These are the rants of an anonymous Left-leaning Libertarian. Libertarian views are generally socially liberal but fiscally conservative. I view George Bush as the anti-Libertarian, he is socially conservative and fiscally irresponsible. Unless you are a very wealthy person, religious fundamentalist, or a racist redneck, I cannot understand why a person would support George Bush.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

The lame GOP "Well, why don't the Dems totally cut the funding?" response

It has become a common refrain among conservatives to say "Well, if the Democrats really stand behind their convictions then why don't they cut off the war funding all together?" The answer is obvious . . . because they care about the troops and don't want to cut off their supplies. And they do care about having an orderly re-deployment that puts troops in Kurdistan & Kuwait to keep a watchful eye on things.

So many of these lame Democrats need to turn that "if you really stand behind your convictions" logic on the GOP . . . ask "If the GOP thinks this war is so incredibly important, then why don't they initiate a draft, raise taxes to cover the war costs, and send the 500,000 troops needed in Iraq to actually do the job?" This "surge" (what a lie that term is) is a half-assed escalation consisting of a few more troops. All it amounts to is a few more hammers to play "whack-a-mole" with. The moles will simply pop up in different locations. The violence will just move out of Baghdad and plague other areas.

The re-deployment versus surge debate just goes back to John Murtha's original thinking. Murtha tried to get the administration to try to take the war more seriously. However, when it was clear that they were not going to allocate the full amount of resources necessary, he realized that it was better to re-deploy out.

Monday, May 07, 2007

GOP hubris continues

I just read that GOP senators blocked a bid to allow drug importation. Many people want to allow drug importation (or 're-importation' as it is often called because the drugs are often made in the USA and then shipped out of the USA to be sold at lower prices) in order to bring down the prices of perscription drugs in the USA. The GOP has well-known huge ties to the pharmacuetical industry. The GOP passed the 'Guaranteed massive profits to Big Pharma Act' (also known as Medicare Part D - perscription drugs).

The GOP needed some sort of rationalization to protect their obvious pandering to their Big Pharma donors. So they trotted out the usual 'drug safety' excuse. Come on now . . . one of the Bush administrations first moves was to say that we were not getting enough arsenic in our water. They also decided that we were not getting enough lead in our diet. Mercury too . . . they felt little reason to reduce mercury emissions. The whole GOP philosophy is anti-regulation and anti-government inspection.

Yet we are supposed to believe the anti-regulation GOP is doing this for drug safety? Come on!


You'd think that after the massive reality-check they got in 2006, the GOP might actually start acting a little rationally. Nope. I guess another thumpin' is due.