AIDS devastating Africa, 14 million people died since 2000: UN

[Fun Tails]

OK, first off, it's good to get some somewhat good news in this area.

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I think one other reason I was so willing to criticize the Bush AIDS initiative was guilt by association. There are a lot of religious groups who push for absitinence only programs in Africa and everywhere else. They made a Uganda a big talking point by saying that one region of Uganda that had used absitinence only programs had seen a huge decline int he infection rate.

They were using the data falsely, ignoring the other reasons the rate went down, such as the deaths of those infected before the use of anti-retrovirals etc.

And, since I associate Bush with religous extremists, I was all too willing to believe that he had put together a program with large abstinence provisions.

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As for the effectiveness of abstinence, I can't speak for how it affects HIV transmission, but I know that in the US, students who go through abstinence-only sex-ed have higher pregancy rates.

[Guest Fritz]

Fun tails, I can follow your thinking, but that is the type of thing we need to guard against. A measure of a person is to see how fairly he treats those he disagrees with or considers his enemies. For example, Lord knows that there are many places to disagree with President Bush and I am perfectly happy to bash him for the things I think he got wrong, but when we criticize things he got right or is not responsible for, or lie about his actions it tells us more about the person doing so than it does about President Bush. After all, Pres. Bush's words and deeds are out there for all to see and judge, but when someone lies about him or distorts his record it tells us how fair the person doing so is. Rudyard Kipling summed it up quite nicely in "If," when he used the following words.

"Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, "

As I see it, far too many people are willing to hate without a legitimate reason. That trait has been used by many people throughout history to accomplish their ends. Take for example Germany. The German people had no legitimate reason to hate Jews in Germany, who after all were German citizens and up till that time Jews had served in the German Army, but Hitler and his minions managed to inflame the passions of hatred and the result was the Holocaust. And I could point to people like Fred Phelps who uses hatred in an attempt to inflame passions against gays, but the point I am trying to make is that we need to be careful not to fall into the trap of hating because it clouds our judgment. Just because we may disagree with a policy that a president advances should not mean that we should allow ourselves to hate him. I remember presidents from Truman on, but was too young to pay much attention until Kennedy. I can think of none of them with whom I did not disagree on some items, but I hated none of them. As examples, the Bay of Pigs was a total screw-up by Kennedy, and Johnson did no better with Vietnam. Nixon, well where do I start? And then there is Carter and the way he handled the Iran hostage situation. Or Reagan and Lebanon, and the list goes on and there are many more items I could add to each president of places where I disagreed with him, but each also did some things I agreed with. Kennedy started the Peace Corp, Nixon recognized China, and Carter tried to bring about peace in the Middle East even though he was not successful. I would also say that I consider Carter the worst president of the century even though I voted for him, but I still don't hate him and would defend him if someone was telling what I know to be lies about him. But when we allow hatred or intense dislike to rule us, it is all too easy to believe inaccuracies, lies, or distortions someone says about those we dislike or hate.

For the most part those peddling hatred depend on their audience not checking to see how accurate they are. So my rule of thumb is that when I hear something about someone that agrees with a belief I hold, I check it more closely than I would an opposing point because I know how easy it is to fall into believing because I want it to be true. And believe me, I have made that mistake many times during my lifetime, but I am getting better. I also worry about how the promulgation of lies is affecting our country because I can see the deep divides it is producing. In some circles it is no longer acceptable to simply disagree with someone. Instead you must hate them. Within those circles it is not permissible to recognize that the hated party has actually done something right, such as PEPFAR's program. And yes, in this instance I am talking about the gay community and its supporters. We have many reasons to dislike Bush, but PEPFAR is not one of them. We could argue that it would have been better had there been more money allocated to support the program, but Congress is the branch of government which appropriates money. Or we can argue that the money should have been spent differently, but so far unbiased sources don't seem to consider that as big a problem as some people within the gay community do, and I would argue that for a brand new program it was much more right than wrong in the way it went about its mission as evidenced by the links in my previous comment.

Some people may think I am a Bush supporter, but they would be wrong in that belief. Basically I am for truth and accuracy and as long as any attacks are based on facts I have no problem with them and might even jump in and add to the discussion. Yet I frequently find myself defending Bush out of fairness just as I have with Pres. Clinton and other previous presidents. While I tend to be somewhat conservative in my views of government, I am quite liberal in my views on social policy. Some would say that makes me a libertarian, and as long as you keep that a small "L" libertarian I would agree. I find the Libertarian Party very difficult to swallow. Of course if the Libertarian Party actually made any sense they would be bigger, but that is a different topic for discussion.

To sum it up, we need to guard ourselves against the hate mongers of the world. The Michael Savage's, the Rush Limbaugh's, the Randi Rhodes', the Michael Moore's, and the Keith Olbermann's are our worst enemies because they base their attacks not upon facts, but upon lies and distortions and in doing so poison the well of honest political discourse. It is my observation that in most cases liberals and conservatives agree on the problems, they simply disagree on how best to solve them. Even more sad is the fact that if both sides would sit down and discuss the issue in an open and reasonable manner they would find that in many instances they are closer to agreement than they believe. Yet the hate mongers inflame passions to where an open and honest discussion is impossible. We have only ourselves to blame for that because we are the ones who elected our government. We are the ones who cast our votes based upon the lies put forth by the hate mongers. Our country is far too important to allow ourselves to vote based on hatred brought about by lies. So when elections roll around make sure you have checked out what each candidate represents and do not cast your vote based on what someone says about the candidate unless you know that person to be totally honest. That also means checking out what either candidate says about the other. It is quite easy to check out most statements by simply Googling them, but be sure to track down the actual words and not what others say a candidate said. I would point out that the news media still frequently gets Pres. Bush's words, about Iraq seeking uranium in his State of the Union address, wrong. What he said was "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The Butler Commission in England investigated the matter and said that yes, British Intelligence had indeed informed our government that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa. No one ever said Saddam managed to get any uranium, only that he sought it.