Palestinians in Gaza voted for Hamas, and now they are
getting exactly what they voted for: A terrorist regime, provoking war with
Israel, suicide bombers, shortages of food and medicine, socialism, poverty, and
no hope for peace. They knew what Hamas represented when they voted for it. They
are now reaping the consequences of their vote. They are not victims of Israeli
aggression, they are accomplices and supporters of an Islamic terrorist
organization.
Palestinians, and their supporters everywhere, complain to
the media that civilians, women and children, are being killed and injured in
Gaza by Israeli air and land strikes. They flood the media with statements,
photos, and videos of the dead and injured being carried away from scenes of
carnage caused by Israeli strikes, or so they say. They want to be seen by the
world as the victims of Israeli brutality and point to only 4 Israelis who have
been killed by Hamas rocket attacks. Israel should treat these rocket attacks
only as a nuisance and respond proportionally, they tell us.
Hamas rockets deliberately target innocent civilians, women
and children, and schools in Israel, while Israel targets only Hamas
paramilitary and rocket firing terrorists. Hamas' answer to Israeli retaliation
is more rockets fired at Israeli civilians. A proportionate response to an
attack, or in this case, multiple attacks by Hamas, is not measured in the
numbers of deaths on each side. The counterattack by Israel must be
proportionate to the threat posed by Hamas and the degree of force required to
eliminate that threat. Civilian casualties in war are unavoidable and
irrelevant. Only a fool would think that you should trade your enemy body for
body.
"It’s not that I want to punish your success.
I just want to make sure that everybody that is behind you, that they have a
chance for success too. I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s
good for everybody." - Barack Obama, thinking it's good to spread the
wealth around to people who don't earn it.
Senator Obama says that he wanted to spread
your wealth around... Senator Obama claims that he wants to give a tax break to
the middle class, but not only did he vote for higher taxes on the middle class
in the Senate, his plan gives away your tax dollars to those who don't pay
taxes. That's not a tax cut, that's welfare. America didn't become the greatest
nation on earth by redistributing wealth; we became the greatest nation by
creating new wealth. - John McCain
"Look, John’s last-minute economic plan does
nothing to tackle the number one job facing the middle class, and it happens to
be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S," - Joe Biden.
See the video of Joe Biden
spelling out the 3 letter word "J O B S."
"Obama could have allied himself with all
sorts of other people. But, time and again, he allied himself with people who
openly expressed their hatred of America. No amount of flags on his campaign
platforms this election year can change that." - Thomas Sowell
"Our opponent... is someone who sees America,
it seems, as being so imperfect—imperfect enough, that he’s palling around with
terrorists who would target their own country. This is not a man who sees
America as you see America and as I see America. We see America as a force of
good in this world. We see an America of exceptionalism." - Sarah Palin
"You need profit to hire people, Obama, not
government! A tax cut based on hiring people doesn't cover the cost. I don't
even think Obama cares or even knows this. He's a socialist. He simply cannot
bring himself to leave businesses alone." - Rush Limbaugh
LIES OF THE WEEK
"We kicked—along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of
Lebanon." - Joe Biden, who doesn't know that Hezbollah has never been
kicked out of Lebanon by anyone.
"We will not Christmas-tree this bill. The times are too urgent.
Everyone has their own desires and needs. It’s going to have to wait."
- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) before the bailout bill was larded up to 451 pages
with $1.3 billion in pork bribes to get it passed.
"Ultimately, I ended up learning about the fact that [Weatherman
terrorist Bill Ayers] had engaged in this reprehensible act 40 years ago, but I
was eight years old at the time and I assumed that he had been
rehabilitated." - Barack Obama
"The notion that people don’t know who I am is a little hard to
swallow. I’ve been running for President for the last two years. I’ve campaigned
in 49 states. Millions of people have heard me speak at length on every topic
under the sun. And I’ve written two books which everybody who reads them will
say are about as honest a set of reflections by at least a politician as are out
there." - Barack Obama, saying read my book, not my birth certificate,
school records, and history of association with ACORN and other unsavory people.
And for God's sake, don't look into my campaign contributions.
"Every single false charge, every single baseless accusation is a
simple attempt to get you to focus on something other than what’s affecting your
family and your country." - Joe Biden, pretending that the case against
Obama will not effect your family and your country.
Today, many Americans believe the credibility of our election
process has become corrupted to the point that it can no longer be considered
viable and valid. One of the reasons is that there are far too many outside
special interests influencing elections that have no business being involved in
this important constitutional process.
One of the biggest problems we currently have with voting is
the large numbers of ignorant or uninformed voters who know virtually nothing
about who or what they are voting for. They vote because they have been told
that it is their civic duty to vote and if they fail to do their civic duty,
they are not good citizens. Sorry to be the one to dispute this theory, but it’s
just not that simple.
How long have we been hearing from government, public
officials, special interest groups, and civic minded individuals that it is the
civic responsibility of every eligible citizen to get out and vote on election
day? When do we ever hear any of them say that it is equally the responsibility
of every voter to become informed and knowledgeable about the candidates and the
issues upon which they are expected to vote? This is the other half of voter
responsibility that is never mentioned or promoted by election activists.
To combat this problem, some have suggested that voters
should be required to pass a simple exam on the candidates and issues before
voting. This may sound like a good idea but it would never be practical for the
simple reason that it would cause huge delays at the polls and even longer voter
lines. To avoid that, any such exam would have to be administered before
election day and that would create a whole new set of problems such as the
inconvenience to the voters as well as affording the opportunity for cheating by
those so inclined. Critics would insist that eligible voters were being
disenfranchised by the test. It would result in constitutional challenges that
would tie up the courts for years to come.
There may be another way of approaching this problem, which
involves changing the attitude being promoted regarding elections. That is; stop
telling the public that everyone must vote; that it‘s your civic responsibility,
and that you‘re a bad citizen if you don‘t. Instead, we need to promote the
concept that you are encouraged to vote only if you are knowledgeable and
informed on the candidates and the issues, and concerned about where your
country is headed. People must be made to understand that simply voting without
knowing the facts and the candidates only serves to corrupt the election with
guesswork and undermines the credibility of any election.
As a AAA member, I occasionally receive a letter from the AAA
asking me to vote for new board members. I never return the ballot because
frankly, I don’t care. I don’t know anything about any of them and don’t have
the time or interest to research them. Why should I be dragged to the polls to
vote for people I know nothing about? Any vote I would cast based - on the sound
of the names only - would simply corrupt the election. I am perfectly content to
rely on those who know who these people are to do the voting.
We should understand and respect the choices of many millions
of people in this country who have no interest in politics and avoid learning
anything about the government and the candidates running for office. They should
not be made to feel guilty for failing to vote on election day if that is not
where their interests lie. We should not be encouraging them to vote if they
have no interest or knowledge of whom and what they are expected to vote for.
I have more respect for a person who says “I didn’t vote due
to lack of interest,” than I have for a person who voted - without knowing the
first thing about who and what they voted for - simply because he or she was
expected to. Of course there will always be a large voting block who will just
vote the default party line simply because they are loyal Democrats or
Republicans. That is their right, just as long as they are not being pressured
and dragged to the polls by political activists.
Recently, I sent a little 10 question News IQ Test to a
number of friends. Those who have previously expressed some interest in news and
politics by subscribing to my newsletters, responded with scores above 80%.
Those who have expressed to me previously having no interest in news and
politics scored either below 30% or didn’t respond at all. I respect their right
to fill their time and minds with anything other than news and politics if that
is their choice, but are these the kind of people we want electing our national
leaders?
Voting should be left up to those civic minded citizens who
have an interest in, and take the time to educate themselves on national
politics, the issues, and candidates on the ballot. The votes of politically
informed citizens should not be cancelled out by the votes of ignorant and
uninformed voters who really have no interest in the running of our country or
who is charged with that responsibility.
How do we restore credibility and validity to our election
process? There are several changes that need to be made. One, I have just
discussed above - stop encouraging people to vote who don‘t care. Another one is
the repeal of the McCain/Feingold 2002 Campaign Finance Reform Act. This is one
of the primary reason for the election process having become as corrupted as it
is today. I wonder of John McCain would have co-authored and supported this bill
had he known at the time that it would cost him the election. It should be
noted, however, that the version of the bill that passed was not the version
that McCain wrote.
Whenever Congress gets ahold of an issue like this, they tend
to complicate it beyond all understanding with pages and pages of legal jargon
and compromises that provide exceptions and loopholes for nearly every
conceivable way of allowing those who do not wish to follow the rules to escape
them. This law, passed in late 2002, had been in the works in Congress since
1995. I think election reforms can be much simpler and direct.