Well, the President has signed a most significant Arms Reduction Treaty. I believe the Senate is next in line to approve or reject the treaty as per the Constitution. Do you think the Republicans will vote in favor of what is best for America on this point or what is “best” for the Republicans and vote a solid NO just because the President says Yes and they are more focused on frustrating him and setting things up for the next election cycle. Thoughts?????
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The republicans will never get on board with this for a number of reasons. First, if they’re to tow the current party line that a threat lurks around every corner (one of the 14 steps to fascism outlined in the 30′s), they won’t back a plan that promotes peace through arms reduction. Secondly, the GOP is hand-in-pocket with the military industrial complex: the Lockheed/Martin’s and Raytheon’s of this country rely on the cons to keep them fed, and those same corporations return the favor well before the election cycle heats up. Look for a war-monger like Sarah Palin to gladly pick up some easy-squeezy cash from them as she ramps up for her run in 2012. She’ll call it “supporting our troops”, even when she can’t tell you exactly who it is we’re going to be fighting. Most important of all though, is the Dr. Deminto theory that this President must be defeated, and if we take the country down with it, it’s OK- the GOP will do anything to win nowadays. This means defeating every bill our President supports, regardless of how much good it will do for society as a whole. Sen. Demint said he’d vote against every bill Obama is behind, which says a lot this early in Obama’s first term. McCain had said that, since those evil House dems used reconciliation to pass the health care reform bill, the cons were going to stop playing nice and vote against everything from here on out. Nice.
Gizmo, this goes way beyond people behaving like obstinate 4 year olds- a democracy requires that majorities exercise their rule to the maximum extent- read: Dems, do what we voted you in for, instead of bending under the pressure of the GOP. It also means that minority parties have to learn to compromise, lest they go down in history as the obstructionists who forgot how to represent the people.
Reducing nuclear arms will benefit the economy as the budget can be reduced. You would think the republicans would be for this but I bet more of them will vote against it for many of their unamerican reasons.
Talk radio today all over the country had conservatives calling in to say they feel we should be building and stockpiling more nukes, not less. They seemed pretty surprised to hear that their hero, for whom they wrongly credit for “ending” the Cold War, Ronald Reagan, promoted pretty much the same anti-proliferation treaties in START- Obama’s plan does little more than to renew the START Pacts, and would reduce the total number of arms to 3100 between the U.S. and Russia. This is still enough tactical warheads to destroy the entire planet several times over. Reducing the total number of weapons also makes for a much easier to manage inventory, as far as security goes, which should also make the cons happy. I think this proves that it’s not about keeping the nation safe from threats real or imagined.
“If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we’ll stop telling the truth about them.”
–Adlai Stevenson
By way of Aaron Case at the Democratic Convention at the Carpenter’s Hall, April 10, 2010.
The Arms Reduction Treaty is so positive it amounts to a never-before-reached level of diplomacy. It is a degree of sanity we have been needing since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is a high credit to Obama and Medvedev to have penned this agreement. Republicans are out of touch if they oppose this reduction in nuclear arms. Nuclear arms are a tyranny over the mind of man, that must somehow be completed eradicated. My consuming fear is that something even more terrible will have to be developed in order for that to happen.
Another subject: Yesterday I heard a Democrat speak regarding the Guantanamo prisoners, saying that pubic safety is the only consideration in their treatment–that cruetly, torture for confessions and life in prison were all justified. Truly, some of the detainees are rabid terrorists, especially those that have bombed embassies and those who perpetrated the attack on the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon. These individuals should be punished to the full extent of OUR laws, not as a revenge of terrorist dogma. Once we begin acting as badly as those that have acted against us, we become as frightening as them–simply stated–their way is not the American way. We are a country of laws, and the second we step beyond that, we become one of them. In addition, if we prescribe to cruelties exceeding the Geneva Convention, that cruel fate will befall us as well, (remember Mogadishu, Somalia with rebels dragging American bodies through the streets)? WE cannot lose our dignity in the face of abhorrent actions by radicals. We must punish, and protect society in accordance with our own laws, and nothing more. Whoop
Very well said, Whoop.