Obama’s Speech Inspired Me

I listened to the speech Obama gave at Notre Dame today and it was a good commencement speech. Sure, it was full of the ideas of wealth redistribution and making life fair and all the stuff he believes but it was a good speech. It is not surprising because when he has a functioning teleprompter he is pretty good. I was not one who believed that he should not have been invited but I was against him receiving the honorary degree. Having written that, I am happy that those who objected demonstrated peacefully and that they did what they thought was right with regard to their own conscience.

I listened to him because I wanted to see how he addressed the controversy of his invitation and he did it well. In fact, I was inspired by him when he discussed the subject of abortion.

He told the audience that people could disagree on issues but that they needed to come together to reach a common ground. He said that he did not believe that the right to an abortion should be taken away from women but that abortions should be rare and other options should be available.

I have a different view on abortion as I believe the Roe v Wade decision was wrong. The Constitution does not give a right to an abortion so that means the issue should be decided by the states. I have always believed that it was a state’s right issue and should have been left at that level.

However, Obama’s idea of having abortions but making them rare inspired me with regard to another issue that liberals take a strong stand on. That is the issue of the death penalty. Liberals want to abolish the death penalty.

Using the Obama logic with abortion we should change the debate on the death penalty from abolishing it to leaving it as an option for each state (or a state’s choice, if you will) and make them rare. Since we already have other alternatives such as life or life without parole the same criteria Obama has for abortion already exists for the death penalty.

This should end the debate on this issue and the liberals should stop trying to abolish the death penalty because Obama has told us to find common ground and this is common ground that meets the exact same requirements he set forth for abortion.

I know that some folks will not agree. My liberal friend Adam, who comments here, is always worried about an innocent person being put to death. Yes, DNA has exonerated people but it is rare that an innocent person is put to death though I am sure it has happened. However, in order to follow the Obama logic with regard to abortion, we have to be willing to accept that an innocent might accidentally be put to death.

You see, each time an abortion is performed an innocent person IS put to death. There was no trial, there was no jury, and they did nothing wrong and yet they are murdered. Obama is willing to accept a low number of innocent people being put to death in order to keep abortion as a woman’s choice.

Therefore, we should accept a low rate (much lower than that of abortion) of innocent people being put to death after a trial in order to keep that penalty in place.

Adam commented that even if it cost more money to keep people alive he considered it a good expenditure of his tax dollars if it prevented an innocent person from being killed.

That is perfect for abortion. Even if it cost the mother and father more money it is worth it to prevent an innocent person from being murdered.

And every abortion is the murder of an innocent life.

I am glad Obama inspired me with his speech. I am sure the liberals are now happy that the death penalty issue has been cleared up.

Big Dog

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Looking At Presidential Pardons

Presidents have the authority, under the Constitution, to grant pardons and their decision to do so is absolute so no one can overturn them. Clinton pardoned a number of people and in the flurry of activity during his last day in office he granted a pardon to Marc Rich. That was a bought and paid for pardon but it cannot be overturned. Charges could have been brought against Clinton if it could be proven that he was paid for the pardon. Clinton also pardoned members of the FALN, a violent Puerto Rican nationalist group. One of Obama’s nominees had a little something to do with the Clinton pardons

President Bush has been stingy with the pardon pen and has issued about half of those Reagan or Clinton issued. This past week President Bush issued pardons or sentence commutations to 16 people. Some of them are for people who were involved in drugs (either smuggling or using) and others were for a variety of crimes, none of them appear to be for people who committed violent crimes. There are two pardons that are missing and should have been made a long time ago.

Border agents Compean and Ramos, who were convicted of shooting a drug smuggler, still sit in jail while Bush pardons drug smugglers and users. These two border patrol agents were doing their jobs and shot the man in the line of duty and they ended up in jail while the US government granted immunity to the smuggler so he could testify (and we paid for his medical treatment).

The idea that two men who risked their lives in an attempt to keep our borders secure and our country free from the drugs that are smuggled in could end up in jail is mind boggling. What is even more a miscarriage of justice is that the president has yet to right this wrong by pardoning these men and returning them to their families where they belong. We need more of these kinds of people guarding our borders because God knows the Congress has no intention of doing it. The only mistake these two made was they did not kill the guy when they shot him. Then there would only be one story to worry about.

George Bush needs to pardon these men right away.

There are folks who have requested pardons or to have their sentences reduced. Two prominent ones are Randy Cunningham, a Republican California Congressman and Edwin W. Edwards, former Democratic Governor of Louisiana. Both were sent to jail after being convicted for corruption while in office.

These are two people who should not receive a pardon or shortened sentences. They used their office for personal gain and they violated the public trust. What they did is inexcusable and they should have to serve every day of their respective sentences. Every politician who is convicted of corruption should be put away for a very long time as a deterrent to others in office.

What kind of country is this where politicians who abused their offices expect to get pardoned while border guards who actually did their jobs are ignored?

There is also concern that Bush will issue a blanket pardon to everyone associated with him so that they cannot be prosecuted when the Democrats start their witch hunt. I have no problem with this. The Democrats have no reason to go after people and only want to try and dig up any little thing in order to embarrass the president and those who worked for him.

We can’t get these idiots to work full time as it is so they need to focus on the important things. If Bush issues the blanket pardon it will take away the distraction and allow the Democrats to work on more pressing issues.

But, if they go after Bush and those who worked for him they should keep in mind that they will not always be in power. Pay back can be a son of a gun.

Source:
Times Online UK

Big Dog

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Obama and Insults to Muslim Americans

Barack Obama has stated that the cover of the New Yorker in which he is shown in Muslim garb, is insulting to American Muslims. Apparently, the scorn he took for crying about the cover has caused him to acknowledge the First Amendment and to indicate that he has seen worse. Now I guess his position is that the entire incident was insulting to Muslims:

These fallacious e-mails and The New Yorker cartoon are “actually an insult against Muslim Americans,” he said. There are “wonderful Muslim Americans” across the country, Obama said, and “for this to be used as sort of an insult, or to raise suspicions about me, I think is unfortunate.”

“It’s not what America’s all about,” he said. NY Daily News

Why would it raise suspicions if the Muslims are wonderful? I am sure there are many wonderful Muslim Americans. I have met many who are good people but I can’t figure out how being compared to a Muslim raises a suspicion (as if it is a bad thing) when they are good.

The real insult to the Muslim community is from Obama himself. Barack Obama has held 13 events in the state of Michigan and has never visited a Mosque or met with Muslims leaders, according to a piece at Bloomberg.com. Couple this with the recent incident where his staff made several Muslim women (dressed in traditional Muslim garb) move out of a photo with him and it appears as if Obama is avoiding the Muslim community.

I am sure he is doing this in order to keep further rumors from flying but avoiding difficult situations or ones that are politically dangerous is not very presidential. The idea is that the Muslim community is going to support him anyway so why pander to them and take the chance of fanning the flames in the rumor mill.

Obama claims to be a new kind of politician and he says he wants to bring us all together but his treatment of the Muslim community shows him to be a typical calculating politician who avoids controversy in the name of political expedience. His avoidance of a potentially difficult scenario reminds me of his “present” votes.

Obama might want us to believe he is taking the moral high round but his treatment of the Muslim community is the real insult in all of this.

Big Dog