End of the Year Rants
Saturday, December 29th, 2007
I suppose we had a false start in this millennium. In its relatively brief history, the United States has shown a tendency to take two steps forward, then one step back. We’ve stepped out in the wrong direction a lot lately.
It’s no coincidence that presidential candidates offering a clear change find themselves on the upswing in recent polls. Huckabee, Obama and McCain all differ from Bush stylistically, and seem ready to lead us in a totally new direction. Here are some disappointing trends that our country would do well to reverse.
Torture
If we engage in waterboarding to get information, what will stop our enemies from using even more gruesome tactics against Americans? Our country made the right decision to sign the Geneva Conventions. We should go back to following them.
The US should immediately discontinue the use of torture under all circumstances. Torture yields questionable intelligence, diminishes our moral standing in the world and unnecessarily endangers our soldiers.
Boot Camps
Young recruits attend real boot camps to prepare themselves for military combat in a foreign country. Chances are, juvenile delinquents already know about hand to hand fighting. These kids need job skills training and assistance in handling real world problems without resorting to violence.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen youngsters die at boot camp style facilities after getting beaten by guards. Vagrant teens don’t deserve the death penalty. We should abandon this flawed strategy.
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Good news. These citizens deserve recognition for providing the kind of exceptional leadership our world needs in troubling times.
Republicans vying for public office next year will have a difficult time explaining where they want to take the country. The course plotted by
Who would have guessed that the governor’s mansion in Little Rock, Arkansas would become a proving ground for presidential candidates? Recently Governor Mike Huckabee became the front runner among the Republican presidential candidates in Iowa. A victory in the Iowa caucuses is a long ways from winning the Republican nomination, but at least now it seems within the realm of possibilities for Huckabee.
Experience is overrated. Politicians who like to crow about their experience tend to believe that they have all the answers. We live in a rapidly changing world. Relying on cold war solutions to deal with new challenges is leading us down a dead end street. Our country should spend more time supporting burgeoning democracies and less time picking fights with poor countries.
How nice of
Rudy Giuliani is a first rate fear monger. He sounds like a mob boss as he goes from one campaign stop to another warning us all about the dangers of another
I love to watch Ron Paul shake up the Republican presidential campaign. He understands how far the Republican Party has strayed from conservative principles. Nothing exemplifies this more than the War in Iraq.
California knows catastrophes. Preparing for emergencies is a way of life. Every year California has fires, earthquakes, floods and mudslides. We usually have several of these disasters a year. Right now, fires are ravaging southern California. But you won’t see a Hurricane Katrina style government response here. In California we plan for disasters and respond accordingly.
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews is one of my favorite political analysts on TV. Last week on The Chris Matthews Show he took issue with the notion that President Bush is dumb. Mr. Matthews noted several politically astute maneuvers by Mr. Bush over the past month. I also suspect that Mr. Matthews feels uncomfortable with people using this terminology to describe our commander in chief. Point taken.
