patrick.net

Joe Schmoe,

No problem. Although you left one type of conservative out; the RINO, or Republican In Name Only!

I'll be honest here, when you're from Cicero IL politics is about getting the street light fixed or having the clout to make sure your street gets plowed first after a snowstorm so a lot of this simply escapes me but I like where you're going!

Randy H,

Thanks for the heads up! I will take exception though b/c I have cold called Ohio extensively over the years and it (more than any other state I can think of) has some parity between the various towns. To wit: Sandusky, Toledo, Cinci, Dayton, Columbus, Cleavland and even Akron. Most of these towns have fairly equal populations. I realize southern OH is like going back in time compared to northern OH but in OR for instance we have Portland and then there's the rest of the state. Believe me it is just that polarized. Usually by the time we get off to go to the polls no one is waiting with baited breath to see how OR goes. Has anyone every won the Presidency with out carrying OH?

Joe Schmoe,

Thanks for your honest reply. In the end, we’re here and trying to talk things out sensibly. That fact alone may mean we share more in common with each other than we do with the average American.

A couple critiques, and please reply if you think my facts or ideas are flawed in an obvious manner.

My biggest problem is that while conservative critiques of New Deal or Great Society era policies are valid, their own alternatives aren’t particularly practical. Recent efforts at privatization and deregulation have largely worked out unhappily. Frank Quattrone, Halliburton’s lucrative no bid contracts, and California’s blackouts have been consequences. The Conservative solution seems to end up with more money initially for everyone, and most especially for big multinational corporations.

Private solutions to poverty, healthcare, and unemployment are not very optimal compared to public ones. American healthcare eats up more GDP than other industrialized nations. Charities are funded in large part by rich people’s tax exemptions and are usually more interested in preserving the principle than doing good. Individuals do take advantage of social safety nets, but that’s a reason to reform the system, not to give it up.

As for social conservatives, they’re interested in meddling with my life. I cannot agree with them, simply out of self interest. They also tend to project an idealized past that may or may not actually have ever existed, and which is unlikely to appear, given America’s economic contemporary economic challenges.

Also, Conservatives lost a lot of credibility with me for the way they defended Dubya. The Bush administration has too many examples of sweet heart deals to favored corporations, entered into too many costly foreign adventures and tax cuts, and been caught lying/concealing/fudging on matters of this nation’s vital interests too much to go unnoticed. I can’t take the Conservatives as a group seriously until they do some serious self examination and cut the corruption out.

I feel that real progressives have criticized the Democratic party’s errors as harshly as they’ve criticized the Republicans for their wrongs. That is why I’m still with them. They’re still a very small portion of the overall population, so they’re not in it for the power. They care more about doing right than being right. I just can’t say that about the leadership of the two major parties.

newsfreak,

The daffodils started blooming about 3 weeks ago and they're just about done. Cherry blossoms have already peaked. Right now the crab apples are peaking, the dogwoods are starting to put on a show and serviceberries are coming along any moment.

PeterB,

I was thinking about the critiques of the downsides to the programs, mainly abuse and encouraging a culture of dependence. Those abuses do exist.

As for problems of poverty and social justice...I'm of two minds about this, but I don't think it can be solved by government giving out money.

However, I'm probably to the right of most progressives on this issue.

newsfreak,

Blueberries! How nice. I've never seen any blueberries but there are a lot of serviceberries, which are supposed to be edible as well. There's also a lot of kousa dogwoods, which will flower in May/early June and produce some interesting looking fruits.

Bodybuilders are so disturbing looking.

SFwoman,
the reason that people in places like SF, etc ect- places that are all well above the national average in cost of living pay more is based entirely on cost of living alone. If cost of living was the only factors that determined the diffrences between CA and other states, California might as well be on another planet. Homes, assets, property, and wages all play a key part in what determines the amount of taxes any given California resident will pay. Thus, if they have a home worth 500k, they will be paying 5 times the taxes on something that the exact same person in another state,with the same job, education, and house would pay. The diffrence is that while a house in NC might cost 120k, the residents of that home likely make a combined income between 55-70k a year, or about half the price of a house. Take the avg salary in CA, around 65-80k, and a home that is 5 times the yearly salary, and you get people in the same income bracket who are paying MORE out of their pockets just because of their home's value than those in NC. So in essence, middle class residents in North carolina pay less in raw dollars than middle income residents in CA. is it fair? Not outwardly, but it is a consequence of uncontrolled housing prices and booms. This too is a perfect example of what happened when Prop 13 was passed and those that failed to see the potential repercussions it would bring.

newsfreak,

Try kousa dogwoods, they're very pretty and doesn't get anthracnose. They also get very nice fruits in the fall. They'll tolerate 20 below Farenheit.

Newsfreak,
I'm on that same level. I'm basically tired of nothing being done in congress because both parties just sit there and throw eggs at each other. I'm more inclined to look at each canidate and determine his/her qualifications and standards than look at which party they come from.

SFWoman,

Yes, that's my first thought about Dubya. He is no Conservative based on any definition of the word. Actually, Fascist comes to mind as a description of the Bush Administration. (That's no meant as a slander, just a matter of comparing Bush's policy to Mussolini or Franco).

But as long as the majority of Republicans continue to support him, often times unquestioningly, it's hard to take them too seriously.

newsfreak,

That might be Seymour Hersh, the New Yorker's investigative journalist.

Here's an article to the Iran story, most certainly not bedtime reading.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact

newsfreak,

(Senator unspeakable byproduct of a fairly unspeakable act...snicker...snicker :P)

I do envy you. I wish I had an acre to work with. What are you planning for it?

There are some disease resistant native dogwood varieties out there. Just browse around the catalogues. I think most dogwoods with C. florida in their genes will have some resistance, though they may be too cold for you.

DinOR,

Ohio has predicted every presidential winner since Nixon/McGovern in 72. Previous to that, many Democrats won with carrying Ohio, but no Republicans unless you go way back.

By the way, the same is true of AK, KY, LA, MO, and TN.

CA predicts 75% of winners, by the way. Only missing in Ford/Carter (Voted R), and the past 2 elections picking D when R won.

The worst predictors are VA, WY, MN and DC, being they pretty much always vote the same R or D in those states.

SFWoman-

Well, I am a strong defender of George Bush. In fact, I was a member of his legal team in Ohio in 2004. It wasn't very exciting, there were no minority voters to intimidate or Diebold voter machines to reprogram in my area, I was assigned to a county just south of Columbus where nothing much went on.

I had a lengthy response to your Iraq war posts written up, but I somehow deleted it while cutting and pasting. The condensed version is ths. No one thought Sadaam was about to attack us with WMD's, the people of San Francisco weren't exaclty doing duck-and-cover drills in anticipation of incoming Iraqi scuds. The fear was that he might give WMD's to terrorists one day. Sadaam was an evil man, and not a terribly rational one, so this was a reasonable fear. We did not find any WMD's in the end, but this was becuase we made a mistake, not becuase we lied.

But the real reason for invading Iraq was to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East. Why? Becuase it will make us safer. As things stand, the region is full of angry people who fly airplanes into buildings and behead gagged and bound prisoners. Our old foreign policy, of allowing pliable dictators to keep the people in line, wasn't working. It led to 9/11.

The hope is that if we can liberate the people of Iraq, it will be the first step toward reforming the whole region. If the people of the Middle East have some freedom, and hope, perhaps they won't be willing to follow evil men who tell them to force women into burquas and blow themselves up. President Bush believes that all people yearn for freedom. He trusts the Iraqi people and believes that if we give them a chance, they'll sieze the opportunity and create a new political system that is more positive than the current system of corrupt, secular dictators like Sadaam and Mubarak and corrupt, messianic fundamentlaists like the Iranians and the Talabin. On the economic front, if we can bring prosperity to the region perhaps its people won't feel so hopeless. If the Iraqis are busy buying plasma screen TV's they won't be as likely to listen to the mullahs calling for jihad. All of these things will make us safer.

Is it certain to work out? No. It's a risk. We went into Somalia with the best of intentions -- to feed starving people --- and they turned on us. Places like Haiti, Bosnia -- they are so screwed up that they may never be governable. But in Iraq, we had to try. If we don't, one of the terror groups in the middle east will get hold of a nuke someday and then we'll have to make really ugly choices. If Americans are forced to make achoice between Los Angeles and Tehran, Tehran is history. This could actually happen if we do not act fast, it is not hyperbole. We are trying to give the people of the Middle East a chance to save themselves. It is also the right thing to do; just as we freed the slaves during the Civil War, we believe that the people in Iraq and elsewhere do not deserve to live under a monster like Sadaam.

Maybe Iraq will work, maybe it won't. But it is a noble effort, one of the greatest things we have ever attemtped, and I am proud that we are there. While I do not ordinarily mention this, I know someone is going to ask so I will tell you that I have volunteered to go over there twice. I am not in the military but I know people who are contractors over there and I asked them to help get me a job. It didn't work out, and I am thankful for that becuase I have small kids, but I would give anything to be over there.

On the fiscally conservative front, I agree with everyone here. I was glad to see DeLay go, he was an exceptionally effective legislator but the fact is that he had become a part of the Washington system and it was time for him to go.

I just think that the Dems are going to be 1,000 times worse than the Repubs on the corruption front. Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans -- the Dems have destroyed these once beautiful cities with their sickening corruption and the Repubs have nothing that even comes close. The GOP has developed an appitite for pork, no question about it, but the Dems would raise our taxes and spend even more.

I think the answer to the pork problem is to get involved in local politics. If the voters are hostile to pork, the legislators will be too.

If you plan to grow on raw ground, a couple plantings of cover crops will help break up the soil and increase soil fertility. Another thing to look into are hoophouses. They're basically landscape fabric tunnels that lengthen the growing season.

Interestingly, CA has voted for D only 37.5% of elections since 72-2000, 62.5%-R, *way* down the list. CA has the same record as GA, KY, LA, MO, AK, and TN when it comes to frequency of D-to-R votes. It seems that our biases are being formed by the past few years, and not supported by overall data (although I agree there are trends at work, but there have been cyclical trends in the past).

As for fruit trees in deer areas. I'd say you need deer fencing to get anything. Otherwise, there's a high probability that the deer will graze everything you grow into the ground.

As for manure. The best way to deal with them is to compost them first.

Newsfreak
Good idea...Nighmares of Greenspan....a Midsummer Nights Nighmare :twisted:

Joe,
I'm not exactly super-liberal, nor super conservative, but the reason We're up to our eyeballs in you know what with many arab countries is because we basically did some serious messing around in Iran in the 50's. The British controlled all the oil in Iran, and wanted to invade them to essentially gain full control of their entire supple. The US didn't support this idea, but once Ike got in office, he was all for erradicating Comunism, and there was a fear at the time that Iran had a number of communist groups, thus they staged a coup. It was the first thing the CIA did, and it worked pretty well. Well, Iranians didn't like the Shah that was set up by the CIA since he took all their money and was extremely corrupt, so the Iranians booted him out and Ayatola took over.. wallah- bunch of Arabian countries that don't like us very much.
The more we mess around over there, the less they're going to like us. Maybe there is a threat of some crazy terrorist coming over here with ill intentions, but I sorta think that setting up camp over there isn't going to make them want to be buddy-buddy with us either.
I would like to believe that what we're doing over there is righteous and good. Everyone in my family was in the miliatary. The cival war,WWI, WWII, Vietnam, the First Iraq War, ect ect, and none in my family really think we have any business being over there. This is a highly opinionated topic, and I genuinely appreciate your strong enthusiasm and honest opinion.

Nomad-

Well, maybe. It's true that our record in the 50's is nothing to be proud of.

That said, there are three issues to think about. First, the people of the Middle East had problems for a lot longer than the last 50 years, or 500 years for that matter. Women were always treated like chattel over there, it's not like they had their ovwn version of the Flappers back in the 20's until evil Standard Oil started supporting those bloodthirsty Saudi royals. The Arabs and Westerners have been clashing ever since the Arabs invaded Spain during the Middle Ages, these confrontations didn't end untit the last of the Crusades. The bad blood goes back for centuries, it is not just a product of European colonialism and American Cold War foregin policy. They have been stoning women and chopping off heads over there for a long time. Also, to the extent that the historical clash of civilizations is motivated by religion, it cannot be solved via diplomacy. I mean, if the people of the region beleive that a woman who wears jeans and a t-shirt, attends college, and drives a car is a whore who should be forced into a burqua -- this sort of fundametal difference in worldviews cannot be smoothed out. It is going to cause conflict.

Second, with respect to the US specifically, what would the place look like if we hadn't interfered? Would Egypt and Iran on the path to turn into flourishing, Jeffersonian democracies? Or, left to their own devices, would they have just turned into streotypical fucked up third world countires, ruled by other bloodthirsty dictators or theocrats, ones who regarded us the enemy? Or would they have become Soviet client states (the answer to this question is yes, the other two are just hypothetical.)

Finally, even if we are to blame for the problems, that is in the past. What do we do today? I don't think we can ignore the region and not get involved on the theory that it will just piss them off more They are coming here to kill us! They will keep on coming unless we do something about it.

Joe,

I stay away from commenting on political debates, inclusing prop 13. But I saw your spirited and sincere response. And I have to add this.

We were already in Afganistan. There was a mission to complete there, and even today it is not yet done. We were liberating those people, and bringing democracy to Islamic countries. Before that mission showed any signficant progress, we distracted our resources.

The question is not if Saddam was a danger or not. Question is, was it an imminent danger ? It was debatable. But the certain fact was OBL DID attack us. Catching him and punishing his gang needed the most focus.

We should have finished one mission. The more important one. History has not been kind to those who start wars (on their own) on multiple fronts.

Nomadtoons2 Says:

...(I)n CA...things are out of hand. A totally liberal population means NOTHING ever gets passed because anything that government does is seen as hostile."

Actually the exacty opposite is true.

In a totally liberal population, EVERY-KOOKED-OUT-THING gets passed because anything a liberal government does is seen as for the people.

Joe,
I guess what I can't help but think about is that these Arabian countries have been doing exactly what they have been doing, the same way, for thousands of years. In places like Aphganistan, war is a way of life.I'm not saying this is right in my own mind, but it is the way it has been there for literally before Christianity.
In the SE United States, Colonials met the Cherokee, A fierce, agressive, and highly developed Native American Tribe that had traditional ceremonies that celebrated a boy's passage into manhood after he had sucessfully slayed an enemy. Whenever various controlling intrests whether it be the British or Early US government tried to work out treaties with them , it wasn't that the Cherokees were neccesarily againt working with them, but that they were asked NOT to war amoung the other tribes. This was totally unacceptable. In essence, they told the settlers they could not function as a society properly without war. To them it was like going to church, as ridiculous as that sounds.
This goes into a really odd and gray area, especially for Us Americans who have been around scarcely 200 years to assume that EVERYONE must naturally want to act and be like us. I'm not going to suggest I even know even close to what I should know about most Arabic cultures. I'm not taking sides as to whether war is a human social fixture that is more or less permenant. The problem is going into ancient countries with ancient customs and fully expecting them to "behave" as we think they should behave.I highly doubt the average American knows that much about these places, and only at all due to 9/11.
Again, this is a really, really unconventional thought, but if they survived 5,000 years without aid from other countries, I'm sure they'll be fine without any further intervention, whether we personally find what they are doing unethical or not. Are you comfortable? Do you like the way you live? I am, and am fine with the way things are. I'd just assume let them do what they want to do.In fact, I'm all about going back to being an isolationist country pre-Roosevelt.

FormerAptBroker Says:

"Most of the people I know in San Francisco could be described as “very well educated liberals”...These smart liberals have worked their ass off their entire lives getting good grades high SAT scores and promotions at work (while doing volunteer work in their spare time) and don’t understand that a huge part of the population is not like them and tries to do as little as possible every day…"

God almighty!

Spare me the circa 1999 Boomer propaganda...please.

To BA-

Well, we have always been huting for OBL, I have never believed that we "diverted resources" from the search. The FBI and the police have the resources to search for more than one criminal at a time, the intelligence agencies and the military can fight more than one war at a time, especially when we require so few troops in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is doing just fine, that place has many problems that will take decades to fix, we are making good progress there.

We really don't want a heavy footprint in Afghanistan. For one thing, we just don't need much of our military resources in Afghanistan -- we don't need tanks, or B-2 bombers, for example, becuase the Taliban terrorists don't have an air force or an army, and the place is nothing but mountains and caves, there are no targets there to bomb. Those resources were not needed in Afghanistan. Also, we did not want to put 100,000 troops into the Hindu Kush. That was the strategy the Russians employed and it failed for good reason. The strategy in Afghanistan is like the the Combined Action Program and and Montagnard strategies we employed with great success in Vietnam, it is based on Special Forces A-Teams and small groups of aid workers, not massive deployments of infantry for sweeps and search-and-destroy missions.

Nomadtoons-

That is a fascinating point. We are coming from very similar places, I just think that the people of the Middle East might want, and be able to lead, our way of life. It is a fascinating issue.

Joe,
Well I broke the golden rule my dad taught me, which is that there are 2 things that are generally left to the individual( meaning don't talk about it)1: politics, 2: religion. That said, it is interesting that at least on this forum, people can share open discussion. Very diffrent than most forums I've been on.

SFWoman-

Well, the entire Middle East needs to be reformed, but unfortunately we cannot do it all at once without a draft and going on a full-fleged war footing.

Why Iraq and not Saudi Araiba? Two reasons. First, the WMD's were an issue. Sadaam turned out not to have any, but we didn't know that at the time, and we really did not want to leave those deadly weapons in the hands of a madman.

Second, and your question touches on this, Iraq should be easier to reform than Saudi Arabia. Iraq is far more secular, far more modern, and somewhat resembles a functioning modern state; it's not a corrupt and decadent plutocracy like Saudi Arabia.

The Iraiqs are more modern, and less relgious, than the Saudis, so a Western-style democratic govenrment should be easier to implement there.

Remember back before the war, when the leftists were predicting that the "Arab street" would "rise up" at the sight of American troops on sacred Muslim soil, that we'd simply inflame the passions of the region, that they'd hate us more every second we stayed, etc.? Or during the early days of the war, when all the leftists were claiming that the Iraqi people were becoming "increasingly frustrated" with the occupation, that we had a "closing window of opportunity," the insurgency was "growing," etc. As we know, all of that turned out to be BS, becuase three years later we can see that the insurgency has not grown at all. On the contrary, the people of Iraq risked their lives to participate in the elections we set up for them, they were willing to face death to become part of our "puppet government." That's becuase they knew that we really are trying to help them, what we are offering is for real, our system is better than that of Sadaam and the mullahs.

Well, if we'd invaded Saudi Arabia. all of those horrible things the leftsists predictied might well have actually happneed. The people there are far more fanatical than the Iraqis, they really would be blowing themselves up left and right. Consider stuff like women's sufferage. The people of Iraq accepted the idea without question, the women could not wait to get to the polls. This never would have happened in Saudi Arabia. Women can't even show their faces there. If we'd tried to impose it by force even moderate Saudis would have been offended, stopped cooperating and maybe even risen up.

We can't solve all of the problems of the area at once, unfortuantely; it remains to be seen if some of them can be solved at all. We started with Iraq becuase it seemed like the most secular and promising place to try our experiment. Reform in Saudi Arabia will be a much slower process. Ditto for Afghanistan, etc. The Middle East is a diverse place, in Lebannon it will be easy, in the Sudan, Somalia, etc. it'll be hard.

Bubblizer error fix released. If you downloaded an earlier version, update it.

Newsfreak-

Well, we have to do something. They are coming here to kill us. The Iranians want the bomb. We can't let them get it. You can't just close your eyes to this horrible fact. We've got to confront it.

Joe Schmoe,

I don't want to start a long drawn-out political argument here or come off like an Republican-basher, so I'll just focus on two comments you made I disagree with:

But the real reason for invading Iraq was to bring freedom and democracy to the Middle East.

We may never fully know the Administrations "real" reasons for invading Iraq, since we don't have the ability to read minds. Let's just say that, based on the rhetoric coming directly from the Prez, Veep, Rummy, etc. it's pretty clear that "freedom and democracy" weren't high on the list of priorities in the buildup months BEFORE the war. After the war, you heard lots of warm fuzzy pro-freedom rhetoric, but at the time, it was pretty much all WMDs, "imminent danger", mushroom clouds, yellow-cake uranium & the like.

Personally, I think the American people were deliberately lied to and cynically manipulated into going to war, primarily based on fear and a blurring of Saddam with OBL/9-11 (>70% of Americans could not distinguish between them in pre-war polls). But of course, all I have to base that on is pre-war speeches/interviews, a Downing Street memo or two and my own gut instinct. Whether the "real" objective was to secure strategic oil reserves for a post-peak oil U.S., "payback" for Saddam trying to assassinate GHWB senior, to "finish the job" from Gulf War I, or whatever, I don't know. Regardless, I don't care much for being lied to and manipulated. If you want to go to war, just tell me why and I'll make up my own mind, thank you.

...I just think that the Dems are going to be 1,000 times worse than the Repubs on the corruption front.

I wouldn't be so sure. The Dems are certainly no angels, but when it comes to outrageous pork and rampant corruption, the current gang of Big Government culture-war neo-cons is hard to beat.

Newsfreak-

So do we stop them, or not? The clock is ticking.

This goes into a really odd and gray area, especially for Us Americans who have been around scarcely 200 years to assume that EVERYONE must naturally want to act and be like us. I’m not going to suggest I even know even close to what I should know about most Arabic cultures. I’m not taking sides as to whether war is a human social fixture that is more or less permenant. The problem is going into ancient countries with ancient customs and fully expecting them to “behave” as we think they should behave. I highly doubt the average American knows that much about these places, and only at all due to 9/11.

Again, this is a really, really unconventional thought, but if they survived 5,000 years without aid from other countries, I’m sure they’ll be fine without any further intervention, whether we personally find what they are doing unethical or not. Are you comfortable? Do you like the way you live? I am, and am fine with the way things are. I’d just assume let them do what they want to do. In fact, I’m all about going back to being an isolationist country pre-Roosevelt.

Except for the strict isolationist part, I pretty much agree with nomadtoons2 here. It just amazes me how Americans can (1) be so ignorant of world history and geography, and (2) so arrogant to assume that we *must* impose our cultural/political system on the entire world, and that this is what the rest of the world really wants.

I'm all for encouraging human rights and spreading democracy, but I seriously doubt that "freedom" imposed by force/invasion is necessarily the most effective way to accomplish this. Each culture/country is capable of independently developing its own democratic institutions and there are ways to encourage/incentivize this without resorting to total war. One would think that Vietnam had taught us that lesson by now.

SFwoman,
I tend to believe that most people will only strengthen their resolve once someone tells them how wrong or right they are. I'll use myself as an example. I lived in Berkeley at the time of the start if the Iraq War. I myself felt VERY strongly against the war at that time. Everyone had "Attack Iraq? NO!" on the backs of their cars. It was like everyone was all together. But for some reason, I found the way that people talked about it very condescending. I can't put my finger on it, but it felt like what people were really saying was that they were better than everyone else and this seemed more important than the war.
After awhile, I actually got really tired of hearing about it day after day. Both sides were saying the same crap over and over. Of course nobody is going to change their minds, but I got really turned off by the whole thing and I didn't want to talk about it or really see anything about it anymore.Basically, it made me NOT want to care about the war anymore. I was sick of hearing about it. I even went as far as make my own bumper sticker that said" super self-righteous bumper sticker."I even moved out of Berkeley because the never-ending protest atmospehere just made me weary. It was like one big club.The attitudes there were so full of helium it was insane.
People have a tendency to be very eager to jump in with who they see as the good guys, so basically the original purpose of forming an opinion turns into mud slinging from both sides that almost forget what they disagreed on in the first place. That's why utterly unrelated , attention misapropiating topics that had nothing to do with anything like Gay marriage came up- to further drive an invisible wedge between democrats and Republicans. Long story short, I seriously doubt pointing out hyprocracy is getting anyone to change his or her mind.

Well, I just don't think that calling people hypocrites is a very productive thing to do. I mean, are the Dems, the so-called party of the working stiff, hypocrites when rich elitists like Kerry and Dean run the party? ALL politicians are hypocrites.

The Boomers seem to think that hypocrisy is the greatest moral failing anyone can have. I disagree. All of us are fallable. You can't avoid having to confront tough moral questions by poiting out that the spokesman for one side or the other is not 100% pure.

Newsfreak-

I am not trying to be a jerk about this. The reason why I am pressing this point is becuase I think you are engaged in a form of denial becuase you do not want to confront the horrible issue of what to do about the Iranians and the bomb. It is an ugly choice. Do we bomb them, undobtedly killing a bunch of innocent women and children in the process -- accidents are inevitable in war however hard we try to prevent them -- or do we let the mullhas get the bomb?

But you have to confront it. Do we attack? Yes or no. There are only two answers. Reminiscences about the duck-and-cover drills of the 60's do not help us decide what to do about Iran today. Do we let them get the bomb or not? That is the question.

@Joe Schmoe,

Again, none of us here exactly knows what the "real" reasons for Iraq's invasion were; however, we do know what the Administration said on record in the months leading up to war. Regardless of the real reasons, and whether or not they turned out to be true, I despise being lied to and manipulated by my own government, especially for the purpose of going to war. Making an honest judgment call that turns out to be wrong is one thing, misleading/bullying a country into war is quite another.

Yes or no?

No