Abortion 'Ain't a Racial Issue'

You must have ADD.......there is help out there for you.

Deb, its always easier to live in denial and try to find fault with the ones who shine a light on our ignorance than it is to face the things we are afraid to face. Writing people off a crazy, or ill is part of why the horrible things wrong with our country have gotten to the point they are at. There is help out there for you to, thinking thoughtfully about what others have to say is the first step to getting the help you need.

Kevin, who said I was "writing" PA Basil off as crazy or ill? Oh yeah, you did. That's the problem with you liberals.....no sense of humor. You're all so serious and take everything to personal. It's apparent in the length of your reply to the video...eekkkk.

I don't support Obama. I don't see how is going to accomplish what he wants to accomplish without taxing everyone, everyone loses. I also disagree with giving tax breaks to rich, placing the tax burden on the middle class as a way to stimulate the economy. You are correct, when the rich stop spending people suffer, but taking from the middle class slows their spending. Unfortunately I don't think the solution lies in goverrnment tax and spend philosophy, nor do I think it lies in trickle down economics, both of these approaches fail to address the fundamental issue. the constant fighting between these two approaches is a negative force in our economy.

Everyone in Obama land is skipping over these issues. Everyone in McCain land is skipping over them too.

One of the reasons the "free market" is unable to address our failing health care system is that it is not truly free. The hallmark of mixed economies is failures, which then are used to impugn capitalism and motivate socialism. The government already has its fingerprints over every aspect of healthcare.

Our health care system isn't free because there isn't any real competition. Because of for profit busines practices, they charge what the market will bear, there are enough customers to keep them busy, so they charge what the other guy charges. They don't have to compete for customers, so they don't have to earn their customers. Health care isn't the type of business that a new guy can set up shop and bring competition back to health care. I think a national health care system would be a disaster because of the corruption and red tape in any government agency. I do think healthcare should be non profit, but not sure how to structure it so cost would come down.

The world will never be safe from terrorism. Groups of mal contents who believe violence is the solution will always exist. Fighting and dying for freedom for all people is a noble cause. From all accounts, Iraq and Afghanistan have, and probably still, harboured terrorist and support terrorism against not only western targets, but against theere own people. The history of that resentment is hundreds of years old, the Crusades, thousands of years old, Persia's conquest and war with Greece, not to mention the conflict with the Arabic and Jewish tribes that occupy that region of the world. Our involvement with Saudi Arabia and with Isreal puts us in a bad position. The war in Iraq or Afghanistan will do nothing more than stir up the hornet's nest. It will not stop terrorism. The group we are trying to fight has a strong support base throughout the world. We aren't at war in all those places, like the Phillipines, Singapores and Australia. Why aren't we there? What about the terrorism in the Sudan, Dufar, and Columbia. It's not Islamic extremist, but it is terrorism. What about the terrorist activity in our own cities, the gang drug trafficing, auto theft rings and prostitution that spills out into our streets as robberies, beatings and even shootings. My neighborhood is getting over run by this terrorism, three people at the end of my street were gunned down in there front yard. There have been other shootings and high speed chases that have resulted in serious injuries and death on the streets I drive my kids to school on, to see their friends and grandmother. The ten billion a month spent in Iraq could these neighborhoods a world of good. As our corrupt government continues to drive more of the American public into poverty, the larger these neighborhoods are going to get. My neighborhood wasn't this way when I moved in, but it is now, and it is spreading. If your neighborhood is safe, you need to ask yourself for how long. McCain/Palin won't protect us from foriegn or domestic terror, Obama won't either. Bush didn't, Clinton didn't, Reagan didn't. It is an impossible task. America needs to pull together and expel the corruption and the greed tearing our communities apart. Americans need to clean up the crime running amok in their streets, and quit electting crimanls with white collars and pretty smiles to office. America needs to mind its own business and stay out of conflicts it can ever change. America needs to take care of its own.

I guess I didn't clearly make my point. I don't have a problem helping other countries who need help. Your point is taken, some people don't want help, some countries don't want our help. Thinking about the money spent on military operations in Iraq insteaad of it being spent on aid to help countries develop agriculture, to develop an infrastructure for water and sanitation, it is sickening. Sometimes it is hard to think about helping people in other countries when it's hard to help my neighbors. That isn't ethno centric. One of my neighbors is a widowed grandmother taking care of her three grandsons orphaned because both of their meth addicted parents hung themselves. Its not ethnocentric attitudes that make it hard for me to place the plight of other countries as a higher priortity than the plight of the people I live next too. My wife works as an addiction counselor, my sister manages a healthcare program for a homeless shelter. I am a vocational teacher. The sheer number of unemployed people ill and starving and looking for help is staggering. My wife and sister constantly are flushing people out of the system because they aren't making headway or accepting help, and still can't addrress the issues of the one's who seem to want, seem to accept help. Over half of my students are recovering addicts, or come to us from the halfway house or from vocational rehabilitation so they can learn a new trade to replace the trade they can no longer do because of injury or illness, but still need to work. Some students fail because they won't work. Some students fail because they are steadily consumed by poverty. They leave our program because full time work at their pay scale isn't cutting it. They take a second job to take care of themselves and their families and physically can't go to school as well. A few students manage to make it. One of our voc rehab students graduated, got a job and a few weeks checked back with us to thank us because she more than doubled her income and finally feels she is making headway. Wanting to address the problems in our borders isn't ethnocentric, it is what is right in front of me everyday. It doesn't mean we can't help out others. The genocide in Rwanda, or Bosnia or even in Iraq that is big deal, that warrants attention and resources. Haliburton contracts, new oil fields for the American and foriegn oil barons, is disgusting.

Sometimes American involvement pushes American views and values on others, that is about as ethno centric as it gets. One of my students grew up in Ethiopia and was planning on returning after he finished school. His country needed the skills he was learning. He said something I'll never forget. He said, "not every world problem has an American solution." He followed up with a question. "why are you americans so interested in rest of the world when you haven't even cleaned up the trash in your front yard?" So when I saw we should mind our business, it doesn't mean ignoring humanitarian attrocities. Genocide is the world's business. Aid to earthquake or tsunami victims is the world's business. Child labor is the world's business. Terrorism is the world's business. Sometimes the best way to avoid violence is let others be. One of the issues the terrorist have with America is how America inserts itself into the business of the rest of the world as it consumes at a greater rate than rest of the world, rather than contributing as a member of the rest of the world.

I don't think democratic policies are the answer. Bailing people out of their troubles only reinforces their behavior. Without consequence people don't learn or grow. I believe in the figurative, and sometimes the literal, sentiments in the statement "Spare the rod, spoil the child." I believe that extends beyond raising children. I also believe in "Give a man a fish he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime." I am active in trying to change my community, that is why I am a teacher. I taught automotive technology, in particular emissions controls sytems, because I believe we need to do something about the emissions we are putting into the atmosphere, and because I believe transportion is a vital part of our society and economy. People need to get to work. I now teach welding at a community college because there is a shortage of skilled labor in this country. A shortage of up to 200,000 welders by 2010 is expected. If our country is going to develop alternative energy, geothermal, tidal, wind, and solar as well as more traditionnal sources oil, oil shale, natural gas and coal we are going to need to skilled labor to build and maintain that infrastructure. The best defense against drugs and crime is an educated or skilled public. Earning an education opens up opportunities, people become more confident and develop a hunger for more, and often begin to make choices that lead them away from crime and help them move out of poverrty. Democratic policies often times leave out the work part and don't hold people accountable or responsible, that's why it doesn't work. Some of the republican influence (in my state at the state level) has taken money away from education and programs that are set up to help people, but still require them to earn it. To be fair, Democrats have done the same thing.

Sometimes the people criticizing are doing what they can and are trying to get others to do what they can so maybe we can make some change.

The problem isn't as clear as party lines. The corrupt politicians in both parties vote based on campaign contributions. These votes open the door for what we are seeing now.

It goes beyond the governments role in this. It is a sad commentary on the disentergration of the moral fabric of our country. It reflects how our values and ethics are dissappearing. It is a statement on how little sense so many people have. It doesn't matter what legislation was passed, the decision makers in the companies now in the middle of this crisis, they failed to show the integrity and judgement that could have avoided it. Government policy may have opened the door, but men and women chose greed over their neighbor. We don't have leadership at any level in business or in government. For all the people who got in over their heads because they didn't think about what they were doing, they lacked the integrity, judgement and discipline to turn down the debt they couldn't afford. I understand some people where living withing their means and unexpected job loss, family member health or death pushed them over the edge, my sympathies to those people. Just because credit is available doesn't mean they have to take it. This crisis is more than parties, more than politics, it is a massive failure at every level of our society that shows how much we have lost. My wife and I live within our means, we live in less of a house than we can afford, much less of a house than we could have taken a mortgage out on, we don't have car payments, we don't have any credit card debt. Our debt is a mortgage and student loans, everything else we pay for as we go or we do without until we can afford it. All of our cars get more than 30 mpg, we commute less than ten miles to work, we set our thermostat to 65 in the winter 75 in the summer (we live in a climate where the less energy consuming evaporative cooler works, so we use that instead of AC). When something breaks, I fix everything I can rather than buying new. We are passing those values on to our children. My wife uses those values as she counsels her clients in rehab, money management is a vital part of successful recovery and staying away from criminal behavior. I have opportunities to pass those values on to my students. I guess I criticize because I don't know what more I can do. I want other people to hear, I want input, I want help. Individuals can't change things, it takes individuals acting as a community to change things.

The alarms on health care, on our lending industries, on environmental issues, on energy, on our auto industry have been going off, depending on the issue, since the mid 60's. Some of those voices calling our attention to these issues have been democrats, some of them have been republican. Some of these alarms are coming from the private sector. Democrats and republicans alike have ignored these issues because it conflicts with their agenda's. These are losing political issues because they require time, energy, commitment and money to solve. Politicians know asking the public to give up time, energy or money will cost them the election. So many people want things but won't do them. These issues have been ignored because the cost of addressing them at the time seemed too great. Now in crisis, the cost of doing nothing is too great. I'm willing to bet, after four or eight years of McCain we will have the same problems, more than likely they are going to be worse. Four or eight years of Obama, we will have the same problems and more than likely will be worse.

The way out of our credit crisis is simple. Lenders can choose lower interest rates and a smaller profit margin. The public can choose to live within their means. Companies can make repair on their products easier and have more of their business based on repair rather than selling new, lowering the cost to the public.

Health care has a similar solution. Cost can be lowered. People can take better care of themselves.

Our energy crisis has answers. Automakers can make a broader range of more fuel efficient, smaller cars with less options and a lower cost. The public can get over their ego or insecurity or what ever it is and can choose a 40 mpg car instead of a 10 mpg Hummer/Escalade/Navigator/Suburban. Some people and business have legitimate need for these types of vehicles and that is fine. We had a 15 passenger van when we ran a day care and provided transportation to schools and summer activities. We never drove the van with less than 8 in the vehicle. When we closed the day care, we sold the van

We took our kids to a the Parade of Homes. This is tour of new homes in new sub divisions, the proceedes go to a program that helps people with housing like Habitat for humanity. These homes were all 5000 sq. ft or more. All cost 800,000 dollars and up. People can choose less of a home, conserving materials, conserving energy for heating and cooling.

Our energy companies can invest more in developing alternatives. Colorado has lots of sunshine and wind, and in Colorado energy initiatives are starting (backed by both Democrats and Republicans). People can use less.

It doesn't take the governement to solve our problems, it takes us, it takes our neighbors. It takes strong values in the leaders of our companies to look our for their customers, it takes good choices from consumers.

I haven't heard anything from McCain that is going to turn this around. It hasn't worked the past 8 years under a Republican congress or under a democratic congress. I don't hear it from Obama either. Both have touched on the sensitive issue, it is the government that has failed (they both blame the other party), they have laid some of the blame on the CEO's, they have even laid some of the blame on the average american. But I haven't heard either one of them take a strong stance and use their power and influence to outline a real plan for change. McCain's trickle down economics is change. Obama tax and spend isn't change. I haven't heard them adamantly demand greater resposibility from their peers in government, I haven't heard them demand greater responsibility from corporate america or from the american public. I don't see the leadership or example from either of them that will inspire people to start do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing. Both of them are campaigning on the evils of the other party, promise they will make it better and it won't cost us anything. They don't have a plan on how they are going to get America to rise up to solve the problems. More legislation whether Republican of Democrat will make the problem worse. Both plans are expensive, both will fail because you can't legislate decency. It will take a leader to model good behavior and inspire good behavior, it will take leaders in business to choose their community instead of shareholders, it will take communities and individuals to solve the problem. We should fear big government. Unless individuals take better care of each other, we will never get rid of big government.