Defense Policy

[Tidewater_Wave]

Homeland Security Reform:

1. Bring FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security funding back to levels of Bush/Cheney era.
2. Maintain heightened security levels at airports to prevent attacks from terrorists.
3. Take all threats and warnings into account even if thought to be irrelevant.
4. Prevent CIA from tapping into phone conversations without a warrant.
5. Non-citizens do not have constitutional rights as they only apply to legal citizens.
6. Checking into borrowed library books goes too far and is an unnecessary expense.
7. Require FBI and CIA to share intelligence with each other and with administration.
8. What happened to the Terror Alert Chart?

Military Benefits Bill:

1. Allow gays and women to serve in the military.
2. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell sounds silly but it works.
3. 5% pay raises for all military members.
4. Extend education and healthcare benefits for those serving our military.
5. No guaranteed length of deployment.
6. When a general asks for more troops, you send more troops.

Mexican Border and Immigration Policy:

1. Immigrants are God’s children too whether legal or illegal.
2. Expand Guest Worker Program for working immigrants.
3. Patrol border, but do not stop immigrants from moving here.
4. Fund more toward teaching English to immigrants who are insufficient in English.
5. Many tribal languages were here before English, so no national language.
6. Automatic citizenship upon marriage, having a child in, or being born in the United States.
7. It is fundamental that we do not separate families by deporting for illegal immigration.
8. By accepting lower wages, immigrants can drive down demands and increase competition.
9. Rounding up and deporting 20,000,000 illegal immigrants is unrealistic.
10. Allow states to determine which languages their ballots are in.

NASA:

1. NASA used to be a cornerstone of American supremacy.
2. Finding fossils on other planets is a key to future scientific research.
3. Encourage nations to join in on a team effort to explore outer space.
4. Use money saved from closing overseas military bases to increase funding for NASA.

[John Dibble]

1. Allow gays and women to serve in the military.
2. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell sounds silly but it works.

These two are in blatant conflict with one another and no it doesn't. Don't Ask, Don't Tell has cost us tons of money and many competent people.

[Tidewater_Wave]

1. Allow gays and women to serve in the military.
2. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell sounds silly but it works.

These two are in blatant conflict with one another and no it doesn't. Don't Ask, Don't Tell has cost us tons of money and many competent people.

Do you support women and gays being allowed to serve in the military? What I meant is to let gays serve through "Don't ask, don't tell." As for the role of women, we should leave it up to the generals on the ground.

[John Dibble]

1. Allow gays and women to serve in the military.
2. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell sounds silly but it works.

These two are in blatant conflict with one another and no it doesn't. Don't Ask, Don't Tell has cost us tons of money and many competent people.

Do you support women and gays being allowed to serve in the military? What I meant is to let gays serve through "Don't ask, don't tell." As for the role of women, we should leave it up to the generals on the ground.

I support letting gays and women serve in the military but Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a policy that basically says you can't be gay and in the military. It is discriminatory. It discourages them from joining, and ends up getting them kicked out if they come out or are outed. It's also a double standard - if someone is openly straight they won't get kicked out for it. There is absolutely no good reason to say someone can't be open about their sexual orientation and serve in our military so long as they are able to maintain a state of professionalism while they are doing the job.

[Tidewater_Wave]

1. Allow gays and women to serve in the military.
2. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell sounds silly but it works.

These two are in blatant conflict with one another and no it doesn't. Don't Ask, Don't Tell has cost us tons of money and many competent people.

Do you support women and gays being allowed to serve in the military? What I meant is to let gays serve through "Don't ask, don't tell." As for the role of women, we should leave it up to the generals on the ground.

I support letting gays and women serve in the military but Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a policy that basically says you can't be gay and in the military. It is discriminatory. It discourages them from joining, and ends up getting them kicked out if they come out or are outed. It's also a double standard - if someone is openly straight they won't get kicked out for it. There is absolutely no good reason to say someone can't be open about their sexual orientation and serve in our military so long as they are able to maintain a state of professionalism while they are doing the job.

Again I see what you're saying. It happened in the armies of ancient Greece and would happen now. I see it also as being a distraction in several ways. I'd be interested to hear the generals' response to this. I don't mind agreeing to disagree either.

[John Dibble]

Again I see what you're saying. It happened in the armies of ancient Greece and would happen now.

What happened? The Greek armies were historically very effective. Hell, one army had a group of gay couples as the core of their army and were very effective for about a generation, and the guy who eventually defeated them (Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great) was so impressed with them he erected a monument on their gravesite.

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Such as?

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Considering that generals can be influenced by bigotry like anyone else, I'm not particularly caring what they think. Unless they have some data to back up their opinions, it isn't really a worthwhile thing to ask them.

[Tidewater_Wave]

Again I see what you're saying. It happened in the armies of ancient Greece and would happen now.

What happened? The Greek armies were historically very effective. Hell, one army had a group of gay couples as the core of their army and were very effective for about a generation, and the guy who eventually defeated them (Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great) was so impressed with them he erected a monument on their gravesite.

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Such as?

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Considering that generals can be influenced by bigotry like anyone else, I'm not particularly caring what they think. Unless they have some data to back up their opinions, it isn't really a worthwhile thing to ask them.

1. Yes I was affirming that it was positive for the Greeks.
2. Sexuality is a distraction in general.
3. I'm not going to dispute generals and the men on the ground about war what does and doesn't work with the military. They don't have opinions as much as they have experience in what goes on.

We actually agree more than we disagree here. The Greeks had one of the best armies during the Hellenic era. Other than gays in the military, what are your thoughts on defense?

[Pheurton Skeurto]

1. Bring FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security funding back to levels of Bush/Cheney era.
7. Require FBI and CIA to share intelligence with each other and with administration.
8. What happened to the Terror Alert Chart?

2. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell sounds silly but it works.

1. Immigrants are God’s children too whether legal or illegal.
6. Automatic citizenship upon marriage, having a child in, or being born in the United States.

2. Finding fossils on other planets is a key to future scientific research.

Are you kidding me?

[John Dibble]

1. Yes I was affirming that it was positive for the Greeks.

So if them serving openly wasn't a drawback for the Greeks how exactly does that make it a reason to back a measure that says they can't serve openly? Your logic here seems bass ackwards.

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Which is only a problem if they can't be disciplined enough to not do sexual stuff while on the job. Are you saying that homosexuals aren't capable of being professional unless they are in the closet?

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If you think generals aren't affected by petty personal prejudices you are just naive. This goes beyond mere battlefield experience as they can be influenced by things such as their religious beliefs. Therefore their opinion isn't enough - they have to have data to back up their objections. Right now the data we have indicates that Don't Ask, Don't Tell costs us valuable resources.

To give another example, it used to be that if you polled the generals many of them would have thought it a bad idea to have black people as soldiers, pilots, etc. The actual facts proved them wrong.

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Primarily I believe we need a higher reliance on special operations forces for anti-terrorist efforts. Occupying a country is costly in more ways than one and the American people can only tolerate it for so long, which means insurgents only have to play a waiting game and not lose. Better to go in, kill/capture the bad guys, and then leave whenever that's possible.

In regards to our war in Afghanistan, our current approach isn't good enough. I've started reading the paper One Tribe at a Time and so far I think that would be a good strategy.

[Tidewater_Wave]

I agree with going in and getting out. As president, I can't see myself invading Iraq but would've definitely gotten rid of Saddam Hussein and his regime by other means. One tribe at a time sounds good but I haven't read the book. It sounds workable depending on how it's done. Also, I'd like to clarify that by sharing intelligence, I meant with each other, not with the public obviously.