Posted on 10/07/2004 1:48:48 PM PDT by backtothestreets
An excerpt for the Vice-Presidential debate. Senator Edwards remarking on the voting record of Dick Cheney when he was in Congress.
"He voted against the Department of Education. He voted against funding for Meals on Wheels for seniors. He voted against a holiday for Martin Luther King. He voted against a resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela in South Africa."
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
I think vacant seats in committees are a bipartisan phenomenon. Politicians in Washington spend most their time on the grift. They certainly don't like the attention drawn to this attendance thing. I personally think we should just pay them to stay at home unless called into emergency session based on matters of constitutional relevance. A vote on Head Start and a new funding to study lemming migration patterns is not what they are supposed to be doing.
Okay. Thanks for the history lesson. Back then, I'm sorry to say, I wasn't really paying attention to the issue. I saw it as more of a political issue than anything else. I knew anyone who voted against it would be cursed and labeled a racist. Liberals hate the Founders -- those dead, racist, sexist, white guys -- so that President's Day win must have been especially sweet for them. But they hate Christians more than anything, so the attack on Christmas must be their sweetest victory of all.
Technically, that's not the case. Washington's birthday remains a Federal holiday. Lincoln's birthday is no longer. What is popularly referred to as "President's Day" is in actuality Washington's birthday.
Technically, no one ever changed the law instating "Washington's Birthday" as a federal holiday. I don't know where this "Presidents Day" business came from.
Thus, the only person with a national holiday bearing his name is Martin Luther King. This seems a little wrong.
Columbus Day. But your point is still taken.
SD
At that point in the debate, I turned to my wife and remarked, "I wonder if Edwards realized how many votes he just gained for the Bush/Cheney ticket?" It certainly solidified my support.
A most excellent anecdote!
Oh yeah. Forgot about Columbus Day.
Oh well, Columbus' actions impacted us all. And I still think that Washington, Lincoln, and Christ are more important than Martin Luther King. They are consequential to the population as a whole, not just a segment of it.
Heck. I'm a Mormon. I could make a really compelling argument that Brigham Young should have a national holiday. After all, he led people who were being persecuted for their religion across a thousand miles of wilderness and colonized, not just Utah, but a large part of the American West. Sure, the fact that he openly practiced polygamy (while Martin Luther King furtively flitted from flower to flower) might bother some people. But that shouldn't matter. He did historically consequential things. He was a very dynamic leader. And, during the course of his lifetime, he said a lot of things that were very inspirational.
But I don't expect anybody outside the Mormon population to be excited about my proposal.
And would everyone who opposed my proposal for Brigham Young Day be a bigot? No. A proposal like that would be divisive. I would be trying to force everyone to honor someone who is historically important to me and mine, but not to the country as a whole.
perhaps the ladylawyer poster was thinking of certain department stores that now refuse to use the term Christmas and use "Holidays" instead. I boycotted those last year and watching to see which ones do it this year.
And let's not forget that MLK was associating with KNOWN Communists and jackasses like Jesse Jackson...and that Mandela WAS and IS a Communist!
Someone else pointed out that every time that Edwards points out he met Cheney, it sounds like a little kid saying he met the prom queen, they were in typing together. The prom queen says "Who? Oh, uh, yeah, uh, I sorta remember you...I think."
"The only one that hurts him at all is the King holiday."
Probably because it was symbolism over substance.
King gets a holiday but Washington and Lincoln arent important enough for one, they have to SHARE ONE????
I didnt know meals on wheels *was* a federal program instead of a charity. in fact, I am sure this is an exagerration of Cheney's record ... we spend $100s of billions on welfare every year. So he voted against some program - we *still* have billions in many many programs. someone who votes a few times against some of this is a GOOD MAN ...
CHENEY IS A GREAT CONSERVATIVE!!!
Edwards is such a political lightweight and a gold brick.
I can't wait until we don't have to listen to this idiot anymore. Breck Girl; Senator Gone; The man who doesn't have a job in NC...
And if I hear him say "yeeeeeeeewwwww" one more time I'm gonna puke.
That's a good question that applies to much of the federal government. I wish I were president for a day. On that first day in office I'd sign Executive Orders dissolving many many federal departments and giving states the control to the federal buildings and assets within each individual state. They would be free to retain any of the federal employees they are willing to keep on state payroll, and all information from the defunct federal agencies would be made available to all the states. My second day in office I'd be assassinated by politicians and bureaucrats, if I wasn't already assassinated on my first day.
I remember some twenty-five years ago when then California Governor Jerry Brown earned himself the title Governor Moonbeam for suggesting California have a space program separate from the federal program. Maybe that was a bit of a wild-eyed idea, but it would have shown states can survive without the massive federal bureaucracy. The current federal departments of Education, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, Labor and the Interior should be dissolved as they duplicate state efforts. States should be free to address their internal affairs without federal intervention.
I'd lay a bet right now on one thing. The day is coming when the federal government will determine how much exposure to the outdoors is detrimental due to air quality and use that to forbid a lot of activities we take for granted.
Nelson Mandela took it upon himself about two years ago, to visit the Libyan terrorist convicted of killing hundres of Americans in the PanAm 103 bombing. During the visit, at a Scottish prison, Nelson hugged the terrorist, who already lives under very posh UN-mandated conditions, and then later demanded the terrorist be moved to a muslim country.
Yeah, good line by General Stuart; but he also managed to lose the war for the Confederacy by getting his ego confused with his mission, and leaving Lee blind at Gettysburg.
Dang, they corrected the thread title.
That's a great story! I had forgotten that.
>They are consequential to the population as a whole, not just a segment of it.<
I respectfully disagree with the statement that MLK was only consequential to a segment of the population. As a native Virginian, from where I sit MLK was most certainly consequential to the nation as a whole, as he embodied the victory over segregation. King was the focal point of the Civil Rights movement.
Segregation might not have been nationwide, but it was a cancer to the entire body of the United States. The evil of segregation had to be excised, for our nation to grow.
I remember when local black people could not freely go to a public swimming pool, or to a restaurant, or even to a given restroom. That our laws allowed such prohibitions is in direct contradiction to the idea that "all men are created equal".
Now, I'm not convinced we needed yet another federal holiday, but I am convinced that MLK is and will remain an important historical figure to every citizen of the United States.
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