JIM AND MARVIN GET IT ON

President Bush "fiddled" with a guitar in San Diego while New Orleans was devastated by Katrina

Another "Point-Counterpoint" between an avowed conservative Republican and a very liberal Democrat. You decide who makes the better arguments.

MARVIN WRITES:

I agree we need to be concerned about maintaining our Judeo-Christian values, but the first priority is the survival of our civilization. If you are too concerned about some innocents being hurt, you will not be successful in defending us from the Islamic terrorists.

If the overall efforts of our country are not acceptable, no one is stopping the disaffected from moving to Iran or wherever else he or she wishes to go and see how well and long they survive in that society. We might not be perfect in America, but I don't know anywhere any better, all being considered. People from all over the world are sneaking into our country. I have never heard of anyone sneaking out - with the exception of draft dodgers and AWOL service men going to Canada.

...

I certainly hope you are not equating Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore with “Christian.”

So, are you just arguing for the sake of arguing or do you really believe we should let the terrorists have their way with us? That we were wrong to use violence to fight the Japanese after Pearl Harbor, the Nazis trying to perfect the Third Reich, the Yankees when they invaded the South (both economically and physically), the Norsemen when they invaded the British Isles, etc., etc.?

JIM RESPONDS:

And the English, Dutch, Spanish & Portugeuse when they invaded North & South America and killed off the Native Americans? (the Norse invaded the British Isles in the first Millennium, so I'm not out of line with this one).

Don't confuse imperial wars with terrorism. Germany and Japan were sovereign states with conventional armies which invaded and conquered their geographic neighbors.

Terrorists by definition have no conventional army, no military capability of achieving any objective. Terrorism is a tactic for those without military power. And as long as countries like Israel and the U.S. stupidly rise up and take the bait, we (and I include myself in the "we" for Israel as well as the U.S.) will lose the real battle they are fighting- the battle for worldwide and local public opinion. Regardless of what ever else happens in Lebanon, Israel has already resoundingly lost, and Syria and Iran and Hezbollah have won. Because the latest air strike that killed over 50 Lebanese women & children huddled in a shelter is the image that will stick, and deservedly so. It has already caused Israel to call a halt to air strikes.

Don't confuse my position with one of concession to terrorism as a tactic. My position is that we need to be smarter, and so far, with Bush in power, we have been far stupider in responding and reacting. Democracy is not the antidote to terrorism, as much as we wish it were so. A stable monarchy, with economic and social justice, is far more effective than an unstable Islamic or terrorist inspired democracy. Compare Jordan with Palestinian government or the government of Iran (the latter two being democracies, in spite of how you may view their countries).

MARVIN:

Civilization would not last very long with such belief.

Unfortunately, innocent people will be hurt when terrorists force themselves into people’s homes, hide behind women’s skirts, use innocent children to set up their ambushes, set up firing positions in schools, homes and hospitals and next to U.N. observation posts.

I understand harm happens to innocent people when protecting our way of life, but is it our fault or should the blame rest on the terrorists who created the situation and who take advantage of innocent people to further their rampage? We could exist another 2000 years with the Muslims if the fanatics who use Islam as a crutch to further their terror would cool it.

JIM:

"Our way of life?" Sounds like a line from Dr. Strangelove. Kind of like "precious bodily fluids." There is no justification for starting a conflict that will inevitably kill innocents. Timothy McVeigh made a direct attack on "our way of life" by targeting the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Would you have supported air strikes against the nearest encampment of weekend militia members, killing them, their wives, and their children? Why not? Wouldn't it be intellectually consistent? Or does killing innocents to protect "our way of life" only apply to killing those who speak another language, have a different skin hue, worship the same God but with a different book?

To use a different analogy, just because a bank robber takes innocents hostage doesn't mean the SWAT team will use violence that will inevitably kill some or all of the hostages. We will wait as long as necessary before we kill one innocent person. The only time they will go in before that is to save lives, and they use every effort to mitigate harm to the hostages.

MARVIN:

You can use the argument of “are we doing the Christian thing” and that Bush is being a hypocrite all you want in the effort to be anti-Bush. You are really stretching to do so and it shows that the argument for anti-Bushism has been lost when that tact is resorted to.

JIM:

Why? Because one can't be both a Bush supporter and a supporter of Christianity as Jesus would have wanted it to be? (Assuming he ever wanted a separate religion, as opposed to being the Messiah of the Jewish legend.) I don't need that argument to attack George W. Bush's record. Look around. Find me a Republican candidate in a close election who wants Bush to come to his district to a public rally (as opposed to a private fund raiser). Anyone? Anyone? (Bueller? Bueller?) George W. Bush, regardless of his ideological bent, has finally been recognized by the vast majority of the American people (over 65%) as being incompetent. Fighting terrorists may be a good idea. He's done such a terrible job that he's the best thing that Islamic terrorists have ever had going for them. If he were a paid asset for Osama Bin Laden, he couldn't be doing a better job. Speaking of whom, where is Mr. "Dead or Alive" Osama? It's been five years, and the unit hunting him was disbanded.

MARVIN:

On the subject of who is a “Christian”, look at the matter of one of the self-proclaimed and very fine examples: Jimmy Carter. Have you ever thought about trying to calculate how many innocent people have been killed in the years since his failed presidency because of the failures of his so-called leadership? A lot of the blame for what is going on in Lebanon now is because of his failure in Iran and his appeasement with the murderer Arafat years ago.


JIM:

How many innocents did Carter kill during his administration? My recollection is the number is "0." Blaming Carter for Iran is absurd. Go back and read the section on Iran in 1953 in:

http://buildabettermousetrap.blogspot.com/2006/04/coming-home-from-war-why-were-they.html

Besides, even if Carter had screwed up, Ronald Reagan was the guy who gave military and economic support to Saddam Hussein in his war of aggression against Iran. It was under Reagan that we shot down an Iranian airliner. Under Reagan that the Iranians orchestrated the Beirut barracks and U.S. embassy bombings in 1983 after we had tilted towards helping Saddam Hussein. So how much blame does Reagan get? None because he's a god to right wing Republicans who shield their minds from facts, reality, and the lessons of history?

MARVIN:

Sometimes you have to make a decision of just whose side you are on. You, Cindy and Michael and a few other like-minded people have such hatred for George W. Bush that you would rather see America fail and maybe even be destroyed than to be successful in the war against terrorism. That is very, very sad – not to mention just plain sick.

JIM:

You don't have to hate George W. Bush to recognize an incompetent sociopath when you see one. Plug in the words "sociopath" and "Bush" in a Yahoo or Google search and see what pops up. I'm not basing my opinion on what others say- I came to that conclusion independently after seeing him on live debates and reading about items like him mocking Karla Fay Tucker before her execution. I've seen much since- his flat affect when he described the "30,000 deaths" of Iraqi civilians in a January news conference. His being questioned about Israel and Hezbollah and the need for a cease fire and his continued insistence on talking about "the pig" which was going to be served at the German banquet that evening. And so on, ad nauseum. I have no problem with Cindy Sheehan or Michael Moore's viewpoints or tactics. Using their name as a perjorative term doesn't work with those who know who they are, what they've done and said, and why.

Go watch Fahrenheit 9-11. Then come back and tell me that you aren't disgusted by George W. Bush, who is the star of the movie (not Michael Moore, in spite of what those who haven't seen the film may try to believe.)

You accuse me of wanting to see America fail? We have had nothing but failure since January 20, 2001. The failure to address global warming in 2001 and the Cheney secret energy policy task force in 2001 with Enron writing our energy policy and Exxon-Mobil now making record $34 billion annual profits while we pay over $3 a gallon for gas. The failure to stop the 9-11 attacks or even to read a briefing memo a month prior to the attacks that Osama Bin Laden was determined to attack within the United States. The failure to catch Osama or prevent further terrorist attacks around the world, including London and Madrid, years after we were supposedly devoting all our resources to stopping them. The preemptive invasion of Iraq based on lies which has fueled world wide terrorism while destroying our own military, killing our sons, and emptying our treasury, and making us the most hated nation on the planet. The failures to deal with North Korea and Iran. Mine disasters after defunding mine safety. Katrina. Companies like GM and Delta imploding while our foreign debt and negative balance of trade rise to enormous heights. The attempts to destroy our constitutional system of checks and balances. To erode civil liberties with the use of torture, secret prisons, secret searches, wiretapping, and so forth. I could go on and on- but other people far more capable than I, including many top Republicans, have detailed the length and breadth of the worst administration in U.S. history. What have they not touched which hasn't turned into a huge pile of dung for the American people? Health care? Worse. More uninsured, higher prices, a prescription drug benefit that helps only drug companies. The budget surplus? Now a regular $400 billion to $500 billion deficit which has added over $2.5 trillion to our national debt in just five years. You accuse me of rooting for America to fail? My fervent hope is that a Democratic Congress will be elected this Fall to stop the incredible damage and destruction done to our economy, our political institutions, our sons and daughters. All in the name of "compassionate Conservatism."