Our federal government is making all the wrong moves.  Trillions of dollars in "stimulus", tax hikes, more regulation.  Everything that can be done to suppress an economy is being bandied about by Obama, Pelosi, Reid and their cronies in Congress.  On top of it all, more than $150 million is being spent on Obama's inauguration.  Is this the smart thing to do?  Wouldn't it be smart to, since you campaigned on fiscal responsibility, have a small ceremony, forget the parade, the concert, and all of the inaugural balls?  Then go down to the White House, roll up your sleeves and get to work?  I guess that in politics you don't have to walk the walk, merely talk the talk.

I've been watching this a bit today, and I have to say (hopefully not sounding like a bagdedouche) that it fills you with emotion.  Since I was a kid, I've watched every inauguration (Yes, I've even taken off of work to do so and I will not be working on Tuesday) and it always gives you this feeling.  I got so invested in seeing Obama lose that I thought it wouldn't feel like that this time.  But it does. 
If you're not awed by what happens every four years in this country, regardless of who wins, if you don't stand a little straighter, if you're not tweaked by emotion on January 20th, you're emotionally dead, or carry no sense of the history of our country.  We don't get a new CIC by default, we don't get a head of state based on who has more ammunition.  We get it by choosing it ourselves, and that's an awesome thing.
Even though I still don't think Obama has the ability to do the right thing, though I think he's going to spend us into a bankruptcy that will be all consuming.  I hope I'm wrong about him, I honestly do.  But I don't think I am. 
I am awed by the event, nevertheless. It's great to be an American.

  As the candidates come and go, I watch with amusement and consternation.  John Edwards and Rudy Giuliani drew my interest this week.
  When John Edwards dropped out of the race, the acid in my stomach receded a bit.  Of all the candidates this cycle, he was the most galling. (Yes, even more than Hillary.  More on her another day)  His stance on issues was secondary to me.  It wasn't any different than Hillary or Obama, or at least not enough that you could tell the difference between them.  It's all the same "tax the rich" BS, regardless of the fact that THEY are part of the rich.  That stance has always come off as disingenuous to me.  It wasn't the fact that he was a trial lawyer who did nothing but drive up the cost of medical services with lawsuits based on junk science, in other words, an ambulance chaser.  With Edwards, the really damning thing was that HIS need to be POTUS superseded the well being of his family. His wife has incurable cancer, which means that she IS going to die from it. Not today, but I remember reading that her life expectancy was about 5 years. He is going to have to be there for her and his kids when this starts going downhill, when the treatments aren’t stemming the mounting cancer cells anymore, or when they are starting to reproduce at the rate that it’s debilitating. I've been through this, I know of what I speak. That would be while he was in the White House if he’d won the nomination and election. How can the people of America count on him to do the right thing for THEM if he won’t do the right thing for HIS FAMILY? He’s one of the all time narcissists, ranking right up there with megalomaniacs like Hitler and Stalin. I'm not saying that he'd be a dictator like those two, evil to the core willing to kill anyone and everyone who opposed him, so don't think I'm drawing that conclusion.  I'm talking about the inside man, his basic character.  It’s all about HIM.  This was quite possibly the most selfish behavior I've ever seen in my life.  Good riddance to bad rubbish.  Now go take care of your wife and kids, John.  Don't make the servants do it, YOU do it.  You'll be a better person for it.   More importantly, your wife and kids will appreciate it.
  Giuliani's departure was not unexpected from the beginning, despite his high poll numbers.  I like to think that I'm a decent barometer of the way Americans think, and my impression of him has always been that he is indeed a good leader.  No questions, bust balls do as I say kind of guy to the max.  That's important in a leader, but so is having a moral compass.  He cheated on two wives, showing himself to be a serial cheater.  That's a severe character flaw.   Haven't we had enough of this particular affliction in the past 20 years?  
  These exits were greeted with glee on my part.  I didn't care for either one of them, and we're better off in not electing them.  Now if we could only get Hillary out of it......

  Friends and relatives have taken to asking me who I'm supporting for president this year.  As  the person that they know who isn't afraid to voice his opinion and then argue you into submission, I've come to expect it.  I'm also about the only person in my circle who is truly interested in politics.  Not that my circle of friends aren't interested, but they're not interested as deeply as I.  They're able to turn off their interest.  I can't.  They don't pour over results of polls and read everything they can get their hands on about the election.  I do.   Nearly all of them tell me that I'm too tuned in, that I should disconnect and turn to fun stuff.  Like what?  Dancing With The Stars?  No thanks.  I'm more interested in REAL reality TV.   I'm more interested in the things that actually affect my life than the life of some has been actor or actress.  That said, I dare you to drag me away from an NFL playoff game. 
  Who has my support?  Dr. Ron Paul.  I support his domestic policy in it's entirety.  I'm completely opposed to his foreign policy, but his domestic ideas are the thing that have won me over.  REALITY CHECK:  I agree with the other GOP candidates on foreign policy, but couldn't disagree on domestic policy more.  I feel that domestic policy is more important this election.  I think we need to cut government spending, and I know that none of the other candidates have the guts to even TRY to.  They'll let the base line hikes occur, allowing government to grow incrementally.  While President Paul may not stand a chance of having his budget veto's hold up against a deeply socialist Congress, (yes I'm talking about Republicans too) I think putting these veto's on the radar screen of America is important.  No, vital.  It's time that true right wing Americans are represented in this government, and only Ron Paul will do it.  And I also think it's important to show the American people, in black and white, that the Republican Party in D.C.  is NOT a right wing conservative bunch, that they're just as left wing as the Dems are.  We would finally provide a true contrast for people to see. 
  I know that Dr. Paul will not get the nomination.  I don't kid myself.  There is too much hatred for him in the GOP, (at the national level and the local level) despite the fact that he's the most right wing individual in this race.  I keep reading things on "right wing" blogs calling his   supporters "Paulites"  "Paulistinians" "Ronulans"  "Paulbots" and any number of other things that are meant to portray both candidate and supporters in a bad light, and I'm actually shocked by it.  I think that people are right when they say that the GOP is inhabited by people who don't know how to be inclusive.  I never used to believe that, but I do now.  The vitriol for Dr. Paul that I see on "right wing" blogs is actually scary.  Whatever happened to the idea that just because your idea is different than mine, we can agree to disagree?  When did it become a hate contest?  How did it get this far?  And who is John Galt? 
  I'll put more time and money into the Doc's cause, knowing it won't matter because of small minded, hateful individuals within the GOP.  Let me add one more adjective to that sentence; left wing.  Place it anywhere you'd like, but it fits, so make sure you place it.

  OK, let's start off with one of the facts of my life; I'm an atheist.  You might be able to tell by the title of this blog.  I can't help it.  A guy up in the sky with the power to create all in the universe is silly to me, and it was so even when I was a 6 year old growing up in a house full of people who deluded themselves about belief in a God.  My stock question to people is, if God created the universe and all that is in it, who created God?  They tell me, "That's where faith comes in."  Faith or blind belief?  I'm a guy who believes that if you can't touch it, smell it, yadda yadda, it doesn't exist.  Having made the outrageous statement that I don't believe, (many people can't comprehend such an untenable position) I will now state that I unequivocally support your right TO believe, as granted by the laws of the land, (I'd have written our Constitution instead of laws of the land, but certain people who have read my blog find my belief in the founding documents to be antiquated and pedantic so I'll not enrage them) and I will in fact fight to the death for your honest, heartfelt right to believe in God.  BUT, allow me NOT to believe.  That's the give and take, and another thing that many people can't deal with.  I do ask that you not be phony and, as my dear friend Jeff says, pray to God on Sunday but live like hell the rest of the week.  I guess that my philosophical take on God is that it is a chicken and egg argument.  We'll put that aside now.

  This morning, with the last vestiges of an early week ice storm melting in a light  rain, I read the newspaper as I have every Sunday morning from the age of about 8.  Since moving into my house 13 ½ years ago, every Sunday begins the same; start the coffee, go out to the end of the driveway to get the paper, sit in the chair at the dining room table nearest the window with a cup of coffee, and read.  Living in the Reading PA area, I now read the Reading Eagle, a fine medium circulation newspaper.  Growing up in Battle Creek MI, my father and I used to read the Battle Creek Enquirer and Detroit Free Press on Sunday mornings, and when I moved back east it became the Philadelphia Inquirer.  Upon moving to the Reading area, I added the Eagle to the mix. Some years ago, I became disillusioned with the liberal whining of the Inqy, so I dropped it from the regimen, and now just read the Eagle.  In today's paper, there was a column by John Forester Jr., who writes a weekly opinion piece (and is by the way a VERY well thought out guy) that really struck home.  The piece is entitled "Display battles make Christmas merry for lawyers". http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=73450  He takes on the annual drudgery that ACLU types and the atheists that give us atheists a black eye subject the populace to; whining about Christmas displays.  Forester cites the usual types of stories on the subject, complete with Wicca references, and heaps some abuse on one of the great plagues of our society; lawyers.  Why do these people care so much about this subject?  Are we really in any danger of losing our freedom by allowing a symbol of what the vast majority of people allegedly believe in this country sit in the public square?  Is it so offensive to you to have to walk by?  Are you that thin skinned?  Or are you merely so selfish?  As I read, I had a realization, an Epiphany, if you will.  You know what people who complain about Christmas displays are really doing?  Attempting to draw attention to themselves in this media crazed, fifteen minutes of fame world we live in.  They are, in essence, holding up a sign and screaming, "Look at me!! Look at me!!  I'm so damned enlightened and you're so damned stupid that I need to protest this!!"  It is the ultimate in narcissism, and sickening to no end.  Howard Stern has a great analogy that fits this situation.  He says that in every synagogue there is one guy who has to buck the system and be a Jews for Jesus guy, which goes against the basic teaching of the religion.  It's another way to say, "Look at me." 

  It shames me to be linked in some small way to people like Michael Newdow of "get rid of 'In God We Trust' on coins" and remove "under God from the Pledge of Allegiance" fame.  (As a Boy Scout, I just omitted "under God" while reciting.  Isn't that simple?)  Don't these people understand the concept that it takes all kinds to make the world go around?  Don't they understand that they're not ALWAYS right?  Don't they get that people should be allowed their beliefs and the symbols thereof, just as they are allowed theirs?  Can't they just get over life always being about THEM?  Most of these people are very far left politically, and they must see that they're obliterating the basic liberal philosophy of inclusion, right?  Apparently not.  So there's a manger scene in the town square.  GET OVER IT.  Walk by it without looking if it so pains you.  But that symbol brings joy to a lot of people, so allow it to be without your petty protestations and sickening whining. 

  My aforementioned friend Jeff tells me that this philosophy of inclusion makes me an "enlightened atheist".  He tells me that I get it.  That makes me feel good. 

  So enjoy your holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa or Happy/Merry whatever you subscribe to. (Festivus?)  But let others enjoy theirs as well.  Won't that make the world a better place if we allow people to be happy instead of complaining about how they're infringing upon us?

  I think so.