I didn’t get on this web site to debate you. Its not your web site whether you know that or not and I don’t believe that other people are here to read our debates. So why not leave this web site to be what it is intended to be: responses to Tom’s shows. If you want to debate everyone so badly get your own blog.

Andy

But I do want to add that I consider myself a progressive. And I can no longer stomach the idea of voting for Sen. Obama–I began having very strong doubts after the “sweetie” comments–after the rampant misogyny I have seen come from his campaign surrogates and his allies in the media in the last ten days.

I hope that like-minded individuals who support equal opportunities for women will join me in refusing to support such tactics.

That’s it? I demolished your entire “change” thesis and that’s the best you can do?

Get a life!

They know that McCain can offer security, experience, and now a true Change story

McCain’s energy policy, Iraq policy, healthcare policy and tax policy are all the same as what George Bush has been promoting. McCain has basically been voting for the Bush plan for the last 8 years. The mess the country is in is largely the result of the programs McCain has been supporting. Today McCain endorsed the nationlization of the Fannie and Freddie, which puts the taxpayers in it for $100 billion. How does McCain square THAT with his fiscal conservatism? And this after the Bush administration failed to oversee the two mortgage institutions, which they had a fiduciary responsibility to do.

Also the Wall Street Journal reported today that Obama and McCain have come out in favor of federal bailout money for US Detroit auto industry! Arguably that might seem like a liberal Democrat thing to do, so the fact that Obama supports it should be no surprise. But McCain?! How do you defend this, consistent with his stated principles? I know the answer – Michigan is a swing state. I used to think McCain was the real deal – genuine, straight-talking. But now it’s clear he’s just another pandering politico.

And then there’s Palin. The Associated Press quotes her as sying the the Iraq war is a mission from God and that she intends the governior’s office to be used to advance God’s will. That’s the sort of thinking they use in Iran. In the US it’s a violation of the Constitution to use the government to promote or enforce a particular religion’s views. If Palin doesn’t understand the Constitution she has no business being in government in any capacity.

I will leave it at that.

I agree with the previous comment that “Many of us agree that this program’s (Tom Asshbrook’s) coverage of politics has become increasingly ludicruous and uninsightful. Much of this is due to Mr. Beatty.” But it is not only Mr Beatty, Mr. Beatty is merely Tom Ashbrook’s attack dog–he says all the things that Tom would like to say but he can’t without dropping the illusion that he is being unbaised. Tom allows the far-left loon: Mr. Beatty to go off on one of his ranks and then gets to reinforce his ranting or at the best try to bring it abit back into the center. If Tom was even attempting to be fair he would have a conservative voice on the air to counter-act Beatty. And when those rare times that Tom does have that center of the road, more conservative voice, you can really hear the disdain dripping from his voice.

I think the left-wing is worried, really worried about McCain winning and they are absolutely livid about it and are finally showing their real colors. They know that McCain can offer security, experience, and now a true Change story (unlike Obama’s mere rhetoric) to the people and after the Left threw Hillary over board they are very worried that those are the stories for which Obama is weakest. All the Republicans need to win is to develop a good economic plan and the election has been lost.

On the first point, Mr. Beatty offers absolutely no analysis of the news. His prognostications are rarely correct. (I remember back in May, when he predicted McCain was at a high point, and would soon start sinking like a rock.) If I want to just hear pro-Obama, anti-McCain talking points, I’ll check out Daily Kos. I must give kudos to Eleanor Clift, who can yell with the best of them on The McLaughlin Group and act as the “partisan liberal” on that program, but who can offer calm, even-handed analysis on this program.

I was more aghast, though, at Mr. Beatty’s sexist and xenophobic commentary. First, he referred to Gov. Palin multiple times as “Sarah.” I never hear him refer to “Barack” or “John.” Then, as a German-American, I was aghast to hear Mr. Beatty say that Guiliani’s speech was “better in the original German.” In that obvious allusion to Hitler, I was offended that Mr. Beatty would 1) suggest that anything spoken in German is somehow abhorrent, and 2) equate Mr. Guiliani with Nazism. High-minded discourse, indeed.

As a graduate student living in Cambridge, many of my friends are NPR, and On Point, listeners. Many of us agree that this program’s coverage of politics has become increasingly ludicruous and uninsightful. Much of this is due to Mr. Beatty.

The commandants of Auschwitz-Birkenau lived with their families in nice houses with nice gardens minutes from one of the worse genocides of the 20th century. No doubt some believed in God. They loved and cherished their children and wives. One made home movies of his children playing in the yard, posing with his wife as if they were on a holiday. They slept soundly and in the morning they rose ate breakfast kissed their children and wives and went to work.

It seems part of humane nature to use the demonization others to justify our actions. Look at what happened in Abu Ghraib prison, I am sure some of the people involved went to church on Sundays and think of themselves as good Christians.

Religion and faith should be a private matter and not have any bearing on how our country is run. In fact I seem to remember a little thing called the separation of church and state as one of the laws of our country set forth by the founders for a reason. They did not want a theocracy.

It’s factually incorrect.
One can determine objectively what values must be enforced to have a happy, peaceful society. Societies where stealing, cheating, and murder are tolerated do not turn out to be very satisfactory places to live.

Empirically, plenty of countries with lower rates of religious belief and religious practice than the US nonetheless also have lower rates of violent crime.

Also I suggest you look at Transparency International’s ratings of corruption in different countries. You’ll see that there is no correlation with religious practice.

One can also test religious faith empirically, examine its claims, and check its internal consistency.

Internal inconsistency is irrelevant. One can create any number of belief systems that are internally consistent. In fact one can do a lot better in that respect than religion, because one can create systems of symbolic logic which are internally consistent, and being symbolic logic they can be reliably evaluated by multiple people. (for example if I have a mathematical proof, another mathematician can evaluate it, and its either true or it isn’t true – if doesn’t depend on your point of view). This is not true for religion since the “language” of religion is not formal, i.e., different people can read, say, the Bible, and interpret it differently.

Nor is religion testable in any other non-subjective way – it cannot, for example, make predictions.
As I said in my earlier post, the reason why the world’s major religions are still debating the same theological points thay have been for millenia is precisely because religious epistemology doesn’t work – they have no way to test their models to determine which are right and which are wrong. Science, for example, does, which is why it resolves its disputes and advances.

I did live in a socialist country and spent some time in a political prison, and the jailers tortured the prisoners but went home to sleep with their children.

But socialism is also based on the same epistemology as religion – “revealed knowledge” combined with “one-true-way-ism”. As H.L. Menken said, “Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophecies.”

As for the death of Socrates by the Athenians, could you please provide your version?

Try Wikipedia.

That was what I was trying to communicate. Since science can not tell us whether it is right or wrong to steal, cheat, abort a baby, engage in illicit sexual behavior, or kill, the secularist follows his feelings. Is that an exaggeration? I did live in a socialist country and spent some time in a political prison, and the jailers tortured the prisoners but went home to sleep with their children. They were not able to see that what they did offended a just God who would one day judge them. Since they did not believe in objective truth outside themselves, no one can hold them accountable to that standard. They are “the Law”.

The religious person has to subject his feelings to revealed truth. Whether one is Jewish, Christian or Muslim he is commanded to deny himself and follow God. One can also test religious faith empirically, examine its claims, and check its internal consistency. Have you ever examined the truth about the man Jesus? Did you study history, archeology, and the Bible to see if what he said and did is true?

As for the death of Socrates by the Athenians, could you please provide your version? I presented what I learned from my sources.

Except that Palin graduated near the bottom of her class. Palin spent her first college semester at Hawaii Pacific College, transferring in 1983 to North Idaho College and then to the University of Idaho.

She attended Matanuska-Susitna College in Alaska for one term, returning to the University of Idaho to complete her Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism, graduating in 1987.

Obama graduated graduated with a B.A. from Columbia in 1983 near the top of his class where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations.

Went to Harvard Law School in late 1988 and at the end of his first year was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review based on his grades and a writing competition. In his second year he was elected president of the Law Review, a full-time volunteer position functioning as editor-in-chief and supervising the law review’s staff of 80 editors.

Some are going to say Obama is an elitist due to his education. I disagree his education journey speaks more to the drive and intelligence of Obama than some notion of being an elitist. Bush was an elitist.

Palin’s education journey tells us that it took 6 years to get BA and then to graduate near the bottom of the class after such an epic journey. What does this say about her, she’s below average academically when she is compaired to Obama, that’s what it tells me.

I disagree that experience has no relevance or cannot be evaluated because the job is so unique.

Being a national leader (of the US or any other powerful nation) is certainly not a job lacking in precedent. We DO know some of the important traits needed to do it effectively, and candidates for the job CAN be evaluated for those traits based on prior experience.

Good judgement in a crisis is an important trait.

Pragmatism over politics (i.e., choosing a course of action because it has a high likelihood of succeeding based on objective facts, instead of choosing a course of action based on abstract philosophy) is a good trait.

A willingness to put the obligations of one’s office over political or personal gain is a good trait.

An ability to “cross the aisle” – gain a consensus from people of diverse political persuasions is a good trait.

The ability to actually get things done – to marshall the powers of one’s office and gain support for one’s ideas well enough to execute a large, complex plan to completion is a good trait.

A willingness to tell the truth – actually doing, or attempting to do, what one has promised in a political campaign.

There are many others, but ALL of the above can be evaluated from a candidate’s prior experience – if they have much. Both Obama and Palin have had so little experience in major offices that there’s not enough data to say with confidence how well they meet the above criteria.

As to Governor Palin, fact checking the claims in her RNC speech about her record and that of Senator Obama reveals nearly all half truths. I expect much more from self professed Christians.

To the contrary – it is the religious person whose sole rule of law his own feelings. If you take a Christian, a Muslim and a Hindu and ask them to resolve which of them is right they have no means to do so, because ultimately each is only left with their own personal feelings about what holy book to believe or how to interpret it.

The sedcularist believes in objective truth and empirical evidence, testability, falsifiability, to test and discern that truth. This is why physics, biology, etc, and have made far more progress resolving their disputes and differences of opinion, and thus move on, in the last century than religion has made in 2000 years.

I am reminded of a little history that I heard about the democrats in Athens, Greece, who killed the Philosopher Socrates mainly because he annoyed them with his teaching that “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

I suggest that the unexamined history is not worth quoting, since that is not why they killed Socrates.

Mose in Boston

As much as the secularists are afraid of religious people, so are the religious one like me afraid of secular people. They make arbitrary laws with no basis to truth, for them truth does not exist. It is the agreed upon law, and the majority decides whether one should live or die. For the secularist, what is in the constitution of the United States “All men are created equal and are endowed by their creater certain in-alienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is just a fable created by the founding fathers.

I am reminded of a little history that I heard about the democrats in Athens, Greece, who killed the Philosopher Socrates mainly because he annoyed them with his teaching that “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

It is also said that more wars and deaths have occurred under secular governments in history than among any religious governments. That is why I am scared of those who say (just like their for-bearer Pontius Pilate who condemned the one and only son of God) “What is truth!” “I have my truth, and you have your truth!” They end up killing truth and anyone who speaks the truth. When they do this many times, they are perfectly persuaded that it is for the good of the masses that they pretend to represent.

As for Mr. Beatty I have to say that he was somewhat disgraceful when he referred to the quote “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”. There were several democrats who also chanted USA to unfair partisan record that’s what happens at party conventions.

Also, how about this wacko Katherine from Standford who seems completely convinced that masses of people are going to unemployed or employed based soley on the results of this election.

There’s no reason to assume they have. There has been plenty of serious research on the topic of how well- informed voters are, how well they understand the issues, history, geography, civics, who their elected officials are, how those politicians voted, what’s in the federal budget, etc. In general these studies have found that US voters are among the most ignorant of voters in major western democracies, and that there’s no reason to think that things have gotten any better recently. Granted knowledge and “wisdom” are not quite the same, but you do need to have SOME knowledge to exercise wisdom.

Please be consistent in your nomenclature. McCain/Obama/Bush/Palin works, as does John/Barack/George/Sarah. What does not work, and is still far too prevalent in the media today, is McCain/Obama/Bush/Sarah. This …. difference (bias, maybe, maybe not) became abundantly clear in the primary between Obama and Hillary

I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. The reason why Obama was called “Obama” and Hillary was called “Hillary” was not some sexist dimunition of women – it was because that’s what they called themselves. Hillary Clinton’s campaign posters mostly said “Hillary” (presumably to distance herself fron Bill, or perhaps to give herself a less formal, distant image).

“Most” economists? SOME economists take that position – some economists say just the opposite. The effect of minimum wage is one of the most hotly debated topics in economics. What is your source for citing “most”?

The many references to war, fighting and the deeply rooted military mentality scares the hell out of me.

Indeed. Two days ago the Bush Administration reiterated their support for NATO membership for Georgia. Yesterday they advocated NATO membership for Ukraine. (all this while the media are distracted by the RNC convention) The Bush Administration is seeking every possible opportunity to provoke Russia and make it feel threatened. So instead of trying to lower tensions in a dangerous and volatile part of the world they are deliberately trying to raise tensions.

And McCain is a continuation of that philosophy.