Which party do you think better supports our veterans?

Which party best supports our veterans?

  • The Libertarian Party

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    13
  • Poll closed .

SeniorGeek

Below the Line
The Disabled American Veterans has their scorecard

...where I find only one Republican Party Senator who scores above 60%, which happens to equal the lowest score of any Democratic Senator. I found the DAV scores for House members at:
http://www.vote-smart.org/

The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America does not appear to have such an easy-to-use list, so it is harder to get an overall picture.

But that is just what a couple of veterans groups think. The question remains: Which party do you think better supports our veterans?
 

SeniorGeek

Below the Line
Sponsorship of a bill has less meaning than a vote, since legislators sponsor a bill in its original form and vote on it after it has been [-]mutilated[/-] modified in committee.
 

wkmac

Well-Known Member
What gets me is the Repubs willingness to create more veterans, then underfund the follow-up support.

Senior,
The above comment may have a place in fact in today's world but from a historical perspective the democrats have been more the war party than the repubs but in fairness they've held more overall power over the years so there you go. Right place at right time so to speak.

If you really sit down and hard analyze our wars since the Civil War, all could have been avoided if we had a better foreign policy. No arguement that we were attacked by Japan leading us into WW2 but if you look hard at political actions leading up to this timeframe you have to wonder if we should have done some of the things we did which accelerated a possible if not inevitable conflict.

You have to look at Japan for the previous 40 or 50 years leading up to 12/7/41 and yes they were expanding trying to match wealth and military power with Europe and North America but from their perspective, when you look all around in their own region and see both the European and North American powers beginning to foothold and dominate, what would any other rational person begin to think? The back and forth over the next 40 or so years and then finally in an act of national salvation they enter a treaty in 1940' (Tripartite Pact forming the Axis Powers) and then the US responds by placing an embargo on steel and gasoline and closes the Panama Canal to Japanese shipping, I'd say it's likely to provoke a rather hard response at some point in time from Japan. I wonder how this nation, how many on this board would respond if the roles were reversed and America was blocked from obtaining oil for example? What sneak attack would we plan and condone? What alliances would we be willing to make in order to survive? What alliances did we make with who during the Cold War as a means in our minds of salvation from the Iron Curtain? Many of these despotic alliances either came or were grown during democrat controlled periods in Washington. Or is this a case of compromise where the ends justify the means?

Say what you want about the republicans Senior but the fact is 2 of the people the Neo-cons point to in their empirical quests are none other than 2 democrat presidents in Woodrow Wilson and FDR. Wilson and his Wilsonian policy of democratization of the world is their battle cry and the FDR model of plan and regulated society using the Mussolini Fascist model of controlled corporatization of society is exactly the business plan these Neos you so rabidly oppose are following to a tee. To the shock and awe of scores of true American conservatives, Newt Gingrich himself praised the greatness of FDR in his speech of accending to the speaker of the House. True colors nothing but true colors.

I hate the neos too and I applaud you and diesel for speaking out but I also know that the dems are in lock step with the plan, they just change the name to fool the folks while at the same time they skip America down the primrose path of destruction. They in huge numbers approved the Iraq war plan and don't give me the "they tricked us" nonsense either. The dems had overwhelming access to intelligence and durng the previous Clinton years those same dems had the same conclusion as Bush threw out. In fact, a lot of his intel used was Clinton era stuff or at the least provided the thought process to go and build thier own evidence on an already used preconcieved idea. The only reason the dems scream now is they want the mess cleaned up before Nov. 08' because they don't won't to have to deal with it. They want the money freed up so they can buy more votes at home to real solidify their power in Washington and not get kicked out again.

The repubs and Bush are ripping this country and it's foundational fabric of what makes it great apart and you will get nothing but Amen's from me when you say it but it's a fact especially when you read the very writtings of the neo cons themselves that their models for doing so came right out of the very playbooks of Wilson, FDR and even LBJ's Great Society models. Bush is a complete manifestation of Democrat policies of your greatest leaders so enjoy the fruits of your labor and I guess you could also say that this would hold true of Big Arrow. Give Big credit for being man enough to defend the very war state that you guys created. I may disagree with him but I respect that fact that he's honest and forthright enough not to hide it!

Which party in the end is better for vets?

NEITHER!
Because both engage in policies domestically and foreign that in the end will cause strife and ultimately conflict.

And before I leave let me ask this question of those here who believe we can make Iraq some type of Garden of Eden model. You wave the flag suggesting Iraq can be made great by America but here at home you scream about the evils of our tax system, you want out of social security as a failing money pit, the immigration policy they derive just sux and I'm sure I could list many more examples of things being done here at home that you can't stand. Me too!

Now if that is the case then why in the world would you want to send those same policy makers that gave us all that crap to do the very same thing over there? You know what, based on that alone if I were an Iraqi, I'd fight em' too!

Something to think about is it not when you put it in that perspective!

Have a good one Senior, Diesel and Big and ain't it amazing that you really do have so much in common if you'll just step back and look at the "BIG PICTURE!"

Hugs and kisses guys!:wink:
 

BCFan

Well-Known Member
heck right now it's really hard to tell if our brave military personnel are getting support from either of our two major parties......hoping that will change very soon....God bless our troops....:thumbup1:BC
 

SeniorGeek

Below the Line
wkmac may misunderstand me, but I can blame my own text for that.

I am not a Party member. (That was a lot more fun to say when the USSR still existed. Try it with a fake Russian accent!) I like to think I take after George Washington in respect to party affiliation. I doubt that I have ever voted all-Democrat on any ballot, but I know I have voted all-Republican in the past. But that seems such a long time ago.

I am not against political parties. (OK, so I am not much like President Washington.) I think we need more parties, like other democratic republics in this world. Most democracies seldom have a majority from any one party, so parties must work together to get anything done.

Our two-party system limits choices, and it becomes even worse when ideologues control a party. The GOP has become a dictatorship, supporting only those candidates who support the entire NeoCon package. Oregon Senators such as Mark Hatfield (R) and Wayne Morse (R, then I, then D) would be shunned by today's Repugnant GOP.

<see above for the entire text, if you want to>... If you really sit down and hard analyze our wars since the Civil War, all could have been avoided if we had a better foreign policy. No arguement that we were attacked by Japan leading us into WW2 but if you look hard at political actions leading up to this timeframe you have to wonder if we should have done some of the things we did which accelerated a possible if not inevitable conflict.
Even our Civil War may have been avoidable, and, of course, the path ahead is not so easy to see as the path behind.

Another thing to consider: those who shape and implement our foreign policy may want to go to war. I think FDR wanted us to take part in WWII while the American people thought we should leave that hemisphere to itself. Nothing changes our outlook quite like a surprise attack.


...
Say what you want about the republicans Senior but the fact is 2 of the people the Neo-cons point to in their empirical quests are none other than 2 democrat presidents in Woodrow Wilson and FDR. ...
Both parties have changed, though the names remain the same. The fact that Roosevelt was a Republican (Theodore), or that Roosevelt was a Democrat (Franklin) has little bearing on what those party names mean today.


I hate the neos too and I applaud you and diesel for speaking out but I also know that the dems are in lock step with the plan, they just change the name to fool the folks while at the same time they skip America down the primrose path of destruction. They in huge numbers approved the Iraq war plan and don't give me the "they tricked us" nonsense either.
I assume this is about Congress giving the President the authorization to go to war. I do not think that a specific plan was voted upon by Congress, I think our laws and Constitution make the President responsible for those details. Once the authorization is made, Congress can either withdraw that authorization or attempt to apply conditions with the only other tool they have - the purse strings.


... The only reason the dems scream now is they want the mess cleaned up before Nov. 08' because they don't won't to have to deal with it....
Yes, and the Repubs want to put as much as blame at the feet of the Dems as they possibly can. Some (of each side) appear to be responding to their constituencies! You would think they're running for office!


Which party in the end is better for vets?

NEITHER!
Oh, yes, the question that is the topic of this thread. I was going to put the Neither Party on the list, but I figured that was a weasel answer. The Neither Party has not made it on our ballot yet. (So I put the Libertarian Party on there, so some people would try to deduce what a Libertarian government would actually do for veterans.)

If you look at the Congressional Scorecards published by veterans groups 6 or so years ago, the Repubs were preferred. About 3 to 4 years ago, the Repubs had a small lead in most cases. Looking at recent scorecards, the Repubs appear to have nearly abandoned vets.

...
Hugs and kisses guys!:wink:
Time to quit squabbling, and make up?
 
Last edited:

wkmac

Well-Known Member
wkmac may misunderstand me, but I can blame my own text for that.

On the misunderstanding, I think that may be true on my part as your posted link in another thread to the Classical liberal article was very eye opening about you. We may have a whole lot more in common than I imagined. OH Boy, think of the fun we are gonna have!
:lol:


Time to quit squabbling, and make up?

I'll slip into something sexy and meet you at the no tell motel!
:lol::lol::lol:

Seriously,
I'd have been better served in hindsight to have really addressed my post to Big and Diesel instead of you but for whatever reason your post and some comments by diesel just merged in my thinking process at the time and you got dumped on. Hope you will accept my apology for that gross oversite. I still completely stand by my point but with the change that is fairness instead of you it should be Big. And really it's not so much Big and Diesel themselves but rather folks like them who are so locked into this mentality that this party or that party is the only mechanism to save us. Back years ago you had so-called conservatives and liberals in both parties and most legislation that came about had to do so by a broader consensus that stretched across party lines. Reagan, whether you agree with him or not, got a lot of his legislation agenda passed not as a result of lock step repubs all drinking together but instead a broad across parties consensus of both repub and democrats getting behind a number of those measures. Joe Lieberman today is seen as some weird political anomally but 20 years ago, a Joe Lieberman was more a norm than an oddball and you had some repubs who would side more with a Kennedy or ther noted so-called political liberal of the day than they would Reagan.

We've galvanized so much along party lines that at times it seems more like a rival college football games than anything else. It doesn't matter who is on the field or the plays they are calling, it only matters that they wear the jersey I'm loyal too. Do that and I back em' no matter what they do!

I see that thinking as not only dangerous but fatal to the democratic republic given to us nearly 250 years ago.

JMHO

As for the libertarians doing anything for the vets? In principle, that is very hard to say because even though there is difference of opinion among libertarians, you have some that support the war in Iraq but most do not for a variety of reasons. I do think with libertarians we would have as a matter of foreign policy and vastly more non-interventionist approach to geo-politics. I think as a result of that point alone, you'd have far less in number of vets than you do now so the argument might be that with so little not much is needed. But I also think the libertarian party is not presently able to compete against the other 2 but at best plant seeds of thought in the American electorate.


Be cool Senior and "My Bad" on lumping you in.
 
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