The Democratic Party fights for Jewish values.

My apologies for missing the response deadline; this week I took final exams. Let me begin my response with this statement: I respect those who disagree with me. We are both Americans and obviously both love our country. Here is where I disagree: It is true that many Republicans are well-off. It's because of this that many don't care about people at or near poverty. They say, "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" or utilize the "trickle-down" economic system. The truth of the matter is that most fiscally disadvantaged persons were born that way. The rags to riches stories might be highlighted, but they are far from commonplace. Social and economic mobility is scarce when the minimum wage is not enough to survive. It's counterproductive for rich people to tell poor people that they have a personal responsibility to move up; it's easy enough for them to say, most of them inherited their money. Frankly, I'm amazed by poor Republicans. Their votes put more power to big business, which signed no contract (The Constitution) to keep them safe. I agree that we need a border fence. I agree that amnesty for illegal workers would be disastrous. However, many far-right radicals wish to purge them forcefully from our cities. Illegal immigrants are some of the most hard-working, America-loving people on the planet. They deserve a chance to pay taxes and work here legally. I don't believe most contempt for illegal immigrants is racially motivated. There are some polls that suggest, however, that religious intolerance still exists within the GOP. My previous governor, the then socially progressive Mitt Romney, is a Mormon. The bluest of the blue states, Massachusetts, doesn't give a damn if Romney's Mormon because we keep religion and government separate. A CNN poll reads that roughly 30% of Americans would never vote for a Mormon. Does this suggest that liberals or conservatives, with their 'bringing faith to the state' attitude are more bigoted towards him? Let me remind you that the GOP is the party of choice for Strom Thurmond (he switched after the Civil Rights movement--real shocker), Jerry Falwell, Ann Coulter (a vicious anti-Semite), and Pat Robertson. I have a right to bear arms. I enjoy my right to bear arms. When the far-right hears the words 'gun control' they hear 'taking away my guns'. This is a huge misconception. Mike Huckabee and other Republicans viewed the tragic events at Virginia Tech earlier this year and commented that it could have been prevented had more students had guns. Give me a break. The law in Virginia is 'if you have the money you can have the gun'. Gun control is keeping guns from convicted felons and psychopaths; as far as I'm concerned, they've forfeited their second amendment rights. I don't want drug addicts and mental patients to have the ability to walk around my town in broad daylight with guns. On religion, you're clearly the mouthpiece of Mr. Bill O'Reilly. All or close to all Democrats in the state and federal governments are either practicing Christians or practicing Jews. Hillary Clinton, Methodist. Nancy Pelosi, Roman Catholic. Harry Reid, Mormon. Russ Feingold, Jewish. Please tell me where the Democratic Party is in any, and I mean any, way, shape, or form partial to Islam. A woman gets pregnant if one of her egg cells gets fertilized. This is often the result of a woman's free will. The Jewish God has no hand in impregnating people; you're thinking of Christianity. If a firefighter sees an embryo on a petri dish and a crying baby in a burning building, I think he'd save the baby first. Tell me one experience you had while in your mother's womb and I'll convert to the anti-abortion crowd. Until then, I'll be siding with the raped woman who won't resort to a clothes hanger in an alley. God cares about her just as much--maybe more, because she can actually perceive and have her life ruined. I admire Republicans who seem more willing to compromise on the environment than any other issue, yet most seem to hold the economy high above it. The far-right and their foot soldiers at Fox News seem to be perpetually injecting doubt into global warming--an emergency everyone else in the world seems to get except Republicans who are pissed at Al Gore for winning the Nobel Prize. American foreign policy is terribly backward. The Iraq War was a war on secularists; I thought we were supposed to be fighting fundamentalists. Saddam was a hideous human being, but our methods of extracting him were far more detrimental to us, Iraqis, and Israelis than his ruling as dictator. The far-right can't talk out of both sides of their mouth on this issue: progressives can't be terrorist-loving Muslim extremists and secular Commies at the same time. "The Iraq Study Group Report", a report that the far-right shies away from, outlines Israeli policy within this context on page 55: "No American administration--Democratic or Republican--will ever abandon Israel". I approve of our military adventures in Afghanistan, and so did the vast majority of the world. The War on Terror, on the other hand, is a merely a phrase that is the pretext for more war. No matter how hard we try, we can't bomb our way to peace. We need to cut back on our military bases around the world--bin Laden calls on them as a provocation for his actions. Muslim terrorists are created when we piss them off; bombing the hell out of Iraq doesn't help. As for Ahmadinejad, Iran is far more sophisticated than any other Muslim nation. The dictatorship is largely unpopular. Free expression and Jewish members of Parliament are far more common than in any nearby state. The world would take his threats far more seriously if we hadn't denigrated our intelligence's reputation with Iraq. I believe that military action 'is' a last resort, but I am disgusted by how quickly Bush wants to involve himself in another crusade. The far-right and Ahmadinejad both have religious views that hinder their national advancement. It seems like the only thing worse to them than another 9/11 is a marine stopping it who happened to be gay and cured of cancer by stem cells. The Democratic Party is by no means anti-religion. I'm a practicing Jew and a lifelong Democrat. So is Carl Levin, Frank Lautenberg, Herb Kohl, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, Ron Wyden, Charles Schumer, Ben Cardin, and 29 out of 30 Jewish representatives, to name a few. When Fox News mentions the word 'socialist' it's acceptable. After all, they don't know any other term for anyone left of Ann Coulter. China is socialist. The USSR was socialist. The Democratic Party is by far the least left of all of the world's leftest parties; they can't even pass universal health care, which all other industrialized nations have been able to do, because they're afraid of being called devil-worshiping Commies. Visit Europe and talk to the people there. They've seen Communism. They've seen Fascism. They've seen Socialism. They've seen Theocracy. America is nowhere near close to any of them. My nearly 800-year-old right to Habeus Corpus and my right to speak privately on my telephone come before my right to evade taxes. If growth means growing the gap between the rich and poor then I don't consider it a good thing. First let's make sure our citizens can eat, then we'll make sure they can afford a BMW. The American way, to me, is defined by my right to my life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. If we become a nation that does not respect my views or no longer adheres the constitution, the state could legally kill me. If Lutherans hijack Washington and force me to abide by the laws of their church, which they are starting to do, I will have lost my liberty. If the private sector treats me like a money-making machine instead of a human being, I could no longer strive to be happy. I came to admire the Democratic Party's principles not because they pandered to my faith, but because they adhered to my faith.