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The Peterson Platform We are currently a country of over 300 million people and growing. We will never be a smaller government without a smaller population. There's no sense in crying for it. People running on the platform of less government aren't going to give it to you. They are merely exploiting your anger at bureaucracy and waste. Nor do I believe that a force bigger than me is taking from me with no recourse. I don't walk around angry that I'm not getting my share or irritated that someone less deserving is taking from me. Has there ever been a government that didn't have some form of inequality? That's just an excuse to be mad at everything. Taxes exist. I still make a reasonable living. My garbage gets picked up and one day, God willing, I'll get social security. Everything isn't a big government wedgie. We absolutely should be more efficient as a government though. Waste and fraud are rampant in certain sectors of government. That doesn't mean every agency of the government has to return to it's original 18th century constitutional function. But is more transparency too much to ask? Naturally, that doesn't mean I get to throw shoes at government officials or go postal in a crowd of people. Rage is not an answer. You vote people in office and try to make them deliver. If they don't, they're out. No part of that process requires bad manners. I expect elected officials to think about the issues and ask advice. I don't expect them to act strictly on party politics. On the other hand, I know they will at times because that's the nature of this country. There are constituencies and voting blocs of people with agendas. They get people elected and they are owed favors. That's the way it is. That doesn't mean our government is horribly corrupt. It's just the best we've come up with. We ought to be more conscious of our political borders. However, I'm not interested in rounding up thousands of illegal aliens and filling already full prisons with people who are mostly working as our day laborers. No one is going to take our guns away. Too many people own them and they're not giving them up. I wish they'd stop the use of automatic weapons, but I frankly think most gun owners think that's a step too far and will get worked into a froth if it even comes up. Fine. The last person I would want to irritate is a gun owner. Abortion is ugly. Unwanted babies are unfortunate. Making abortion illegal just drives it underground. There are no easy answers. About the best I can come up with is spending our energy trying to prevent unwanted pregnancies. I want to keep religion out of government, but I don't want us to get politically correct over every historical monument with a religious message. That's been our history. I like American history. It's under appreciated. I don't think Christianity is synonymous with patriotism. I don't like flag-waving nativism. I think political messages of "Yay us" are really messages of "Boo them." Telling people we're great doesn't further any dialog that I can see. We now have a sophisticated foreign policy with global interests. We play a role of the world's police force because we have the most sophisticated and wide-spread defense system. It's not a role that will win us a lot of points. Just because we have a big stick doesn't mean we should use it on someone else to further our interests. Imperialism is so 19th century. I'm not really for war at any time. Someone better be at my doorstep or attempting to destroy real American property somewhere on the globe if my government is going to justify body bags. None of this pre-emptive stuff. I don't feel like forcing government down anyone's throat and don't know why we should expect people just to roll over and take it. Would we? Nuclear weapons are complicated. I hope to God whoever is in power is persuasive and good at negotiations. At some point we may have to live with other unfriendly people who have them. We can't drill our way to oil independence. Isn't this just common sense? I'm sure oil lobbyists think it's a great idea. Does anyone else? Affirmative Action had it's place. I'd like to see it go away soon. I don't like people who look down on other people's race or their religion. I know it's hard not to, but try, OK? If tolerance isn't part of your religion, it should be. As for marriage, I don't really care who gets married. I don't mind the death penalty, but let's do some DNA testing before we convict them. Can we at least make college tuition tax deductable? I mean sweet Jesus, college now costs more than the average family home does. And in elementary schools, maybe we should build more of them rather than adding house trailers to school grounds. Also, what was wrong with recess? Those were good times. Can we bring that back? And could someone please remind me what was wrong with the English language again? Wouldn't it help if we could all communicate in school? Duh? In the words of Abraham Lincoln, "People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be." If you think the American government is your enemy, go live somewhere else. You're scaring me. |