Answer #2 of the Presidential Election 2008 debate

I finally have succumbed to 'something' and I hope to go to bed early with this sore throat. I've taken 30 grams of Vitamin C (yes sirree, GRAMS!) yesterday and today I think I've even surpassed the 30 mark but since I've haven't been sick for a while, it's a tough little bugger. I shouldn't complain. It's only day 2. So hopefully everyone will have his answer here before I hit the sack.

Ok, this was Question #2:

Do you believe that this country needs someone to heal the wounds of the last 8 yrs ? Would you, if you believed any candidate to be able to do that, that that would be the most important activity for the next President to pursue?

Here are the answers:

Betmo:
No- we don't need a candidate to reach across the table- because they are only reaching out the politician across the aisle- and it doesn't mean a thing. The wounds that the next president has to heal are the ones in our foreign policy. We have to make an effort to repair that damage- and our image- to the rest of the world. It is up to congress to clean up the mess that they made under bushco- they are responsible for debating and making the laws- the next president needs to have the integrity to veto stupidity- not set it as a domestic agenda. We have to prioritize and the feelings of 30% of america should not matter at this point. They made a stupid decision to continue to support bushco- now the rest of america and the world need to clean up the mess. They just need to suck it up.

Robbie

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or John Edwards will likely be elected our next President, but there is no way any of them can heal the wounds inflicted by the Bush administration and their supporters during the past eight years. it's an old wound that's been there since before I was born, and now that the scab is removed, we're seeing Americans pitted against each other based on their political ideology, race, sexual orientation, faith, and gender like never before.

I know people close to me who won't vote for Obama because of his race, or for Hillary because she's a woman. Do you expect these ordinary Americans to put their differences aside if their presidential candidate is defeated in November? I don't. In fact, I expect these individuals to do what they've done since President Bill Clinton's first term in office: harbor ill feelings against the government and get their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Michael Savage as they spew their hate and bigotry on our public airwaves.

The best we can hope for is that the next President will fix the economy by curtailing corporations and their lobbying and business practices. Jobs continue to move overseas. Products are not adequately tested for public safety before they hit the market. Employee's wages and benefits are trimmed every year while CEOs continue to earn record bonuses. The next President will need Congress's cooperation, but as long as our elected representatives continue to be influenced by corporate lobbyists' money then nothing will change in the next four years.

Rogel:

Ingrid question is problematic to answer. What are those wounds the next President need to heal, and did they only the cause of the last 8 years? Does the devision of Blue and Red states is the results of the Bush administration or is it a deeper division? Did the first Clintons era was harmless? Since this is a wide open question, and Ingrid demand a short answer, I will try to provide a more general answer.

Many Presidential candidates are running under the flag of calming the divisions, fixing Washington and build an administration that will work harmoniously with both parties. Not surprisingly they will all fail. They fail because non-partisan politic is bad politic, it doesn’t bring voters to the polls and it leaves very little power for the politician. If there are no choices to choose from why is it important which politician we elect?

The only advantage, and its main disadvantage, of government is it monopoly on the legal means of coercion. It is an advantage because when the government operate within its proper roll, the use of power (or the threaten of it) is justified and doesn’t cause resistance. When the police arrest a criminal, when the army protect the border and many justified activities are all within the general consensus and are widely acceptable. However, when the government increase its involvement into other areas - when its decides what is proper to watch on TV, what sexual preference is allowed, what food is permitted, and many many more issues that are better left to the individual to decide - its highlights the differences that are better remain in the private sphere.

The only way to calm the divisions is to remove the coercion power of the government. Some issues will be handle by social expectations, and many other will remain for the individual. The answer isn’t in more government, and surely not in the federal government. No magician in Washington DC can pass laws that will make everyone happy, nor should they. The only magic require is to remove regulations and give people back their right to decide for themselves.

Thanks guys, great answers. I know my question was vague and (kinda)presumptious as if you'd know what the wounds were. Btw..I have a question 3 in mind and I think you'd be surprised to know what that is. Anyhow..anyone want to agree or disagree with anyone? (civily of course)

Amish donate cash to school gunman’s widow

(Mel Evans/AP)








>...An Amish community that lost five girls in a Pennsylvania schoolhouse shooting massacre last year has donated money to the widow of the gunman, the community said Wednesday...

Now this is faith at work. Not an empty, bombastic and faux-religious/pious claim to wanting to serve God and country like so many Republicans (which the Democrats feel forced to follow suit to show (to) those religious voters how much worthwhile voting for them is)..


Weekly prayer thread for President Bush and our troops.

Actions speak louder than words...











True Cost of War


From the Death of a Soldier Gallery, Michael Kamber of the New York Times


another image from Michael Kamber




Read his 'Digital Journalist' report on his story of not being allowed to post some pictures even though the soldiers wanted him to tell America what it is like:

Back at the base that night, the editing and censoring process began. The embed regulations had recently been changed to say that no photos of identifiable wounded soldiers could be published without their written permission. Nor of identifiable soldiers killed in action. The explanation was that this rule was in place to protect the soldiers and their families. This seemed patently unworkable. The badly wounded soldier I had photographed earlier was temporarily blinded by the blast and on a plane to Germany. How could he be shown a photo and asked to sign off on it?


[Two of the slightly wounded soldiers returned to their unit the next day. I showed them their photos and they quickly signed releases.]


I asked John Burns, The New York Times' Baghdad bureau chief, a rhetorical question I repeat here. What would our collective photographic history of World War II look like if Robert Capa was forced to chase stretchers down Omaha Beach on D-Day trying to get releases? What would our history of Vietnam be if Tim Page or Don McCullin carried a clipboard as they worked and presented it for signatures at Khe Sanh or Hué?


Here in Iraq, we wanted to show the most dramatic photos, ones that would show the public what the soldiers in Iraq were sacrificing in this war. Yet Damien Cave had earlier been thrown out of an embed after pictures taken by another photographer during a battle in Baghdad were published. Those pictures showed a wounded soldier who later died.
Read the full article HERE.


How is your faith and in whom do you place your faith in?


The Amish of Lancaster County, often seen as living in an idyllic but archaic past, have given a powerful example for the future Read the rest of the story.