Another War?

The US looks determined to take on another war, this time in Syria.  It was terrible for the Syrian government to use chemical weapons on its population.  But we cannot be the world's police.

We are involved in numerous conflicts all around the globe, and have been for generations.  Unfortunately, many times politicians lead our country into war for political reasons.  Presidents grow in popularity when they start wars.  Thus, it takes very little rationalizing for presidents to lead us into war.

We interpret US national interests so broadly that virtually any excuse works to take us into war.

The American public allows this war mongering, not considering the problems with world-policing.  The more we intervene, the less moral authority we have.  The flimsier our excuses for war, the less moral authority we have.

Here we go again...

Healthcare Revealed

Universal healthcare was supposed to fix so many problems. Every day we now learn more reasons why it was too good to be true.

Today Delta Airlines announced that compliance with the law will cost them $100 million.  Government interference in the marketplace always has unintended consequences.

It amazes me that anyone is surprised at the debacle.  The legislation was rushed through with contrived urgency.  No one had a chance to read the bill thoroughly, much less debate or refine it.

No one could predict the effects of such far-reaching changes in the healthcare market.  But sending the industry into chaos has one clear benefit for power-hungry politicians:  government will be called in to straighten out the mess.

So government creates the mess, then charges in to fix the mess.  Seems like we have seen this pattern before.

The Other Side of the Story

All the protests and media reports about the Republican legislature in Raleigh have led the public to believe that our state government now works against the public good.  The tipping point seemed to be the treatment of our teachers and the education system.  All over Facebook I saw posts about the evil legislature gutting the education system and giving teachers the shaft.

I kept thinking there must be another side to the story.  No one would be so cold and heartless.  While the news media should have offered to provide the other perspective, I never saw one story explaining the Republican point of view.  It was like the whole party went behind locked doors to invent ways to subvert the will of the people.  The legislators were portrayed as out of touch, stubborn and stupid.

Then today I saw a link posted offering the other side of the story.  http://www.ncgop.org/nc-house-republicans-state-education-spending-the-facts/  Now granted, this comes from the Republicans, so it is politically motivated, but no more so than the complaints of the Democrats.

The Republicans let themselves be demonized by the media without effectively getting out their side of the story.

The media are also to blame, because they fail to answer the obvious question:  What could the Republicans possibly be thinking?

And the public should be ashamed for mindlessly buying the outlandish, biased reports from the media.