> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Charlie Bell > Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 7:07 PM > To: Killer Bs Discussion > Subject: Re: We Will Not Be Afraid > > > On 05/10/2006, at 9:19 PM, jdiebremse wrote: > > > > > > > --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> You really think that I think the Democrats are any better? > >> Hypocrites and liars on both sides. > > > > You did leave me with that distinct impression..... but maybe I'm > > just used to that being the default position of brin-l.... > > To clarify - you think the default position is of Brin-L is Democrat > (or anti-Republican, even)? You're probably right. And to be honest, > my default position is closer to Democrats than Republicans. > > But that's sort of like saying my default position is closer to > Uranus than Neptune... > > Anyway - in an ideal world, my disagreements with Republicans would > be on policy. But at the moment it's not, it's with the ideology of > the current administration and the damaging shortsightedness of that. > And the Democrats have been complicit, as a party, by not providing a > resistance to this, especially to the erosion of checks and balances, > and the power-grab by the Executive. Even if they were going to get > rolled as a minority, they should have still stood up for their own > policies. And didn't. Shame on them. The system only works if there > are two parties instead of one.
But, that's not really what happened. For example, Bush's executive powers are less than those from FDR through Nixon....even after his big push to expand them. Checks and balances are still working. The clearest example of this is Bush's need to negotiate the limits of his power with Senators from his own party. He got reigned in far earlier than FDR got reigned in by his party (for trying to pack the Supreme Court). I think the Democrats have a number of problems they have failed to address, but this is just part of the ebb and flow of politics. The Republicans had to abandon their old stands on many issues just to stay as a minority party for years (from say '40 through '80). Look at Nixon, for goodness sakes. He went to China, and instituted wage and price controls. It took the Reagan revolution to make real conservatism fashionable again. If the Republicans stood on their original principals of isolationism, opposition to governmental interference in the economy, and opposition to all of the New Deal, including Social Security, they wouldn't have lasted until '80. Yet, they were still an effective opposition party during this time. I think it would be useful to this from ~15 years ago. Most Democrats voted against giving Bush the authorization for Desert Storm. IIRC, this was _after_ the UN approved it. It only passed by one or two votes in the Senate. In hindsight, all the objections looked pretty foolish. Even Syria came on board...countering the idea that it would destabilize the Mid-East. Indeed, it's hard to believe that the Oslo accords following on the heels of this was a mere coincidence. Those opposed to Desert Storm, at that time, included me. I misjudged the situation. I wish I was as wrong about Gulf War II as I was about Gulf War I. But, given the information we have from sources such as Woodward's new book, I think it is clear that the failure is consistent with the incompetence of this administration. We honestly don't know what would have happened if Powell's plan for reconstruction was used instead of Rumsfeld's non-plan. As a result of 'Nam, Democrats became far more dovish. Combining this with Watergate, we found restrictions on the actions of the executive that were unprecedented....at least since Lincoln. At least some of these restrictions, such as the high wall between intelligence monitoring of terror cells abroad and the FBI watching for criminal activity in the US, are now considered a bit too much. When I watched the 9-11 commission, no one argued that the CIA should not share info on suspected terror cells with the FBI. Now, this doesn't mean that I agree with Bush. It's just that his re-election does not represent the decay of long cherished American values. Checks and balances can be seen to working right now. That's not the problem that I see. I see more the arrogance of incompetence as the problem with the Bush White House. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
