Some rants I wrote during the train ride to work.

Rant # 1

Election 2008 is coming soon to a theatre near you. America as usual seems to see the choices as between left and right, and a lot of Americans seem to accept this premise. Why is it that there is an all or nothing mentality presented to the public concerning Democrats and Republicans? How is it that Democrats are painted as weak on security when JFK did a masterful job of handling the Russians during the Cuban missile crisis?
Can you imagine Bush saying "bring it on" to the Russians during such a critical moment?
Is there no Republican willing to concede that Corporate America needs some regulation to prevent it from running rampant? Is Teddy Roosevelt the black sheep of the Republicans?
Will Americans say "I'd rather have a Republican in office and deal with bad economics and security than have a Democrat that might legalize gay marriage"?
Personally, I'm not that crazy about Obama, but I think he's a better choice than McCain, who now seems to be a full fledged member of the neo-con faction; but, I would take Ralph Nader or Ron Paul over either of these guys. The Democrats and Republicans are playing a good cop/bad cop game: a hard approach and a soft approach to the issues America faces, but remember both the good cop and the bad cop work for the same employer.

Rant # 2

Deregulation means taking away a regulation. Regulations do not grow on trees, people create and enforce them. Regulations are typically in response to some problem. Deregulation of big business seems to ignore the fact that the regulations were put there for a reason, said reason being big business quite often has no issue causing you a great deal of problems in their relentless pursuit of maximum profit.
The airline industry is now able to "police themselves". Apparently, no one sees the "fox guarding the henhouse" aspect of this ludicrous situation. Taking this to a logical extreme, why don't we just get rid of our police forces and police ourselves? Wouldn't that mean LESS TAXES and LESS GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE in our personal lives (the holy grail for Republicans)?
Some people say that "fat cats" should go to jail because of our current economic crisis, but in truth, because of deregulation no laws were broken. Good careful regulation would not have allowed the bad practices that led to this sub prime mortgage crisis.
Of course, we've had in the past over-regulation, and that can strangle economic growth. But the antidote is not total deregulation, which is the Republican mantra, but careful regulation, which should be SOMEBODY'S mantra.

Rant # 3

Whenever somebody says rich people should be taxed more, you can be sure some Republican will invoke "re-distribution of wealth" connecting the concept to Communism.
Reaganomics was built upon the trickle-down theory, which says rich and innovative people will create business and jobs and then their money will trickle down to working people. Just like Communism, this is a nice concept that somehow never works in reality. 95% of America's wealth was owned by 2% of the population. I believe that figure is up to 99%. So we've actually defied gravity and trickled up; we already have re-distribution of wealth, only it is going towards the rich.
I don't believe in class warfare and I don't want to see rich people being punished; I would like to see the rich have a tax burden equal to middle and working classes, which probably means less tax breaks. If a working class citizen pays 20% of their income to the government then rich people and corporate America should be paying 20%. Any rich person who disagrees is an unpatriotic ingrate to the country that gave them the opportunity to gain wealth.


Rant # 4

Here's a verbal exchange I quite often have:
"Hey! How's it going?"
"Ah, I can't complain, nobody listens."
"Remember, America was founded by a bunch of complainers"
Yes, if our founding fathers did not complain, we would still be flying the Union Jack instead of Betsy Ross' wonderful creation.
It would seem to me that those who label protestors as unpatriotic are spitting in the faces of those who signed the Declaration of Independence. Whether the protest itself is right or wrong, the right to protest is a fundamental American concept and protestors should not be vilified. Sometimes they just should be ignored.
Those of us who said we should blindly support our President in critical times can now see the fruition of what happens when the President is allowed to reign unchecked.
Have we learned anything yet?