wow

just wow.

I am curious

about what Phil thinks of all this.

A little less than a month

and we will be having some significant elections. So, I'm going to do something I don't do very frequently. Let's talk politics. I follow politics quite closely, but I rarely find people with a desire to discuss them reasonably and unemotionable, and frankly, most political discussions are of little value. That said, I would be curious if my readers had any thoughts on the subject.

I am not sure if one could say America has been doing very well under the current leadership. I say this as one who has voted those in office. But, the party in office seems to resemble little of what I hold to be republican, or conservative. However, even beyond that, our leaders seem to be lacking...leadership. The republican party has been in control of both congress and the presidency for 6 years, and what exactly does it have to show for it? Well, some good things include significant tax cuts (althought most of them will dissappear because they haven't been strong enough to make them permanent), a strong stance on protecting its citizenry, (although the jury is still out about if it has actually not been counterproductive), a couple of good sensible supreme court justices (for the most part from what we have seen so far)...and? Perhaps the No Child Left Behind act...although wether this is just increasing scores or actually teaching more seems still to be in question.

I've heard numerous positions that have sounded promising, but for all of their power, the Republicans haven't been able to actually make things happen. Social security reform is probably one of the best ideas the Bush administration has had, but what happened to it? They promised to send people to mars, but didn't stop to see what would actually be needed for such an action. Something needs to be done about fuel dependency. Great...But, I don't think this "something" is making some speeches at ethanol plants. Has anything else actually useful been done? Even opening up Alaska for drilling would be something, but we can't even seem to be able to do that.
Something must be done about illegal aliens, although I really don't know what, and the best our great leaders can come up with is to build a huge fence, which ends up being more of a political slap to Mexico than anything...Will it keep people from attempting to come across? maybe... Will it likely cause more deaths from crossings? likely...Will it solve the problem of the millions of illegals currently in the country and our very real need for these members of society? Um, no...As long as there is a better life to be had over here than over there, people will attempt to come across, even if it becomes more dangerous and difficult. So what exactly did they solve with this beautification of the Rio Grande river?

Then there are the things that have outright gone badly. A person would like to think that there is a good deal more going on behind the scenes than what we discover from the media. But there never seems to have been, and seems as if there never will be, a good stratagy for Iraq. How could one plan on how to destroy a nation's strength and infrastructure for the purpose of democratizing it, and not have a plan for democtratizing it? And if there ever was such a plan, it was so poorly implimented that there was never much chance of success. Now we have a blood bath of neighbors against neighbors and anti-speech laws that are verbatim from Sadaam's time. What is to be done with Iraq? Does anyone know? Probably not, but our "leaders" don't seem to be even Asking the question.
Our foreign policy is nutty, if it can even be called a policy. We spend half of our time threating rogue states with destruction of life and limb, which everyone knows we are not going to follow through with, and then split the rest of our time between insulting our allies and trying to get them to cooperate with us on following through on our international consensus which also no one seems able to uphold. Iran is playing with the international community, it reminds me of Hitler in the 1930's, but our leaders, what do they do? It doesn't seem that they do anything...
Then there is the issue of fiscal acountability. Cutting taxes is great; but spending more on special interests, projects, and welfare programs than any regime Ever, while cutting taxes, seems less than great. I am not a fan of racking up more debt for future generations to pay off. If we weren't making 400+ billion dollars in interest payments a year, we might be able to start fixing social security, but instead we will keep paying billions for pork barreling.
Our leadership has accomplished some things. They have raised the ire of the world through the appearance of torture and abuse. (Notice I said appearance. Whether some of the various "scandals" are they are worthwhile and good things for our nation to be doing I am not sure. I am sure they haven't created a "good guy" image for the US.) They have managed to raise the ire of our peoples through spying programs. They have managed to taint themselves with a variety of moral scandals.They have managed to step on a myriad of privacy rights. And, they have kept the US from having another terrorist attack...so far. Was, and is, this the best way to continue that prevention?

So, what do I want? Well, I guess I would like a leadership that appears to be thoughtful, who actions follow their words, and who are willing to listen and change when their actions have clearly not had the best outcome. So, from all I can tell, the democrates certainly won't lead us there. They don't even have a coherent platform! Their "new direction" seems to be "anywhere but there", and there are a lot of worse roads we could be lead down than our current mess. Besides, the last democratic "leader" was an alcibiades who followed two things: his lust, and public opinion. Hence, once more I will go and vote for those who are least morally reprehensible.

I do find myself asking though. How can it be, that in a nation of 300 million souls, we have so much trouble finding good leaders? If nothing else, this is a sign of fast encroaching doom. Once our current YouTube-watching culture reaches maturity (if they ever do), may God have mercy on our souls.

Might be of interest?

The internet is awesome. Everyday I find a large variety of things that are of genuine interest and a great procrastination tool. Most of them, however, I don't think would be of interest to the few readers that I have managed to keep around. Here, however, is something that might pique the curiosity of some. It is the most comprehensive source of the relationships of math and music that I have ever found. 500 pages of delicious relationships between beauty and logic. It even includes an entire chapter on various intonation systems. Have fun!