First let me say, that I am not a supporter of either side. I think anyone that supports either side for sake of doing it is a fool. We need to make informed decisions on who the next president will be, personal politics aside.
I disagree that Mr. Kerry stands firm on issues, a scant few yes, but overall he has not been clear on what he stands for, and in many cases has changed his course. On with your points however:
Kerry on Iraq: Internationalize the situation, how international was the first Iraq war, or Bosnia? Doesn't Iternationalize still mean that it is led by the US, only we wear pretty blue helmets and call ourselves UN peacekeepers. In case you have not seen the news, we do have many countries already committed there. Otherwise, why would the insurgents be kidnapping them. As far as pull out, why would this president be any different than all the rest. Clinton sent us to Bosnia for only one year, to this day we still have troops there. And if democracy is not a requirement for success in Iraq, than what is? Depotism? It would not be morally right for us at this point to leave them with no government that will not protect the people. So if you want to live in a fantasy world that Kerry is going to pack up our bags and leave Iraq, you are most likely be mistaken.
Taxes: I never understand how tax cuts became evil for a while (when Bush proposed them), and now that Kerry is proposing them it is the best news since sliced bread. I personnally get a tax break from the Bush Cuts, and I know many others that did, and all make well under $200,000 per year (all under $40,000). I have not read anywhere that Mr. Kerry plans to reduce business taxes by 5%, most politicians would not promise a number. Besides don't most people that make over $200,000 a year either own businesses or stockholders in them? Would they also benefit from a 5% tax cut? Have you looked at what you are saying, it is the same political circular talk. (For those slower people, yes a stockholder and a business owner would benefit from a business tax cut.)
Health Care: I admit our system does need work, but modeling ourselves after Canada and England whose system is worse is not the answer. I cannot see how the government can preassure a private enterprise (HMO's, Drug Companies, etc..), to lower their rates. Let us face facts, if these companies were not in their business the government would have to do it. And what will that do to our tax situation? 70% to 80% taxation is common in most socialist nations, and that is where we would be heading if we gave the government the reigns on everything. I admit that drug costs are expensive here, and other countires are much cheaper for the COMMON drugs. One of the reasons we have high costs in the US is that we do research on many different types of drugs, even for diseases that only occur one in a million. The R&D costs a lot of money (I know many will chime in that there are many experimental drugs in other countries, we have them to, the problem in this case is not the drug companies but the FDA). A business will typically distributed it's operating expenses, so that means costs of all their products go up the same amount. This is the same in every business.
War on Terror: Personally, I do not want to send troops to distant places to die, but I also do not want innocent civilians at home to die also. Who says Bush's plan is not working? Have we been struck by terrorists here at home lately? Was there a suicide bomber at the mall that I did not hear about? Look at how many terrorists are in Iraq right now fighting us, I would think it is a huge success, since they are focusing so much at where we are now. How can one say that Iraq is a folly? It is a war, and President Bush said at the onset of the invasion of Afgahnastan(spelling?), it would be a long war. The Civil War took 4 years with over 500,000 causalties; World War I took about 5 years and had took over 5 million in allied causalties; World War II took over 5 years with 15 million dead (55 million counting civilians and axis forces); Korean War took about 3 years with over 2 million dead (only about 34 thousand americans); The Vietnam War lasted almost 15 years (8 for us in the US) with over 3 million dead (about 50 thousand americans, which I thougt that was higher). The point of all this is not justify us, but how long have we been fighting this war on Terror? Three years at the most, with far less than a million in causalties. The problem is the War on Terror is not like these wars of the past, fought over pieces of ground, definable battle fields. We knew what was theirs, they knew what was ours. Iraq is a perfect example of the war on terror, these terrorist organizations cross national boundries as they do in Iraq where many of the insurgents (especially the leaders) are not even from Iraq.
The final thought I want to leave you with, is not many focus on what Iraq wants. How many Iraq citizens have died fighting for their own freedom beside us. In World War II without the US involvement the invasion of Europe would never had happened. Did Hitler pose any real threat to us at the time? No, not until we got involved and he started sinking our shipping. But did he pose a real threat to our borders? Japan did, but did Hitler? We could have just fought the Japanese and waited for the outcome of the Eurpoean war before acting. No matter what you believe about our reasons for being there, there are many good reasons for us to be there. Our you proposing that we pull back to our borders and ignore the war? This happened in History, it was during the period just before World War II. Because many knew that America would not get involved due to our isolationalism they came to power, such as Hitler.
Many demcrats say we need to internationalize more, be I seriously do not believe the situation would be any different with UN involvment, in fact it would be worse. After all it was the UN that let Sadam ignore his agreement with them for 12 years. It does not matter if he had WMD's or not, he refused to honor an agreement he made for 12 years. Do not be a fool and believe he did it because he had nothing to hide, if it was not WMD's it was something else. If he truly had nothing to hide, he would have submitted to the UN and had this whole thing overwith years ago. Likely, he use the UN embargos to even further subjegate his people.
Enough said (proably too much), Left or Right, Democart or Republican, make your vote count in November and vote for the choice you feel is right based on the information you have, and not on what the masses are doing. Make an informed decision, will it be right? Who knows what the future will hold, but at least right or wrong you will know you made the best decision you could.
