Source: The New York Times - 9/30/2007
Thoughts: I am a fond believer in the need of more substantial political parties in the United States. For too long, the Republican and Democratic parties have dominated our politics to the point where the society is forced to align themselves one way or another in order to succeed in politics. As a result, you find yourself with politicians who are members of one party, but have personal views on key issues that belong in the opposing party. Rudy Giuliani is one of those politicians.
Because Giuliani is not for a ban on most (if not all) abortions, he is chastised by some of the more conservative members of the Republican Party, including James Dobson and Tony Perkins (as mentioned in the article below). These men are considering supporting someone as a third-party/independent candidate to run against Giuliani if he wins the party’s nomination. However, I believe this would hurt their effort to place a “conservative” in the White House by splitting the votes between the two candidates (even if their candidate of choice only receives 0.5% of the popular vote).
This is where a third or fourth strong party would be helpful in our society. For starters, they would provide better representation of the society by offering more choices for people to choose from. Secondly, it becomes easier for the parties to provide a clear message for where they stand on the issues, instead of sending mixed messages creating confusion and exposing the candidate to potential blunders (reference Senator John Kerry’s “I was for the war before I was against it” comment). The Libertarian and Constitution parties have a good start, and with a better organizational effort and more “big name” politicians officially joining their cause, they might one day become a national-level political threat. If not them, then it will require a serious movement by an independent candidate to finally break the hold of the two-dominating parties. And maybe then, we might finally see some true change in Washington politics.
Article: “Christian Conservatives Consider Third-Party Effort”
By David Kirkpatrick
Alarmed at the chance that the Republican party might pick Rudolph Giuliani as its presidential nominee despite his support for abortion rights, a coalition of influential Christian conservatives is threatening to back a third-party candidate in an attempt to stop him.
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Source: The Fireside
Son,
The news media is talking. Politicians are yapping. Bloggers are blogging. Protect America – close the borders!
This immigration thing has somehow been tied to terrorism. Immigration is also associated with economic prosperity. So the solution is to build a really big fence and train some pit bull border guards. Arm the general populace with assault rifles. Teach good Americans martial arts. Build a bureaucracy of anti-immigrant fighters. Resurrect the KKK with a new mission – they know how to deal with undesirables! The immigrants are just a bunch of low-life people who want to come here and steal our jobs and blow up our buildings. Round’em up. Ship them back to where they came from. That’ll fix’em! I remember an old police sergeant in my home town that once told me, “They should ship all the blacks (he used a different word) back to African and they should make people like you (me) the head oarsmen on the boats.”
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Source: The Fireside
Son,
I admire your determination to not have debt. The Republican Congress and Administration should be so wise. Your mother and I made the young couple’s traditional mistake of using credit cards. The result was that you lived in virtual poverty in your youth.
My first awareness of managing debt was when I was twenty-two years old. Your sister was just born and we did not own a washing machine. Those were the transitional days between cloth diapers and disposable diapers – we used cloth. The local mall had a laundromat and we would go there every week. We would put the clothes in the washer and then window shop for forty-five minutes. We would return to the laundromat and switch the laundry to the dryers – then repeat the cycle. I remember going to Sears and looking at washers and dryers – we had no money. We thought about it awhile – then one day we were at a garage sale and they had a Sears Kenmore Dryer for $55.00. We had that much. We bought the dryer and then went back to Sears. They agreed to set up an account for us and to sell us a wash machine ‘on payments.’ They charged something like six-thousand percent interest – but the payments were $12 a month. That was considerably cheaper than what we were spending per month at the laundromat. We contracted for our first debt.
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Source: Meng Bomin – News and Views
Edwards is trying to frame this as a principled stand as accepting public funds means that a good chunk of your campaign’s money is coming from taxpayers, not special interests.
From the New York Times article on the subject:
At a campaign stop on Thursday in Conway, N.H., Mr. Edwards said it was the huge amounts being raised by the campaigns that had changed his mind. “Washington is awash with money, and the system is corrupt,” he said. “I don’t think anybody anticipated the amount of money that would be raised,” he added, saying it had persuaded him to “step up” on the issue.
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Source: Meng Bomin – News and Views
Yesterday, I read a story that was covered by both PZ Myers of Pharyngula and Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy about a group of Boulder high school students that protested the weekly recitation of the pledge of allegiance at their high school.
Of course the main issue raised is the wording “under God”, which was added to the pledge in 1954 after much lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic service organization. The root of this objection is obvious: the pledge is a statement signed as bill by congress that endorses God, which many people see as an violation the first amendment if not a marginalization of non-theistic Americans.
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