republican campaign against Kerry—seems overdone, as Kerry’s contrasting votes are the sort of baggage any senator of long service is likely to pick up. (Bob Dole could tell you all about it.) But Kerry is plainly a conventional liberal and no candidate for a future edition of Profiles in Courage. In my view, he will always deserve censure for his vote in favor of the Iraq War in 2002.

But this election is not about John Kerry. If he were to win, his dearth of charisma would likely ensure him a single term. He would face challenges from within his own party and a thwarting of his most expensive initiatives by a Republican Congress. Much of his presidency would be absorbed by trying to clean up the mess left to him in Iraq. He would be constrained by the swollen deficits and a ripe target for the next Republican nominee.

It is, instead, an election about the presidency of George W. Bush. To the surprise of virtually everyone, Bush has turned into an important president, and in many ways the most radical America has had since the 19th century. Because he is the leader of America’s conservative party, he has become the Left’s perfect foil—its dream candidate. The libertarian writer Lew Rockwell has mischievously noted parallels between Bush and Russia’s last tsar, Nicholas II: both gained office as a result of family connections, both initiated an unnecessary war that shattered their countries’ budgets. Lenin needed the calamitous reign of Nicholas II to create an opening for the Bolsheviks.

Bush has behaved like a caricature of what a right-wing president is supposed to be, and his continuation in office will discredit any sort of conservatism for generations. The launching of an invasion against a country that posed no threat to the U.S., the doling out of war profits and concessions to politically favored corporations, the financing of the war by ballooning the deficit to be passed on to the nation’s children, the ceaseless drive to cut taxes for those outside the middle class and working poor: it is as if Bush sought to resurrect every false 1960s-era left-wing cliché about predatory imperialism and turn it into administration policy. Add to this his nation-breaking immigration proposal—Bush has laid out a mad scheme to import immigrants to fill any job where the wage is so low that an American can’t be found to do it—and you have a presidency that combines imperialist Right and open-borders Left in a uniquely noxious cocktail.

During the campaign, few have paid attention to how much the Bush presidency has degraded the image of the United States in the world. Of course there has always been “anti-Americanism.” After the Second World War many European intellectuals argued for a “Third Way” between American-style capitalism and Soviet communism, and a generation later Europe’s radicals embraced every ragged “anti-imperialist” cause that came along. In South America, defiance of “the Yanqui” always draws a crowd. But Bush has somehow managed to take all these sentiments and turbo-charge them. In Europe and indeed all over the world, he has made the United States despised by people who used to be its friends, by businessmen and the middle classes, by moderate and sensible liberals. Never before have democratic foreign governments needed to demonstrate disdain for Washington to their own electorates in order to survive in office. The poll numbers are shocking. In countries like Norway, Germany, France, and Spain, Bush is liked by about seven percent of the populace. In Egypt, recipient of huge piles of American aid in the past two decades, some 98 percent have an unfavorable view of the United States. It’s the same throughout the Middle East.

Bush has accomplished this by giving the U.S. a novel foreign-policy doctrine under which it arrogates to itself the right to invade any country it wants if it feels threatened. It is an American version of the Brezhnev Doctrine, but the latter was at least confined to Eastern Europe. If the analogy seems extreme, what is an appropriate comparison when a country manufactures falsehoods about a foreign government, disseminates them widely, and invades the country on the basis of those falsehoods? It is not an action that any American president has ever taken before. It is not something that “good” countries do. It is the main reason that people all over the world who used to consider the United States a reliable and necessary bulwark of world stability now see us as a menace to their own peace and security.

These sentiments mean that as long as Bush is president, we have no real allies in the world, no friends to help us dig out from the Iraq quagmire. More tragically, they mean that if terrorists succeed in striking at the United States in another 9/11-type attack, many in the world will not only think of the American victims but also of the thousands and thousands of Iraqi civilians killed and maimed by American armed forces. The hatred Bush has generated has helped immeasurably those trying to recruit anti-American terrorists—indeed his policies are the gift to terrorism that keeps on giving, as the sons and brothers of slain Iraqis think how they may eventually take their own revenge. Only the seriously deluded could fail to see that a policy so central to America’s survival as a free country as getting hold of loose nuclear materials and controlling nuclear proliferation requires the willingness of foreign countries to provide full, 100 percent co-operation. Making yourself into the world’s most hated country is not an obvious way to secure that help.

I’ve heard people who have known George W. Bush for decades and served prominently in his father’s administration say that he could not possibly have conceived of the doctrine of pre-emptive war by himself, that he was essentially taken for a ride by people with a pre-existing agenda to overturn Saddam Hussein. Bush’s public performances plainly show him to be a man who has never read or thought much about foreign policy. So the inevitable questions are: who makes the key foreign-policy decisions in the Bush presidency, who controls the information flow to the president, how are various options are presented?

The record, from published administration memoirs and in-depth reporting, is one of an administration with a very small group of six or eight real decision-makers, who were set on war from the beginning and who took great pains to shut out arguments from professionals in the CIA and State Department and the U.S. armed forces that contradicted their rosy scenarios about easy victory. Much has been written about the neoconservative hand guiding the Bush presidency—and it is peculiar that one who was fired from the National Security Council in the Reagan administration for suspicion of passing classified material to the Israeli embassy and another who has written position papers for an Israeli Likud Party leader have become key players in the making of American foreign policy.

But neoconservatism now encompasses much more than Israel-obsessed intellectuals and policy insiders. The Bush foreign policy also surfs on deep currents within the Christian Right, some of which see unqualified support of Israel as part of a godly plan to bring about Armageddon and the future kingdom of Christ. These two strands of Jewish and Christian extremism build on one another in the Bush presidency—and President Bush has given not the slightest indication he would restrain either in a second term. With Colin Powell’s departure from the State Department looming, Bush is more than ever the “neoconian candidate.” The only way Americans will have a presidency in which neoconservatives and the Christian Armageddon set are not holding the reins of power is if Kerry is elected.

If Kerry wins, this magazine will be in opposition from Inauguration Day forward. But the most important battles will take place within the Republican Party and the conservative movement. A Bush defeat will ignite a huge soul-searching within the rank-and-file of Republicandom: a quest to find out how and where the Bush presidency went wrong. And it is then that more traditional conservatives will have an audience to argue for a conservatism informed by the lessons of history, based in prudence and a sense of continuity with the American past—and to make that case without a powerful White House pulling in the opposite direction.

George W. Bush has come to embody a politics that is antithetical to almost any kind of thoughtful conservatism. His international policies have been based on the hopelessly naïve belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American armies—a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky’s concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft. His immigration policies—temporarily put on hold while he runs for re-election—are just as extreme. A re-elected President Bush would be committed to bringing in millions of low-wage immigrants to do jobs Americans “won’t do.” This election is all about George W. Bush, and those issues are enough to render him unworthy of any conservative support.

Fine greg- let me try one more time to make my argument. Please read it carefully before dismissing it as religious and try to take it seriously. I DO NOT BELEIVE IN GOD SO PLEASE STOP BRINGING UP RELIGION. Anyway… I will make in steps, so you can see where my logic flows from:

1. I take it as axomatic that under our constitution, anything that the constitution does not settled is settled by the democratic process. This is completely uncontraversial.

2. The question about abortion is at what point an unborn child becomes a human beings worthy of legal proctection. Notice how you used the phrase “nonviable fetus.” That is a concept that was made important by the court in roe v. wade, so we will return to that in the next step.

3. The question then is- does the constitution settle the issue of whether congress has the right to determine that unborn children are persons and thus are worthy of legal protection. Now if you read the constitution carefully, it uses two different designations for those legally protected. One such designation is “citizen”- an unborn child is not a citizen (and neither are resident aliens, for example). The other designation is “person.” Now the question is who gets to decide who is a person under the constitution. For example, most everyone would admit that a newborn is a person- would you not? Moreover, most would admit that unborn children who are the victims of partial birth abortions are also persons (which is why the partial birth abortion ban has 80% support- and majority support even among democrats).

The contraveresy is at what point you draw the line. There are many people who believe that a person a being from the start of conception (which is my opinion- based on embrylogic and logic- not religion, since i am not religious). There are many others who believe at some point at viability the unborn child/fetus becomes a person. Others believe that point is a birth. Yet others (like peter singer) believe it is at some point AFTER birth- like 6 months.

4. My CONSTITUTIONAL argument is that the court has no authority to draw the line at “nonviable fetus” as the start of personhood. There is no clause in the constitution that allows the court to settle that disagreement. There are four possible points of deciding when a being of the homo sapien species is a “person”- (1) conception; (2) viability; (3) birth; (4) after-birth point at which the baby develops certain faculties. My point is that the constitution does not say that #2 or #3 is correct- so the court cannot pronounce that.

5. Now go back to step 1- since it is pretty obvious from the plain meaning, history and principles underpinning the constitution that the court does not have the authority to decide the issue based on the reasons in step 4 (if you want to point me to some textual or historical evidence, be my guest), it must allow our democratic system to answer the question. Since i doubt you can find me any textual or historical evidence to back up the Court’s ability to determine the contraversy from step 4, my point that the Court has merely created a right nowhere stated in the constitution must be correct.

There you go :)

In answering my challenge, rather than referring to rhetoric about “privacy” please carefully point to actual clauses in the constitution on which the right to have an abortion relies. Then analyze those clauses in light of the fact that the constitution nowhere DEFINES who is a human being- especially in terms of their location (womb or not womb) or viability.

For example, if you were to point to the due process clause of the 14th amendment, you must be able to show some textual or historical reason why it is against due process for Congress or a state to determine that designation (1) in point 4 of my argument is correct. Once you try this out, i think you will see why I think Roe v. Wade is just made up by the court to advance its agenda without any constitutional basis.

Let me just tell you that, after 9/11, many people in my country prayed for the victims and we all stood by your nation. Three years later that support is gone. As you know, the same thing happened all over the world. Why? Because US Administration lied about WMD and threw a lot of nations to a needless war, decided away from UN and without any plan. Is the world safe, now? Is Bin Laden dead or imprisoned? Although I do not agree with such motivations, are the oil prices lower and is economic environment improving? Is USA going to invade all the other dictators in Middle East- even its allies?
As result of the arrogance of Mr Bush, millions and millions hate the “West”. Those who were “set free” in Iraq (i.e. the chiites) are fighting coalition troops more than the others. This year, in Madrid, Spain, 400 miles away from where I live (Lisbon, Portugal), hundreds paid for it with life. For each terrorist dead, many others are being recruited. Terrorism deserves a strong fight, but with intelligence, with a large coalition and with the improvement of the America’s image. We’d never be secure with this men.
That’s why we pray, now, for a Kerry’s victory.

Misha, as you know, the Constitution does not address abortion at all. It defines the structure and limits of government. If the Constitution does not address a particular issue it is relegated to the states to decide.

When the Constitution addresses life, it addresses human life, now that of cows, horses, bacteria, excised human tissues, amputated limbs, etc. Therefore, the only way the Constitution can be applied to the argument over abortion is at that point at which a legal definition for human life is established.

And that definition is very much in flux, as you know in the courts and legislature. I am a Buddhist. I do not define life based on tissues, bones, and blood. After all, a cow has these same components. Human life is distinguished from that of animals in its capacity to uniquely experience life as other humans do. Remove a human’s brain, memory, experience, and choice and one has removed that body’s humanity and membership to it. Thus a brain dead human body is no longer a human from my non-Christian perspective. And a fetus which has not yet any of these attributes of humanity, should also not be defined as a legal human entity.

Thus, I believe as a result of religious perspective abortion should be legal as a free choice to be made by humans living under the laws of this society. I believe attempts to invoke human protections under the law to the fetus the moment after it is fertilized or before, is an attempt by one religion to impose its religious views upon other religious and a-religious peoples who do not define human life at conception either legally, morally, or religiously.

Attributes are a funny thing David. For example, some animal rights advocates point out that newborn children should have less rights than fully grown monkeys because they have less attributes. I think potentiality should define who is a person- that is- i think that a newborn should have the same right to life as a fully grown adult even though it has far far fewer faculties (a brain dead body has no potentiality).

I know a fetus is very different from me- but a newborn child is extremely different from me too! The question is- does the fact that a newborn has less faculties make her less human? I think the answer to that is a big NO from almost everyone. So why is it that an unborn child that has less faculties than a newborn is suddenly not human?

One answer I can give is that it is against the self interest of many men and women with political power to admit htat unborn children are human beings. It is not surprizing that those who have political power can classify those who dont out of legal protection. The other answer I can give is that unborn children are out of sight, and therefor out of mind. Which is why showing pictures actual unborn children is such an effective tool for pro-life groups…

Thank you, again, for your position on the issue.

However, as David pointed out your definition of a person IS a religious (spirtual, if you prefer) connotation. It isn’t about embryology or logic. Embryology is not a study of personage and makes no comments about it. The logical approach does not make any sense to me. If I were to cut out a hunk of flesh that contains my DNA, are there then two me’s? Could I then vote twice? Since we share 99% of our DNA with Chimps, am I really a Chimp? (Don’t answer that:)!!) I think viability is a reasoned approach to evaluating the legitimacy of abortion.

Again, I respect your beliefs, just please don’t impose them on me or the women that choose abortion as a sensible private decision.

As to the privacy issue the court did rule that the “privacy” issues of the 9th and 14th admendments were the basis for their decision.

I have been reading up on the enumerated powers issue that we discussed in the center column, while I find the arguments interesting, I have yet to see where they make any sense. Do you propose abolishing the Federal Highway System and the FAA as well as NASA?

I would be interested to know your view on whether the Judiciary Branch was a mistake in the first place, and should be subject to the election as the other two branchs are.

All this, together with our observation, supra, that throughout the major portion of the 19th century prevailing legal abortion practices were far freer than they are today, persuades us that the word “person,” as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn. 55 This is in accord with the results reached in those few cases where the issue has been squarely presented. McGarvey v. Magee-Womens Hospital, 340 F.Supp. 751 (WD Pa. 1972); Byrn v. New York City Health & Hospitals Corp., 31 N. Y. 2d 194, 286 N. E. 2d 887 (1972), appeal docketed, No. 72-434; Abele v. Markle, 351 F.Supp. 224 (Conn. 1972), appeal docketed, No. 72-730. Cf. Cheaney v. State, Ind., at , 285 N. E. 2d, at 270; Montana v. Rogers, 278 F.2d 68, 72 (CA7 1960), aff’d sub nom. Montana v. Kennedy, 366 U.S. 308 (1961); Keeler v. Superior Court, 2 Cal. 3d 619, 470 P. 2d 617 (1970); State v. Dickinson, 28 Ohio St. 2d 65, 275 N. E. 2d 599 (1971). Indeed, our decision in United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S. 62 (1971), inferentially is to the same effect, for we there would not have indulged in statutory interpretation favorable to abortion in specified circumstances if the necessary consequence was the termination of life entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection.

The above is included, if you believe I gave short shrift to your constitutional argument. This is directly from ROE v. Wade.

All they did was interpret “person” from the common meaning at the time of it’s writing. Being strictly “constitutional” isn’t it a bit inconsistent of you to wish to give a “judicially activist” interpretation to this definiton?

1. It is interesting to note that you did not actually accept my challenge of pointing to the clause in the constitution that allows the court to draw the line (which you must understand exists) of when someone becomes a human being. Obviously there is much disagreement between the “life begins at conception” folks and the “life begins at birth folks” with many people in between- but, I think as your silence on the issue shows- there is no CONSTITUTIONAL way to draw that line. As a result, it should be left up the democratic process. You point broadly to the 9th amendment (which does is just a tautology) and the 14th amendment (which has many clauses, and none of them apply to this case)- but I think you can see that neither explanation is adequate as a matter of text or history.

2. You say: “Again, I respect your beliefs, just please don’t impose them on me or the women that choose abortion as a sensible private decision.” But my belief requires me to impose it on that woman to protect the child- just like my belief that rape and infantacide are wrong require me to vote to impose that in rapists and those who would commit infantacide to protect the rape victim or infant.

Thats the thing- you can ask me respectfully, and we can debate this issue- but as long as the Court pretends like it has the power to declare that you are correct without any textual backing, we are BOTH unconstitutionaly disenfranchised from having our voices heard on the issue.

3. As for the agencies you are talking about. I fully support abolishing NASA. I do not support abolishing the FAA because it is a regulation of interstate commerce (under the interstate commerce clause). The same goes for interstate highways, as they are by definition involving interstate commerce. I think most of the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Labor, Department of Education should all be abolished as a matter of constitutional law. That is NOT to say that I oppose eveything these bodies do- i just think we require a constitutional amendment if we want to implement them so that we are not operating in a zone where we ignore the limits of constitutionalism and undermine the foundations of our government.

4. The judiciary brach is necessary and I do not think judges should be elected. The judge OUGHT to say what the law is- and thus they should be detached from political preasure in saying waht the law is. The problem comes when judges MAKE law while purporting to say what the law is (some believe the court did that in Bush v. Gore; I beleive the court did that in Roe v. Wade; I think there are example we could all find where the courts do that). I think the current problems with our courts is not because our system is poorly designed, its because some people on the court have given in to the temptations of power and forgotten their sworn duties under the constitution in many instances.

If you look at the dissent of Roe, you will get a much more impressive history on the other side (note all those cases cited in that string cite are from 1970-1972!). This battle of string citations is a classic method of juduciary sophistry. Neither you nor justice Blackmun could care less what people in 1864 thought about abortion- you guys want abortion now and you are willing to make any “constitutional” argument to make sure the people have no say about it.

Here is a good list to prove my point (from Renquists’ dissent in Roe):
Jurisdictions having enacted abortion laws prior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868:

By the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, there were at least 36 laws enacted by state or territorial legislatures limiting abortion:

1. Alabama — Ala. Acts, c. 6, § 2 (1840).

2. Arizona — Howell Code, c. 10, § 45 (1865).

3. Arkansas — Ark. Rev. Stat., c. 44, div. III, Art. II, § 6 (1838).

4. California — Cal. Sess. Laws, c. 99, § 45, p. 233 (1849-1850).

5. Colorado (Terr.) — Colo. Gen. Laws of Terr. of Colo., 1st Sess., § 42, pp. 296-297 (1861).

6. Connecticut — Conn. Stat., Tit. 20, §§ 14, 16 (1821). By 1868, this statute had been replaced by another abortion law. Conn. Pub. Acts, c. 71, §§ 1, 2, p. 65 (1860).

7. Florida — Fla. Acts 1st Sess., c. 1637, subc. 3, §§ 10, 11, subc. 8, §§ 9, 10, 11 (1868), as amended, now Fla. Stat. Ann. §§ 782.09, 782.10, 797.01, 797.02, 782.16 (1965).

8. Georgia — Ga. Pen. Code, 4th Div., § 20 (1833).

9. Kingdom of Hawaii — Hawaii Pen. Code, c. 12, §§ 1, 2, 3 (1850).

10. Idaho (Terr.) — Idaho (Terr.) Laws, Crimes and Punishments §§ 33, 34, 42, pp. 441, 443 (1863).

11. Illinois — Ill. Rev. Criminal Code §§ 40, 41, 46, pp. 130, 131 (1827). By 1868, this statute had been replaced by a subsequent enactment. Ill. Pub. Laws §§ 1, 2, 3, p. 89 (1867).

12. Indiana — Ind. Rev. Stat. §§ 1, 3, p. 224 (1838). By 1868 this statute had been superseded by a subsequent enactment. Ind. Laws, c. LXXXI, § 2 (1859).

13. Iowa (Terr.) — Iowa (Terr.) Stat., 1st Legis., 1st Sess., § 18, p. 145 (1838). By 1868, this statute had been superseded by a subsequent enactment. Iowa (Terr.) Rev. Stat., c. 49, §§ 10, 13 (1843).

14. Kansas (Terr.) — Kan. (Terr.) Stat., c. 48, §§ 9, 10, 39 (1855). By 1868, this statute had been superseded by a subsequent enactment. Kan. (Terr.) Laws, c. 28, §§ 9, 10, 37 (1859).

15. Louisiana — La. Rev. Stat., Crimes and Offenses § 24, p. 138 (1856).

16. Maine — Me. Rev. Stat., c. 160, §§ 11, 12, 13, 14 (1840).

17. Maryland — Md. Laws, c. 179, § 2, p. 315 (1868).

18. Massachusetts — Mass. Acts & Resolves, c. 27 (1845).

19. Michigan — Mich. Rev. Stat., c. 153, §§ 32, 33, 34, p. 662 (1846).

20. Minnesota (Terr.) — Minn. (Terr.) Rev. Stat., c. 100, §§ 10, 11, p. 493 (1851).

21. Mississippi — Miss. Code, c. 64, §§ 8, 9, p. 958 (1848).

22. Missouri — Mo. Rev. Stat., Art. II, §§ 9, 10, 36, pp. 168, 172 (1835).

23. Montana (Terr.) — Mont. (Terr.) Laws, Criminal Practice Acts § 41, p. 184 (1864).

24. Nevada (Terr.) — Nev. (Terr.) Laws, c. 28, § 42, p. 63 (1861).

25. New Hampshire — N. H. Laws, c. 743, § 1, p. 708 (1848).

26. New Jersey — N. J. Laws, p. 266 (1849).

27. New York — N. Y. Rev. Stat., pt. 4, c. 1, Tit. 2, §§ 8, 9, pp. 12-13 (1828). By 1868, this statute had been superseded. N. Y. Laws, c. 260, §§ 1-6, pp. 285-286 (1845); N. Y. Laws, c. 22, § 1, p. 19 (1846).

28. Ohio — Ohio Gen. Stat. §§ 111 (1), 112 (2), p. 252 (1841).

29. Oregon — Ore. Gen. Laws, Crim. Code, c. 43, § 509, p. 528 (1845-1864).

30. Pennsylvania — Pa. Laws No. 374, §§ 87, 88, 89 (1860).

31. Texas — Tex. Gen. Stat. Dig., c. VII, Arts. 531-536, p. 524 (Oldham & White 1859).

32. Vermont — Vt. Acts No. 33, § 1 (1846). By 1868, this statute had been amended. Vt. Acts No. 57, §§ 1, 3 (1867).

33. Virginia — Va. Acts, Tit. II, c. 3, § 9, p. 96 (1848).

34. Washington (Terr.) — Wash. (Terr.) Stats., c. II, §§ 37, 38, p. 81 (1854).

35. West Virginia — See Va. Acts., Tit. II, c. 3, § 9, p. 96 (1848); W. Va. Const., Art. XI, par. 8 (1863).

36. Wisconsin — Wis. Rev. Stat., c. 133, §§ 10, 11 (1849). By 1868, this statute had been superseded. Wis. Rev. Stat., c. 164, §§ 10, 11; c. 169, §§ 58, 59 (1858).

n2 Abortion laws in effect in 1868 and still applicable as of August 1970:

1. Arizona (1865).

2. Connecticut (1860).

3. Florida (1868).

4. Idaho (1863).

5. Indiana (1838).

6. Iowa (1843).

7. Maine (1840).

8. Massachusetts (1845).

9. Michigan (1846).

10. Minnesota (1851).

11. Missouri (1835).

12. Montana (1864).

13. Nevada (1861).

14. New Hampshire (1848).

15. New Jersey (1849).

16. Ohio (1841).

17. Pennsylvania (1860).

18. Texas (1859).

19. Vermont (1867).

20. West Virginia (1863).

21. Wisconsin (1858).

You see what I just did there- under that view abortion MUST be outlawed under teh 14th amendment and judges should impose it. MAGIC. Thats the problem with this approach- so lets stop pretending, like Blackmun did, that the constitution settles the issues of abortion and allow it to be settled exactly where the constitutiona requires it to be settled- by our elected officials.

Greg- I want your honest answer- seeing Renquist list- did it make you think Roe was any less valid? Why do you think that is- I think you know the answer and it should make you think of the REAL reason you support the decision (which i suspect is because you prefer the policy of allowing abortions rather than because the constitution requires that result).

Consider, for example, Justice White (a pretty centrist judge) dissent in Roe:
“The Court apparently values the convenience of the pregnant mother more than the continued existence and development of the life or potential life that she carries. Whether or not I might agree with that marshaling of values, I can in no event join the Court’s judgment because I find no constitutional warrant for imposing such an order of priorities on the people and legislatures of the States. In a sensitive area such as this, involving as it does issues over which reasonable men may easily and heatedly differ, I cannot accept the Court’s exercise of its clear power of choice by interposing a constitutional barrier to state efforts to protect human life and by investing mothers and doctors with the constitutionally protected right to exterminate it. This issue, for the most part, should be left with the people and to the political processes the people have devised to govern their affairs.”

You see- what White is saying is NOT that unborn children are human beings, its that the constitution does not declare that they are not. I think this is a position that is hard to disagree with whiel holding a straight face.

Again as I reread my post perhaps I have been unclear.

The Supreme Court did not decide this issue upon the the issue of unborn rights. The state of Texas et al. did not have the right to infer constitutional rights on non-persons. Especially since they were inconsistent in the application of that definition. This is the epitome of judicial conservatism to me.

The issue was the intrusion of the state upon the private medical decision of a mother and her doctor. While they did argue that the state had an interest in regulating abortion as a medical procedure, they did not have the right to usurp her right to medically responsible treatment.

Misha, I believe you and I agree that the Constitution does not address this issue in regards to fetus rights.

Where I feel you are being “activist” is exactly the issue of when a group of cells or zygote is defined as a person.

I feel the court was conservative, not activist in Roe v. Wade. Conception was not even a well defined issue at the writing of our Constitution and now you want to confer rights on what I feel is a biological process. This is where reason should prevail rather than religious fervor.

I do not believe abortion is something that any mother easily enters into. But within the confines of viability, it is a deeply personal decision. The right to life movement has valid arguments, but choose to ignore the consequences they impose.
It is largely led by male figures. Randall Terry is a prime example. He does not inspire me to believe in any argument he makes. Like Freud, I believe sexual and drives often are at the heart of many supposed intellectual arguemnts.

While I do not group you with those people, I feel you have perhaps not looked at the roots of the movement to see the impetus for the cause.

I think the justices may have tangentially touched this issue in their analysis of the history of Abortion. As I’ve said I’ve watched this movement develope.

The reason I asked you about the FAA etc. is to expose the ridiculousnees of the position that the Constitution is only to be interpreted in strict enumeration of its clauses while ignoring the enumerated general welfare.

There are clauses about Indians, post roads etc. which have little or no relevance to todays society. I believe we should always be attempting to carefully watch the influence of power, but to argue that these agencies are extra constitutional seems a bit academic and sophistic. Education may have not been necessary in an agricultural society where most people learned to plow behind a mule, but that is not the case today.

Greg- what a novel argument- Roe v. Wade is conservative! What would be conservative is to say “the judicial branch has no right to decide on abortion, becuase the constitution gives us no mandate.” Activist is telling the states and the people they cannot legislate on abortion. If the court stays out of the abortion issue it is NOT say unborn chidlren have rights- it is saying- as White says in his dissent- that the people have to make this delicate balancing act.

On the enumerated powers argument- our framers understood your argument and put FOUR ways to amend the constitution right into the constitution. When we ignore constitutional limits- we put all of our right in peril. When we follow the process for changing the constitution, we honor the system that we set up to protect our rights.

Finally, this argument makes no sense: “Where I feel you are being “activist” is exactly the issue of when a group of cells or zygote is defined as a person.”

I am saying the PEOPLE should decide if a group of cells that is unborn is really that different from a group of cells that has been born :). If i were being “activist” I would say that the COURT should say that allowing abortion violated the 14th amendment- I am not taking that position.

Misha,

Since I am suddenly converted to Islam and find you an Infidel, should I be allowed to impose my just rath upon you?

Don’t worry, I just reverted back from Islam.

Your statement that your beliefs require you to impose your values are circular in that they involve your definition of a fetus as an infant.

Secondly, your rights cease to exist where they impose upon mine.

So your argument is that Hamilton believed that a fetus is Human life?

I think that is absurd, and very activist.

Unless of course you are a woman and I am an unborn child, and in that case your rights to kill me are absolute, regardless of your reasons for doing it… :)

Ok, we have reach the end of this argument- I am glad it actually turned out to be somewhat productive. I urge you to read over some of my longer posts, because I think there was more to them in terms of constitutional interpritation than you gave me credit for.. good night :)

White speaks of priorities…how else am I to interpret that than to presume he believes a fetus was percieved by the framers as a person. I doubt that greatly. White confers rights to the fetus out of thin air.

Indeed your posts were very informative..thanks for the debate.

Greg- please point me to the place where I say the founding father had any opinion on abortion? Go ahead- give me any place I said that. thanks :)

Greg- this is so simple that I refuse to believe you do not understand it. White says the constitution SAYS NOTHING ABOUT ABORTION. How in the world CONFER ANY RIGHT ON THE UNBORN?! Please explain. he is saying the PEOPLE have the liberty to confer rights on the unborn if they choose- they also have the right to confern NO rights on the unborn if they so choose. this isnt exactly complicated stuff.

In the same place where they confered personhood and rights to a fetus!!!LOL

The barrier to protect a non-person, as defined in the constitution as those things other than a person, is that it cannot supercede the rights of a person.

Even if a fetus is a “person”, what gives this person the right to another person’s womb?

If I jumped into one of your stomachs, don’t you have the right to evict me?

Julia

Julia- the unborn child did not jump into the women’s womb- the woman had sex and put the child in the situation where it was in her womb. In my family law class the other day we read a case where a man who got a woman pregnant volunteered to pay for an abortion for her and when she declined, he filed a claim in court saying he shouldnt have to pay child support. The court rejected this claim, reasoning that because he had voluntarily slept with the woman, it was his responsibility to pay child support to the child.

I hope from the above example you can see that the law can impose obligations on parents to their children just because of biology. When deciding the scope of the obligation we must weigh the size of the obligation vs. the harm to the child if the obligation is not fulfilled. In the case of abortion that does not threaten the mother’s life (which is 99%) of abortions, the interst of the child at stake (not being killed) is greater than the non-lethal incovinience to the mother.

Your argument, however, is a good for allowing abortion in the case of rape becuase in that situation the mother did nothing to put the child in the situation the child is in. But that is as far as that argument can carry you.

Actually, it doesn’t. Legally being required to pay money is not the same thing as being required to give someone access to your body. The father would not be required to give a kidney to the child, therefore the example doesn’t apply.

Our laws clearly state that a person has a legal right over the use of their own body. You cannot take my organs, even after I am dead, and donate them to someone whose life could be saved, without proof of my permission.

On a side note, if the woman had given the child up for adoption, would the father be required to pay money to the new parents, if they requested it? Would the mother?

Julia

Also, even in cases where you give permission for someone to have access to your body, that permission can always be revoked.

And in cases of children, you can always give your children up to foster care with no legal consequences. You cannot be forced to be a parent.

Julia

Julia- when you admit that there are two human beings at issue, its a matter of balancing interests. For example, you point out that everyone has a right to their bodily integrity- this is true. But you cannot use lethal force to protect your bodly from a non-lethal threats- even from a stranger!! (Laws of self-defense only allow you to take human life if your life is in danger or the life of a third party is in danger). Add to that the unborn child is not only NOT a stranger, but also your own child to whom you have responsibilities, and the case becomes much more difficult for you position.

If your position is that you have a right to full bodily integrity and can use any amount of force on another person to protect yourself from non-lethal dangers, your argument becomes untenable or, in the least, extremely radical.

And yes, you CAN give you kids to adoption- however it is your responsibility to make sure you get them there safely. You cannot simply declare “I do not want these kids” and leave them on the street to die. You would be prosecuted for that. You must take every reasonable measure to make sure the children end up in the hands of someone willing to assume your parental duties. This is because children have rights- which their biological parents have a duty to honor unless and until they can find another party to take on the parent’s responsibility and thus absolve them on their duty.

Let us use an example that is an exact duplicate of the situation.

I get really excited one night, and in a spontaneous moment, I decide that I want to take a ride on the “fun machine”. The fun machine carries a risk that I might get hooked up to a human being who is in a 9-month temporary (but life threatening) coma. I take the ride, and I abruptly wake up the next morning to find a comatose man grafted to my body, using my bodily fluids as a life support machine. If I ask this person to be removed within the next six months, he will die.

Legally, no matter if I signed a document saying that I agreed to this situation, I am not required to remain grafted to this man.

You cannot, in this country, have an actor you have payed 10 million dollars in fees forced to act in your movie. That’s called slavery.

The law could force me to divest myself of the man grafted to me in the manner that makes it the most possible that he could live. But it cannot force me to delay that procedure.

It is not my responsibility that the man is incapable of living without being grafted to me.

Julia

Thats a creative example- but can you point me to any legal authority that actually backs up your point? There is none- so you cannot rely on what the law WOULD make you do, we can only find out the OUGHT to make you do… So having said that, lets make the example a little more like abortion:

You are tied to the man, but the only way you can “untie” yourself is by having his brain sucked out through a tube and imploding his skull (so like partial birth abortion). Meanwhile, the other choice is that you will have your actions limited for 6 months. If the law was faced with a situation where on one hand (1) the man would have his brain sucked out but you would be free from your voluntarily assumed obligations vs. (2) a situation where you would not suck the man’s brain out with a tube, but you would be burdened with certain limitations for 6 months, at which point the man would be healthy- i think the law would and SHOULD choose option (2). It would and should choose that option because it is NOT slavery, since it was voluntarily assumed (the hallmark of slavery is that you had no choice) AND because the harm to the man (having his brain sucked out via a tube) is much more than the harm to you (being inconvienced for 6 months). Do you honestly think the law would stand by as a doctor sucked the man’s brain out with a tube?
I almost positive it would not.

(Sidenote: the reason a movie star cannot be forced to be in the movie is two-fold: (1) specific performance is unavaliable for personal service contracts because monetary damages can make the movie studio whole- specific perform