Hillary Clinton: Wrong on Just About Everything
Radley Balko | January 5, 2008, 10:04am
If you'll remember, Hillary Clinton was the only Democratic candidate who didn't want to make the correction to crack/cocaine sentencing disparities retroactive.
Apparently reeling from her recent drubbing in Iowa, her campaign is now attacking Barack Obama for his opposition to federal mandatory minimums and his "liberal voting record" on criminal defendants' rights.
I'd say both of those positions make Obama sound pretty good.
Is there a single issue where Hillary Clinton doesn't support giving more power to the government? Abortion, I guess. But any others?
whit | January 5, 2008, 10:11pm | #
"That might be true if LE used SWAT only for situations where it was truly warranted, when someone's life was in immediate danger, such as armed stand-offs and/or hostage situations. Those situations are relatively rare, yet the use of SWAT teams is anything but rare. When every podunk town with no violent crime to speak of has a SWAT team it ought to be obvious that the vast majority of SWAT uses are not necessary. There is just no way such over-use of SWAT teams can count as a reduction of risk - quite the contrary in fact."
except that's not how SWAT is used. that's your false perception. most agencies employ a threat matrix. SWAT is used when the threat matrix and facts and circumstances deem it warranted.
imo, they are used too often (mostly political reasons), but they do and have (feel free to go back and read the literature - i recommend FBI Law Enforcement Journal...) saved innumerable lives.
as usual, since you only hear about the "bad" incidents, that naturally skews your (mis)perception.
like i said, we can all agree - they have been overused (like any toy, technology, etc. but if you think sending in undertrained, underequipped officers to deal with situations that are (in the vast majority of circ's ) solved sans bloodshed to ALL involved by better trained and equipped (for this type of detail) officers, you are nuts.
every national, state, and local agency of any reasonable size pretty much everywhere on the face of the civilized world has embraced the SWAT concept as one that makes it more likely that certain high risk incidents are solved more peacably and with less injury - from london Metropolitan Police to LAPD to NYPD to RCMP etc. etc.
sadly in some cases (see: columbine) patrol officers who have been trained to WAIT FOR SWAT (in exigent cases where they shouldn't have) have unfortunately seen death ensue and carnage escalate. THAT cowardly response resulted in the formation of ASAP ( a nice update to add to SWAT from a patrol angle) teams as well.
Nick Wilson | January 6, 2008, 3:37am | #
I think Obama is more libertarian than Hillary (and of course, Edwards) economically.
Points:
1.) He has refused to force people to buy health care, and insisting that the market needs to be used instead of changing to a single payer system. His proposal is closer to health care vouchers.
2.) He hasn't joined the Hillary-Edwards let's-raise-the-minimum-wage-to-$9.50 love fest.
3.) Opposing NAFTA is not protectionist. NAFTA is not libertarian.
4.) He hasn't been included in the labor union love-fest. Unions tend to endorse the candidates most likely to restrict the free market in the name of workers. Obama hasn't got many such endorsements, where Clinton and Edwards have gotten tons. I think that's pretty telling.
Obama's definitely a liberal economically, but I think he'd be up a tick from Edwards and Clinton. Most of his economic leftyism is in funding rural businesses, high speed internet access, renewable energy stuff, research, etc.
While I don't really think that that is a valid use of our tax dollars, I must say most of that's better that wasting money on a pointless war. That's why I've always favored the Left, even though I'm a libertarian. It always struck me that the Right was out for elitism, profit and military conquest at the expense of everyone else, while the Left was digging their own grave by trying to help everyone too much.
Socially and foreign-policy wise, and on immigration, I'd say he's pretty good. Looking on a Nolan chart, I'd say he's a lefty on the top (libertarian) half of the chart, which is not so bad. Most of the Republicans (bar Paul), as well as Hillary and Edwards would easily fall in the bottom half.
My ranking 10 being most libertarian, 1 being least (I'm factoring in three areas: foreign policy, social libertarianism and economic libertarianism.)
Paul 9 (-1 for immigration stance)
++ foreign policy
++ social libertarianism
++ economic libertarianism
Richardson 5
+ social
++ foreign pol
- economics
Obama 5
+ social
+ foreign pol
- economics
Kucinich 4
++ social
++ foreign pol
-- economics
Thompson 4
+ economics
- social
-- foreign pol
Giuliani 4
+ social
-- foreign pol
+- economics
McCain 3
-- foreign pol
- social
+ econ
Romney 3
- social
-- foreign pol
+ econ
Edwards 3
-- economics
+ foreign pol
+- social
Clinton 2
- economics
-- foreign pol
+- social
Huckabee 2
-- social
- economics
- foreign pol
Hunter 2
- economics
-- foreign pol
-- social
Huckabee (theocratic big spender), Hunter (protectionist war hawk) and Hillary (socialist war supporter) are probably the least libertarian.