patrick.net

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

Well, he's the only president we've got right now. The Iranians are making the bomb NOW, TODAY, and they may not wait until a politican you like in office. That is not how the real world works.

Do we let them get the bomb or not?

Yes or no?

It's an awful nt question, but quoting 60's-inspired poetry will not help answer it.

Do you want to see Paris, or San Francisco, or Tel Aviv go up in a mushroom cloud? I guarantee you there are people in the Iranian government who would would love to see that.

Do we stop them from getting the bomb or not?

Do we bomb North Korea? They claim to have 4 or 5 bombs, intelligence backs that statement, he’s a whacko crazy dictator who says he has missiles capable of reaching the west coast of the US. Yes or No?

Well, it pretty much is binary.

With North Korea, the answer is no. Because they already have the bomb. If we leave them alone, we are taking a risk. Kim might lose it one day and decide to nuke Seoul, or Tokyo, or San Francisco. The odds of this are slim, because (a) it would lead to his destruction, deterrence does work, and (b) he hasn't yet. But the risk is there. If we eliminate the risk, on the ohter hand, we will have to kill millions and millions of innocent people. Also, we will have taken a step along the path of man's oblivion. We managed to stop 60 years ago, we don't want to start again.

But I do support military action against Iran becuase I don't want to see any more North Koreas and Pakistans. Two shaky third world dictatorships with nukes is more than enough for me, I am willing to start a lot of wars to prevent the emergence of others.

If we let countries like these get the bomb, I guarantee you that we will be nuked one day. They are corrupt and unstable, and those weapons are sure to fall into the wrong hands if they keep proliferating. Perhaps technological advances make this inevitable, I really don't know, but I want to do whatever we can to stop it.

I just think it is important to stop deluding ourselves into thinking that treaties, etc. will prevent these mad dictators from seeking nuclear weapons. Inspectors, etc., can slow the process down, but they can't stop it. The Iranians will never stop building the bomb, no matter what treaties we sign. The only way to stop them is by attacking. i don't think we have any other choice.

Tim-

No, I am a chickenhawk. A hypocrite. Can we stop attacking the messenger and get to the substance of my arguments now?

Ja, I like my posterboy, big muscly boy, give me credit, ja!

SFWoman-

No. Please see above, I think we were posting accross one another.

Well, it's like Trostky once said:

"You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you."

They are coming for us, it doesn't matter if we are tired of figthing.

Yes or no?
Do we let them get the bomb or not?

Joe,

I know you mean well here, but since when is it *our job* to determine which of the approx. 192 sovereign nations on earth has the *right* to own/develop nuclear weapons? Are we the world's mother?

Now, do I want an islamo-fascist theocracy like Iran to have nukes? No, of course not, no one in the West does. But before I start entertaining fantasies about "pre-emptive strikes" with tactical nukes, or unilateral Gulf War III, I calm myself and consider the following facts:

--There are currently at least 8 other countries with nukes, not all of them friendly to the U.S.: Russia, North Korea, Red China, India and Pakistan, Israel, Britain and France. You can also add South Africa, which had them, then later agreed to destroy its arsenal under U.N./U.S. pressure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_nuclear_weapons

--Each decade, as the technology to build nuclear weapons improves and becomes cheaper (as all mature technologies do), this list is bound to grow longer over time, and there's little you and I can do to stop it. The nuclear genie's already out of the bottle, my friend, for better or for worse.

--Odds are eventually some maniac is bound to get his hands on a nuke and use it somewhere. Invading or tactically nuking other countries trying to build them isn't likely to prevent this from happening. In fact this can backfire, by telling these countries in essence that the ONLY way to avoid being invaded/nuked by the U.S. is to HAVE nukes.

I don't think the approach to this problem is strictly binary (yes/no, Invade/don't invade). If South Africa developed nukes and was talked out of using them, then there's hope for diplomacy yet. There's also the little matter of M.A.D. working powerfully in our favor, as it did during the Cold War. Even the craziest mullah knows that his people would not survive a nuclear strike against the U.S. Doing so would be suicide.

Joe...
Please do travel outside of American, also when you get some time, read some history books... your YES or NO questions sounds like the TV show Deal - No Deal, where clueless bet on things and end up making $50 bucks instead of $250,000

If US wants to impose its rule on other countries, I am not surprised why other countries do not want to impose their rule on US. They also have ideologies that want them to oppress the woman in this country. What is wrong with that...
Bush has and will continue to be a puppet and he is trying to make the people of this country as part of his puppet show. No coconuts or bananas for him. He wants Oil.

Joe, why are you quoting Leon Trostky? Do you want a permanent revolution? ;)

What justifies the fact the US can have Nuclear weapons but no other country could. I am surprised why no country is willing to invade US to get rid of its Weapons of Mass Destruction.

North Korea’s rockets can probably reach SF. Bomb North Korea??
Yes or No?

:lol:

I know you mean well here, but since when is it *our job* to determine which of the approx. 192 sovereign nations on earth has the *right* to own/develop nuclear weapons? Are we the world’s mother?

Yes. Not becuase we want to be, becuase we have to be. The US, the British, the Israelis -- these countries can be trusted with nukes. Iran, etc. -- we can't trust them.

Each decade, as the technology to build nuclear weapons improves and becomes cheaper (as all mature technologies do), this list is bound to grow longer over time, and there’s little you and I can do to stop it. The nuclear genie’s already out of the bottle, my friend, for better or for worse.

That may be true, but we can delay it for a long, long time.

Odds are eventually some maniac is bound to get his hands on a nuke and use it somewhere. Invading or tactically nuking other countries trying to build them isn’t likely to prevent this from happening.

Well, an Islamic terrorist isn't going to get one of our nukes, they are secure. Pakistan's? Iran's? I feel a lot less safe just thinking about that.

In fact this can backfire, by telling these countries in essence that the ONLY way to avoid being invaded/nuked by the U.S. is to HAVE nukes.

Yes and no. On the one hand, even though they claim to hate and fear us, most of the world's nations know they have nothing to fear. Canada, Japan, Sweeden, Australia -- these countries aren't rushing to develop nukes, beucase they know we are not an imperial power, we do not invade and subjugate others for the fun of it.

Evil dictatorships like Iran, on the other hand -- they do have something to fear. Also, I might add that Iran's program began long before we invaded Iraq. Heck, Iraq's program was in the 80's, long before anyone ever dreamed that US troops would one day occcupy the mideast. These dictators want weapons becuase they are evil and want to threaten and intimidate, not becuase they are afraid of losing their soverignty to the US.

I don’t think the approach to this problem is strictly binary (yes/no, Invade/don’t invade). If South Africa developed nukes and was talked out of using them, then there’s hope for diplomacy yet. There’s also the little matter of M.A.D. working powerfully in our favor, as it did during the Cold War. Even the craziest mullah knows that his people would not survive a nuclear strike against the U.S. Doing so would be suicide.

You are right, this is a powerful deterrent. But the people there are very crazy. The Russians didn't fly passenger jets into buildings, send suicide bombers, etc. The "leaders" in the middle east, like Arafat and Osama, are far less stable. We can probably deter many of them, but the risks are infinitely greater.

What justifies the fact the US can have Nuclear weapons but no other country could.

Power gives you justification.

It is not necessarily right. But that is the reality.