Friday, November 03, 2006

A GOP majority- a necessary evil.

As regular members of Joshua's Army know, I pretty much venture into domestic US politics only when it impacts on the War on Jihad. which I consider to be the primary issue of our time. And I'm hardly a partisan of either party.

Two weeks from today, America is holding its midterm elections. And while there are a number of sensible Democrats with solid records on the war against jihad (my own congressman is one of them) the majority of the Democratic party is, frankly far from having an understanding of this war or what it will take to win it.

This is particularly true of a number of Democrats slated for leadership and influential committee chairmanships should the Democrats win a majority in either house.

Let's take a look at that.

House majority leader Nancy Pelosi, who would be number three in line for the job of commander in chief after the President and Vice President is a perfectly good example. As a representative, she has voted consistently, like most Democrats, to slash intelligence budgets even after 9/11, and to slash military budgets, and voted against the Patriot Act. Pelosi also championed local San Francisco high schools and colleges in her district barring military recruiters from campus, in direct violation of US law as embodied in the Soloman Amendment. She also apparently is backing none other than John Murtha (D-PA) to replace Steyn Hoyer as Whip.

John Conyers (D-MI) would be slated to chair the House judiciary committee. Aside from having a number of questionable ties to Islamist origin like CAIR in his home state,which should give you an idea of his positions on surveillance of Islamic terrorists, Conyers has sponsored a bill to start an impeachment investigation against President Bush and would tie up the House with numerous partisan `investigations' and perhaps even an attempt to revive impeachment proceedings...all atthe expense of the war effort. And forget about appointing any reasonable judges to the Federal bench or the Supreme Court. Even worse would be his senate counterpart, Patrick Leahy (d-VT).

Charley Rangel(d-NY) would take over the House Ways and Means committee...can you spell tax increase? Not to mention attempting to de-fund the war, as he's hinted.

The House Intelligence Committee is even more problematical. Slated for the Chairmanship if there's a Democratic majority in the House is a federal judge who was impeached for accepting a bribe, Rep. Alcee Hastings.

Other Democrats slated for influential committee chairmanships include Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), John Dingell (D-MI) and George Miller (D-CA).

Another thing many of the congressmen I mentioned have in common, by the way, is their utter disdain for and consistent voting records against Israel, even when it comes to fairly inocuous resolutions of general support for its right to defend itself.

John Dingall famously remarked that he saw no reason for the US to take sides with Israel against Hezbollah, Wrangel, Abercrombie and Miller have a long history of anti Israeli votes and Conyers actually hosted the famous WhiteHouse `basement meeting' where the most vile anti-Semitic canards and outright lies were circulated. It's also no coincidence that Dingall and Conyers hail from Michigan, with substantial Muslim constituencies.

Aside from being morally despicable, these votes undercut a loyal ally and weaken us in the War aginst Jihad.

All of them voted against the Patriot Act, against the NSA wiretapping of terrorists and against virtually every bill authorizing expenditures for military weapons systems. Their idea of Natinal security is a throw back to the Clinton years and America's vacation from history, a vacation we can no longer afford.

You know,if you read this site that I'm hardly a water carrier for the Bush Administration or the GOP. But the issues are so clear cut, both in domestic and foreign policy that the idea of giving people like this the kind of control they would have with either a House or Senate majority is equivalent to letting the inmates take over the asylum.

And it might just get a number of us killed.

I would hope that average Americans would look at the balance sheet, evaluate what's there an dthe possible coat of changing hamstringing our leadership just now and come out in favor of the Republicans, even if it's just a bare majority. President Bush would be able to claim victory even if his party loses seats, so long as it retains a bare majority in the House and Senate.

And if Lieberman wins his senate seat in Connecticut as an independent, as it appears he will, the Democrats will have to think about the fact that they abandoned him because he remembered, and they forgot that, whatever else, politics is supposed to stop at the water's edge.

In any case, vote.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

given:
ff comments above.
however:
if history is to be any indication of what is to come in this election this is what we have to look forward to.
granted:
this is just in presidential elections, not mid-term as we are going to vote now, but this is the jewish vote, by percentage, in past presidential elections.

1916
hughes(R) 45
wilson(D) 55

1920
harding(R) 43
cox(D) 19
debs(socialist) 38

1924
coolidge(R) 27
davis(D) 51
lafolette(progressive) 22

1928
hoover(R) 28
smith(D) 72

1932
hoover(R) 18
roosevelt(D) 82

1936
landon(R) 15
roosevelt(D) 85

1940
wilkie(R) 10
roosevelt(D) 90

1944
dewey(R) 10
roosevelt(D) 90

1948
dewey(R) 10
truman(D) 75
wallace(progressive) 15

1952
eisenhower(R) 36
stevenson(D) 64

1956
eisenhower(R) 40
stevenson(D) 60

1960
nixon(R) 18
kennedy(D) 82

1964
goldwater(R) 10
johnson(D) 90

1968
nixon(R) 17
humphrey(D) 81
wallace(I) 2

1972
nixon(R) 35
mcgovern(D) 65

1976
ford(R) 27
carter(D) 71
mccarthy(I) 2

1980
reagan(R) 39
carter(D) 45
anderson(I) 14

1984
reagan(R) 31
mondale(D) 67

1988
bush(R) 35
dukakis(D) 65

1992
bush(R) 11
clinton(D) 80
perot(I) 9

1996
dole(R) 16
clinton(D) 78
perot(I) 3

2000
bush(R) 19
gore(D) 79
nader(G) 1

2004
bush(R) 24
kerry(D) 76
nader(G) <1

reviewing the above data, a pattern emerges, for myself at least. i will let others review the data and draw their own conclusions.
perhaps, just perhaps, it's not the gentiles that need to be informed of the current world political climate.
just perhaps.

Anonymous said...

But ff, if the Republicans win, what will happen to our animal bordellos?

All joking aside, it could actually be a good thing for Republicans in the long run if the Democrats win. Here are two major reasons:
1) The majority of voters will notice the pathetic incompetence of the dems when it comes to fighting jihadists. They will reject them like they rejected Carter in 1980. We would just have to hope and pray that the dems won't make too much damage.

2) A strong Democratic Party will make for a stronger Republican Party. For example, when there is a serious, principled Democratic senator like Lieberman, who can challenge the Republicans on a number of issues other than terorrism, this will make the Republicans more accountable to their conservative and libertarian base when it comes to things like deficit spending, and social issues. They would have to be more accountable, it's the only way they could win elections. Unfortunately, I can only count on one hand the number of Congressional Democrats that are like Lieberman.

In short, the Democrats right now are where the Republicans were in 1964-out of touch with the public, no ideas, and filled with embarassing spokespeople. Only they actually have a good chance of winning this election, for better or for worse.

Anonymous said...

hi nazar,
are you saying joshuapundit is an animal bordello?

regarding:
1) if the dems win, the nation will realize george wallace was right back in 1968. there ain't a dimes worth of difference between the dems & reps.

2) we had a strong dem party. for over 40 years. a strong dem. party will keep the reps out of power for another 40 years. the only reality to the spending that is going on by the shrub administration is that when dems criticize him for spending like a drunken sailor, actually, he is spending like a drunken dem.

you said it yourself, the dems have a good chance of winning this election. why is that?
imo, i don't agree with your assessment that the dems leadership/spokespeople are out of touch with the people. if they were, the race would not be this close. the reason the race is so close is because there are so many people who believe what the dems are saying. call it nonsense if you will, but if the votes are there for the dems, people have to be believing what they say. even if it is only to be an anti-republican.

i think the lieberman(sp) case has another angle to it. if elected, he could start a movement toward non-aligned representatives. we could see more of the gang-of-14 type coalitions. i know the power structure exists in commitee appointments so this may very well not happen.

Anonymous said...

Louie, there's a world of difference between dems and reps. Dems are the ones who think we should submit to the UN.

We had a strong dem party until Vietnam. Then the anti-war socialist wing took over, and that's what the dems are right now, for the most part, and what they will be in the near future.

The dem leadership is waaay out of touch. I'll give you a prime example: Nancy Pelosi. She voted to decrease spending on the military even after 9/11, and she's against military recruiters in high schools and colleges. She's also for gay marriage and abortion on demand, hardly mainstream positions right now. If the dems win, she'll be first in line to become president if something happens to Bush and Cheney.

Why are the dems poised to win this election? Simple: the Iraq War. People are growing tired of the daily bombings and killings, and most Americans still regard this war as peripheral to the war on terror.

Freedom Fighter said...

Hello Louie, Nazar.

A couple of things...

Louie, while your figures are slightly off for some of the elections, you are certainly correct that the majority of people who identify themselves as Jews tend to vote Democrat, though if one skews those figures to differentiate religious practicing Jews from secular, marginally identified one things change more than a little.

Many Jews tend to vote for the Democrats for the same reason that many Blacks do..(1)a long history of bigotry has obscured their basic self-interest (2)Many Jews are marginally identified as Jews and are secular and much more invested in being Leftists and (3)There are a great many Jews, again like Blacks who do not understand the history of the democratic party as regards their group and still think they're voting for FDR.

I'm not sure what your point is.

Nazar, I do think Iraq has a lot to do with the current malaise, and your comment that many Americans do not see it as part of the War Against Jihad is an astute one. Part of that,frankly, is Preasident Bush's fault IMO, though I think some of his motives were noble, if misconceived.

As for your point that it might be better for the GOP if the Dems take one or more houses of congress as a lead up to 2008, I beg to differ.

The damage the people I mentioned will be able to do in two years, simply by obstruction if nothing else is incalcuble.

I suggest you take a gander at Thucydides' History of the Peloponessian War, or at least Victor Davbis Hansen's `A war like no other' to get the flavor of what we could be in for.

ff

Anonymous said...

FF, even if the dems win back the House this year, life will go on. Don't forget, they had the majority, albeit a slight from 02 to 04.

Also, as much a danger as the jihadists are, let's face it, they got nothing on us. We've got the best military in the world-we could lick anyone right now, even Iran. The jihadists are just a bunch of poorly disciplined thugs with AK-47s. The only real danger from them is subversion and sabotage here at home, and that's where the real fight is. I don't think we should abandon Iraq or Afghanistan, but it's not as big a deal as the Republican make it out to be.

Freedom Fighter said...

Hi Nazar,
Life will indeed go on. But the potential for mistakes, misdirection and ultimately the unnecessary loss of American lives is a real one.

Life went on after the British and French voted in isolationist appeasors into government in the 1930's, after the fall of Czecholovakia, after the Nazi/Communist non-aggression pact and even after the German-Russo invasion of Poland.

I also would not underestimate the jihadis if I were you, or call them `poorly disciplined.' They are not.They are ideological fanatics unburdened by what most of us would consider the conventions of civilized behavior.

While their conventional military forces are inferior to ours AT THIS TIME, they are far from `poorly diciplined thugs with AK47's. They have the active support of a number of nation states, oil wealth to utilize and a substantial 5th column in most western countries, including the US. And as long as the US aand the West refuse to use their conventional military to end the regimes in the various nation states that support jihad, the superiority in conventional forces is not the advantage it seems.

I would remind you that a handful of dedicated jihadis killed many times their number and caused billions in economic damage to the West on 9/11, and on a number of occasions since then.

Think about it.

ff