Bush is back!

I think the difference comes down to this. When punched, Americans punch back, harder. Europeans take another punch and ask what they did to deserve the first one.As to the Bush election heralding a new Dark Age - get a grip.Europeans, you are indeed entering a new Dark Age, but it is of your own making. With birthrates well below replacement levels and high Muslim immigration, by 2200, if present trends continue (always a big if), the terms English, French, Belgian, will join the terms Scythian , Hittite, and Cimmerian as names of vanished peoples in history texts. Given the 11 for 11 success of state referendums against gay marriage, I suspect that issue has been fairly decisively rejected.
On civil unions I do not suspect they will be interfered with in states that wish to enact them.Embryonic stem cell research is almost a memetic delusion among Democrats. I've yet to see a credible scientist (not a student, a scientist, with published journal articles) , on this board or anywhere else, declare the inevitability of utility of this research with the fervor that Democrat politicians do.In any case there is not a restriction on private funding of this research, nor will there be.Republican economics is relatively unconcerned with deficits and will remain so, so long as they are not an onerous percentage of GNP, as is the case. The Republican Party is not monolithic on social issues. A committment to free market economics and a foreign policy emphasizing strength and soverignty are the common threads. Many Republicans (including myself) are socially more moderate than W. This is the chief divide between Democrat views on the terror war and Republican. We see the war as global and against a more general Islamic fascism, not isolated to Al-Qaeda. We are equally at war with all other Islamic terroist groups, and state sponsors, at varying levels depending on the strategic and tactical situation.Democrats see this as "Bust OBL and go home". We see it as much larger than that.

I'll try to address some of your points and return to others later. Again, your view is predicated on the debatable point that 9/11 should be viewed in isolation, and counterattacking the perpetrators of it is sufficient.Iraq, as I have said, could be seen as a front on a more general war on fascist and fundamentalist Islamic elements throughout the Middle East. The objective not being simply the elimination of the Hussein regime, but drawing other terrorist elements into combat on terms tactically advantageous to coalition forces, and forcing Iran, Syria etc to expend resources supporting the proxy conflict. In addition, establishing a model of a functioning democracy in the Arab world.A loose analogy is the "soft underbelly strategy" of Western Allied forcers in WW2 of invading Vichy French territories and Italy before
the main push on occupied France and Germany.Whether this is a sound strategy, is certainly subject to debate. Your wholesale rejection of it needs to be warranted by much further evidence. I'm unprepared to accept it as received opinion, as you invite me to. I know. This particular comment was more general, directed at some of the more heated posters. Possibly I should have split posts. My apologies for the confusion. As these societies are increasingly vibrant free market socities, and the US has immigrants from both, I expect US foreign policy will evolve toward engaging China and India as partners on many economic and cultural issues, as well as Latin America, while in turn de-emphasizing Western Europe. No doubt. But this day is much further off, given present demographic trends ,than what looks like an imminent decline of Western Europe (again I should have been more specific...I see Poland as potentially a nation on the rise). Granted neither was an out and out socialist, but otherwise debatable. Edwards in particular advanced a protectionist agenda, and IMO, Kerry simply could not escape a 30-year record of weakness on defense and intelligence issues. Where are the Jerry Falwell Martyr Brigades ? Has Pat Robertson been issuing fatwas ? Do you worry that the tract-handling "let me tell you about Jesus" types are wearing suicide belts ? Has Fred Phelps graduated to kidnapping and beheading ?Christian fundamentalist terror is limited to a few very small fringe groups like the Eric Rudolph types, manageable by conventional law enforcement.Being a Catholic who accepts evolution, I certainly have issues for instance, with trying to get YEC taught in public schools. And so do millions like me, which is why I reject another poster's analogy of the US as being like Khomeini's Iran simply because Bush was re-elected. I hope this is hyperbole born of emotion.Parting thought: If Kerry had done a Sister Souljah type speech denouncing the Michael Moore wing of the party, he might have won. But it was politically impossible for him to have done so and win the nomination. Look what happened to Gephardt and Lieberman.AS it is, the Democratic Party IMO is going to have to become more centrist, or be out of power for a generation. YMMV.

I'm not sure whether to bow in awe of your prescience...or snicker in mockery of your overweening arrogance. But since you've opened the bidding on snickering, I'll up the ante and choose the latter. Perhaps it's comforting for you to think so. These are my own views, expressed in my own language. I'm sorry if they read like press releases from Rumsfeld's office to you...it's my style of writing. To a degree, but as you acknowledged, they did support terrorist groups that targetted Israel. Again, it's debatable whether these are or are not a matter of US concern. IMO they are. Correct, and a strategic error in retrospect. There have been bipartisan strategic errors in dealing with the Middle East for a generation. Neither one of us, I suspect, is a professional on this issue. I don't find your critique compelling, however. And professionals (e.g. GEN Franks vs GEN Clark) can and do differ sharply on what the correct tactics to apply are. In many cases, this can only be known after the fact. If I am not mistaken the British established a monarchy with an imported Hashemite king, not a democracy. In any case, is your argument really "the British tried and failed, therefore it is impossible" ?The British and French attempted to establish democracy in Germany after WW1 (Weimar Republic) and failed. The post WW2 attempt was more successful so far. Granted, in both the case of Iraq and Germany the argument is more complex. The key question is, is it startegically sound to try ? Unanswered to date, IMO. I don't think I said that. Certainly, the US will evolve, as will China and India. The US is in much better demographic shape than Europe,and US immigrants show indications of assimilation, as well as shaping US culture, as has always been the case.Europe's Muslim immigrants, OTOH are largely unassimilated, alienated, and angry. This is as much a fault of the Europeans as of the immigrants, but it is a situation that must be dealt with soon.A situation in which Sharia is the price of a young Muslim majority supporting the high taxes needed to maintain the entitlements of an aging European minority is not far-fetched somewhere by the end of this century...as always, if present trends continue. Or Europeans may start having kids again. Or there may be a revival of anti-immigrant violent fascism somewhere. Demographics (correct me if I am wrong but Poland's native birth rate is close to replacement level) and a good transition to a free market economy. If I'm wrong, refute me with something more robust than citing how well travelled you are. It is possible to live in a foreign country for years, and learn nothing about it. I see it in many Europeans I know here. Not at all. Euro-style green socialism, as symbolized and advocated by Moore, is deeply, deeply unpopular in the US, and has essentially zero chance of ever being enacted democratically. Yet it is this wing of the Democrats that has dominated its agenda.The Democrats brought out their whole arsenal...big media, academia, the literati, and relentless negativity...and got clobbered at the polls. I see the Congressional gains as exceeding Bush's re-election in significance.Bush got 42% of Hispanic vote, and this is why the Democrats must falsely portray the Republicans as racist. If the Republicans could poll 42% of the black vote...the Democrats are finished as a major party. I'm not "requiring" anything. Not do I think Bush has been mistake-free. But on the larger issue of the scope and strategy of the war on terror, IMO, Bush gets it, and Kerry did not get it. IMO. OK ?

The primal scream of a Western Zen dilettante off their medication.
Something like Howard Dean after Iowa...but alone.Sorry, couldn't resist.

Well, you and many won't want to hear this, but gay marriage. 11 for 11 on referenda rejecting it, and in both red and blue states.I know some will be tempted to view everyone who voted for these as Fred Phelps. But that's untrue, and a mistake. Many would see some sort of civil union arrangement, on a state basis, as a reasonable compromise, but are deeply concerned about having such a massive social change imposed on a timetable and form determined by judicial fiat.

It's not the people. It's the lifestyle. Like it or not, a solid majority of Americans see the gay lifestyle as voluntary, unnatural, and morally problematic.On the other hand, a solid majority also don't care much what adults do in the privacy of their homes, as long as they are not asked to cheer it on or subsidize it. Nor do they wish to deny anyone the right to work, live anywhere, keep and bear arms, etc. on the basis of such private adult conduct.There is a distinction between tolerance and enthusiastic approval. Learn it.

Ah yes, the tolerant Left.

No, I don't. I find that stuff repugnant. I have never advocated it, here or anywhere else, and I blackly resent both the insinuation, and what I regard as perilously close to a personal threat.I think it is far past time for the administrators to step in here.

Apparently a few higher than you are. I'm pointing out the political realities. Your side hasn't made its case, or you'd get more votes. Get to work making a better case.

Read the quote again, several times if necessary. My personal views are irrelevant, and not being discussed.11 out of 11 anti-gay marriage referenda passed by overwhelming margins. To dismiss the attitudes of the voters that voted in favor of these initiatives as "stupid" is beside the point. Clearly, you haven't made your case in sufficiently persuasive fashion to get such referenda defeated.Refusing to engage an argument and just shouting "You're stupid" really is elementary school behavior.I think I'm done with this board.