Daily Life

This post was originally written on 3/25/2012

What most of us Average Voters is concerned with when it comes to Government and Politics, is how the things that Government and Politicians do are going to affect our Daily Life.  Our concerns about issues like Civil Liberties, Laws, Education, Health Care, Minimum Wage, Poverty, Regulation of Business and Labor, Social Security, Medicare, and Prescription Drugs  are all tied up with how we live our lives from day to day, and what Government can do to improve or worsen our individual circumstances.  Some people think that Government should have it's fingers in every pie and stay on top of making sure everything runs smoothly.  Other people feel that Government should stay in it's little cocoon in the State Capitals and D.C., leaving everybody to figure stuff out for themselves until something really bad happens that The People can't handle on their own.  The truth lies somewhere between those two extremes.

     In this piece, I'm going to try and hit all the major areas where Government has an effect on the Daily Life of the average voter.  Keep in mind that not all of these are going to apply to everyone equally, because even though we all share a country, we're all individuals with different things going on in our lives depending on a lot of different factors.  It is important to realize and recognize that just because an issue isn't relevant to your life doesn't mean that it isn't relative to your family members, your friends, your co-workers or your neighbors.  Those people are citizens too, and have the exact same rights under the Constitution as you do.  Our government is supposed to represent all of us, not just the ones who can raise the most money or scream the loudest about what they want and need.

CIVIL LIBERTIES AND CIVIL RIGHTS

     Civil Liberties are those rights that all of us enjoy because our Constitution says we do.  There are also rights that have been given to us as citizens by our judicial system through the years, which is one of the duties that it was designed by the Constitution to do   Our founding fathers recognized that times were gonna keep on changin, and that there would be disputes about what they meant by the words they wrote down in the Constitution.  So the courts were created to not only make sure that everyone got to exercise their right to a fair trial, but also so that people could go to them to have a wrong in our society corrected. Civil Liberties is stuff like the right to free speech, the right to privacy, the right to get married, the right to vote, and the right to not share your stuff with other people unless they ask and get your permission first.

     Civil Rights deals with making sure that everyone is allowed to enjoy their Civil Liberties regardless of any differences that may exist between them and other people.  Black people have to be treated the same way as you would treat a white person in the same situation.  Gay people can't be denied access to the same things that straight people can have.  It isn't about making people treat certain groups like they are special, it's about making it clear that no one gets to treat anybody else like crap just because they don't like something about them or they want them to change themselves for some bullshit reason.  Civil Rights is all about Being Civil towards others.

     What most people think of when they think about Civil Liberties, is "What can the Government make me do that I don't want to do" or "What can Government stop me from doing that I want to do"  Usually, people don't want Government telling them that they have to do anything, or that they can't do anything.  That's pretty unrealistic when you consider that some people would really like to beat other people to death for being stupid, but the people that they want to beat to death typically would love to do the same thing to them- for the same reason.  Government makes sure that we all get the chance to live pretty freely as we want to, without pissing in anybody else's cheerios too much.  Anything less would be uncivilized.

     Everybody is always going to want things their way.  It's inevitable because that is the way human beings are.  Before anyone goes and gets all sulky about not getting what they want, they need to think about what someone else may want that is contrary to their personal desire.  Consider where the make both sides happy without screwing anybody's day up too badly position is, and that should be right about where the Government's position lands.  If it leans too far towards one side or the other, then someone's Civil Liberties and/or Civil Rights are getting violated, and that's not what our country is supposed to be about.  That's actually the exact opposite of what our ancestors were trying to avoid by coming here and starting over fresh with a whole different set of rules.  Keep it in perspective.

     Another thing to keep in mind, is that with every right comes a responsibility.  Most of the time the responsibility is just to not use your rights like an asshole.  People should try that.  It would do us all a lot of good.

LAWS

     In order to protect the Civil Liberties and Civil Rights of all the different citizens, our Government has to make laws that tell some of us what not to do.  This is because some of us are stupid assholes who can't figure this stuff out on our own.  Every society has laws for just this reason.  Most of ours are based on either common sense, like don't kill other people unless they are about to kill you, and some of them have been made in response to someone bitching about something and telling a member of a government that there oughta be a law against that type of thing.

     Overall, there are entirely too many damn laws in the US, due to the fact that people who get elected to our various levels of government have let that "Lawmaker" title go to their heads.  We've all seen the stupid laws from around the country lists, where you learn that it is illegal to walk your pet alligator down the sidewalk in town in some random county.  Unfortunately, those laws are on the books because at some point, there was an idiot who refused to stop walking his pet alligator down the sidewalk, even after he had been asked not to because the gator ate sweet Mrs. McCrary's pet poodle.  Whole issue could have been solved by the officer who responded to the "guy with a gator on Main Street" call by just shooting the gator, but then the gator's owner would have sued the city for the loss of his pet's affection and won a bunch of money.

How did I just KNOW that I'd be able to find this pic?

     I would caution everyone to stop basing their decision on who to vote for in the 2012 election on who has proposed the most new laws.  That's not really a good measuring stick of whether the guy is an asshole or not, it just means that he loves a good power trip.  Which actually kind of makes him an asshole.  Pay more attention to what they laws that person has proposed or voted for actually SAY, then think about whether you would want to follow that law yourself in every single circumstance you can imagine.  Who knows, maybe you're someone who can be trusted to walk your gator responsibly, so why should it be against the law for you to do it?

EDUCATION

     As I've stated before in other pieces that I have written, Education is important, and it is important to all of us equally, whether we have children or not.  The kids and young adults who are being educated now are the ones who will be our doctors, estate lawyers, bank tellers, baristas and everything else that someone is employed to to in our economy when we are old and decrepit.  We cannot tell just by looking at them whether the bratty 5 year old down the street is going to be a gas station attendant or a proctologist when they grow up.  Either way, we're going to need them taking care of themselves and serving us in whatever capacity they end up doing it in, when we're cruising through our retirement years.  Suck it up cupcake, it's your job to help pay to educate the kiddies.

     Beyond paying for education, there are a lot of different choices for educating kids.  I will reiterate that we are one nation, and there must be a minimum standard set by the Federal Government for every child's basic education.  Things like you have to be able to read, add, subtract, and meet the requirements of whatever advanced learning program your career path requires.  State Governments should be collecting the taxes from their citizens to pay for at least an equal minimum amount of every child's education.  State Governments should also be leaving the choice of how their child will be educated up to that child's parents.  There needs to continue to be a public option for education, because pooling resources and hiring out the task to people who specialize in providing education is still the cheapest option that there is ever going to be.  Public school should not be the only educational option that receives taxpayer support though, because it does not meet the needs of every student, or fit the lifestyle and beliefs of every family.  Government should be less concerned with trying to include everyone into one educational setting, and more concerned with allowing parents the flexibility to choose what is right for their child.

     Homeschooling is an option that many parents would like to choose for their children for a variety of reasons.  So are charter and magnet schools, and private schools of different designs.  Parents should have that option, and should be able to spend the portion of the tax money allotted by their state for their child's education to pay for those options.  Notice that I said their child's portion.  Every child in the state is entitled to the amount that it takes to provide a basic education to the average kid.  If you as a parent want more than that basic amount can cover, then you need to bear the burden of any extra cost for that.  If your child needs more than that basic amount can cover, well, that's part of the cost of being a parent too.

     This is ground that I've already covered elsewhere. If this particular subject is relevant to your interests, then you can read further here.

HEALTH CARE

     Again, this one is something that every single citizen needs at some point in their lives.  I think that the current system that we have, based on the idea of purchasing health insurance from a company that agrees to pay your medical bills if you get sick or have health care costs, SUCKS.  But it is the system we have, and it's really fucking expensive, so until someone comes up with and implements a new and better idea, we're stuck trying to make it work.

     Currently there are a lot of people pissed off because of Obamacare.  Fact is, it is an attempt to put a patch on a system that already exists, but that was screwing over a lot of people who can't keep up with all the restrictions and exclusions and insanely high costs of that system.  It is not a perfect solution, because it still relies on the Health Insurance system to meet the needs that people have to stay healthy and alive.  It doesn't do a whole hell of a lot for bringing the cost of different medical treatments and preventative medicines down to a realistically affordable level, but it does allow people to participate in the Health Insurance system in a more affordable way by making everyone participate in funding the safety net, and making it more likely that a person's Health Insurance will actually cover the stuff people need it to cover, like the stuff they might actually USE.

     Along the way, it's also going to mean that some people may have to participate in a Health Insurance plan that also provides things to members of that plan something that they personally don't need or agree with.  Too bad.  I haven't seen or heard about anything else that is any better.  A plan to just let people die if they can't scrape together the cash for a life saving treatment isn't really a good plan.  Telling certain people that you don't happen to agree with the type of medical treatment that they need or feel like using to treat their own personal health issues is a great big case of tough titty said the kitty.  You make your choices, other people will make theirs, and we're all gonna have to spread the cost around cause there just isn't a better plan right now.  Health care is definitely something we all have the right to have access to, deal with it.

MINIMUM WAGE

     Contrary to popular belief, there are a lot of people in this country who go to work every day at jobs to get a minimum wage paycheck.  I don't know what type of utopian society they had going on back in the "good old days" when only teenagers worked for shit wages, but that isn't our reality.  It is fact that there are plenty of business owners who are in the position of being able to, and only willing to, pay their employees minimum wage.  If there were not a minimum wage, there are plenty of these business owners who would pay their employees even less.  Just so we're clear, a minimum wage job guarantees a person the whopping annual salary of $15,080.  That is if the person is lucky enough to get 40 hours per week and week all of the 52 weeks in a year.

     Minimum wage also affects the wages of everyone else.  For businesses that hire a variety of different employees at different pay scales, those employees whose jobs require more experience or skills, or effort, than the lowest paying jobs usually demand a higher wage for their labor.  These are the employees who benefit most from a minimum wage, because it gives them a starting point from which to negotiate with their employers, and these are the folks who actually have some room to negotiate because their skills and experience are harder for an employer to replace.

     We're now living in a society where very few people have the option of just not buying stuff.  Not everybody can live on a farm and grow or raise their own food, draw water from a well, and make their own clothing.  For those of us that live in town because that is where we can find any type of a job at all, let alone one that pays well, the minimum wage has to keep up with the cost of buying the basic necessities.  If you have a typical nuclear family where two parents who are stuck working minimum wage jobs (because those are the only ones hiring) can't pay for rent, food, utilities, and basic medical care, then minimum wage needs to go up.  That is what the minimum part is.  We also have to take into account that not everyone has the luxury of having two working adults pulling down full time hours in their household.  A single mother or a widower father trying to take care of their children should be able to live (albeit very carefully) on a minimum wage salary if things get bad enough that minimum wage is all they can find employers willing to shell out.  And the government is going to have to set that minimum wage, cause profit driven business owners who feel like paying their employees more out of the goodness of their hearts are damn rare.

POVERTY

      Along with the minimum wage, we have the issue of Poverty in the US.  Yes, we do have poor people.  So poor that they don't have money for food or rent, in the immortal words of Reba McEntire.  Some of these people are poor due to situations of their own making, but that doesn't make it okay to shit on them.  That safety net that we're supposed to have, it needs to be helping these people climb out of poverty, or at least keeping them alive until they get their shit together.  Some of them may never get their shit together and there has to be a point where we face that too.

     Welfare programs need to be focused on helping those who are willing to help themselves, and should be geared towards actually helping those who do climb out of poverty so that they never have to fall back onto the Welfare safety net unless some really bad shit happens to them.  For those who are not willing to help themselves, a line needs to be drawn that makes it clear that life is a right, comfort is not.

     Homeless shelters for those who cannot conform to the demands of society by seeking and keeping employment.  Rehab programs for those who wish to rid themselves of addictions so that they can seek and keep employment.  Food Stamp, Housing Assistance and Child Care Assistance for those who are seeking and keeping employment- with the understanding that you are going to have to keep getting up and getting out there to work to meet the goal of self sufficiency.  Credit Counseling and budgeting help for those who are receiving assistance to make sure that once they get on there feet, they have the tools and the habits to keep themselves there.  Receiving charity should not be a simple process, but it shouldn't be a heartless one either, and it should be geared towards making people understand that they have to do for themselves in the long run.

     I've lived on Welfare, and I've known hundreds of other people who have had and continue to have to rely on Welfare.  Some people are not learning the tools for survival from the places where they should be, and the only way that we as a society are ever going to end the problems, that those within our country who live in poverty have, is to get back to basics teaching those tools.  Receiving charity when you do not have a job should BE a job.  It should be the job of learning how to find a job, and learning how to keep that job and pay your bills with the income it provides you once you have it.  If we wish to break the cycle of welfare and poverty, we have to teach those who are living in poverty and receiving welfare how to break that cycle and teach the ones around them how to break it as well.

    When supporting yourself truly is not an option, then our system of charity needs to be there to provide the basic standard of living that our poorest self sufficient people are able to maintain for themselves.  It may not be luxurious, but it is sufficient, and it is a basic standard that we should be willing to allow all of our citizens who are dependent through no fault of their own enjoy.  If private citizens choose to come along and add to these people's standard of living, then let them do so without penalizing them for getting a little bit better than just the basics.

REGULATING BUSINESS AND LABOR

     While Businesses and Labor Unions are NOT people, they are run by citizens of the US and their actions have an effect on the citizens of the US as well.  Just as Government is tasked with protecting the rights of individuals from other individuals, it must also regulate the behavior of the businesses and labor unions that operate within our borders.

     Government should not be promoting any one business over another, that is the job for people to do on their own, and the people should be free to choose for themselves which businesses and labor unions that they wish to support.  By the same token, businesses and labor unions should be free to set their own criteria for choosing their employees and members as long as they are acting within the laws in doing so and not violating any citizens Civil Liberties or Civil Rights.  That means that it is fine for a business to set it own hiring and firing requirements- it is not okay to skip hiring a woman or a black person who meets those requirements in favor or a white guy who doesn't.  Labor unions should be able to negotiate contracts with businesses and employers to the best advantage of the members that they represent, and limit their membership to a limited number of qualified applicants, but should not be allowed to exclude members on the basis of anything other than their qualifications.

     The moment that any business or organization takes a handout from the government, they've put themselves into the public domain, and they don't get to whine about how it's not fair that they, a private business or organization, doesn't get to exclude whomever they wish for whatever grounds they choose.    This means that if you want to have a members only club, religion, factory, union, whatever that excludes people on the basis of their creed, color, sexual orientation or nose size, you fund that baby all by yourself.  No tax breaks or exemptions, no subsidies, no grants, no nothin.  Those are my thoughts, and I'm stickin to them

     Overall, there is entirely too much micro managing of American business going on.  Unfortunately, like the gator law, that has come about because way too many business owners have done shady shit and led to someone complaining to their Congressman that there oughta be a law.  Perhaps if we manage to cut the ties between business and government once and for all, we can see about lifting some of those restrictions that deal with petty shit and just leave the don't fuck up the environment, get people killed, or violate people's rights laws.



SOCIAL SECURITY

     Okay.  As a retirement savings plan, Social Security looks pretty good on the outside.  Putting 6.2% of every dollar you earn into an account that your employer matches that is doled out to you by the Federal Government really isn't all that bad of an idea.  It's pretty much the same principle that your average 401K savings plan operates on.  Just like the 401K, it shouldn't be the only retirement plan that you have- you should be picking up some different savings plans along the way as you get older as well.

     The problem is that The Federal Government has been raiding the retirement account, like some big ole Enron doody heads.  Instead of leaving that account alone, so that the money would sit there and continue to grow, Congress has treated that cash like it was their own personal piggy bank and not just money that was supposed to be kept separate from the regular taxes that everyone sends in to finance their little schemes.  Now Social Security is looking like a well that may run dry before I ever get to retirement age, and unless we figure out a way to make sure that Congress can pay all the money they've borrowed from it back (with the interest it should have been earning while it sat there) this whole great little savings plan we had going is fucked.

     Another problem is that some people who shouldn't have been getting money from the Social Security fund have been getting checks that really should have been getting paid out of the Charity fund.  It's one thing to let someone's heirs draw the benefits that they paid into the system after the person who actually worked and paid into that system dies- that will pretty much even itself out.  Paying lifetime SSI payments to people who are unable to work, over and above any amount that those people may have paid in while they WERE able to work, well, that's a big drain.  We have got to keep this shit separate.  The retirement account is for when you retire.  Die before you've used up your retirement savings, then that goes to your heirs, fine.  You don't clean out Grandma's retirement savings to pay Juniors bills because he got in an accident and can't work anymore.  At least not unless you plan to let grandma just die when all her money runs out.  Junior needs to wipe out his own retirement savings, then when that's gone, go to the people who deal with handing out charity and ask them for help paying his bills.  They'll figure out if he really does need help, then they'll raise some money and cut Junior a check.  Grandma gets to stay in her nice Senior Living facility playing bingo and eating pudding until she dies of old age. 

MEDICARE

     Like Social Security, good idea, poor execution.  This is supposed to be a health insurance plan that all of us are paying a little premium on while we're working,  A measly 1.45% of your income, plus a matching amount from your employer, and you are guaranteed that your participation in an affordable insurance plan is secure once you hit retirement age.  Just like any other health insurance plan, you still have to pay for some of your medical expenses out of pocket, but there are discounts that you get because the government negotiates better rates for Medicare patients from providers.  There are also a lot of costs that are covered by the plan.  Just like Social Security, Medicare shouldn't be the only plan that you make for retirement healthcare.

     The problem is that the rising costs of healthcare are outstripping the resources of Medicare.  Back in 1965 when Medicare was created, a candy bar cost a nickel, and you can bet that getting a broken bone set in the ER was a lot cheaper too.  There are medicines and treatments for illnesses and diseases now that research hadn't even started on back then, which our seniors are now using to prolong their lives far beyond the time that they would have expired naturally without them.  The cost of health care has grown at a pace much faster than the general cost of living, and the wages that Medicare contributions are based on are linked to the cost of a loaf of bread, not the cost of cancer fighting drugs.

     If Medicare is going to continue to be solvent for more than the next five years, then we're going to have to make some major changes to the way that it works.  Some steps have been made in this direction, with the addition of Medicare Advantage in 1997, which allows for retirees to get Medicare to pay their premiums for a private health insurance plan rather than them participating in the traditional Medicare plan.  Possibly with the Affordable Care Act, more Seniors nearing retirement age will be able to enroll in private health insurance plans through their employers, and will be able to switch to having Medicare Advantage pay for those plans when they reach retirement age.

     To be perfectly honest, this isn't a subject that I've researched or given a whole lot of thought to, because I already have my plan for dealing with expensive health care when I'm old.  I'm not paying for it.  I refuse to run through all of my assets that I could be leaving behind for my children to try and fight a terminal illness, so I'll just go ahead and die when my time is up, thank you very much.  It would be nice if Medicare was still there and would help me pay for laying in a nice supply of morphine so that I can go out smiling and chasing unicorns around in my head though.  If your plans for old age medical care are different from mine, you should probably start reading up on this subject and throw your vote behind the folks that seem to have a good plan worked out.

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS
     Woohoo!  Yeah buddy!  I can see the finish line.  Last topic folks, read it and weep.  Chances are you're weeping already if you've made it this far.  Sorry about the eyestrain, I feel your pain.  Prescription Drugs is another one of those topics where people are all over the map when it comes to Government and what role it should play- in researching them, subsidizing the companies that make them, regulating them, and requiring some of them for people to use.

     Drugs are cool.  Whole lotta people like drugs.  Usually those people like the fun drugs that give you a giddy feeling though, rather than the drugs that are used to treat illnesses from diarrhea to cancer.  Those are the drugs that are really expensive to make, darn near necessary to have, and controversial in what they do.  There is a pill or a potion for just about everything these days, although some of them don't do enough to fix the problems that they are trying to solve.

     I'll be the first to admit that I don't really understand why it is so expensive for drug companies to research and develop all the different drugs.  I suppose it's because scientists don't work cheap, and most of the time the drugs that they are researching might not work the way that they are hoping they will.  I do know that it takes a long time to figure out what should go into a pill, then find out whether it fixes the problem that it's supposed to, and even more time to make sure that it doesn't screw up anything else so badly that it wouldn't be safe for people to take.  After that whole process, the drug company has to convince the government (in the guise of the FDA) to let them sell the drug to people, either with or without a prescription from a doctor.

      I suppose that when you take all of that into consideration, it makes sense that when a drug company does finally get some kind of new pill to market, they want to make as much profit off of it as they can.  For one thing, they only get to hold the patent on a new drug for about 7 years.  After that, any other drug company can copy it, call it a generic drug that does the same thing, and people can get it down at Walmart for $4 a month.  Kind of ups the ante on selling as much of the new drugs as you can for as high a price as you can get people to pay.  And when it comes to something that is going to keep them alive, people will pay just about anything.  Papaw Cancer is shelling out over 2 grand a MONTH for one of the pills he's taking to try and stop being Papaw Cancer, and go back to just being Papaw.

     The question becomes whether or not the US Government has a role to play in the whole Prescription Drug game.  Should they be regulating drugs at all, or just letting the people decide what kind of risks they're willing to take with their own health?  Should they be subsidizing drug companies in the hopes of getting more helpful drugs to market?  Should they be outlawing forms of research that go against the moral convictions of some people?  Should they be buying prescription drugs and handing them out to poor people who would otherwise be unable to afford them?  Should they be allowing citizens the right to choose for themselves to end their lives with prescription drugs if they are terminally ill?  All of these are good questions, and none of them have simple black and white answers.

     History has shown time and time again that drug companies don't always behave responsibly when introducing a new drug onto the market.  Sometimes they rush these things or end up suggesting other uses for their drug than what it was originally approved for.  When that happens, sometimes people take a drug that ends up hurting their health rather than helping it.  Some risk is always going to be involved in taking any medicine, but for a drug company to push the use of a drug and then to find that the drug has a really bad side effect for a bunch of people that they didn't know would happen, well, there oughta be a law.  Any nurse who has ever worked in a doctor's office will tell you, pharmaceutical sales people are downright predatory.  They are getting paid damn good money to convince that doctor to prescribe their company's new drug, and they aren't going to leave until they've tried their utmost to win that doctor over to thinking that drug is the bomb diggity.  They don't care if any of that doctor's patients will actually benefit from taking the drug, they just want that drug's name written all over that doctor's prescription pad, and sales to go through the roof.  Why else would they be advertising that drug on TV, telling you to ask your doctor if it's right for you?  Isn't  your doctor supposed to be able to tell you that without being asked?  So the government definitely needs to keep on top of making sure that drugs are safe and being prescribed for the right things to the right people.

     When it comes to subsidizing drug companies, the harsh reality is that the really good drugs are rarely the really popular ones.  Those drugs are only needed by a small percentage of people, and usually only once or twice in their lifetimes, cause the diseases that they treat are going to either be cured by the drug, or your gonna die.  So in order to make sure that drug companies keep making these kind of drugs and researching others, they have to have an incentive.  I personally think that the government should get a few shares of stock in these drug companies so that when they hit it big with a Viagra we're getting a cut to pour back into their subsidies, but that's just me thinkin.

     What about outlawing things like stem cell research and the morning after pill?  Cloning and all that?  Well, this is something that needs to be taken on a case by case basis.  Before the Government should be able to say "no, you can't do that" there needs to be a compelling reason not to.  As far as stem cells and abortifacients go, the science just isn't there to prohibit them.  At this point, the arguments against them are based in religious beliefs, and government can't come down on the side of any religious belief over the rights of a private company or another individual whose religious beliefs are different.  Should the science change to back up the arguments for banning those things, or a reasonable and reliable alternative to them become available, then the question can be readdressed.  Cloning on the other hand has proven itself to have some bugs in the system that make it a bad idea for the time being.  Maybe scientists in a more liberal country will work those out and this issue can be readdressed here, but until then it's gonna be a no.

     Here we are back at the poor people again.  Yes, the US Government has a responsibility to help those who cannot help themselves.  If they need medicine, then let them have it.  You'd want you mother to be able to get it if she were really sick or dying, wouldn't you?  Or your dog, if you just happen to hate your mother and wish she'd die.  Have a heart people, not everyone can be as perfectly self sufficient as Mitt Romney for their entire lives.

     Finally, let's talk about dying with dignity.  Some of you may feel that suicide is the pussies way out.  Some of you might feel that suicide is a mortal sin that will send your soul to hell where it will burn forever and ever.  Some people may feel that it is not the place of a doctor or nurse or a loved one to help someone else end their life.  To all of you, I say that I sincerely hope that you are lucky enough to die peacefully of old age in your sleep.  I recognize that some unfortunate people reach their end in excruciating pain trapped in their bed shitting and pissing on themselves, and still their bodies keep them breathing and feeling that pain.  To my mind, when you have reached the end of your endurance is a very personal choice that cannot be made by anyone else, and if you choose that you would like to end your suffering with the help of compassionate and loving individuals, then you damn well ought to be able to make that call.  If you are able bodied enough to pull it off yourself, then by all means, you should be required to do so.  But if all the strength you can manage is to ask for someone else to help you be done, then that should be a request that they can honor.


     Thank you to those of you who have read this incredibly long manifesto.  I decided to write it out of frustration that straight answers about all the issues surrounding the 2012 election cycle cannot be found concerning what the actual candidates themselves believe.  Each of the candidates spends an awful lot of time talking about their own pet issues, and ignores the rest.  That is not acceptable to me.  If I, a stay at home mother with two children and a relatively busy life can take the time to sit down and organize MY thoughts on all of these issues, and disseminate them to the public, then I feel that it is fair to expect no less from our candidates running for elected office.  Please keep that in mind when choosing the men and women who will earn your ballot this November.  Make sure that they have earned it, and that you know not only where YOU stand on the issues, but where THEY stand as well.