Predictably, Hannity was railing Barack Obama. The topic of the day was that Obama was arrogant and elitist. One caller asked what was wrong with a president who believed he was more than just a common man, pointing out that George Washington believed that the president should be better than the common man. Hannity essentially ignored the point the caller was trying to make, and launched into a series of anti-Obama talking points, “Was George Washington friends with unrepentant terrorists? Was George Washington friends with someone who bombed the pentagon? Did George Washington ever say he wasn’t proud of America?” By the time he was done going through the list I was laughing so hard I nearly got into an accident.

Let’s think about this for a moment,

Was George Washington friends with unrepentant terrorists?

I’m sure if you had asked the British, they would have considered George Washington among the chief conspirators. The guerrilla tactics adopted by the Army under his command were considered unorthodox, by his contemporaries, and would probably be labeled terrorism by today’s media.

Was George Washington friends with someone who bombed the pentagon?

Since the Pentagon is a modern military structure, it’s a little absurd to ask the question. However, Washington oversaw attacks against his country’s military forces that inflicted casualties in the thousands. I think it’s safe to say, if the British had had an equivalent to the Pentagon in North America in the 1770s, there’s a good chance Washington would have tried to attack it.

Did George Washington ever say he wasn’t proud of America?

Probably not as such. However, for much of his life America wasn’t his country, Britain was. And there is plenty of evidence of things he said dispariging both King and Country. Again, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to assume that if George Washington had been proud of his country, he wouldn’t have led a violent revolt against it.

I know he’s got an agenda to push, but it’s things like this that make it seem like he isn’t even trying. Come on, if you’re asking for three hours a day, don’t you think you should at least come up with a new line every once in a while.

In all fairness though, I did laugh quite a bit, so I guess it was entertaining, which is really what he’s getting paid to do.

I’m not a big fan of Romney’s politics, but being a Mormon myself, I have a great deal of sympathy for him in having to answer questions about his faith. I find it ironic that a man who has only been married to one woman (and for nearly 40 years) is asked questions about polygamy, while Rudy Giuliani, who’s on his third wife doesn’t face questions about his multiple spouses.

Sadly, I think Sean Hannity had it right yesterday when he said that there’s a lot of anti-LDS bigotry in this country, and it would seem that it’s not going to go away anytime soon.

Last week, Sean Hannity was railing against Liberals for taking General Paetreus’s name and turning it into General Betray-Us. Essentially he made the argument that Liberals have to resort to name calling because they don’t have any valid points to make against him. Later in the week, while discussing the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, one of the callers brought up Sandy Berger, at which point Sean made a point of calling him Sandy Burglar for the rest of the discussion.

All of the conservative talk show hosts seem to do this, yet they fail to see their own hypocrisy.

So, yesterday, while driving home, I was listening to Sean Hannity ranting about Hillary Clinton. He claimed that she was so afraid of being asked embarrassing questions, that she carefully orchestrates all her appearances and fills the audience with people friendly to her campaign. He even had a guest on the show who had made a point of attending one of her campaign rallies and asked about Juanita Broderick’s accusations against Bill. The guest says that she was promptly escorted from the premises by the property owner. Sean then starts saying how the liberal media gives the Clintons a pass and refuses to ask them any hard questions. At this point I changed the station.

If, as Hannity claims, all of Senator Clinton’s public events are carefully orchestrated, doesn’t it seem likely that she’s only going to have reporters friendly to her campaign at the event? At the very least she’s smart enough to know which reporters she wants to take questions from in order to paint her campaign in the best light. It also seems to me that if his guest’s experience was indicative of how the Clinton campaign treats unscripted questions, then maybe there’s a reason for the lack of hard questions by the media.

Essentially, Sean wanted use this one event to condemn both Clinton and the Liberal media, but given the evidence presented there’s no way to simultaneously draw both of those conclusions. If the media is Liberal and giving her a pass, why would she need to orchestrate all of her campaign events? Couldn’t she just hold the events, and expect the liberal media to report the story in the way that makes her look the best? If we can believe his guest’s account, isn’t it possible that there are people asking her hard questions, but she’s refusing to answer and having these questioners removed from the events?

Talk show hosts have a template, call them talking points, or whatever you want. When a caller calls in, they take what the caller says and fits that in to their framework without really thinking about what they or the caller has said. Someone calls up with an anecdote about a Clinton rally, then the host knows he must disparage Clinton, and throw in Liberal Media Bias for good measure.

I’m so glad I only get sucked in for the 10 minute drive home.

Abortion is a woman’s right — I would never have called it a ‘right’. Though I do feel that it’s not the governments place to determine appropriate medical treatment. The decision should be between a woman, her doctor, and anyone else she chooses to involve in the process.
Require companies to hire more women & minorities — No, companies should be allowed to hire the best person for the job, regardless of gender, race, religion, ethnic background etc.
Sexual orientation protected by civil rights laws — Yes, to the same extent as religion, race, etc.
Teach family values in public schools — Whose Family Values? This sounds to me like an effort to use the school system as a means of indoctrinating children.
Death penalty — The death penalty is immoral, especially given the imperfections in the legal system.
Mandatory Three Strikes sentencing laws — This sounds like it would be effective at getting repeat offenders off the street, but I have my suspicions. Making something mandatory generally means there’s no reason to think about the particular case in question. I would rather judges and juries decide what the best sentence is.
Absolute right to gun ownership — Absolute? I’m not sure I believe in the “Absolute” right to anything. I do however believe in a very broad interpretation of the Second Amendment. It was written to ensure the people would be able to defend themselves against their government, should the need ever arise again. The only way the people would have a fighting chance is if they are allowed to arm themselves.
More federal funding for health coverage — The government doesn’t really do anything well, do we really want it involved in making life and death health care decisions? I really think we should get rid of managed health care and outrageous malpractice suits. Go back to the days when people paid for a doctors visit with cash and were charged the market rate for Tylenol dispensed while in the hospital.
Privatize Social Security — While I think the Social Security system is disparately damaged, I don’t think having the government turn it over to private investment firms is the best way to fix it. Isn’t that fascism?
Parents choose schools via vouchers — It would be a better solution than forcing kids to continue attending classes in a failing school system, but the government needs to get out of the business of educating (indoctrinating) children.
Replace coal & oil with alternatives — This definitely needs to be done, but I don’t see where it’s the government’s place to do anything about it.
Drug use is immoral: enforce laws against it — This is actually the question where I gave up on the quiz. My response to this statement would be yes, drug use is immoral, and no we shouldn’t be enforcing laws against drug use.
Allow churches to provide welfare services — They aren’t allowed to now? My church provides has one of the best welfare programs anywhere in the world. Any member in need can get their mortgage and utilities paid, and even a pantry full of groceries for almost nothing (you do have to pay 10% of your income, but if you’re unemployed 10% of nothing is nothing). However, I assume the question pertains to giving government funds to churches to administer government welfare programs, and I do have a problem with this. Mainly because it violates the establishment clause of the constitution. Any church selected to dole out government funds would have the explicit endorsement of the state. I’m not sure you can send someone to a church to get their government handouts without many of these people assuming the welfare comes from the Church and not the state.
Decrease overall taxation of the wealthy — Not just for the wealthy but everyone.
Illegal immigrants earn citizenship — I oppose this. I am all for immigration, but we shouldn’t encourage people to break the law to get into this country, by rewarding them with citizenship.
Support & expand free trade — I support this. I’m not a very devout capitalist, but I think it’s currently the best economic system around. It usually works best when the government government doesn’t interfere.
More spending on armed forces — As with most things I don’t think more money is the answer. More judicious use of the funds that are available is a better solution. As cool as the F-22 is, how much do we really need a new fighter jet? What potential enemy has the military technology that would counter the F-22′s capabilities?
Stricter limits on political campaign funds — I wasn’t sure whether this meant limits on how much someone could donate to a campaign or limits on how a politician is allowed to spend campaign contributions. I’ve heard the argument that campaign contributions are a type of political expression. One voices his or her support for a candidate or party by donating money. This makes a lot of sense to me, and as a type of expression I think it should be protected and unfettered by government restrictions. I don’t believe the same right applies to corporations and don’t believe corporate entities should be donating money to campaigns. I also have no problem with the federal government imposing limits on how a candidate can use funds, as long as the rules apply equally to all candidates.
The Patriot Act harms civil liberties — It most certainly does. It undermines rights guaranteed by the constitution, in the name of security. I think Benjamin Franklin said it best, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Replace US troops with UN in Iraq — Presumably this means, replace US troops with UN TROOPS in Iraq. I’m all for bringing home the US troops from Iraq, but I wonder what troops the UN would send there in place of US troops. If this means, hand over US Control of the war in Iraq to the UN, then I would oppose that. I don’t like the idea of US troops fighting under foreign (i.e. non-US) flags. And if the question means exactly what it says, and the UN would move to Iraq while the US is pulling out it’s troops, I’d have to say I just might support that.

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations – you got 10 out of 10 correct!

Happy Independence Day Everyone!

*shiver*

I think I’m gonna buy a mac.

In discussing films with a friend recently we got to talking about how financial backing affects the decisions of filmmakers. We were discussing the film’s El Mariachi and Desperado, two films made by the same director, Robert Rodriguez. El Mariachi is a low budget, independent film. The characters are believable, and the story is intriguing. Desperado is a sequel, of sorts, to El Mariachi and was produced by a big Hollywood studio. With millions of dollars to spend the movie has big name stars, expensive costumes, sets, and special effects. Desperado isn’t half as good as the original.

For those unfamiliar with either of these films, consider the Star Wars films. While the original films were by no means low budget, they were made on a much tighter budget than either the Special Editions or the Prequels. Essentially the budgets for the later projects was unlimited. I thought about leaving this point unstated, but for those whose opinions may differ from mine, the original unadulterated films are the best. The special editions were cool, but the special effects are way over don, undermining the charm of the originals. The prequels don’t have a very good story and seem to provide just enough plot to cover the background of the originals. Otherwise, it’s merely a string of special effects.

Now to my point. Were either of these films improved by the availability of money? I think the answer is no. The abundance of money caused the film makers to make poor choices. The availability of more choices did not necessarily translate into better choices. With unlimited resources people aren’t as careful about how they use those resources and are therefore more likely to make poor choices.

Which brings me back to politics. If filmmakers make bad decisions when they have lots of money to blow, what’s to keep lawmakers from doing the same thing? George Bush’s recent budget proposal to the congress had a staggering $2.5 Trillion price tag. We’ve all heard stories of government spending run amok: $500 screw drivers and $1000 Toilet seat covers, seem to stand out in my memory. Would these hideous buying decisions have ever come about if the government didn’t have virtually unlimited funds from which to draw? Would we still be in Iraq if the president couldn’t just ask the congress for a few billion dollars more to fund the war and get it? What would happen if the Congress had to tell the president, “We don’t have any more money to spend?”

The way I see it, the government will work better when it has to work with limited funds and a fixed budget. Filmmakers, just like the average joe, make better spending decisions when their resources are limited. They figure out creative ways to get the things they need, and everything is paid for from what’s left over, or done without. Governments should have to function the same way.

I have one major problem with our current tax system, and really the functioning of nearly every federal program. The problem is that the whole system is predicated on the idea that it is o.k. to take something from someone for the benefit of someone else. I reject this premise on moral grounds. I was taught when I was very young that taking something from someone else, just because you wanted it, is wrong. If I were the person who had had something taken from me, I would be upset. But I would be just as upset to find out that what I had something that was taken from someone else.

In another forum several years ago I started working out an analogy that might explain my position on the broken tax system. It could use some work, but here’s what I came up with:

During high school you work hard, doing all your homework, studying even when you don’t have homework, and taking advanced or accelerated classes whenever possible. Your hard work earns you nearly all A’s.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have a slacker friend that never studies or does his homework, and is more often sleeping in class rather than taking notes. After 4 years he has accumulated mostly D’s and F’s.

Just before graduation day the school administration announces a new program to “level the playing field” and equalize the disparity between those who were born with more intelligence and those who were less advantaged and not born as smart. You both Graduate with a report card showing straight C’s. Is this fair or just?

If you were the straight A student, would you accept such an arrangement without protest? Would you continue to work as hard knowing that whatever you do you are going to graduate with a C average? What if you were the D and F student, would you feel right getting credit for something you didn’t earn?