[Rhodes22-list] Politics- my position, if anyone cares

[Rob Lowe]

Doug,
Thanks four well thought out and written observations and opinions.  I too
am appalled by the apparent attempt to disenfranchise voters.  As you
suggest, this truly is an assault on our representative form of government.
The apparent attempt by the Republicans to illegally influence the election
by using selective registrations and challenge those who have legally
registered is frightening.  Both sides have lawyers positioned to challenge
the election results.  I don't think we will know by Wednesday morning who
won, because it will be in the courts by then.  This is no way to operate a
country.

I think the current state of affairs started back when Newt Gingrich started
his assault on Democrats.  It used to be who ever got the most votes won and
ran things until the next election with some amount of cooperation and/or
opposition from the other side.  Now the Republicans want to win, regardless
of the means.  They don't care about being fair anymore.  They just want to
win, regardless.  A very sad state of affairs for this nation of ours.

Rob Lowe
S/V Getaway

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gardner, Douglas (LNG-DAY)" <douglas.gardner at lexisnexis.com>
To: "'The Rhodes 22 mail list'" <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
Sent: Friday, October 29, 2004 9:41 AM
Subject: [Rhodes22-list] Politics- my position, if anyone cares


> Some observations and opinions
>
> With only a couple of vague exceptions, I've remained publically silent on
> election issues this year.  I have had private backchannel discussions
with
> several people on policy issues, and I'll mention some of those issues
later
> in this opinion piece.  However, certain precipitating events are of such
> import that they have caused me to end that silence.  I hope that it
doesn't
> negatively affect certain friendships I have developed.  However, the
> consequences of silence dictate that if it does: so be it.
>
> First, some background, as I know most of you don't really know or care
who
> I am.  I have voted for every Republican candidate since (and including)
> Reagan, except one.  I consider myself independent, but have largely
> libertarian values, including smaller government, lower taxes, respect for
> individual liberty and state's rights.  Throw in my belief in the need for
a
> strong defense and a willingness to use it when it is in our best
interest,
> and that means I almost always vote republican.  I think that these values
> are consistent with respect for the rule of law, protecting our democracy
> (republic), and ensuring the rights of all citizens to participate in the
> democratic process.
>
> The facts are yet uncertain and therefore "Truth" is difficult to
determine.
> But many hints to the facts are now available. In Ohio alone, the GOP has
> challenged 35,000 voter registrations.
>
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/28/oh.registration.challenge.ap/index
> .html  Apparently, these challenges are not limited to Ohio, and are
common
> across the country.  In Georgia, virtually all hispanic voters in a county
> are being challenged.
> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4129390  In
interviews
> I heard with representatives of the Democratic and GOP parties on voter
> registration, the Democratic representive was clear that their goal is to
> register all voters.  The GOP said clearly that they intend to register
> Republican voters.  I contend that in order to be trusted with a voter
> registration activity, you must accept the responsibility to complete the
> process for ALL citizens who entrust you or your organization with their
> sacred rights.  Failure to do so abrogates both the voters' trust through
> disenfranchisement and the DUTY of the person or persons undertaking the
> registration campaign.  This year, there are too many instances of
failures
> of this sacred trust for it to be an accidental or isolated incident.
These
> include willful destruction of democratic registrations in Nevada,
> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4107720 , and
> pre-selecting "Republican" on registration forms and telling everyone else
> they need to go elsewhere.  Add to this, the mysterious "disappearance" of
> nearly 60,000 absentee ballots in Broward County, FL
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3960679.stm.  It is hard for me
to
> fathom how the disappearance of absentee ballots in the most heavily
favored
> "Gore" county in Florida is anything but deliberate.  This, combined with
> these other issues, has the appearance of a concerted and deliberate
attack
> upon the rights of voters and the integrity and sanctity of the electoral
> process.  I do not dispute how important it is to make sure that only
> citizens have the right to vote, and to vote only once.  But challenging
> 35,000 registrations in one state alone without first verifying the case
> against each voter has nothing to do with maintaining the integrity of the
> voter roles.  It is a blatant attempt to disenfranchise huge numbers of
> voters (who are believed, statistically, to support Kerry). This strikes
me
> as a direct attack upon the foundations of the republic.  As such, it
> transcends petty bickering over military service, and even foreign policy
> issues, no matter how questionable the wisdom of those policies.
>
> In Florida in 2000, I favored the Bush outcome because I believed that it
> was correct.  Hey, the count supported Bush, if only by a small margin.
That
> is what happens in politics.  Until recently, I defended that belief
because
> I refused to entertain the possiblility that voter tampering through
> registration irregularities and intimidation at the polls was happening in
> the United States.  I now believe that I was wrong.  Dreadfully wrong.
>
> One might argue that "even if true, George W didn't order them and
therefore
> shouldn't be held accountable."  I might agree with you, if there weren't
> overwhelming evidence that this is his standard pattern.  In the 2000
> primary, Bush had a guest speaker at a rally who trashed John McCain's
> service in Vietnam and his conduct as a POW.  Bush survived the backlash
> from that by contending that it was only a guest speaker who made those
> comments, not himself.  When McCain confronted Bush on this issue on Larry
> King Live, Bush responded with "John, I honor your service."  The same
words
> he used with John Kerry in response to the swift boat attacks on him.
> However, we now are beginning to understand just how tightly controlled
> Bush's campaign really is.  Even attendance is strictly regulated. I can
> only imagine how strictly controlled the messages presented by speakers
is.
> Bush or his campaign clearly vetted every word of that man's speech.  It
was
> THEIR message, plain and simple.  There are similar cases throughout
Bush's
> political career.
>
> We are, in my opinion, engaged in the most serious threat to our
republican
> (small R) experiment since the civil war.  If we cannot trust the
> enfranchisement of our electorate, confidence in our government, and
hence,
> our system of government, will fail.  It is a sad day when UN (or any
other)
> elections inspectors should be deployed in the United States for any
reason
> other than to "learn how it should be done."
>
> I call on all of you to clear your minds and examine the evidence.  Make
> your decisions as the evidence and your conscience guide you.
>
> In the interest of full disclosure, I supported Kerry prior to and
> independently from these observations.  However, I considered these to be
> normal political disagreements and not worthy of a political rant from me.
> If you care to know why I support Kerry for president (other than the
> above), here are some of my reasons:
>
> I'm in favor of the use of force as an instrument of foreign policy.
> However, our use of force should be restricted to situations where the net
> result is positive for us, and that includes thinking about if our actions
> actually generate more hostility toward us and actually increase the
> probability of an attack on US soil. We've made a lot of enemies lately,
and
> not all of them are Muslim.  The consequences of Bush's Iraq policy have
> been to split the Western Alliance, to weaken the internal support of
those
> allies who stuck with us, to create a breeding ground for radical Muslim
> terrorists, and to provide them with easy access to weaponry and weapon
> making supplies and equipment.  The interest in the election abroad is a
> symptom of this. I don't think that this is contributing toward our
quality
> of life, improving our standing in the world, or making us safer.
>
> Don't overinterpret the lack of recent attacks on US soil as evidence we
are
> safer.  Remember, terrorism on US soil is very difficult for terrorists to
> do.  They've hated us for decades, but they've not been able to mount more
> than about one attack per decade.  It just so happens that the last one
was
> a biggie.  If they get another in before 2009 or so, I'd interpret the
> threat to have INCREASED since our response to 9-11.  The way to combat
the
> terrorist threat is to recognize if for what it is: by definition it is an
> attempt to frighten the population into doing what you want.  They want to
> frighten us into giving up our liberty.  I think they've largely
succeeded,
> and George W Bush has played right into their hands in his zeal to use the
> attacks to his own political advantage.  DON'T BE AFRAID!  Statistically,
> you should be far more scared of cancer or heart disease.  That's what is
> going to get you.  Not some nut case with a box-cutter.
>
> Iraq had nothing to do with the terrorist threat until Bush invaded.  Bush
> created the terrorist threat in Iraq, and he armed them. Saddam hated
> terrorists.  They were historically a bigger threat to him than the west.
> As far as contribution to terrorism is concerned, we would have been FAR
> BETTER OFF at this point in time with Iraq as a totalitarian state.
Saddam's
> extraordinary security apparatus guaranteed that these materials were
> extraordinarily secure in Iraq under his boot.  In the short run, we were
> safer, I believe, with a brutal totalitarian regime in Iraq to crush any
> threat to his leadership than we are now that those weapons are
essentially
> free for the taking.  Bush himself said "If Kerry were president, we never
> would have invaded Iraq and those 380 tons of explosives would still be
> under his control."  Yes!  Exactly right!  They would be under his control
> and tagged by the IAEA in a warehouse.  Not in the hands of terrorists
> waiting to be used against us.  By the way, this was the same type of
> facility where nuclear equipment went missing.  I know people who
speculated
> that it was US who took that equipment.  The failure of us to locate and
> secure explosives at a nuclear facility makes that assumption unlikely.
We
> should assume that terrorists now control that nuclear equipment, and the
> fact that they do is a direct consequence of the US invasion of Iraq.  It
is
> our fault (Bush's fault) and there is no denying it.
>
> Certainly, we needed to eventually deal with Saddam (and other brutal
> totalitarian Arab states) in order to stabilize the middle east and
promote
> the values of liberty.  I've been an advocate of getting rid of Saddam
since
> 1991.  I think there were 2 times when we should have done it.  1) in 1991
> when we had the means and the international support which could have (with
> some work) been brought to bear on the problem.  G H W Bush failed us
then.
> Perhaps he was right to stop.  Hard to know, now. If he had supported the
> Shia uprising against Saddam, he might have been able to have them do the
> dirty work for us, and increased our status in the world as a benign and
> just counrty.  Instead, over 240,000 Shia were slaughtered by Saddam, and
we
> stood by and let it happen.  That fact has not served us well in Iraq.
> 2) 1998 When Saddam kicked out the weapons inspectors.  That was a
violation
> of the cease fire of 1991, and with that one act he opened the door to
> pretty much whatever we felt we needed to do.  Clinton failed us at that
> time.
>
> Also, would have been a 3rd time: After the immediate threat from
terrorism
> had been significantly reduced and we had built a solid coalition to
support
> the activity.  The endeavor is simply too risky to attempt without the
> support to conduct reconstruction cleanly, quickly, and effectively.
> Unfortunately, we were not prepared for catastrophic success, and had too
> few troops to ensure order and security over Saddam's vast arsenal  That
> arsenal is now in the hands of our enemies.
>
> Bush took his eye off the ball.  More to the point, he did it in a way
that
> made us weaker internationally.  The net result is that
> 1) the terrorists are better organized, better armed, and recruit new
> members more easily than any time since the invasion of afghanistan, and
> probably any time EVER.
> 2) Our diplomatic position is far weaker.  Yes, we now know for sure who
> will stick with us no matter what. But we really knew that before, didn't
> we?  Now those leaders are weaker as the support of their own people
wanes.
> 3) Individual American's are more vulnerable that ever.  Have you
travelled
> abroad since the invasion of Iraq? I haven't, but I know a lot of people
who
> have. They say basically the same thing.  We are not loved around the
world.
> Whatever support we had because of the 9-11 atrocity was squandered by the
> invasion of Iraq.
>
> It doesn't matter if the Iraqi people or people in general will be better
> off in the long run as a result.  What matters is that the logic used in
> Bush's arguments leading up to the war were unsupported and transparent.
> The Europeans didn't support the war because they knew the arguments were
> unsound.  Not because they were on the take.  There were plenty of SOUND
> arguments Bush could have made to support the war, but the fact is he
didn't
> make them.  He insisted on connecting Saddam and al queda with a vague
> threat of WMD falling into the hands of terrorists.  That argument simply
> didn't fly.  Saddam wanted WMD.  Absolutely.  But he DIDN'T want his
enemies
> to have them.  In Saddam's mind, a NBC weapon in the hands of Osama would
> have been as much of a threat (probably more) to him than to us. The
> Europeans knew this, and weren't about to support a war that couldn't be
> effectively defended to their own people.  Because of the failure to gain
> support for the war, we engaged in this effort at great cost to our
> traditional alliances, and we are going to have to clean up the mess
largely
> alone.  That has stretched our considerable resources so far that we
> couldn't do everything we needed to do in Iraq quickly enough.  What
happens
> now?
>
> I think the threat to us is greater than even Bush imagines.  Radical
> fundamentalist Muslims are gaining influence in the Arab world.
> http://jihadwatch.org/ When we attack, we play right into their hands and
> recruiting will be easier for them as their world becomes more polarized.
> The civilized world cannot end this movement through force of arms, unless
> we are willing to commit genocide on a scale that even Hitler couldn't
> imagine.  Clearly, we have the means to do this. Those means remain, and
> will still be fully available if we were to wait 20 years, or until
> otherwise forced to action. But is there an alternative?  Frankly, I do
not
> know the answer to that question.  The only hope is to rely on moderate
and
> liberal Muslims to take control of their faith and their societies, and
> bring civilization back to the arab world. We could engage in policies to
> facilitate this, rather than to work against this end. It is clear that
Bush
> is either incapable or uninclined to use diplomacy as a tool of foreign
> policy. I do not believe that at this point he could be effective at it,
> even if he were inclined. Kerry has engaged in diplomacy his entire
> political life. There are only 2 viable choices on this ballot. Only he
has
> the chance to succeed at a diplomatic solution. You make the choice.
>
>
> --Doug Gardner
> s/v Fretnaught
>
> Please note that these are my own thoughts, and have nothing to do with my
> employer.
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