...what would be the first three things you would do? Seriously, if by some stroke of luck/miracle/Geenie in a Bottle/ you woke up in the White House what would be your top three priorities? Obviously this is a way for me to get my things out, but what are your views about the future of our country? 1) Universal Healthcare - I can't believe that Americans would accept the fact that we are one of the few developed nations without universal coverage if they knew the facts. Come on, if CANADA why not us? I realize that this is a monumental investment of money, but hell it is our money and I think we would all rather use it to help our countryment rather than to give tax breaks to Texaco. I actually have an idea that, while rudimentary, I think could be used as the basis of a viable and less costly way of doing it (however I wont bore you with it). 2) End the War on Drugs (or the Struggle Against Global Tokin') - We waste billions of dollars every year only to put another finger in the dike (sounds dirty huh?). It is no secret that most anyone under the age of forty (and many over) can get whatever they want, whenever they want. Plus, the people we crowd our prisons with due to drugs don't stem the problem, they end up hardened criminals back on the streets with a record so crime is the most effective way of earning a living. Also, we would be killing two birds with one stone in that we can make money off of taxing them and put cartels out of business by allowing governments (like Colombia) to regulate the growing and transporting. 3) Sphere of Influence - By this I mean that I would go to the UN and say that we are washing our hands of being the world's policeman. We'll hold down the western hemisphere and Africa (with mucho funding from the rest of the world). Why should we be so involved in the Middle East? If we don't buy their oil, what are they going to do eat sand? For too long we have taken it up the ying-yang from OPEC, when in reality what would they do if we stopped buying? North Korea? Kim Jung Il, man you're a ba$tard but if your people allow you to treat them that way then well that is their perogative. Dont worry about us, we are leaving that area of the world up to the Chinese and Russians. Those are the first 3 things I would do, what about you guys?
1. Universal Healthcare would be on my list too. 2. Start a campaign to allow more third party involvement in elections, and make their involvement more equitable. 3. Re-evaluate our ties to countries with questionable human rights records and begin to set about encouraging change in those nations and/or redefining our relationship with them.
Universal Healthcare would be atop my list followed by greater pressure to change our energy policies. I would recommend Blood and Oil by Michael T. Klare. In the book, Klare traces oil's impact on international affairs since World War 2, and its influence on the Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Carter doctrines. By 2010, we will need to import 60% of our oil, and since most of this supply will have to come from chronically unstable, violent anti-American zones (the Persian Gulf, Caspian Sea, Latin America, Africa) our dependency is bound to lead to recurrent military involvement.
Agree with your #1. For #2, I think campaign finance reform is more fundamentally important than allowing a third or fourth party involve in government. McCain-Feingold bill only scratched the surface of a deep-rooted problem. If one of the top three has to be on foreign policy, I kinda agree on #3 as well. If I can say something on the 4th, no firearms for private citizen. I don't think there is anyone in U.S. now whose livelihood is dependent on hunting. If you really want to hunt, use primitive means.
The only reason I think I wouldn't make universal health care #1 on my list is b/c I don't think we could stomach the decisions that would have to be made. IF were to offer it, we'd have to accept that the overall level of healthcare would have to drop. As a doctor told me this weekend, not everyone eats steaks, not everyone can have the cutting edge of health care if we want to make sure everyone gets coverage. Unfortunately, its hard to tell people, "um, yeah you are covered under the standard govt plan, so you can't have whats cutting edge, just whats standard procedure". If we want to have universal coverage, it really needs to be very basic, not the latest finding to come out of all the research we do. Additionally, given that through our high drug prices we are basically subsidizing the rest of the world in drug research, as a whole, we should accept that medical research $ will decline since the expected returns to companies will decline if they are to recieve less per drug.
Here's an excellent column from, originally, the Washington Post, which is an excellent primer on what not to do if you are "in the West Wing." For your reading pleasure: COMMENTARY Beinart: For Bush, reality keeps rearing its ugly head Peter Beinart, SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON POST Saturday, August 20, 2005 Why has Cindy Sheehan — the bereaved mother who has been protesting the war in Iraq — transfixed the nation? Partly because she captures something profound about the war in Iraq. Vietnam was a mass-participation war: Nearly 3 million Americans fought; more than 58,000 died. And it provoked a mass antiwar movement: Year after year in the late 1960s, hundreds of thousands of Americans traveled to Washington to protest. The assumption was that everyone would serve. It was that assumption, and the fear it created, that drew so many demonstrators into the streets. And it was the betrayal of that assumption — as children of the elite evaded service — that ripped America apart. In Iraq, by contrast, the government never assumed mass participation. In this era of the professional military, the war has affected many fewer people. And it is exposing cultural fissures not because Americans were asked to serve and refused, but because this time few Americans were even asked. So a surrogate war has produced a surrogate antiwar movement. This time, mass protests would only cloud the issue. As the parent of a dead soldier, Sheehan has moral authority precisely because so few Americans (including so few of us who supported the war) risk sharing her plight. But if the protest Sheehan sparked says something important about Iraq, it also says something important about President Bush. Before she left Crawford to come to the aid of her ailing mother, Sheehan had only one demand: to confront the president face to face. The demand is so provocative because one of George W. Bush's defining qualities is his aversion to exactly this sort of challenge. Former administration officials portray a president carefully shielded from unpleasant or dissonant information. According to former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Christine Todd Whitman, "There is a palace guard, and they want to run interference for him." Former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill described Bush as "caught in an echo chamber of his own making, cut off from everyone other than a circle around him that's tiny and getting smaller and in concert on everything." And while this cocoon may be partly the work of zealous aides, there's reason to believe it is exactly what Bush wants. In 2004 the president told a Washington Times reporter that he doesn't watch news on TV or even read the newspaper except to scan the front page. "I like to have a clear outlook," he explained. "It can be a frustrating experience to pay attention to somebody's false opinion or somebody's characterization, which simply isn't true." Bush clearly dislikes being challenged by reporters. In his first term, he held fewer individual news conferences than any president in almost a century. And he dislikes being challenged by his political competitors — as the country learned during last year's first presidential debate, when Bush repeatedly scowled during John Kerry's answers. In fact, Bush aides were so scrupulous in shielding him from criticism during the campaign that they routinely expelled people wearing Kerry paraphernalia from ostensibly public rallies. On Iraq, officials bearing bad news have been similarly expelled. When Gen. Eric Shinseki suggested the occupation might require several hundred thousand troops, the Pentagon hastily announced his replacement, rendering him a lame duck. National Economic Council director Lawrence Lindsey lost his job soon after telling the Wall Street Journal that the war could cost up to $200 billion. Had the Bush administration heeded these warnings — rather than punishing the people delivering them — America would be far better off today. When Cindy Sheehan first met with Bush, and tried to discuss her slain son, she encountered this self-protective filter firsthand. "He didn't want to hear anything about Casey," she told CNN. "Every time we tried to talk about Casey and how much we missed him, he would change the subject." Politically, Sheehan wants another meeting because she wants Bush to bring the troops home. (A request he is right to refuse, since it would be a disaster for national security and a betrayal of our responsibility to Iraq.) But emotionally, she is seeking something more primal: to rattle him. She wants to shake the president's famed self-assurance, a self-assurance that comes from rarely having to confront the consequences of his actions. Another politician — think Bill Clinton or John McCain — probably would have met with Sheehan long ago. After all, her request isn't that hard to grant. But for this president, it clearly is. Which is partly how we got into this mess in the first place. Beinart is editor of the New Republic and a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. He wrote this for the Washington Post. http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/08/20beinart_edit.html I think Beinart nailed George W. Bush. It's frightening to think we have such a man running our country. At least I can have a clear conscious about one thing... I have never voted for him. Keep D&D Civil!!
I'd throw out the current income tax code. I think I would use a national sales tax to discourage consumption and incourage savings and investment. I would start a national energy administration to develop and implement alternative and renewable energies. I would pay for it with a tarriff on imported oil.
Wow, what a surprise. The Bush hate can't even stay out of a generic topic like this one. Deckard, it's kinda ironic that you post an article biased to make the president look bad, but it's very tame and doesn't really have anything that bad in it. I hope sydmill never becomes president, I would oppose all three of his suggestions. Dubious on the other hand, might be on to something.
I posted that as an example of what not to do if you "live in the West Wing," Jeffster. I suggest you read it again... it doesn't make George W. Bush look good at all. It tells the truth, along with some of the writer's opinions. That's what opinion pieces do, and what we do here, truth so frequently being in the eye of the beholder. Keep D&D Civil!!
1. Begin preparation for war against N. Korea and Iran. Also, start shipping some troops to the Sudan as a peacekeeping force, and calling for the international community to stop ignoring genocides just because they happen in Africa. 2. Legalize putting anything one chooses into one's own body. Also legalize prostitution, all kinds of gambling, pretty much repeal any law that has nothing to do with protecting other people. 3. Put some Supreme Court justices on the bench that swing my way on most/all issues. This should lead to the abolition of abortion, and a host of other great things. 4. Start moving the Palestinians into neighboring Arab countries where they can begin to be assimilated into new societies. Return all of the West Bank and Gaza to Israel, sans Palestinians, and then massively reduce aid sent to Israel. At that point, Israel should be able to fend for itself, since there would not be a bunch of terrorists and terrorist supporters living in and around their country.
Return the West Bank and Gaza to ISrael? When was it their's to begin with? It hasn't been Israel's at any point in Israel's modern existence. There would be terrorists and terrorists supporters living in and around Israel, since many of the Israeli terrorists and settlers would still be there.
That would be from 1967 when they captured that territory until the Palestinian state was recognized. Also, with no Palestinians in Israel, there would be no settlers, and there would also be no reason for Israeli terrorists.
The current income tax code is very necessary. Imagine Bill Gates being taxed the same as you. Bill Gates can save his money and there'd be a huge decrease in spending. That'd be a huge deficit. National sales tax would slow spending, but it would also slow the economy down possibly leading to a recession. Renewable energy, definitely. I would be against universal healthcare because it doesn't seem feasible or fair. Imagine two people who pay the same healthcare tax. One person works out everyday and eats very nutritious foods. Another person eats steak and watches tv all day. Guess who's more likely to end up with a triple bypass. A better system, and I think is similar to our system is to incorporate both universal health care and private care. The universal care will provide very, very basic care (no complex surgeries). If you want better care, then you'd have to pay for private care.
IT would be long before that. American Indians controlled the American plains more recently than the occupied territories were part of Israel.
I think it's probably a good idea for posters here to identify themselves whether they have any association with AIPAC.
1. Incentives (see subsidies) for the steel and coal industry, we don't need as much oil. 2. Ban automobiles that cannot meet at least 20 mpg city, offer a tax rebate for returning their car to a proper recycling plant and purchasing a more mpg efficient American made version. 3. Universal Healthcare to ease the burden off of businesses who provide these services for their workers. I want a better economy, one that cannot only be competitve but also powerful.
