Political Bullet Points

I'm still clearly bummed out that Dennis Kucinich dropped out of the race this week [aside from his spot-on policies, great sense of humor and straight-forward demeanor, is there anyone who didn't want to see Elizabeth Kucinich on TV all the time? She makes Jackie O look like Barbra Bush. Anyway... ] and my three other favorite Dems not running at all - leaving us yet again with two plastic politicians to pick from for the nomination.

I'll try to spare you from another painfully long stream of consciousness post here with a couple fun bullet points:

• Kucinich and Obama on UFO sightings

This is why Kucinich is awesome and Obama is not. Dennis jokes about moving his campaign headquarters to Roswell, while Barak can't seem to stop with the canned rhetoric for one single minute and be a real person. I might come around later, but right now I think Obama is a huge wanker with nothing to offer but good posture and public speaking ability. He's our best choice right now, but unless he recruits the best of the best for his cabinet, I see a huge disaster waiting to happen.

• "He's a good Republican. I wouldn't question those credentials at all. But there are a number of pieces of legislation where his views are out of the mainstream, at least in my view, of conservative Republican thought." -Mitt Romney, speaking of John McCain during last night's Republican debate.

Romney unwittingly sealed McCain's nomination right there, by painting him as the only viable Republican candidate for anyone who isn't a Fortune 500 CEO or a radical Christian Fundamentalist. McCain should really send Mitt a fruit basket to thank him. Before Nixon and Reagan made it the party of shady dealings [both of whom should have died in prison if our justice system worked] and Bush II made it the party of Christian Jihad, Lincoln was part of this little organization that was all about equal rights, individual liberty and personal responsibility. The concept of being conservative never came into play, and certainly not the forcing of one's value systems on a society, nor the nonchalant dismissal of laws when they are deemed inconvenient. Is John McCain the only Republican who knows what it means to be a Republican? If he picks Ron Paul or Rudy as a running mate, I'd be very pleased as an American to have a tough decision to make come November. It would be the cherry on top and a nice symbolic "fuck you" to punctuate the complete failure of the neo-conservative agenda over the past eight years. I'm a die-hard liberal, but even if you disagree with his policies, you can't say anything bad about McCain's character and ability. I also love the fact that he didn't take the obvious route and become a Libertarian and is fighting the good fight to transform [restore?] the Republican party from within, pushing the neo-cons and religious kooks to the fringe, where they belong.

Maybe I am becoming less leftist in my old age [maybe I am turing this into yet another painfully long stream of consciousness post... sorry... ] but I belive in caplital L Liberty above all else. Liberty is the one word I think of when I think of America. I believe in a lot of Socialist ideas - such as free public health care being a basic human right in a modern society. I also belive that personal responsibilty and freedom go hand in hand - which are Libertarian/19th century Republican ideals. I belive in transparency and freedom of information. Absolute freedom of information is essential in modern culture. From corporations to employees and back, from governments to citizens, there can be no secrets at all for us to advance as a civilization. When everyone on earth has access to everything, there are no limits. What we do with that knowledge is the great question and the great potential.