OPINION & EDITORIAL
The Grim Old Party
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by Letters to the Editor
Friday, January 25, 2008
College Republicans Chair Sara Mikolajczak argued in a Badger Herald guest column (“Youth may find Dem policy too taxing”, Jan. 21) that the Democratic Party chooses superficial, short-term solutions to address what are essentially long-term problems. In some instances she is right. The Democrats have not stood up to our nation’s unhealthy appetite for foreign oil and tragically refuse to discuss axing carbon to reduce oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The Democrats have also repeatedly failed to stand up to prevent a meaningless war that has endangered our security in the long run as well as jeopardized our nation’s diplomatic standing in the world.
However, to argue that the Republican Party is the bearer of long-term strategy is stunningly naive. It is the Republicans who stand in the way of comprehensive immigration reform and seem to believe that mass deportations and border fences can solve an issue that affects over 12 million people. It is the Republicans who refuse to believe scientific fact regarding global warming and in fact actively shun the scientific community, as if the short-term consequences to specific business interests outweigh the long-term consequences of climate change for future generations to come.
When it comes to crime, the Republicans most commonly propose more jail time and less rehabilitation. On the economy, the GOP is better, but not by much. Their tax cuts may work if they weren’t so bent on indebting our nation to China by borrowing trillions to pay for military adventures and pork barrel projects. If the long-term solution is to have your grandchildren pay, the Republicans are the answer. When it comes to issues involving gays and lesbians, the Republicans can’t have a long-term solution because they haven’t even caught up with the present.
And finally, it is the Republican Party who has shown an utmost contempt for the very institutions that have made this country great and will keep this country great in the long term. That the constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment does not keep Republican presidential candidates from delightfully endorsing the torture practice of waterboarding, completely disregarding the long-term consequences for American soldiers in enemy hands or America’s international reputation.
It is Republican President George W. Bush who has habitually disregarded the separation of powers outlined in the Constitution by refusing to allow Congress to have proper oversight of this war as well as issuing “signing statements,” pieces of paper that essentially declare that the president will sign the laws passed by Congress but will not obey them.
In fact, the only long-term goal of the Republican Party that they are achieving is the destruction of secular government. If you don’t believe me, look up Mike Huckabee on YouTube.
When it comes to long-term solutions, the Democratic Party is poor, but the Republican Party is bankrupt.
Jack Craver
UW sophomore, history
craver@wisc.edu
Anonymous (January 25, 2008 @ 7:11am):
Sara exhibits signs of chronic kool-aid intoxication: The knee-jerk quips, the inarticulate rationalizations and the unexplained temerity to defend stances only to dig herself deeper in the conseervatard doo-doo. She needs a parentless intervention because they likely enabled her during most of her tranquil, rigid childhood. Sad really.
Anonymous (January 25, 2008 @ 9:59am):
"It is the Republicans who stand in the way of comprehensive immigration reform"
BS
There were no bigger proponents of "comprehensive immigration reform" than Bush and McCain but the proles were able to defeat the elites on that POS idea, proles from both parties I might add.
Melissa (January 25, 2008 @ 11:47am):
it's like la Rocha explained at the Rage show 8/24/07 at Alpine Valley in regards to some comment he had made about the government that the media got on his case about.
....Is it really just this music, these riddles, these words?
Is that what theyre scared of?
So I thought about it and my conclusion is this.
They aint scared of us -
theyre scared of you.
Theyre scared that you might come and throw Bush and Cheney and all those out of power.
And let me say this
the democrats are scared of you too because they know that you see through their bullshit too.
Because when Bush was wire tappin, spyin on citizens, torturing innocent people THEY were supposed to be the people to defend us from them and they
DIDNT DO - SHIT -
The world is watching us
So WAKE UP
Anonymous (January 25, 2008 @ 1:58pm):
Hoo-Boy! That's quite an incontinent tantrum. Your ability to fling rhetorical feces through the bars of your intellectual cage is unquestioned. Next time pick a topic and stick to it.
Conservatives don't dispute whether global warming is fact. It is self-evident that the Sun warms Earth's atmosphere.
Whether atmospheric and oceanic temperature variation is substantially influenced by human activity-- versus large-scale natural phenomena(volcanism, sun spots, organic decomposition, phytoplankton activity, etc., ad nauseum)-- remains open to debate.
Leftists need to try to keep an open mind.
Anonymous (January 25, 2008 @ 4:19pm):
If you can't control the national borders, you can't control illegal immigration. That is a fact, not an argument. Fifteen million illegal aliens in the USA agreed by coming here illegally. If they can comprehend that simple fact, why can't sophmorish democrat citizens?
Anonymous (January 25, 2008 @ 4:24pm):
"Whether atmospheric and oceanic temperature variation is substantially influenced by human activity-- versus large-scale natural phenomena(volcanism, sun spots, organic decomposition, phytoplankton activity, etc., ad nauseum)-- remains open to debate."
True. It's kind of tough to prove that we're responsible. But it's also clear that something's happening, and it's also (I think) obvious that pumping tons of poisonous chemicals into the atmosphere, or any sort of manipulation of natural chemical balances for that matter, can't be good. So shouldn't we assume the worst--that we are responsible--and deal with it as such? You know, treat it as a worst-case scenario so that we don't all die?
It's like doing meth--it artificially changes chemical balances in your brain and messes you up really bad, and you should get treatment for it. But sometimes the chemicals become unbalanced on their own, and you should also get treatment for that, so that you don't harm yourself or others. And one way or the other, if things are out of whack, either through drug use or biological processes, something needs to be done.
I should be surprised that Dems haven't quite taken this approach, but then again it's easier to do nothing proactive and continue to use an issue for partisan gain for decades if you take a polarized, principled stand on an issue like this.
Anonymous (January 25, 2008 @ 5:37pm):
The Sky is Falling! The Planet is Warming! Who are these 'deniers' that dare question the Great and Powerful Wizard of Global Warming????? (Ahem - pay no attention to the little algore behind the curtain....)
Anonymous (January 25, 2008 @ 11:54pm):
What is it with right wingers denying global warming? If it was a potential nuclear attack they would want to do everything possible to prevent it. What are they so reluctant to believe the recommendations of the entire scientific community?
Anonymous (January 26, 2008 @ 11:42am):
Today both parties seem to subscribe to the notion that we have social problems -- lack of medical insurance, bad education -- that can be fixed by the Federal Government. The notion of local control and states rights, transparency and responsibility, the idea that the people most affected by policies ought to have some control (such as local school boards controlling both education and its finance) is pretty well considered ludicrous by nearly every academic intellectual and political leader in the nation. Fascism has prevailed, and we hardly notice it.
Yet the conservatives, who want to allow local control and to limit the power of the greater government to interfere in people's lives, are thought to be the fascists. So it goes.
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/view502.html#Paul
Anonymous (January 26, 2008 @ 12:11pm):
Anonymous @ 4:24pm opined: "So shouldn't we assume the worst--that we are responsible--and deal with it as such?"
"Dealing with it" is a question of trade-offs. Do the marginal benefits of taking actions outweigh the costs of those actions. Are Leftists prepared to stop burning fossil fuels at the cost of collapsing civilization and starving billions of innocents off the planet?
The current zeitgeist assumes curtailing fossil fuel burning will accrue some benefit in greenhouse gas reduction (primarily CO2). But if Mona Loa and her cousins belch more greenhouse gases than all industrial activity combined, just how do you cap those emissions? And how do Leftist propose to control natural variations in solar intensity?
Don't be naive. These socialists schemes to control global industrial economic activity have been going on for decades. Previous generations recall the "global cooling" panic of the 1970s with schemes to spray coal dust on the artic to increase insolation and induce melting.
If governments really wish to reduce CO2, they'd harness Antarctic diatom phytoplankton to sequester carbon through cheap iron fertilization. It's an inexpensive solution that acrues enormous benefits to krill, fish, penguins, whales... win-win!
Carbon trading systems already exist. Use carbon credit economic incentives to create a market for dryshipping and fishing fleets to spray iron over the biological deserts of open ocean... then watch nature do it's thing. Give me a ton of iron, and I'll give you an Ice Age.
Of course, practical solutions to reducing atmospheric carbon aren't part of the socialist agenda. It's merely another path to achieving global government through centralized control over economic activity-- that and character assasination of conservatives who propose free market solutions.
Focus on solutions-- don't panic.
Anonymous (January 26, 2008 @ 5:58pm):
Conservatives who believe that corporate prosperity and lower taxes for the rich focus more on those to concepts than the associated conditions that have to exist for them to work:
a sense of social responsibility and ethical behavior.
"Who killed the electric car?" Nuff said
Anonymous (January 27, 2008 @ 8:12am):
Anonymous @ 5:58pm asked: "Who killed the electric car?"
A: Individual consumers making informed choices.
Rational folks choose NOT to smelt more toxic heavy metals for batteries; NOT to drive lite-weight mobile coffins; NOT to burn more coal at electrical generating plants to charge their cars for a 50 mile trip; NOT to pay extra for these specious tradeoffs... just so Leftists can feeeeeeeeeel good.
See also, "The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy" by Stanford Professor Thomas Sowell
http://www.amazon.com/Vision-Anointed-Self-Congratulation-Social-Policy/dp/046508995X
Anonymous (January 27, 2008 @ 12:31pm):
Hey, 8:12!:
You might be interested in Jason Smathers blog on the topic, noting that:
"had many certifiable conservatives speaking about the issue, including Frank Gaffney (from the Reagan administration) and Lieberman Democrat ex-CIA director James Woolsey both supporting electric cars for the national security benefits of switching to electrons from petroleum.
Secondly, as battery electric cars are incontestably the most efficient vehicles on the road, [conservative] Huckabees comparison of his lean campaign to an electric car seems apt."
Get off your dead, lazy ass; get off the Republican talking points and do some research beyond Fox Noize.
Consumers NEVER had the chance to buy the cars so how did the consumers kill it?
Anonymous (January 27, 2008 @ 1:44pm):
Only Liberal can have a sense of social responsibility and ethical behavior.
donchaknow? And don't bother a Liberal with any facts Mr smarty-pants 8:12, they've already got a narrative to live by!
"So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal"
said Nuff
Anonymous (January 27, 2008 @ 3:58pm):
"Consumers NEVER had the chance to buy the cars so how did the consumers kill it?"
They never had a chance to buy cars with steam engines either. I guess nobody thought they could make any money producing them.
DAMN those focus groups and market studies! If only the government could decide all production priorities. Then we could have cars like they had back in the day, back in the USSR! Ahhh, You don't know how lucky you are boys Back in the U.S.S.R.!!!
Anonymous (January 27, 2008 @ 7:09pm):
Anonymous @ 12:31pm applauds: "switching to electrons from petroleum."
You advocate switching from direct burning refined petroleum to indirect burning more dirty coal, so as to send electrons over great distances into millions of extra batteries, and requiring yet more burning of dirty coal to smelt heavy metals.
Apparently, that trade-off is OK with uber-menchen Leftists since they know the Chi-Com unter-menchen battery smelting slaves can tolerate heavy metal exposures. So much for compassionate socialism.
There is no free lunch, junior.
Anonymous (January 27, 2008 @ 7:19pm):
"beyond Fox Noize"
Yeah, stick to the approved MSM narrative! What good is group think if the whole group don't think it?
Anonymous (January 27, 2008 @ 10:31pm):
thanks BH. you make me hate people.
Anonymous (January 28, 2008 @ 12:09am):
"Only Liberal can have a sense of social responsibility and ethical behavior. donchaknow? And don't bother a Liberal with any facts Mr smarty-pants 8:12, they've already got a narrative to live by!
"So love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal"
said Nuff"
I don't need you to love me, clown, and I am not a liberal. Show some courage and actually see the movie. One thing you WILL get from it is that the technology could have caught on had the manufacturers not been in bed with the oil companies. Something is wrong when that happens.
The rest of the three rants above make no sense at all.
Anonymous (January 28, 2008 @ 8:39am):
Let me fix that for you 12:09: The rest of the three rejoinders above make no sense to idiotarians because they address complex causalities and trade-offs that puny intellects simply can't apprehend.
try harder
Anonymous (January 28, 2008 @ 10:57am):
BTW, here is an example of ethics and social responsibility on the part of a CEO -- foregoing a huge payout because he didn't have a good year...
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2008-01-28-countrywide_N.htm
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