The Swing Voter

I admire Mike Gravel.  Not for any of his stances on the issues, not for his campaigning strategy, and not because I think he would make a good president.  Rather, I admire Mike Gravel for running in spite of no support and in the face of odds that he certainly will not overcome.  You see, Mike Gravel is running because he believes in what he is preaching, and he is trying to get his message out to the people, win or lose.  This appeals to me for some reason.  It signals to me that there are politicians out there who really do feel strongly about what the issues that they support and denounce.  It signals that there is a candidate who is not just trying to court voters, but is actually saying what he means.  I personally have no idea what Gravel’s beliefs are.  I had never taken the time to look because he is not a candidate in the forefront with any chance of winning.  I think we should all have a look at what he has to say because, in my opinion, anyone who puts themselves through the trouble of a campaign where they know they can’t win is worth listening to.  These people will speak from the heart because there is no political game to be played. 

In this world of partisan politics, congressional stalemates, and politicians who appear to be very fake, it’s hard not to become disillusioned by politicians who will say anything to get elected.  I keep watching and waiting for a major candidate to come along who will break the mold and make me rethink my cynical view of politicians, but so far that day hasn’t come.  Mainly, we need more candidates like Mike Gravel who run on their own convictions, not those of their parties.  Isn’t it sad that a moderate can never win the presidency simply based on the fact that they would never gain enough support from either party?  We will never have a president with views on both sides of the fence, even though that is what most American’s seem to be looking for.

Edit: I have taken a lot of flak from people saying that I would not vote for Mike Gravel because he isn’t a popular candidate.  I’m sorry if the article gives that impression.  I would not vote for Gravel because his views and my views are totally different.  When I said I had no idea what his views were, I meant that I had never gone out of my way to check them out in depth.  Obviously I’ve watched debates and know about what any fairly well-informed American knows.  I was trying to get the point across that the only people being honest with their true opinions are those candidates who have nothing to lose.  Just because I admire the man for being honest and unwavering does not mean that I will vote for him. 

 Also, here’s a good article that some of you may be interested in.

First of all, I’d like to congratulate Ron Paul on taking last night’s GOP debate in the viewer poll.  Unfortunately, debates mean nothing when it comes to the issues.  Debates are useful for is displaying a candidate’s charisma, confidence, poise, and general speaking ability, but nothing more.  Instead of talking about the debate, lets look at Ron Paul on the issues. 

With Ron Paul generating more and more interest, I figured I had better look at him seriously.  I have to say that I’m really not all that impressed with his agenda.  He is being lauded as a true conservative, which I’ll admit is a bit of a turn off for me personally.  I’m down the middle politically, and someone at either end of the spectrum tends to scare me.  After reading Paul’s stances on the issues via his campaign website, I found myself liking some points while others drove me crazy.  Sensationalism is rampant on his site, and it made me shake my head on quite a few occasions. 

No war should ever be fought without a declaration of war voted upon by the Congress, as required by the Constitution.

Ron Paul hit the nail on the head with his opinion on Iraq.  It’s about time we see some Republicans speaking out against the war and calling for the troops to come home.  All this talk about needing to have resolve in order to defeat the “jihadists” (as the Republican candidates tend to call them) seems to be more about pride then anything else.  I feel like many Republicans support the war because they feel like Bush’s bad diplomacy reflects badly on them, which it does not.  Again, Paul’s got it right when he points out that no military action should ever have taken place without being approved by congress.  His view that we can participate in world affairs without asserting ourselves militarily is icing on the cake. 

Things start to turn ugly when you look at his health policy.  He has this wacky opinion that the FDA is becoming too powerful and that they are interfering with the safe drugs that are on the market while allowing harmful drugs to pass through.  The man doesn’t seem to understand how hard it is to design and test a drug.  Sure we could give drugs a testing period of years and years and years, but usually the drug is being put out in response to a health problem that needs to be solved fairly quickly.  Considering how many drugs are put out each year, very few medications end up being health risks.  As for the good drugs on the market, which ones are being tampered with by the FDA?  Give me examples if you are going to make accusations Mr. Paul.  Finally, the most repulsive statement he makes is:

I also opposed the Homeland Security Bill, H.R. 5005, which, in section 304, authorizes the forced vaccination of American citizens against small pox. The government should never have the power to require immunizations or vaccinations.

Vaccines are the reason that dipthera, measles, mumps, pertussis, polio, rubella, and many more diseases are practically non-existent in this part of the world.  How can you even begin to claim that children are better off catching these potentially dangerous diseases because their parents don’t want to risk them getting sick from vaccines that have been routinely given for years?  The only way to destroy a disease is to immunize everyone.  Now they are even giving out hepatitis-B shots, which sound great to me because I sure don’t want to catch that.  Besides, most states allow you to avoid compulsory vaccination on the basis of religious or philosophical beliefs anyway.

I could go on but I will save it for another time since this post is already running long.  If you want to see his stances for yourself, view his issues page.  I will leave you with a bit of food for thought though.  For someone who is being hailed as an old time conservative, he contradicts the core belief of conservatism: preservation of everything spelled out in the constitution. 

I am also the prime sponsor of HR 300, which would negate the effect of Roe v Wade by removing the ability of federal courts to interfere with state legislation to protect life. This is a practical, direct approach to ending federal court tyranny which threatens our constitutional republic and has caused the deaths of 45 million of the unborn.

This blatant sensationalism is kind of sickening really. You can’t claim to be a staunch defender of the Constitution and then accuse the Supreme Court of being guilty of “tyranny” just because they are asserting their right to judge constitutionality, as established in the Constitution itself and reinforced in Marbury v. Madison.

Frankly, Ron Paul is a decent man and a good debater, but a lot of his views are a bit too far to the right for me to stomach.  In fact, a lot call for complete freedom in just about every aspect of society.  Freedom is great, but we need SOME regulation.   For someone who wants to abolish abortion, I don’t know how he intends to do it with no government regulation.

Hillary Clinton cares about America’s middle class.  She even went so far as to proclaim that one of the four major goals for her presidency was to help strengthen the middle class.  That must mean she cares right?  I just think it’s funny that on her website (under her goals for the middle class) she promises to raise minimum wage.  Now I’m no economist, but I did take economics in college.  It’s a well known fact that the middle class generally runs most of the small businesses in America, and small businesses make up the vast majority of all businesses in the economy.  These small businesses run on tight budgets and tend to pay minimum wage to their few employees.  How will raising this minimum wage help the current middle class?  It will take more money out of the pockets of today’s small business owners.  Besides, if you need more proof, how many middle class people do you know that are making minimum wage?

I’ll be the first to admit that just about all of the candidates who appear to be major players in the upcoming election tend to bore me.  You would think that an election that means so much to so many people would involve candidates with a bit more… personality.  It would also be a logical assumption that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would be the two most interesting of those running.  The potential first non-white president against the potential first woman president should make for politics at its best.  Unfortunately for us, their campaigns are almost exactly the same. 

The theme that both of them are living and dying by is change.  Do they really think they are going to seperate themselves from the pack with such a generic concept as their main campaigning point?  I hate to break it to them, but every candidate in every election is about some kind of change.  After an unpopular president, of course all of the candidates will be harping about what they can do better than the last administration.  All campaigns are about change, but the basis of your run should be a couple of issues that you specifically feel that change is needed.  After you establish that issue, you need to present a logical plan of attack to bring about the your proposed changes. 

If you look at recent spots by both Obama and Clinton, you will find Obama’s message of “change” pitted against Clinton’s “change and experience”.  I just want to know what and how.  Even the Republican candidates are calling for change, so these messages mean absolutely nothing to me.  If you want to impress the voters, give them something informative in your commercials.  Don’t just use a bad president as an excuse to try to ride the public’s emotion into the presidency.  Give a us a reason to elect you, and those of us with level heads will do the rest of the work.

This past Sunday, Hillary Clinton made her presidential goals clear during a speech up in New Hampshire.  Of course, when I say “clear”, I really mean she gave a vague and generic set of ambitions that I think we would expect any candidate to strive for.  For the sake of argument, let’s dissect these goals that Hillary feels will make her worth voting for. 

1.  Restore America’s Standing in the World.

I’m not really sure that America has lost its standing in the world.  It’s safe to say that our foreign relations are in shambles, but I believe that our role as the foremost superpower in the world is still intact.  Without a doubt, we need to repair our diplomatic ties with a lot of countries, but I highly doubt any candidate will have the necessary influence over the populations of these countries in order to turn their opinions of us.  It will take years and years to convince the British public that they should support a joint war with us again.  It will take even longer elsewhere.  I really think Hillary’s goal should be to MAINTAIN our standing in the world.  With the emergence of China as an economic powerhouse with vastly greater resources than our own, we may have some very stiff competition if we want to keep our position at the top of the diplomatic food chain. 

2. Rebuild America’s Middle Class and the Economy to Support It.

I’m pretty sure that just about every candidate since the beginning of the 20th century has been promising to make the middle class more comfortable.  The remarkable thing is that it’s just about impossible to keep the middle class content because they feel the effects of economic policies harder than either the rich or the poor.  The middle class pays the highest percentage of their income to taxes, never recieves any of the benefits of welfare and other programs designed to aid the poor, and will never experience complete financial freedom as the rich do.  Creating a stable middle class is a dream that will probably never come to fruition.  On the same note, our country is so far into debt that it would take decades, if not a century or two, of strong economic activity to dig ourselves out of that hole.  A debt is a debt, and our country will need to pay this off eventually.  Funds like social security will suffer as a result.  Our children will probably never recieve a dime of their social security.  Mrs. Clinton can try as she may, but she faces an uphill battle to say the least. 

3.  Reform our Government.

In what way does our government need reform?  As it appears to me, the only thing wrong with our government is the extreme rift in the politicians that are running it.  Politics are so polarized that no beneficial legislation can even pass through congress.  If something does manage to pass through, our president vetos it.  The only reform we need is a stronger effort from our politicians to cooperate.  Attaching a one important piece of legislation to another is not the way to force things through congress.  Each issue needs to be looked at individually.  Our congressmen are so concerned with looking good in the eyes of their party that they neglect the people they were elected to represent.  As a hardline Democrat, I can’t see Hillary helping in this area. 

4.  Reclaim the Future for our Children.

While vague, I think Hillary might be onto something.  We can’t determine the context of how she plans to help the kids, but I sincerely hope she plans to reevaluate the school system.  Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act was a complete disaster that I had the oppurtunity to see first hand.  Changes to elementary education left children lacking many of the basics that those who came before them seemed to have developed fully.  The test scores tell the whole story.  Even more seriously, college tuition is sky rocketing.  It is getting to the point where you could essentially buy a house with the money you are putting into your college education.  As a student at Penn State who is paying out of state tuition, I am on track to owe about $120,000 when I graduate.  For middle class, non-minority students, little is available in the way of scholarships or financial aid.  The only option is pray that you get a high paying job right out of college so that you can live comfortably.  If Hillary could find a way to reduce tuitions, she would be a miracle worker. 

Overall, I am not impressed with Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.  I honestly get the feeling that she is a cold and manipulative person just by looking at her.  If you look over her voting record, she is a quitessential liberal.  I tend to not like those who are not open minded enough to vote even slightly outside of their party lines.  I think she would be just as narrowminded in office as Bush is, and I’m not sure our country can handle that for twelve consecutive years.  I admit that I thought Bill Clinton was a solid president, but he and Hillary are nothing alike in my opinion.  We have a year left, so who knows what I will think of her by then. 

Jihad: Holy War.  This is meaning of the word Jihad as it is interpreted by most Americans and non-Muslims, and rightfully so.  The events of the past few years, or even the past decade, make it easy to draw conclusions about other cultures and religions.  While most Americans have heard the word jihad broadcast on one of the uncountable news bulletins from Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Iran, or any other hot bed of Islamic violence, the vast majority do not know anything about the Islamic culture, let alone the true meaning of jihad.  We are trained by the media to associate the word jihad with bloodshed, terrorism, and suicide bombings.  It is not really trickery on behalf of the media, but rather the fundamental stretch of application that is employed by the Islamic extremists.  Before we delve into this, let’s take a look at the meaning of Jihad.

While I am by no means an expert on Islamic culture, I have taken classes on the subject.  The hardest part of the academic study of religion is the required detachment from your own views and the beliefs, and the objective observation of the culture you are studying.  As for myself, I am a Protestant Christian though my father and his family are Jewish.  Enough background info for now. 

Let’s look at the term jihad from the perspective of a Muslim.  The true meaning of jihad is “to strive for moral and religious perfection”.  Now what exactly does this mean?  This means living in accordance with the five pillars of Islam.  For those of you not familiar with the five pillars, they are Confession of Faith, Prayer, Alms Giving, Fasting, and the Hajj.  The Hajj is a pilgrimmage to Mecca that every Muslim must undertake at some point in his or her life.  So back to our examination of the concept of jihad.  You might be asking how people can misinterpret it as a Holy War when the meaning is so far from that.  Well, there is more to the idea of Jihad. 

Jihad is composed of two parts.  There exists both an Internal jihad and an External jihad.  The external jihad is the part that throws most Americans off track.  Now the confusion of jihad meaning “Holy War”  stems from what Muslims call the “Little Holy War”, or the external jihad.  The concept of external jihad is fighting in the defense of Islam.  Obviously, we see many Muslims refering to the jihad as cause for terroristic attacks, including 9/11.  The key word, however, is defense. The term jihad cannot be used to label an offensive, as the Qu’ran lays out a law that force and violence are prohibited as a means to convert others to Islam. 

“Defend yourself against your enemies, but do not attack them first.  God does not approve of the aggressor.” -The Qu’ran

The quote above comes directly from the Qu’ran.  As you can see, you fighting in the name of Islam is allowed, but strictly as a defense.  This brings us to the stretching of the concept that is occurring today.  We see terrorists and Islamic Extremists declaring jihad in taped messages, and claiming that their actions are valid in God’s eyes.  Unfortunately, they are using the term to cover attacks which are certainly not defensive.  Flashback to 9/11.  While we have had conflicts with the Middle Eastern countries in the past, how have we threatened the Islamic faith? What provoked this attack?  You can’t label the terrorism that is rampant today as jihad, because their is no defensive stance to it.  Their actions are not sanctioned by God, even if you examine from their belief system.  While one could make the argument that our Western way of life is starting to make its way to the Middle East, you cannot blame the choices of your children on us.  We do not force our music, food, or clothing on the Islamic culture. 

Islamic countries operate on the concept of Islamic Law.  This means that all law is based on the Qu’ran.  Many Islamic manuscripts have been written in order to layout the guidelines for armed conflict.  Even these conflict with what is occuring today.  Among the most important laws of armed combat is the prohibition of killing women, children, and non-combatants.  Each and every terrorist attack volates these strictly layed out laws. 

The main focus of the word Jihad is on the internal side of things.  The internal jihad is the struggle within oneself to submit to the will of God, or in other words, the struggle to act as God would have you act, as opposed to how you want to act.  To hammer home the point that this is the main form of jihad, I leave you with the Islamic name for internal jihad: “The Great Holy War”.

The war in Iraq rages on, and I still hear people (though they are dwindling) saying that we can win this war.  First of all, I am not sure that I would classify the conflict in Iraq as a war in the first place.  Usually a war has two clear cut sides, two opposing forces.  If you transfer this view to what is occurring in Iraq, who are we fighting?  There are a few organized groups that are consistently orchestrating attacks on our troops, but overall, we can’t clearly define who we are fighting over there.  Are they Al Quaedi, remnants of the former Iraqi army, Sunnis, Shias, foreign fighters, or just ordinary citizens who don’t like our presence there?  If I had to muster a guess, I would say it’s a combination of all of those.  So how do you fight an enemy you can’t clearly define?  Let’s look at history. 

Vietnam:  The first and most obvious example of guerrilla warfare is Vietnam.  The enemy would ambush in thick jungles, open fields, and in supposedly friendly or neutral villages.  Many of their soldiers did not wear uniforms.  Obviously, our soldiers did not know the terrain and had difficulty communicating with the civilians.  I think we all know the result of this conflict.

The Revolutionary War:  While we had the Continental Army fighting against the British, we only began winning major battles towards the middle and end of the war.  By that point, the British forces had been significantly weakened by the hit and run tactics of minutemen in the countryside, as well as ambushes on caravans travelling through the rural landscape.  While the British had a poor supply line (the Atlantic Ocean) , the attacks would have continued.  There really isn’t any way to prevent them. 

USSR in Afghanistan:  The USSR invaded Afghanistan in order to gain a mountain buffer between itself and its Islamic neighbors.  After their mistreatment of the Afghans, a loose coalition of mountain fighters took arms against the Soviets.  While the CIA supplied the weapons and ammunition, the mountain fighters crushed the soviets using their knowledge of the mountain passes and other skills. 

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising:  If you haven’t heard of it, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the largest attempt made by Jews during the Holocaust to fight back.  The Warsaw Ghetto was an area of the city that was entirely fenced in and guarded by the Nazis.  It originally housed 380,000 Jews but that number was down to 80,000 when they began to fight.  The uprising consisted of a group of Jews making guerrilla attacks on Nazi soldiers who patrolled the ghetto.  These few Jews in a confined space were able to hold out for four months agaisnt the powerful German Army.  The only solution for the Nazis was to sweep through the city burning each building one at a time.  By that time, most of the fighters had escaped through the network of sewers under the city.

History is a great guide if you are looking for answers as to whether you should follow a course of action.  Even things that happened a thousand years ago can be applied to today’s world.  We should have had the foresight to see that our push into Iraq would turn into what it has.  You can fight against certain defined factions of fighters, but you can never stop the outraged citizen who decides to wake up one morning, strap himself with explosives, and suicide bomb a patrolling convoy.  The urban environment of Baghdad just complicates things more than ever before, since you need to avoid killing civilians at all costs.  This war could go on for years, but there would still be roadside bombs, suicide bombs, and ambushes as long as we are there.  If you need more convincing evidence, just look at the conflict in Israel that has been ongoing for more than a decade now.

While a lot of the issues I blog about aren’t really emotionally charged, every once and a while I will find something that hits a nerve.  Today is one of those days where I am so worked up over this that I am not going to attempt to be non-biased or look at this objectively.  Sometimes it just isn’t possible.  Sorry to leave you hanging in suspense but I am going to take this one nice and slowly, that way I don’t lose anyone.  About an hour ago, I was over on the 9rules homepage, which is one of my favorite places for picking up good ideas.  On the RSS feed of their members, I decided to click on an article that caught my interest.  The feed took me to a blog called Donklephant, one that I had not yet visited.  The immediate vibe was that it was a strongly liberal blog.  My rule of thumb is that I do not take anything as fact from a blog that is heavily biased towards one end of the political spectrum, so I always do my homework after the fact to make sure I am getting reality and not 100% opinion.  The entry that I was reading on Donklephant covered the debate being waged between conservatives (the religious right) and health officials (and everyone who isn’t religious right) over the release of the new cervical cancer vaccine that has been in the works for a long time now.  This debate was news to me because, last I heard, the vaccine was still in development.  Apparently it has been completed, but it has not made it into the hands of health professionals and doctors yet because of the ongoing stalemate between the aformentioned parties. 

For those of you who don’t feel like heading over there and reading about the details, I’ll explain them for you, along with what I have learned from my own individual research into the treasure trove of online articles.  First of all, in order to understand the debate, you have to understand where cervical cancer comes from.  The leading cause of cervix cancer (and cervix cancer can only occur in women for those of you who are anatomically challenged) is the Human Papilloma Virus, otherwise known as HPV.  HPV is a sexually transmitted virus with many different strains and variations.  According to womenshealth.gov, most sexually active people will have contract HPV during their lifetime, but will never know because it rarely shows symptoms and usually goes away on its own.  However, though most women’s bodies can fight off the HPV, it is known to cause cervical cancer during the course of this battle.  This new vaccine is proven to defend against the two most popular strains of HPV that account for 70% of the cases of cervical cancer.  The vaccine would be administered to 11-12 year old girls in their pre-pubescent years in order to protect them against HPV for the rest of their lives. 

The debate is not over if the vaccine works, but whether it should be administered.  Health care officials are on one side arguing for its obvious lifesaving ability.  At the same time, the religious right is claiming that the vaccine should not be administered because of the sexual promiscuity it may encourage.  This debate has become so serious that conservatives have actually blocked the administration of the drug in some states.  While the drug itself is able to be purchased, campaigns for widescale distribution have not been allowed.  Health care workers have said that it shoul be considered mandatory for school attendance, much as other vaccines are.  Until this conflict is resolved, countrywide vaccination does not appear likely.

Here is where my article stops the neutrality act.  I have given you more than enough information to make an intelligent decision as to where you stand on this, but if you feel I haven’t, feel free to do your own research.  It is purely my opinion, but I believe the religous right is being absolutely ridiculous in their attempts to block this vaccine.  It appears as though they care more about stopping pre-marital sex than they do about saving the lives of young women, to whom cervical cancer is a death sentence.  I realize that pre-marital sex is a sin.  However, so is lying, cheating, killing, rape, swearing, over drinking, and a million other things.  Let’s examine the consequences of lying and cheating.  If you get caught you might lose a friend.  At the worst (perjury, con artists), you might wind up in jail.  If you have pre-marital sex, you could wind up dying a horrible death.  Makes perfect sense to the religious right.  If you kill or rape, you may wind up facing the death penalty, but not the majority of the time.  In fact, those people are probably sentenced to death about as often as a girl having pre-marital sex develops cervical cancer.  By those standards, killing, rape, and pre-marital sex must all be on the same plane!  Makes perfect sense to the religious right.  I keep hearing fathers commenting that they want their daughter to realize the seriousness that comes from the unholy act of pre-marital sex, but are those same fathers going to stand by while she is on her death bed and tell her she deserved to die? 

The religious right just doesn’t get it sometimes.  They keep preaching abstinence only education and acting as if anything less than perfect following of God’s will is unacceptable.  First of all, I don’t even have to talk about the failure rate of abstinence only education because it is already well documented.  I keep seeing these hypocritical born-agains telling us that we are going to hell for the course we are on, but at the same time, they were much worse than we are in their youths.  They act as if you can’t screw up and return to the path of God, when they themselves did that very thing.  I am willing to wager that the majority of Christians out there fighting this vaccine probably had pre-marital sex.  If you are a Christian and you are reading this piece and shaking your head, think about all of the mistakes you made throughout your life.  Think about all of the sins that you have committed and be honest with yourself.  Then ask yourself if maybe slipping and having pre-marital sex isn’t a sentence to hell.  Maybe that same girl who gave into her passion and had sex deserves a chance to avoid that potential death sentence you are imposing upon her.  The sad thing about all of this is that I am a Christian.  I am almost ashamed to lump myself into that category because of things like this.  So what if your daughter has pre-marital sex!  Great, so she sinned once.  I just don’t understand how you can justify, as a Christian, not saving a potential life.  The bible says thou shalt not kill, and that applies to anyone, whether they are  a sinner or not.  I think that maybe we can approve of something that could save the life of a girl who maybe didn’t consider the consequences of her actions. 

You know, instead of banning this vaccine, maybe you should think about educating kids to all the other sexually transmitted diseases out there.  No offense, but HPV isn’t very scary to a kid when their hormones are raging.  Teach them about AIDs, genetal warts, herpes, and other gross diseases.  I really don’t think many girls are going to say to themselves, “Hey! I can’t get cervical cancer!  I’m going to go and have lots and lots of sex with unclean guys!”  And even more logical, did it ever occur to these anti-vaccine advocates that married women who wait their entire young adult lives to lose their virginity when they are married can still contract HPV and cervical cancer?  Probably not.  Who would have thought that maybe their husband might have given into his primal urges as a teen and gotten the virus?  Or maybe he was unfaithful and gave it to his loving, wonderful Christian wife who did nothing wrong and didn’t deserve to die.  Dare I continue with the extremely common scenarios?  Sure, why not.  How about if a woman gets raped?  I am going to go out on a limb and guess that most rapists are probably carrying some kind of disease.  But apparently that woman should have kept her guard up, because if the circumstances are right and she contracts cervical cancer, its her fault.  Great logic.  The sad thing about our society is that they can be so narrow minded.  They consider one possible effect of an action, but ignore all of the others.  Switching back into Christian mode, humans are supposed to care for one another, regardless of what they do.  Christianity is founded on forgiveness, and you can’t give forgiveness to someone who is dead.  Christians need to stop judging their fellow humans and let God worry about that.  Humans are here to choose their own destiny and path through life.  God doesn’t force anyone to believe in him or live according to the bible.  Just because they choose a different way through life than you do, does not mean that they should have to live with a potential death sentence. 

*This was not meant to offend anyone, especially Christians.  You are entitled to your belief, but maybe you should open up your minds to other ways of thinking.  Christians are normally good people, but sometimes we can get a bit close-minded and try to take too many things into our own hands. 

Since the house and senate shifted to the left with the last election, it seems as though bipartisanship is dead in our country.  The two most important elements in our government never see eye to eye.  With congress fighting the White House on every issue under the sun, we see that a government that does not cooperate cannot succeed.  The most bothersome thing about the whole situation is that it reveals how flawed our government is.  While most people proclaim our government to be the best in the world (and i tend to agree), the recent lack of progress by our government has to make you question that philosophy.  The inefficiency in our government as it stands now is incredible and appalling at the same time.  Congress can’t do anything because the President always opposes, and the President can’t do anything because Congress always opposes.  It’s like a game of tug of war that never ends.  Neither side will make concessions, and it is hurting our country more by the day. 

The other day, the Senate agreed to the pass the War Funding Bill without a time table.  I applaud the senate’s decision.  I also favor the time table.  I realize this is conflicting, but at this point, I don’t care what passes through both Congress and the White House.  All I want to see is cooperation.  All I want to see is the willingness to make concessions in order to recieve concessions from the other side.  Having Congress and the President locked in a month-long battle takes time away from other important issues and problems afflicting our nation.  Whether those compromises work out is yet to be seen, but at least our government is finally trying to put our best interests ahead of their selfish political goals. 

Is it just me, or do you ever start to wonder why the people we elect to represent us always care more about their own careers as politicians?  I keep hoping, wishing, praying, and crossing my fingers that maybe one good man will make headway into the political game and cause a stir.  Just one senator, representative, advisor, or anyone that cares more about the state of our nation than the interests of their party.  Just one person who will speak his mind about everything, instead of trying to balance on his thin party lines.  You can call me cynical, but that man will never exist.  There is no honest, intelligent man that can make it in politics because our own voters would reject him.  The party system is too deeply rooted, and people are too quick to take offense.  It’s a sad thing to truly realize how far we have departed from true and honest politics.

I was waiting in the doctor’s office yesterday and I happened to pick up an issue of Forbes from November of ‘06.  It was a little outdated, but that didn’t stop me from finding a great editorial written by Steve Forbes himself.  As I have said in the past, I am a strong supporter of dividing Iraq into autonomous states with seperate governments according to the religious lines in the country.  However, the one major roadblock to this goal has been the uneven distribution of oil throughout the country.  We have the Kurds in the North, the Sunnis in the middle, and the Shia in the South.  The oil is deposited mostly in the North and South, leaving the proposed Sunni province with little black gold of its own.  So once again, greed is the main factor preventing us from leaving Iraq. 

How can we make everyone happy in this situation?  Steve Forbes points us towards Alaska.  How can Alaska help us to solve our Iraq problem?  Most people will be surprised to know that there is a fund that is managed by investment experts hired by the government called the Permanent Fund.  When the government pumps oil from the wells in Alaska, about one quarter of the profits are placed into this fund.  Each year, every registered and eligible Alaskan recieves about $1,100 from the fund.  Forbes argues that this would solve the oil distribution issue in Iraq, and I tend to agree.  It would end the argument over where the oil wells are geographically and it would provide an incentive for unity.  Each Iraqi would be compelled to provide an address if they wanted to recieve their money, effectively registering the location of every Iraqi citizen for the government.  While the government may have a problem with relinquishing control of a portion of their oil profits, it might just be the spark that Iraq needs to begin to realize the potential benefits of cooperating with the new government.