Poli-ticks and other frustrations

I'm back. Yeah, not every day, but I'm trying. I really am. However, after my bizarre post the other day about meteorology, I decided to encourage myself to post when I had something interesting to say, rather than force myself to write every day and come up with inane garbage.

That being said, today I have something to say. Prompted in part by my drive back to DC today from my parents house which got me thinking about things, which of course resulted me in getting annoyed at the world at large (or more specifically at the political system that we have going on this country).

Election '08. Yeah. We know it's happening because, well, because the lovely 24-hour media began to blather about it back in March. Really. Is it necessary to begin to obsess about the election a year and a half before it will actually occur? Apparently so.

At first, initially, I was somewhat excited about this go around. I mean, anything would be better than the last two elections - with Gore/Bush and freaking John Kerry/Bushie as the "choices" (great "democratic" system we're kept up here, but I'll complain about that more later, don't you worry). Where could we go but up from '00 and '04, one might think?

And one did. I did. I thought, well golly gee it couldn't get annnnny worse! There's no way that this go-round we'd be subjected to even crappier choices!

Oh. But there is.

Because right now it looks like the American voters will be in the unenviable position of choosing between Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani in Election '08. That's right. We get the choice of the government controlling everything, or Giuliani womanizing and 9-elevening his way into office. Yes, we understand that you were the mayor of NYC during 9-11. Seriously. We do.

But we also understand...well...stuff like this: Charles Hill to serve as Chief Foreign Policy Advisor; Norman Podhoretz joins as a Senior Foreign Policy Advisor. And lovely video:



Which is entitled "The Case for Bombing Iran"

We also understand that health care is a BIG BIG problem in the United States right now. Seriously. It is. And I think that both sides get this, but as usual, have no idea how to approach the problem in a reasonable way.

For instance: "Currently, the big companies that don't offer health insurance to their employees tend to be retailers and banks. Herzlinger points out that if they are required to pay an additional $5,000 for health insurance for a clerk earning $22,000, the companies will immediately start substituting capital for labor. In other words, economically vulnerable clerks would be fired and replaced by automated systems or by offshore workers. Instead of just lacking health insurance they would now be out of a job." Harvard business school professor Regina Herzlinger

So basically, instead of having a job and having the opportunity to get a promotion and then get health insurance, as the current situation goes, (which granted is far less than ideal), instead (COOL!) the clerk will just simply lose their job. But, under HillaryCare, at least they'd still have health insurance, right??

Riiiiight: "Under Clinton's plan if you're uninsured you're going to go to one store, the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program," says Herzlinger. The problem, as Herzlinger sees it, is that this one store offers products designed by federal bureaucrats. She likens FEHBP insurance policies to going to buy a car and finding that only two-door subcompacts by various manufacturers are available. The cars offer different colors and hubcaps, but they are all two-door subcompacts. In other words, there is little consumer choice. The situation is even worse for the Medicare option."

My problem, in simple terms is this: the Government thinks You're Stupid. That's right.

The Government. Thinks. You're. Stupid.

The Republicans want to take away all your social choice - your right to choose, your right to smoke drugs, your right to marry who you want to marry, in essence, your right to social freedom and liberty.

And guess what?

The Democrats think your dumb too!! They want to give gay people "civil unions" because god knows that that's just EQUAL to marriage (no, actually it's not). They want to regulate what you can do (employment), and where you can do it. They want to control where you get your health care, and your economic freedom. And guess what? Normally, it's the Democrats in office that are for things like eminent domain! Yup, those Dems that allegedly stick up for the "little people"?? Well, if that person's land and home is in the way of a subcontractor's dream building, or happens to be on a piece of land that the government wants to develop then, sorry dude! You and your family history is g-o-n-e gone.

It's awesome. I love our two party system of "choice." And I love our media that boils everything down to catchphrases and simplistic, biased thinking, instead of providing the entire story up front. And I particularly love this bizarre thing that seems to have happened over the past 5 years, this idea that has seeped into our culture, and made it "cool" to think one way, straight lined.

I'd love it if we could actually get back to the roots of the counter-culture, that doesn't love the government and embrace it as a BFF AEAE, but instead yells at it, combats it and says things like "Think for yourself. Question Authority." And the most obvious: "Damn the Man. Fight the Power."