"Inherit the Wind" is another great movie i have watched lately. The summary is Teacher B.T. Cates is arrested for teaching Darwin's theories. Famous lawyer Henry Drummond defends him; fundamentalist politician Matthew Brady prosecutes. This is a very thinly disguised rendition of the 1925 "Scopes monkey trial" with debates between Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan taken largely from the transcripts.
I have written a letter to the editor at our Holland Sentinel to respond to a conservative viewpoint on Obama and his administration. Here is the link to the first letter which i think is an unjustified angry rant further pushing people apart and painting conservative views in a bad light.
Here is my response hopefully to be in the paper soon.
A Conservative response to Thomas Dunkelbergers letter
Whether or not you agree with Obama on the executive orders he has issued regarding gitmo and the detention of terrorists, you should acknowledge he is enacting the change he campaigned and was elected on. Does closing Gitmo in anyway threaten American lives here or overseas and take away our greatness? No. Our greatness is determined by more than one action of any President and the prisoners will still be locked up somewhere else posing no threat.
Will cutting the F-22's budget of almost 2 billion next year put a dent in our defense budget or compromise American lives? No. Our military budget next year is around 700 billion dollars which is close to 10 times the budget of the next highest spending Chinese military. On fiscal responsibility, that we Conservatives trumpet on about needs to include our defense budget, and not just give it a free pass.
Did anything Obama do allow "Fort Hood" or the "Christmas" bomber to happen? No. Their evil actions were horrible. Blaming anything they have done on a lack of policy or action by the president is akin to blaming Bush for 9/11. The records show that his superiors dropped the ball on the Ft. Hood shooter and his failures leading up to the shooting were documented, but the need of counselors was so high they could not let him go.
Giving habeas corpus to the terrorists as well as spending any amount of money to defend them is something I have a hard time swallowing and would rather have them put through military trial. Though in giving them habeas corpus I will agree that we show a greater respect for life and justice than the enemy combatants ever would and public opinion does matter. If the world sees us as an honorable nation that treats POW's better than our enemies do and changes some perceptions I would not be too upset.
Will ending the don't ask, don't tell policy be detrimental to our troops in the field or at home? I don't know since I have no military background, but when the highest ranking officer in the Armed Forces Admiral Mike Mullen says it will not, I trust his experience and will concur.
I will end with a personal message to my Conservative Brethren. To truly affect our country we must find common ground with people across the aisle. We all want the same America, a land of opportunity and freedom but have different ideas on how to get to that place. Our current policy of making every single vote and bill a fight by drawing a line in the sand is detrimental because it is not only hurting our country, it is also hurting our cause and each one of us. Instead of sowing mistrust and lies we should be cultivating issues we agree on and find compromise. If after the next election things "Change" and we are in the majority again we will see how our attitude these four years will come back and haunt us.
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