It WAS Our Policies

And so what for it?

This is going back to my previous post on Ron Paul & Rudy Giuliani's little fun at the debate. Nick at Boots & Sabers and his own blog questions the typical reaction defenders of the War on Terror have when others say we were attacked for our policies.

Often times the response is "No, it was because they hate us for our freedom and liberty". Well, that plays a role in all of this but what the response does is to fail to respond the real charge being made and that is our policies are wrongheaded.

Officer Fabiano from the Kenosha area was just gunned down on a routine traffic stop. Why was he gunned down? Because of the Kenosha County Sheriff Department's policy to stop and cite traffic law violators.

Now, if the Kenosha County Sheriff Department did not have its policy of stopping and citing traffic law violators Mr. Fabiano would most likely be out on the fairway right now, but most of us (on both sides of the political spectrum) are not going to condemn the policy here. We recognize the need for the policy and the costs of the policy. The costs we see are not limited to dollars.

When the likes of Ward Churchill and Ron Paul come out and say it was our policies we do ourselves little good in saying it was not our policies. We do ourselves much better if we say yes that is true and here is why we have to be resolute in the execution of various policies.

BTW, this is not to say our liberty and freedom are not among the reasons for being attacked, they are. That detestation of our freedom and liberty is also in the writings & speeches of Qutb, Bin Laden, Zawahiri, et al.

Who You Calling an Anti-Tax Extremist?

Earlier I commented on a Bruce Bartlett commentary. Here is Wikipedia's entry on Bruce Bartlett. In his commentary Mr. Bartlett use the phrase anti-tax extremists. He then tries to tell us the loaded language he uses is not intended to describe the positions.

If I were Mr. Bartlett I would be careful using the phrase anti-tax extremist:

In January 1977, Bartlett went to work for Congressman Jack Kemp (R-New York) as staff economist. Bartlett spent much of his time on tax issues, helping to draft the Kemp-Roth tax bill, which ultimately formed the basis of Ronald Reagan's 1981 tax cut. Bartlett's book, "Reaganomics: Supply-Side Economics in Action" appeared in 1981 (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House Publishers). He also co-edited the book The Supply-Side Solution (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers, 1983).

Source: WikiPedia &3150; Bruce Bartlett That is, Mr. Bartlett may with some fairness be called one of the original anti-tax extremists. I may be fairly called a part of the group Mr. Bartlett is calling out. However, I do not want a Hillary in power and if that means voting for Giuliani or (better yet) McCain then I will. However, it does "moderate" (lets reciprocate here, wishy-washy or even better yet RINO) Republicans no good when they choose their words poorly.

Rudy Giuliani did this lately sounding much like Howard Dean. Even when put into proper context the words do him no good.

I am convinced a goodly number of the people Bruce Bartlett refers to are perfectly willing to give the likes of Rudy Giuliani a shot, if they feel their views on cultural matters receive the respect the candidate feels their views deserve. Rudy has me wondering about that.

In the end I do not view conflicts over culture and policy as separate; they may be separate conflicts but they are part of the same struggle.

Virtue is liberty's oxygen, without virtue liberty is soon to die.