Jan 06 2008
Questions To America – What Is It You Want Changed?
America is fed up with DC politics and wants change. They clearly are heading away from the partisan fringes and looking at someone who “Unites” instead of “Purifies”. With Hillary now defeat-able and Obama rising America is just now trying to work out where to go in 2008. I suggest they begin by ignoring the media spin machine and answer some basic question for themselves before they settle on a candidate. Here are question that I think worth pondering as independents or non-aligned voters:
(1) What do I want changed in Iraq?
Being an independent I don’t take Dem or GOP talking points into consideration. I do take their historic positions. Right now Iraq is heading towards victory. Do I want to change that? Or is my need for “change” more rooted in the long gone days of early 2007 when the blood was running in the streets of Iraq? I clearly wanted that to change. And back then the answer from the Dems was to surrender to al-Qaeda. I definitely did not want that! So for me the “change” I want to see in Iraq is an end to the democrat pessimism and calls for retreat. I want to see plans to join forces to finish winning Iraq. And from the right I want respect for any Dem who makes this change (no name calling). My need for “change” is to see us uniting to win in Iraq. This shouldn’t be hard since The Surge and The Awakening in 2007 has us almost there already.
(2) What do I want changed in DC?
Again, as a independent and still strong Bush supporter I want more Bush and less Pelosi and Tancredo. Everyone blames Bush for the ugly tone of politics but the fact is he did not coin the mature and respectful terms “Bushitler” and “El Presedente Jorge Bush”. While it is mentally easier to blame Bush for driving his opponents mad while they lose to him, the fact is I am less interested in “changing” Bush as I am in changing his political opponents and their name calling tactics. Bush gets battered by the very folks who oppose compromise and unity – supposedly the winning core themes from Obama and Huckabee!
(3) What do I not want changed On The Issues?
At the center of the 2008 political debate is the basic question: what is it we want changed on the issues? I for one want an end to partisan gridlock and zero-sum outcomes. I want some progress. I want what I saw on taxes, education, prescription drugs under Bush – reasonable progress that both sides could declare some victories on (yet pissed off the fringes no end). I want more of what was possible with the two attempts at comprehensive immigration reform (where the ONLY sticking point was “amnesty”, what to do with the 20 million long term illegals in country). Two Congresses under each party’s leadership failed to make any progress. I think I represent the broad middle who may not agree on issues or solutions, but agree some progress is better than letting wounds fester. For example, even if you cannot get to a plastic surgeon to perfectly deal with a cut, it is better to patch up a cut than let it continue to bleed and get infected. So I think the driving force pushing Obama and Huckabee is close to right – we want to change our current fringe-focused politics (where nothing gets done but lots of name calling) to one that sits on the common ground of cross-party alliances. I think that part is correct, just not well focused. The barrier to unity is not Bush who unified the hate of the fringes – it is the fringes themselves.
(4) What is it I don’t want changed?
Just as important has where we want to go is what we don’t want to revisit. We don’t want higher taxes – the economy is fine and the government is more than well fed. We don’t want to remove prescription drugs or stop monitoring the progress of our education dollars. We don’t want to start losing in Iraq again. We don’t want to start slaughtering young humans in their embryonic state in spare-parts factories – especially since adult stem cell therapies are showing enormous progress across a spectrum of ailments. We don’t want our national secrets leaked to the media for political gain. We don’t want a war on Islam, we want to focus our fight on al-Qaeda and like minded fascist groups. We don’t want every Muslim nation our enemy, we want many of them at least were they are now – our allies.
The field of ideas is wide open now because the dogma of the parties has been shattered. Americans just need to think about what they really want in “change”, and what they don’t want changed, and then the best answers will become crystal clear.
Good job AJ, I couldn’t agree more. As I said before, changing Bush will not change Islam Jihad, or the price of oil. So Americans should ask good questions of the candidates, so they know exactly what is meant by change. After the election there should be no surprises. The Dems said we should change our commitment to Iraqi, after the 2006 election they said that what they were talking about was getting out, oh really. I say pin these guys down before you vote.
Good job AJ, I couldn’t agree more. As I said before, changing Bush will not change Islam Jihad, or the price of oil. So Americans should ask good questions of the candidates, so they know exactly what is meant by change. After the election there should be no surprises. The Dems said we should change our commitment to Iraqi, after the 2006 election they said that what they were talking about was getting out, oh really. I say pin these guys down before you vote.
Funny, how the DNC candidates all feel that once they are president they can somehow dictate or direct major policy changes….when they have just spent the last 8 years aruging that the president of the US does not have the authority to do so.
So, when they are a member of congress…the president does not have authority to direct policy without their consent. But, when they are president…they will weild the authority of the office to mandate change immediately??
I think the DNC needs to re-think this.
I ‘ve been waiting to see this “change” subject come up.I glad to see you writing about it.
Typo ….sorry
My responses
1) As bad as early Iraq was, except for having 500,000 troops to put into place from the beginning it was easily foreseeable Iran and AQ were going to step in to play their games. Simply look at the balance of the Mideast and SE Asia. With the troops levels we had the bleeding was almost inevitable until the Surge , the Awakening and the local number of trained troops could combine. Both sides join (it’s what the left insists Iraq does but can’t bring themselves to do) in a common effort to lean on Iraq diplomatically to solve issues but you can’t fix it by cuttting and running , that only ensures more of the same down the line.
2) Ob and HB are clueless individuals spinning donuts in the front lawn of politics. The right side Jimmy Carter matched up against the well meaning but clearly wrong new kid. Give me a statesman strong on defense and anti-socialism instead.
3) Political reality say to achieve progress you have to do the lefts bidding and meet them halfway to the goal post that are so far left now you can look for the label at the bottom of the poll that says made in China. I totally disagree with the concept of do something — even if it’s wrong. You may like the drug bill, but to me their were better ways to accomplish the same goal, but one thing for sure it wasn’t a Federal issue. Maybe ‘amnesty’ was the only sticking point for you but for others that was only a small part of the picture. If you remember back the Regan amnesty , which was a flat out amnesty, was supposedly conditioned on a deal with Ted Kennedy to secure the borders. Worked real well didn’t it.
4) Get the Feds out of unfunded mandates to states period. Put senators back to being appointed by states to represent the state’s interest in stopping for example unfunded mandates and massive programs that are not the mission of the Federal government and get them out of the ones they never should have gotten into. As much as some react to abortions and stem cells from embryos it is not an area for legislation at the Federal level unless states permit it and somehow try to inject faulty products from those cell lines into performing unsafe procedures. FDA involvement for product safety that’s it. If you have a personal position on the issue, fine go out and CONVINCE people of it, DON’T try to legislate it.
Fight the long war to a successful conclusion but join together not to undermine our best tools to get it done for petty partisan reasons.
And one of my long term issues which likely won’t sit well with you.Re purpose NASA and forget the vast majority of these manned missions until you can do thing with safety records near commercial transportation. Ridding the ragged edge of two steps ahead of a blazing comment may be all sorts of testosterone building but makes bad policy. We have a space station that unless everything goes exactly right on the remaining mission may never be completed. I have followed some of the experiments done there between the trips and compared them to the goals of the original plan and to say it’s behind the curve would at a minimum be being kind. Don’t even think about manned missions to Mars at this point. We are darn near ready to deploy drone fighter aircraft in a few years, have drone observation craft and such. Reverse the Mars option since what we have there now has exceeded our dreams. When you have nothing or at least next to nothing you can gain from another unmanned remote sensor mission, fine them come talk to be about the trip.
To change the subject, sorry, I’m worried about our President traveling to the Middle East.
2 lines of thought in this comment: first, the idea of “change” as a goal. The big problem with that is that the concept makes it easy to be against everything without being specifically FOR anything. It’s not a real political movement, just a bunch of angry people who deep down don’t agree on anything concrete. Maybe it’s enough of a wave to last through an election, but support will collapse almost instantly for any candidate that wins like that. (example of a fast collapse from a position of overwhelming support – Elliot Spitzer) In other words, all this talk about voters wanting “change” is the same thing as saying “everybody’s mad about something”.
Merlin, your comment about NASA – have to say I agree. I remember that when the shuttle was built we were going to have weekly flights to space – instead they are quarterly excursions to visit a pressurized tin can with a wall outlet that no one knows the reason for anymore. NASA is a sad ghost of what it once was, more of a testament to the immortality of funded bureacracies than anything else. There are not going to be any manned Mars flights in our lifetimes – but under the current plan we’re going to continue to spend billions pretending that there will be, even though it’s obvious that there won’t. At the end there will always be some reason to push off the plans a few more years, or funding will be cut, or something that guarantess the bureacracy goes on indefinitely even though nothing is actually accomplished.
I agree, Merlin – repurpose NASA with what is technically achievable. Explore Mars – but with AI empowered drones. Don’t send one, send 20 or 30 relatively cheap models so that the loss of any individual unit is acceptable. The manned missions no longer serve a purpose, except to waste the money that could be put to better scientific purpose.
You nailed it with this post, AJ.
Merlin, you’ll be surprised to read that I actually agree with you. NASA really hasn’t changed much since Challenger.
DC, that’s exactly the thought that I had last night after listening to the Democrat candidates. It wasn’t ok for Bush to do it but it’s ok for the Democrats to do it when they have the power? Now they want to bomb Iran but they voted against that resolution against Iran last year because they were afraid Bush would exercised his Art 2 against Iran?
And the buzz word, “Actionable Intelligence” that Obama used last night? Obama claims that they would go into Pakistan based on actionable intelligence. If he wins it, either he would pretend that we will not have any or he will find out that there aren’t any.
They talk of pulling out within a year, claim invading Iraq diverted our attention from Afghanistan and Pakistan, failed Bush Doctrine, blah, blah, blah.
Obviously, they think bin Laden and Zawahiri are the only two we should be going after. They don’t recognize who our real enemy is.
If they win the WH and strong Senate majoriy, we may see what the Brits are now beginning to see…no-go zones for non-Muslims….
Judging from all I see the rate of advancement of sensors and interstellar communication by putting more router/switchboards to relay the data if necessary will likely advance faster than a manned Mars shot will.
So the extra overhead of environmental control, food production or storage or deep sleep and the obligatory some space jock has to grab a stick to fly the thing in, when we are now doing near full auto aircraft landings for commercial flights and even carrier landings are becoming hands off with the jet jock as a backup by the time you designed and suffered the years of lead time to build the spacecraft the tech world could have simply made it a journey into nostalgia just to have someone put a foot on the place.
Change?
The pro-illegal immigration policies, which are illegal (by not enforcing the current laws) and unconstitutional at the same time.
This is the most important issue, because if we lose our country, no matter what is the fiscal policies or the results of the fight in the Middle East.
It’s tragic how some people rush to defend the country in Iraq, and leave the back door wide open here at home.
Quite telling, as a matter of fact…
Single issue voters are the bottom feeders of American political life.
Merlin – agreed on the sensors. And there are several benefits to dropping the manned requirement. First, the craft can then be much smaller, carrying only the necessary items (and no requirement for heavy things like water) and it also won’t have g-limitations (or not nearly as much) which means the flight time would be dramatically shortened. Second, with no men the designers can comfortably take greater risks with the design, wheras with a manned flight the precautionary measures would lead the craft to be fantastically expensive. Third, with an unmanned vessel there’s no requirement for any return trip, which simplifies the journey immensely.
one example – banks of solid rockets to accelerate out of orbit, with matching banks to decelerate approaching Mars. The g’s would be too great for any human occupants, but not for a well designed AI. And that’s technically do-able right now.
AJ;
Iagree with you in many ways, but I still think you are missing the real push behind Huckabee. He is a social conservative and so is Bush, many of the same people who support Huckabee do support Bush.
I think this is something people have missed all along. We have been listening to Republicans go after Bush for so long and yet we think Huckabee is more critical? Please, what ever criticisms he has had of the president have been mild compared to the nonsense I see on blogs and hear on talk radio every day. During the immigration fiasco I heard all those candidates say things a lot more critical of the president than bunker mentality, one of the few exceptions to that was McCain. McCain instead criticized the president for his war strategy.
In fact Huckabee is criticized by many of the same people who do not like Bush. They think he is too soft on immigration, too ready to spend money for social programs.
What Republicans need to do is stop going after each other and remember that their real opposition is the Democrats, those folks are going to do everything they can to divide and conquer Republicans and I would say that Republicans appear more than willing to help them do it.
If I had to pick a candidate for me it would be Rudy. But Rudy is not doing so hot right now. That is not because Huckabee and McCain and Romney are bad people, it is because Rudy has decided to wait for the big states to campaign; there is no reason to whine about Huckabee beating him in Iowa when Huckabee worked the state and Rudy did not. And the same is true in New Hampshire where McCain has put a lot of effort.
This is a process, not a coup. The people will decide.
So yes, I think people want change, that is only natural. That is why we have term limits on presidents.
In other words I think that Obama and Huckabee are doing well right now precisely because the powers that be say they should not.
I remember how no Democrat could stand up to the Clinton machine, the Democratic rank and file said different.
I remember hearing how no Republican could win without Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin and Tancredo and the right wing blogs etc, and it seems for the moment that there are some rank and file Republicans saying different.
So maybe this is just a reminder to all of us that the people will make these decisions, not the bloggers or the lobbyists or talk radio.
But it is early yet and I still think anything can happen.
Terrye,
I am not sure your post is actually directed at me! I have said many times Huckabee is the social conservative pick for those who are “anybody but Rudy” types. The social conservatives are afraid of Rudy as much as they were afraid of Schwarzenegger and Miers and all the mudbloods. The amnesty hypochondriacs (which overlap the social conservatives a lot, but are not identical) fear Rudy too.
My point is the GOP keeps looking for anybody but Rudy and have cycled through Thompson, Tancredo, Huckabee and soon McCain. They don’t want Rudy because it means they have lost control of the GOP and conservative movement and cannot dictate to everyone.
The GOP is a big tent and has many stalwarts with agendas which go beyond common ground, making elements of these agendas unrealistic in terms of being passed. The Social Conservatives have a lot of ideas which cannot be passed, and they blame people for this. Personally, I align with them because (a) I think they are great force in this country and (b) they deserve respect (they have been belittled too long). That doesn’t mean I think Creationism is real and evolution is a myth (just the opposite).
See the difference? You can focus on the differences and create a barrier to trust, or you can look past the differences and work on common ground.
Right now the most common ground left is on the war on terror. Sadly, if the GOP cannot come together over this ground we could LOSE the war when Democrats surrender to al-Qaeda.
There are other patches of agreement but they are not large enough to build a governing coalition upon which can win the election. Obama is going to be a force to deal with and Huckabee is just a paler version of him – so he will lose to Obama.
The only person who can give him a run is someone who can hold TX, take FL, possibly win NY and make CA a race and force the Dems to spend money there. That man is Rudy. McCain just cannot offset the Obama effect in NY or CA as well as Rudy.
And even then I sadly think the GOP will still lose. I had expected to run against Hillary. That would have been easy. Obama is going to be a rock star to the younger crowd who are truly (blessedly) color blind.
There has never been a race won…that depended upon “young people” to turn out to vote. Ask Kerry. As it always is…despite their bongo/tribal dance gatherings with war paint, over “global imperialism”, on election day…they have things to do. Like um…getting stoned. Or, going to the mall. Or studying for a test. Or etc., It seems to me though, it’s not just young people who are attracted to Obama’s “hope” message (ie..we “hope” he’ll know what the hell he’s doing if he gets elected).
My feeling is..the things people want to “change” are things that never existed in the first place. The economy has been remarkably resilient and moving foward despite tremendous hits (like 9/11, like sub-prime mortgage woes, fighting 2 tough wars simultaneously/continuously, exponential costs of natural disasters unprecedented in recent history, and exponential costs of ever increasing security measures post 9/11 and the patriot act).
And yet, since GW took office….the media has been relentless on the failing economy, the “r” word, and focusing on areas of weakness rather than strength. They have done the same in Iraq of course all along. And if really buy into it….oh WOE is me….and I want CHAAAANNNGGE!! Please….change this record to something more pleasant and warm and fuzzy and secure feeling!!
That’s why the accusation from the DNC….that even “mentioning” 9/11 or dangers we face, or even direct threats from overseas…is “the politics of fear”. If that’s the politics of fear…then theirs is the politics of “denial”. It seems at least one time a month…I read another slathering, “academic” argument about how the gov is “spying” on people and taking away their rights. …and hauling them off to Guantanamo……until…..you ask them…..who/m? Only to discover..it’s all rhetorical argument against a fictional/hypothetical case that doesn’t exist.
That’s what people want “change” from. The only way we differ is…people who believe the BS…think that replacing the people with one’s who promise to end or stop all the fictional goings on will bring about change and stop all those things. Others, believe it’s time to yank back the curtain and show the “wizard” for what it is….a bunch of smoke and mirrors created in the minds of people’s paranoia as an escape for the anxiety and fear they feel everyday from the current world we live in. You see? Its not AlQueda you fear…it’s your own country and president. Stop the imperialism!!
Their (the DNC) kicking and screaming about “corruption”, well played/timed media event arrests and dirt digging and scandals all aimed at destroying RNC house and senate leadership….won them control of congress in 06 as frustrated voters…upset with a stalemate in Iraq and the daily barrage of bad news…took revenge on the RNC at the behest of the DNC (who as we all knew were even WORSE). Of course, you’d never know that now—as they claim the victory in 06 was over Iraq, while simultaneously blaming “republicans” for the current problems we face in congress…when THEY control it. (again..denial).
I thought about all this as I listened to Hillary claim Bill Clintons presidency as her own experience…and shake her hand in anger that anyone would question it. I thought about all this as I listened to Hillary say…she would “immediately” upon gaining office…give the DOD, etc., 60 days to come up with and start withdrawing US troops from Iraq. (regardless of what is going on…cause…of course…democrats already have decided…given they are the experts in such things). I thought about all these things as nobody, anywhere, has mentioned the failures of the current DNC congress OR people like Hsu, or washington..or why nobody has asked why Alcee resigned his post, etc.,
And again..I was just dumbfounded at the notion…that they, the same people, have been arguing that our current president is “arrogant”, stupid, lieing POS for having directed troops under “their” authorization…and that he absolutely did not have authority to do so. They felt SO strongly about this…they have attempted to block or tie funding for these operations to withdrawal time tables and chastised the president and all republicans as arrogant war mongers for not going along. They have threatened impeachment proceedings! And yet…once elected…all 3 of them feel they could just walk in, throw their brief case on the table and start a withdrawal from Iraq by telling the generals to do so within 60 days.
God help us if ANY of these nutbags get elected.
I came over to call attention to the response that Rudy made after he listened to all the others at the table slobber on about ‘change’. Heard him give even better later in an interview. Makes me wonder if he channeling AJ or just the only adult at the table that said enough.
There has never been a race won…that depended upon “young people†to turn out to vote. Ask Kerry.
Agreed and I never thought they would turn out for Kerry. But this Obama thing is different than anything we have ever seen before. They think he is their idol JFK come back to life in a black body, his name Obama satisfies their hunger to be PC for the world, and he is holding their banner against George W Bush’s war. He will pull all the divided groups together and get the voting grey heads also.
God help us if ANY of these nutbags get elected.