Crazy Lady

So I've been sending my mother shit to read when she told me she was "undecided." Sure her vote doesn't matter cause she's in AZ. But I have to do something to combat the FoxNews-athon that my dad subjects her to. So she got Ron Reagan's case against W and a few other things.

Well today I got this lovely article from her. Just the text, so I don't think she knew where it was from. Or that the author is this classy fellow (Matthew Manweller).

So anyway, read the article. This is what I've sent back to her:

First, I hope you accidentally got this article and aren't a regular reader of freerepublic.com, where it was published. That website is seriously scary and is about one step away from being the KKK/NRA.
Second, a political science professor at this tiny university whose bio says "Matt's decision to move to Ellensburg represents a lifelong effort to stay as far away as possible from any city with a population over 50,000" makes his opinion on things less important/powerful than just seeing "professor" led you to believe.

In response to his first point that "we will announce to the world that bringing democracy to the Middle East is too big of a task for us," I think it's a horribly false assumption that Kerry doesn't intend to follow through with democracy for Iraq. It also forgets Bush went there for weapons, then to oust Saddam, then to free the Iraqis. The problem is not "us," the problem is Bush. Any intelligent objective observer will tell you that there may have been far more support if Bush was honest about the intentions from the start. Democracy was not the only reason he went to war, and war is not the only way to achieve a democracy. Plus, a huge coalition went against the Nazis because it was the right thing to do. Iraq is not the Nazis.

His second point is a bunch of hooey. I don't know much about Somalia, but there is no substance to his point other than "America will show it's weak to Bin Laden by electing Kerry." Bin laden didn't go after the Bush administration to get them overthrown, he went after America and what it stands for. So basically, he thinks we shouldn't bother voting because if we don't elect the right person it would show we're weak. But you can't simulataneously advocate for democracy & free elections in the middle east while claiming that they're useless here. Also, to think that this guy, sitting in the middle-of-nowhere, Washington knows what the terrorists are thinking ("let's scare the americans into voting for Kerry") is laughable. It's just as likely, if not more so, that the terrorists are supportive of Bush because he helped them with recruitment and didn't attack Saudi Arabia or Iran (yet). Nobody knows. The opinion of who the terrorists "want to win" is really irrelevant because it's unmeasurable by even important experts in the field, let alone Joe Schmo at CWU.

On his last "point" (I use the term loosely because he's not a very good writer and just throws out emotional words to appeal to someone who isn't thinking too hard about the issues) he's basically saying that today's generation doesn't care about the war they're fighting. Instead of referring to the WWII generation, how about talking about the Vietnam Vets since that war is much much closer to the war in Iraq in every way? Nobody says the Viet Vets are bad people, or not a "great generation." They did what they did, they were pissed about it, and now there are dead and permanently wounded people because some powerful people were trigger-happy. I don't think they were any less great just because there wasn't a moral pathos to their fight. It's not their fault the war was basically pointless. But regardless, the people my age who are fighting in Iraq come home and have awful things to say about how it's going. They don't have armor, they don't see the point, they don't want to get reshipped out when their tour is supposed to end, they're told not to care about the civilians (Abu Gharib) and they're mostly poor minorities. If I was drafted to go to Iraq I bet you woul d have a very different opinion on whether I was "great" and democracy in Iraq was "worth my life." Manweller says "You accept a set of values and responsibilities" when you're an American, and I think that is exactly the point. Freedom of speech, freedom to question authority, caring for others, telling the truth, helping your neighbor, treating others with respect, and many more are those values/responsibilities. The soldiers in Iraq are not even over there fighting to preserve these values. But if they were, exercising them by voting for a candidate who wants to preserve them is exactly how my generation will be the next great generation.