Not too early is it? 2008 Presidential fun

[CoasterMatt]

Forward, backward, inward, outward
Come and join the chase!
Nothing could be drier
Than a jolly caucus-race.
Backward, forward, outward, inward
Bottom to the top,
Never a beginning There can never be a stop
To skipping, hopping, tripping
Fancy free and gay,
I started it tomorrow and will finish yesterday.
Round and round and round we go
And dance for evermore,
Once we were behind
But now we find we are
Forward, backward, inward, outward,
Come and join the chase!
Nothing could be drier than a jolly caucus-race.

[mousepod]

I just watched Mike Huckabee on Meet the Press. This is the third time I've seen him interviewed recently. While I bristle whenever his religion is brought up (only to the degree to which his Fundamentalism will shape his ideas), I find him to be thoughtful and intelligent. I'm sure that I couldn't vote for him because of our basic difference of opinion on gay rights and the women's right to choose, I'd like to see him nominated - I think it would make for a saner and healthier debate for the end run of the presidential race than we've seen in recent years.

[innerSpaceman]

Oh, that's funny. I had to turn him off when I simply could not stand how he changed the subject from "does the fact that you would outlaw all abortion mean you would jail doctors and women performing and seeking" to "our terrorist enemies have a culture of death."

Gak. I can't listen to someone that smarmy this early in the morning.



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[scaeagles]

It's funny how different people do that to us. I really liked Huckabee when I watched it this morning. I have the same smarmy reaction to Edwards.

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

It's funny how different people do that to us. I really liked Huckabee when I watched it this morning.

Sorry I missed this earlier.

Did you admire Huckabee, then, when he refused to answer a point blank question about whether he would jail doctors providing abortions or women seeking them? Did you admire his manliness when - instead of saying whether he would or wouldn't - he ventured to opine what terrorists would do to all doctors and all women and Tim Russert for that matter?

Oh yes, quite likeable.



Yes, I know Huckabee had to declare his candidacy far earlier than he would have liked. Heheh, the last ex-governor of Arkansas to run for President didn't throw his hat into the ring till 4 months before the Iowa Caucuses. But this time out, the field is getting more crowded by the minute ... and if one wants to snap up some campaign talent and, of course, a successul share of donation money ... one has no time to waste.

But it would have been well before throwing himself on Meet the Press for Huckabee to have been prepared to back up his more controversial political positions ... or at the very least, to be able to duck a direct question with the minimal adroitness appropriate to even the least of politicians, much less a candidate for President.


Bah.

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[scaeagles]

I guess this will slide into the whole moral conviction thing again. It is a moral conviction of some that we should be taxed to provide health coverage to everyone (regardless of unintended consequences). Why should those moral convictions be any more valid than those of a Huckabee or whomever? For most, it simply comes down to whose moral convictions are more in line with your own. Don't like someone because of those moral convictions? Fine. Don't vote for them. But don't expect anyone to keep them out of how the choose to govern or vote on an issue because that is part of who they are.

[BarTopDancer]

But why should abortion be outlawed, stemcell research be curtailed/banned, gay rights denied because someones moral convictions say it is wrong?

No one will be forced to get an abortion if we leave R v W alone. No one would be forced to get an abortion, give up their embryos or partake in stem cell treatment if stem cell reserach is allowed to continue. No one would be forced into a gay marriage and it will not weaken straight marriages.

My moral convictions say allow the choice to have an abortion, to allow stem cell research to continue and to allow gay couples to marry. Those convictions aren't harming anyone, nor are they denying anyone anything.

Those whose moral convictions say to outlaw abortion, ban stem cell research and prohibit gay couples to marry is [taken from iSm because he said it so well] denying rights to gay AMERICANS, to deny rights to female AMERICANS and to dampen treatment potential for seriously ill AMERICANS.

[Alex]

Why should murder be illegal just because your moral convictions say it is wrong? Why is animal cruelty a crime just because a bunch of people have decided it is wrong? Why is selling crack cocaine across the street from an elementary school worse than selling 2,000 feet to the left?

All laws are a moral decision and if moral decisions are put outside the purview of law then there will be none.

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by Bar Top Dancer

taken from iSm because he said it so well...

With the proviso that fetal and zygote Americans aren't Americans at all .... because, when last I checked, you had to be alive to be an American.

As scaeagles points out, everyone's free to vote for the person whose moral convictions they agree with ... but the way I see it, the only moral convictions appropriate to the President of the United States are to defend the Constitution and protect the American people.

Sometimes it's a trade off. Do you take money from some healthy Americans to provide health care to sick ones? But in my examples, there were only benefits to Americans and no harm to any. So those kind of so-called "Christian" morals, I submit, are inappropriate to anyone who takes the presidential oath of office. That oath holds a man to a new morality, if he didn't have it before. Defend the Constitution and protect Americans. Uber freaking alis.



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[Alex]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

But in my examples, there were only benefits to Americans and no harm to any. So those kind of so-called "Christian" morals, I submit, are inappropriate to anyone who takes the presidential oath of office.

The belief that life in the womb is deserving of protection isn't necessarily a Christian one (it is common to many religions and I know several pro-life atheists), and to a large swath of people by allowing abortion you are forcing your morality on a human being (the aborted). The distinction between life worthy of protection and life not worthy of protection is a subjective moral one.

That's why it is a decision best left to our nation's deliberative body and neither the president nor the courts.

Torturing prisoners at Guantanamo also does no harm to any Americans.