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Politics : THE WHITE HOUSE -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (4838)	5/18/2007 1:39:19 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25737

Can you point to anything, based upon his 28 year record in federal government, or from his speeches, to establish that he is 'against national defense'? (I'll bet not.... :-)

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (4838)	5/18/2007 1:48:21 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25737

By the way... this seems to be an interesting statement of a G.O.P. quandary, (& a basic truth, I believe)... that has been HIGHLIGHTED by Rudy's campaign: ======================================================== May 18, 2007 What are the Right's Priorities? By Robert Tracinski realclearpolitics.com ...Republicans are supposed to stand for the defense of freedom abroad and for greater freedom at home--except which it comes to the moral crusades of the religious right. This contradiction was revealed in an exchange between Giuliani and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Explaining his support for a woman's right to choose an abortion, Giuliani expressed it in terms of the pro-freedom half of the Republican ideological coalition: There are people, millions and millions of Americans, who are as of good conscience as we are, who make a different choice about abortion. And I think in a country where you want to keep government out of people's lives, or government out of people's lives from the point of view of coercion, you have to respect that. There are things that you can oppose, things you can be against; and then you can come to the conclusion, in the kind of democracy we have, the kind of society that we have...where we want to keep government out of people's personal lives, that you can respect other people's view on this. There you have it: if Republicans want to keep government coercion out of people's lives, then they have to respect a woman's right to choose. For his part, Huckabee replied: Now, if something is morally wrong, let's oppose it. The honest argument is, "I don't think it's morally wrong," and someone could take that position and then justify abortion. But if it's wrong, then we ought to be opposed to it. There's the opposite position: if something is morally wrong, we must oppose it--through the use of government coercion. Does this mean that government should outlaw everything that these moralist find to be reprehensible? And where are the limits of this moral policework? Consider the way, for example, that Sam Brownback expanded on the "pro-life" agenda in Tuesday night's debate: We ought to protect [life] in all circumstances in all places, here in the womb, somebody that's struggling in poverty, a family that's struggling. We should work and look at all life, be pro-life and whole-life for everybody. "Pro-life and whole-life" sounds a lot like "cradle to grave" government paternalism. Logically, shouldn't these Republicans be joining forces with John Edwards instead of ridiculing his high-priced haircut? The agenda of the religious right--the desire to use government coercion to outlaw that which evangelical moralists find to be wrong--has always clashed with the pro-freedom, pro-free market agenda for which most Republicans also declare their support. But the clash is particularly glaring in dealing with our current enemy in the War on Terrorism. Mitt Romney did a decent job of defining the nature of that enemy: It is critical for us to remember that Iraq has to be considered in the context of what's happening in the Middle East and throughout the world. There is a global jihadist effort. Violent, radical jihadists want to replace all the governments of the moderate Islamic states, replace them with a caliphate. And to do that, they also want to bring down the West, in particular us. The "caliphate" is a totalitarian Islamic dictatorship, one devoted to imposing Muslim religious values by force. That is the essence of our enemy, the essence of the evil we are fighting. I'm not among those who get hysterical about the prospect of Republicans imposing a Christian "theocracy" in America--but I do see a contradiction in fighting against totalitarian Islam abroad while endorsing religiously inspired government controls at home....