The conversation continues...

Dina:

"private sector beginning to spend again on big-ticket items like cars and washing machines." Is what I meant- not the government. That is spending our way out of a recession. And please don't paint me with the same brush as the bankers and politicians. I am democratic in that I believe in free choice and good schools. I think that dubya was blinded by an agenda that cost the American public billions of dollars which also contributed to the mess we are in. He and his friends have come away from this war many many times richer than the ceos of the mortgage companies. realistically, I am as "agnostic" about politics as I am about religion.

love you anyway. It will get better.

______________________________________________

I replied:

My dear friend,

I would never try to paint you with the same brush as anyone. You have always been an individualist and a power-house intellect. (And hot, but that’s not germane.) What I am trying to do is goad my democrat friends into justifying for me their faith in the extreme leftist agenda PrezBO and Pelosi are moving our country towards. I’m desperately seeking comfort in what my world-view tells me is a terrifying shift away from the foundational concepts of our society. I want a democrat to explain to me in detail why the choices being made in D.C. are correct for the current situation. So far, none have been able to do much more than express a generalized hope and faith in Obama. It feels like having a great-aunt pat my hand and tell me, “Don’t worry, little one. I t will all be fine.” It feels dismissive at best.

Any one of my conservative friends will tell you, truthfully, that they too believe in free choice and good schools. They will also tell you that the democrat party obviously does not, and they can throw a lot of numbers at you to prove their opinion. That is one of the underlying problems in our society now: each party sees the other as being full of sanctimonious hypocrites. The truth has become clouded by slogans and polemics; no one is having a rationalist discussion anymore. It’s as if we are living in a new post-enlightenment era.

How can we arrive at eternal verities if we don’t discuss the issues honestly?

Assign the blame to the people who actually deserve it.
Figure out where they went wrong.
Discover the lesson inherent in their failure and then learn from that lesson.

Don’t spend time (read that as someone’s life) and wealth (read that as the time someone spent actually working) in repeating the same mistakes.

But you have to know what the mistakes were first.

The underlying truth is what I seek, and I ain’t gettin’ much help from my friends at either end of the political spectrum.

There are several things I know for certain that the Republicans are wrong about and they mostly concern trying to legislate morality, which is an abominable attitude for someone who purports to stand for freedom.

Personally, I don’t give a damn who’s ‘what’ you choose to kiss as long as they don’t mind. I believe you should control ‘you.’ You should be the final arbiter of your fate. Your life is the only thing you truly own and every second of it should be spent exactly as you choose, so long as you do not interfere with someone else right to do the same. That’s why I identify myself as a libertarian, and I’m willing to bet quite a lot that you actually are as well, albeit a liberal one.

This quiz takes less than a minute to complete and score. Let me know where you are. I land at the exact top of the diamond.

[Click title above for link]

As concerns Dubya, he was wrong on many things, mostly because he bent over backwards to accommodate the democrat’s. I am not a huge fan of his domestic policies. As far as his war agenda goes I believe you to be misinformed. These wars didn’t start in 2002, they are a continuation of those that began in 643 when the Arab’s started spreading Islam into the remains of the Christian Roman Empire at sword-point. This is just the latest phase, and we didn’t start them.

I encourage you to read the Koran. It is enlightening as to the world view of these people. They are your enemy, Dina. They are ordered by their God to either convert you to their faith or enslave you in dhimitude or to kill you. That’s a helluva difference from Christ’s admonition to spread the ‘Word’. Your agnostism would not be an option, and by Sharia law you, as a woman, would have to belong to a man. I can’t see you ever acquiescing to being the property of anyone; the very thought would be abhorrent to you, and to me as well.

Afghanistan has been a nest of vipers since Alexander rode through on his way to India. It was, in fact, a state sponsor of terrorist acts against the United States. Even your own party leaders think that this is a just war, so let’s pass that and go to Iraq.

Iraq had weapons of mass destruction! We have proof in that Saddam used them against his own people. We have proof via receipts for the terror weapons we gave him during his time as an ally against the Soviets in Afghanistan. We have proof in the 1500 nerve-gas shells we found during the course of the war. We have proof of his intent to create nuclear weapons in the 500 tons of yellow-cake uranium the Iraqi government sold to the Canadian government last year. But the argument that ‘Bush lied’ is demonstrably specious. You can look-up the clip on YouTube and see that, standing before Congress, he quoted British MI-5 intelligence on Saddam’s attempts to purchase yellow-cake. He didn’t make up evidence and befuddle the Democrat-controlled Congress into declaring war. He presented the evidence as it was known at that time and asked the Congress to vote. Even the members of your own party, including the former First Lady, agreed that these fact justified regime change in Iraq. They voted for the war in Iraq and they were correct in doing so. Read Joseph Wilson’s book, “The Politics Of Truth.” (Valerie Plame’s husband) I have it here somewhere and in it he admits that Saddam’s nuclear scientist were in fact, in Niger buying uranium, a direct contradiction to his public statements in the media!

I must sadly disagree with you. I think that the Iraq war was, for the most part, brilliantly fought. Twenty-five million people were freed of a tyrant and can now build a better life. Parts of Baghdad, the world’s oldest city, now have electricity and running water for the first time. Business and employment are going thru the roof, and the rest of Iraq is much the same. They are going to be a great trading partner in the future and as far as the ‘War for oil’ rant goes, please note that the Iraqis have signed deals with the Chinese government to purchase the bulk of their crude, not us. The Iraq War was fought for the right reasons and it succeeded brilliantly. Sadly, it cost us 4,253 soldiers, but that is an amazingly low number given the outcome.

And now we have a classic pincer relative to the main bad guy in the Middle East: Iran. We have standing armies to the west and north and we are allied with both India and Pakistan to the east. They can only move south into the sea, and the Seventh Fleet is sitting there watching them.

Even the Arab’s can’t stand the damned Persians! They have been the main destabilizing factor in the Middle East since Napoleon. They believe it is their destiny to rule all their neighbors and control the oil that has become the west’s life-blood. They honestly believe that they must destroy us to bring about the coming of the messiah. According to their tradition he will born into a conflagration that destroys the ‘Great Satan’ and how many times have you heard the Persian leaders call us that?

There is crazy and then there is scary-crazy.

Right now we have them in check, but the checkmate will come when the current crop of Mullah’s drop dead and are torn to shreds by mourners looking for souvenirs at the funeral, just like Ayatollah Khomeini. The demographics show that the youth of Iran are rejecting the ways of the Mullahs and want western-style freedoms and we know that Muslims can blend their faith and the more liberal western standards successfully. The U.A.E. has done it brilliantly!

My, I do go on…

One thing more, about your last sentence, “It will get better.”

I stay well informed. I listen to talk-radio and NPR and I research areas where the two voices contradict each other. I want to know the truth and neither voice does a very good job of delivering it. I do see patterns and trends in my research and if the trend continues and no radical adjustments are made to the policies of Comrade President Obama, I can not see how can get better. He is obligating us to debt that can not be repaid. There will not be enough people in this country to produce that amount of wealth for hundreds of years and these treasury bonds that our investors are buying have a due-date that falls decidedly short of ‘hundreds of years.’

The numbers just do not work.

This will lead to the bankruptcy of the United States (the company) which in turn will bankrupt the entire world (the investors). Our currency will collapse and it is the basis for world trade. If the basis of trade is destroyed we are returned to a barter economy and how do we feed six billion people in a barter economy?

Please, if you don’t want to argue the democrat position, let me know to whom I can address my questions. I can feel my innate optimism being drained from me and I dislike that in the extreme. I need answers and no one is providing them. Surely in your years in academia you have come across someone who shares your views and likes to provide a defense for them. I really need to find them.

Hugs and kisses!

Demosthenes