(no subject)
I'm a liberal kinda guy, and though I'm not a 'registered democrat', I'd certainly say I lean to the left at most times. For the last two presidential elections, I've been a very strong democratic supporter, but why? Well, the last several years have all been about social issues, and I'm very socially liberal. I think gays deserve rights, I think unwanted pregnancies should be prevented instead of abortions (and I don't think condoms are the devil) and I'll probably come up on the left side of any other social issue you throw at me.
I'll admit that I have a bit of a soft spot for republicans on certain issues though. I don't think guns are evil (give a car to somebody real dumb or violent and people will die just as quickly), and I think that state legislature should have more power than federal, because every state has a different set of needs. The BIG issue that I have is fiscal responsibility. Now I don't like paying taxes, but I'll agree that we should be putting a bit of money into social welfare programs (not a favorite of the right leaning folks). The thing that drives me nuts is the severe disregard for monetary value that politicians seem to have, and the fact that most of it goes into already bloated pockets. In the late 90's, the government dished out $200b to telecom companies to build infrastructure. They didn't. Now we have the huge Net Neutrality fight going on, mainly because the telecom companies are now whining that they're being unfairly relied on to provied all of this bandwidth. Guess what assholes, that's what the $200b was for, not for dishing out huge bonuses to your stupid ass execs (which they did). It's funny how a huge corporation can spend a few million buying off senators then the senators can give them back YOUR TAX DOLLARS, then the corporation can give even more to the politicians. How is that legal? I think it's disgusting that corporations and groups can donate to politicians. It's legalized bribery, that's all that it is. It's not even well hidden.
Then we have the Iraq war. Seriously, I don't care what you have to say about that war, there was no reason to go in there. They didn't have WMD's, they didn't really pose a direct threat to us (they had absolutely no capital for terrorists to work with), they didn't have ties to al queda and by going in there, all we've done is piss off more arabs who are now going to come kills us. Along the way, we've also *wasted* over $500b. That's a whole lot of money that could have gone into education, social security, social programs, welfare, or hell... even tax cuts! They could have given $2000 to every single American with that kind of money. Oh, and also a whole bunch of Americans have been killed in the process too.
The other thing that pisses me off is the fact that money is what gets you a high position in the government, not intelligence. I just read an article with a senator talking about the internet neutrality act who said that he had 'installed the internet' earlier that day to see what all the fuss was about and said it 'wasn't quite as good as everyone was saying'. Umm... excuse me? You're making major decisions about the future of the internet and technology? Can you even get dressed by yourself? He obviously voted on the side of the large telecom companies because, oh wait... his largest donations all came from telecom companies. I'd like to just kick a politician's ass, I'd probably feel better.
On a somewhat related note, did you know that the divide between rich and poor in America is the largest that it has been since the Gilded Age? Sweet.
I'll admit that I have a bit of a soft spot for republicans on certain issues though. I don't think guns are evil (give a car to somebody real dumb or violent and people will die just as quickly), and I think that state legislature should have more power than federal, because every state has a different set of needs. The BIG issue that I have is fiscal responsibility. Now I don't like paying taxes, but I'll agree that we should be putting a bit of money into social welfare programs (not a favorite of the right leaning folks). The thing that drives me nuts is the severe disregard for monetary value that politicians seem to have, and the fact that most of it goes into already bloated pockets. In the late 90's, the government dished out $200b to telecom companies to build infrastructure. They didn't. Now we have the huge Net Neutrality fight going on, mainly because the telecom companies are now whining that they're being unfairly relied on to provied all of this bandwidth. Guess what assholes, that's what the $200b was for, not for dishing out huge bonuses to your stupid ass execs (which they did). It's funny how a huge corporation can spend a few million buying off senators then the senators can give them back YOUR TAX DOLLARS, then the corporation can give even more to the politicians. How is that legal? I think it's disgusting that corporations and groups can donate to politicians. It's legalized bribery, that's all that it is. It's not even well hidden.
Then we have the Iraq war. Seriously, I don't care what you have to say about that war, there was no reason to go in there. They didn't have WMD's, they didn't really pose a direct threat to us (they had absolutely no capital for terrorists to work with), they didn't have ties to al queda and by going in there, all we've done is piss off more arabs who are now going to come kills us. Along the way, we've also *wasted* over $500b. That's a whole lot of money that could have gone into education, social security, social programs, welfare, or hell... even tax cuts! They could have given $2000 to every single American with that kind of money. Oh, and also a whole bunch of Americans have been killed in the process too.
The other thing that pisses me off is the fact that money is what gets you a high position in the government, not intelligence. I just read an article with a senator talking about the internet neutrality act who said that he had 'installed the internet' earlier that day to see what all the fuss was about and said it 'wasn't quite as good as everyone was saying'. Umm... excuse me? You're making major decisions about the future of the internet and technology? Can you even get dressed by yourself? He obviously voted on the side of the large telecom companies because, oh wait... his largest donations all came from telecom companies. I'd like to just kick a politician's ass, I'd probably feel better.
On a somewhat related note, did you know that the divide between rich and poor in America is the largest that it has been since the Gilded Age? Sweet.