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Cole and I drove to Ames earlier today to watch Ralph Nader speak at ISU. I made a couple notes regarding particular talking points of his that I really liked. The first of which was his refrain that America is the only "Western" country failing to provide so many human accomodations that would better our society; such as health care and college education. Do I think that in America, every citizen should be afforded health care? Absolutely. Do I think that in America, every citizen should be afforded a college education? Definitely. I'm on board with both ideas and am glad that the candidate I intend to vote for (Barack Obama) has plans to make both of these subjects a reality. Nader threw out $60 billion as a rough figure for what it would cost to provide free tuition to public universities. That's what our military is spending roughly every ten months in Iraq...or less than ten percent of the recent bail-out package. If we're going to create money out of nowhere, shouldn't it be for the general benefit of everybody, not just a select group? Another point from Nader is that while we're all subject to sales tax, Wall St. is exempt. If Wall St. were taxed just one tenth of one percent on the sale of derivatives, it would net $500 billion per year (they could bail themselves out?). Unfortunately, our government blew a great opportunity to institute such a policy by giving in to special interests. Ralph Nader suggested a couple of solutions for this reoccuring special interest problem. One solution would be to take away the legal stance that a corporation is a person with legal rights; which takes away any business' ability to legally participate in government. A supplemental idea I really like would be to create Congressional Watch-Dog groups in every district. Two or three non-partisan, full-time employees monitoring the actions of a distrct's representative and reporting back to that district (making more readily available information so that we can hold our representatives accountable). This can be greatly effective in that the most power granted by the Constitution to any branch of government is to Congress... a collective of representatives that can have a two-thirds (majority) change in seated representatives every four years. If we held our representatives accountable for their actions (and obvious catering to lobbyists), perhaps representatives like Leonard Boswell would rightly be out of office well before they can make such an ill-advised vote as he did on the financial markets bill. Ugh. Anyhow, the main theme of Nader's speech seemed to be "civic responsibility." He's running for President, although there's no chance of winning, because of it is his civic responsibility. He's able to spread his ideas around the country and provide a call to action for persons suffering from general apathy. He said something along the lines of 'freedom is actively engaging the forces that would potentially impede such liberty'... not simply sitting around listening to the music of our choosing or whatever inconsequential thing any of us are doing; but being involved in the process. I hope to take that to heart. Finally, a point he made a couple of times is that if one concede's to "least-worst voting" (less of two evils), one must challenge the candidate they choose to take up ideas that aren't being discussed. We must hold them accountable for flip-flops in stance, when their original stance was the right one (see: Barack Obama's FISA vote). It's with this idea, that I can still vote for Barack Obama next month and not consider myself a hypocrite. I have to challenge myself to do what's in my power to make him a candidate I support. On a smaller scale, I need to challenge myself to be more active in harassing our dumb ass local representatives until they start acting correctly in their elected capacity.
Cole and I drove to Ames earlier today to watch Ralph Nader speak at ISU. I made a couple notes regarding particular talking points of his that I really liked. The first of which was his refrain that America is the only "Western" country failing to provide so many human accomodations that would better our society; such as health care and college education. Do I think that in America, every citizen should be afforded health care? Absolutely. Do I think that in America, every citizen should be afforded a college education? Definitely. I'm on board with both ideas and am glad that the candidate I intend to vote for (Barack Obama) has plans to make both of these subjects a reality. Nader threw out $60 billion as a rough figure for what it would cost to provide free tuition to public universities. That's what our military is spending roughly every ten months in Iraq...or less than ten percent of the recent bail-out package. If we're going to create money out of nowhere, shouldn't it be for the general benefit of everybody, not just a select group? Another point from Nader is that while we're all subject to sales tax, Wall St. is exempt. If Wall St. were taxed just one tenth of one percent on the sale of derivatives, it would net $500 billion per year (they could bail themselves out?). Unfortunately, our government blew a great opportunity to institute such a policy by giving in to special interests. Ralph Nader suggested a couple of solutions for this reoccuring special interest problem. One solution would be to take away the legal stance that a corporation is a person with legal rights; which takes away any business' ability to legally participate in government. A supplemental idea I really like would be to create Congressional Watch-Dog groups in every district. Two or three non-partisan, full-time employees monitoring the actions of a distrct's representative and reporting back to that district (making more readily available information so that we can hold our representatives accountable). This can be greatly effective in that the most power granted by the Constitution to any branch of government is to Congress... a collective of representatives that can have a two-thirds (majority) change in seated representatives every four years. If we held our representatives accountable for their actions (and obvious catering to lobbyists), perhaps representatives like Leonard Boswell would rightly be out of office well before they can make such an ill-advised vote as he did on the financial markets bill. Ugh. Anyhow, the main theme of Nader's speech seemed to be "civic responsibility." He's running for President, although there's no chance of winning, because of it is his civic responsibility. He's able to spread his ideas around the country and provide a call to action for persons suffering from general apathy. He said something along the lines of 'freedom is actively engaging the forces that would potentially impede such liberty'... not simply sitting around listening to the music of our choosing or whatever inconsequential thing any of us are doing; but being involved in the process. I hope to take that to heart. Finally, a point he made a couple of times is that if one concede's to "least-worst voting" (less of two evils), one must challenge the candidate they choose to take up ideas that aren't being discussed. We must hold them accountable for flip-flops in stance, when their original stance was the right one (see: Barack Obama's FISA vote). It's with this idea, that I can still vote for Barack Obama next month and not consider myself a hypocrite. I have to challenge myself to do what's in my power to make him a candidate I support. On a smaller scale, I need to challenge myself to be more active in harassing our dumb ass local representatives until they start acting correctly in their elected capacity.
