Thursday, October 20, 2011

Today's Happy Hour Soundtrack

Some Grateful Dead...

If a man among you
Got no sin upon his hand
Let him cast a stone at me

For playing in the band

Playing
Playing in the band
Daybreak
Daybreak on the land
Playing
Playing in the band
Daybreak Daybreak on the land
I'm a Deadhead... sorta.  By that I mean I have a LOT o' the Dead in the library but I never really followed them on tour.  I DID attend their concerts back in the day when said concerts were within a couple o' hundred miles o' me, where ever I might have been.  That means I drove a couple hunnert miles down to the Bay Area when I lived in southern Oregon, yadda, yadda.  Today?  We pulled Volume 11 of "Dick's Picks" out of the archive and settled back with a couple o' brewskis and a Kuba Kuba to enjoy the sultry afternoon zephyrs.  And we thought a bit...

Which brings us to this:  why in the Hell can't we get a candidate for President of these United States who answers the mail for ALL of our issues, and not just some?  Ron Paul is prolly the poster child for this sorta sentiment, in that I really LOVE his Economic Plan but get off the bus when it comes to his Libertarian isolationism.  By that I mean THIS makes a lot o' sense:
Cuts $1 trillion in spending during the first year of Ron Paul’s presidency, eliminating five cabinet departments (Energy, HUD, Commerce, Interior, and Education), abolishing the Transportation Security Administration and returning responsibility for security to private property owners, abolishing corporate subsidies, stopping foreign aid, ending foreign wars, and returning most other spending to 2006 levels.
But then he screws the proverbial pooch by sayin' shit like this: 
Avoid long and expensive land wars that bankrupt our country by using constitutional means to capture or kill terrorist leaders who helped attack the U.S. and continue to plot further attacks.

[...]

Follow the Constitution by asking Congress to declare war before one is waged.
These things, on the face of it, sound entirely reasonable until one examines them in the context o' Rep. Paul's further comments, such as taking issue with the killing of al-Awlaki.  I won't deny that there are "issues" there and I've linked to discussions about such in the past.  And then there's the matter of "sound money" (a return to the gold standard?  As if...) and all that Federal Reserve bullshit.  Those sorts o' things sound unhinged, to be polite about it.

The same goes for the sole Libertarian candidate in the race... Former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson.  Some o' his stuff resonates with me, like ending the monstrously stupid "War On Drugs."  Stuff like this:
First up, Johnson said, would be an executive order removing marijuana from schedule I (the category containing the most highly addictive and harmful drugs). "Because I would be controlling the federal agencies, including the DEA," Johnson said, "I would do everything I can to defang the DEA." Later in the conversation, Johnson was asked if he would issue an executive order pardoning non-violent marijuana offenders. Johnson acknowledged that the U.S. had pardoned nonviolent violators of the Volstead act after the repeal of prohibition, and said, "I think that same thing is called for with legalizing marijuana." 


He called the DOJ letter ordering dispensaries to shut down "Obama's letter," because "the president of the United States controls all the agencies and the attorney general is appointed by the president of the United States." And that despite the coming crackdown, "We have a to celebrate this week with a poll that came out saying that 50 percent of Americans now support legalizing marijuana. We can say now we’re on equal footing with those who argue for the status quo."
That makes sense and Johnson is one of the very few politicians who has the guts to come right out and say it.  But like Rep. Paul, Johnson screws the pooch with his neo-isolationist bullshit and his opportunistic visit with the OWS asshats, among other thangs.

Am I out o' step here?  Why is it I can't find a candidate with what I would call a firm grasp on reality?  I don't know whether I should worry about the country or worry about myself.  But I have a good idea.

8 comments:

  1. The trouble with Paul is he is a nut. He has some good ideas, but some even think that Obama has some good ideas.

    With the economy, the problem is very large. Namely the congress. The President can want any changes he (or she) wants to tax code or spending, but it has to pass congress. Ain't likely to happen. Just like Cain's plan.

    There is never going to a candidate that meets all or even most of your desires. That is why you hold a couple of hot button issues that you most identify with, and hold your nose on the rest.

    Libertarians too often are liberals without a backbone. There is no cohesive message or platform for them. It is why they aren't a viable party, as they get the fringe from both sides pooling together, and will end up being nothing more than what we already have in congress - gridlock.

    Pot is one thing on the war on drugs that should be dropped. There are other drugs that are too harmful though, that you can't just let them out there on the streets without a fight. Meth, crack, heroin, and so on, are drugs that need to be stopped or curtailed.

    Voting for any party other than the Dems or Repubs is pretty much throwing out your vote, as most won't vote that way. The most influence you have with your vote is who you vote for within a large party, that can help change out the nut jobs, or voting for the party that has the most reasonable choice.

    I still like Cain over most of the others running. He isn't perfect, but Obama is down right dangerous, not only for the US, but the whole world.

    I will vote for Mickey Mouse over Duh One, as NOTHING can be as bad as he has been. It might save a tin pot dictator's life too.

    Magic wordy thingy": cokieral hmph, is that some new drug?

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  2. I used to attend classes at Damn Neck Virginia, the Missile School where they would have the drug detector dogs out in force at the gates on entry to the base. Turns out the moron military police would visit the Exchange any old day and choose any old car to hide some no sit real drugs on the wheel in order to test their little doggy noses to find drugs. Guess what happened to the owners of said vehicles when the front gate dogs alerted their handlers to DRUG odor!!!! Morons.
    I bought a used VW van with roughly 50 Grateful Dead stickers on it. Wasn't up to taking risks as a navy officer so I took it to Alameda and asked them nicely to give it a good drug detector dog smell. And then I peeled off all the stickers.
    It's funny, the Base CO at Damn Neck also made it his policy to hand out a copy of "A Message to Garcia" to every person who reported to that base for duty, even students at the missile school. Applications in modern times always.

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  3. I don't remember the exact number, but it is way less than 50% of illegible Americans who actually vote.

    Thus, the candidates have to target their message towards the people who do vote.

    Not all the candidates are targeting their message properly.

    The people who vote are mostly dependent on government largess. Teachers, military, police, fire, etc. The only other pool is social security recipients, who are also dependent, but maybe not as largess.

    Any candidate that wants to get elected, should hold off announcing cuts, until they sucker the people into losing their jobs by voting for you.

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  4. I think Gary did very well for NM, but I'm not sure he is Presidential material. Yet, he seems very practical. When I mentioned a bit about legalizing drugs on my blog, I got lots of negatives. Legalizing marijuana would certainly make a difference in the "war on drugs" and the economy, but people sure seem against that.

    So far, I'm not all that impressed with any candidates.Sure, some of them talk a good game, but do any of them have the power to push anything through Congress? In watching the highlights of the recent debate, Romney and Perry reminded me of the two banty roosters we used to have - always going at each other with their feathers all fluffy, but never really doing any thing.

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  5. The presidential candidate can say all of the right things to capture the ear of the American people, but once elected, it all disappears!
    Congress is ruining and running our country with their political games with total disregard for where we need to be going as a nation.
    I say, vote for the person you think will guide us into the future, and throw the bums in congress out! ALL of them!
    That's my two cents!!!

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  6. Anon: We're in agreement on most but not all of your points.

    Defiant: I remember bein' shaken down and sniffed in the wayback, as well. It was just sumthin' we lived with.

    Foot: I have problems reading those illegible voters. ;-)

    Lou: As most of my friends on the right say: ANYONE but Obama. I think Johnson might do well as president, but he ain't got the proverbial snowball's chance of bein' nominated.

    Ed: My congresscritter is pretty good: solid conservative with a voting record he's proud of, and rightly so.

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  7. Excuse me, Buck...

    Anonymous - The Libertarian Party has quite a distinct platform, available for anyone to peruse at their website (www.lp.org) and, unlike D and R platforms, it is fairly much unchanged from election to election and is not subject to the whim of whichever candidate is the flavor of the month.

    However, if you wish to disagree with that platform, cool. To each his (or her) own. My huge disagreement with you is in your assertion that a vote for anyone other than the D or R is a vote wasted. It is thinking like that which leaves us in the mess we have today, which is to say a limited choice of candidates who feel a need to be utterly non-offensive so that they can attract the largest number of votes, while where they REALLY stand may be off to one side or the other. If you really want to see substantive change in American politics, then the more votes cast outside of those for the two larger parties, the better the chance of that happening. As long as you keep voting for what you don't really want, you'll keep getting what you don't really want.

    Thanks for the soapbox, Buck. Sorry to hijack your comments.

    Oh, and one more thing: Libertarians aren't afraid to use an actual name in connection with their comments. Just sayin'.

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  8. "I'm a Deadhead... sorta. By that I mean I have a LOT o' the Dead in the library but I never really followed them on tour."

    Me too. 5 Concerts under my belt, and for or five bootleg concert tapes.

    I call myself a small "l" libertarian. I like the general line of thought, but it's not a religion to me.

    I could go for some sort of military isolationism, sure. Reasonable, and after we've closed out current obligations. Not saying it's the policy I'd pursue, but I could live with it.

    Are you out of step? Should you worry about yourself?

    When it comes to politics, I try to remember the Stones...

    You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find ... You get what you need.

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Just be polite... that's all I ask.