Here are the original questions that I will answer by number:
Seeing that I live in Reno and will have the chance to vote for or against you I'd like to know your position on:
1. Intellectual property
2. privacy
3. Iraq
4. Veteran Medical Funding
5. habeas corpus
Many thanks
-Joe
Reno, NV
1. I support the right to intellectual property. In reference to my logo I will tell you what my legal advisors (I didn't just haphazardly put it up without research) told me.
a. It is protected political free speech.
b. It really IS my last name.
c. It uses a publicly available (at no cost) True Type font.
d. It is not being used to make money or to interfere with or prevent Walt Disney Corp from making money.
e. I will not besmirch the name since it is mine and I am running for political office.
f. It has made an impression on the mind of all those who see it.
g. I do not link the image of my logo with any product or service offered by Disney Corp.
h. It would be noticed.
i. I have contacts with Walt Disney Corp. I will say to you something you already know. Disney Corp is pretty much “Eisnerland” now and just as they voted Roy Disney off of the Board of Directors, they may still take issue with my use of the script in its present form. Did you back Roy Disney or Eisner in that fight? I still back Roy.
Something I have found comical through the many bloggosphere posts, emails and phone calls has been the fixation on the font and Disney Corp’s right to it. The attacks on me have come exclusively from sites oriented to the left of center. These attacks are especially passionate because I am a true Conservative. Blogs which profess to be against big corporations, without investigation, have immediately sided with one of the biggest and most profitable multinational corporations on the face of the earth against little old me. What ever happened to “taking it to The Man”?
2. I support the right to privacy against unreasonable searches and seizures. I think that we are in a state of war and I do not think it unreasonable to monitor electronic communications originating in other countries (especially in regions which have become havens of international terrorism) and being received in the United States or originating in the USA and going to foreign countries. I had a detailed discussion just last night with one of my brothers who differs with me on this issue because his baseline argument is that he agrees with the phrase: “if we give up freedom for security…we deserve neither.” Those that know me well know that I highly prize liberty and do not take it likely. I am confident that if there were more abuses of the Patriot Act, that the victims would be paraded before the American people one after another by Main Stream Media. As a former military officer I know that the way to win any war is to destroy the enemy’s ability or will to fight. The enemies of the United States win if we lose our ability or will to fight. I think that in time of war and particularly in this one, the loss of liberty will be far greater if another catastrophic event is perpetrated in the United States. In the case of a massive, nuclear, biological or chemical attack the federal government would suspend many more individual rights than conducting electronic surveillance. I think what the Bush Administration is doing in the area of electronic surveillance, is a tiny fraction of what past presidents have done even in peace time. I don’t like the electronic surveillance but I think it is a big reason we have not had another catastrophic terrorist attack on US soil. The Bush Administration could communicate what they are doing in a much better fashion but what they are doing is less invasive than the types of suspensions of individual liberties enacted by past presidents of both parties including Franklin Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Abraham Lincoln. I know that if another catastrophic attack occures in the United States that many of the same people accusing President Bush of doing too much will immediately after the attack, claim that he did too little.
3. I think that in reference to Iraq that it is a battle in the overall Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) and one in which we should not surrender. As a military officer, I was trained to identify an enemy’s “center of gravity” at the tactical and strategic levels of warfare. The center of gravity to me in the GWOT is the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. I do not think that Iraq is or was the center of gravity in the GWOT just as Italy was not the center of gravity for Fascism in World War Two. I think it is a battle that we must win. By taking the war to the enemy in Iraq, we have created a giant “roach motel” for terrorists. Terrorists from many countries are streaming into Iraq to fight our armed and armored troops instead of streaming into the United States to blow themselves and our civilians on our city streets. The terrorists understand the dire consequence to their morale and will if a democratically elected republic is established in the center of the Middle East. The Anti-Iraqi (foreign) terrorists are killing many more Iraqi forces and civilians than they are Americans and it is starting to turn the will of the Iraqi people against them to such a degree that Iraqi civilian assistance to U.S. and Iraqi forces is rising dramatically.
I do not think that Bush lied anymore than Clinton or multiple Democrats did when they pontificated about Saddam’s WMD threat to the world. Making a decision on bad information is not a lie. Bush was not the only one who received the bad information. The Senate Intelligence Committee had access to the same intelligence that Bush had. Also the Congress voted not once but twice to give Bush authority to conduct combat operations and do all that was necessary to prevent further attacks on U.S. soil. I think the only way for our terrorist enemies and their supporters to win is for us to surrender. I know many are already advocating surrender and have been for sometime. I do not think we should give up or surrender.
4. When it comes to Veteran Medical Funding, I as a veteran and life member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, support the continuation of the program. I have seen reports of cuts in some areas of funding and services. I think taking care of troops who have served our country (especially in combat) is a top priority. I do not think that these programs are being cut because Americans aren’t paying enough in taxes. I think that Veteran’s programs are being cut because of non-Veteran entitlements which receive higher priority.
5. I think that what you are referring to here is a suspension of habeas corpus as regards prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and the American citizen named Padilla who has been held in military custody for more than a year (he was just turned over to the remand of the Justice Dept). I don’t like the suspension of habeas corpus but I don’t think that it applies in the case of the prisoners at Gitmo. I don’t think those prisoners have or should have protections under the United States Constitution or the Geneva Conventions. In the case of Padilla, I think from the limited data that I have garnered that his threat of constructing a “dirty bomb” was sufficiently heinous in time of war to warrant the suspension of habeas corpus in this case. I am not aware of any other cases pending of this type or I would address them. In comparison to historical precedent the suspension of habeas corpus of one American citizen in time of war pales in comparison to Franklin Roosevelt rounding up about 120,000 people of Japanese decent and putting them into concentration camps or Abraham Lincoln having, by some estimates, tens of thousands of Americans arrested and imprisoned during the Civil War.
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