As I said, one political weakness of Liberals is that we tend to see too many sides of an issue!

The evil Gingrich has the perfect idea–fund-raising should be limited to the district being represented by the member of Congress or Senate. No more fundraisers in DC! I must say that the most jumping-up-and-down-Yellow-Dawg-Democrats I have met agree with the idea (so long as you don’t mention Gingrich.) The people who most disagree with that idea have an agenda which has nothing to do with healthy representative gov’t.

The weird shadowed text you have on this site is very difficult to read.

I know that we disagree on the very principals of governance. I believe that the Federal government is responsible for the economic environment in which all business and individual interaction takes place. That the laws should define appropriate behavior and be applied to all economic entities equally. There should be no attempts of social engineering what-so-ever as that is exactly what causes mega-corps like: Archer-Daniels, Con-Agra, BP, Exxon and other similar companies. Thick unread bills most often include protection for large campaign contributors–they hide the graft and monetary demands of those in power.

I am pretty sure that you are a believer in a “living document”–which would lead us to kill one another.

Write a bill that is fair to all and I will jump in your corner to help support it.

Actually I am still trying to figure out where I stand on a lot of the issues. I agree my rights end where your rights begin. I have a right to keep a firearm in my home but I do not have the right to discharge it in such a way as the bullet can enter your home (an extreme example), my music on my property should not be so loud as to make it difficult for you to hear your television, your public profanity has no right to make it into my hearing space. So we need regulations/laws to mediate these types of issues. It seems to me regulations/laws are more to protect me than to penalize you. This administration and Congress has added more levels of bureaucracy than FDR and The New Deal. Before we enact a bunch of new regulations, let’s enforce what is in place. The oil spill … regulations were overlooked by Mr. Obama’s choice of leader for MMS, a Harvard scholar. She inherited a sloppy system and did not know how to fix it; Harvard scholars should stay at Harvard. The regulations were there, just not enforced. Does that mean we need more regulation? Maybe we need to criminalize (for both corporate America and the government bureaucrat) the disregarding of regulations. Plus, according to one early on CNN observation there were 14 individual government agencies on the ground in LA during the crisis and any one had veto power that could bring clean up operations to a halt. It took the President about a month to get a real boss in action.

If I am in favor of reasonable business regulations and strict enforcement but also believe the limiting of business profits, executive income, product pricing and ownership return on their investment would have this country still living with 50’s technology … am I a liberal or a conservative? If I believe every individual is responsible for their own actions (within the regulations/laws of the land) and should live with the consequences of those actions … am I a liberal or conservative? If I believe an elected official should do their job with the good of the people being more important than the personal gain from the office … am I a liberal or conservative? If I happen to believe there is a God and no one has the right to force their belief in God (or science, same thing) upon me … am I a liberal or a conservative?

I can just see us all trying to maneuver around town, each in our own private “rights bubble”. We could have red tinted bubbles for liberals and blue tinted bubbles for conservatives.

Government’s role is to make certain that information is provided and is truthful.
Your rights to be unhealthy, like all rights, end when they interfere with mine. Thus the law restricts smoking in an enclosed public place. I dispute your example of government regulation in connection with the BP oil leak. In a previous post, I stated that it was the absence of adequate regulation that allowed the spill to happen in the first place.

In any event, thank you for your taking the time to comment.

Samuel

One Commissioner is running for state office using his opposition to placing the transportation tax on the ballot as a qualification! Rick, we agree on many things; the people should decide but they should be provided information and not slogans to induce fear.

I agree that we must be willing to pay the taxes to support the services we recieve. I also feel the tax rate must be set by the goverened, not the governing. The services government provides must fit within the means of the taxes people are willing to pay. I expect to see a balanced budget in Washington, realizing of course things like war and catastrophy will knock things out of kilter for the short term. But those things must be paid off, not left to collect interest forever.

I notice the “willing to pay taxes concept” apparently does not apply to wealthy Democrats. Google Isabel-Kerry and see how our fine Senator from Mass. skipped out paying sales and use tax on his new made in New Zealand (skipped out on American labor and craftmanship too) yacht.

Nearly all of Washington, including the White House, is ethically challenged. Maybe more of what you are doing, helping train politicians starting at the local level, should be taken up by more of us. I give you much credit for the service.

Sent from my Android phone