become like most Chinese and ride bicycles!!

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"Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet."

Or is there a hint of envy in this post?

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http://www.freedomswatch.org/Home/tabid/36/Default.aspx

When religion ruled the world...wasn't that the Dark Ages?

Let me remind you of a few things. 1) Clinton was given Bin Laden on a plater(more than once) and declined to take any action. 2) Under the Clinton administration, Intelligence & the Military were cut dramatically. 3) Well I won't even bring up the bombing of that factory.....well I guess I just did.

I personally place more responsibility on Clinton's shoulders for 911 than the Bush administration, but then again I'm Nobody.

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"It aint over, till it's over"

Clinton did not have to deal with 911 or the wars that followed. There was no acceptable alternative that would have kept gas prices low.

Gas prices will also motivate us to develop alternative energy sources. So I cant say that I am entirely sad about current prices.

I dont agree. I doubt Kerry would have bombed Kosovo, and there is no way Gore would have. Not without the Un holding their hands (which would not have happened). Clinton was an exception to the rule among liberals.

On foreign policy issues there is a sharp difference in the ideology between the parties. The fact that Democrats are being forced, kicking and screaming, to support aggressive actions is only because they have no choice. Because the American masses want it.

But it isnt how they really want to do things IMO.

Luck?

The things that precipitated 911 happened under Clinton.

A lot has changed. We are now setting up democracies that are free to act against our interests. We did not do that before.

Defense > low gas prices.

The edivence is that we have all those troops already in Iraq right now. We pull them from Iraq and take Iran. What makes you think we cant?

Not that we'd have to. If our goal is simply to prevent them from developing nukes, we just have to bomb their reactors. No invasion required.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908900.html

Enjoy.

And I provide sources all the time.

I agree, Clinton was different then other Democrats. Gore and Kerry are a bunch of sissy la las, I also agree with you there. Like you say though, both parties are only different in rhetoric, but when push comes to shove, they end up doing the exact same thing--or close. There is still a tiny bit of difference between the two, but there is so much comprimise and everything else that nothing is done, and everyone simply conforms out of fear of innovation and new enterprise. I don't think low gas prices are superior to defense, quite the opposite. The defense industry realizes that fuel efficiency is the way of the future, and if U.S. automakers and the public actually cared about gasoline efficiency, we could have had the technology years ago, not in simply hybrids, but in biomass and tons of other technologies. It is not some conspiracy, it is simply massive shared ignorance and short term thinking, that is it. If our cars were more efficient, we would have larger federal reserves and it would increase our defensive capabilities. The Middle East would be strangled to death, as we could theoretically thereafter get most of our oil from deep sea drilling. Then, all that money we save on gas could be invested in our personal economy, which would give the government even greater power, and further increase defensive capabilities in the first place! We could even redo our highways with all that money and increase efficiency further! Cars could be converted in two or three years with only 50 billion dollars for personal automakers to invest in new tech, it would have been much cheaper and much more effective at spreading long term freedom then the war in Iraq. Toyota has only spent 7 billion on all its hybrid cars to date, if we had used the money from the scraped comanche, u.s. automakers could have had three times as many hybrids. That is barely even the tip of the iceberg. And the hybrids we have today are nothing--a common rail diesal hybrid electric can get 50mpg and have more power then a normal SUV on the market today. It would be easy and cheap to develop these vehicles, but they are ignored. Why is that?

And most of those troops you speak of that are in Iraq right now have to come home sometime. The military is having problems recruiting now, and supplies are weakened. We are already HAVE to pull out some troops now and rotate levels all the time. The military is being pushed to its limits as it is. And gas would go through the roof if Iran invaded, it would be worse then the 70s I bet.

Incidentally...why is it so important for you to feel like you are a step ahead of me?

You are contradicting yourself. On the one hand you say you agree with me that two Democratic candidates have a sharply different opinion on foreign policy from the Republicans, and then you say that both parties are the same. Which is it?

That seemed to be your implication when you were complaining about gas prices above. If higher gas prices are required in order to remove threats to us, then that is an acceptable exchange IMO. Most other Americans seem to agree.

I dont believe you have any way of knowing that. I dont accept you as an expert on the subject. IMO, there are probably variables you are overlooking or dont know about.

We would have more than enough troops to invade Iran. It is naive to believe that their military could resist us IMO.

And there is absolutely nothing they could do to prevent us from bombing them. We could destroy their hardware and infrastructure and pull out and they would be too weak to do anything. The reason Iraq is taking so many of our resources is because we are trying to install a democracy...in essence, we are re-enforcing police force/military until their government gets established. If all we wanted to do was temporarily remove Saddam as a threat, we could have done that and left a long time ago.

The alternatives are worse. And we would weather the gas prices...just as we have before.

I was not contradicting myself, every person is a little different, even within their party. Look at McCain. They still have to conform so much, however, that in general, the government is only one party. And as for the military, they are devloping many new vehicles that are fuel efficient and that is a top priority for "future force". The f-22 was choosen over the f-23 purely on fuel efficiency, even though the f-23 was more efficient at stealth, speed, etc. What alternatives are worse? You think we could weather $3.00 a galon at the very least? We probably could, but the economy would be even worse then it is already, and a war with iran would raise the deficit even higher. What are these worse alternatives? Building a super strong economy and refusing to give the middle east American money any longer?

http://www.military.com/soldiertech/...hadow,,00.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...451038,00.html

That last Toyota car was a concept in 2001 and it gets 120mpg (the Europe test mentioned said 104mpg, but others have said 150mpg if you look around, so I just go with the lower average)! That's TWICE as much as the Prius on the market today. Ford and GM had fully electric cars a few years ago and they suddenly *poof.* These were created with only a few billion dollars of investment and it was all private. If the governments of Japan (Toyota, Honda), the United States (Ford, GM), South Korea (Hyundai), Germany (BMW, Mercedes) all split the bill, we could build these cars quite easily for the public and STILL fight a war in Iraq. Economies of scale would be much cheaper, and in the end, autosales would skyrocket and economies would be bigger worldwide. There's an idea the Democrats don't mention, only one of many. Oh, but wait, the Bush administration spent 1 billion dollars on fuel cells for ten years into the future! OMG! They sure are working on it! lmao. What a joke. If I were President after 9/11, gas would be 70 cents a gallon (demand would decrease significantly and the market would be flooded with oil) and we'd all be driving on cars that use half as much and are more powerful. Now THAT is worth fighting for--I haven't seen any results from Iraq that have made MY life any better, and this war doesn't seem to be making Iraq THAT much better then it was before, even though we've also lost 1,500 troops in the process.

At what cost? How much do they cost manufacturers to produce, and how much would they have to sell them for to make any kind of profit? That is an example of one of the variables I think you are missing. It isnt as simple as you are assuming.

An efficient car doesnt do me much good if it costs $100,000 to buy.

If they had some elven magic that allowed them to produce them at the same prices as current cars, yeah, I'd agree.

Exactly...like most liberals you see things in the short term only. That is why liberal leaders make me nervous.