We have lost our moral authority

The United States has lost its moral authority by supporting dictators, toppling governments, and losing touch with the intention of uplifting all of humanity.

The Republican Party has pledged itself to emptying the treasury and ruling the country as if we have a monarchy. To counter this, the Democrats could rededicate themselves to our fundamental principles of unalienable rights and the encouragement of life, liberty and happiness, but I doubt they would have the courage to take this step.

This means giving up pandering to special interests (even teachers, unions, etc.), and by focusing on the most good for the most people…to improve the entire country without appeasing particular groups.

We must also reconsider giving increasing powers to the President that were not intended by the Constitution. Historically, this is how a democracy turns into a tyranny.

On a practical level, we must define what the “general welfare” means as used in the Constitution ( google “Commerce Clause” for more info). This is at the root of the deep divisions in our society and government.

Gain perspective- go above the clouds

I remember my first plane ride. It was raining heavily for a long time, and on my way to the airport it felt like that’s all there was ever going to be…rain and wind. The plane took off during a lull in the wind, and we climbed into the rain clouds. We kept ascending, and finally popped through the clouds and into the brilliant sunshine, which I hadn’t seen in about a week.

At that moment it occurred to me that it’s always sunny above the clouds, and if we can just get there, it will be fine. Think of the sky above the worst hurricane- it’s ALWAYS sunny during the day and starry at night.

We often get mired in our day-to-day downpours and hurricanes, and forget that it’s sunny somewhere else, and will be sunny again shortly, and to regain perspective, it's often enough to remember that above the rain is sunshine.

Torture you, torture me, or "What goes around, comes around."

my take on things

Torture
If you think it'’s OK to torture others, then you'’re also saying that it'’s OK for others to torture you. On the other hand, if we say we don'’t allow torture, we must make sure that it doesn'’t happen in our name. Picture someone you know being tortured- or maybe even yourself. If that's OK with you, then torture may be OK with you.

We can say that there is one standard for the world and another for us, but if we torture others, then Americans will be tortured, maybe even someone you know. Whoever says torture is OK is condemning other Americans to torture. Will you be responsible for it?

We know that information given under duress is not reliable. We don'’t allow confessions and evidence so obtained in our courtrooms for this reason. So, there is no benefit to torture, and it will cause problems, why are there even a few people who want it?

On the other hand, if torture is OK, I have a few questions for Karl Rove.

The uselessness of partisanship

Partisanship is like...

...calling the plumber to fix any problem in the house just because you
had good luck with the plumber once in the past. Sensible people call
on the person with the appropriate skills for a specific job. If there
is an electric problem, do you call a plumber? Of course not.
Similarly, why would someone apply the same solution regardless of what
the problem is? Would you apply the brakes any time you needed to do
something to correct the velocity of a car? Of course not. You apply
brakes, accelerator or steering inputs to guide the car where you want
it to go.

Why do some people try to apply the same conservative or liberal
solutions to every situation? It makes no sense.

What's up with the bird flu?

It seems to me that this bird flu business has four intentions.

1. To scare people more. It is useful to make people scared because they will do your bidding blindly, even if it's against their own interests. To create a slave state, you need to first create a fear state.

2. To earn money for a few people, including Donald Rumsfeld and Goerge Schultz. Keep in mind that the transmission of the flu between humans does not happen. You have to catch it from an infected bird. The hysteria is based on the possibility that a random mutation in the flu virus will make it infectious between humans. Is there evidence that this will happen?

When you see any government plan in the future, ask yourself whether it incites more fear, or reduces fear and increases thoughtful discussion.

G. Bush ordered the government to buy $2 billion worth of vaccines (Tamiflu) that are not sufficiently work against the flu. His Nov. 1 speech asks for $1 billion more.

Rumsfeld was Chairman of the Board of Gilead Sciences, the company that developed Tamiflu, and still owns between $5 million and $25 million in stock. Gilead gets a 10% royalty on sales of Tamiflu.

This isn't the first time that Rumsfeld directly profited from his own and administration actions. He signed the order that military personnel would receive smallpox vaccines and a drug called Vistide, which was claimed to reduce side effects of the smallpox vaccine. Vistide is also made by Gilead Sciences. Is this OK?

The British plan is to produce flu-resistant GMO (genetically modified organisms) chickens to replace all chickens in the world in 4-5 years.

3. It's good for large-scale chicken farms. Even though the flu is dramatically more contagious at the large farms (since the birds are much closer together and unhealthy), the independent farmers are the ones that face destruction of their flocks, when it should be the large farms if anyone at all. It would be interesting to see who owns the large Asian chicken farms.

4. To cause chaos and profit from it. This is the oldest trick in the book, and I'm surprised that we keep falling for it. It's like watching Charlie Brown try to kick at the football only to have Lucy move it at the last second. He believes that this time Lucy will really let him kick it. We respect his optimism that next time will be better, but don't respect who he chooses to trust.