Who do you really want to vote for?

[masdog]

I personally do not like abortion but I do not see "government as nanny" as a good thing. Education has done more to reduce abortion rates than anything else. Teach kids about real-life options of birth control (other than "abstinence") and abortion will be come a non-issue for most cases.

I agree. While I find abortion very distasteful and never consider it if I was in the position to influence that sort of decision, I don't feel it is up to the government to tell women what they can do with their bodies. But there are a number of "out-of-touch" people out there who think telling kids not to have sex and blocking access to anything to reduce the risk of pregnancy and STDs will keep them from doing it...

And on that same token, why do we punish people for punishing themselves with drugs or prevent assisted-suicide.

Agree but for a different reason. Biofuels are really no better than petroleum if you take the entire start-to-finish process into account for both. Plus, it takes a good chunk of the food supply away.

Well...there are some options that don't impact the food supply, but they are still a little pie-in-the-sky at the moment. I remember an article on slashdot about using a genetically modified form of algae that produces 50% of its weight in bio-oil as a source of biodiesel.

"No doubt who did it" is the very reason we take so long! I have no problem at all with the time it takes. If we can prove beyond any doubt at all, rather than relying on a "feeling", that a person is guilty, then go for it. That is the ONLY way to insure the right person is being killed.

Consider the state of Illinois. There were several people on death row who there was no-doubt about their crimes. Then some law students looked into those cases and found plenty of doubt in the form of DNA evidence and police corruption.

The fact is the system exists to protect the lives of the innocent. We exhaust every last means to make sure that there isn't reasonable doubt when we place someone on death row.

[masdog]

Well JS, some things yes and some things no.

1) Didn't the British try something along the lines of what we're doing less than 100 years ago? Look where they were at a few years ago... My thought is that whether we pull out now or years later, the end result will be the same in years to come. Sure, we created a mess there and the honorable thing to do would be to fix it, but where I'm sittin', it ain't fixable.

Its not fixable...not by any metric that the US Government would consider. The only way we could fix it is to break the country up into smaller countries based on ethnic groups, but then Turkey (a NATO Ally) would have our balls in a vice over an independent Kurdistan raising trouble on their border.

If it wasn't for the British and the French at the end of WWI, we wouldn't have this mess now.

[ciddog91]

I agree with JS on almost everything..

War in Iraq.... We are doing LOTS of good things there.. The media does not show it thought. Ask most of the returning service men and women. It is a tough situation, but if we let the warriors run the fighting, we can stabilize it (not the political Generals, but true soldiers).

Death Penatly.. We NEED it. There are too many scum bags walking around stealing our air. Just look at some of the REPEAT offenders who should have been locked up or given the death penalty already. BUT the judicial system has a role in this problem. Too many people want to "rehabilitate" hard core criminals. A year or two then back on the streets. Here in MI they want to move tons of Felonies to misdeneanors. Give them less time, not have to take care of them at the state level. Make them go to local jails. We cannot house them, so we give them early releases and they are back out on the street preying on more victims...Child molesters, violent repeat offenders, child abusers and murderers shoudl be automatically looked at for the death penalty. Others need to be looked at, but start there and thin the criminal gene pool some to start..

JS for Pres......

Phil

[another view]

Its not fixable...not by any metric that the US Government would consider. The only way we could fix it is to break the country up into smaller countries based on ethnic groups, but then Turkey (a NATO Ally) would have our balls in a vice over an independent Kurdistan raising trouble on their border.

I have a hard time believing that Iraqis really want us to tell them what to do. Imagine if they came over here and told us how to run our country...

You have a good point about the death penalty. It's not one of the issues that I really choose to get involved in, but having it doesn't really seem to deter crime. Isn't that what it's supposed to do, getting down to the basic philosophy of why we (some states, anyway) have it?

[mwfanelli2]

You have a good point about the death penalty. It's not one of the issues that I really choose to get involved in, but having it doesn't really seem to deter crime. Isn't that what it's supposed to do, getting down to the basic philosophy of why we (some states, anyway) have it?

The death penalty has nothing to do with detering crime and never has. That is an argument that supporters use to justify their positions. The fact of the matter is that most murders are spur of the moment, no thinking involved. Deterence seldom ever comes into play.

We must execute extremely violent people to protect the rest of society. Give someone "life without parole" and you are handing over the ultimate freedom. That person is free to do anything he/she wants, commit any crime at any time. Murder as many times as he wants, maim, torture his cellmates, etc. Without a death penalty, there isn't a single thing you can do about it. Death stops that from happening.

The only thing we should demand is that every road be taken to insure that the person we execute is the guilty one even if that takes a long time.

Also, although few will admit to it, there is a sense of satisfaction when a killer is killed. Retribution and revenge are extremely strong human emotions.

Oh yeah, FWIW, the number of prisoners in the USA has reached an all-time high. It dwarfs all other civilized and many thrird-world countries by a very large margin. I think that says something about the character of our society.

[masdog]

Oh yeah, FWIW, the number of prisoners in the USA has reached an all-time high. It dwarfs all other civilized and many thrird-world countries by a very large margin. I think that says something about the character of our society.

I believe that has a lot to do with what we consider crimes these days and the lengths that some segments of society are willing to go to "prevent" or "cure" those "ills." Many prisoners are non-violent drug offenders, if I remember my statistics correctly, we incarcerate more people for drug offenses than any other crime.

[GB1]

I am writing in a candidate this time fellows........ how 'bout Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite?

Vote Por Pedro!

[walterick]

Thought I would give this one a bump, given it is primary season!

Rick