Just Tell Us How

I was watching some footage from Sarah Palin's tea time speech over the weekend, and it struck me that she was doing something that's one of my major beefs with the Republican party right now. She kept talking about things she wanted, and things we should do, and things that should happen, and a lot of them sounded just fine with me. But Sarah, like a lot of politicians, seemed to keep leaving out one key point in all of her proposed ideas. How? How does she propose we get to where she wants to be?

My favorite example was her take on fighting terrorism; "we win, they lose". I'm not making that up, I actually saw it on tape. Awesome! Why didn't the rest of us think of that? Unfortunately, I can only remember her mentioning two actual strategies she might employ. I don't expect her to lay out her whole secret plan for defeating the terrorists, but I'm going to need more than this.

First, divine intervention (once again, I'm not making that up). Let's try something. You start praying and I'll start shooting at you (and let me be clear, I'm not shooting at you because you're praying, you're praying because I'm about to start shooting at you, which I already decided to do for some unrelated reason). Let's see who comes out on top. I don't mind a President who prays a little about how to deal with enemies, really, I don't. Even with my not believing and all, I can accept prayer as a way many people clear their minds and focus. I'm just not willing to accept it as a key part of the strategy.

Second, not giving Miranda rights to terrorists. I honestly don't care what we do with terror suspects. I feel the same way about this as I do about the death penalty. I have an opinion, but if the government is doing something different, I'm not going to get all worked up about it. But I have a question. Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, people like them, they always tell us how our rights are inalienable, given to us not by the government, but by the man in the sky. If that's the case, don't those rights apply to everyone? Isn't Sarah and Glenn's god in charge of everything? Inalienable, god-given rights don't really sound like the kind of thing you have to be American to get.

Also, isn't this whole terror thing about us defending our way of life? And doesn't our way of life involve, ya know, rights and stuff? Look, I'm not in charge of what we do with terror suspects, and I don't know enough about it to say I think we should do one thing or another, and I'm perfectly happy with us not giving people rights if the experts think that's best. But things you say have to be congruent with other things you say. Rights can't be endowed to us be an omnipotent creator but also only apply to certain people. We can defend ourselves against terror by stepping outside of our usual rule of law, but don't tell me we're defending our values and our way of life by not adhering to them.

I'm wandering a bit. Seriously, I DON'T CARE what we do with terror suspects, send them home, kill them, shoot them into space, whatever. I just want to know what the plan is. How does Sarah think we can get from here to "we win, they lose"? Can we even win? Do you see terrorists ever surrendering and signing a peace treaty? Me neither. Can we convert or kill every terrorist? I don't think so. I don't think this is winnable. This is the new world order, it's how things are from now on. We'll be in this fight for decades or centuries until there's no more America. And then the new America will have to deal with it. That's what I think. Sarah thinks there's a way to win. That's much better than what I think, but I need to hear how.

Federal spending is another one of these things. Both parties do basically the same thing on this, but I have more of a beef with Republicans. Democrats are supposed to be stupid with money, they're Democrats. Republicans are supposed to know better. Everyone wants to cut federal spending, balance the federal budget, make the government live the same way American families live. On the other hand, both parties can't wait to tell me how they're not going to cut defense, social security, medicare, medicaid or national security spending. Why? Because cutting any of those things would be terrible politics.

Hmmmm. Social security, national security and defense, medicare and medicaid and interest on the federal debt made up somewhere around 65% of last year's federal budget (I refuse to do research for anything I'm not getting paid for, but I'm pretty sure I'm within a few percent one way or the other). If we spent on just those things, and completely cut everything else, we might break even. So, how do we balance the federal budget without cutting any of the areas where we spend real money?

Am I suggesting we cut these areas? Well, I'm 30. I've already spent 13 years paying into social security. Good luck getting me to vote for you if you're telling me I can't get a check when I retire (by the way, I don't see me living to 65, or whatever the retirement age will be when I get older, 91 maybe? I'm just saying, ya know, when I hypothetically retire). And good luck getting anyone to vote for you if you're suggesting cutting defense. Everyone wants to cut taxes too, don't even get me started on that. Balancing the federal budget is a great idea. I just don't see it being possible anytime soon. Some politicians talk like it's possible. That's much better than what I think, but please tell the rest of us how.

I see a lot of issues like this. Republicans keep saying they want health care reform too. They want tort reform. I'm OK with that as long as it restricts frivolous malpractice suits and not people's ability to sue insurance companies for screwing them. They want interstate portability. Speaking of asking how, someone tell me how letting insurance companies sell insurance across state lines without any federal regulations on them doesn't result in every insurance company being headquartered out of a P.O. Box in Delaware or whichever other state is willing to regulate and tax them least, or not at all. More importantly, Republicans say they have a plan to reform health care too. Fine, great, I can't wait to hear it.

Here's my point. People will say I'm wrong about everything. Maybe. I don't know a whole lot about terrorism or balancing the federal budget or health care. I'm not saying I know the right way to handle any of this. Here's what I'm saying. For either political party to campaign and speak as if they will win the war on terror, or balance the budget, or solve one of our other seemingly unsolvable problems, but not actually have a plan to do so. That's criminal. Have a plan. Be ready to do something when you get elected. Otherwise, go away, because you're not helping.

PS...there's been a lot of talk about ending the don't ask, don't tell policy since the President mentioned it in the State of the Union Address. I'd like to write about this, but there's not really a whole blog here. It's a bigoted and incredibly stupid policy that makes some people more equal than others AND prevents us from having the best possible military at a time when we're fighting two wars. Anyone with a working brain should be all for ending it, and that's really all I have to say about that.