POLITICAL DREGS

Political debate these days has fallen to new levels of idiocy:

1. Republicans count and harp on how many terrorist events in which America or Americans are involved have occured during the Obama Administration. Questionable whether he bears responsibility for them. The Democrat response is to list the number of terrorist events that occured during the Bush Administration. Hardly a fair comparison since Obama has been in office for only one-eighth the time Bush was.

But even if that wasn't an issue, here is the problem: The proper standard to judge Obama's performance is not Bush's performance. They could both have been incompetent. The fact that a Republican did not do well does not logically preclude the Republicans pointing out a Democrat's inefficiencies. The standard to use is what can reasonably be done to thwart the events, using all the resources at our command...and what and how well was it done. Period.

2. Acknowledging its health care bill is far from well crafted and needs substantial fixing, the Democrats are now arguing "better to have a bad health care bill than no bill at all". Sorry, no urgent desperate need to spend an estimated trillion dollars on a garbage bill that will muck up probably the best health care system in the world. This is a first class nation and we ought to get first class legislation. Get it right or get it out.

3. If the best argument you can come up with to deny homosexuals the right to marry is that "the Bible condemns homosexuality", then toss out the Constitution and replace it with the Holy Scriptures. True, they countenance slavery, treat women as chattel, and prescribe stoning criminals to death. But you can pick and choose what you care to follow, the same way you do with the Constitution.

4. We are a nation of poll takers. But the fact that 52% of the American people want something, doesn't mean a darn. The Government is not a band of lynchers run by mob rule. We are a nation of laws and not of men, and until those 52% get a law passed, what they want means nada.

Also, when I hear that 68% of the people think we should or should not send more troops into Afghanistan, I have to wonder: Are they the same 68% who studied military strategies at West Point? Are they the same 68% who have top secret clearance and know the real threat facing us in that country? Are they the same 68% who have been to Afghanistan and who understand the terrain, the weather, the culture, where this war is being fought?

5. When I hear people proclaiming that animals have rights, what exact rights do they mean? The right of self defense? Does an animal have the right to eat you if you are trying to eat him? Does an animal have the right to live free, or can it be caged?

Ashley Montagu said it: "Human beings are the only creatures who are able to act irrationally in the name of reason".

And Ronald Reagan: "Politics I supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."

And William James: "A great many people think they re thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices".

Alas!