According to Wikipedia, Russ Feingold said
"I have never accepted the proposition that _____(a)_____ is a black and white issue, a matter of 'you're with us, or you're against us.' Instead, I have followed what I believe is a moderate course, faithful to the Constitution and to the realities of modern society. I believe that _____(b)_____ was not an afterthought, that it has meaning today and must be respected. I support the right to _____(c)_____ for lawful purposes--for _____(d)_____ and _____(e)_____ and for _____(f)_____. Millions of Americans _____(g)_____ legally and we should not take action that tells them that they are second-class citizens or that their constitutional rights are under attack. At the same time, there are actions we can and should take to protect public safety that do not infringe on constitutional rights."
You may have already guessed what Russ is talking about. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all, you know...
agree that this is a sensible course of action for almost any public issue. Good ol' Russ.
Oh, and he was talking about (a) the Gun Debate, (b) the Second Amendment, (c) bear arms, (d) hunting, (e) sport, (f) self-protection, (g) own guns.
If a liberal can't support the second amendment, then I guess I ain't one. Which is a damn shame. Though, isn't this indicative of the current state of the Democratic party? There's really no such thing as a party line anymore. Abandoning dogmatic policies is an amenable idea, but a completely ineffective strategy if everyone else is playing by a different set of rules.
The iconoclast is rarely elected. Yet the individuals of our government are varied and diverse, we just infer that they're all basically the same because they behave that way most of the time. Maybe they're just succeeding in meeting our unspoken expectations. Do most politicians behave badly? Would most Americans answer yes? Should that be our standard of conduct for those we elect to govern us? We must first agree as Americans that upholding the integrity of any office should mean more than "this guy is a crook, but he's MY kind of crook."
Let me end (or at least en-middle) this diatribe with this thought. Today, I was reading an Amazon page about a hand-crankable Emergency Radio. I thought, "What a great idea! AM/FM, TV (audio) and Weather Band. Battery powered or hand-crank. Built-in LED light-source. This is cool." Then I scroll down to the comments section (yes, every internet comment section is a calculus-derived inverse bell-curve of human thought, in that the comments are either amazingly insightful, or they make me want to throw the monitor out the window.) Anyhow, a thoughtful commenter observed that while the radio was functional and the price was right, he didn't really want to buy it because it was made in China. Dammit! He's right! Almost everything we want to buy is made for us in China--the commenter said it was made by slave labor, which is debatable. Let's agree that Chinese Labor isn't Free, but it is certainly cheap. Quite frankly, I think this--more than terrorism or anything else--is the doomsday scenario for America. We don't make anything for ourselves anymore. What I want to know is this: is it truly too expensive to be a business, or to manufacture in America because of the high cost of labor? Or is it too expensive because Capital has an inappropriate definition of Value? Let's put this another way. Take a regular bell-curve and apply it to wealth-distribution as a function of income vs. assets. Now, lop-off the rich and the poor, and lump everyone into the first and second standard-deviations from the mean (assume their needs are met, they're working... life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.) Couldn't we solve an incredible number of problems if things worked more like this? I know, I know. I'm a communist, I hear you. Remember,
I can make these high-falutin' suppositions because I have absolutely no evidence or training to back them up, and so can you. My point is, we don't have to keep doing things a certain way because of ritual and tradition, especially if things aren't working all that well. Heck, if we never changed, we might be still be electing Socialists like we did in the last century, or Kings in the Centuries before that.
Peasant wretch: "King, eh? Well, I didn't for for you."
King Arthur: "You don't vote for Kings!"
Peasant wretch: 'Well, how d' you become King then?"
And so what if we did? If a Socialist said something like Russ Feingold did above, I'd consider voting for them. Besides, I've already lived under Kingly Rule. It sucks. (yes, I'm referring to Bush)
Thanks for reading. And remember, I don't give a shit whether you agree with me, and you really shouldn't care if I give a shit.
Dennis the peasant: "Come and see the violence inherent in the System! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!"
King Arthur: "Bloody Peasant"
Ah, there's the soft bigotry of low expectations again.
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