Trust and politics.

[diamondsoul]

Ok people I feel compelled to put this out there because so many Kerry and Edwards supporters just don't seem to get it.

I'm far left, probably as far left as one can possibly get without being a pure Socialist. Still, I'm not stupid nor so full of idealism that I'm incapable of reason.

ABB has been touted from the get-go in this race. NO. That's stupidity. THIS is not the time for ABB, that's for November. This is the time to demand the changes we as a society want and for supporting the candidate that espouses those changes in his/her platform. That's what I'm doing.

Now I don't begrudge anyone following that logic who supports a candidate other than my choice. Not one whit. Deanies who want to vote Dean even though he isn't running to get the nod anymore have my full support IF they are doing it because they believe it's the right course of action and voting what they want. The same applies to Clarkies still voting Clark.

IF you're voting to spite someone else, people, please can we at least use some sense here? One person says the least they can do to "screw Kucinich" and I've no doubt there are people that feel that way about Kerry and Edwards too but COME ON!(Hell, I've entertained it in relation to Edwards this week!) This is NOT how you make this fouled system come anywhere near working the way it was supposed to work.

I want to trust my next President. That's one of my primary criteria for selecting a candidate to back. I trust Kucinich, implicitly. I believe everything he says, or at least believe it's the truth from his vantage-point. I don't have that same confidence in any other candidate. Like it or not, agree or not, that's my defining criteria for judging a candidate worthy of my vote.

John Kerry has obliterated my trust in a number of ways, and John Edwards has never had it. By nature I don't trust lawyers without evidence they can be trusted and Edwards hasn't given me that. His recent calling for his "friend" Dennis Kucinich to be dropped from debates is enough to destroy any hope of ever trusting him, and particularly considering he owes a lot of his nice showing in Iowa to Kucinich and his supporters. His response? Call for those same people who boosted him in Iowa to shut up and sit down now. No John. I'm not nearly finished speaking yet, and I'll get right up in your face and tell you so.

Kerry, supported all these GLBT rights for all those years only to turn now and inject his personal views into the legal question. Fuck you, John Kerry! You don't get to decide the rightness or acceptability of someone else's relationship or definition of "marriage".

Both men's support of IWR calls me to question their judgement, and if they didn't trust a bloated lying jackass to do the right thing then the only possible explanation is that they supported invading another sovreign nation because Bushco felt like it. Either way it doesn't speak well of their decision making skills. Sorry Kerry and Edwards supporters, the bottom line is still trust, and if they made bad decisions in the Senate, they'll do it in the Oval Office and the danger there is even greater. Kucinich at least has the good sense to denounce previous bad decisions and admit he was wrong.

The fact that Kucinich can stand up and say I was Pro-life until I finally really listened to women and considered the impact of those votes fully from their perspective tells me he's capable of rectifying mistakes he could make in the Oval Office. Where is John Kerry's regret, remorse or acceptance of his responsibility? Where is John Edwards'? Nowhere in sight. Justify, justify and more justify, no regret, no apology. I don't trust a man who can't admit he was WRONG.

[gottaB]

agreed, trust is a critical issue

But I can't trust Kucinich. I believe the primary reason that he was anti-choice is because he let his religious views dictate his political stances. I don't trust politicians who do that. You say DK made a conversion on the choice issue. Okay. So now he agrees with Roe v. Wade, but what about separation of church and state? What about freedom of expression? Those positions are not unrelated. The fact is John Kerry has earned our trust on those issues, which is why it doesn't matter that his personal views on marriage aren't mine, and if you listen to him honestly, with an open mind, then it shouldn't bother you either because he takes pains to make the case that his religious views are not the basis for his political decisions.

[diamondsoul]

2. Then what is the basis for

his view on marriage? If it isn't religious or spiritual what could it possibly be? Even Kucinich, a devout Catholic doesn't take that position.

Kucinich has come to realize his religious ad spiritual views have no place in legislating for a secular society. I'm not convinced John Kerry has figured that out based on the same sex marriage question and his reponse to it.

BTW, thanks very much for not resorting to an all out flaming!:toast:

[gottaB]

4. Kerry's view? His view is that his personal view isn't the issue

You say "Kucinich has come to realize his religious a(n)d spiritual views have no place in legislating for a secular society."--But that to me seems contrary to Kucinich's own explanation of his faith and politics.

Says Kucinich:

Look, the founders understood the need to separate church and state. The establishment clause of the Constitution made it very clear that the government should not be involved in the establishment of religion. Our founders understood the dangers inherent in that in their contact with the Church of England. But our founders also understood that this nation could not separate itself from spiritual value. And so our Constitution, our Declaration of Independence resonate very powerfully with spiritual principles. When the Declaration speaks of nature’s God, there is a sense of something transcendent at work. The ideas of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness are spiritual values. Self-evident truths which we speak become only evident to self through connection with something transcendent. And so the founders saw a nation which on one hand didn't seek to promote a particular religion but which sought to create a context where someone's connection with something transcendent, with something beyond our experience, was an essential part of our own growth as a nation. So many American presidents have understood that in talking about the connection in which the nation has to God. But not a personified god, not an exclusive god, but in God as representing that imminent universal force which embraces all beliefs and frankly all manner of disbeliefs as well. And so the founders, if you look at the Great Seal of the United States itself, the one side of that Great Seal has at the apex of the pyramid the all-seeing eye of divine providence and with the inscription in Latin, Annuit Coeptis - which translates to, ‘he has favored our undertaking.’ The founders had a sense that there was some kind of a hand that was guiding this country. At the same time, they didn't want that hand to be representative of an exclusive religion that would try to push America in a particular direction with respect to a particular type of belief.

Here's Kerry answering the same question:

How do you as President, if you are elected, Senator Kerry, maintain that separation between church and state, between religion and politics?

Well, the way we have for 228 years. I mean, I don't find it very difficult. We pray as a nation often, usually, before major kinds of events, when you're inaugurated, before ‑‑ invocations are a sort of accepted sense of our definition as a country. We certainly go back to the Founding Fathers, and there was an understanding of how we were founded and what their belief system was. But we separated in terms of the establishment of religion. And that is the constitutional clause that I think is so critical ‑‑ and no one faith ought to be seeking to assert itself in a way that makes it, quote, the dominant or the definer of everything that is America. That is not who we are. We are a place of diversity. So I define it much as President Kennedy did in Houston in 1960, when he made it clear about the separation of church and state. Affairs of state are affairs of state, and they ought to be based on the discussion we have day to day about how we fund education or how big the military ought to be. And affairs of faith are affairs of faith. And they're separated.

Interfaith Alliance Election Guide.

I think there is a difference between the two positions. How does that play out? Look, I agree with Kucinich on the freedom to marry, but that's exactly not the point. Kerry, I don't agree with his religious views on marriage, but he says he's not going to go out of his way to force his opinions on other, and certainly not to deny anybody their civil rights, and in fact he has record of doing the opposite, of going out of his way to defend the civil rights of others.

I've looked at Kerry's position from the hrc, his record on DOMA, his interview with the Advocate, his opposition to the FMA, his opposition to the Vatican's position, his remarks about the Massachusetts SJC advisory opinion, his statement to NPR, and now his reaction to Bush's call for a constitutional amendment. In my mind it's been totally consistent.

Read the Advocate Interview. I can't do it justice because of copyright limitations.

Well, maybe it's an irony, but the thing is DK is fine when you can agree with him or think his religious views are harmless enough, but what about when you disagree with him? Obviously, the flag burning amendment isn't a big issue to you, and you can forgive him his tresspasses on Roe v. Wade, but really your pro-choice stand must have sensitized you to the dangers of mixing faith and politics. In the long run or maybe not far off at all it stifles dissent and makes the excerize of other rights pretty meaningless. Take away the first amendment, and we all have equal rights to stfu, to peacefully come together for the purpose of stfu, to not have our right to stfu abridged....

So I'm thinking the issue is how we are interpreting what they are saying, and what sticks out as essential. I think Kerry stands for diversity of opinion, and religious freedom. More than Kucinich. I think their voting records also show this difference. If I believed JK had a voting record that was contrary to what he's saying, if he'd gone out of his way to impose his moral vision on others, if he hadn't come to the defense of others' civil rights, then I wouldn't be having this discussion.

Oh, and to clarify, in case it's not clear, where I disagree with DK. My life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness are not primarily in this context spiritual matters. My liberty in particular is a political value, an assertion, and whatever other spin you put on it, you better believe that I retain and positively assert the freedom to define it my way.

[historian]

1. conviction and integrity

are good to have but i think that in the present situation anything is better than we have now. We are sliding down the slippery road to fascism, theocrats and the middle ages slowly but surely unless we get rid of these mental neanderthals we have running the country now

[diamondsoul]

3. Well you're right, without challenge.

The thing is though, do we set the bar low for the decision making process and hope for the best; or do we set the bar, the demand for real and profound change, high and battle from a better position?

[bigtree]

5. Recently, in Will Pitt’s article, Kerry said:

“This was the hardest vote I have ever had to cast in my entire career,” Kerry said. “I voted for the resolution to get the inspectors in there, period. Remember, for seven and a half years we were destroying weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In fact, we found more stuff there than we thought we would. After that came those four years when there was no intelligence available about what was happening over there. I believed we needed to get the weapons inspectors back in. I believed Bush needed this resolution in order to get the U.N. to put the inspectors back in there. The only way to get the inspectors back in was to present Bush with the ability to threaten force legitimately. That’s what I voted for.

The way Powell, Eagleberger, Scowcroft, and the others were talking at the time,” continued Kerry, “I felt confident that Bush would work with the international community. I took the President at his word. We were told that any course would lead through the United Nations, and that war would be an absolute last resort. Many people I am close with, both Democrats and Republicans, who are also close to Bush told me unequivocally that no decisions had been made about the course of action. Bush hadn’t yet been hijacked by Wolfowitz, Perle, Cheney and that whole crew. Did I think Bush was going to charge unilaterally into war? No. Did I think he would make such an incredible mess of the situation? No. Am I angry about it? You’re God damned right I am. I chose to believe the President of the United States. That was a terrible mistake.”