Frank > Would you really have liked to see John Kerry raising the spectre > of human rights given his own historical past, and voting > record? Actually, that might have shot him in the foot even
I do not know that much about Kerry but I assume you are referring to regulations he has voted in favour of and similar items. I am particularly focusing on human rights, in particular the right to be free of torture. Perhaps you could say if Kerry has ever advocated or supported the use of torture in the current context. > You're certainly right about one thing, and I'll have to give you > a huge credit for that certainly, we do need to look for > candidates who have a proven historical human rights record. Well, since we disagree on so much, it is nice to find an area of agreement. > You > may not be entirely familiar with American political > personalities, but we do have one gentleman in the US Congress, > Congressman Dr. Ron Paul from the State of Texas who does have a > stellar historical voting track record on human rights. He has > served several terms in the US Congress, and has been an > outspoken critic of the Iraq aggression by the US, and also on > such things as the draconian 'anti-liberty' Patriot Act. Ron Paul was mentioned on this list previously. I did some research at the time and it seems that he is very anti-regulation. I am a pragmatist. I am not against all regulation but I feel that we should be clear about what the regulation is intended to achieve and see whether it can be rationally determined that the regulation is achieving the goal. If the goal is not being reached, then one has to ask, why bother rigging the market in this way? I guess I have a similar view on torture. If one weighs the benefits and disadvantages of allowing it, then one will come to the conclusion that it is not worth it. Likewise the idea of detaining people on reasonable suspicion is something that, to my mind, needs careful explanation and justification. Tony Blair only seems to say "the security services say they need this power". I have not looked at the Patriot Act but I saw a television programme yesterday which seemed to suggest that it permits the US government to detain on secret information. If so, my first thought would be to ask, do we really need the government to have that power? I should also draw a distinction between civil liberties and human rights. > But the second front you raised concerning winning hearts and > minds is something that I personally believe can never be > achieved by resorting to the use of lethal and deadly force by US > military action. Well, I would draw an analogy between the use of force by the police and the use of force by the US in support of mandatory UN resolutions. Regards Tim Crusade - The Long Road Villager: We're fools to live like this, to throw away our guns, our machines. _______________________________________________ Libnw mailing list Libnw@immosys.com List info and subscriber options: http://immosys.com/mailman/listinfo/libnw Archives: http://immosys.com/mailman//pipermail/libnw
