shakran

We not only have the right, but the OBLIGATION to question our leader. Unfortunately we have not only been failing at our obligation, but those of us who do question him have been branded unpatriotic.

The duty of a governmetn is to see to the protection and general welfare of its citizens - i.e. it should foster an environment in which its citizens have the opportunity to seek the old standby of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness . It should have enough power to accomplish those goals, and no more.

Let's look at what this really means. Our government spends billions of dollars every year trying to get people to stop smokng marijuana. These people are choosing to smoke marijuana. If marijuana is harmful, these people are accepting those consequences, and smoke it anyway.

On the other hand, every year millions of children live in impoverished squalor. They didn't choose this, and if the government spent billions on THAT instead of punishing people for doing what they want to do, they wouldn't HAVE to live that way.

This is a small example, there are hundreds more. So not only is our government restricting our liberty for no good reason (you can't do drugs), but they are also spending so much on crap like that that they are compromising our welfare.


Oh that's simple. Eliminate greed, eliminate all legislation that differentiates between groups (affirmative action must go, so much ERA, etc, all to be replaced with a law that basically says "give everyone a fair shot, and don't be an asshole to anyone."), retool our society into one which looks to the good of the society rather than the good of the individual, rework our national goals away from just blindly making more and more money, and toward improving not only quality of life, but knowledge, so that our quality of life can continue to improve. Chance of this happening? Probably somewhere south of zero.



You forgot the individual. If by moral you mean religious-based morals, then it should be up to the individual. If you mean human rights based morals then it should be split between government and the community, depending on the issue. i.e. you don't go up to the community of Hell's Angels and let them decide whether it's OK to kill people or not.



You're making an assumption there that I do not believe to be correct. The republicans today are working toward advancing their goals and the goals of their overly rich compadres. Tax cuts for the wealthy while leaving the middle class and poor to shoulder the tax burden is NOT working toward the good of the country, and no idiotic "trickledown economics" explanation can change that fact. Attacking Iraq was NOT working for the good of the country. Lying to us repeatedly, often, and every day is NOT working for the good of the country.

Were both sides working for the good of the country, but simply had different views, I could respect both sides. As it is, both sides have justifiably gained poor reputations. The democrats are so busy fucking around with trying to make everyone equal and everyone equally happy that they fail utterly to gain support. The republicans have by comparison gained a reputation for saying whatever it takes to get what they want, even if it means lying, and even if it means telling a different lie every time you address an issue. There's a reason Nixon was Tricky Dick, Reagan was the Teflon President, and W is the War Criminal. (note, I didn' tmake any of those nicknames up)