You forgot primary elections and local elections like for bonds or town council (ours are next March for some reason). That makes it more like only 725 days.
Election workers are usually volunteers or very small pay, often retirees. They spend maybe a couple of Saturdays at training classes, except for one person per precinct who attends a couple more meetings, then they set up the location the night before the election. Not exactly an ideal team for troubleshooting high tech equipment.
They have the support of the secretary of state's office, but that's a pretty small group supporting tens of thousands of voting machines. I would be shocked if there weren't problems.
Yeah, I was mostly playing devil's advocate there on the voter qualification thing. In all honesty, I have a lot of faith in the electorate, and think the truly clueless mostly stay home. I also favor a voter id requirement. The Supreme Court decision temporarily reinstating Arizona's voter id requirement (which I voted for) has some good arguments for it. It quotes the 1964 Reynolds vs. Sims decision: ""[T]he right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen's vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise."
Sometimes I worry that people get too much of a one-sided influence from the media, though. FactCheck.org looks like a great site. I gave up trying to discredit all the misleading campaign rhetoric a long time ago. I generally avoid traditional media and ignore campaign ads altogether, and prefer to get my information on a candidate's platform from his or her own website, facts on voting records from unquestionably impartial sites like thomas.loc.gov, and balance opinions by visiting both rnc.org and dnc.org, for example.
And who gets to decide what level of "candidate education" is acceptable?
Maybe the candidates can each put a couple of short multiple choice questions? If you have a chance to talk to them face to face for a minute, every candidate has a few set things about themselves that they feel are important for people to know in order to make an informed decision, even if the voter doesn't know anything else.
For one candidate it might be his vote on a particular bill. For another candidate it might be an innovative idea she has. Another candidate might emphasize his family or religious beliefs. Watch them work a room and it will be the same thing over and over.
There is a huge difference between being able to show that you know what a candidate stands for, and indicating whether you agree with that position or not. In fact, in a heated election like this one many voters are more aware of a position of the person they are voting against than those of the person they are implicitly or explicitly voting for.
Of course, both sides like to think that more people would vote their way if only they were better informed. In reality, better education usually merely results in more intellectual arguments for the same position.
Interestingly, this year I've seen a few fairly successful "don't say anything so you won't say anything stupid" re-election campaigns, which seem to be based on the premise that less voter education is better for their campaign, but doesn't say much about the level of confidence in their platform.
I don't think GWB is reviled because of the economy; most people seem oblivious to the economy right now.
Hoover believed the economy could be fixed by providing conditions like business loans to help the free market fix itself. This probably would have worked in the long term, but we will never know because in the short term things got worse, and Hoover was perceived as helping rich business owners at the expense of the unemployed. He wasn't so much blamed for causing the depression as for not getting out of it.
FDR took a much more active short term approach, pretty much having the government bail people out without regard to the long term sustainability. He then had the dubious luck of presiding over a successful war that created a lot of manufacturing jobs, and that people were willing to sacrifice and ration for, then died while he was still popular. And it won't be until my generation retires in another 30 years or so that the sustainability of his programs like social security even starts to become a problem, but I'm sure some future president will get the blame for that.
The UK government buys military equipment from the US which contains software which it is not permitted to review
I can't speak for other projects, but the UK government is definitely allowed to review the software my department writes for military equipment they purchase, and you may rest assured that they do a thorough job of it.
If there are any projects that don't permit code review, it is because the UK government didn't insist on it in the contract. The U.S. government doesn't rely on security by obscurity. Nothing is deemed safe to export in binary form which isn't safe to export as source code.
But raw stupidity/incompetence would distribute the errors on both sides of the political spectrum. Incompetence would generate random errors and vote miscounts.
A design defect due to incompetence can still produce an error that is consistently in the same direction. Ballots are usually consistently sorted by party, and a drift in calibration in one direction is entirely plausible. A component near one end of the screen may be more subject to heat or electromagnetic interference, or maybe problems could be caused by one end of the screen simply getting touched more and therefore getting dirty faster, like the end where the next button is. Problems like that are difficult to foresee before hardware gets in the field, especially if there is cost or time pressure.
I know it's hard to see how someone could be näive enough to fall for something as overt as in the quiz, but it happens all the time or it wouldn't be such a big problem. My daughter is only two, but when the time comes a quiz like this will make a great tool as part of a discussion with her.
It's not either-or. Sanctions were necessary to bring them to the table, and the threat of further sanctions is necessary in order to maintain a strong enough negotiating position to accomplish our goals, but that doesn't mean the kind of help you described won't be on the table during the talks.
Everyone hopes that the carrot approach will work, but don't forget that we are negotiating with a government that doesn't care that much about the economic prosperity of its people, and that doesn't see much upside to an integrated, involved, wealthy middle class.
We all now the TSA is a scam, we all know we are not one bit safer, we all know the airways are no better than they were before 9/11.
That's not true. This particular measure has proven to be very effective in preventing terrorists from boarding a plane when they forgot to buy a ticket. Combined with preventing repeat suicide hijackers from buying plane tickets, it's almost foolproof, as long as you assume terrorists don't have access to computers.
Personally, I like Ann Coulter's idea of having some second amendment friendly flights. Would you rather hijack a plane full of unarmed citizens, or one with hundreds of packing passengers? I say give people the choice and let them accept the risks and benefits. Even allowing non-lethal weapons like stun guns or pepper spray would be an improvement in my opinion.
(By the way, I could tell your intent, but "great hat trick" is actually a compliment.)
I think constantly about how Mexicans are treated back in the US
You mean paying thousands per student to teach their children english, printing all voting and other official material in both english and spanish, subsidizing their tuition with state tax money, providing scholarships for minority students, most of which are hispanic here in Arizona, creating special inducements for potential minority small business owners, and providing emergency room care for free if you can't afford it, regardless of if you entered the country legally or not?
The administration has repeatedly let it be known that the three-state solution is an unacceptable alternative.
That's because democrats and the media constantly ask why he isn't imposing things like that on Iraq, because their "change course" rhetoric doesn't work without positing alternate strategies. The only way to counter that is to point out that their alternatives are worse than the present strategy, and therefore unacceptable as foreign policy. The word used most often in press briefings is "non-starter." The Iraqi government takes our recommendations very seriously, and the need for our help gives us a lot of influence, but that doesn't mean they aren't free to choose any solution for themselves.
"Publius" argued in the federalist papers that a permanent unified government is a better forum for resolving inevitable regional differences, and that a unified government can better provide for the common defense than a loose confederation of smaller states, even though the latter appears easier in the short term. The same arguments apply here.
I was also responding more generally to your sentiment that Iraq is going to magically turn around in the next 2 years
6 of 10 Iraqi divisions (10k-14k troops each) are currently in the lead. 30 of 36 brigades (2.5k-3k troops each) are currently in the lead. 80 of 112 Iraqi battalions (~500 troops each) are currently in the lead. 14 of 18 provinces are basically in good shape security-wise. The police are making similar progress. And the 5 month old government is just getting started on the vital political and economic pillars of the plan.
It will only appear to be a "magical turn around" to those people who assume that if progress was being made then the media would be reporting it. I believe at some point in the next two years it will become too big for the media to ignore. It's the perception of a turnaround, not the reality of slow but steady progress, that I was referring to.
I can see we can only resolve this difference of opinion by waiting two years and continuing this discussion then, when I will gladly eat my words if I am wrong.
Part of your argument (3 state solution, etc.) is about things that are up to the Iraqi government and Iraqi people to decide. President Bush has said he will support any such solutions their democratic process agrees to, even if the solutions might seem radical to us, as long as the rights of individuals are upheld. Iraq is not part of some United States "empire," to be ordered about as we please. They are a sovereign ally who needs our help in establishing security and economic growth.
The rest of your argument seems to be directed at the executive branch, who are not up for election at the moment. May I ask what you specifically hope will be accomplished by changing members of the legislative?
I agree with you in principle, but in practice, I'm not so sure. Politicians have a habit of taking credit where it is not due, and most people are too ignorant to know the difference.
If you follow the progress in Iraq, which most people don't, you know that Iraqi police and armed forces are on target to be mostly self-sufficient by our 2008 election. Democrats would be able to point to their taking over the House as the turning point, and it won't matter much that their policies had nothing to do with the successes.
Of course, in order to take credit for the success, they will have to show a modicum of support for the war. They don't listen to their own arguments about the mistakes made. They say Bush didn't send enough troops and that he doesn't pay enough attention to social concerns in Iraq. Most of them also say it would be devastating to pull out cold turkey.
The logical response to that argument is to send more troops and commit more resources to reconstruction so we can get out of there faster, but democrats only take that kind of bold gamble on West Wing episodes. In real life, they're not optimistic enough to believe it might work.
While I agree wholeheartedly with what you said about the nature of domestic violence versus violence among drunks who choose to associate with other drunks, I highly doubt that this particular measure has created more victims of domestic violence, but only more opportunities for the offenders, making existing problems worse. While that is definitely a bad thing, the freeing up of police resources to be able to deal with it is a good thing, which should eventually result in a reduction in the number of victims.
it doesn't really speak to his competence as a president.
It speaks very much to his competence as a president. The scandal completely undermined his relationship with Congress and left him essentially ineffective during the last half of his second term in promoting any kind of agenda.
You might blame Congress for overreacting, but someone who is competent for the highest political office in the country would be able to avoid such a huge and obvious political mistake.
There are two other points that differentiate this from a standard affair: First, a relationship between a boss and a subordinate is always inappropriate because there is an imbalance of power that makes it more difficult for the subordinate to refuse consent to begin or continue the relationship. A relationship between an intern and the most powerful man on earth could not be more imbalanced.
Second, someone trying to hide something is susceptible to making decisions for the wrong reasons and susceptible to blackmail by the people who know the secret. Someone with that much authority should not compromise himself in that way when it is so easily avoided.
Perhaps I could prevent the person from driving by disabling their vehicle or physically taking possession of their car keys? Either of these two suggestions could and most likely would result in CRIMINAL (not civil) prosecution.
Actually, that's not true. According to Arizona law you can use physical force to prevent someone from inflicting serious injury on himself or others. Drunk driving definitely counts. That means you could tie the guy up if that's what was necessary, although the legal obligation is unfortunately less than that. Of course, we are one of those "cowboy" states who actually still believe in the 2nd amendment, so your laws may vary.
It's time to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY. If you go to a party and knowingly consume alcohol or some other intoxicant, YOU are the one who did it. No one did it to you. Be an ADULT and accept the consequence of YOUR actions if you choose to drive.
There's plenty of responsibility to go around. Be an adult and accept the consequences of your actions if you choose to serve alcohol at a party. Would you rather have a drunk person or a sober person decide whether someone is safe to drive on the street your loved ones are driving on?
I like the fact that using *nix gets me away from having to do n00b tech support.
How? I tell people the last copy of windows I owned was win98, but apparently the conventional wisdom is that the more you know about windows, the more likely you are to switch away from it.
That's only evidence that people have conflicting morals. You're right that raw numbers don't prove anything, but the fact that there are strong reasons behind each individual enlistment does, and it's important to understand those reasons, because no one enlists in a war out of indifference. If you don't look at why people fight a war, then what criteria do you propose for determining the morality of a war?
It's pretty difficult to determine if one country invading another to replace the government is moral, if you don't know why troops were willing to put their lives on the line to do it. Does it matter if they fought out of patriotism, ignorance, greed, fear, hate, duty, intolerance, love, self-preservation, or a belief that it will help their party in the next election? Sure it does.
Technically, we're in a different kind of conflict now than we were in 2003. Can you determine if rebuilding, training, and fighting to support a people against an insurgency is moral, without understanding why troops are willing to sacrifice everything to do it? Why would it be moral in some circumstances and not in others? If you don't understand the why, you don't understand the war.
Why might it be moral to go to war against a dangerous leader who has unambiguously proven to have working WMDs, and not be moral to depose a similar leader who has only shown the potential and motivation to do so? How big does a threat have to be before a preemptive strike is moral? These are questions that war detractors need to have answers for.
Like most rich dads, Bush's father pulled strings to get him a safe posting.
To believe that any fighter pilot is safe from being called into active duty in a war zone is an insult to anyone who has worn a uniform during peace time.
There are actually soldiers in Iraq who WANTED to come home at the end of their service, but were forced to stay on due to lack of numbers.
For a few extra months at the most. Let me reiterate my original point: to imply that the vast majority of troops do not support the war they are fighting dishonors their service. Yes, there are a few veterans who completely disagree with the war, and I respect their opinion because they have earned it. There are a lot more who support the war in general, but are frustrated with certain decisions that were made about the implementation details.
Do you know what major event marked the major downward turn of public opinion regarding the Iraq war? Disapproval of Bush's Iraq policy rose together with disapproval about the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, even though some significant positive things happened in Iraq around the same time.
That tells me that there is a huge group of americans who don't precisely know why they disapprove of the war in Iraq other than a vague dissatisfaction and some political sound bites. All I ask is that you give our troops' accomplishments at least equal billing with the terrorists and insurgents' accomplishments (see my sig), ignore pundits and politicians of either party as much as possible, and consider why over 162,000 americans enlisted for active duty in the last year, in spite of record low public opinion and negative media coverage of the war they'd be sent to. When you can explain that, then I'll respect your opinion to disagree with the war.
He'd never actually send anyone he cared about into war
He must not care about himself then, because he put himself at risk of being sent into war for over 5 years as a young man. And don't forget the war has been going on long enough that most if not every soldier currently in Iraq knew they had a good chance of going there when they enlisted or re-upped, and chose to do so anyway.
Believe it or not, there are many thousands of people who think stability in Iraq is worth dying for, even knowing what we know today. So if your opinion of the war depends on believing that for no good reason Bush is heartlessly sending people to die against their will, then you might want to rethink your reasons for opposing the war. If you still disagree, then I can respect that as a difference of opinion.
That's the fascinating thing about protest votes: the same war that is moving your votes to the right is moving our votes to the left. There has got to be a way to register a protest against one policy without sacrificing the 99% of other policies the candidate holds that caused you to vote for him last time. I propose a list of conditions be put on a yearly ballot that would make any incumbents ineligible for re-election. That way, they'll be more accountable to the will of the people, but still get a chance to correct their mistakes before the election.
Google Book Search provides online what book stores already can in RL.
I'm sure copyright holders agree with you. That's why they want google to pay for their copy, just as bookstores and libraries are required to pay for each copy in their inventories.
Slashdot Mirror
You forgot primary elections and local elections like for bonds or town council (ours are next March for some reason). That makes it more like only 725 days.
Election workers are usually volunteers or very small pay, often retirees. They spend maybe a couple of Saturdays at training classes, except for one person per precinct who attends a couple more meetings, then they set up the location the night before the election. Not exactly an ideal team for troubleshooting high tech equipment.
They have the support of the secretary of state's office, but that's a pretty small group supporting tens of thousands of voting machines. I would be shocked if there weren't problems.
Yeah, I was mostly playing devil's advocate there on the voter qualification thing. In all honesty, I have a lot of faith in the electorate, and think the truly clueless mostly stay home. I also favor a voter id requirement. The Supreme Court decision temporarily reinstating Arizona's voter id requirement (which I voted for) has some good arguments for it. It quotes the 1964 Reynolds vs. Sims decision: ""[T]he right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen's vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise."
Sometimes I worry that people get too much of a one-sided influence from the media, though. FactCheck.org looks like a great site. I gave up trying to discredit all the misleading campaign rhetoric a long time ago. I generally avoid traditional media and ignore campaign ads altogether, and prefer to get my information on a candidate's platform from his or her own website, facts on voting records from unquestionably impartial sites like thomas.loc.gov, and balance opinions by visiting both rnc.org and dnc.org, for example.
Maybe the candidates can each put a couple of short multiple choice questions? If you have a chance to talk to them face to face for a minute, every candidate has a few set things about themselves that they feel are important for people to know in order to make an informed decision, even if the voter doesn't know anything else.
For one candidate it might be his vote on a particular bill. For another candidate it might be an innovative idea she has. Another candidate might emphasize his family or religious beliefs. Watch them work a room and it will be the same thing over and over.
There is a huge difference between being able to show that you know what a candidate stands for, and indicating whether you agree with that position or not. In fact, in a heated election like this one many voters are more aware of a position of the person they are voting against than those of the person they are implicitly or explicitly voting for.
Of course, both sides like to think that more people would vote their way if only they were better informed. In reality, better education usually merely results in more intellectual arguments for the same position.
Interestingly, this year I've seen a few fairly successful "don't say anything so you won't say anything stupid" re-election campaigns, which seem to be based on the premise that less voter education is better for their campaign, but doesn't say much about the level of confidence in their platform.
I don't think GWB is reviled because of the economy; most people seem oblivious to the economy right now.
Hoover believed the economy could be fixed by providing conditions like business loans to help the free market fix itself. This probably would have worked in the long term, but we will never know because in the short term things got worse, and Hoover was perceived as helping rich business owners at the expense of the unemployed. He wasn't so much blamed for causing the depression as for not getting out of it.
FDR took a much more active short term approach, pretty much having the government bail people out without regard to the long term sustainability. He then had the dubious luck of presiding over a successful war that created a lot of manufacturing jobs, and that people were willing to sacrifice and ration for, then died while he was still popular. And it won't be until my generation retires in another 30 years or so that the sustainability of his programs like social security even starts to become a problem, but I'm sure some future president will get the blame for that.
Of course, a spellcheck will not catch using "weather" instead of "whether," because they are both spelled correctly.
I can't speak for other projects, but the UK government is definitely allowed to review the software my department writes for military equipment they purchase, and you may rest assured that they do a thorough job of it.
If there are any projects that don't permit code review, it is because the UK government didn't insist on it in the contract. The U.S. government doesn't rely on security by obscurity. Nothing is deemed safe to export in binary form which isn't safe to export as source code.
A design defect due to incompetence can still produce an error that is consistently in the same direction. Ballots are usually consistently sorted by party, and a drift in calibration in one direction is entirely plausible. A component near one end of the screen may be more subject to heat or electromagnetic interference, or maybe problems could be caused by one end of the screen simply getting touched more and therefore getting dirty faster, like the end where the next button is. Problems like that are difficult to foresee before hardware gets in the field, especially if there is cost or time pressure.
I know it's hard to see how someone could be näive enough to fall for something as overt as in the quiz, but it happens all the time or it wouldn't be such a big problem. My daughter is only two, but when the time comes a quiz like this will make a great tool as part of a discussion with her.
It's not either-or. Sanctions were necessary to bring them to the table, and the threat of further sanctions is necessary in order to maintain a strong enough negotiating position to accomplish our goals, but that doesn't mean the kind of help you described won't be on the table during the talks.
Everyone hopes that the carrot approach will work, but don't forget that we are negotiating with a government that doesn't care that much about the economic prosperity of its people, and that doesn't see much upside to an integrated, involved, wealthy middle class.
That's not true. This particular measure has proven to be very effective in preventing terrorists from boarding a plane when they forgot to buy a ticket. Combined with preventing repeat suicide hijackers from buying plane tickets, it's almost foolproof, as long as you assume terrorists don't have access to computers.
Personally, I like Ann Coulter's idea of having some second amendment friendly flights. Would you rather hijack a plane full of unarmed citizens, or one with hundreds of packing passengers? I say give people the choice and let them accept the risks and benefits. Even allowing non-lethal weapons like stun guns or pepper spray would be an improvement in my opinion.
(By the way, I could tell your intent, but "great hat trick" is actually a compliment.)
That's because democrats and the media constantly ask why he isn't imposing things like that on Iraq, because their "change course" rhetoric doesn't work without positing alternate strategies. The only way to counter that is to point out that their alternatives are worse than the present strategy, and therefore unacceptable as foreign policy. The word used most often in press briefings is "non-starter." The Iraqi government takes our recommendations very seriously, and the need for our help gives us a lot of influence, but that doesn't mean they aren't free to choose any solution for themselves.
"Publius" argued in the federalist papers that a permanent unified government is a better forum for resolving inevitable regional differences, and that a unified government can better provide for the common defense than a loose confederation of smaller states, even though the latter appears easier in the short term. The same arguments apply here.
6 of 10 Iraqi divisions (10k-14k troops each) are currently in the lead. 30 of 36 brigades (2.5k-3k troops each) are currently in the lead. 80 of 112 Iraqi battalions (~500 troops each) are currently in the lead. 14 of 18 provinces are basically in good shape security-wise. The police are making similar progress. And the 5 month old government is just getting started on the vital political and economic pillars of the plan.
It will only appear to be a "magical turn around" to those people who assume that if progress was being made then the media would be reporting it. I believe at some point in the next two years it will become too big for the media to ignore. It's the perception of a turnaround, not the reality of slow but steady progress, that I was referring to.
I can see we can only resolve this difference of opinion by waiting two years and continuing this discussion then, when I will gladly eat my words if I am wrong.
I don't know. I still play Oregon Trail four hours a day. Do you think I need help?
Part of your argument (3 state solution, etc.) is about things that are up to the Iraqi government and Iraqi people to decide. President Bush has said he will support any such solutions their democratic process agrees to, even if the solutions might seem radical to us, as long as the rights of individuals are upheld. Iraq is not part of some United States "empire," to be ordered about as we please. They are a sovereign ally who needs our help in establishing security and economic growth.
The rest of your argument seems to be directed at the executive branch, who are not up for election at the moment. May I ask what you specifically hope will be accomplished by changing members of the legislative?
I agree with you in principle, but in practice, I'm not so sure. Politicians have a habit of taking credit where it is not due, and most people are too ignorant to know the difference.
If you follow the progress in Iraq, which most people don't, you know that Iraqi police and armed forces are on target to be mostly self-sufficient by our 2008 election. Democrats would be able to point to their taking over the House as the turning point, and it won't matter much that their policies had nothing to do with the successes.
Of course, in order to take credit for the success, they will have to show a modicum of support for the war. They don't listen to their own arguments about the mistakes made. They say Bush didn't send enough troops and that he doesn't pay enough attention to social concerns in Iraq. Most of them also say it would be devastating to pull out cold turkey.
The logical response to that argument is to send more troops and commit more resources to reconstruction so we can get out of there faster, but democrats only take that kind of bold gamble on West Wing episodes. In real life, they're not optimistic enough to believe it might work.
While I agree wholeheartedly with what you said about the nature of domestic violence versus violence among drunks who choose to associate with other drunks, I highly doubt that this particular measure has created more victims of domestic violence, but only more opportunities for the offenders, making existing problems worse. While that is definitely a bad thing, the freeing up of police resources to be able to deal with it is a good thing, which should eventually result in a reduction in the number of victims.
It speaks very much to his competence as a president. The scandal completely undermined his relationship with Congress and left him essentially ineffective during the last half of his second term in promoting any kind of agenda.
You might blame Congress for overreacting, but someone who is competent for the highest political office in the country would be able to avoid such a huge and obvious political mistake.
There are two other points that differentiate this from a standard affair: First, a relationship between a boss and a subordinate is always inappropriate because there is an imbalance of power that makes it more difficult for the subordinate to refuse consent to begin or continue the relationship. A relationship between an intern and the most powerful man on earth could not be more imbalanced.
Second, someone trying to hide something is susceptible to making decisions for the wrong reasons and susceptible to blackmail by the people who know the secret. Someone with that much authority should not compromise himself in that way when it is so easily avoided.
Actually, that's not true. According to Arizona law you can use physical force to prevent someone from inflicting serious injury on himself or others. Drunk driving definitely counts. That means you could tie the guy up if that's what was necessary, although the legal obligation is unfortunately less than that. Of course, we are one of those "cowboy" states who actually still believe in the 2nd amendment, so your laws may vary.
There's plenty of responsibility to go around. Be an adult and accept the consequences of your actions if you choose to serve alcohol at a party. Would you rather have a drunk person or a sober person decide whether someone is safe to drive on the street your loved ones are driving on?
How? I tell people the last copy of windows I owned was win98, but apparently the conventional wisdom is that the more you know about windows, the more likely you are to switch away from it.
That's only evidence that people have conflicting morals. You're right that raw numbers don't prove anything, but the fact that there are strong reasons behind each individual enlistment does, and it's important to understand those reasons, because no one enlists in a war out of indifference. If you don't look at why people fight a war, then what criteria do you propose for determining the morality of a war?
It's pretty difficult to determine if one country invading another to replace the government is moral, if you don't know why troops were willing to put their lives on the line to do it. Does it matter if they fought out of patriotism, ignorance, greed, fear, hate, duty, intolerance, love, self-preservation, or a belief that it will help their party in the next election? Sure it does.
Technically, we're in a different kind of conflict now than we were in 2003. Can you determine if rebuilding, training, and fighting to support a people against an insurgency is moral, without understanding why troops are willing to sacrifice everything to do it? Why would it be moral in some circumstances and not in others? If you don't understand the why, you don't understand the war.
Why might it be moral to go to war against a dangerous leader who has unambiguously proven to have working WMDs, and not be moral to depose a similar leader who has only shown the potential and motivation to do so? How big does a threat have to be before a preemptive strike is moral? These are questions that war detractors need to have answers for.
To believe that any fighter pilot is safe from being called into active duty in a war zone is an insult to anyone who has worn a uniform during peace time.
For a few extra months at the most. Let me reiterate my original point: to imply that the vast majority of troops do not support the war they are fighting dishonors their service. Yes, there are a few veterans who completely disagree with the war, and I respect their opinion because they have earned it. There are a lot more who support the war in general, but are frustrated with certain decisions that were made about the implementation details.
Do you know what major event marked the major downward turn of public opinion regarding the Iraq war? Disapproval of Bush's Iraq policy rose together with disapproval about the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, even though some significant positive things happened in Iraq around the same time.
That tells me that there is a huge group of americans who don't precisely know why they disapprove of the war in Iraq other than a vague dissatisfaction and some political sound bites. All I ask is that you give our troops' accomplishments at least equal billing with the terrorists and insurgents' accomplishments (see my sig), ignore pundits and politicians of either party as much as possible, and consider why over 162,000 americans enlisted for active duty in the last year, in spite of record low public opinion and negative media coverage of the war they'd be sent to. When you can explain that, then I'll respect your opinion to disagree with the war.
He must not care about himself then, because he put himself at risk of being sent into war for over 5 years as a young man. And don't forget the war has been going on long enough that most if not every soldier currently in Iraq knew they had a good chance of going there when they enlisted or re-upped, and chose to do so anyway.
Believe it or not, there are many thousands of people who think stability in Iraq is worth dying for, even knowing what we know today. So if your opinion of the war depends on believing that for no good reason Bush is heartlessly sending people to die against their will, then you might want to rethink your reasons for opposing the war. If you still disagree, then I can respect that as a difference of opinion.
That's the fascinating thing about protest votes: the same war that is moving your votes to the right is moving our votes to the left. There has got to be a way to register a protest against one policy without sacrificing the 99% of other policies the candidate holds that caused you to vote for him last time. I propose a list of conditions be put on a yearly ballot that would make any incumbents ineligible for re-election. That way, they'll be more accountable to the will of the people, but still get a chance to correct their mistakes before the election.
I'm sure copyright holders agree with you. That's why they want google to pay for their copy, just as bookstores and libraries are required to pay for each copy in their inventories.