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Category IV - The
Musketeer

You have a small, highly edited social group, and
you like it that way.


What Type of Social Entity are You?
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We must put in place a strategy to win – an approach that recognizes and addresses the many facets of this mortal challenge, from the terrorists themselves to the root causes that give rise to new recruits

We need to shove a peace proposal down Israel’s throat, then run away.

and uses all the tools at our disposal

Grand juries, indictments, law enforcement, sanctions, the UN, and diplomacy.  By no means whatsoever should we ever use the military, unless it’s ship launched cruise missiles.

Agents of terrorism work in the shadows of more than 60 nations, on every continent. The only possible path to victory will be found in the company of others, not walking alone. With John Kerry as Commander-in-Chief, we will never wait for a green light from abroad when our safety is at stake

Sounds like Kerry won’t wait for a “permission slip” to defend the United States.  Hmmm, now where have I heard that before?

but we must enlist those whose support we need for ultimate victory

Ah, we all knew a but was coming.  Of course those whose support we must enlist are… say it with me now… france, Germany, and the United Nations.  You know this would be comical, if it wasn’t so damn sad.

From the Improving intelligence to find and stop terrorists. section:

…From the failure to uncover the September 11th plot

Which the 9/11 Commission didn’t fault any one individual for

to the deeply misguided reports about Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction,

There’s was nothing “supposed” about Iraq’s WMD’s, it is a historical certainty Hussein had them.  The onus was never on the intelligence agencies of the various countries (the U.S., Germany, Spain, Great Britian, and even france) to prove Hussein no longer had them.  The onus was on Hussein to prove he didn’t.

we have experienced unprecedented intelligence failures in recent years

Which had nothing whatosover to do with the gutting of the CIA’s operation directorate under former President Clinton and the emplacement of dracoian rules regarding intelligence gathering.  Not to mention the over-reliance on spy satellites instead of eyes on the ground.

We must do what President Bush has refused to do

In the one week since the 9/11 Commission issued it’s recommendations.

– reform our intelligence system by creating a true Director of National Intelligence with real control of intelligence personnel and budgets.

Ah yes, there’s nothing wrong that yet another Cabinet level post won’t cure.  And correct me if I am wrong here, but wasn’t that the idea behind the Department of Homeland Security?

We must train more analysts in languages spoken by terrorists. And we must break down the old communications barriers between national intelligence and local law enforcement

Erected by Jamie Gorelick, during the Clinton Administration.

taking care to fully preserve our liberties.

We’re going to completely repeal the Patriot Act.

From the Cutting off terrorist funds. section:

…We will launch a “name and shame” campaign against those that are financing terror. If nations do not respond, they will be shut out of the U.S. financial system

”You are either with us or you are with....” Oh, wait.

And in the specific case of Saudi Arabia, we will put an end to the Bush Administration’s kid-glove approach to the supply and laundering of terrorist money

We’ll alienate any ally in the War on Terror who aren’t france and Germany.

Okay, that’s about as much of Drum’s bandwidth as I am willing to waste on this piece of nonsense.  If you want to read the entire platform, be my guest.

Thanks to Smash for the link.

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Bush lied!

For a third time, be specific and tell me what he said that was a lie.

Um.... there were no WMD!

Are you sure about that?

From that third link:

Now Insight’s Kenneth Timmerman reports that letters from a Syrian intelligence officer identify three locations in Syria where WMD materials had been buried under an agreement between the Syrian and Iraqi leadership.

This all helps confirm the contentions of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon back on Dec. 24, 2002, three months before the war began, when he said Iraq was sending to Syria convoys of 18-wheel trucks containing WMD materials. He reported more such activity between Jan. 10 and March 10, 2003.

Let’s be clear on this. EVERY intelligence agency on the planet - the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, MI-5, the DGSE, KGB, Mossad, and even the UN’s own UNSCOM - has agreed that Saddam had Weapons of Mass Destruction. There are thousands of Kurds and Iranian soldiers that died at the hands of Saddam’s WMDs. Their existence is a historical certainty.

The only question we have now is, “We know he had them, but where did they go?” We gave Saddam the world’s most-telegraphed punch in the history of warfare. He had six months to set up defenses, conceal anything he needed to conceal, destroy any documents and records, and ship what weapons he might have actually had over the (notoriously open) borders…

We’re buying oil from terrorist supporting nations.

Less than 1/4 (24% according to one document from the Dept. Of Energy from 2002 of our oil comes from the Persian Gulf. That number could be slashed - but for one thing.

We would have to drill in ANWR and offshore on the coastal shelves. “Oh, no, we can’t have that!”, scream the enviromentalists (Al Gore among them)

I actually heard Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) say that John Kerry could “increase demand” for alternative fuel sources. I’m not an economist, but I thought I understood the concept of Supply and Demand. If supply exceeds demand, you lower the cost. If demand exceeds supply, costs go up. But when gasoline is cheaper than bottled water (even after recent price spikes), how are you going to make less efficient, more expensive sources of energy more desirable to the common man (which is the only way you can “increase demand")?

The only way you can do it is to punish people for using the standard forms of fuel - by raising taxes on gas and fuel oil - or punish people for using less fuel efficient transportation. In other words, they’re going to raise taxes. Yay!

However, fuel is one of those items that has to be purchased, no matter what the cost. They will drive fewer miles, to be sure, but that means less tourism, less voluntary travel. Those items that have to be shipped by truck or rail (such as food) will cost more, across the board. Where public transit is possible (not a guarantee, by any means), increased load means more buses trains and trolleys are on the road, and anyone who has ever stopped behind a city bus knows the kind of pollution they put out, no matter how many passengers it carries..

***

In short, the Dems are looking for pretty words that solve nothing and a platform of “Vote for John Kerry because he’s not George Bush”.

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He is, respectfully, in bold.  This post is in response to a reader’s letter that says that every time an anti-gay (his words) agenda is pushed by a government official, the gay agenda is forwarded. 

I think this reader has a point. Gays have two options: a party that despises their civil rights and a party that takes gay votes for granted.

This is a heck of a way to start.  First off, let’s just give up on the point that marriage is a civil right.  Is driving a car a civil right?  Is marriage in the COTUS?  Does the Republican Party desire the enslavement of gay people?  I haven’t read that in the publications they have sent me in response to me donating to the Bush campaign.  Again, AS is trying to make the connection that gays=abused and rejected minority.  Again, that isn’t the case.  What job can he not get?  What economic freedom does he not have that I do have?  Is he allowed to blog, vote, work, own property, and worship as he sees fit?  And, by the opinion of a lot of the blogsphere, he IS in the Dem’s pocket....all they had to do was be dishonest and not be Bush.

There are risks on both sides. But when you have people like Rick Santorum leading the crusade against gay dignity, gays win. When someone like Bush appears to be coming from the 1950s in his attitudes toward gays, gays win.

“Crusade against gay dignity”?  What is that?  I guess Jesus had no dignity, because he wasn’t married.  I guess nuns and priests have no dignity, either, because they don’t marry.  How can a person crusade against dignity?  Maybe it would be better if he crusaded against “straight dignity”?  Bush’s 1950’s attitudes aren’t against gays, as much as they are against the abuse of judicial power and the maintaining of the rights of the States.  However, Sullivan is invoking the 1950’s to establish another baseless parallel with gay marriage and Rosa Parks.

The danger is that these people actually get things passed - stripping gays of civil rights, of the right to form private contracts, of the right to serve their country, penalizing people with HIV in immigration law, and so on.

Stripping Gays of Civil rights:  What rights have gays lost? 
Stripping gays of the right to form private contracts:  Uh...again, which ones can’t you form?  Marriage?  Oh..see, that is an intellectual dishonesty, because there is nothing that stops AS from PRIVATELY forming a marriage contract...he wants, however, benefits derived from state sanctioning of his contract.  Hence, my opinion that this will be an Article IV challenge to DOMA.  Sully wants the government to sanction his marriage for a variety of reasons, but it doesn’t.  Therefore, his civil rights have been stripped. 
Stripping gays of the right to serve their country:  No...I don’t think so.  I knew plenty of people that were gay that were in the service, and they knew that if they opened their mouth and decided to spread that fact to all their co-soldiers, there would be a definate morale problem.  Don’t ask....don’t tell....either way.  That is equal treatment of everyone...you just keep your sexual preference to yourself, and don’t fraternize. 
Penalizing people with HIV in immigration law:  UM...YES.  Good idea, if you ask me.  The $14,000 cost per year per HIV patient, many that will not have private insurance if immigrants, is a start.  That and the fact that is implicitly recognized here, that gay men having sex is still the highest cause of HIV infection, lend credence to the attempts to keep HIV out of the country.  Oh..and another thing:

HIV rate in Africa:  4%
HIV Rate in USA:  .8%

We’re doing something right, here. 

But their extremism is so palpable that they often fail and their prejudice is so obvious that they turn moderates off.

Yes.  Extremism, the mantra of the “Bush Lied!  People Died!” crowd, like Michael Moore and Jimmy Carter.  The reason that people are turned off by this isn’t because they support a gay agenda....few people do, and the vast majority just want to let people do what they want to do, as long as it doesn’t hurt them.  However, the ‘support’ you claim isn’t because they want to institute gay amrriage, it’s because the people don’t like the government being involved in ANYTHING that affects their personal lives.  You, obviously, do. 

Clinton, on the other hand, made anti-gay discrimination acceptable - by signing DOMA (while he was committing adultery!), by doubling the rate of gay discharges from the military, by making HIV-positive immigrants illegal, and so on. I have similar worries about Kerry.

DOMA was exactly what Sullivan claims to want...a measure that allows states to define marriage how they see fit.  However, he says here that Clinton’s signature “...made anti-gay discrimination acceptable..” I’m not a fan of Clinton, but I don’t think DOMA made gay people go to a different school, or drink from a separate water fountain.  More hyperbole from Sullivan.  We discussed the armed forces and the HIV-positive immigration.  Anyways, why is Sullivan opposed to limiting HIV-positive immigration?  Most of the people that would come here would need to be cared for under Medicare....that’s not a very conservative or federalist-way of thinking.  More proof that Sullivan’s lost his conservitism in the face of his emotional attachment to every gay rights idea.  OH...anyone see a ‘BUT’ coming?

But I’m not sure a gay person can risk the damage the Republicans would do to gay lives, security and civil rights. Bush clearly wants to deny gay couples any legal protection for their relationships, and will never stray from the dictates of James Dobson and Rick Santorum on the issue. It would take an awful amount of cynicism to reward that.

The hatred that Sulivan has for traditional Christianity and Bush is basically proven right here.  Can’t you feel the contempt?  He thinks that Bush would order hm into the gulag, and have him gassed.  He ignores all the states’ rights moves that the Republicans have made over the gay marriage issue, and that their push for FMA and the House measure to limit judicial authority in this case were moves to protect the States’ right to decide what marriage is. 

Does Sullivan recognize polygamy?  I bet not.  Would he approve if the States decided to stop supporting traditional marriage?  I think not.  Would he weep if the 10th Amendment were supplanted? Nope. 

He claimed to me he hadn’t changed.  What do you think?

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