It’s the 21st Century, Stupid!

Gee, does anyone else think that Senator Clinton’s campaign keeping money from IPA might cause some problems? If it gets more into the public eye I think it certainly will.

After thinking about it a great deal I’ve decided who will get my vote on “Super Tuesday”. Barack Obama. I don’t appreciate the direction that the Clinton campaign has taken lately and as much as parts of what John Edwards says appeal to me I don’t consider his campaign to have a realistic chance at this time. But…should the worse happen I still think Senator Clinton is a better choice than any Republican.

I like the essence of Senator Obama’s health care ideas but I think we just need to go farther. Comparisons to the system in Canada and Great Britain are always made by conservatives but they ignore other countries that have more government involvement than we do, including single payer systems that work much better than those two countries. This of course includes the rest of Europe. But in the real world it is questionable whether even any of those variations would be politically achievable in the United States. So I tried to think of something else. If anyone stumbles across this blog opinions and input are something I’d love to read.

First, nothing beyond current regulations except for consumer protection legislation would be passed limiting private insurance companies. But they’re still going to have to adapt to the existence of a new type of insurance organization. This organization would have a closer relationship to the government than the Post Office, but like it not be an actual agency of the government. It would be a purely non-profit health care organization like no other.

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Well, back to politics and stuff for a bit. This coming week is the Iowa caucuses to be followed five days later by the New Hampshire primaries. No one really knows who is going to win in either party at this point. Polls show different things at different times though the only major differences seem to be things see-sawing between the recognized leaders.

When it comes to the polls there are those who claim that there will be a major upset because Ron Paul has an amazing amount of support from new voters that are filtered out of polls because of the “likely voter” qualification and people who aren’t being contacted by phone polls because of the cell phone factor.  While there might be some truth to this there in all likelihood isn’t as much to the argument as Paul’s supporters want to believe. Mostly they want to believe that their candidate has so much support that is flying under the radar that he will win both Iowa and New Hampshire. They want to believe that his message has so much strength and truth behind it that it can carry Ron Paul to the presidency. They are wrong. While it is possible that he will do better than the polls show, I think it will not be as great a factor in Iowa as they think and that while it just might be a greater factor in New Hampshire it still won’t be enough to carry him to victory in either state and he certainly doesn’t have chance in a general election.

I make no secret of the fact that I feel that Ron Paul is wrong on many issues. I disagree with quite a few libertarian positions, whether the “L” is big or small. But Ron Paul isn’t a real libertarian and where he has chosen to differentiate himself from them happens to make even more points where I disagree with him. As I understand his beliefs and those of his supporters their desire is for a basically non-existent federal government that is only involved in defense, foreign relations and interstate law enforcement. No IRS, no federal regulatory agencies and certainly no social programs would exist in their ideal world. They believe that in order for us to be following the Constitution the states must reign supreme and the federal government must be a fraction of its current size and function. Oh, and the Federal Reserve Bank must also be eliminated and our currency must be backed by gold like it used to be. Roe V. Wade was a bad decision, as was Griswold v. Connecticut and Lawrence v. Texas. Here is what Ron Paul wrote on the issue:

Consider the Lawrence case decided by the Supreme Court last June. The Court determined that Texas has no right to establish its own standards for private sexual conduct, because these laws violated the court’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment. Regardless of the advisability of such laws, the Constitution does not give the federal government authority to overturn these laws. Under the Tenth Amendment, the state of Texas has the authority to pass laws concerning social matters, using its own local standards, without federal interference.

Nowhere does he place any limits on what these moral standards might be. Think about it. How libertarian is that? What the supporters of Ron Paul fail to recognize is that should he have early success there will be even more attention paid to him. More digging into his positions won’t necessarily translate into more support whatever some may think. He didn’t acquit himself that well on Meet the Press largely because of the inherent contradictions in what he does as a member of Congress and the principles he holds. And should he do as well in either Iowa or New Hampshire as his supporters hope then this will only be the beginning of a much closer examination of his history, his policy positions and his writings. I don’t think those positions, like the one about eliminating Social Security, are going to win him enough supporters to go very far in the run for President.

MSNBC reports on the last Republican candidate debate before Iowa’s caucuses. It is noted that they all basically agreed on at least one big lie.

Republican presidential rivals called for deep cuts in federal spending Wednesday in a debate remarkably free of acrimony and agreed the reductions they seek need not require painful sacrifice by millions of Americans who rely on government services.

“The sacrifice we need from the American people is saying, ‘Let the programs go that don’t work. Don’t lobby for them forever,’ ” said former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, one of nine GOP presidential hopefuls sharing an Iowa stage little more than three weeks before the state’s caucuses provide the first test of the campaign.

Anyone who looks at where the government spends its money and what other promises the Republicans are making knows that this is a lie so big that it might well collapse into a black hole at any moment. Not one of the leading contenders is about to cut military spending and even the anti-war Ron Paul is unlikely to do that, he just doesn’t want our soldiers in Iraq. After all, while they all speak of cutting programs that don’t work have the words V-22 Osprey passed their lips as an example? Of course not.

At least Ron Paul admits that he believes in eliminating every social program and every regulatory agency. The others won’t admit it, but the numbers would only work out if that’s what they did. The tax cuts they want and the military spending they want pretty much leave no alternative but to make up the difference by taking it out of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and every other department that isn’t run by the Pentagon. Does anyone think that this truth will pass the lips of Romney, Huckabee, Giuliani, Thompson or Paul? I don’t.