We Want Our Country Back

We want our country back. What an interesting mantra.

Exactly where (or when) do we want our country back to?

Do we want it back to where Blacks had to drink from a different water fountain?

Do we want it back to where there were no usable roads?

Do we want it back to the good old days when 11 year olds were forced to work 80 hours a week with no rights and little pay?

How about all the way back to when everyone "owned" at least a couple of other people?

What is it that we want back?

Do we want back the days when even adult workers had no rights? How does an 80 or 90 hour workweek with no overtime pay, no minimum wage, no sick time, no holiday pay, and no weekend sound? When the owner of a company could keep his employees under his thumb by paying them very little, and then extending loans to keep them working there? That song "I owe my soul to the company store" wasn’t just a song.

Oh, I know. Do we want back the days when everyone had to carry a weapon because there weren’t enough police to keep order?

Or do we want it back to where woman couldn’t vote, and could barely get a job?

How about we do away with all those costly government programs. We don’t need any federal agency to police our food and drugs. Those companies that provide that stuff will police themselves adequately. Just like the peanut butter folks a couple of years ago. Or the Vioxx folks.

Where, or when, is it exactly that we want our country back to?

How about the days when a person could be turned out of a hospital ER to die on the sidewalk just feet away because he had no insurance or cash to pay for treatment?

What DOES "We Want Our Country Back" mean, exactly?

Family Values

Am I the only one that finds it amusing that the Republican Party’s idea of "family values" means hiring hookers, expense account strip joints, cheating on your wife with another woman, or cheating on your wife with a man?

Apparently letting gays get married would be far more dangerous to the "sanctity of marriage" than any of these things. From all of the reports of closet gay Republican politicians, I can see why they think so.

My guess is, to their way of thinking, if it is legal for a man to marry a man, ALL men will leave their families to marry other men. This must be a Republican phenomenon, because I have to assure everyone that, no matter how legal they make it for me to marry a man, I rather like women. Even if, by some awful twist of life, my wife was to leave me, I would still not marry a man to replace her. I have to think that most folks feel this way. Maybe I am wrong.

Most folks thought their Republican Congressmen were heterosexual, God-fearing family oriented men.

To quote one of my favorite Simpson’s characters: "HA HA"

Republican Purity Test

Do people truly not remember anything?

Are we going to collectively go to the polls in 2010 and vote based on what the Democrats have not been able to do? Or are we going to vote based on what the Republicans have stood in the way of? Will we remember the 1994 "Contract for America" (also known as the "Contract on America").

Will we, as a people, remember that from 1994 to 2006 the Republicans had control of the legislative and judicial branches of the government? And that from 2000 to 2006 they had control of the entire government? Will we remember what they did and did not do while they had control?

We got a couple of wars we had no business being in, we got decreasing regulation on the financial sector; we got really good legislation for the credit card industry; and a whole lot more that was good if you were a corporation or wealthy American, bad if you were a tax paying middle class citizen.
　
Oh good Lord, I certainly hope this happens.
　
Apparently the GOP has come up with a set of guidelines they are thinking of requiring any candidate to swear to uphold before they will allow him/her to call him/herself a Republican.
Red text is the "test", black text is my comments. There is a link to the news story at the end.


REPUBLICAN PURITY TEST

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill.

Because anything from Obama is bad? So far the Republicans have been pretty consistent about opposing anything put forth by the current administration or the Democratic Party. Smaller government like President Bush 43 made? Smaller national debt like the same guy gave us? Lower deficits? Let me get this straight. Lower deficits like Clinton gave us? Or "lower" deficits like the totally Republican run government gave us from 2000 to 2006, largely accomplished by hiding war costs? Lower taxes for the rich and higher taxes for the middle class like Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 gave us?

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare.

Because market-based worked so well for the banksters. Just kinda sucked for the rest of us. And again with the anti-Obama thing.

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation.

See my comments on #2. At least they left our President out of this one.

(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check.

I am not real sure what is up with this one, but anytime I see Republican response to anything union, I have to assume that it is going to be horrible for unions and non-union workers alike.

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants.

I got nothing for this one. One of those things that I happen to be in almost total agreement with the GOP.

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges.

What? Victory? Someone please define what that means. All terrorists dead? How do you quantify that?

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat.

Because we have not yet managed to start World War III, and sticking our noses there might just do it.

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act.

Keep the government out of our business, but it’s OK for them to be in our personal lives? If you truly want to maintain the "sanctity of marriage", make it harder to get a divorce. Otherwise, just admit that you hate gays and move on.

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion.

What? I thought the Republicans were FOR private, for-profit insurance companies? Aside from the government funding of abortion, these are all things that private insurance companies do now.

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.

Because anyone, no matter how psycho he/she may be, should be allowed to own a Howitzer or an M1 Abrams.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl996

Presidential Intelligence

So I just had a chat argument with a guy over him calling President Obama "retarted". His spelling, not mine. So we started off on a good foot, because those who know me know that I didn’t let that one pass. I also pointed out to him that calling arguably our most intelligent president in years retarded, especially in light of the mental acuity of our previous president, was moronic. He argued that Bush got blamed for a lot that wasn’t really his fault. Of course he did, that’s what happens to presidents. Like Barack Obama being blamed for the record debt America holds right now. Never mind that George W. came into office with cash surpluses that Clinton left him and quickly turned them into record deficits that made even Reagan’s look mild. Never mind that G.W. got us embroiled in a war we never should have even considered.
He argued that we HAD to attack Iraq, due to 9-11. Again with the "retarted". Apparently he forgot that even Bush eventually admitted that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11. He was also unaware, until I pointed it out to him, that no one from Iraq was involved in the attacks. A whole bunch of Saudis were, but hey, they are our buddies, our pals, our friends.
But wait, he argued. Iraq had nukes; we had to stop them. What? By this time my head is spinning like I just finished drinking a case of beer alone. Nukes? Iraq didn’t even have the wmd’s we accused them of having at the time, let alone nukes.
I once saw a quote, I can’t remember who it was credited to. "While it would not be true to say that all conservatives are stupid, it would be true to say that most stupid people are conservative."
What kind of uneducated, uninformed people do we really have in this country? And these folks vote. Usually straight Republican ticket.

Tell your kids to drop out

In 1988, Ronald Reagan, a white Republican president, addressed the students of America in a televised speech. He spoke about how tax cuts increase revenue, gun control, and a few other partisan subjects. I, for one, do not remember anyone having an aneurysm over that speech. Now, 21 years later, Barack Obama, a black Democrat president, wants to give a speech on the importance of staying in school, getting good grades, and taking responsibility for one’s own education. People are apoplectic, claiming a fear that he will deliver a speech laden with partisan politics. Folks are promising to keep their kids out of school that day. Excuse me? Are these people stupid? The White House and the US Department of Education have both averred that this speech will be over nothing but the importance of getting a good education. There will be no political agenda attached, unless you can consider keeping kids in school an agenda. The president of the United States of America wants to tell your child how important it is for him or her to be a good student and you don’t want your child to participate? There is no way anyone is going to convince me that this isn’t, at best, partisan in the extreme, or, at worst, racist. I do not claim to know the motives of parents on this issue, but I do claim to know that they are idiots. Keeping your child out of school for this occasion not only sends them a message that it is perfectly all right to disrespect the office of the President, but also that it is all right to skip school because you do not agree with the content of the day’s activities. I wish this had been an option when I was in school; I can’t think of many days I would have attended. Reagan preached the necessity of cutting taxes for the richest amongst us, apparently believing that rich folks will voluntarily pass on those riches that we, the peons, pay extra for them to keep. This didn’t raise an eyebrow. Apparently the right has no problem with a president delivering a speech, even if it is partisan, to schoolchildren, as long as he is a Republican.