I just like to put up little reminders of what is going on in our country in case some of ya'll don't catch the news.  I consider myself to be of the Libertarian flare, "Don't tread on me" (small government ftw) and was raised Conservative.  I don't want to push my ideas on anyone, but I sure as hell do appreciate the fact that I live in a free country and I can express my feelings and not be scared about it.

Well, lately I have been seeing stuff that in my 29 years of life, I haven't ever seen before, or at least haven't remembered because I may have been too young.  To tell you the truth, this has all actually been building up through the last 20 years I think, maybe even longer than that back to the time of FDR.  The last 20 years I have seen the most of it with Clinton, both Bush's, and now we are seeing hyperspeed with Obama.  The thing is, government is getting too damn big for its own britches.  I mean, isn't our congress and senate supposed to work for the people?  What is going on?  

I am going to use this thread to update ya'll, anyone who cares that is, with just little things that are going on here and there.  I'll try not to make it too heavy or overbearing, but the fact of the matter is, that is just how it is right now.

I know it may seem odd to put this in a gaming forum, and if you hate it then don't read it.  I am in a free country and I wanna be sure that my guildies know a little bit of what is going on.  This first video, is an inside shot of the Florida Town Hall meeting.  If you would like you can ignore the posters comments and just watch the video and analyze it for yourself.  The posters comments seem to be from a conservative standpoint.  I found this video to be pretty damn disturbing even without the comments though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvD76-1Y2...annel_page

Personally, I'm a pragmatist: there are clearly some areas where only a gov't can and should act (foreign affairs, military defense, international treaties, criminal law, etc) and equally clearly there are some areas where government should leave well enough alone (over-regulation of commerce, intrusion into private affairs); it's all about finding the right balance, and often you have to take it on a case-by-case basis.

But the best case that can be made for "big" gov't is to consider the alternatives, and the way things were done before: before education was taken over by gov't in the middle 19th century, an education was the province of the rich; before gov't intervened in the labor market to protect workers, they'd be thrown out on the street because the injury they sustained in the company's service rendered them useless; before gov't inspection of food, corporations would feed you sawdust, and I could go on, and on...whenever the profit motive is involved, we should be wary: only a gov't can act in the interest of the common good.

The spectre of big daddy gov't has reared its head of late due to the massive bailouts of the financial sector in the US, but again, consider the alternatives (complete economic collapse, perhaps) and also consider that it was a lack of gov't regulation that got America (and the rest of the world) in this mess in the first place: when the cat's away, the mice will play.

Over the last 30 years, our Canadian banks had been lobbying the gov't for more relaxed rules in banking so that they too could play with the big boys on the world stage, but we weren't having any of it: the reason Canadian banks have needed $0 in federal money is because the Bank Act basically prevents them from going nuts (like leveraging a dollar over 200 times, for example). America had such laws, drafted in the aftermath of the Great Depression, but these laws were removed or relaxed in the last 20 years in the name of economic efficiency and growth, a pillar of the (business side) of the conservative movement.

On the other side of that coin though is the fact that very heavy gov't involvement in the market is a "dead hand" that stifles productivity, creativity and growth, like the "command economy" of the Soviet Union. Also by bailing out the financial sector we remove the "moral hazard" effect, which says basically if I keep cleaning up after your mistakes, you don't bear the true cost and will probably keep on making them.

So again, it's a balance between the extremes of the dead hand of gov't vs the Wild West where its beggar-thy-neighbor and only the strongest and fittest survive. It's a difficult line to walk. Do I think the Congress and the Administration are finding that balance? Don't know, probably neither do they, but the fact that the guy in charge at the Fed is a historian who had made a name for himself studying the Great Depression (and, by extension, ways of avoiding a repeat) is comforting. I'm also cheered by the fact that this academic (who often fail badly in politics) is balanced by a hard-nosed banker in charge of the Treasury.

As a long-time student of American affairs with an outsider's (yet next-door) perspective, I can say that America's ability to learn from her mistakes and emerge the better and stronger for them is probably your nation's greatest strength. Things may look like they're going down the tubes, but America's ability to self-correct will see you right in the end. Have faith that it will work out, even though the road there may be rather bumpy and nasty :/

And oh, can't be more in agreement with the title of your post Nal. Regardless of your political affiliation or lack thereof, awareness and participation are a citizen's most powerful defense against arbitrary rule.

Here's an article incidentally about your current forum Avatar and the recent goings-on from the greatest news magazine in the world, The Economist:

http://www.economist.com/opinion/display...d=14121752

A quote from this article is typical of them: funny in a dry, British wit sort of way, and yet bang on:

"He [Obama] has been curiously ill-served by a press short of useful criticism, with liberal America prepared only to debate what sort of water he walks on best, while conservative radio hosts argue over when exactly he became a communist."

I'd feel a lot more comfortable with this administration if it wasn't composed of tax cheats, ex-radicals and 'scientists' who substitute ideology for actual science.

The Founding Fathers were ex-radicals :P

And when it comes to scientists putting ideology and politics before science, then surely that refers to the previous Administration: let's compare the current holder of the office of Secretary of Energy with the previous occupants and see.

The current occupant is Steven Chu, who comes "from a family of scholars" according to Wiki: his father is an MIT grad, his grandfather went to Cornell, his older brother to Stanford: "his two brothers and four cousins earned three M.D.s, four Ph.D.s, and a J.D. among them." He got his PhD from UCLA Berkley and has worked for the famous Bell Labs, has taught physics at Stanford and was appointed in 2004 Director of the Lawrence Berkley Laboratory, a US Energy National Lab. So quite the egghead, and obviously well-qualified for the position.

The previous occupant in the 2nd half of the Bush 43 Administration was Samuel Bodman, who does hold some impressive academic credentials (Doctor of Science from MIT) but spent most of his career in the financial sector as a venture capitalist and in mutual funds. He was elected to the board of DuPont, the big chemical company.

The occupant before that, Spencer Abraham, is a Havard trained lawyer and got the job in the usual way by getting buddy buddy with the Republican Party, though he has legislative experience in the Congress.

So who would you rather have as a Secretary of Energy especially these days when Energy is such a pressing concern? An academic egg-head who would rather fall on his sword than do bad science, or a businessman...or a lawyer? Going with the academic, personally. Businessman shuld do Commerce, and the lawyer Justice :P

John Holdren, Obama's science Czar, thinks that a fetus becomes human after a few years of socialization and nourishment after birth.  Not before.  It can't be said to be human even at birth.  

In the 1970s, John Holdren was a radical environmentalist who argued that trees have legal rights and should be allowed to go to court to protect those rights.  This was an idea endorsed by John Holdren, the man who now advises President Obama on science and technology issues, "giving natural objects like trees standing to sue in a court of law would have a most salubrious effect on the environment," Holdren wrote in the 1970s.

This is the kind of stuff that Faiyd might be talking about.  hehe

Okay.  Onto some more titilating information.  Let's get into some smut news on republicans and democrats spending money that she shouldn't be spent because they can't keep their dicks in their pants!!

Mark Sanford

John Edwards

This post was last modified: 08-10-2009 03:41 PM by Nalicea.

"This is the kind of stuff that Faiyd might be talking about.  hehe"

He also toyed with the idea of introducing contraceptives in the water supply to keep the population under control.  To his credit (lol), he did concede that finding the right drug and dosing could be problematic in minimizing side effects.

He is not the only peep in this administration who'se definition of who is human vs. who isn't is rather disturbing.  It's not suprising that so many peeps are suspicious of some of the more interesting features of the current health care bill; you know the 'astroturfed tools of big insurance', nazis, ect. (according to Dem leadership) that are being so rude at the various town hall meetings.

This post was last modified: 08-10-2009 03:50 PM by Faiyd.

Yea that's some pretty tree-hugging looney left stuff going on but it was the 70's. When a movement starts (the environmental movement) you often have to push the boundries beyond the realm of reason.

Giving trees legal standing simliar or identical to people isn't so crazy though: corporations are treated in the same way under the law. That's right, under the law, corporations are people, except unlike people you can't throw a corporation in jail :P Thus he's not the only person in the Cabinet or in gov't who believes that non-people can be treated as people under the law: every company and businessman in the civilized would believe the same.

And while some of the ides of the looney left on environmental issues are almost borderline fascist, clearly we're in big trouble if we cut down all our trees.

That's such an extreme, Nazi-like idea that I'd like to see some attribution on that beyond the ravings of a late night talk show host, which is often where such outrageous charges come from.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Holdren

http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/

http://www.conservapedia.com/John_Holdren

There you go.  This administration has so many interesting characters.