John McCain is the man.

1st. John McCain is an American Hero

John McCain graduated from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. He became what is called an unrestricted officer of the line, who specialized in naval attack aircraft. He was stationed on the USS Enterprise and the USS Intrepid. He served on alerty duty during the Cuban Missle Crisis and the American blockade. Just as US involvement in Vietnam started, he requested a combat assignment. He served in Vietnam on the USS Forrestal and flew attack missions against North Vietnamese combat forces and fostered a reputation as a serious naval combat aviator. He also was present at the "USS Forrest Fire" incident when a Zuni naval rocket struck McCain's Skyhawk causing a huge fire and damage to the ship and McCain saved the life of one of his comrades, despite a bomb from his aircraft going off striking him in the chest. By October of 1967, he had flown a total of 22 combat missions. On October 26, 1967 he took part in a major raid against North Vietnam, but was shot down over Hanoi. He nearly drowned in a lake, where he was fished out and nearly beaten to death. They gave him marginal medical attention. He lost 50 pounds, his hair turned white and he was in a chest cast. His fellow cell mates (including Bud Day, a medal of honor recipient) didn't think he'd last the week. He remained in solitary confinement for two years. Because his father was a famous American admiral, they tried releasing him for propaganda, but he refused until all of his men were released. In August of 1968, they began torturing him and beating him. To this day he cannot raise his arms above his head. During his time in the infamous Hanoi Hilton, he refused to meet anti-war activists. Altogether he spent five and a half years as a prisoner of war. He underwent nine months of painful physical therapy and began to fly again, despite concerns from doctors. He then became Executive Officer and then Commanding Officer of the VA-174 Hellrazors, the East Coast A-7 Corsair II Navy training squadron stationed at Naval Air Station Cecil Field outside Jacksonville in Florida and the largest attack squadron in the Navy. McCain's leadership abilities were credited with turning around a mediocre unit, improving its aircraft readiness and pilot safety metrics and winning the squadron its first Meritorious Unit Commendation. He attained the rank of Captain, one before admiral, and was awarded with the Silver Star, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal, the Purple Heart and the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Huckabee on the other hand has not served in the US military at any time.

2nd. McCain has extensive military experience and knowledge.

In a time of global war, we must have a commander-in-chief, who has experience. McCain, as seen above, has attained an extremely high rank in the US Navy, served in several combat missions, has been awarded with several military honors, served as a POW for five years, lead combat squadrons and studied at the US Naval Academy and the National War College. He is no chicken hawk.

As mentioned before, Huckabee has no military experience or national security experience as governor or preacher.

3rd. McCain stands against political corruption.

Though at first, while a junior senator, he was involved with the Keating Five S&L Scandal, he paid back the money before it was investigated and was found innocent by the Senate Ethics Committee. "The appearance of it was wrong. It's a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators, because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do." Since then he has opposed several acts he believed to swindle the American people and campaigned against lobbyist politics, much the chargrin of some political leaders. He also led on the way on exposing the Abramoff Scandal.

Huckabee on the other hand, shortly before announcing his candidacy for the President of the United States, ordered that the drives of 83 computers and 4 servers be erased during his transition phase in leaving office. According to Claire Bailey, director of the Arkansas Department of Information Systems, the governor’s office chose a combination of writing over the data and destroying the hard drives. Early in Huckabee's term as governor, documents, e-mails and memos stored on hard drives just like the ones that were destroyed formed the basis of embarrassing stories about Huckabee, including a 1998 story in the Arkansas Times detailing how Huckabee and his family were using the $60,000-a-year Governor's Mansion fund as their personal piggy bank.

4th. McCain is a Proven Leader and Refomer.

In addition to be a senior US Naval officer and leading large combat squadrons, he also served on the Committe of Interior Affairs, the Select Committee on Aging, and the Select Republican Task Force on Indian Affairs, all as a freshmen Congressman. As a Senator he served on the Armed Forces Committee (who better?), the Commerce Committee, and the Indian Affairs Committee. During the nomination for President George H. W. Bush, he was seen as a possible VP to Bush and was head of the Veterans for Bush organization. He then served on the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs (once again, who better?). He also worked with Democrats to get them to compromise on their filibuster in 2005 and has experience working with bipartisans to get the job done. During the 2000 election he narrowly lost to President George W. Bush, but went on to campaign for Bush in 00 and again in 04. He has won large newspaper nominations from promient Iowa and New Hampshire newspapers.

Huckabee, on the other hand, barely won the special election for liuetenant governor, which he was from 1993-1995. In 96 he ran for Senate again, earlier he had lost in 92, this time winning the Republican nomination, but he left the nomination to fill in as the governor of Arkansas for the disgraced Tucker. He has virtually no foreign policy or federal experience.

5th. McCain is a proven Conservative.

McCain has been a life-long Republican and received a very high 82% rating from the Amerian Conservative Union and received a 100% rating from the Cato Institute on free trade. He has stood for private social security accounts, opposition to socialized health care, supporting school vouchers, supporting the death penalty, supporting mandatory sentencing, and supporting welfare reform. He has stood for American interests in the world, by standing for the Iraq War, and stood in opposition to Iran's participation in the 2006 World Cup for their President's anti-Semetic remarks. He also stood in support for Israel's attack on Islamic terrorists in southern Lebanon. Also he has been one of the Senate's biggest opponents of pork barrel spending, and opposes the ethanol special interest in Iowa for demanding tax payer money. He also received a 0% rating from the pro-abortion NARAL group and receives a high 83% from the Christian Coalition and supports intelligent design in schools.

Huckabee, while socially conservative, is hardly a conservative in general. He has supported conservation taxes, and increased state spending 65.3 percent from 1996 to 2004. During his tenure, the number of state government workers in Arkansas increased over 20 percent, and the state’s general obligation debt increased by approx. $1 billion. Most of the 94 tax cuts were small deductions initiated by the state legislature, whereas he has initiated five large tax increases forcing the Club for Growth to label him a liberal. He also has a lackluster record on free trade. Betsy Hagan, Arkansas director of the conservative Eagle Forum and a key backer of his early runs for office, was once "his No. 1 fan." She was bitterly disappointed with his record. "He was pro-life and pro-gun, but otherwise a liberal," she says. "Just like Bill Clinton he will charm you, but don't be surprised if he takes a completely different turn in office." Phyllis Schlafly, president of the national Eagle Forum, is even more blunt. "He destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas, and left the Republican Party a shambles."

6th. John McCain Does not tow the Party Line.

McCain holds onto his convictions despite the fact they may be unpopular at the time. He stood against corrupt campaign financing, and reached across the aisle to Senator Feingold to do so. He stands for responisble comprehensive immigration reform, despite some cries from within the GOP for harsher legislation. He also supported the administration's surge in Iraq earlier this year, despite that some Republicans began to abandon the war in Iraq because it was unpopular. He also criticized Donald Rumsfeld for not putting in enough troops.

Huckabee on the other hand, has virtually no experience in this matter. During his run for office in Arkansas, Dick Morris, his Democratic and former Clinton adviser, said that he had modified his campaign to appeal to more people in Arkansas.

In short, McCain is a proven hero, commander, leader, reformer, conservative and maverick. Huckabee is none of these things.

Huckaboom?

Hello readers,

As a Republican, I've been keeping up with the polls for the potential nominees. Though polls alone are hardly a completely reliable barometer of who will win (as we've seen before) it definitely reveals interesting things about the race.

• Clinton v. Republicans Polls
  To my shock and suprise, Clinton currently loses to most Republican contenders for the nomination.
  
  "But it was a poll published this week by Zogby International showing Mrs. Clinton losing to all major Republican candidates, including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, which hit a sensitive campaign nerve and sent Clinton pollsters into overdrive."
  
  http://www.zogby.com/Soundbites/ReadClips.dbm?ID=16154
  
  Seriously, this surprised me. A pleasant surprise, but a shocker nonetheless. I honestly hope this stays true, more specifically that this stays true and Clinton gets nominated (as in the same polls Obama and Edwards beat out all Republicans). But Clinton is a political beast and we'll see what happens. It's a year til the election or so.
• Huckabee Leading Polls
  Now we all have read the news on this. And despite everything Huckabee is currently taking the polls by storm.
  
  Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is surging nationally in the Republican presidential race as he runs better than 3-to-1 ahead of his nearest competitor among religious conservatives.
  
  http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/ac1p6fndykeo
  
  Now unlike other conservatives and Republicans, I am not going to be jumping on the Huckabee bandwagon. I don't know who I am supporting, but I know it will not be Gov. Mike Huckabee. I will give further reasons later, but mainly because he is too economically liberal and I doubt his experience.

In other non-related news, Venezuela's initiative to become a socialist state was defeated at the polls 51-49. Chavez is currently accepting them. While it is a nice temporary reprieve for the Bush administration, most likely he will win future polls. Also another little nugget of good news, that Brasilian government has found a huge oil field off their coast (Tupi Oil Field) which has anywhere from 5 billion to 8 billion barrels of oil. This puts the pro-American Brasil on the map and sidelines the anti-American Chavez at the moment. We'll see how things go.

--Brutus

Polygamy

If anyone's been watching the news recently, you might have caught this little tidbit.Warren Jeffs jailed for forcing girl to marryBy Catherine Elsworth in Los AngelesLast Updated: 8:54am GMT 21/11/2007Warren Jeffs, the polygamous sect leader, yesterday received the maximum sentence of five years to life in prison for forcing a teenage girl to marry her cousin.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/21/wjeffs121.xmlNow I find a few things about this interesting,

• First off, the sentence is pathetic. For aiding a rape one should be getting a lot more than a mere five years. But that's a different issue.
  
• Secondly, what place does marriage have in the law? I've been thinking about this for a time. Should the state ban polygamy, same-sex marriage, or any other similiar contract relationship? Part of me thinks that the federal government has no business in defining something like this and that at the very least we need to give this over to the states if not just to the individuals. The Constitution doesn't discuss gay marriage.
  
• Another part of me thinks however, that marriage is the bedrock of religious and civil society. Why must a state redefine what has been defined by government and religion for thousands of years? All research points to a breakdown of family, which in turn is a breakdown in society, when we redefine marriage.
  
• Fourthly, I find mainline Mormonism's reaction to illegal polygamy interesting. Gordon B. Hinkely, the LDS church's "prophet", says that he finds polygamy undoctrinal and wrong. The LDS authorities have condemned Jeffs polygamous practices. But let's look to prior Mormon leaders, who are still venerated in the LDS church, and compare them with Warren Jeffs.
  
  Jeffs: polygamous, ran from the law, arrested.
  
  Hinkley: monogamous, hasn't run from the law, hasn't been arrested.
  
  Smith: polygamous, has run from the law, has been arrested.
  
  Young: polygamous, has run from the law, has been arrested.
  
  I find this slightly amusing.

Opening Comments

My name is Brutus. I'm a libertarian Republican. Basically I started this because I wanted to get into the world of blogging and discussing current events, politics, religion and other such important things like the newest Dilbert comic.

Some Interesting Things About Me

• I think Marcus Brutus got a bad rap.
• I'm an Irish nationalist.
• I don't really find Paris Hilton attractive.
• I think material naturalism is overrated in colleges.
• I think institutionalized education is often a joke.

You'll learn more. For those of you who know me, enjoy. For those of you who don't, learn.

Pro Liberate Et Veritas