OVM,
Ok here is what I really think, Canada and the US has two things that we have as a common bond, language and our history. Taking in account that no other country has stayed steadfast to the mother country as we have, there seems to be a strength between us, the UK, Canada and Australia that helps shape our attitudes towards each other. There is an interesting book that I got a third of a way through - A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900, by Andrew Roberts. It really puts into perspective what we are all doing together and how we got here.
I like Canada, I like going there and meeting people (yes even in Quebec)
I don’t seem to have the problems others have over there, most likely because I have relatives on all sides of my family either from there, living there or moved there.
OVM, I think you are the typical immigrant, don’t take this wrong but it truly is a compliment. You have not sought out social services, you didn’t come here by invading the country and you want to assimilate (or I think you do) into the culture. This to me is following my grandparents and their parents here, those who were sponsored, worked hard and fulfilled the true American dream by obtaining opportunity and freedoms – something that they did not have where they came from. They by the way came from a country that practiced a form of serfdom or indenture servitude. They were tied to the land and the master they served and my maternal grandfather had to get permission to come here by the aristocracy of area, I have the original letter requesting it and the reply from a baron granting him permission.
I have traveled to other countries, many of them I never told or posted, but the one place that really impacted me is Africa. I have been to almost 15 counties and want to return. This is a place where killing and death is culturally driven, where slavery truly exists, where there is no women’s rights, no child’s rights, where we have made absolute heroes out of terrorist (Mandela) and where the riches nation on the continent is also one of the most corrupt and leftist driven and no where near a democracy it used to be. I feel for those who I saw wanted to come here to make a real life, but I also see here the people don’t understand poverty, hate, racism and how lucky they got it here.
Now to the topic, I have not seen any one candidate really come up with a plan. We need a plan to deal with Social Security and the debt that we have with the BS entitlement programs. I hear all this b*tching about Iraq and the cost of it but you know Iraq is nothing, the true debt is driven by the idea that we, the people, have to have government run the health care system, the welfare system and other means for people to be provided a life. Once that was all done by the people and the people did not fail society but society failed the people – you know what I mean.
Huck there may be a good man, may even make a good president and I don’t care what his track record was with what women in 1968 or that he freed this guy that killed that girl in 1997. What matters to me is his plan, his team and his fortitude to get things done. If he was like Bill Clinton with Arkansas, well he can stay where he is at but if he says that he has a solid plan in the first hundred days and he is going to lower taxes, close the border and he is going to find a way to improve the situation we are in with Iraq, not tell me he is going to pull the troops out, I will then listen. If he says without hesitation, he is going to free those border guards in jail on his first day, he may have my vote for that alone but truthfully, I have yet heard anyone candidate with a spine say that – no bollocks at all.
By the way - People vote with their pocket book, not their moral compass. I don’t care what anyone says, it is about the money and FDR proved that. Tell me that the guy has a plan to get the fair tax passed, that would be a guaranteed win for anyone who wants to really win.
I think, it may have been Neal Boortz or even Glenn Beck or even Al Franken who said that it would be ‘great to get rid of these B*** S*** debates and talk to the American people like American people’ – just the candidates with a list of subjects sitting down and talking to each other for two hours, what a concept. Debates are for idiots and losers and don’t really say a thing about the candidate unless you understand debates.
“BTW...Greg do you mean like turn back the clock to just before all this mess started and get it right? To stay with the original American values and beliefs and stick with them?â€
What I mean is that we need to rid ourselves of this dependency of the government to do for us what we can do for ourselves. Before FDR, we had problems, we had true poverty but we didn’t have a system where we told people that it was the rich guy’s fault that you didn’t have enough money to feed your kids. Now we hear that all the time, it is part of the propaganda of class warfare.
In reality we have a huge problem with social security that can’t be fixed and this is where the biggest failure of FDR’s administration was. We can’t really come up with a way to fix it other then phasing it out. But the problem is if we phase it out, what will happen to all the retired idiots of my age who never saved?
Well the solution is the Fair Tax, as stupid as it sounds it makes more sense to go and change something that was an experiment to begin with and let the workers have their money. I know that there are issues with this form of taxes but from my point of view, the one third of everything I make goes right to taxes and combined with my wife’s income, we actually pay out somewhere in the area of 51%. This does not mean I don’t get some back but it means that this money is taken out of my hands and I can not invest it or make it work for me by helping me improve things to make more money – make sense?
Taking this one issue off the table, simplifying investments to the point where you don’t have to worry about taxes and capital gains and holding an investment for X months and so on, allows you to build your retirement up and hence there is no need for SS. For those who can’t figure out what the do for retirement, well there are people who can help with that. I think, honestly this will only work if there is a mandate to have a retirement account, not a tax but proof of one somehow.
Well I am done rambling now, time to go on to something else and bore more people.
