Saturday, February 10, 2007

Opinion: Do you think the U.S. Senate should debate 0, 1, 2, or 3 of the resolutions about Iraq?

With all significant wars or approaches to war, elected leaders have gotten on record as to their beliefs. I remember teaching in U.S. History about how over months of debate every member of Congress gave their speech and got on record about the Compromise of 1850. With the importance of this miltary action to the lives of Americans, I think every elected official should say his or her opinion about it in what should be the most deliberative body on earth.

5 comments:

Megan B said...

In my opinion the Senate should debate any resolution that a members has in order to create or find one that the entire body, or as close to that as possible, could agree on. It is only through communication and discussion that true agreements and consensus can be reached with participation from all. This would also give every member a chance to make their opinions known on the issue, and perhaps give them a better chance of winning the ’08 general elections by picking up several of the growing moderate voters. Unfortunately, with so much focus on the 2008 elections, their will be many absences of members at times, who will most like come back for the debates to show that they can be “effective” in the position that they are currently in, and that they see the issues that concern the public; that they are in touch with reality. This will come along with sharply divided parties and the games of partisan politics. No possible ’08 candidate would want to step out of the rank and file to be alienated by their party before the primaries and the party nominations.

BrandonSh said...

I agree and believe that Congress should debate all possible solutions to get out of Iraq. I'm sure somewhere in Congress there is a solution that will work well or that can be slightly altered to work well if only they would talk about it.
But there are two problems with wanting debates. One, like Trevor said, I'm not sure anybody in Congress is actually being a Congressman or woman. Everybody is looking past this year and preparing for 2008. Second, I'm not sure a debate will make a difference because the Bush Administration already announced that they don't care about what Congress has to say. Even if they came up with a comprehensive solution, it isn't the president's solution, so it isn't going into action.
The first order of buisness should be to somehow get the president to follow Constitution rules. THEN we can have debates and sort out the war.

tonileep said...

I think that the Senate should debate all the resoultions about Iraq. I agree with brandon g that Iraq is a big issue in our country and that people in Congress will have to come to their job. The members of Congress should drop everything that they are doing and come to Washington, the focus should be about Iraq and the issues in our country and then 2008 elections. The American people deserve resoultions.

Megan B said...

Since I again do not want to wait for another question to be posted, and I have a pretty good guess what the question will be about, I again created one. My question is: Opinion: What type of tasks/activities should the Poly Squad focus on and why? Also include your thought on what should be done with gathering items to send to the New Orleans area.

I believe that the Poly Squad should engage in task and/or activities that promote political awareness in this area, of events throughout the nation, not only events in our community, such as reminding our community of the disastrous hardships that many New Orleans residents are dragged through every day. The squad should help present both sides of issues, debating them fully, suggesting what should be done and taking action on issues, if a consensus is reached on what type of action should be taken. Poly Squad should get involved in issues affecting our community and other communities throughout the nation. It is so easy for people to feel very strongly about issues that affect them everyday, they are able to form a potent connection to the politics of the community and they sometimes forget issues affecting the state, region, nation, or different states, regions, or even nations. Reaching for these goals would also help our younger generation to get involved early in life, become more informed on political issues and help shape the future leaders of our community, state, region, or nation.

As for the squad’s first undertaking, of gathering items for southern Louisiana residents, I feel that we may have some added success in gathering items for the gulf coast resident if we effectively play up the connections from the past, at this time of the year, with Fat Tuesday and Mardi gras. These festivities may help many people to recall seeing or hearing about past parties in New Orleans, and what a dynamic, lively, and vivacious city New Orleans was, and also recall the pictures of people sitting on the roofs of their houses, waiting for a boat to come past and rescue them. These recent memories of huge amounts of water taking over and engulfing everything, may strike a sentimental cord and contribute to the community’s generosity, in giving the everyday goods that are needed in the gulf coast region.

Dain said...

I believe that the Senate should debate all of the resolutions about Iraq. However, the president has already declared that he doesn't care what congress says, so a nonbinding resolution won't do a thing. Congress should accompany the resolution with action to back it up.