Just 3 Things

On my way home from Kanab today, I switched my satellite radio over to right-wing talk. I do that on long trips sometimes if I'm tired because I stay awake screaming at the hosts.

Tonight, I listened to most of The Rusty Humphries Show, and I tried to keep my screaming to a minimum. While I could write a very, very long rebuttal to most of the things Humphries said (I cringe when I hear pundits say, "I've done the research, so you don't have to," which he said over and over throughout the broadcast. But, I digress.), I only want to comment on one little section that I found interesting.

Most of the show centered around the thesis that "immigration without assimilation will bring a great country to its knees." I disagree with that thesis on many levels, but I have a harder time with it because Humphries didn't define "assimilation." From his ensuing rants, it was difficult to tell what he actually meant.

Anyway, during his discussion of the topic, Humphries quoted Michael Savage (a pundit that I loath beyond belief), who said that the three things that need to be defended to keep our country great are our "borders, language, and culture." I found that conclusion to be overly nationalistic (a word that too often gets confused with "patriotic"), so I decided to write my own list.

The three things that I believe need to be defended to keep our country great are 1) Personal Freedom, 2) Economic Freedom, and 3) an educated populace.

I want to hold off discussing these three things in depth for a bit to see what others have to say. So, here is the question:

What three things do you believe must be defended in order to keep our country great? There are 2 rules: 1) You must name 3, no more, no less; and 2) You cannot use the Constitution as one of your 3 (I get to make the rules, and I think that using that grand old document is cheating. Cheaters aren't allowed :).)

Lindsey Graham on Meet the Press

I posted this on my blog, and I was going to copy and paste it here, but it's really long. Go read it.

"What Lindsey Graham didn't say on Meet the Press" at The Multifaceted Me

Enjoy.

Who is the enemy?

I had such high hopes of productive things happening in Washington after the elections in November. I believed--naively--that with the balance of power being shared between the two major parties that they would actually have to work together and compromise. I was so wrong.

Since the elections, the congress has passed a handful of bills that they promised during their first 100 hours, and then they got to the business of Iraq, and life got much more complicated. Unfortunately, everything is breaking on party lines, and nothing will ever get accomplished, especially in the senate where 60 votes are needed to break a filibuster.

I offer 2 examples of complete partisan stupidity as proof that nothing will happen in the next two years except a lot of kvetching by both sides:

1. Nancy Pelosi supported the surge in Iraq until the president came out in favor of it. Then, she changed her tune. I'm opposed to the surge, but Pelosi's change of heart doesn't seem to be motivated by conviction, just by politics.
2. John Warner filibustered his own resolution on Iraq and the surge in order to protest the way the vote was being handled by Democrats. That's just stupid. He could have voted for cloture to not look stupid, and the filibuster still would have held. I guess that was too easy.

I'm sick to death of hearing the partisan bickering in Washington. While they fight, our soldiers are fighting a very real enemy. I know Republicans think Democrats are the enemy (listen to their rhetoric and try to disagree with me), and Democrats believe that Bush is Satan (I've probably used that metaphor myself at least once :)). But, there are much bigger issues that need to be settled. It's time for our elected officials to do their job. It's time for them to debate and come up with real solutions. It's time to come up with a plan in Iraq that will work, not a meaningless surge or a hopeless withdrawal. I'm not sure what that should be, but I bet that the brilliant minds in Washington can come up with something if they quit acting like four-year-olds.

I'm not holding my breath.

Political Compass

I just took a political test, and I found the results interesting. My graph puts me as more of a social libertarian/economic moderate instead of a true liberal. Wow.

Go here to take the test. How did it turn out?

GARRY ADDS: Here's my graph, it's about what I expected - center right.

It's too bad this isn't a joke

This is an actual t-shirt that is selling at casualconservative.com . If it was a joke, it would still scare me, but look at the text that is printed with the information on the shirt:

At this point, there are few courses of action that could
save Iran. Maybe Ahmadinejad will give up his quest
for nuclear weapons. Not likely. Or maybe the young
people in Iran, who realize what he is doing to their
country, will overthrow the little terrorist dictator and
save the day. I’m not holding my breath on that one
either. Well shoot…that pretty much leaves us with the
third option, as illustrated on this shirt!

I wish conservatives would learn from the failures in Iraq. It's not enough to talk tough. You need to talk to people as well. Diplomacy is an option, and it's one we haven't tried at all. I hope that we at least have one civil discussion before we bomb Iran. Furthermore, we need to have good intelligence, which we didn't have on Iraq and which we don't seem to have on Iran either. Why don't Bush and Ahmadinejad go have coffee and discuss the needs of the two countries? It might be beneficial; however, I don't think that Bush can pronounce Ahmadinejad. Oh well!

BTW, my blog has turned away from politics, so I plan on posting my political rants here and linking back on my blog. Since I'm on the banner, I need to hold up my end of the outhouse.