Surprise Exit

The debate continues with that familiar rhetoric that if we don't defeat the terrorists in Iraq, they'll follow us here. So hand over all the money and allow the Bush Administration to continue to perpetuate its own form of terror. They say that if you place a time limit on how long we will be there to get the job done, the terrorists will simply lay low until we're gone. Maybe so.

Before we can even enter into an argument about this issue, we need to face the fact that Iraq has always been tribal to some degree. That predates our occupation, that predates Saddam's reign, that predates the British occupation, etc. And once you understand that and the presence of different versions of Islamic belief, then you begin to understand that we are in the middle of a civil war not of our making. A civil war that really has nothing to do with us. People will die as a result. It may be a result of our ousting of Saddam, it may have been a long time coming. Regardless, it's here now. People will die as a result. It's just a matter of how quickly they'll die. Either our occupation will draw it out over months or years. Or it can happen very quickly if we step aside and let this difference in attitudes and ideologies work its way out.

Therefore, I don't think we need to discuss timetables or benchmarks. We just need to leave...TODAY. That's right, I said we need to leave today. There is going to be a vacuum when we leave no matter when that is. If we leave now, the world knows we were serious about wanting Iraq to get their butts in gear. No longer are we leaving the timetable to the Iraqis. They can have their little short-lived civil war and get the whole thing over with. We will just simply pull up stakes and head over to Afghanistan and finish what we were supposed to do in the first place. We will still be next to Iran to keep pressure on them, but now we are actually hunting the terrorists who attacked us.

Imagine one fine morning in Iraq. Everyone wakes up, stretches, yawns, prays, whatever the morning ritual is. Then someone looks around and says, "Where did the Americans go?" Then someone else says, "Damn, now we actually have to do something with our lives, our country, etc." I think that leaving will motivate them much faster than funding a continuing unwanted occupation. This is not a surrender, this is a re-deployment. Things change in war and a successful military startegy is a flexible one. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Let's stop the insanity and move on. It takes a big man to admit a mistake. Unfortunately, there are no big men in the current administration.

(Oh, and the terrorists won't follow us here, they don't need to. Their job is done, they've gotten us to rescind our freedoms through the Patriot Act and other freedom-squelching government acts).

Take Away the Incentives for a Mass Killing

With the recent shootings that took the lives of 32 vibrant people, the debate has again turned to the gun control argument. Quite frankly, I'm timed of it. I come from a unique perspective when it comes to this issue. I am a western Democrat. That means that I am actually FOR gun ownership and have owned guns since it was legal for me to own them. It's part of the culture here in the west. Get over it.

This issue will be difficult to resolve when you have gun control proponents arguing that far more gun violence happens in homes with guns. Hello? Of course there is more gun violence, since the gun is there, available, and handy! The you-can-have-my-gun-when-you-pry-it-out-of-my-cold-dead-hand lobby says that we would all be better off if we were all packing heat. They cite the recent Trolley Square shootings where an off-duty police officer assisted when the shootings started while he and his family ate. Some use the argument that if the Virginia Tech students were armed, someone could have shot back and ended this tragedy quickly.

There are major flaws to that argument. The obvious one is when the police enter the scene; the gun-toting savior may be mistaken for the perpetrator and shot by the police by mistake. In the Trolley Square incident, the off-duty officer's wife (who is a dispatcher) called 911 and told the police her husband was armed, pursuing the suspect, and what he looked like and what he was wearing. This is unlikely to happen for an average civilian with a gun and good intentions. Then there would possibly be the case of accidental shootings due to negligence, and more heat-of-the-moment incidents when a careless soul pulls out a gun just to get their point across. Granted, the latter issues may be far-fetched with decent gun education.

I think that the real solution lies in the cause of a shooting rampage not in the gun argument. Why did the shooter do it? Could he have been stopped? These questions will haunt us as well. But let's take this one step further. If these shootings are meant to make a final statement, as it was meant at Columbine High School, then let's take away the platform. During this week we have been inundated with the name and picture of the shooter. He has become famous. So have the Columbine shooters, who the Virginia Tech gunman mentions in his writings and videos. Let's take the possibility of going out famously away so it becomes less of an option.

I can't remember one victim's name, but I will forever know who killed them. The same goes for Columbine High School. I think it's time to forever render these killers to the footnotes of history and celebrate the lives of their victims instead. And that is why none of the names of the killers will appear in my writings. Instead, let me honor the victims of this week's tragedy:

Ross Abdallah Alameddine
Christopher James Bishop
Brian Roy Bluhm
Ryan Christopher Clark
Austin Michelle Cloyd
Jocelyne Couture-Nowak
Kevin P. Granata
Matthew Gregory Gwaltney
Caitlin Millar Hammaren
Jeremy Michael Herbstritt
Rachael Elizabeth Hill
Emily Jane Hilscher
Jarrett Lee Lane
Matthew Joseph La Porte
Henry J. Lee
Liviu Librescu
G.V. Loganathan
Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan
Lauren Ashley McCain
Daniel Patrick O'Neil
Juan Ramon Ortiz-Ortiz
Minal Hiralal Panchal
Daniel Alejandro Perez
Erin Nicole Peterson
Michael Steven Pohle, Jr.
Julia Kathleen Pryde
Mary Karen Read
Reema Joseph Samaha
Waleed Mohamed Shaalan
Leslie Geraldine Sherman
Maxine Shelly Turner
Nicole White

(I can't mention the survivors by name here because of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations prohibiting the release of their names. But I wish them well in their recovery anyway). This information is from the Virginia Tech website. You can read more about the victims at Time.com.

I don't advocate censoring the news. That's unthinkable to a staunch supporter of the fourth estate like myself. I just wish they'd show a little responsibility towards those who are still alive and render the shooter into obscurity while they report what has happened to victims. We just need to adjust our priorities a bit.

Campaign Finance Reform

The news lately has been filled with how much the candidates have been raising for their 2008 Presidential campaigns. Holy crap! We are 20 months away from election day and we are already giving the campaign full-time coverage. This undoubtedly has a lot to do with the massive dissatisfaction with the current administration and the lame-duckiness of Dubya's reign of terror leaving the field wide open. But this is also terribly damaging to the process. When the founding fathers drafted the Constitution, they never could have imagined this malay.

This is clear indicator that something is seriously wrong. Okay, maybe the most recent indicator. (I had a momentary lapse and forgot that Al Gore was actually elected by the people in 2000 but the system was either manipulated to put the current resident in office or so out-dated and/or broken that the will of the people is no longer served by an election in this country). Why are we so focused on how much they have raised rather than the issues? Because in today's America, the will of the people doesn't matter any longer. Yes, we have a representative government rather than a true democracy. It was set up that way. The problem is that the people were supposed to be represented, not powerful companies and special interests.

An excellent example of it is the voucher bill that passed in Utah. No one wanted it. It failed on several occasions. But no matter how much people don't want it, the legislature crams it down their throat until the public relents. And to make sure that the people still have no say, the legislature creates a secondary bill that falls under the legislatures rules of not being eligible for a public referrendum! Basically, the out-of-state special interest wins and Utahns will have no say of how their tax money is spent. I'm amazed that Howard Stevenson's head hasn't exploded. But that's because his Utah Taxpayers Association supported the diversion of your tax dollars that the majority of Utahs don't support. How can you lobby for responsible taxation AND argue for vouchers? This is an excellent example of what's wrong with this state. One side of the mouth says we love our families and support children, while the other side spends your hard earned tax dollars on special interests. The Mormons in this state should be furious. Now their hard earned tax money is being diverted to religious schools that don't subscribe to their religious beliefs! Think about that. The reason Howard Stevenson's head hasn't exploded is because the culture here encourages saying one thing and doing (unto) another.

But I digress. How do we return elections back to the people in this country? We take away the fund raising. Simple as that. Candidates all draw an equal amount out of a federal election trust and that's all they get. If you like a candidate, you can contribute to the trust. No more un-American third-party campaigning like the Swift Boat idiots. Only the candidates can campaign. If you don't like that, jump in and become a candidate yourself. Put your ass on the line for your beliefs. Try and get us to elect you on your ideas and character instead of attacking that of others. This eliminates elitest candidates, like they all are now, and allows regular, patriotic, real Americans on the ballot. No more groomed candidates, just people... real Americans. And they all get the same amount of money to spend to get elected. While we're at it, let's eliminate the Electoral College. It may have worked 200 years ago, but the world is smaller and has rendered it useless and a risk to representative government. Let's give every person in this country the same vote. Let's elect a president by popular vote. (Any argument otherwise is a sign you don't want the people's vote to count). Wow, then we'd have a real representative government!

Stealing Tax Money to Give to Special Interests

The voucher issue and HB148 are emotional issues in Utah that require some clarity and a moment to step back. No matter how you word HB148 and claim you are not taking money out of education, you still need to fund it. Supporters claim that the money will come out of the general fund rather than education. So, basically, prisons and health care suffer.

Creating a voucher program is, therefore, an attack on any social program and an attack on the social aspect of our community. An example would be if I decided that the fire department was not adequate in my community. I decide that I would like a private fire department to just take care of my property and those who think the way I do. However, I want to have some public money to pay for my private fire department out of the general fund, the same fund that pays for the public fire department.

We need to face the fact that we live in a community with other people and that it is our social responsibility to pay taxes and fund social services like education so that all in the community can get an education for the community's benefit. Supporting a voucher plan is anti-community and shows that you care only for your own children, not those of the whole community you live in. Legislators pushing vouchers are not supporting the community and voucher supporters appear to be just as selfish.

October 25, 2006

This is my first solo flight in the first balloon I ever owned. The flight occurred on the Park Meadows Golf Course almost 18 years ago. If you were to go out to this course today, you'd wonder if the shot was manipulated in Photoshop. It wasn't. Today, this fairway pond is surrounded by condos and overpriced homes. The hay field we used as a launch site is populated by people who moved into an area known for hot air ballooning and started complaining about hot air balloons flying around. Park City will never be the same again; inundated and suffocated by a rich populous attracted by that exact charm that is now ruined.

What happened around the time of this flight? Let's see, Robert C. McFarlane had plead guilty to the Iran-Contra scandal. Funny, the more Park City changes, the less it seems the same. However, that's not how the saying goes. You know the one that says, "the more things change, the more they remain the same?" Politically speaking that saying doesn't hold water either. When I did this flight, George Herbert Walker Bush would soon take office, go to war, help out an ally, have an exit strategy and use it.

Today we have a much different picture. Son of Bush, the sequel, follows most Hollywood sequels into mediocrity. Handed a country with a balanced budget and no debt, Dubya has trashed our economy. He has learned nothing from his father's administration as far as getting in and getting out of warfare. And now it is rumored (while our troops are trapped in a civil war in Iraq) that he is considering attacking Iran over their nuclear program. Damned if he doesn't stop until he finds some weapons of mass destruction somewhere. Oh, and let's not forget that we have less civil rights than we did under his father's administration.

Nope, the more things change, the worse they get it seems on both counts: Park City and Bush Administration.

(Oh, yes, the photo below is a reflection, just like this little passage. And, yes, it is upside down, much like our country right now).