Freedom Act of 2005

[12th Doctor]

I suport this bill, for the most part.  I'm slightly concerned with some of the political ramifactions, esspecially dealing with the Chinese.

[12th Doctor]

I'm left with too many questions.  How do we determine the "list"?  How do we assure it's accuracy?  Who's opinion are we using on some of these countries?  I think policy should be left to the State Department, not some inflexable set of regulations.  The more I think about this bill, the less I like it.

[12th Doctor]

I'm left with too many questions.  How do we determine the "list"?

The Secretary of State determines it.

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If we approve a Secretary of State we trust, its accuracy should not be in question.

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The Secretary of State's opinion.

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Policy is being left with the Secretary of State.  We are just giving him and ourselves obligations as to who we give foreign aid too (and that they can't be non-free and non-democratic countries in the determination of the Secretary of State).

If the Secretary of State determines that a country should not be on the list, he will simply put it as being "free and democratic" instead of being "not free and democratic".

Essentially, we are giving the diplomats (and the Secretary of State) carte blanche over the determination of who we shouldn't give foreign aid to.  The Senate still has control over who we give foreign aid to.

This has nothing to with free trade or these types of things, it has to with foreign aid and foreign aid only.  If it was trade, I would be against it also.

Sorry, I guess I should have given this more than just a quick glance.  It's been a long week.

[12th Doctor]

This will almost certainly end food aid to North Korea and Zimbabwe.  You can decide for yourselves if that's good or bad, and I'll keep my own view to myself as GM, but you should know that its almost certain that this bill will indirectly change policy towards those two very controversial nations.

Hmmmm... good point.  I found a new reason to oppose this.  We can;t let millions stare to death simply because it suits us.

[12th Doctor]

This will almost certainly end food aid to North Korea and Zimbabwe.  You can decide for yourselves if that's good or bad, and I'll keep my own view to myself as GM, but you should know that its almost certain that this bill will indirectly change policy towards those two very controversial nations.

We'll see how the situation with Mugabe and Kim changes when their people are starving.  Either they lash out and are destroyed or they collapse.

Or, they will let their people stave to death in the millions, especially in North Korea where the government has tight control on everything.

Worst case senerio, Kim sees the end is near and launches a nuclear warhead on Japan, or South Korea or Tiawan or Australia or even the US... with the promise of launching more if we do not resume aid.

What does it matter that we can bomb his ass into the ground, millions of people on our side will be dead.  Do you people think before you say things?

[12th Doctor]

Acctually, since I don't consider the North Korean peopel to be the enemy, probably tens-of-millions of people on our side will be killed.

[12th Doctor]

Even if this does work "as planned" it will have disasterous diplomatic consquences for our country.  The world and the people in these countries will crucify us for not only allowing to happen, but acctually advocating mass starvation as a foriegn affairs strategy and rightfully so. 

This legislation is not dangerous, but down right evil in its conception.  It would take a truely heartless, twisted person to acctually advocate going through with the provisions of this bill if it were passed.

I strongly urge all my fellow Senators to vote "Nay" on this.

[12th Doctor]

We'll see how the situation with Mugabe and Kim changes when their people are starving.  Either they lash out and are destroyed or they collapse.

Worst case senerio, Kim sees the end is near and launches a nuclear warhead on Japan, or South Korea or Tiawan or Australia or even the US... with the promise of launching more if we do not resume aid.

What does it matter that we can bomb his ass into the ground, millions of people on our side will be dead.  Do you people think before you say things?

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First, Kim has very little chance of successfully attacking Japan with a weapon, and can actually cause more damage to Seoul if he attacks it with a mass artillery barage than a nuke.  Second, he cannot attack the US, Taiwan, Australia, or any other country other than Japan or South Korea with a nuclear weapon as he has only short range missles and some crappy fighter bombers. His chances of successfully attacking Japan is low due to Japanese missle defenses.  

You are right about Seoul, but woefully misinformed about N. Korea's missile capability.  They just tested a missile about a year back that could, in theory, hit the US

[12th Doctor]

If they could mate a nuclear warhead on it.  They cannot.

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20030908-115609-6505r.htm

[12th Doctor]

It really is not very hard to mount a nuclear warhead.  The ones they make now are far smaller than the old ones.  Also, it only takes one bomb to do serious damage.  True, they cannot mount an enormous "City Buster" that is acctually comprised of 5 or 6 warheads, but just because that is the modern standard does not mean that that is what they have to do.

[12th Doctor]

This legislation is not dangerous, but down right evil in its conception.  It would take a truely heartless, twisted person to acctually advocate going through with the provisions of this bill if it were passed.

Superb.  I'm going to have to put that in my new quotables section as to things that I would like to be called. 

Well, it would certainly appear to be the truth.

[12th Doctor]

If they could mate a nuclear warhead on it.  They cannot.

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20030908-115609-6505r.htm

The Taepo-Dong 2 (range as quoted - 2300Km) can carry a payload of several hundred pounds, barely enough for a nuclear warhead.

The Taepo-Dong X (range as quoted - 3400Km) can carry an unspecified payload, the problem is, neither of these missles have the range to attack the US proper, and I very much doubt their effectiveness and whether warheads are mounted on them and whether they have the numbers they'll needs to assure success.

What the Hell are you talking about.  The article says that both have the capacity to hit the west coast of the US.  And even if they can't, they can certainly hit other places.

As I said before, a single warhead wieghs far less than the old bombs carried by the B-52's.  One war head will wiegh only about 200-300 lbs.

[12th Doctor]

Caulder Consultancies is available to analyze a best case worst case and middle case scenario for this bill, since there is dispute as to its effect, and people's votes seem to ride on what the effect would be.  Results, as this is a national security document, will be restricted only to Senators or executive branch persons who request it.

I would like to request a copy if I may, John.

[12th Doctor]

If they could mate a nuclear warhead on it.  They cannot.

http://washingtontimes.com/national/20030908-115609-6505r.htm

The Taepo-Dong 2 (range as quoted - 2300Km) can carry a payload of several hundred pounds, barely enough for a nuclear warhead.

The Taepo-Dong X (range as quoted - 3400Km) can carry an unspecified payload, the problem is, neither of these missles have the range to attack the US proper, and I very much doubt their effectiveness and whether warheads are mounted on them and whether they have the numbers they'll needs to assure success.

What the Hell are you talking about.  The article says that both have the capacity to hit the west coast of the US.  And even if they can't, they can certainly hit other places.

As I said before, a single warhead wieghs far less than the old bombs carried by the B-52's.  One war head will wiegh only about 200-300 lbs.

The article gives ranges for both, 2300 Km and 3400 Km.  Distances from Korea to the US are in the 6000 Miles range.

First off, what does it matter, if they can hit our allies or if they can hit us.  It is all the same.  I don't know about you, but I don't want a warhead to hit Tokyo any more than I want one to hit Seattle.

Second:

" North Korea is expected to display as early as today one or two new long-range missiles, including a system capable of hitting the Western United States, U.S. officials said yesterday."

"The first official said the new "Taepo Dong X" is estimated by intelligence analysts to have enough range to land a warhead on Hawaii, Alaska, California and "most of the West Coast." "

[12th Doctor]

Even if that was true, and one article doesn't make it so (proven by Iraq WMDs), those ranges make it extremely unlikely that a successfull attack could be mounted.  Warhead failure, missle failure, bad targeting, bad ranging, malfunction, etc, make this scenario barely feasible at best.

As far as whether Kim would launch an attack, either on us or our allies, is up in the air. He knows it means certain destruction when we retaliate and he knows that if he survives, he will have no power our will be in a US prison just like Saddam.

You don't know what it means to be truely desperate, do you?

Ragardless, what I am hearing is that you would rather error on the side of miilions dead than error on the side of caution.  This was not just one article, it was reported by several news agencies and the missiles that they are talking about have been confirmed as existing.

[12th Doctor]

Nay

[12th Doctor]

Hmmm...  This bill has now been defeated. 

It is too bad to see that the Senate refuses to stand up for democracy around the world and for the freedom of others not as fortunate as we in Atlasia.

I think that it is a shame that you could not see the inherent weaknesses in this proposal and rather than agknowledging that you could make some changes, you choose to lash out and make claims that you know to be false.  You will notice that you did not propose a single ammendment to make this more palatable.

[12th Doctor]

No one suggested any amendments or anything to me. 

That doesn't matter.  You will notice that during the discussions of the "Unwed Mothers Bills" I acctually porposed amendments to the bill based of of others often unhelpful and scathing suggestions.

[12th Doctor]

No one suggested any amendments or anything to me. 

That doesn't matter.  You will notice that during the discussions of the "Unwed Mothers Bills" I acctually porposed amendments to the bill based of of others often unhelpful and scathing suggestions.

Yes, and after the rejection of the bill by the SC, you refused to fix the rather simple things that needed to be fixed on that bill in order to make it constitutionally valid. (such as federal control over regional jurisdiction, etc.)

My opinion is to just let this bill live or die in its present form, which I have done.

No.  The ruling was that the only clause that was at all valid was clause VI, because the Constitution did not give specific permission to do the things the bill perscribed.  Those were not "simple revisions".  The bill did not work without them.  So, I decided to wait it out until we had a new Constitution.  Unfortunatly, I was let down once again.  So, I will propose an ammendment to the new constitution the second it is signed.