Limited Federal Powers

I actually know Aren in real life, and yes, he is a Republican. No, I am not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican, either because I think both parties suck!  We can tell that you're lying to us because your lips are moving.  You've worked so hard to be "different" that you've become just the same - another bunch of douchebags running for an office that you're not fit to hold.  There's a reason that I refer to elections as "Spinning the Wheel of Crap" - we get to see which piece of crap gets the office.   The only differece between two of you is who the middle class gets whored out to. With the Republicans, it's big business. With the Democrats, its special interests.

You fight over the female vote based on abortion - as if the the ability to terminate a pregancy some how defines me as being female. You want to be "Pro-Life" then BE IT - offer low-cost high quality day care for those babies that would be aborted because the parents can't afford to care for them. But no, that's a "hand out" to deal with the child you would force people to create and you can't have THAT! It's so much easier to sit outside the clinic and engage in the most UN-christian behavior of screaming "BABY KILLER!" and "WHORE!" at people. All that does is serve to polarize the debate and make for a nice 3 second sound byte on the evening news so that you can look like you're doing something to your zombie constitutients. 

Here's what I haven't seen either party address: 

Keep our jobs here. Who is going to buy your over priced crap - big business - when everyone is making $8/hour???? You want to know why the economy is tanking... The mass exportion of jobs - jobs that used to pay $70K year to Americans that were replaced with jobs that pay minimum wage. When you go from making $70k a year to $20K year, don't don't consume as much. And we ALL know by now that our economy is based on everyone being good little consumers. Sadly, Texas, with our REPUBLICAN governor, leads the USA in the creation of MINUMUM WAGE jobs. And in the loss of jobs that pay more than $60K per year.  And the Democrats haven't exactly done anything about it. 

Stop illegal immigration.  Come up with some meaningful immigration reform.  I employ a college student from overseas.  Because she messed up her time punch and "worked" 10 minutes too long, she was at risk of having her student visa revoked and being deported.  Over 10 minutes....  And to futher complicate things, I'll be attending her graduate in lieu of her parents who probably won't be able to obtain a Visa to attend her graduation.  She's not graduating for another 6 months and without a visa from the USA, their home country won't issue a travel visa and it takes 6 months to get that.  It shouldn't be so hard for them to attend her graduation.  I have another friend who is here from Italy on a Green Card - permanent resident.  Her father passed away a few years ago and recently her mom fell and broke her hip.  She doesn't get around so well so my friend wants to bring her mother here to live with her so that she can care for her.  That's been 18 months and her mother still doesn't have a visa.  If Perla's mother had been a few years older, she'd have been granted a visa immediately. 

Project Innocence just freed it's 250th wrongly convicted person. While I don't disagree with the death penalty in principle, I do disagree with it in practice. It's sought in much higher percentage of cases where the person(s) on trial do not have the economic means to defend themselves. Poverty is the single biggest predictor of who will be and who will not be charged with capital crimes. Do you know that it's permissable in Texas for your "court appointed attorney" to SLEEP during your trial? How is that, in shape or form, justice? We live in an age where the police lock people up for fake drugs and put real ones up for sale in file cabinets. Until the entire "justice system" gets a whole lot better, I can't condone the taking of a human life by the state. If "we the people" are killing the wrong people, how are we any better?  

Websters defines judge as "public official who hears and decides cases brought before a court of law". Why do we have judges? Laws aren't always clear. As with any human situation, they are often messey and often times they take a human to look at the facts and make a value judgement. Shoplifting is a crime. I think we can all agree on that. But is it a worthy of 60 or 90 days in jail when someone has stolen diapers and formula for their baby because they're flat broke - the unemployment ran out and the food stamps haven't kicked in yet?  Restitution is probably sufficient in this case along with some community service.  These situations are exatly why we have HUMANS involved in the justice system - because it takes a heart and mind to dispense true justice.  Not every judge sitting on the bench is Solomon reincarnated but I'd rather have a human who can look at the whole picture and not some pre-mandated punishment.  Because in the case of our shoplifter, he loses his baby to CPS, he loses his section 8 apartment because he's been convicted of a crime, and he loses his public assistance.

While we're on the topic of public assistance, lets talk about the institutionaliztion of poverty.  Our public assistance programs are geared toward creating generational poverty.  For example, if you have a child on WIC, you - the parent - must meet with WIC officials during 9 am to 5 pm on M-F basis.  Now, if you're the average schmoe trying hold down a job... guess when you're working?  And guess how easy it is to take off randomly for 1 day a month for WIC, 1 day a month for each school your kids are in, 1 day a month for AFDC, 1 day a month for TANF, and 1 day a month for Food Stamps.  That's at least 6 days a month and most employers aren't going to tolerate that for a full time employee.   

Republican = Christian.  I can't roll with the overtly religious agenda.  I don't really care what you think of your Ten Commandments - which frankly are Old Testament only apply to Jews.  According to your own dogma, that whole Jesus is the Messiah thing sort of did away with them with that "new covenant". We appreciate that it works for you, however, I don't see much difference between Jerry Fallwell and Iman Rauf in a lot of ways. I guess you all need the threat of Hell and the promise of Heaven in order to be coerced into behaving yourselves. I think that in the end we all have to find ways to live WITH each other.   I'm sorry, but to me, arguing about religion is like arguing about who has the better imaginary friend. There's no proof any of them actually exist and all the arguing in the world won't change the other guy's mind.  And at the end of the day, we need to figure out how to accomodate everyone from the skyclad Wiccans to the most modest Mormon.

You want less Federal Goverment - then how about shrinking the powers that were granted by a REPUBLICAN president via the Patriot Act? You want to uphold the Constitution and the Bill of Rights... Get busy!  It really needs it, right now. How about doing something about the jackbooted thugs at the TSA? In order to "BE ALLOWED TO FLY" you must be irradiated or groped? I don't know about any of you, but I've worked in jobs where I've had to wear a radiation badge and I've been put off work with pay for maxing out my rad badge.  I don't really want to be exposed unless it's absolutely necessary.  I'm a citizen of what used to be the free-est country in the world and now my ability to move around my OWN COUNTRY is being restricted???? Thank you, George W. 

And the worst part is that the "restrictions" are all pure 100% theater and do NOTHING to make anyone one iota safer.  First off, we spend YEARS telling our kids that if someone touches you "down there" you need to come tell Mommy right away.  Then we take them to the airport where we stand idly by and watch as some stranger shoves his hand down their pants.  Talk about a mixed message.

I know that they said it was "for your own good" but it's really not.  First off, they're not arresting anyone who's carrying a gun shoved up their ass to the airport.  It works kinda like a catch-and-release program for big mouth bass.  You catch one, take the hook out and put it back in the lake or in this case, the city.  Anyone stupid enough to carry a gun to the airport is BEGGING to be arrested and charged with carrying a concealed weapon.  WTF???

Secondly, it only works on metal.  Plastic explosive doesn't show up.  In fact, most explosives don't show up as they are non metallic.  Plastic and ceramic guns (which are available at almost any gun store) also don't show up.  Ceramic knives are available at almost any chef supply and they too don't show up on the xrays.  That's assuming that I don't get creative and have several people carrying various parts of a regular metal gun through so that I can assemble it on the plane.  A process that takes just a few minutes tops.

Then we have the ridiculous limit on 3 oz bottles of liquid.  As a chemistry major, I can assure that I can take 6 to 12 oz of liquid on plane and create something so sufficiently deadly that I can wipe out every single member of both the passenger and the crew.  If I am part of a group and we all have our 3 oz bottles, I can really get creative and make the explosive ON the plane. And I'm not threatening to do it.  I'm merely pointing out that it's STUPID SIMPLE to accomplish.

What's next - are we going fly naked?  I am NOT sitting next to my boss for 5 hours naked on the way to San Francisco!  Or worse yet, what happens when some id10T puts the plastic explosives in a body cavity?  We all get cavity searched to fly?  Where does it end?

Then there are the issues where I just can't get behind either side....

Republic = "Anti-Gay" You want to promote an anti-gay agenda based solely on your religious objections. I just can't agree that being gay needs to be punished. You can love the person without loving everything that they do. If you are truly the Christians you claim to be then you practice the verse that says "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Further more, if gays want to get married, divorced, pay alimony, split up community property, etc. they're welcome to join the misery. I fail to understand what your problem is...

Democrat = "Pro-Gay"  I can't roll with this 100% either.  I do agree that being gay shouldn't be punished.  Part of the whole "no gays in the military" was so that you couldn't be blackmailed with it. And back when being outed was a big deal, I can sort of see the logic behind it.  But times have changed.  You can't really blackmail someone with that sort of thing any more. It's just not that big a deal, unless you're the Republican National Party Chair or a televangeslist. 

But that's only PART of the "no gays in the military" and I really think we need to be able to sit down and have a rational discussion about the rest of it because there are practical issues.  Given the barracks conditions that most troops operate in, having a gay man in the men's housing is tantamount to having a man housed in the women's housing. You live very closely, often the whole groups shares a few shower heads in group shower, beds in a tent or other common area, etc. in shifts. Just as no college would put a man in the woman's domoritory, this should not be permissible either, but no one can have a rational discussion to create a workable solution because of the rhetoric.  

The situation is so polarized that you can't talk about it without being instantly labeled by BOTH sides of the argument.  Yet without discussion, there is no hope of a viable solution that addresses the needs of all the parties involved.  All that is left is a very dissatisfactory, for both sides, status quo.