I never thought I’d agree with Fred Phelps. He’s that crazy homobigot from the Westboro Baptist Church whose group goes around protesting soldiers’ funerals and carrying their God Hates Fags! signs everywhere. But today, I have found that I agree with him:

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John McCain is not one of my favorite people. And that’s besides the fact that he’s a Republican and strong supporter of the Debacle in the Desertâ„¢. However, a recent TIME Magazine interview shows that McCain can no longer be called a Chickenhawk by those of us on the left. His youngest son, Jimmy, has enlisted in the Marine Corps.

 

I don’t care much for the politics of John McCain, but I give him due respect for his service and for the years he spent as a POW. I also respect the guy for his stance on torture and some of the interrogation techniques put into practice at the Guantanomo Bay Detention Facility and elsewhere. I also have a little sympathy for what he’s about to go through when his youngest son, Jimmy, ships to MCRD San Diego with hopes of becoming one of the World’s Finest, a US Marine.

The article doesn’t mention what Jimmy’s MOS will be, but it’s almost a given that he will ship to either Iraq or Afghanistan. One would think that knowing his son could potentially get deployed to a combat theater that he (McCain) would change his position on the war. Unfortunately for a hawk like McCain that just isn’t in the cards.

In the way that happens more frequently in fiction than in life, a McCain family drama is replaying itself here. As a prisoner of war, Senator McCain voluntarily declined an offer of early release by his Vietnamese captors, extending his stay at the Hanoi Hilton by almost four years and nine months. During that time, his father continued to approve air strikes against Hanoi, knowing his son was there. Now comes Jimmy McCain, putting himself in the line of fire even as his father calls for more troops to be sent to war.

Let’s hope that McCain, as a politician, will take steps to protect not just his son, but the many sons and daughters that are currently in harm’s way by backing away from his staunch support of the war in Iraq.

*[Author's note: BadTux correctly called me out for calling McCain a chickenhawk. Since he did serve in the Navy and was a POW for years, he doesn't deserve that title. However, he now has, or will have a personal connection to the illegal war in Iraq. I hope that serves to change his mind over his support of it.]

Raising the minimum wage is a good thing, right? Living wages help those struggling to get by by giving them greater buying power. This means more food on the table and possibly a better place to live. Sometimes it means more time with the kids since one wouldn’t have to work 3 jobs just to make ends meet.

Well, thank the Republicans once again for effectively killing a minimum wage increase. CNN reports that Republicans have poisoned the House bill by counteracting the minimum wage increase by cutting inheritance taxes on multi-million dollar estates. The part that gets me about all of the opposition to raising the minimum wage is that as much as Republicans claim those on welfare or state aid are lazy, they don’t realize that mandating that employers give low-income workers a living wage would probably allow some folks to stop collecting some welfare benefits. Now, wouldn’t that be a nice benefit for Republicans if they signed on to raising the minimum wage? Unfortunately, this bill will most certainly be voted down in the Senate. With the election season just about in full-swing, you can bet Republicans will swift-boat vulnerable Democrats by saying they voted against a minimum wage increase. The article even says as much:

But Republicans also reveled in putting moderate Democrats in the uncomfortable position of voting against both the minimum wage increase and the estate tax cut — and an accompanying bipartisan package of popular tax breaks, including a research and development credit for businesses and deductions for college tuition and state sales taxes.

It’s tactics like this that make my proposal of One Bill, One Issue sound even better. At least that way, we’d be able to get on the road toward living wages for all of our nation’s low-income citizens.

It’s like discussing Picasso with Stevie Wonder.

This comes courtesy of Radical Russ over at Pam’s House Blend. It can be used anytime you’re debating something that your opponent will never understand.

This is a quick post to let all 10 (or so) of you know I’m updating the site here in about an hour or so. Time to upgrade to WordPress 2.whatever, you know? Anyway, if the site starts acting even more snarky than I can be at times, let me know by dropping a comment or two.

Thanks for your patience.

 

[UPDATE]

Well, the update is complete. Just verifying functionality. I’ll keep you all posted.

[FINAL UPDATE]

Ok, Wordpress upgrade complete. Upgraded my theme as well. I think I have all the quirks worked out of the code for the theme in order to get it to work right with my plugins. Let me know if you, as commenters, have any problems navigating through the site or experience any bugs.

Ok, not really our sponsors ‘cuz I don’t have any. Besides that who’d sponsor the Bulldog anyway? Don’t answer that. Rhetorical question.

Anyway, I thought I’d give all of you commenters a break from being ready to rip each others heads off. They don’t say “you should never argue politics or religion” without a reason. Even I took some time off from this place yesterday. I took my daughter and her friend to the Milwaukee County Zoo. Below are just a few of the pictures I took:

Decided to have a little fun with the image tags though!

Lt. Ehren Watada is most likely going to face court martial for his refusal to deploy to Iraq. I’m kind of up in arms about how I feel about his situation and whether I support his decision or not.

The details of his particular situation are outlined in a recent NY Times article that Steve Gilliard cites in his post about it.

Lt. Watada refuses to deploy not for a half-hearted scheme to become a conscientious objector, but rather because he disagrees with this particular war: The War in Iraq. He was even offered a position out of combat, presumably in the Green Zone of Baghdad. He still refused. Now quite a few people in the blogosphere, both right and left, criticize him because they feel “he should have know he could face combat at some time or another”. Many others applaud him and his decision to not deploy.

One aspect of this that I have seen briefly discussed as a possible defense for Lt. Watada is the obligation of a military member to refuse orders if the believe they are illegal. Since the research Watada did prior to deployment led him to the conclusion that the Iraq War was started illegally, it stands to reason that any order to deploy to Iraq and fight is subsequently illegal also. Now I never had to face the type of decision Lt. Watada has, so this line of reasoning is one I am not completely familiar with. As such, I don’t know what the qualifiers would be to refuse a deployment order if one believes the order to be illegal. Especially one in which most members of the military to include the Pentagon leadership feel that invading Iraq was a valid decision made by the President. Is the burden of proof that such orders are illegal on the one refusing them or does the military leadership have to to prove they’re not?

In the end, Lt. Watada will most likely be found guilty of missing movement, conduct unbecoming an officer, and several other charges as well. I guess I’m still conflicted here. I applaud him for standing by his decision with full knowledge of the consequences, but also feel he should have known that deployment to a combat theater was possible. Of course, the Army could have solved the problem fairly quickly and with little fanfare or publicity by just honoring his request to resign his commission.

I had an interesting conversation with a co-worker last night on embryonic stem cell research. First, the disclaimers: She is pro-life and very religious, but is not one to push her views on others. We had a very good conversation/debate on this issue and she kind of opened my eyes into the way some on the right view this issue. It didn’t change my mind much, but I could see her point of view. Below I relay my view of this conversation.

She looks at the entire issue as wrong because of the way these embryos are created in the first place: fertility treatments. Because she feels that fertility treatments are science’s way of “playing God” then everything stemming from that is against God and His will. I can respect that belief. However, I still differ with her for this reason: Fertility treatments are considered legal. Whether or not you believe they are moral is indifferent to the issue of this research. Or at least it should be.

I tried to point out to her that if everything happens for a reason and is God’s will, then we shouldn’t have medical research at all, because any problem we have we have for a reason. Say your child gets hit by a car and is severely injured. Should we deny medical doctors the opportunity to try and fix the broken bones and patch the torn tissues because to do so would be to go against God’s will? Now I realize that I’m simplifying the argument a bit, but to me, allowing organ donation could also be considered against God’s will as well since whatever ailment the person needing the organ is God’s will. I also understand that God’s will is not so much for harm to be done to us, but He is omniscient and knows everything that has/is/will happen(ing). If we can end at least a little of the suffering that people go through, I think that is a goal we should reach for. The quandary with embryonic stem cell research, as my co-worker feels, is not that it is considered illegal, but rather that federal funding (as in public monies) will be used to advance this research.

Taking the religious and moral beliefs out of the argument for a second, since the original fertility treatment created these unused embryos (against God’s will), and since they will be destroyed (allowed to die, if you will), doesn’t it make sense to utilize what we can from them to advance medical science to perhaps come up with cures to certain debilitating diseases or injuries? Her point of view looks at it from the stance that since the fertility treatments are immoral/against God, anything beneficial coming from it is also against God’s will. She doesn’t like the idea that public funds (i.e. her taxes) would be used to fund such research. I argued that I don’t like MY taxes being used to fund an illegal war or provide more missiles and bombs that will be used to kill innocent civilians. The government being what it is, will make laws and decisions that piss somebody off no matter what they do. It is our job as the represented to make it known to our elected representatives that we object to this or that piece of legislation. Now, if a legislator’s constituents, against your beliefs, feel that said piece of legislation would make a good law, and assuming it has enough votes in Congress to pass, it becomes law whether a few people object or not.

So basically the issue of should we or shouldn’t we expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research boils down to one simple question: Is it considered legal? Abortion, the death penalty, stem cell research and the like are all contentious issues because they reside in the realm of moral and religious beliefs. Because of this, there will probably never be a full consensus on these issues. But since we are a nation of laws, outside of religion, those same moral and religious beliefs should not be major factors in coming to decisions on these issue. That’s not to say those beliefs can’t influence a decision on them, just that they should not be weighted too heavily. The logic my co-worker uses is reasonable from a religious standpoint, but it also would negate several important breakthroughs throughout the years because they were not God’s will. Medical breakthroughs such as the ability to fairly routinely replace damaged vital organs with donated organs, certain vaccines to cure viruses that used to be deadly to the populace, and certain surgeries to correct deformities should be deemed illegal based on this same logic as it changes the way God created us and prevents certain things from happening in our lives that may or may not, depending on your convictions, give the glory to God.

Regardless of my religious beliefs, I still feel that if embryos are going to routinely destroyed once fertility treatment has been successful, we should expand funding to use those soon-to-be-destroyed embryos for good with certain limitations of course.

President Bush has asked once again for line-item veto authority. While he says this would let him to help push through critical legislation by allowing him to veto portions of the bill, it is a very bad idea. Line-item veto authority essentially would allow a sitting president to pick and choose what he wants the bill to say or which pork projects to fund if dealing with a budget bill. It sounds great, but would usurp Congress’ authority over legislation. Republicans like to talk about judges who legislate from the bench, well this would allow the President to legislate from the Oval Office.

To show how forward-thinking I am, I would like to offer the following alternative:

One Bill, One Issue

The basics of this are simple and self-explanatory: For each issue being debated, give it its own bill. That way you accomplish several things at once. You create greater openness among our elected representatives. You can force legislators to present their pet projects on their own. Funding for those projects can either be granted or denied without affecting must-pass legislation. You will cut down immensely on corruption since each bill will be out in the open. You accomplish the same goal the President has with line-item veto. If an issue is contentious, rather than strike it from a large piece of legislation, it can be vetoed on its own. The only downside to this proposal is that legislators will be signing and voting a hell of a lot more.

So tell me what you guys think. Is this a good idea? I doubt it would ever pass, but if we aren’t thinking on how to make our government work better and more efficient, we aren’t doing our jobs.

[UPDATE: Moved to the Top!]
I’d like to welcome all of you who have found your way here via Shakespeare’s Sister! I stumbled upon her place just barely a month or so after starting this place a year and a half ago. I’ve been a fan ever since. Her witty commentary is something truly not to be missed. But then again, if you’ve come here from there, then you already know that. Pull up a chair, crack a cold one, browse through my archives and maybe even post a comment or two. You’re all welcome here!

(Thanks again, Shakes!)