Posted on 02/24/2005 6:36:45 AM PST by quidnunc
Democrats call for President Bush to use his conservative majorities to find common solutions to perennial problems that might find resonance with Americans tired of partisan bickering. There are plenty of places to start on a variety of different issues.
• The Middle East. The isolationist Right has not wished to risk much for anything abroad, while the hard Left recently has been happy with any dictator that praised the "people" and professed anti-Americanism. Yet most Americans in between can conclude that Middle Eastern autocracy is the fuel that drives terrorism, and that the only strategy to prevent wider war later is to promote freedom over there now.
The way not to have to intervene militarily in Iran and Syria is to censure both diplomatically, elevate their dissidents to the world stage, and cut off all commerce with these rogue regimes. Call the promotion of democracy a conservative desire for American security or a liberal move to promote the unrepresented. Either way it alone offers hope for a safe Middle East.
• Energy. It makes little sense to drive a 7,000-pound SUV down to the local grocery store. True, eventually the market would curb such extravagance — when gas climbs to $5 a gallon. But in the meantime, too many billions of petrodollars are going to too many terrorists in the Middle East.
If the conservationist Left wins mandated fuel economy, then it should at least relent on nuclear power that has evolved well beyond the scariness of the Three-Mile-Island era, and would encourage energy self-sufficiency without heating up the atmosphere.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at cweb.jewishworldreview.com ...
FYI
Welcome to Free Republic..I am sure your stay here will bring you a point of view different from the one you hold.
Victor Hanson Davis is an American treasure.
Oops Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.victorhanson.com/Author/
Schools would quickly be better off for the hiring of advanced degree teachers (where the degree is in the same subject that the teachers teach.) But it still will take time to overcome the decades of seniority system damage done by the teachers unions. However if Hanson's proposal is accepted, the teacher's union would lose one of their argueing points, that we have to have certificates. Maybe after this arguement is in the trash heap we can discuss how much good (or harm) the union system does to education.
What do you disagree with besides the word isolationist in the article..
Hack is not a word I would associate with VDH..Can you please explain?..
Welcome to Free Republic.
I have to admit that the above quote makes me curious -- "since pre-Columbian times"? What specifically are you thinking of before Columbus -- the settlement in Greenland?
Yes..I understand that..but as to his other suggestions, what do you find objectionable..
I have never heard the word hack used just because one disagrees with one's attitude on ,say, intervention..
He is a historian, by the way.
No problem -- I have even found myself leaving out key words in posts that effectively turned the meaning 180 degrees.
I'd like to go back to where you call Dr. Hanson a "hack". Are you yourself a professional historian?
If so, then I am curious why you use such a strong term; it's not one that I associate with academics discussing others in academia. As a professional, you of course have the right to cast informed aspersions on the professional qualifications of another person in the area, but it's not something that is done lightly. Even the controversy around Dr. Belleiles's work, which was patently humbug, was not framed in such strong language from academics.
If not, then I feel that you should adduce more reasons to show that somehow Dr. Hanson's academic qualifications are somehow lacking; a list of his works that have been discredited, for instance, would be strong evidence for your position. But lacking such, I would suggest that simply disagreeing with Dr. Hanson is not sufficient grounds to cast aspersions at his professional reputation as a historian.
Flack? PIFFLE
SEABASS58 registered TODAY FEB24, 2005...rto
After we become independent as far as energy:We could shut off all travel from overseas...We could blockade the coastline and put troops/taller fences along the border. We could do all trade internally ..no need to talk to the rest of the world.
We could build ourselves a cocoon...oops, those pesky missiles.
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