Well, yeah. That was my point. Johnny doesn’t like McCain, partly because McCain isn’t crystal clear about his position on embryonic stem cells. Too much of a politician. So, my question to him is: is it OK when Obama does the same thing? If so, then he really can’t fault McCain.
Well, for all that he believes in states’ rights, he also believes in the federal government using its money and power to push those states into the direction he wants them.
From McCain’s website:
Bolding there was mine.
He’s not going to say “Ok, you states decide now just as it should be!” but wants to use federal resources to continue to outlaw abortion at the state level via private proxies. Not so much a return to Federalism as much as incremental attempts by the federal government to abolish the practice.
[OT]You Federalists, didn’t our misnamed Civil War tell you something about Federalism, maybe like it doesn’t work terribly well? When you have a loose organization that values its local parts more than its whole, and is unwilling or unable to look far enough ahead that they hoard resources for their own use rather than applying them where needed in the nation, you tend to lose in an extended conflict (in short term conflict, when overall enthusiasm is much higher and local threat level much lower, not so much). Plus, do you really think it’s a bad idea to have minimum national standards in things like schooling or pollution levels or medicine, which ultimately affect everyone in the country, if not the world?
I’m not trying to start an argument here or to derail the thread. We can open another thread about Federalism if you want. I’m just looking for a one or two paragraph summary of why people still find Federalism to be their prime political goal after all these years, because I find it incomprehensible. The idea of a fair amount of decision making being made at the local level, yes. The idea of the standards for many of those decisions making being determined at a national level strikes me as just fine.
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If you feel this is too off topic, please just say so, and I’ll open another thread, or you can just open a new thread yourself and I’ll join it as soon as I become aware of it and am able. I’m not trying to be disruptive.
No. I invite you to learn about your candidate on this issue. He first said it 2000. See, it became an issue in South Carolina when it came to light that he had voted (in 1992) for research on the use of fetal tissue in transplant. He spent the next 5 years swearing that it was a huge mistake. He was really, really sorry. He was so sorry that in 2000, 18 of the most hard-ass on-this-issue Senators signed letter a stating " Congress has banned federal funding for `research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed.’ …we support [this law]." Guess who was no.19? John “Guess my position” McCain.
It is true he has clarified/flopped back/changed (depending on your view) his position as he geared up for this race and after speaking to theologian and bioethicist Nancy Reagan. But in point of fact he spent the first half of the 2000’s being a big brass drum beater for Bush’s Stem cell policy. Believe me when I say : I wish that weren’t true.
Well, I think the all above on this subject in this thread demonstrates pretty convincingly that that is not true.
But for the sake of argument I will say you do. I congratulate you on your clairvoyance. I am not sure what his current position is – is it the one he held in 1992? 2000-2005ish? The one he held ~2005-2008ish or how about what he has on his website? Or when he told Brownback this summer that with Ol’ No Stem Cell Sam at his side he would re-look at it?
What it will be 2009-12? Well, reasonable people can disagree – but I think all of the above positions are reasonable guesses & reasonable people could make a case for any of them.
So, if we want “absolutely and completely wrong.” How about this:
Yikes.
A 1915-dated Lee-Enfield is unlikely to have come from Gallipoli; most of the troops who landed there were armed with earlier rifles.
Lawrence of Arabia’s SMLE was originally captured at Gallipoli and presented to Emir Faisal, who gave it to Lawrence; it’s a 1908 dated rifle. Most of the other SMLEs that have definite Gallipoli provenance are earlier than 1915- in fact, I think nearly all of them pre-date WWI itself. Remember, most of the soldiers at Gallipoli were either ANZACs (who had older rifles) or English soldiers who would have been issued whatever was in stores (new rifles were going to the Western Front as fast as they could make them).
Lawrence himself remarks that most of the rifles in the Gallipoli campaign were second-line (ie, old and worn) rifles even at the time, and were almost unserviceable by the time they were sent to Arabia to arm the guerrillas in the Arab Revolt (after being returned to the UK with the withdrawing ANZAC/British soldiers)
More likely, the rifle mentioned in the linked story ended up in the middle east in either the Post-WWI years or during WWII, when the British were dishing out SMLEs to any Arab/Mesopotamian tribe who wanted them, on the condition they were used to shoot at the Germans and not the British…
Sorry, that was probably more information than anyone really cares about, especially in an otherwise unrelated thread… Carry on. 