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US Politics #1


BloodRider

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This is my point. While Healthcare has not been around long enough to make an informed decision, every other talking point is how we fucked up the economy in the first place. I just do not understand it. How can any person with half a brain accept this as a viable platform. It is an abject failure. It has proven to be the two times it was tied. But they want to do it again???

I'll take mt risks with the guys who want rational regulation on businesses and who acknowledge the reality that taxes are going to have to go up. I'll take the guys who put their jobs on the line to do what they think is right, and so far have accomplished a bunch of big things for our country.

I'll say it again. Until the Repubs come up with a platform that is not more of the same, they are not worthy of my vote or money again.

In the meantime this is fun. Teabaggers go nuts over a fake Onion story.

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This is precisely what puzzles me. Why do we care, at all, what the people we're fighting think?

Morale in warfare is incredibly important. Enemies who think they are winning will fight harder, and will attract more recruits. The American Revolution likely was saved with Washington's victories at Trenton and Princeton in the winter of 77-78. Not because the victories were significant militarily, but because they so greatly heartened the cause, and led people to believe there was still a chance at victory.

They will spin it to their advantage whatever we do, no?

Certainly they will try, but that doesn't mean that the facts are irrelevant. Good facts can be spun much, much better than bad facts, and its why victories in war are so critical. Capturing Osama bin Laden would be a damn nice boost for our efforts against terrorism. Not because of the direct effect on enemy actions, but simply because of how easily we could spin that as a win, and how tough it would be for them to not spin it as a loss.

Either we're bowing to muslims and so forth, or we hate muslims.

Anna, it's that either/or perspective that I think is wrong here. Jaime L railed upthread against false equivalencies and keeping things in perspective. We're not talking about banning islam in the U.S., or in New York City. The building they want to tear down and replace is only 2 blocks from the site, and was actually damaged by aircraft debris on 9/11. The site was chosen deliberately, and it is odd for the proponents of the project to argue in favor of that particular site precisely because it is so close to the WTC, while some folks here try to make the point that it's not really a 9/11 site at all.

I don't see relocating the site a few more blocks away as being equivalent to hating moslems or suppressing a religion. And certainly, I see zero possibility that moving the site could be spun to the advantage of radicals as an example of intolerance given that their tolerance for different religions barely exists at all. I think that would be simple projection of our values on them.

And, IMO, grants them a small victory in itself. We're so afraid of what they will make of something as minor as building a community center, that some of us are willing to silence our own people. You yourself have previously defended the rights of tea partiers to express a valid viewpoint, FLOW - I would submit that the POV of these people is no less valuable.

Again, I think the point would be much stronger if we were actually banning or suppressing a point of view. The reality is that it is just a question of moving the site a few blocks.

By the way, I don't personally think the tolerance and understanding part is for the sake of our enemies. It's for us. For all Americans. An affirmation of what we're about. Or at least the people of NYC.

Doesn't that cut both ways, though? Wouldn't tolerance and understanding perhaps suggest that a different location might be more considerate of the people who lost family members and friends on 9/11?

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