Category: politics

I just saw an ad on youtube about voting. In it, they were essentially saying that if you don’t vote, you don’t care about the economy, education, terrorism, civil rights, etc. Using guilt to make people vote is weird. You see, I care about all of those things, but I don’t get to vote on them. We do not live in a democracy, we live in a republic. At the national level, we never get to vote on issues, we can only vote on who our proxy is.

This is the challenge to those people that say that it’s vital to vote, it’s out most important right… People aren’t that stupid. We all know what we can vote for, it’s one or the other. For a lot of people, neither choice is worth picking, so why is it worth voting? There’s a reason that only half the people who can vote typically do…

The more I think about it, the trip and wait in line may not be worth it to me to vote for president. As I’ve said before, I don’t see a lot of what I consider important in either candidate. On the other hand, this whole bailout mess has me feeling vengeful. If any of my representatives vote for it (Both Obama and McCain voted for it BTW), I will vote against them. On the other hand, if they have the balls to stand up and vote no, I will vote for them. The more local the representative, the more important any individual vote is. Pay attention to the voting on this bill and make sure we tell them what we think of their vote!

In the aptly titled “A Tourniquet for a Hemorrhaging Economy,” Andrew Leonard goes through the ridiculousness that is this bailout bill from the senate. What was once a 3 page plan is now 451 pages long. Here are some of the goodies in it:

Sec. 105. Energy credit for geothermal heat pump systems.
Sec. 111. Expansion and modification of advanced coal project investment credit.
Sec. 113. Temporary increase in coal excise tax; funding of Black Lung Disability Trust Fund.
Sec. 115. Tax credit for carbon dioxide sequestration.
Sec. 205. Credit for new qualified plug-in electric drive motor vehicles.
Sec. 405. Increase and extension of Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund tax.
Sec. 309. Extension of economic development credit for American Samoa.
Sec. 317. Seven-year cost recovery period for motorsports racing track facility.
Sec. 501. $8,500 income threshold used to calculate refundable portion of child tax credit.
Sec. 503 Exemption from excise tax for certain wooden arrows designed for use by children.

This is for Wall Street? Clearly, it’s an attempt to throw enough bones to the House to get them to pass this thing. I’m hoping against hope that they don’t fall for it. This bill will cost considerably more than $700 billion after all of the costs are added up.

My pleasure over the bailout not passing was short lived. There can be little doubt that something will get passed. Companies were making lots of money on morgages, and they spread it around. I have no doubt that many senators benefited from campaign contributions from those companies. For example, over the last decade, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have given over 170 million in lobbying money. Interestingly, Obama is number two on their list of how much money they have given senators over the last 20 years. That’s with only one election and 4 years in office… Read about it here. I mention this just to show how common it is, I’m sure McCain is just as dirty…

Anyway, do you think that the senators will be coming to the rescue of such a “generous” special interest group? There’s no doubt. The new bill sounds like it is loaded with a bunch of crap that has nothing to do with the bailouts either. All sorts of stuff about alternative energy, tax breaks, etc. In short, it’s the same political shenanigans you can always expect from that body… Bleh, our tax dollars, flushed to special interests again…

Technorati Tags:
bailout, obama, freddie mac, fannie mae

I really wanted to watch a baseball game, but it was requested that we switch to the debate during the commercial. So I only caught bits and bobs, but I was predictably unimpressed. To me, it sounded like this:

“You did X!”
“No I didn’t!”
“Yes you did!”

“You voted for x!”
“No I didn’t!”
“Yes you did!”

MOM!!!! Seriously, it’s all back and forth, with no real substance. Check this out to get a feel for the ridiculous back and forth on both sides. And people still take this politics stuff seriously? Like so many other things involving government, it is impossible to take complicated ideas (and even how someone votes is complicated) into a sound bite. These debates are beyond silly, nothing gets explained, nothing gets solved.

I was also reminded of how much I dislike disagreements. As I watched the debate, I found myself getting tenser and tighter. The same thing happens when I witness an argument (or I’m in an argument), I get frustrated and tense. Sometimes you need to argue, but I don’t think I’m going to subject myself to that on TV anymore. Why raise my blood pressure?

OK, let’s try this again. The point that I was trying to get across in my first post about Palin was not that she was being unfairly criticized. There are all sorts of things that I don’t like about her, and there are all sorts of things that many people might not like about her. No, what I was trying to get across was my astonishment at how personally many people on the left are taking the existence of Sarah Palin and people like her.

Seriously, ever since the announcement, I have been getting emails, links, invitations to join facebook groups, etc. all not only in opposition to her, but sneering at her and anyone that may indeed like her. Honestly, I had no idea she was a Pentecostal Christian or is seen as being way off to the right (more on that in a sec) until I made that last post. What I had been made to understand was that she hunted. People seem to be mildly disgusted with that fact, and the fact she hunts moose is seen as ridiculous. I was made to believe, through a series of jokes and snide comments that her daughter is a whore, and that it’s funny because her mom is so worthy of contempt.

It’s this kind of stuff that I was not prepared for, and there’s more where that came from. Not liking her foreign policy experience and worrying that she could become the POTUS is a legitimate concern. What I have been exposed to is not. Usually, it is the republicans getting down and dirty. This time, it is the democrats (and the anti-republicans) that are doing the dissing, and they are dissing a woman!

The theory I put forth in my last post was an attempt to explain this rage. Who knows if it is accurate, but I think it makes some sense. BTW, I keep getting told that Palin is way off the charts right-wing. Of course the people telling me that are from NYC, the DC metro area, LA, etc. Folks, you need to get out of the city once in a while. What you’ll find is that there are an awful lot of people that think she’s what this nation really needs. She would fit right in where I live, she would be considered mainstream. My hint from the last post stands, if you do not like Palin or are worked up into a rage at the mention of her name, you need to understand that there are a lot of people that like her. I’m willing to believe that a certain number of people voting for McCain will do so because of her. They exist in droves and they are not going away…

OK, right off the bat, I don’t know much about her. I know she’s not a communist, and she’s not a fascist. She sounds like she’s a little further to the right than some other republicans, but that’s probably why she’s in that party.

So why the post? I am amazed at the level of vitriol directed at her. I cannot remember any other vice presidential candidate being on the receiving end of this kind of abuse. Seriously, she’s the VP candidate. Historically, ignoring assassinations, Watergate, a 4th term, and Cheny (ahem), the VP has had a rather small impact on the usual business of the president. Why the angst?

I have a theory, and democrats aren’t going to like it. BTW, when I refer to democrats, I am also including that much larger group of anti-republicans. I think that most of my friends are actually much more about voting against republicans than voting for any democratic platform. That’s the feeling I get anyway… My theory as to why Palin is getting so much hate is because she’s a woman. Yes, I am accusing the democrats of being sexist.

Think about it, if she were a man that held exactly the same qualifications and beliefs, (s)he would be seen as just another republican. Seriously, she’s not Pat Buchanan, she’s not David Duke. Those people are so far right that they are actually dangerous. She seems to be a pretty mainstream republican.

Here’s my theory, democrats see female republicans as traitors to the cause. Democrats feel that they, not republicans, are the party that is going to bring women into full “equality.” If, as the democratic thinking goes, she would just come to her senses, she would understand that the republican party is the party of old, rich white guys (see McCain, John). This is galling enough, but when millions of women who think like her rally around her, it takes the distaste to a whole ‘nuther level. Those people exist. You are going to have to deal with them and their beliefs, they aren’t going away.

To all of you democrats out there, it would behoove you to try to understand why people like her. Even better, it would be a good idea not to dismiss them as idiots out of hand. From my vantage point, divisive politics doesn’t just belong to the “uncool” party…

Once again, I saw an article extolling the “record” of national safety after 9/11 under W. “There hasn’t been another attack since he initiated programs like the Patriot act and Gitmo…” Of course I could also point out that I haven’t been mauled by a tiger in that time frame either. Is that a coincidence?

While it is possible that those policies have prevented another 9/11, the identification of cause and effect is far from clear. When you are trying to judge the effectiveness of any given policy, it is important to look at not only if any objective is met, but how likely it is that that particular policy had anything to do with it. You also need to look at the costs involved. That’s not just dollars and cents BTW. You have to factor in the loss of civil liberties, the expansion of executive power, and the damage our reputation has suffered world-wide due to these policies.

“But surely the important thing is that he did something!” Remember, just because government is doing something, it doesn’t mean that it is the cause of any given nicety. The fallacy of “this came before that, therefore this caused that” is alive and well in the political rhetoric, I hope people can remember to look at claims logically…

I’m still incredulous about those polls. It’s difficult to believe how much ground the democrats have given up. Here’s a really good podcast on why you should be suspicious about those polls. It’s quite in depth, and actually really interesting. I recommend it highly if you want to make some sense about all those numbers that are thrown out there.

Rumors are flying that Kim Jong-Il had a stroke. There’s no telling what kind of maneuvering is going on behind the scenes now. He has a couple of sons I think, but neither of them are in line to inherit anything. My guess is that some sort of military group will be the next to come to power. With any luck, this will be the beginning of the end for North Korea’s isolation. Down with Kim Jong-Il! Just about anything will be better…