In this column I pose questions and raise issues. I don't always agree with the conclusion, implied or stated. The purpose is to put a slightly different spin on each item and to promote discussion. Please Note: It is purely coincidental that my critical remarks about Rush Limbaugh appeared the same day the news broke about his alleged prescription drug addiction. As a libertarian conservative I disagree with Rush on many things, including his position on drug addicts, but I wish him well, hope the allegations are false, and if proven true that he will learn from this that drug use ought to be decriminalized and that drug addiction should be treated as a health issue, not a criminal matter. - Rod Van Mechelen

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• George W. Bush won the 2000 election. End of story. But that will never change the fact that Gore won the popular vote, or that Patrick J. Buchanan would have made a wiser, more conservative president.
• The September 2003 trailer for Sean Hannity's show says nobody's paying any attention to the Democratic presidential candidates. Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh has complained that the media is lavishing praise and attention on Wesley Clark, a Democratic presidential candidate.
• On September 30, 2003, in the middle of one of his diatribes, Rush Limbaugh claimed that Republicans have refrained from getting down in the gutter with the Democrats. Really? So when did Rush burn his GOP membership card?
• September 25, 2003, Rush Limbaugh claimed President Bush's tax cuts are fueling a 5% growth in the U.S. economy. I hope so, because if the growth stems from Bush's deficit spending, the threat of deflation could rapidly turn into hyperinflation.
• Both major political parties impute mountains of meaning into the subtlest nuance of their opposition's statements, yet demand that we take everything they say at face value.
• I always have to laugh at the pundits and politicians who demand mountains of details for proof of a position with which they disagree, but take license to use reason, logic and experience in support of their own conclusions.
• An efficient and effective way to turn a friend into an enemy and a loose coalition into a tight knit special interest group, is to treat a friend like an enemy and to accuse a loose coalition of being a special interest group. Much as Arnold Schwarzenegger has the American Indian business owners in California.
• Why does Rush Limbaugh sometimes represent himself as a "powerful and influential member of the media," and other times as an outsider observing the media?
• Often in American society, we feel so compelled to find fault and pin blame that we forget to be wise.
• It's easy, convenient and emotionally satisfying to condemn ignorance as stupidity. Ignorance, however, can be cured.
• Critics of President Bush's Administration are dismissed as "left wing whackos" and Democrats. But the president's apologists are treading on tenuous distinctions as many of his critics come from the Conservative camp.
• September 25, 2003, Rush Limbaugh railed against a proposed study to discover why birds fly into cellular towers. He dismissed it as unnecessary and kooky. While entertaining, his view is typical of ignorant blowhards who know nothing about engineering. Cell tower maintenance is exacerbated by the birds, hence, whether you're a leftist loon or a rightist blowhard, these are compelling reasons to investigate.
• As I wrote several months ago, Saddam Hussein is an evil man who should die. How we are going about it, however, is hugely problematic in terms of our relationship with the rest of the world. A more traditional approach which would have garnered more support from the world community would have been to support Hussein's enemies.
• American pundits keep trying to explain Saddam Hussein's actions from a western perspective. Our America-centric attempts, while understandable and natural, aren't useful.
• Belying the belief that there are no more opportunities in America, Mexican immigrants often find success. How? Most of the success stories seem to revolve around service enterprises. While noteworthy accomplishments, however, these do not prove that America is still the land of opportunity, because service industries ultimately feed on the wealth created by the manufacturing industries. It takes the creation of wealth - stuff, not services - to pay for services.
• The war on terrorism is intrinsically preemptive. Anybody who has a problem with that is inherently pro-terrorist.
• Would the world have been better off had America stayed out of world conflicts? Right wing liberals say no. Conservatives say yes.
• When I heard a right-wing liberal pundit demanding to know why the "freest nation on Earth bows to the dictates of the United Nations," my first thought was, "Holland?"
• Denouncing critics of the war in Iraq on the basis that it is an attack on the brave women and men in the American military is false and as much a lie as any liberal mudslinging. To criticize a war is to criticize policy and the politicians who make it, not the brave people whom the politicians send into harm's way.
• In his September 23, 2003, Remarks to the United Nations, President Bush reminded the member nations that America is at war because of 9-11. I don't know if the member nations have forgotten about 9-11, but at the beginning of the war against Saddam Hussein, they may have wondered, as many Americans did, why we were not making war against the nation who backed and bankrolled the 9-11 atrocity, Saudi Arabia.
• How subtle racism works in America: My first year in college, struggling with trigonometry, doing all the homework, taking all the weekly quizzes, I was barely getting a D. The day of the final I was cramming in the library where I was joined by a fellow student who had done none of the homework, attended few of the classes, and flunked all the quizzes. When we took the final, we both got the highest two scores in the class - he got 100%, I got 98%. Our white instructor, who was a protestant minister in a local church, gave my white classmate an A but me, the only American Indian in the class, a D.
• Ross Perot, who founded the Reform Party, demonstrated how pointless a political debate can be. Hands down, he won every issue, but because he dealt with facts and told the truth rather than pretty lies, Clinton won the election.
• Better a politician who honestly admits "I don't know, I have to think about it," than one who, as so many do, spouts glib lies. An honest politician whose views are framed by their principles is seldom glib and always thoughtful.
• On September 19, 2003, Rush Limbaugh dismissed the environmental extremist assertion that Hurricane Isabel was caused by global warming on the basis that we lack the power to start such a storm, so how could we stop it? While I agree with his conclusion, his argument was illogical and emotional and, therefore, specious.
• What was so stupid about lying to make a case for war against Saddam Hussein is that there were so many true reasons for the war.
• Democrats criticize President Bush for the war in Iraq and accuse him of fraud. If they are right about this, then they are equally culpable for having voted to approve the war.
• Historians observe that about one-third of colonists supported the American Revolution, one-third opposed it, and the remaining one-third were more or less indifferent. So, from this example and others we learn that those who just go with the flow risk the least and still get the benefits. On the other hand, if everybody did that, there would be no change, no progress, and no United States of America.
• You know, I'm happy to poke fun all day long at the positions on the issues of politicians, and I enjoy coming up with cutesy epithets to describe various groups, but I cannot in good conscience condone the practice of pundits such as the German-looking, draft-dodging Rush Limbaugh, who constantly characterizes Vietnam Vet and presidential candidate John Kerry as "French-looking." Does he look French? I don't know. Nor should it matter. But if he does, at least he wasn't a draft dodger.
• Waging war in the Middle East for the purpose of liberating citizens from their own oppressive governments and creating new democracies is admirable and, when you stop to think about it, Liberal.
• Recently KVI commentator Kirby Wilbur noted that there is a culture of violence in the Middle East that contributes to the pervasive anti-American sentiment there. Good point. On the other hand, a similar culture of violence exists here in the U.S, too.
• In my experience, right-wing liberals whine a good line.
• As an institution, American Indian tribes are intrinsically conservative, but because America's left-wing liberals have traditionally positioned themselves as protectors of Native American interests, this has put Indian Tribes in the Democratic Party camp. But in their hearts, Indian tribes remain staunchly conservative. When Arnold and the GOP finally figure this out, much will change.
• I will never forget 4-19.
• Where's the national observance for the victims of April 19th?
• The people who promoted and continue to promote the specter of overpopulation played a direct role in the looming under-population of America, and the exportation of jobs to "less developed countries" in anticipation of the resulting labor shortage.
• Why do right-wing liberals oppose progress in major industries? Because progress threatens the profits of the entrenched corporations.
• Right-wing liberals are as opposed to progress as environmental extremists, else they would not attack the feasibility of technologies on the basis that there are engineering problems yet to be solved. That's precisely why, on Sept. 11, 2003, Rush Limbaugh dismissed hydrogen fuel cells. Rush may understand football, politics and entertainment, but he knows diddly about engineering.
• Feminists denounced all who opposed them as misogynists. Right-wing liberals denounce all who oppose them as "America haters."
• Remembrance of the people who died on 9-11 is a respectful thing; to immerse ourselves in a day of mourning, however, is downright un-American.
• It's a lot of fun to listen to prominent members of the media, such as Rush Limbaugh, lambaste "the media" as though they're not part of it.
• Marcus Aurelius spent a life time waging a war to make the Roman Empire safe. The result: the enemies made by conquest arose from the ashes to strike back at the aging empire until ultimately they prevailed. Are we now repeating the Roman errors?
• The Present praises people who win and usually reviles those who are right. History remembers with respect those who are right, and forgets or reviles the rest.
• Human greeting rituals, such as "Hi, how are you?" and "How do you do?" are equivalent to dogs sniffing butts.
• Neither grief nor rage will secure a nation's borders.
• Terrorists and several agencies of the US government want Americans to forever grieve the events of 9-11. The terrorists, because they hate us, the federal agencies, to better control us.
• Referring to President Bush's administration, on September 35, 2003, Rush Limbaugh stated that, "Nobody ever said Iraq posed an imminent threat." But in the September 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States of America, following a discussion, in item V. Weapons of Mass Destruction, of Iraq's previous known intention to build WMD, it states in justification that "international law recognized that nations need not suffer an attack before they can lawfully take action to defend themselves against forces that present an imminent danger of attack." The White House may never have explicitly stated that Iraq posed an "imminent threat," but it was clearly and strongly implied.
• Women, according to feminists, are superior communicators to men. Perhaps that explains why, in the modern feminist-dominated workplace, the management answer to disputes is to cut off communications. "Time outs" have replaced communicating.
• A few months ago while gathering signatures for a petition, one of the people I approached asked if I speak Spanish. The Spanish-speaking Hispanic population in western Washington is growing rapidly, and when I answered no he snorted derisively and walked away. As an American Indian, I am puzzled by his attitude. Had I asked if he speaks Salish, which is the native tongue of my people, he probably would have laughed in my face, because those who refuse to learn American English but demand that Americans accommodate them, do so not out of a belief in diversity, but because they hate America.
• When Republican candidate for California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said he needed to look at the issues before he could decide what his position is on them, republicans respected him for it, but when Democratic candidate for president Wesley Clark said the same thing, they accused him of being a "Clinton sock puppet."
• Some pundits claim that the American Indian tribes who gave money to Sen. Tom McClintock's campaign were only trying to split the Republican vote. It's possible. However, given the fact that (1) many corporations hedge their bets by donating money to opposing candidates, (2) different tribes were donating money to McClintock's and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante's campaigns, and (3) Indian tribes, contrary to the idiotic popular stereotype, are not one big liberal voting block but are in fact a mosaic as diverse in their views and politics as the general public, the simplest explanation is that the tribes who donated to McClintock actually support him.
• Homeland Security is being used to grant government agencies authority to stalk and spy on anybody - any American - whom they deem to be discontented, outspoken and critical of government policies, and too different from the mainstream.