Here's Where Kerry and Edwards Stand

[Adelante]

Abortion

MR. EDWARDS Supports abortion rights. Did not vote on banning the procedure opponents call "partial-birth abortion" when it came up.

MR. KERRY Supports abortion rights. Voted against the "partial-birth abortion" ban. Would nominate only Supreme Court justices who support abortion rights.

Death Penalty

MR. EDWARDS Supports.

MR. KERRY Opposes, except in cases of terrorism.

The Economy

MR. EDWARDS Proposes 10 percent tax cut to companies that make products in the United States; tax credit up to $5,000 for first-time home buyers; scale back tax breaks to companies that send jobs overseas.

MR. KERRY Proposes $50 billion for states to create jobs; manufacturing tax credits; would cut deficit in half in five years; crack down on trade violations.

more

Source: New York Times 2/19/04

[AP]

1. Taxes

MR. EDWARDS Would eliminate Bush tax cuts for Americans earning over $200,000; would increase capital gains rate on incomes over $300,000; would provide tax cuts to encourage home ownership, savings and parents with newborns and tax credits for working poor.

MR. KERRY Would eliminate Bush tax cuts for Americans earning over $200,000. Supports target middle-class tax cuts for college, child care and health care.

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You have to do SOMETHING to address the fact that the tax burden has shifted so dramatically off of people who get their wealth by skimming off the top of the undertaxed activities of the corporatocracy and onto people who work for a living (regardless of their income level).

[in_cog_ni_to]

2. Edwards supports the Death Penalty?????

Egads. The more I learn about him, the more I don't like him.

I like the fact that Kerry will nominate ONLY judges who are pro-choice.

[rock]

3. Although I am luke-warm to Kerry

I really like the straight-forward statement of nominating ONLY judges who are pro-choice. This is an area where nearly everyone is mealy-mouthed.

[Walt Starr]

5. It's one of the major reasons I support him now

I think the death penalty is absolutely necessary.

[Cocoa]

6. absolutlely necessary?

so what about states and countries that have abolished it, are they doomed?

[PurityOfEssence]

9. Anyone who has a glib answer on the death penalty is missing the point

No, this is not an attack on you.

The death penalty, like abortion, is an issue so ethically complicated that to have an easy answer is truly to miss the point.

I am, in effect, defending you here from the expected backlash.

After many years, I'm now against it, but only because of two things: the irreversibility of it and the impossibility for fairness in this legal system, especially when factoring in race and class.

As an agnostic with an assumption of no supreme being, I'm adamantly anti-violence, and abhorrent of anyone who'd deliberately take a life. To me, for years, the death penalty was more a group expression of self defense: we were protecting ourselves from those who would kill us.

(Someone with a hankering for killing may very well retain it for years to come. Even after 50 years of prison, that person may thirst so to kill that he/she would shiv the unsuspecting guard. We've seen too many cases of killers who get out after very long sentences just to kill again. The only way to make sure this person never has a chance to kill again is to make sure the person doesn't exist. Argue it as you will, the only way to GUARANTEE that someone who's crossed over this line can't do it again is to make sure the person no longer exists. Do we have the right to do that? Do we have the obligation to our fellow non-killers to keep them safe? It ain't easy.)

When Vlad Drakul was imprisoned and couldn't kill people, he amused himself by trapping birds and rodents in his cell and torturing them to death.

It's too easy to execute the innocent, though, and by the same stance of not believing in an afterlife, that makes it a bad idea to me.

Whatever.

The point is that it's not cut-and-dried, and anyone who thinks it is is letting him/herself off easy.

Do we want to let sport-killers live, knowing full well that it's impossible to so completely supervise them that there's never an opportunity for them to kill again?

It's been a long road for me on the issue, but I'm agin it.

Still, I understand those who aren't...

Lest we forget, too, this is also a self-image issue in many cases. Many people want it to be known that they're so sweet and gentle that they'd never entertain killing anyone, regardless of the person's dangerousness or wickedness. On the other hand, many want to be puffed-up tough guys with a no-nonsense attitude; that's the conservative approach, yet it's not the only reason to be for capital punishment.

Tricky, huh?

Perhaps we're more for it than the other industrialized nations because we have more violence in our midst than others seem to have.

[Adelante]

4. What do you say, Grovelbot?

Does nobody want to know this?

"They'd rather fight about it." :dunce:

[spooky3]

7. Grovelbot told me he likes Edwards better. :-)

[PurityOfEssence]

8. Edwards publicly said he was against the late term abortion ban

His issue was that there was no provision there for the health/survivability of the woman, which is the crux of the damned issue anyway: that's why the procedure is performed.

He missed the vote because he was campaigning, and it was obvious that his vote wouldn't have made a difference.

This is not something he ducked; he made his feelings on the issue well known.

[corporatewhore]

10. Oh Blah Blah Blah both for american colonialism in iraq both for supportof

israel nomatter what
both dont want to pull out of nafta/wto but think it can be reformed