Bush commutes Libby sentence

[kandrathe]

Why, if you believe he is working to curtail freedoms and expand the role of the nanny state, am I not correct in my assessment that he is as much a danger to your liberties as Ted Kennedy (at the very least)? The PATRIOT Act alone is enough to send the little libertarian in my head screaming down the halls.

Presidents merely sign or veto. Ted is a bigger danger and one reason I support term limits.

I'm pretty confident the United States will win over some grubby religious zealots plotting bombings from caves in Afghanistan. If you do lose, however, it will almost certainly be by broadening the conflict beyond said grubby zealots, provoking a mass reaction in the Islamic world. This is the madness Bush has dragged you into, and the sooner it stops, the more likely you are to be safe from Islamic fundamentalism.

I think we felt pretty safe prior to 9/11 with those grubby zealots (trained in Pakistani Madrasas) in their caves on the Afghan border. It doesn't mean we are. We underestimated them, and their number then, and I think you are doing it now. How many al Queda cells are in operation in London? Do you really think we could be safer by retreating from them? It seems to me that Clinton tried the minimalist approach (tit for tat), and then we had one of the worst terrorist attacks on America ever.

He certainly wanted to keep his personal beliefs to himself, and believed quite clearly that it was up to each person to determine these things for themselves.

Ponder also this letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams. Of note is the summation at the end... "So much for your quotation of Calvin's `mon dieu! jusqu'a quand' in which, when addressed to the God of Jesus, and our God, I join you cordially, and await his time and will with more readiness than reluctance. May we meet there again, in Congress, with our ancient Colleagues, and receive with them the seal of approbation `Well done, good and faithful servants.'" A nod to Mathew 25:21 which a part of the story told by Jesus of a master and his slaves entrusted with their masters money. Also, the statement is an obvious nod to the belief in a day when he would meet his maker. Also, peruse freely this site, Thomas Jefferson on Religion.

The Jefferson Bible was clearly *not* just an abridgment devoid of theological meaning. It was Jefferson's attempt at creating a "real" Christianity, stripped of all the theological trappings that, in my opinion, make it a religion in the first place. A quick peruse of the wikipedia page on the topic calls into question your interpretation, including and especially the idea that the abridgment was of practical, not theological, value. Indians also do not come up. From whence does your information on this matter come?

Notable American Unitarians

"I, too, have made a wee-little book from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what its author never said nor saw." A Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Charles Thomson, January 9, 1816 I too applaud Jefferson as a free thinker, and not a brainless adherent of religious dogma. He is a true scholar of the available texts in various ancient languages and has formed his opinion, to the obvious consternation of the leaders of various Catholic and Protestant sects in his time. It is clear why he kept his views private. Of note, Jefferson says, "...it is a document in proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus".

Bush is a failure of comical proportions who never should have been elected.

My objection is that by your measuring stick, all past Presidents are failures, as well as the adjoining Congressional delegations. Our (American)system is imperfect, and peopled by imperfect leaders, however it is the best we have and I would argue it is still the best in the world. I would not argue that Bush's tenure is immaculate, however, I feel we should not be so critical that we condemn every administration. It has been the practice by both major political parties for the last few decades to seek litigious means to frustrate or obfuscate the ruling party. We as citizens are complicit in our complacency. If we, as citizens, have a lack of power, it is because we have allowed the power to be taken from us. You don't trust or agree with Bush, and I get it. Like I said, I didn't vote for either Gore or Bush. Once Bush was selected, it is the citizen and soldiers duty to stand with him, although not always in agreement. I however was not surprised by the Iraq war, since it was on the pre-Bush New American Century Wolfowitz-Cheney agenda. From my position, either Bush or Gore were bad choices for different reasons. But, now it seems we have the worst of both, economic suicide by War and Ecology. 9-11 changed the dialog, and we are obligated to reach into the dingy caves, extremist enclaves and poisoned madrases to eliminate the threat. I'd say if the extremists want Jihad, we should bring them Jihad in great measure and more than they can stomach. But, we should always be offering the frond of peaceful coexistence. We should endeavor to expose the warmongers on both sides and make them irrelevant.