The questions of the party lines

Lately my conversations with ultra-liberals have began to take a repetative tone. I’m hearing complete paragraphs of conversations that are verbatim. I’ve begun to wonder if it’s some kind of Ipod track that they have hooked up to their mouths. It’s as if their brains have shutdown to any original thought or the concequences of the party line.

Ok so some of the conversations have not been quite that bad. Some. But there have been massive misconceptions, faulty facts, and a complete disregard for consequences.

So let’s look at a couple of common quotes.

Oil companies are bad for making big profits.

Since when is making a profit a bad thing? Is that not part of the American dream? Isn’t that why every small business in America was created?

But go deeper. Beyond the jealousy of the profits they make, look at the impact they have. Oil companies do not make more money with higher oil costs – OPEC does. Gasolines price is ~60% based on the cost of oil. In the past year oil has more than doubled in price; yet gasoline has only risen ~40% in the same time. That means the oil companies are doing a good job of keeping the cost down.

The profits that oil companies make is not isolated to 2 people as ultra-liberals would like you to think. Millions of mutual funds and IRA’s hold large positions in these oil companies. When they make a profit (which is their job) their stock goes up and investors and retirees have more money. Capping their profit in fact will take money away from retirees and investors, thus hurting the average American.

Capping profits will not stop the need of an oil company from making a profit. To get that profit they will need to cut jobs and stop research into efficiancies, exploration, and alternatives. That means the unemployed in the nation will go up. That will hurt the economy. And if they cut jobs, hundreds of other companies that work directly with this industry will have to cut back too. And by the way, the price of oil will not be forced down a penny while this happens.

We need to leave Iraq now.

As I have said many times that’s not only impossible, it’s stupid. You cannot end a fight just by walking away, not after people have died. Walk away and the orphans (possibly created by the people we are fighting and having nothing to do with our troops) will turn to the only people with power in the area. A great many of those people want to kill every American because we exist. They are the same people that created 9/11 and several other terrorist acts that have failed in the over 2300 days since 9/11. Those orphans will be fed hate against America, and I will guarantee will be committing terrorist acts against us in 5 years from an immediate pullout.

Add to that the fact that if Al Quida and Iran get to boast about making the ‘cowardly Americans run away’ they will gain respect and recruits to their causes.

We will have troops in Iraq for 100 years.

Pay attention to what you are hearing and being told. Troops in Iraq is not fighting a war in Iraq. We have had troops in Germany for 50 years, Japan for 50 years, Korea for 40 years, and Vietnam for 30 years (ronding off the years). Last I checked we are not at war with any of these countries. Nor are we removing those troops and bases in any decade in the near future.

President Bush has ruined America.

How? As far as I have lived and am aware there is nothing I do today that I have not been able to do in the past. There is no restriction to travel, doing business, paying bills, dating, or any other aspect of life that did not exist 30 years ago. So how has America been ruined?

We still elect officials and create laws. We still drive cars and build homes. We still criticize the government and elected officials when they do or porpose something stupid. We are till the most free nation in the world, with tens of thousands entering the nation every year for that reason (illegally or not).

What I think is really meant by that is someone saying that does not like President Bush. I agree that President Bush may be the least articulate, least intelligent Presidents ever. I agree that he has failed the nation in several aspects. But he is not the horrendous life-threatening force that some want to see him as.

So many want to live in the past. They can’t get past the decision, made by Senators and Cogress – of both political parties – to go to war in Iraq. But that was the past, as is who to blame. The 2008 election is about the future and answers to issues happening now, not in 2002.

I want change. Real change.

This is a really stupid statement. Unless the definition has been altered since I was in 3rd grade, the 2008 elecetion guarantees change. No matter who wins, change is a fact. The comment makes about as much sense as saying that a person is “keeping it real”.

The statement should be ‘I want to change X’ or ‘I want a positive change in Y’. Better yet is the statement ‘I will change Z like this and it will be positive’. But if a politician were to say that then you might actually form an opinion on what they think and intend to do. Some would agree others not. You could lose an election (or gain a landslide) for such comments. Having a plan and a clearly stated objective is a boon and a bane.

But just ambigously wanting to change things, since that is the only predictable outcome of the 2008 presidential election, is safe and allows voters to inject their emotions. That definitely will win an election. To bad that it makes no impact or potential steps torwards improving anything. It can’t since it doesn’t even attempt to define what it will change or how.

In the 2006 mid-term elections Democrats were elected under the rally call of change. What change happened is that millions of taxpayer dollars were used to hold a multitude of Congerssional meetings on issues that never involved a single law being broken, the health of professional athletes, pointing the finger of blame at one political party or another. Please tell me how any of that prevented the mortgage crisis, put food on a table, or money in anyones pocket? But you can’t call them liars, because it was a change.

Is Senator John McCain President Bush? No. So a 3rd term of Bush is a stupid and feeble statement based on capturing an emotional response and not the benefit of the nation. Is global warming real? Probably not, but there is nothing wrong with having a cleaner world. Can you fix an economy (ie giving people more money in their pockets) by increasing the taxes they pay? It’s never worked before.

So when you think of the Presidential election think of this – How do you want to change the issues you think are important to America? How will those changes happen without hurting other Americans? Who has a plan to attain those changes? What plan is based in the reality (and not emotion) of the world today?