The Great Debate

Disclaimer: Tyson has no part of the following post. His only political view is that everyone should be able to raft in National Parks.

Alma 2:5 And it came to pass that the people assembled themselves together throughout all the land, every man according to his mind, whether it were for or against {Mitt Romney/Barack Obama}, in separate bodies, having much dispute and wonderful contentions one with another.

 I remember finding this verse several years ago. . .much dispute and wonderful contentions. . .that pretty much sums up politics, which is probably why Tyson dislikes it so much.

I'm sure my views on this presidential election are not very popular (particularly among LDS people), but I feel strongly enough about them I'm going to write them down. I want to preface this by also saying I'm not affiliated with any party. I've voted for candidates from all major parties--Democratic, Republican, Green, Libertarian, etc.

It's not very eloquent.

 #1--Look for the issues the candidate affects
Maybe this is overly obvious, but should you pick a dentist by how well he/she knows to cut hair? No. He's not doing your hair, he's working on your teeth.

So when it comes to a presidential election, what does the president really affect? Abortion? A little, since he can choose Supreme Court Judges if there happens to be an opening. Education? Hardly. There is huge disparity between states, and within states, counties, and within counties, cities, by how the education is managed. Education is mostly a local issue, and the federal government, despite how much it pretends, has little effect on how education is run at your local school. Vote for the people on your school board to change things there.

Taxes? Budget Cuts? Medicare? More or less regulations for businesses? Although a president signs a law into effect, he can't do anything without Congress. Congress holds the purse strings on this country. The president can't enact anything as far as economics, social policy, etc. unless your state congressmen are on board. Look to your congressmen to change the economy. Nothing has happened the last two years because Congress and the President have been at odds.

So what DOES the president really effect? Two words.

FOREIGN POLICY.

Although the Constitution restricts only Congress to declaring war, Congress has essentially abdicated its role to declare war. In fact, shortly after Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, a congressman made a motion to declare war, just out of formality. The motion was denied, in effect because the other representatives basically said it wasn't necessary. And the president is, foremost, the Commander-in-Chief of the military. He has absolute power over it and answers almost to no one. I mean, if the president starts a war that is unnecessary unpopular, he'll probably be voted out, so he usually tries to make a case or show that his cause is just in invading a unarmed menacing country.

For me, when I look at presidential candidates, I look at almost nothing else. I mean, I know that tax policy must be SO IMPORTANT. But does it really rival the importance the lives of our soldiers and the civilians of other countries we invade? HUMAN LIVES?

Just for a little example, let's look at Iraq. Since the US went into Iraq in 2003, in order to find "weapons of mass destruction," 4,486 US soldiers have died. That is just deaths from combat, not including those soldiers who have lost limbs, suffered psychologically and physically, or committed suicide after returning home. That's over 4,000 families that have lost brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, moms, and dads from our country.

But that's not all the lives that have been lost. Let's look at the numbers from Iraqi civilians who have lost their lives--not soldiers. These are people who are just trying to raise their families and live ordinary lives, just like you and me, and stay out of harms way.

The lowest of the low estimates are just over 66,000. SIXTY-SIX THOUSAND. Only sixteen times the amount of soldiers we've lost. Men, women, and even children.

And that's the lowest estimate of all. Every other estimate is over 100,000. One very thorough survey estimated 600,000 due to violent deaths (gun shots, car bombs, etc) with another 50,000-100,000 from non-violent deaths due to increased lawlessness, degraded infrastructure, poorer healthcare, etc. The highest estimate is over 1,000,000 civilians (again, not soldiers) dead. And that doesn't include the 2 million displaced Iraqis, both inside and outside the country, trying to escape living in a war zone.

In my life time, I remember the 100 Day War when we first invaded Iraq when I was in second grade, and now the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. And all of them were started while Republicans were president. For whatever reason, in the last 30 years Republicans have been much more on the offensive than Democratic presidents.

Personally, I can't express how morally wrong it is to start a war and destroy so many lives unless we have very, VERY good reasons to attack. As in, we have been attacked. And, by the way, Iraq had NO AFFILIATION to al-Qaeda. Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden were enemies.

There had never been a suicide bomber in Iraq before the US invaded.

Why DID we attack Iraq anyways when it was blatantly clear that there were no weapons of mass destruction?

More tomorrow.