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October 07, 2004
WMDs and the Climate of Fear
The WMD issue was only one of four issues that Bush raised when he made the decision to go to war with Iraq, and while the fact that Iraq didn't have the WMDs that our intelligence hinted that it did, this doesn't really make me rethink my stance on the war. Saddam was still a bad leader. His Iraq did have tight connections with terrorists, and we never said we were declaring war on one group of terrorists, we said we were declaring war on all terrorists. (See: Which Terrorists are Our Enemies?, by Orson Scott Card)
That's not to mention the fact that to summarize the report as "There were no WMDs" is a great injustice, as it also makes clear that Saddam was still trying to obtain them -- and if he had done so, he would have become the imminent threat that Bush was so worried about keeping him from becoming. Power Line covers the No-WMDs topic in more detail than I feel up to here.
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Stanley Kurtz of National Review Online writes about the "Climate of Fear" that is apparantly spreading among Bush supporters.
I'm not sure that the fears are entirely justified, though it does seem that a few frustrated left-wing loonies (aka "Moonbats") are giving a bad name to Kerry's supporters as a whole. On the other hand, it's not like there aren't enough extremists on our end of the spectrum to give Bush's supporters a bad name.
Kurtz says, at one point, that "One reader called for an amendment to Voltaire's classic statement of liberal tolerance: 'I may disagree with what you say, but I'll sneak onto your yard in the middle of the night to steal your sign, you fascist bastard.'"
All of this may be completely blownout of proportion, but other bloggers have written about staying quiet about voting for Bush because they were afraid of losing friends, which is just as bad, in my opinion -- if I wanted friends who agreed with me all the time, I'd.... well, I'd just sit in my room and talk to myself. (Hey, wait a minute...)
While Kevin Baker drew his line on his right to bear arms, I'm drawing mine here. I refuse to give in to anyone who believes that, because of a single stance on a single issue (or a single election), I deserve to be censored. I won't be silent because I fear that they'll key my car, or attack me, or fire me, or cut off all friendship with me. I am who I am, and I won't betray my beliefs by staying silent to get along with those who don't. Either you accept me for who I am, or you don't. (And I thank God that, even if every single human being chooses the latter, He still chooses the former.) That's your decision, not mine.
Posted by Robin S. at October 7, 2004 10:34 PM
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