Thursday, October 21, 2004

A Vote for Bush is NOT a Vote for Morality

There are many forms of prejudice. There's racial prejudice, of course. There's gender bias and the prejudice concerning sexual preference. Then there's religious prejudice. How many times lately have we heard or read, "I'm voting for Bush because he's a Christian?" Of course, the fact that Kerry is a Catholic and ALSO a Christian is irrelevant. Voting for a political candidate based solely on his religious affiliation is just as much a form of prejudice as voting for a candidate based on his color or gender.

What about voting based on moral issues? Bush is responsible for a ban on partial birth abortions. This ban outlaws a rarely used abortion procedure which makes up only a small percentage of abortions performed each year. During the last four years, while Bush has been in the White House and Republicans have controlled Congress, this ban has been the ONLY legislation passed concerning abortion. I believe the ban amounts to a ploy by the Republican administration to garner the anti-abortion vote while doing very little to actually stop abortion.

Bush has severely limited stem-cell research, which has shown great promise in the treatment of conditions ranging from Alzheimer's disease to spinal cord injuries. Why? To satisfy anti-abortion proponents who don't understand or don't care that stem-cell research employs discarded embryos from fertility clinics and NOT aborted fetus's.

Bush has decided not to extend the assault weapons ban in effort to appeal to the huge NRA lobby, even though assault weapons serve no purpose in hunting or target shooting, only in killing many people quickly. A moral decision? Hardly!

Finally, Bush has decided to wage an unnecessary war that has killed over 1000 Americans and thousands of Iraqi non-combatants. This is, perhaps, his most immoral decision of all.

A vote for Bush isn't a vote for morality; it's a vote for death, deception and four more years of backward thinking.

Sunday, October 17, 2004

Iraq: Enough Reason to Vote Against Bush

On September 11, 2001 followers of Osama Bin Ladin attacked the United States, resulting in the deaths of almost 3000 people. Most people would agree the attack was wrong even though the United States has possessed weapons of mass destruction since 1945.

George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, which resulted in the deaths of well over 1000 Americans and thousands of innocent Iraqi non-combatants. Bush's main reason for ordering the invasion was his belief that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction even though there was no proof that the WMDs existed. Of course, none were ever found.

George Bush has tried to justify his Invasion of Iraq by linking Saddam Hussein with the September 11th attacks and with Osama Bin Ladin. According to "The 9/11 Commission Report", Bush received a memo as early as September 18, 2001 stating that there was "...no compelling case that Iraq had either planned or perpetrated the attacks." The report also states: "...Bin Ladin had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan" and "Bin Ladin resented the secularism of Saddam Hussein's regime."

Bush started operations in Afghanistan to track down the perpetrators of the September 11th attacks but decided to shift the attention of the American military to Iraq. Many people are quick to point out alleged inconsistencies in John Kerry's behavior, but Bush's insistence on "being firm in his resolve" and "staying the course" in Iraq has cost thousands of lives and over 200 billion dollars of taxpayer money.

Saddam has been captured. His sons have been killed. Even so, America is still embroiled in a war in Iraq with no end in sight. Bush recently said, "Our goal is to defeat terror by staying on the offensive." "Staying on the offensive", of course, requires troops. And whether he admits it or not, when Bush exhausts our regular military and reserves, he will have no other choice but to reinstate the draft.

I believe voters, especially men of draft age and their parents, need to consider Bush's serious errors in judgment when casting their votes in November