Reaching...

On days like today I get hopeful that our country can be repaired. Someone else gets it. As an avid listener to the Glenn Beck program I’ve noticed that for the last several months (or maybe longer) he has been advocating the position that Americans are being divided by politicians and pundits for power and money.

I couldn’t agree more. Something happened in 2000 when the stakes were high and the vote was so, so very close. Al Gore won the popular vote; Bush won the electoral vote by literally a few thousand votes, and America has not been the same since. Our differences have become more pronounced and new battle lines were drawn along the political landscape which benefit a very few people in this country.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that differences have always existed and they didn’t start in 2000. In fact, the founding of America as we know it was an arduous task that involved vehement disagreement. Why should we be so privileged as to escape the same difficult process that has been necessary in every country, corporation, family, church, or any other organization in the world? Furthermore, there are many things on which I don’t agree with Glenn Beck but I don’t hate him. I don’t want him to leave the country or to lose his job. On the contrary, the reason talk radio has been so successful is that people like me have not been doing a good job of calling out the people that are “on our side.” Even many of the people who claim to hate Rush Limbaugh are in debt to him for their employment. If Limbaugh went off the air, lots of pundits would be unemployed; not just him.

If the right can do it, we can too. Reach across. Our political differences will, to some extent, always be there and should give hope to everyone that we’ll always be a diverse people, respectful that others will disagree but united in our commitment to preserve a place where disagreement is itself respected.

Ron Paul?

I hope for Obama. I'll vote for Obama. But if Obama loses out to Hillary, third party here I come. As one or two of my previous posts suggest, I'm not a Hillary fan. I'm looking forward to the primaries because it will show me what other people are thinking. I really don't trust the polls, so the only way I'll know if I'm alone on this or not is the primaries. If Hillary wins the Democratic nomination, I'm thinking Ron Paul.

I'm attaching a link for the article / report which is motivating some of my thoughts on this.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=ainAqA2prMBo&refer=us

In a nutshell, there is a new report out (which people around here are talking a lot about) from Rutgers. The report identifies the 4 states which lead the nation in population loss. They are: New Jersey, California, New York, and Louisiana. Now, Louisiana is an anomaly and I think we all know why residents have left there in record numbers. That leaves the other three. Hmmmm... Now why would people leave those three particular states? Well, they were asked why and they said it's because of the high taxes and high cost of living. Taxes on the middle class are overwhelming around here. Historically, taxes are at a very low point for the wealthy but at a very high point for the middle and lower classes.

When we moved to Philadelphia, I was astonished to find that people think nothing of paying anywhere from $7,000-$12,000 per year for property taxes. That’s PROPERTY tax only. Now, there are income taxes (federal, state, and local), sales tax, and a myriad of other taxes. I must admit, I see both the R's and D's spending our tax money like crazy. For Republicans, it's the war and corporate welfare. For the Democrats, it's social security and private welfare.
I'm so tired of it that I'm thinking I could vote for a Libertarian. I put both Ron Paul and, to a lesser extent, Giuliani in that camp. The thing with Giuliani: he's a major proponent of the war. Ron Paul, not so much. Ron Paul, however, will not win and it would be a purely symbolic vote. Giuliani may well be the candidate who could win. If they will reach over on the social issues, I'll try to reach over some on the economic issues. In fact, after the reality check that people are moving from high tax areas to other, lower-cost areas to live tells me that I'm not the only one.

Categories- Their Friend and Our Enemy

I just heard a radio host make several claims I found intriguing. It's not because they are special or by any means the exception. On the contrary, I find them to be the most abused method of keeping unqualified people employed in the American political scene today.

"Anytime you see the word "progressive" you should think: unfair. Socialist."

In speaking of a Cornell professor named Robert Frank, this host said:
"He's not factually wrong, he's ideologically wrong because he's a lib."

In speaking of the Cornell students who may attend this professor’s class, the host said:
"Their skulls are full of mush."

Whose words of wisdom are these? None other than Limbaugh. Now, in the world of intellectual disputes; Limbaugh isn't on the radar. Books have been written about the fallacies this man commits (whether knowingly or the more likely unknowingly). However, he is opinionated and many people listen to him. He should be taken seriously despite his lack of cognitive abilities because he influences people who aren't able either by 1) the constraints of time or 2) because they lack desire to deconstruct his claims. Interestingly, he attacks democrats / liberals for giving a pass to the Dems on whatever they do (which I applaud) but then expects his audience not to do the same with his views. And they don't.

So, I will. Cornell is an Ivy League University and I fail to believe those students' skulls are "full of mush." They lack life experience to be sure, but I don't believe Limbaugh could hack it with them in any intellectual capacity. How is it that taking kids to church or to a private school which teaches according to the parents wishes is good, but if they're taught something contrary to that then we're brainwashing them?

More importantly, for all of us who are average, working people we must recognize the problem with placing ideas and people into categories. It's so easy to categorize. It makes us feel organized and rational, but it’s bad policy. Limbaugh and his ilk hope that you and I will not think about a matter once it has been deemed "Progressive", "Liberal", "Socialist", etc. Where Limbaugh is right, however, is that people on the left hope the same when they use terms like "Conservative", "Religious-Right", "Racist", "Hatemonger", etc. I mean, honestly, should anyone take Al Sharpton seriously anymore?

How much longer must we allow the right to (even if betimes accurately) ONLY attack the left?
How much longer must we allow the left to (even if betimes accurately) ONLY attack the right?
Am I the only person in America who sees them all as being intellectually deficient, if not devoid? What about their moral obligation to gut-check? It's called honesty. I don't like it when I'm wrong either, but I still doubt myself and my beliefs. Categories like the tired, trite, cliché, political categories cooked up to keep politicians and pundits employed are working against honesty and morality.

Smoke em' out

They could be male, female, black, brown, white, blonde or bald, young or old, wealthy or broke and yet for some reason they all have one thing in common: they discard their cigarettes out of car windows. So far as I can tell, they have absolutely no conscious about it whatsoever and most of them don't even look around to see if anyone noticed. My favorite is when they are driving and their cigarette bounces (lit, mind you) all over the road in front of my car like a little firework show.

They make great decorations for the median too don't they? I love it when the driver in front of me tosses one still burning into the mulch. I guess they think "Hey, there are already 300 there, what's another one?" Or maybe they aren't thinking at all. For you smokers out there, who exactly do you think cleans up your stupidity? I suppose I should excuse the smokers who don't toss out their butts, but you seem to be outnumbered.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for people having the right to smoke whatever they want, though not necessarily wherever or whenever. I do think it's their right though. What I'm opposed to is their disregard for the environment, the community, and our tax dollars. This seems to be particular to smokers because I just don't see McDonald's patrons tossing their cup holder out the window. I'm sure it happens, but rarely. Smokers who do not litter are, however, the exception.

So what's to be done about it? Personally, I'd like to light them on fire while they are being crucified upside down after they've been forced to eat a few hundred discarded cigarette remains. Maybe a more realistic (and humane) solution is to put another $1.00 or so tax on each pack and pay city workers from that tax to go around and clean them up. Maybe we should record them with our cell phones and put them and their license plate on youtube where they will promptly be given a ticket for littering by the cops.

I suppose the ultimate solution would be a plea to their conscious that would result in them reconsidering their actions. I suspect most smokers have no idea how annoyed the rest of us are at seeing their nasty little habit all over the street. I'm an optimist, and I can have hope for humanity. Until then, I can only hope they just filled up and there's a trace of gas on the side of their vehicle that will catch on fire and blow them away. :-)

President Hillary?

The latest poll places Hillary Clinton at the top of the Democratic Candidates for President, which means she's leading Obama by double-digits. As a liberal, please no. Hillary Clinton is not a liberal, she's not a conservative, she's a Hillary. She will do what she needs to do for herself. If she needs to be for the war... okey dokey. If she needs to be against it... sounds good. Burning the flag amendment making it illegal to burn the American flag... count her in.

Instead of Hillary for President, I have a very realistic proposal: How about we elect a quarter for president? Well it doesn't have to be a quarter, it could be a 50-cent piece or a dime, or whatever. Essentially any two-sided object which can be tossed and flipped to make an important decision will do. What we need is find a way to decide between (typically two) paths at a minimal political cost to any one person. That's what Hillary has done throughout her political career; and flipping coins is all about the numbers.

K-Fed Up

Britney Spears; I think you’re hot, but frankly, I’m tired of looking at you. I don’t care that you’re a wreck. I feel bad about it, but I have more important things to worry about in my life and it requires real news… not your life, it requires real media… not the E channel on every channel.

Every time I turn on the TV, it’s the latest mistake you’ve made. I’m sorry for singling you out because, like, Lindsay, Paris, O.J., and, like, so many other totally popular people are, like, guilty of, like, the same thing. And here’s the real kicker: we the consumer are the ones provoking the media to follow you around. It’s your fault that you behave so badly, but it’s our fault that you get attention for it. You are getting rich off of our incompetence while the media gets higher ratings for entertainment than it does for news

P.S. How does it come to be that in one of the greatest civilizations in the history of the world, a Judge must give a guy named "K-Fed" custody of children???

In a follow-up to the healthcare... I'd like to suggest we shoot the unhealthy parents of otherwise healthy children.

Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness

In respose to dialogue over Universal Healthcare, Libertarian / Conservative Neal Boortz made the case that to take from one and provide to another in the form of taxes is "stealing." This form of redistribution (a phrase which implies a legitimate distribution to begin with) is, to Boortz, an unfair, unjust, and immoral practice.

Most libertarians and classical liberals think so. Their view of what makes one "Free" is entirely reliant upon a physical freedom which is rooted in basic economics. Money comes from work, work is a physical activity, and for our work we get stuff. That's freedom. If you take my stuff from me, you take my work; you take (most literally) my life away. It's a system that rewards laziness and punishes success, they say.

I wonder, how free is the man suffering from black lung who worked in the coal mines out of dire necessity? How free are the people for whom treatment in this country is available (but not affordable) when they cannot work? How free are people so impoverished by their birth, location, or circumstances that they most literally do not have the opportunity to escape it? Freedom is a fluid concept which is regulated by circumstances all the time. Although we'll never have an egalitarian society, we should guarantee some freedom from in addition to the freedom to. After all, isn't that the objective of the state, to provide freedom? Freedom from illness and poverty are just as necessary as freedom to pursue certain activities; in fact, they pre-empt them.

Healthcare is a right. It is a right because it enables our society to be more productive. I am not, and presume that I will never argue that a portion of our society should be able to sit around and reap the benefits of another's labor. Marx said one of the primary tenets of communism is that everyone must contribute, and I'm not even advocating communism.

Healthcare is the agenda item which will decide the 2008 election; not war. We've lost the war and the Republicans insist we stay there until they can say we didn't. The cost of the war is currently running about 3.5 Billion per day, but we can't afford Universal Healthcare? It's a good thing we aren't a bunch of socialists who have socialist medicine provided by the hardworking capitalists for those lowly, lazy commies on the bottom... else we might find that people would be trying to sneak into our country for healthcare instead of trying to bomb us!

Wealth-fare

Today on the Glenn Beck program he used an example of the “unfair” practice of socialism which coerces one person into paying for lunch for 40 people. It does seem unfair doesn’t it? Why should one person have to pay for 40% of the population? After all, this is America and we would like to see people work for what they have, not coerce one wealthy person into giving it to them, right?

Of course there is one small problem… how did that person get the money to begin with? How is it they have enough to pay for the lunch of 40 people? Beck talked about a billionaire who used to live in a home with eight other families and worked his way into billionaire status. The billionaire was not named by Beck but allegedly said he hoped to leave this life penniless by giving his money away. He (Beck) then said we need more of those people around. ABSOLUTELY!

In fact, I can think of a couple of billionaires that worked their way to money and are giving it away: Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Oops, I forgot… they aren’t conservatives. In an ironic twist the people who understand that the real “forgotten man” has been forgotten by the yacht club, the billionaire example Beck used is still the exception; not the rule. I wonder how far and how long one has to look to find the one example of a person who lived in a house with cardboard walls turned billionaire to substantiate an ideology of “free-market” capitalism?

Leave that point alone for a second and consider this: the same conservatives who claim they want us to work hard for money and that competition is good for the economy simultaneously want to maintain wealth-fare, that is, trust funds and inheritance which carve out a particular portion of society and designate that they should never have to work again. Those who are on wealth-fare will never compete economically, they’ll never go on unemployment, they think COBRA is a snake, and that only rednecks drive American made cars. Since when did the welfare of society at large get replaced by the wealth-fare of a minority? And more importantly, is that really American?