Issues

With the presidential election fast approaching, the politicians are all making fine sounding pronouncements of what legislation they hope to pass, and of what they’ll accomplish once in office. Some of these things they could actually do, if they can get a majority of congressmen to agree with their ideas, and if they can find the funding. A lot of the things they promise, they simply can’t do, for any number of perfectly sound reasons.

The war in Iraq appears to be a leading bone of contention, with the Democrats generally wanting to pull out, and the Republicans generally figuring to stay the course. Personally I don’t think we should have invaded Iraq in the first place, as we had to many other and less combative ways and means of eliminating Hussein as a power in the mid-east. But the fact remains, we did invade, we did eliminate the existing power structure, American air strikes certainly didn’t do the Iraqi infrastructure any good, economic sanctions did more harm to the Iraqi people than to the regime, and now we more or less demand that they form a democratic government that meets with our approval. We’ve made ourselves responsible for the present mess, and like it of not, we’re morally responsible for cleaning things up. Then to, if the United States abruptly walks away from Iraq, we’d be leaving a power vacuum and a full blown civil war in our wake, one that can only be advantageous to our real enemy, fundamentalist Islam. Consider also, if we walk, there’s no reason for any of the mid-eastern peoples or governments to ever again trust the United States, or believe anything we say. We’d have the same sort of situation that followed our surrender in Vietnam, where our friends of 1970 were left in the lurch, and they certainly don’t trust our word very far today.

Another favored talking point concerns taxes. Like most Americans I’d surely like to see a massive tax cut as proposed by many of the republican candidates. But that isn’t going to do this country any good at all! We don’t need the tax increase and massive expenditures proposed by a number of democratic candidates either. What I’d propose is that we leave the taxes at about the current level, make the tax system more equitable for all of us, and devise a massive cut in expenditures. With that, we could use the surplus to pay down the debt, and edge away from a looming national bankruptcy. Despite the claims of Wall Street financial gurus, it’s not the job of the US government (or American taxpayers) to keep their stockholders rolling in dough! What do they expect the government to do when the treasury runs dry, or the taxpayers run out of patience, start selling the rest of us into slavery!? The stock market is where you put some of the extra cash you’ve got on hand and don’t know what else to do with. It’s not supposed to be a national gambling casino in which you bet your life savings so that some business executive can make an obscene salary, leaving the US taxpayer to pick up the tab when things go sour!

Yet another point of contention is national security, mostly the arguments over the department of homeland security. Some people want to completely eliminate the whole thing, while others want to massively expand the department and its powers. I for one fail to understand just why we need such a department in the first place, unless it’s to provide work for a lot of unemployed paper shufflers. I’d think the federal money being tossed at homeland security would be much better spent in securing our borders, and perhaps helping the Canadians secure theirs as well. Instead, the government has pretty well managed to ignore the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and rapidly turning us into a police state, while managing to antagonize a lot of formerly friendly countries with a flurry of senseless rules and regulations about passports, secure identification cards, and air travel. Our borders are effectively wide open as is demonstrated by the continuing flood of illegal immigrants. Our ports certainly aren’t secure despite all the promises from Washington. What I understand is called “airline security” consists of a bunch of people confiscating nail clippers and bottled water, while looking for hidden facial expressions. Profiling is out of the question for political reasons, despite the terrorist threat coming from a known and specific group of people. Instead of looking at wild-eyed Arabic types, we have a no-fly list of “terrorist suspects” that might have been randomly selected from the local phone book!

The government has created yet another layer of supervision for the various intelligence agencies, with of course yet another hidden budget. I find it quite strange that we need a new agency to do exactly the job that the CIA was created to do back in the 1940’s, that of overseeing all US intelligence efforts! For decades the government has ignored the interagency turf wars in the intelligence community, and has not supported the CIA mandate in doing its job. Instead, the agency takes the rap whenever we have a perceived intelligence failure, no matter which agency originated the problem. How about we eliminate this “Intelligence Czar” position (and the entire office), and just enforce the rules allowing the CIA to do what it’s supposed to be doing?

The last newsletter I received from Sen. Larry Craig gave the results of a straw poll conducted among Idahoans, indicating what subjects they felt were most important, and should have a high priority in being addressed by Congress. 31.6% felt that immigration was the most important subject, closely followed by the war in Iraq with 28.0%. 9.5% felt that the economy should receive immediate attention, 6.9% were greatly concerned with health care, and only 4.8% indicated that national security was of major importance. Following the top five, only 4.4% of the respondents were worried about Congressional ethics.

Strangely enough, I would think that ethics and morality, not just in congress either, would be considered a very important subject by most Americans. After all, the folks we elect to various government offices are representing us before the entire world. These people hold the reputation of our nation, the well being of our citizens, indeed our very lives, in their hands! The President of the United States, with his red and gold phones, controls more naked power than any other man in the history of the world. I for one certainly don’t wish to have my life decided by anyone who would sell my future (such as it is), to the highest bidder! Public office is far to important to be decided by voters considering little more than physical appearances and trivial personalities. I’d much rather have a crotchety guy like Harry Truman in the white house, than another photogenic Slick Willie Clinton! There isn’t a one of the leading candidates today, of either party, that I’d trust to take out the trash, much less lead this country in what’s proving to be a very dangerous 21st century!

Perhaps the voters should do some really serious thinking about the issues and the candidates, before the 2008 election rolls around.