Off topic : As hard working taxpaying citizens, we should NEVER be the bug! His response, to my general, and off topic statement regarding our current group of politicians. It also points out that priorities in this administration are basically...FUCKED UP!
I'm speaking about the functions and results of the free market, that so many these days treat as a quasi-religion. And not to be blasphemous, especially on Easter weekend, but the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. And the very same is true of the free market. Whether the market is gasoline or used cars, there is not a case to be made where you will
always find yourself on the right side of the trade... and there is nothing that the government can do to give you that guarantee. So yeah, at some point, you will be the bug. Speculators aside, the price of oil is basically the result of the functional interaction between supply and demand. What would Facetious have Obama do, release all of the oil in the reserve... do the "drill, baby, drill" dance and expect that oil companies would continue to produce a steady supply, even as the price per barrel fell to something below the cost of production??? The free market does not work that way. We're all bugs at some point. Best to just avoid windshields as much as possible.
I could certainly join you in criticizing some of this administration's priorities. But then I could also do a long diatribe on the fucked up priorities of the last administration too. Both Bush and Greenspan were more than happy to talk about and take credit for the record home ownership rates a few years ago. And with real wages stagnant or falling, because the U.S. hasn't had a meaningful manufacturing strategy for decades, both Bush and Greenspan were happy to see the U.S. economy chugging along, fueled by people using their homes as ATM machines. How many cases did the Bush administration file with the WTO against China's unfair trade practices and their theft of intellectual property? How would his plan to privatize Social Security (which I had been in favor of) have worked out? How did Bush pay for his "No Child Left Behind" federal mandate on schools? How did he pay for Medicare Part D? How did he pay for the war in Iraq? In fact, why are we even in Iraq? And since we're talking about Mexico here, what exactly did Bush/Cheney do to reform or fix the immigration situation in the U.S.? I personally saw one of the maps that had been passed out on the Mexican side of the border, directing people to the best routes for illegally entering the U.S. That was in 2004 - I remember because I was working away from home in a hell hole of a place. Bush was President. What did he do about that?
Over the course of my life, I've voted for more Republicans than I have Democrats. But since about 1999, the GOP has pretty much been taken over by, controlled by, or just (IMO) overly influenced by people who basically make me sick to my stomach: nation building neocons, kooky conspiracy theorists and religious whack jobs. I got suckered into voting for Bush in 2000 (though I prefered McCain - the McCain of the '90's, not the
Rovebot that ran with that moronic, clueless twit from Alaska in 2008) because I was dopey enough to believe his little speech about not believing in "nation building". But with Bush/Cheney, we all learned what a nation building "neocon" truly was. There are several thousand dead American kids, who gave their all in Iraq, who know (in Heaven) too. And before anyone says, "yeah, but Bush isn't running in 2012"... you are most correct. And then you can explain to me the differences (actual differences) between Bush and most of the front-runners or mid-packers that we're hearing about now.
If Obama gets his way, my taxes will go up under his plan. And no, I don't like paying more taxes - other than the 80's, the W. Bush years were pretty good for me personally (for the country, not so much). But I'd rather go Obama's way, and see defense cut (along with whatever entitlements that the GOPers can squeeze out), than believe that horseshit fantasy that Paul Ryan is singing, that the unemployment rate will fall to 2.8% (not an Econ. major, is he?), and we can cut the
top rate to 25%, while taking the home mortgage deduction away
from middle class people. Oh, and here's a great one (speaking of the free market and becoming a bug on the windshield)... let's repeal "Obamacare" and also gut Medicare at the same time. Yeah, let's watch a bunch of people 62+ trying to get private health insurance in a few years (what with their pre-existing conditions and such). That should be totally comical. Like starving rats fighting over the last grain of wheat in a burning barn, I would say. Wouldn't it be more humane to just send out the military and have them shoot everyone who makes less than six figures??? :dunno: I do more than OK now. And I'm humbled by my blessings, not full of pride. But when I stop working, my income will surely drop to a point that spending a grand a month for a junk 60/40 policy will bother me. And considering some of the health problems I had last year, I already know for a fact that a private insurance company would laugh me out of their office if I asked them to cover anything worse than an ingrown toenail - if they would write me a policy at all! And at the age of 66 (or whatever), the government squid who hands me a medical voucher, so that I could have my cataracts taken off by someone who last practiced medicine on a goat in Pakistan might just be the one to make Fox News and CNN with me, as I do my best impression of the guy from "Falling Down".
If an intelligent, non-hyperbolic, non :tinhat: Jack Kemp type steps forward for the GOP between now and November of 2012, he will likely get my vote. But if it's the same group of clowns that I'm hearing about now,
Big Daddy O (as Georges calls him) can expect me to line up for him again. At least with him, I pretty much know where he stands now (or where he doesn't). About the only Republicans who I even respect at this point are Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan. I didn't say I agreed with either of them 100% of the time, but I do respect them for their candor. But neither of them is running, as far as I know.
On Topic: as far as Mexico is concerned, IMO, it won't matter whether it's the donkey or the elephant in the White House, nothing has been done and I don't expect anything to be done... until a plane load of American business executives gets torched by an RPG while sitting on the runway in Mexico City, there to pick out their next outsourcing site. Then... and only THEN... it will be 82nd Airborne time.
), if the Mexican government would stop dragging its feet and give the ATF and DoJ the serial numbers from ALL of the captured weapons, it would be relatively easy to track the suppliers. Course, as more than a few of them would be traced back to the Mexican military and security forces, that might open up another can of worms that neither government wants to talk about. And if the Mexican government hadn't drug its feet for year after year on closely inspecting vehicles crossing INTO Mexico, the flow of weapons wouldn't be as fluid as it currently is. And... AND... if the Mexican government had taken steps (before last year) to track large deposits into Mexican banks, it would have been easier for them to identify illegal funds. And as far as the U.S. is concerned, if more of our focus was on the money and the banks that launder it in this country, and less on potheads selling a bag of weed at 7-11 at 3AM, this whole bullshit drug war that's been dragging on for 40 years wouldn't be such a TOTAL JOKE!
