Wal_rus & lentinman –
Although I will agree that Ron Paul has a very appealing manner about him, and he couldn’t be more right in his analysis about Iraq (though that hardly makes him a visionary as many people including me and probably you guys were aware of what a debacle that war is well before we ever heard Ron Paul say it), but personally, I believe that he is not the man to help us solve the problems we are facing today. I believe he would exacerbate them.
The notion that we can get by without a government is ludicrous. We live in a complex society that requires a cooperative organizational structure as evidenced by services that no one complains about such as the police, fire departments, road crews and the greatest socialistic bureaucracy in the world, the United States military. (Well, I guess some people, like the survivors of 500,000 dead Iraqis, might complain about the military, but that’s another story).
We are in need of regulations from agencies hardly limited to the FDA. That our government is flawed – very flawed – is undeniable. After all, it was constructed and is administered by humans. An attempt to rebuild this country without a government, or only just a little teeny one, however, would only create a void that would promptly be filled by the large conglomerates of money that already have disproportionate power shaping our country in the pursuit of their own self-interest. We need a government that is administered by people who respect the institutions of government and who would attempt to run them intelligently for a greater good, not a government administered by people who don’t like the very notion of government. That just doesn't make sense. I know as well as all the self-declared conservatives on this board that the Democratic Party is not a perfect vessel for solving all the ills of the USA. There is corruption and petty politics involved within the Democratic circle too, but at least the Dems are not advocating policies such as privatizations and deregulations that inherently breed corruption, and not a one of the Democratic candidates are harping on the tired and very useless cliche that “government is the problem.” The more serious Demo candidates are trying to offer government policies that deal with situations facing our country in an intelligent manner because those situations can only be dealt with by governmental actions. Furthermore, the Dems do not play the politics of divisiveness and partisanship with same kind of viciousness and glee than do the Repugs. All I hear from the Repug candidates is about which one hates abortion and Mexicans and homosexuals the most. We need to get beyond that crap.
I would like to say more about this but the fact is that I am a slow writer and I will write more later in the week, informing all of you about what members of the mainstream Democratic Party are thinking, the party that is most likely to win the White House and Congress next year (unless of course Cheney pulls a coup and there is no election, a possiblity I fear greatly). In the meantime, I do not want to spend the whole evening in front of the computer. I’m an American and I want to have fun. It's Saturday night and I’m going out.
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