Am I liable if I shoot a fellow member of my hunting party?

Am I liable if I shoot a fellow member of my hunting party? You may be so check your insurance coverage before you leave the house and make sure you know where everyone in the party is located before you pull the trigger.

Labeling the Opposition Isn't Winning the Health-Care Reform Debate

My wife and I were talking about this health care debate and how it is attracting society’s fringe protesters, who to me simply hate this President and nothing more. Their side of the debate offers speculation for arguments and little more. Listening to them say the word death-squad is meant to conjure up Nazi death camps. The volume of their rhetoric is intended more to drown out anyone who wants to honestly debate the subject of health-care reform. Shouting out death camps or liar has more to do with fear mongering than to really add any content to the subject. Yelling about death-panels seems to be more of a ploy to scare the elderly than and demonstrates who is really behind this fringe element.

Health care reform advocates pitch program over protests, Des Moines Register

Carpet baggers like South Carolina’s Congressman Joe Wilson shouting out “You lie!” during President Obama’s address to the nation and to congress clearly demonstrates what this is all about. For Wilson it’s about votes back home and solidifying his position with voters. Like most political debate Wilson’s isn’t about truth and consequences but appearances and trying to get votes by appealing to the lowest common denominator in society – fear.

Heckling Of President Rare In US History, AP and KCCI-TV Iowa

Shameful really and it applies to both parties and that is where Barbara and I differ. She blames it on Republicans, of which I’m one. I say it has nothing to do with party labels and to do so, does nothing to advance the discussion.

Party labels aren’t working for us any more. Think back to the Bush Administration lying about the reasons we needed to go into Iraq. There were clearly no weapons of mass destruction; only made-up and exaggerated intelligence data. Where was Wilson then? Why weren’t he and the other Republicans shouting out “Liar!”? And where were the Democrats who voted for the war with Iraq? Why weren’t they shouting out in opposition for more concrete data about the reasons for the war?

How dumb are we, the Parrot Heads?

I’ve written previously about the use of labels and how using labels does nothing to advance the debate. It’s a technique that money grubbers like Ann Coulter, Hannity and Limbaugh have perfected. It’s about raw nerves that turn the brain off, rather than on towards productive thinking.  There are as many Republican voters who are sick and tired of Congressional lies for the sake of special interest campaign contributions and increasing profits as there are Democrats. And there are as many Democratic voters who are in favor of profitable businesses and lower taxes as there are Republicans. Starting out any debate with reference to either Republicans or Democrats is simply a way of polarizing the discussion without regard to content. It derails the discussion and that’s exactly what the special interests hope to do; derail the health care reform discussion to protect special profit interests. Fear is their weapon of choice and it’s the W.M.D. for health-care-reform. It’s a lie and even Republicans who would want health-care reforms can see it is.

The Republican Party does not endear itself to intelligent Republican voters by aligning itself with the fringe in health care reform any more than they did with Palin and her ilk. Their arguments meant to avoid discussing the underlying facts are just as pathetic as arguing, I can see Russia from my kitchen window in Alaska so I must be qualified on all issues of foreign policy.

Get real. Stop dumbing down the discussion with using fear and polarizing labels. It was pathetic then and it is pathetic now. Remember being a voter in a two-party system in which I call myself a Republican doesn’t make me an idiot.  Now that the Cold War has cooled they are pitting us against each other with a new angle. Smarten up America it’s the same game just a different approach. They are still wasting your tax dollars but instead of on implements of war the new war is on health care cost containment. And where is the serious discussion; still wasting away in Margaretville.

And still we don’t have the cheeseburger in paradise. And why?

Thank you Jimmy Buffet and Alan Jackson.

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Eugene Robinson is both right and wrong about the Republicans rejecting the stimulus package.

Eugene Robinson in his latest opinion piece for the Washington Post writes in Blind Unanimity that Republicans in voting unanimously in opposition to the latest economic “stimulus package” don’t understand the mandate the voters sent to Washington with the Democratic majority.

His opinion is both correct and incorrect. Correct that the Democrats have a majority but wrong that Republicans (and Democrats) for that matter should ignore the voter's sentiment about wasteful spending. Yes, for eight years the Republicans spent foolishly; but don’t ignore that this stimulus package has plenty of foolishness in it as well. The Republicans were right to reject it. And if the Democrats don't get their act together in engaging in more foolish spending they will be out next election.

We just need to keep throwing out the majority party every fourth-year.

What Washington doesn’t seem to get is that taxpayers (yes there are a few of us left) have had enough with wasteful spending, pork barrel budgets and log rolling appropriations. The key to staying in power in Washington is to do what you promise during the election – cut spending. Did you hear that?

“If Republicans hadn't broken the bank with drunken-sailorish spending during most of George W. Bush's time in the White House, their complaints about the cost of the stimulus package and its impact on future deficits would be more credible. As things stand, we have to let actions speak: absolute solidarity among House Republicans in voting no.”

Congressmen: Are you capable of going to Washington and not becoming infatuated with yourselves?

John McCain – Out of Touch on the Economy

The Republicans narrowly lost. This was no sweeping mandate. Get that out of your head. It was simply voter’s cleaning house and trying the other party on for four years. If they don’t produce and stop foolish spending the Republicans will be right back as insiders with a majority. Get it?

Stop spending foolishly. That’s the point taxpayers were trying to make in the last election.

National Debt Spending Clock

“The US budget for Iraq in FY 2007 came to $4,988/Iraqi. This is triple Iraq's per-person GDP. It's like spending $121,000 per person ($484,000 per family of 4) in the US. Why not just bribe the whole country?  (I'm saying how it must seem to Iraqis. Think how it would be if some other planet invaded the U.S. and spent $121,000 per American per year to straighten out our country. We'd say—Just give us the money and we'll do it ourselves.") See spreadsheet for details.

Before the war, White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsay estimated the cost at $100 to $200 billion. So the White House got rid of him and "re-estimated" the cost at $50 to $60 billion. It's now over $500 billion.

The administration spokespersons, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, etc. were just totally unrealistic. "We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." – Wolfowitz, March 28, 2003.”

So Eugene, stop acting like a man on a drunken binge after a Super Bowl win. The Democrats can win the 2008 battle for the White House and lose the war of keeping power.