The Politics of Life

I’m really exhausted by our national discussion on politics. This healthcare bill has just sucked the life out of me, ironically.

I am completely conflicted and no party adequately represents what I believe or think – meaning, no one supports things that benefits only me. It sounds evil, but I’m not really interested in things that doesn’t at least benefit me in some way. Schools, libraries, meat inspections, social security, etc. – I’m all for that because I’m surrounded by its benefits either all the time or at some point in life. That’s good policy – it benefits everyone.

On the other hand, things like food stamps, affirmative action and Judge Judy really bother me. Programs like food stamps are hard to get off of, work poorly, subsidize shit food that later causes more expenses when people get fat and unhealthy and I personally know three people that game that system for no good reason. It’s these programs that could go away tomorrow and I wouldn’t care – they benefit few. That’s not good policy. The fixes to these will have to wait for another post.

Republicans

I hate spending money. I hate waste. I hate wasted money with a passion. A good Republican would too. Now, our current crop sucks, but they’re some good ones in there – Ron Paul, Mitch Daniels and a few others. I want people that cut the crap and do the work.

I also like the general conservative outlook on life that you can’t rely on other people for everything – you have to get up and go do something to get anything out of life and to live comfortably. To me, this translates to “work hard, be nice, play fair, do well”. I like that idea. Notice I said, “play fair”. This doesn’t mean companies can mistreat workers or invent new kinds of cheeses made from lead to reduce costs to raise profits on cheeseburgers.

And, I loathe laziness, I loathe lazy people and I respect two things very much: loyalty and timeliness. Two things that go well together and make for a great person. Get up, commit to a cause, do it, do it well and do it on time – with as few resources as possible.

Basically: shut up, quit whining and work hard.

Democrats

Some people are just so stupid, they require someone of authority to tell them they’re wrong. Whether that’s companies doing evil things like dumping sludge in a river or some hick who picks fights with blacks and gays. Democrats, generally, do a good job of looking out for individuals, as people.

Also, I think our current crop of Democrats are just ever-so-slightly better at being better politicians. They seem more interested in governing and less interested in just winning elections (but only slightly). I respect that.

And, I want to be around people who like to think every now and again and don’t always resort to “it’s in the Bible” for every argument they can’t win. A good Democrat wouldn’t.

Basically: think for  a second and be nice to people.

The Problem

My issue with all of this is that those kinds of people don’t seem to coexist, or at least not on a national level. Heck, not even on a state or local level. Maybe it’s generational, maybe I’m just weird.

But I have a problem with how “easy” it feels to me for poor people. I mean really poor – like $10,000 a year and less poor. Yes, I know, they’re poor and they usually live in squalor, but dangit, if a person really knew what was available to them, it wouldn’t be unfair to assume a person could get cheap living in decent areas – maybe not in Indy where you’d be in the ghetto, but in small, rural towns. You could get $150 a week in food (I only spend $40 a week), you could get free healthcare (even before the health bill) and you could get funding to go to school at the drop of a hat if you wanted it. All because you don’t have anything. And those people still don’t bother to seek a way out – probably because the system makes it so much easier to do nothing. We call them “entitlement” programs – I’d prefer if we redefined them to, “safety net” programs that are there to get you back on your feet and shove you back into the real world.

Yet, if you make more than a few pennies, you get turned away at every corner for everything. You’re left to fend for yourself while you watch the poor get help and the rich get richer. I think that’s called “the crumbling middle class”.

Everything bothers me.

Thoughts on Obama and the State of the Union

Obama said a few things today. Generally, he came across as a smart ass which I absolutely want to see more of. As I always say, “It’s a heckuva lot better than being a dumbass.”

What gets me is that there wasn’t anything that man said that anyone should disagree with. If so, you only disagree with what you perceive as his personal agenda to “git ya”. Frankly, if anyone disagrees with these things you should go bury your head in cement:

1. Everyone should have access to healthcare – i.e., no dropping people when they’re at their weakest and don’t deny people for things that happened to them in the past.
2. The last 8 years of Republican spending have left us in a hole.
3. Obama’s current spending has caused more debt, but I (and even Mr. Anti-Deficit Gov. Mitch Daniels) credit him for at least attempting to throw something different at the wall to see if it sticks.
4. Government is here to give a voice to the minorities – you pricks that think gays should be shut out of everything in life should shut up and piss off. If you hate ‘em so bad, why not stick ‘em on the front lines so they can be shot at and killed like everyone else that wants to. How Republicans can’t get past that is beyond me.
5. Companies deserve to be “fairly compensated and rewarded”, but I don’t think our forefathers envisioned a world where a handful of companies could kill, pillage and rape the earth and our citizens like the kinds of companies we have today. (See: Monsanto, Dow Agro, Aetna, Wellpoint, News Corp, etc.)
6. People have got to stop telling the other party “NO” just because they’re of the other party. I swear, I lost all hope in this democracy when Al Franken’s “Anti-Rape” bill didn’t pass in ten seconds. Senate Republicans cock-blocked him on every possible attempt. What the heck is wrong with you people?!
7. Our nation’s universities have got to get over themselves and stop thinking of themselves as two-faced public/private entities. You can’t have it both ways. Cut your crap and make your product cheap and good.
8. Banks can go to hell.
9. Iraq has to put up or shut up. Get your shit together because we’re tired of dealing with your hell hole. We have plenty of hell holes right here in America – like Elkhart, Indiana.
10. Politicians have to grow some balls.

If nothing else, I was hoping he’d at least announce a plan to cap foreclosures. Foreclosures aren’t good for anyone. If a family of four is foreclosed on, you end up with four homeless people needing more assistance, you have a neighborhood with an empty house ready for criminals to jump into and you screw with the kids’ educational attainment because they likely get shuffled to a new school. If you get laid off or make a decent attempt at starting a rational business or get slammed with a ridiculous healthcare bill, then by god, if you can’t make your payments in a recession banks have to be forced to forgo foreclosing on you for at least 12-18 months. And, they have to give you the chance to pay back the owed payments during that time. The only people that want that foreclosed house is the people that lived there.

Also, Republicans have to stop giggling every time someone mentions Twitter of Facebook. You wonder why you’re so out of touch with young Americans (people under the age of 40). It’s because everything you do is fake and half-assed.

Democrats, again, have to grow some balls.

Why Republicans Win

I was driving home today from running a few errands and I was thinking about Air America Radio.

When I first started working for the Court, I came across Air America and found it to be a pretty good way of passing the day. Music stations get cumbersome to me and since I was only an intern, I didn’t spend much time configuring iTunes with a bunch of podcasts (there weren’t that many then, anyway).

I generally liked Air America. Surprisingly, I enjoyed Jerry Springer’s talk show. It wasn’t like his TV show and he was rather thoughtful to his callers and offered good, centrist, opinions. Mind you, most others on the radio like Rachel Maddow and Randi Rhodes were far, far left of center.

This week, Air America died. It declared bankruptcy after years of financial trouble. The folks at FOX no doubt had a heyday with the news.

As I was driving, I realized why Air America failed – their audience is way too progressive to be listening to a radio. I only listened because it was the only thing available. Once I started working full-time and had more and more tech-related podcasts, I dropped listening to Air America. Plus, Jerry Springer had moved on and Rachel Maddow got her show on MSNBC.

It occurs to me why Republican-radio is so popular. The people that would actually listen to Republican-radio are old enough to actually own radios in places other than their cars. All the same reason why Republicans have such epic failures each year figuring out this new-fangled Internet. So, Republicans like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly will claim they destroyed Air America when really it was just bad distribution. Air America never put up full-length podcasts and only had an Internet stream that was shoddy and poor like every other radio stream online.

I’ll keep this in mind when I run for Congress.

O’Bayh

I’m placing my bets…

A 21-hour stop in Indiana — far more than Sen. Barack Obama needs for his town hall meeting in Elkhart on Wednesday — is fueling speculation that the Democratic presidential candidate will pick Sen. Evan Bayh as his running mate.

Bayh will introduce Obama at the morning event — a side-by-side pairing that many Democrats in Indiana hope is a taste of things to come.

I don’t know about the last part, but I will say that it’ll certainly make Indiana interesting come November. Talk about media coverage! That’s something media-philes like myself salivate over.

My bet: Obama will pick Bayh to push his campaign more to the center to regain some lost ground with Clinton supporters and conservative Democrats. Plus, think back to Clinton and Gore’s neighborly relationship — one from Akransas, the other Tennessee. Here we have Obama from Illinois and Bayh from Indiana.