My candidate must
- deny creationism in its extreme forms
- allow for immigration at least in some moderate form
- be at least supportive of civil unions, if not gay marriage
- be a capitalist
- be NOT anti-war
- recognize that the president has no power concerning abortion
- recognize the 2nd Amendment means an individual right
- recognize that religion is a private, not a national, public matter
- adhere to a religion that allows it to be a private not a national, public matter
- recognize that the death penalty is appropriate in some circumstances
Where is my candidate?
Rudy Guiliani fits best according to all the online polls, but now well enough.
Am I so different from mainstream America?
3 comments:
Donna - I am tempted to recall what Jane Curtain was once called on SNL by whoever was playing James J. Kilpatrick, but I will just give some friendly advice that would be seconded by your daughter.
Never, never, ever, ask a question to which you don't know the correct and precise answer. In this case, your question has about 300 million answers.
Donna is on the road right now and I thought I should seize the moment to publish my own expanded comment. She does not say where her candidate should stand on torture and "enhanced" interrogation. Rudy has come down all for it, and is disqualified (along with his competitors)for any public office. This my rejected submission to the NYT on the issue:
Roger Bush
Attorney at Law
Marshall, Texas
December 9, 2007
Dear Editor:
I am concerned that your and other newspapers are making "waterboarding" the issue here. That is merely a subissue of all procedures that violate the conscience and our laws and our international obligations. We should also be outraged about sleep deprivation, sound invasions, enforced nudity, religious-cultural-ethnic-personal humiliations, and all the other effronteries that Geneva precludes.
But the discussion also evades the ultimate question reiterated by its advocates: That if torture works, then it saves lives and trumps all the moral and human verities that have elevated most societies from the medieval. If it does not work, then it has the same effect – decivilizing ourselves and the world.
Almost all research and case histories reveal that torture does NOT work. Otherwise, the old Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, the Japanese Military, Argentina, and others would all be colonies to Torquemeda's Spain.
Consider this first: The whole principle of torture is to make a person want desperately to stop the pain and fear. Torture applied to me as an innocent person to find out what I know will result in:
1. Me telling everything I know, but if I am innocent and know nothing, and if the torture continues:
2. Me telling lies to make the torture stop.
Consider this second: I am a fanatic terrorist and know some stuff, but want the torture to stop:
1. I will tell you lies.
This does not seem to be a sufficient argument for the abrogation of everything we have ardently stood for, sometimes failing for negligence or lack of wisdom, to a deliberate policy of adopting inhumane acts.
Sincerely,
Roger D. Bush
Of course I meant "Torquemada", maybe.
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