What Do You Get For 7 Trillion Dollars?

I heard this over the weekend but just in case you haven't, you're wonderful government has committed 7 TRILLION DOLLARS to clean up the mess (read about it here). Given that our current GDP is about $14.5 trillion, this means we've committed roughly half of everything produced this year, both goods and services, to this catastrophe!

Bastards!

But wait, there's more. As of November 19, 2008, the total U.S. federal debt was $10.6 trillion, about $37,316 for each U.S. resident. Of this amount, debt held by the public was roughly $6.3 trillion! Adding unfunded Medicaid, Social Security, Medicare, veterans' pensions, and similar obligations we come up with (drum roll please)...

$59.1 trillion, or $516,348 per household.

I want to see bodies. I want not only CEOs do the perp walk, but those f*cking people in DC to do time as well (there's enough blame to spread around, so the ranks of both Democrats and Republicans will be thinned)... and I want my money back. I want their salaries for the last 10 years paid back for allowing this crap to happen. I want them publicly shamed and humiliated.

God help us all.

Where Rush Is Wrong

I generally like Rush Limbaugh. Call it two Missourians sticking together but after 17 years of his show I still enjoy listening to him from time to time and on many issues we are in agreement. One recent area of disagreement (and a key on regarding the identity and future of the Republican Party) is his reaction to those who are saying the Republican Party needs to move forward in several areas. An example of his reaction to people like David Brooks, Peggy Noonan, and Christopher Buckley can be found here. But as often as he is right, here I think the great MahaRushie is wrong. What helped bring this to light was a short interview on the DVD Mr. Conservative from another conservative thinker, George Will. The question put out was whether or not Barry Goldwater became more liberal as he became older. Liberals like Al Franken were giddy in saying he had but George Will put a more thoughtful idea forward. He said that issues like gays in the military were not key in the years of Goldwater's era. What Goldwater did was take his well-thought ideals of what it meant to be a conservative and applied them to these new issues and came down on the side of literal interpretation of the Constitution and freedom to live one's life with minimal interference by the government (the bedrocks of Conservatism) and said "Nothing prevents it, so let 'em do it". Conservatism doesn't mean intellectual stagnation just as the attempts by Brooks et al does not mean giving up core conservative values nor jettison the image of Ronald Reagan. The idea, which Rush seems to miss, is that we have to take our basic values and apply them to a whole new world of issues that Reagan, God bless him, never had to face as key issues. Society has moved to new issues, in part because Conservatism won several of its fights in the '80 and '90, so we have to take the idea of what it means to be a conservative and apply them to the issues of the day. We cannot just look back at Goldwater and Reagan and sigh wistfully for the old days, we have to take the tools they gave us and move onward to build a conservative ideology worthy of the 21st century.

An Accurate Take On The Current Financial Mess

This was sent to me by my friend Andrew. Generated lots of painful laughs...

Support In Repealing The Ban On Service

Here's the teaser:

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – More than 100 retired generals and admirals called Monday for repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays so they can serve openly, according to a statement obtained by The Associated Press.

You can read the whole article here.

I have two political heroes in my life... my dad (for practical applications of what it means to be a Conservative) and Senator Barry Goldwater (who started what I consider "real Conservatism"). My dad has never made any statements about gays serving in the military but Senator Goldwater did. First, the man known as "Mr. Conservatism" is famously quoted as saying "You don't have to be straight to shoot straight." Nice and pithy, accurate on sentiment but not content. The "quote" comes from his famous 1993 Washington Post editorial:


We have wasted enough precious time, money and talent trying to
persecute and pretend. It's time to stop burying our heads in the sand and
denying reality for the sake of politics. It's time to deal with this
straight on and be done with it. It's time to get on with more important
business.

The conservative movement, to which I subscribe, has as one of its basic
tenets the belief that government should stay out of people's private
lives. Government governs best when it governs least-and stays out of the
impossible task of legislating morality. But legislating someone's version
of morality is exactly what we do by perpetuating discrimination against
gays.

We can take polls. We can visit submarines to get opinions on who are
the best citizens. But that is not the role of a democratic government in a
free society. Under our Constitution, everyone is guaranteed the right to
do as he pleases as long as it does not harm someone else. You don't need to be "straight" to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight.

With all the good this country has accomplished and stood for, I know
that we can rise to the challenge, do the right thing and lift the ban on
gays in the military. Countries with far less leadership and discipline
have traveled this way, and successfully.

When you get down to it, no American able to serve should be allowed, much less given an excuse, not to serve his or her country. We need all our talent.

This is my brand of Conservatism (emphasis on that second paragraph of his). It's time for the rest of the GOP and the rest of the military to catch up.

Lose One, Win One

Been up 24 hours straight working but I had to acknowledge this. Thanks Connecticut. The east coast is looking more attractive with each passing day.

Singing The Prop 8 Blues

Well, just in case you've been hiding in the caves with Bin Laden, Prop 8 passed and the people of California have changed the state constitution to enshrine a definition of marriage that removes the rights of same-sex couples to marry. When others were spouting early polls with glee that it was losing I was hesitant to join in. I guess I have been a student of politics too long and had paid attention to what was going on to jump to the conclusion that the proposition would lose. Sadly I was right. The ads promoting Proposition 8 were far too effective on an electorate that was not politically aware. Add to this the way the vote worked (voting for Prop 8 meant gays could no longer marry most likely did work on some... I have anecdotal evidence that this did happen) along with the racial nature of the election (Blacks and Latinos, out in force for Obama, voted heavily for the proposition) spelled a squeeker at best for us. Sadly we didn't even get 50% plus 1, enough to have defeated the proposition.

So what now? There are protests. People are upset and rightfully so, but I hope they are careful in how they proceed. One of the more effective ads was that of the idiot mayor of San Francisco spouting how "whether you like it or not" gay marriage was here to stay. I've heard on the radio and read in news papers of some protests getting ugly, people saying things and doing things that are at worst damaging and at best stupid in trying to get out their anger. But lets understand, this is no long a voting matter... the prop passed, the Constitution as of now will change. The fight, which should continue, now goes to the courts. It falls to the small group of lawyers petitioning the state's supreme court to hear their arguments against the merits of such an amendment. At this time I am not quite sure the courts will decide in their favor but we can continue to hope and pray that is so.

What if this is the case... what if the courts don't come down on our side? Our only real alternative is to put up our own initiative to change the constitution again. Now that will be interesting but given California's silly initiative process it is possible... and we could be in a war of constitutional amendments.

Post Election

Well, Obama won. I hope he really is a Christian and that he spends time in prayer because he does not have the experience necessary to lead a country like this in times of crisis. Unlike some of the people who were against Obama, I do not think Obama is evil or a "bad man", I simply think he is wrong and that many of his ideas and proposed policies are, in the words of Sarkozy, "immature".

In a related story, Prop 8 passed so no marriage for me despite time, energy, and cash contributed to the cause. Why related? Well, a majority of the people that Obama pulled to the polls voted for Prop 8. All you pro-8/anti-Obama folks needs to send him a big ol' thanks, his people put the prop over the top.

In a perverse addition, Prop 4 failed so no adult notification for abortions on young women. Murder can continue without the counsel and notification of an adult. Just goes to show you the schizophrenia of California... homos get put in their (our) place but murder of the unborn misses this one small potential impediment.

Economically the wonderful people of this state voted even more debt. I have come to the realization that people here simply do not understand the concept of a bond. People, you have to pay for it. It is not free money.

So there you have it. Now the hard work comes...

Crumudgeon Voting

Well, I voted. I got to my polling place 15 minutes early and was second in line. They reindexed the polling places and mine was moved so I was a little nervous about the state not getting the address right (what, California screwing things up?) but it went fine.

My strategy for voting this year was rather simple:

I couldn't vote for Obama. I simply don't trust him. This man broke his very first promise of taking federal financing to fund his run for office so why should I trust him on anything else?

If you are an incumbent I voted against you. If you are a Democrat incumbent I voted Republican. If you are a Republican incumbent I voted Libertarian. I just want new liars in office, I'm tired of old lies (which is why I voted yes on Prop 11). Hopefully the new liars will be more creative.

On the props, if you directly cost money I voted against you regardless of my actual feelings about the prop. Why? If you ask this you simply are not paying attention to what is happening in this state. WE HAVE NO MONEY!. I'm sorry, but this state is already $14 billion in the red and we just passed the budget less than two months ago. We simply cannot afford to spend more now and it is not right to saddle the young with the thoughtlessness of the old. We have to straighten out the mess before we start piling on more debt.

And of course I voted NO on Proposition 8.

So yes, I voted like a "crusty, ill-tempered, usually older person"... I voted like a crumudgeon, but I felt like it was the appropriate way to vote this election cycle.