Happy Days Are Here Again?

The race for the Presidency of the United States is in full swing.  The candidates for the Republican nomination have been busy traveling the country, participating in debates, giving media interviews and just plain speechifying.  What have we learned so far?  Here’s my take on The Issues:

• They are pro-life.  Translation:  they are pro-fetal life and anti-abortion.  To see their positions on the already living, see the other points below.

o   Rick Perry loves to hunt.  In fact, he’s gone hunting with the Champion of Thrill Killing, Ted Nugent.  Apparently his pro-life stance doesn’t extend to other species.

o   Mitt Romney, many years ago, put the family Irish Setter in a crate and tied the crate to the top of the family station wagon for a road trip to Canada from Massachusetts.  Back then, though, he was pro-choice.  I’m willing to bet, had the dog been given a choice, he would have preferred to ride inside the car.  

• The Federal Government spends too much money.  Translation:  social problems, education, Social Security and Medicare are bankrupting our country.  The wars and the Department of Defense, on the other hand, need even more money. 

o   Mitt Romney has four grown sons, none of whom have served in the military.  Even one of England’s princes has served in the Afghan/Iraq wars.

o   The wars in Afghanistan & Iraq (money only, not lives) is approaching $ 1.3 trillion dollars

o   The latest budget for the Defense Department is $ 680 billion dollars.

• The Department of Education is bad.  Michelle Bachman wants to dismantle it and the others want to decrease its budget.

• Climate change isn’t real.  Rick Perry accuses scientists of making it up to obtain grant money.

• Obamacare is bad.  I abhor this moniker.  The health care plan was negotiated in Congress and passed by Congress, it was not a Presidential order, nor written by the President.  In 2010, 26% of Americans do not have health care coverage. 

•  The issue that is the top concern of most Americans, jobs, is an issue that most of the candidates agree on.  They want to cut corporate taxes (even though many corporations, because of allowed deductions and write-offs, tax loopholes and savvy accountants, pay little or no taxes already) and lower the tax rates for the “job creators.”  Of course after 10 years of the Bush tax cuts, those so-called job creators have slashed jobs instead of creating them.  Wealth is more heavily concentrated in the top 2% now than it has been since the period preceding the 1929 stock market crash.  If 10 years of lower taxes on the top income brackets has led to the highest unemployment numbers in nearly 100 years, why extend this failed policy? 

o   And this is Ron Paul during one of the Republican debates:

“Do you advocate getting rid of the minimum wage, would that create more jobs?” Politico’s John Harris asked Paul during Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate.

“Absolutely,” Paul declared. “It would help the poor people who need jobs. Minimum wage is a mandate. We’re against mandates so why should we have it? It would be very beneficial.”

Additionally, to spur job growth, the candidates blame the cost of over regulation on the lack of job creation.  Having to meet minimum safety requirements or environmental regulations (like Clean Air & Clean Water standards) hampers businesses and prevents them from being able to afford to add more employees.  In their minds, government intervention is to blame for the high unemployment rate in the U.S. 

So where exactly is the concern for the American people who are out of work?  Well, here’s Herman Cain’s take on Occupy Wall Street and the unemployed:

CAIN: I don’t have facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama administration. Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself! [...] It is not someone’s fault if they succeeded, it is someone’s fault if they failed.

I guess that the “Compassionate Conservative” days are over.  Let’s all sing that upbeat standard from the Great Depression, “Happy Days Are Here Again.”  

 I’m beginning to feel that the movie Soylent Green isn’t far from becoming Science Fact instead of Science Fiction.  

If these are the faces of democracy in word and action, they are making socialism look pretty damn good.

Perry says "Galileo outvoted"

We interrupt the regularly scheduled Rant to comment on last night’s Republican debate. 

My favorite moment?   By favorite, I don’t mean that I cheered or liked it, but that it defines why Rick Perry needs to go back to school instead of running a state and, certainly, not a country.  In response to Jon Huntsman’s statement on his position on climate change, Brian Williams asked Rick Perry about his previous statements on his position on this issue.  After all the erroneous statements about scientists daily abandoning the “theory” of human caused climate change, he uttered this gem of wisdom:

“EVEN GALILEO GOT OUTVOTED FOR A SPELL”

Galileo was a brilliant scientist.  He is credited with many discoveries, most notably the telescope.  Through his telescope, he was able to confirm Copernicus’s theory that the Earth revolved around the Sun.  The problem?  At that time, in Italy, the Pope and the Catholic Church were firm in their beliefs that the Earth was the center of the Universe.  To suggest something other than this was HERESY.  Galileo went on trial before the Inquisition and, primarily due to his advanced age, was sentenced to imprisonment in his cottage for the remainder of his life.  He was enjoined to no longer speak or write about his heretical theory of the solar system.  You can read more here about the lead up to the trial, the trial itself and the results:

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/galileoaccount.html

This wasn’t a trial as we now know it from Law & Order or even Franklin & Bash.  It was Galileo against the Cardinals and the Church.  For all intents and purposes the Church was The Government.  Galileo faced excommunication, possible torture, imprisonment and possibly even death for suggesting an alternative explanation for our “universe.”  This was not a democratic process – he wasn’t “outvoted for a spell” as Rick Perry characterized this episode of history.  Galileo was forced to recant his heresy and to never speak of it again. 

Fortunately for us today, climate scientists are continuing to speak up.  Recently thousands of people, in protest of the Keystone XL tar sands project, gathered outside the White House.  Several hundred were arrested, including Bill McKibben of 350.org, Daryl Hannah, Naomi Klein and NASA’s top scientist, James Hansen.  In the case of Galileo, at worst he would have been executed.  One person alone could have died.  Our continued denial of human caused climate change and our refusal to take action to, at the very least, slow down its progress will ultimately lead to the deaths of millions upon millions of human and non-human lives on our planet.  Just as The Inquisition ushered in The Dark Ages, the stance of Rick Perry and nearly all of the Republican candidates for the Presidency may very well cause the entire Earth to go dark.  They may, in fact, be responsible for killing all of life on Earth.  Denial and adherence to dogma is a recipe for disaster. 

Of course, there was more to the debate last night. 

·         PERRY: Social Security is a Ponzi scheme

·         PAUL:  Eliminate the minimum wage

·         BACHMAN:  Obama caused the rise of gas prices from $1.79 a gallon to nearly $4.00 a gallon

·         BACHMAN:  Obamacare is bankrupting America

·         CAIN: his 9-9-9 tax plan.  9% tax on businesses, 9% tax on income, 9% sales tax

Santorum, Gingrich & Romney contributed as well, but none of their remarks made as much of an impression upon me as those above.  I’m convinced that Perry will win the Republican nomination.  Do we really want another undereducated Texas governor in the White House?  If he or she is going to run our country, shouldn’t the President be, at the very least, as smart as the smartest amongst us?