Food for Thought, Never to Forget

Check out this article regarding the bail out of wall street from Time.com.
www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1845209,00.html
For those of you that don't want to bother reading it, I have copied the last paragraph for your reading pleasure to sum it up. "Let the poorly managed, overly risk-taking financial institutions fail! Always remember that Wall Street and the real economy are not the same thing."

Don't forget people, it's still not over. They are going to continue to try and use your tax dollars to pass some sort of bail out. Keep writing your senators and representatives to let them know you oppose any kind of "loan" or however they want to spin it, with your tax dollars.

Gas prices. Don't get complacent because they are coming down some. I realize they have agreed to let the ban expire on off shore drilling. But let me remind you of a simple fact of why this is so important. Billions of dollars are being sent to the middle east to support our demand for oil. This is money that we will spend regardless, but it is currently helping their economy. Just think what a boost it is to our economy if we stop sending it overseas and start to spend that money in our own economy.

Health Care. Here's a quote that you never ever ever want to forget about when talk comes up of nationalizing health care:

"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free!"

P.J. O'Rourke

Just remember nothing is free when it comes to the government. And the only people out there to pay for it is you and me. Be careful what you ask them to take care of because they will likely do it less inefficiently than you could yourself, or someone else for you.

Failing Education

I don't know if you all realize just how bad our education system is. But the fact that politicians and others who have a vested interest in this government bailout to "save the economy," keep touting the mantra, "the average person just doesn't understand what all's involved and just how devastating it will be if we don't provide this bail-out," should be an indication just how terrible things are in public education.

Here's why. The government caused a problem that now they are trying to convince you the average person, that they are the solution to. The sad part is that many people have decided that this must be true. They accept the word of the government rather than question the word of those in our government. This should be scary to most of you come election time. Because many or most of the people won't be voting on substance, they'll be voting on who looks good to them, or who their parents told them to vote for, or who their friend told them to vote for, without ever doing 10 minutes of research on the issues and what and why the candidates take the position they take and what that means if that person is elected.

The government has a monopoly on education. What I mean by that is that all the tax dollars collected and distributed for education, go to government schools. You can't just decide to send your kid to the private school of your choice and expect the government to give you the money they would have paid the public school in your district for your kid to attend. So what happens if you choose to forgo the tax dollars you already pay for your child's education and send him to private school? That money still goes to the government school district you live in.

Then the government teachers teach your kids to become mindless followers and believers in the need for government. If you don't intervene and teach them to question everything, then that is what they will become. They don't question the motives or actions of politicians, they just vote for the one that will "take care" of them. Luckily there are still parents out there that take it upon themselves to continue their kid's education at home. Good for you and keep up the good work.

I believe there are things that shouldn't be taught at school because it is the responsibility of parents to teach their kids their belief system or send them to a school that will instill their belief system. Two topics in particular are sex and religion. The biology associated with sex is fine but birth control vs abstinence should be addressed at home. There shouldn't even be any arguments as to whether or not the government school should teach abstinence or birth control. Stick to biology. Same with religion. They can and ought to offer elective classes on religion just as students should be allowed to form religious clubs if they want to. But it should not be forced on any student who's parent doesn't want that. Likewise that parent shouldn't fight to remove any non-forced religious classes or clubs from the campus.

That said I believe a parent should have the right to choose where to send their child to school, be it a government school, a parochial school, or some other private school offering something they want for their child. Schools should have to compete with each other for students. You know operate in the free market like businesses do. If some schools can't keep up, let them fail. Government or not. They have to offer something there's a market for. The money should follow the child, not the child following the money. Maybe that's why we have such a subpar education system in this country. But that's my solution. Oh and while we're taking the monopoly away from the government, let's dismantle the department of education while we're at it and leave it up to the states to determine how much regulation they want on schools and teachers in their state. You all know just how much money we're wasting at a federal level on departments like this.

Who knows, it just might work. Good teachers might start getting paid more, students might learn to think for themselves, and we might become competitive with the rest of the world again.

Slippery Slope, Smoke-Screen, or Both?

With the recent "drama" of the mortgage industry bail-out in session, I saw some news last night that infuriated me, but it was bed time and this presidential candidate needs her rest. Especially when she's infuriated so she can form rational thoughts to share with you. This wasn't overlooked on talk radio today which we can be grateful for. But I'm convinced 90% of Americans weren't listening or paying attention. But they should be. You all should be. This affects you and the future of this country.

"A bill set to be passed by Congress and signed by President Bush as early as this weekend—separate from the controversial Wall Street bailout plan—includes $25 billion in loans for the beleaguered Detroit automakers and several of their suppliers." (Click on the quote for the full story from usnews.com.)

So not only are we bailing out the poor business and personal practices of banks and their lendees, now the auto industry has their hand out saying "what about us." The hope is that you won't notice since $25 billion is a trivial amount compared to $700 billion. I don't know where congress comes from but where I come from 50,000 smart people could probably retire on $25 billion or be dang close to it. That's a lot of money! If that $25 billion were going to the banks, it would still be unacceptable in my book.

What industry is next? You can't give government money to one and not expect the others not to come pounding at your door.

When will you people get infuriated by this trend by our senators and representatives to increase the size of government so large, that you have no choice but to depend on them? You should be fighting this to your grave if you care about your children and grandchildren. Don't give into their out of control practices. Government interference is what got us into this mess to begin with, how can government interference possibly be better than letting the free market work it out. Granted times might be tough for awhile, but the resiliency of the American people will prevail.

If American auto makers can't keep up with the quality and demand of the foreign auto makers, tough luck. The American people shouldn't be forced to keep them alive. They should figure it out on their own or go away.

If I am elected, any garbage like this making it to my desk will be vetoed. But not before publicly humiliating every single member of the house and senate who voted in favor of it. You can be sure of that. Dog's honor...

Term Limits - Not Such a Bad Idea

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage." - (Alexander Tyler is given credit for writing this in regards to the fall of the Athenian Republic but snopes.com can't validate this. It really doesn't matter who wrote, the sentiment and caution is a good one)

For those of you that think America is a true democracy, let me correct you. We are a republic that operates under a representative democracy. Simply put, we don't vote on policy and law, we elect senators and representatives to represent us in Washington and vote "on our behalf." So those of us that voted for them are represented and the rest of us are SOL Don't believe me, look it up. So I guess that's not really a representative democracy either.

Here's the problem with that. There aren't any term limits for Senators and Representatives. Why is that when the office of the president now has a two term limit, it isn't deemed necessary for our other elected officials? Whatever happened to the concept of public service? I'm sure many of them go in with the best of intentions but it seems like after term one or two they start enjoying the power they have and they make votes based on what they feel like making rather than how their constituents would prefer they vote. They could impose term limits on themselves, but they'd have to vote on it and why would anyone vote themselves out of a job? Hence where voting for themselves rather than with constituents' preferences. They vote themselves raises and all kinds of benefits. Why not? If I could vote myself a raise I certainly would.

And this is why we have complacency in this country for how our country is run. The power should be in the hands of the people not in the government. People think they can't change things so they don't educate themselves about candidates, don't bother to vote, or just vote for the name they know. What good does that do? We could essentially kick these people out of office and yet we don't. We keep electing the same ones over and over without bothering to check their voting record while in office. Not one of them ever seems to be held accountable unless they are caught in some "scandal." We have a responsibility to hold them accountable. Just like we have a responsibility to write or call them to voice our opinions to them.

I love how many politicians are "in favor" of term limits and then when that time comes they revise their position to "well if there was a bill to come up I'd vote for it, otherwise I can't do any good if I step down now." Well why haven't you written that bill?

If you limit the amount of time they are allowed to spend representing us there maybe they will actually stick to their original intentions rather than wasting their time trying to buy our votes every election. Which is another trick they get involved in. They will vote a certain way in an attempt to essentially buy votes with your tax dollars. Why do we let them do this? Again, term limits might help put a stop to this practice.

Government is NOT the Answer to Your Problems

Whether you believe in creation or the big bang, government was not there to help the first people on earth gather their food, build their houses, and fix any damage to them after a storm. They worked hard to do this on their own and looked for ways to improve things on their own. How do you think we've come so far? Over time, left to their own devices private citizens have learned how to improve processes and methods to develop technology far beyond the imagination of the first people on earth. All without the help of government.

Families came together to help raise their own, not intrude on other families to insist that it be done one superior way. That's not to say children shouldn't be defended if they are severely injured or sexually abused. But a parent should be allowed to discipline as they see fit. Parents should take responsibility for raising their kids to be productive, responsible, members of society, not depend on the government to do it. And if hard times fall on a family member, the family should come together to help them out. That's not to say they should enable them to be lazy, drug addicts, or something else. But it used to be that families and churches provided the temporary help for their members to help them during the hard times that happen and celebrate with them when they make it past those hard times.

When this is left to the government, it will cost way more than necessary and they will seize your money to help someone you may not care to help whether you want them to or not. When did government become the solution? Everyone should know by now that if left to the government, things like charity, education, food, clothing, etc etc are executed in such an inefficient manner that it should be criminal how much of our hard earned tax dollars are wasted.

History has taught us this over and over and over and yet we still let politicians try to buy our votes by promising us this and that. With our money no less, with the exception of those that don't pay taxes.

We all have choices and we should be expected to live within our means rather than rely on the government to bail us out every time we make a bad decision. The same goes for corporations. They shouldn't be bailed out every time they enter in to bad decisions. And now because they did, responsible tax payers are footing the bill for it. That isn't right. Companies that make bad decisions should be allowed to fail and go away. People that make bad choices should be allowed to fail. If you don't experience failure, how are you going to learn to make better decisions the next time around? And how are you going to reassess your situation to make cut backs to live within your means if you've been taught that it doesn't matter, "big brother" will bail you out?

Personal Responsibility should be demanded of all of us, not just those who take pride in it. You can't change history but you sure can learn from it. Well you should learn from it to change the future.