My parents got married in October 1945 the day after they were mustered out of the US Army Air Force at the end of WW II and I was born 9 months later as one of the vanguard “baby boomers”.

I turned 65 recently.

Like a lot of people in my generation we turned the country upside down with our civil rights sensitivities, our antiwar fervor, our enjoyment of rock’n roll,  our rejection of the  “Reefer Madness” film. John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were our heroes. And that was the 1960’s.

We went on to graduate from college, get jobs, raise families, buy homes and cars, work for 40 years, and here we are looking at Social Security and Medicare now.

As my dad used to remind me, quoting Winston Churchill,  “If you are not a liberal when you are 20 you have no heart. But if you’re not a conservative by the time you are 40 you have no brain.”

My political identity was solidly Democratic, I worked for a Democrat Congressman, and even did some speech writing for several Democrat presidential candidates in the 70’s. I guess I could be called a “political activist”.

But something happened along the way.

I started seeing a lot of great ideas to make the country better turned into dog vomit by mindless bureaucrats who could spend vast quantities of my tax money and produce nothing of value.

My career began to be focused on fighting stupid government regulations on behalf of the private sector and local governments. Oh the stories I can tell about stupid fed regs and bureaucrats. 

But I was still a Democrat.

By the 1990’s I was paying taxes in an amount greater than most people in the country earn. And the sense grew that I would get more value for my money if I just flushed it down the toilet.

A decade ago I started getting these little annual reports from Social Security showing how much money I’d paid into the system and for Medicare. Trust me, I will not be using your tax money for my old age as I maxed out the annual deductions for many many years.

And like a lot of my generation I was seriously in debt assuming I’d always be able to keep earning enough money to pay all my bills. US boomers thought we were immortal and would always have jobs.

And then 2008 came along and my world crashed and burned.

I went from being totally self-sufficient to losing my income, wiping out my savings, seeing my home value drop to half of what my mortgage was, and had to take early Social Security at age 62 just to avoid ending up homeless under a bridge.

You bet I was pissed.

I’d worked hard all my life, paid my taxes, raised my kids,  and done everything I was supposed to.

But a gang of Wall Street wizards wrecked the housing sector of our economy and nearly threw the country into a full-blown Depression.

Meanwhile the country was running vast deficits and giving tax breaks to everyone but me. Social Security and Medicare were at risk because of the financial melt-down.

But I was still a Democrat and voted for Barack Obama in 2008.

I kind of hoped he take names and kick some butt on Wall Street. Didn’t happen.

In 2010 I lost my health insurance and started praying I would not get seriously ill until I turned 65 and could get onto Medicare. Meanwhile my glaucoma got worse and by this summer I’d lost part of my vision in my right eye.

At this point I was pissed off enough to want to hunt down one of those Wall Street wizards and poke a stick into his right eye.

But the great reforms Obama supposedly achieved with his health care reform did absolutely nothing to deal with my situation. No job. No income. No health insurance.

Instead Wall Street got bailed out, GM got bailed out, and the federal government acted like a drunk with a credit card. The Wall Street pirates paid themselves bonuses.

I had, by now, learned how to live on what cash flow I had and credit is never going to be part of my life again….and that is true for a lot of my generation now.

We learned the hard way. My FICA is more of a “f*%k me”.

But our federal government seemed to want to keep borrowing and borrowing to pretend like the world had not changed, running up a giant debt my kids would have to pay off. $14 trillion !

The kids aree in their 30’s and are still paying off their student loans. Neither of them could get jobs with health insurance.

The kids do not believe there will be anything like Social Security or Medicare for them when they turn 65.

As Obama said in 2008, “you’re on your own”. They are, and it is very frustrating that there is not a whole lot I can do right now to better their situation. The federal government is not going to take care of my kids, nor create jobs so they can support themselves, and I’ve lost the ability to do what every parent wants to do…help them out.

I’m pissed off and I feel like a failed parent as well.

In the last year I’ve gotten very involved in writing again, mostly focused on border security issues and how environmental litigation factories are soaking taxpayers for legal fees and adding enormous costs to our economy to save a few lizards. I’ve become a vocal heretic against the environmental religion.

As a result of my writing I know the widow of Douglas rancher Robert Krentz who was murdered by a suspected illegal alien drug smuggler, and some of the family of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry who was murdered by an illegal alien on a friend’s ranch near my home.

Meanwhile Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano keeps claiming the border is more secure than ever. I actually know Janet, and if I were her boss I’d fire her ass right now for making bogus claims about border security when I can show you places where the Mexican drug catels have free reign over our countryside.

If you think I’m pissed off, talk to the survivors of Bob Krentz and Brian Terry.

Meanwhile, as soon as I have some extra cash, I’m buying myself a Ruger ranch rifle.  But Obama’s minions want to take away my right to buy what I need to protect my home and family from Mexican drug cartel goons who own our countryside at night down here.

I watched the debates over the federal budget and the debt ceiling with disgust. Like don’t the Democrats get it that we cannot keep spending money we don’t have? Is it right to bet our future on being able to keep borrowing money from the Chinese?

And on a more personal level, I got into a major pissing match with environmentalists over the need to back off putting lizards ahead of people at the border.

The Democrats want even more wilderness areas at the border, which only benefit the Mexican drug cartel smugglers and make it even riskier for those of us who live near the border. Beside the Ruger ranch rifle, a Glock model 23 is on my Christmas shopping list.

Meanwhile Obama’s ATF folks were “walking” guns to the Mexican drug cartel, so there is a chance one of my ranch friends or even myself could end up getting shot by a drug smuggler carrying a weapon he got via ATF’s “Fast and Furious” scam. There are still thousands of these “walked” guns floating around. Hundreds of people in Mexico have been filled by these guns, along with 2 federal agents.

I’m pissed that Obama doesn’t fire Eric Holder and everyone else involved in the gun walking scheme.

I’m pissed that newspapers like the Washington Post would hunt down the Watergate villians like the dogs they were, but are still dodging Fast and Furious because the targets are Democrats.

Then recently the US Department of Transportation popped up with the bright idea to require farmers and ranchers to have to get Commercial Drivers Licenses (CDLs) to drive a tractor…hitting a lot of my friends below the belt.

Obama’s US Fish and Wildlife people are busy declaring every bug and critter in my area as endangered and seeking to run all of us off our lands because the environmental litigation factories are busy trying to destroy our economy and getting away with it.

And Obama still wants a tax increase to keep his liberal minions busy usurping land and water rights in my neck of the desert.

Now they want to turn my valley into protected habitat for birds that never lived here and jaguars that never lived here. And even if a jaguar shows up in my yard and starts killing my dog and chickens, I can’t shoot the son of a b*&^% because that would be a federal  felony.

It is a misdemeanor in the US to illegally enter the country, but a felony if I drive over an endangered lizard by accident.

I’ve had it with looking to the federal government to “solve” all our problems.

I’ve had it with smart-ass city boys in Washington telling me that I’m some kind of swine because I don’t want jaguars in my back yard.

I’ve had it with a government that cannot secure our border and at the same time refuses to understand I can’t expect 911 to save my family if we’re attacked at night by drug smugglers who want to steal my vehicle.

I had this fantasy the other day about inviting Maryland Democrat Elijah Cummings down to California Gulch  where I’ve been with Congressman Darrell Issa’s staff  to see first hand Mexican drug cartel spotters on our mountain tops armed witrh Ak 47s…and see how long it takes for Cummings to want to be carrying a semi-automatic rifle to protect himself. I doubt my rancher buddies will loan him one of their guns. He’ll have to buy his own…if he can.

I look across the border and see a large area that has been taken over by the cartels. Last year a cowboy on a Mexican ranch right across the line was killed by the cartel. Right now the population of entire towns over there are trying to escape the cartel takeover.

I’ve had it with a government that can piss away a trillion dollars a year and expect me to pay more so they can keep pissing away more trillions of dollars. $1.6 trillion dollars (whioch is what they collect a year in taxes) is a whole lot of money…the problem is most of it is wasted.

Having gone in medicare I learned that a major reason this program will go bankrupt is it will cost something like $300,000 for the last six month of my life to hook me up to tubes and wires and keep me aliove so the campire medical establishment can bleed the taxpayers dry.

I made the decision the other day that there is no freaking way the vampire health care establishment is going to milk me for hundreds of thousands of dollars in the last few months of my life via Medicare. I will die not asking for a penny of someone else’s hard earned money….I told my kids the other day that if I have to dig my own grave, lay down in it and shoot myself ,  I will do that to avoid being hooked up to tubes and wires. I paid in over $150,000 to Medicare and that’s all I feel I’m entitled to get back.

My dad, who lived at home during the terminal illness last months of his life, called up one morning and asked to be taken to the hospital so he could die and not haunt the house. I took him in, he signed a bunch of “do not..” paperwork, turned to his doctor and said “you got you last penny out of me” and died. I liked his style.

I figured out I am more libertarian than anything else, now.

I don’t buy using governmental power to try and make me a better person.

I don’t agree with the social conservative agenda at all. I’m more in the zone of Barry Goldwater who was the epitome of the old “cowboy way” of life. You can do whatever you want as long as it doesn’t impact me and I expect vice versa. When there’s a problem, we’ll solve it as good neighbors. But we take liberty and responsibility very seriously. We don’t need a nanny government in Washington trying to make us do what they want.

My generation turned this country upside down a few times. And we’re still alive and kicking

On my 65^th birthday I changed my voter registration to Republican.

___________________________________

Inspired by I’m 63 and Im Tired! by Robert A. Hall.

___________________________________

Note: Hugh Holub is a recovering lawyer and a free lance writer who is also the  Executive Director of the Center for Sustainable Development

___________________________________

House Speaker John Boehner had a chance to become Speaker of the entire House of Representatives instead of just trying to hold together his fractured caucus of Republicans.

Instead of trying to find 217 votes within the Republicans in the House…which meant passing a bill no Democrat could ever support….Boehner could have taken another path.

Here is that path…there appears to be a majority in both houses of Congress for a package of spending custs and debt reduction which include closing some tax loopholes.

Instead of sticking a Constitutional amendment on the House bill, Boehner could have reached out to Democrats, dropped the Constitutional amendment, added more budget cuts and put in a tax loophole elimination provision.

Yes Boehner would have lost maybe 80 of his Tea Party hobbits.

But he could have gained 90 Democrats in return and passed a bill that would have been impossible for the Senate to reject.

Boehner would have been Speaker and leader of the entire House of Representatives.

Sure he would have been viciously attacked by the hobbits in his own party, and maybe even lose the Speaker’s chair as a result.

But he would have saved America and gone down in history as a real leader for the entire country instead of a partisan hack. He would have become the poster child for courage instead of a desparate politician trying to find 217 votes in his own party.

Our neighbors the Tohono O’odham have a story about Baboquivari…the sacred mountain on the eastern edge of their lands.

Baboquivari is not only a mountain, it is a symbloic place where the tides of history can be changed by those who stand at the boundary between the past and the future…and act for the benefit of all the people. You don’t have to stand on the mountain itself to encounter a “Baboquivari moment”.

Most folks never want to stand at the point of Baboquivari where they can change the direction of history because there are awesome energies loose….not a few people have been driven off Baboquivari mountain by lightning on clear sky days.

But fate sometimes propels people to a Baboquivari moment where what they do at that moment can have profound positive or negative impacts of the whole world.

They can put their self interest ahead of doing the right thing for everyone.

Or they can see the higher purpose and need and act, even though that act may not be in their immediate self-interest.

Boehner had his Baboquivari moment the other day…and he might have saved his power inside the House Republican caucus, but he did nothing to help America transcend the debt limit fight and move forward.

Harry Reid over at the Senate will also stand at Baboquivari, as will Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Obama in the next few days.

Someone needs to put their partisan pandering aside and do the right thing for America.

There were 2 people in a boat and it was sinking.

The two passengers were a Republican and a Democrat.

The Republican immediately blamed the Democrat for all the holes in the bottom of the boat.

The Democrat point out it was the Republican who punched the holes in the bottom of the boat.

The Republican countered that the Democrat had built the boat and designed it so it would sink.

The Democrat answered by saying the boat was well made…but it had been run into the rocks by the Republican.

…the boat sank lower in the water…

The Republican said we cannot keep throwing good money after bad by trying to fix the boat.

The Democrat predicted dire consequences if the boat was allowed to sink.

The Republican asked the Democrat if he knew how to swim.

The Democrat asked the Republican if there were any life preservers on the boat.

…sharks started circling the sinking boat…

The Republican offered to fix the boat if the Democrat would agree to never build another boat.

The Democrat said ok, but the Republican would have to pay more to maintain the existing boat.

The Republican refused to pay more for maintaining the existing boat.

On the right hand side  of the beach Republicans cheered their Republican’s position in the boat.

On the left hand side of the beach Democrats cheered the Democrat’s position regarding the boat.

…both the Democrat and the Republican stared at each other, but neither picked up a pail and started to bail out the water filling up the boat.

Whose fault was it when the boat sank and both the Republican and the Democrat drowned?

____________________________

Debt ceiling battle…the national soap opera

Who needs soap opera when we have the gigantic fight going on in Washington over whether or not to raise the national debt ceiling.

Republicans will only agree to raise the debt ceiling by $2.5 trillion if an equal amount of budget cuts are agreed to.

Democrats have proposed budget cuts of something like $1.5 trillion, but want revenue increases to make up the difference.

Republicans say no tax increases.

Democrats suggest getting rid of a lot of the loopholes in the tax code such as the deduction for corporate jets.

Republicans think eliminating loopholes for their corporate buddies is a tax increase because Grover Norquist says so.

Democrats even put reducing future Social Security benefits on the table…providing the Republican would agree to get rid of the tax loopholes.

Liberal Democrats immediately went ballistic that “their” president would be willing to throw old people under the bus.

Conservative Republicans started a fight within the GOP over how close to the edge would they be willing to push the country to get the maximum budget cuts with no “tax increases”.

House Majority leader Eric Cantor pushed so hard at a meeting at the White House that President Obama abruptly got up and left the meeting.

The deadline to approval an increase in the debt ceiling is August 2nd.

Tea party favorite Michelle Bachmann thinks the crisis about failing to increase the debt limit is overstated and seems to want to drive the country off the cliff just to see what happens.

Senate Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell offered a deal to extend the debt limit and then dump the decisions about what spending to cut squarely in Obama’s lap so he’d get the blame for whomever’s ox was gored.

House Speaker John Boehner seems to have been eclipsed by Cantor’s hard line position against Obama. Then again, Boehner, and old Washington hand, may be just giving Cantor enough rope, a tree and a horse to hang himself with.

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi is off somewhere whining about staying true to Democratic Party principles, whatever those are.

Moody’s issues a dire warning about downgrading US Treasury debt ratings.

China begins to think holding US debt is sort of like how we see owning a Chinese-made toy.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans are watching all of this wondering things like….

….if the Republicans succeed in not increasing the debt limit will I get my government check after August 3rd?

…why should we get hit with reductions in our pet government programs if big business keeps getting tax breaks that we don’t get?

…but if we give the feds more money in tax revenues is that not like giving a junkie more crack?

…and since a lot of people had their credit wrecked in the financial collapse, job losses, reduction in home equity values and all the other fallout from Wall Street’s orgy of greed why should we care about the national credit rating?

My guess is most people don’t adhere to a strictly “Republican” or “Democrat” view of the problem or the menu of solutions.

We’ve got to cut spending, no question.

But lets not make the decision on whose ideology wins the fight….lets cut everything.

We’ve got to fix the tax code and stop giving away potential tax revenues because some special interests were successful in getting tax code loopholes they obviously do not want to give up.

If we’re going to feel some pain…everyone should.

Why should I give up my mortgage interest deduction so some corporate fat cat can write off his jet?

Maybe getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction for mortgage amounts over $1 million could work if the corporate fat cats could only get airplane deductions for propeller driven aircraft.

Who makes propeller driven airplanes? Do we?

But, as the show goes on in Washington, it seems like everyone is playing for air time on the network news and cable talk shows.

Meanwhile, millions of us have got to get dressed and go to work or look for work. Tonight we will see act 42 in the DC “showdown at the debt ceiling corral”.

A friend described the process of negotiating the debt limit increase as “you put a Republican and a Democrat in a sinking boat and they argue about whose fault it was the boat is sinking and then realize neither of them know how to swim.”

__________________________

How not to save a boat from sinking

Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce

There appears to be two strains of thought about opposition to a path to legalize the presence of 11 million illegal aliens in the county.

You can see these strains of thoughts in comments to my various blog posts on border security and immigration reform.

The first strain of thought has an obvious racists undertone. The xenophobes in America are frightened by “foreign” invaders and cite all sorts of examples of why immigrants are a drain on our economy, a threat to our culture, etc.  They keep raising the flase flag of the “reconquesta”. This is an American tradition going back to when “No Irish Need Apply”. The new folks who land in America have always been demonized by those the got here first.

The second strain of thought opposing legalization links allowing the 11 million illegal aliens the right to stay legally in the country to adding 11 million votes for Obama and Democrats.

That argument exhibits a profound ignorance of who the 11 million illegal aliens are and what is really going on. 

First off a whole lot of them are children and can’t vote.

Second, all proposals for legalization do not automatically grant anyone citizenship and the right to vote.

All the various proposals do is get the illegal aliens above-ground with various degrees of penance for entering the country illegally or overstaying their visas.

In even the most generous legalization proposals, an illegal alien allowed to stay legally in the country would have to wait 5 years to become a citizen…and probably longer. So the impact of a legalization plan would not open the door to new voters until at least the 2016 election if it were enacted today. Obama (if he wins a second term,) won’t be eligible to run for a third term in 2016.

Third, and in my book the most important aspect, is who the illegals really are and how they view what becoming an “American” is all about.

My take on this is purely anecdotal first hand experience derived from years of working in various capacities in southern Arizona’s Hispanic communities such as Nogales.

I do not see a lot of knee-jerk automatic Democratic Party voters in the immigrant Hispanic community.

I have been in way too many Hispanic immigrant homes and see the same scene over and over again….a picture of Jesus Christ, a picture of John Kennedy, a picture of the Virgin de Guadalupe, and pictures of their kids as doctors, lawyers, and in the uniforms of our military or police forces.

This is a group of people who believe in hard work for the benefit of the next generation, who are deeply religious, and who actually don’t much trust government.

Try and enforce Anglo building codes and zoning laws in a predominantly Hispanic community and you will (as I did) discover that a lot of these would-be Democrats actually think like libertarians when it comes to their property rights.

Talk to legal Hispanic immigrants and you also find a strong opposition to giving those who jumped the fence a cut in front of the line for citizenship.

I’ve had the experience of Hispanic neighborhoods reaching out to the Border Patrol to improve security of their neighborhoods against illegal aliens and asking the Nogales Public Works Department to grade roads around their neighborhoods near the border to improve Border Patrol access.

If there is any justification that millions of Hispanic immigrants…if allowed to legalize…would vote Democrat it is because the Republicans have made a short-sighted decision to exploit fear of illegal aliens for political gain such as Russell Pearce has done in Arizona.

Instead of recognizing a deep-seated loyalty to America which gave people an opportunity to better their lives….

Instead of recognizing the values of Hispanic families tracks very closely with what most people would define as “Republican” values….

Opportunists have exploited xenophobia to invent a political campaign issue…”no amnesty”.

The demographics, especially in Arizona and other border states do not favor the short-term illegal alien demonization strategy of the GOP.

This leaves Hispanic voters no home in the GOP….and drives them into the Democratic Party ranks as voters.

Thus it is not that Hispanics… if legalized… would automatically vote Democrat…they will end up voting Democrat if they are not welcome as Republicans.

The last California election demonstrated the suicidal result of GOP attacks on Hispanics because the Hispanics that are legal and do vote now are alienated from a place they might otherwise find a lot of common ground.

It is hard for me to understand the thinking that would take the wife of one of the Marine’s whose picture is on the wall in an Hispanic home, and deport her because she was an illegal alien.

It is hard for me to understand the thinking that take a kid who was brought into the country by his or her parents as a minor child…and who has no knowledge of any life except as an American…and kick that DREAM kid out of the country.

So…if those 11 million illegal aliens eventually end up getting legal status…and after a long and drawn-out process gain citizenship and voting status….they will probably remember who said “welcome to America and help us build our nation to even greater heights than we have achieved”…and who tried to load them all up in box cars and ship them out of the country.

There’s an old cowboy saying that the best way to get rid of an enemy is give him a rope, a horse and a tree and if he’s so inclined he will hang himself.

The GOP has their rope, their horse and their tree on the legalization issue and their agenda is being driven by guys like Russell Pearce.

MORE COMMENTS AND ARTICLES ON BORDER ISSUES:
>An open letter to Obama about the border

>May 14…a Day Without a Mexican

>Who will wipe your baby’s butt? Who will pick your lettuce? Who will mow your lawn?

>“Probationary Presence” not “amnesty” needed in immigration reform

>California Congressman re-introduces DREAM Act
______________________________

MORE articles and commentaries about the border

The Republican party  is trying to purify itself   and run anyone out of the party who  is not a true “conservatism” whatever that means.

It used to be said when Democrats formed a firing squad, they made a circle.

Now that’s true of Republicans as well.

While a whole lot of recovering Democrats could find common ground with many GOP agenda items like balancing the budget, the ultra right wing fringe of the GOP alienates the middle as much as the left wing fringe of the Dems have done. What’s wrong with being a “moderate”?

Why do you think so many people are registered as Independents now?

If the GOP extremists would drop their fanatic attempts at legislating our morality…gay marriage bans and such…and recognize that Hispanics are a positive element in our country and we need both a secure border and a guest worker program (which Utah of all places recognized)…. then maybe the GOP could really be the majority in America.

If the Dem extremists would recognize that no one favors an open border and that we’re tired of a nanny state that is bankrupting us …then maybe the Dems could really be the majority in America.

Both parties extremists are trying to purge anyone who is not a “true beliver” and ideologically pure however that is defined.

Radio-show host and cowboy libertarian Patrick Dorinson , commenting on the infighting in the California Republican Party notes with disgust, “Only a buzzard feeds on its friends.”

“If you are not a liberal when you are 20 you have no heart….and if you aren’t a conservative by the time you’re 40 you have no brain.”

My dad used to hit me with that observation back when I was in my 40s.

I’ve always wondered what one should be when they are in their 60’s….

Watching the partisan divide grow between conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats it is no surprise the fastest growing political identification is Independent.

The Daily Star reports Independents inch past Democrats in statewide registration

There are 1.1 million Republicans, 1,011,000 Independents and  1,009,000  Democratic voters in the state.

In Pima County, Democrats retain the edge, with nearly 186,000 to 150,000 registered Republicans. Independents have 142,500.

There are predictions that by 2012 the Independents will outnumber the Republicans as well.

So what is going on? In spite of claims they are the “majority” the GOP only represents around one-third of the state’s voters.

Seems like a whole lot of people aren’t buying either the GOP or Democrat extremes. Problem is there’s no one offering a cohesive third way for folks to unify under….something that blends both a heart and a brain and comes up with some sane policies.

I have always through that if the Republican Party  quit trying to hold on to power by bashing minorities and liberals  and big government and taxes and focused instead on economic development that moved millions of poor people into the middle class, they would be minting more Republicans.

The path to raising the poor to the middle class, and improving the existing middle class earnings is not solely through cutting taxes for business or the rich as many still argue. The point is that’s been done and it didn’t work. “trickle down” was actually being pissed on.

There is a growing voice in the GOP about “American Exceptionalism”. A whole bunch of people (even Barak Obama) believe we are an exceptional nation and people and we can do damned near anything we really put our minds and resources to. We are blessed by God with both the land and natural resources and 330 million diverse and talented people who can do what no other nation or society has ever done in human history. We can elect a Black President and put men on the moon.

Actually the opportunity to participate in the American Exceptionalism movement is exactly why millions of people snuck into the country or overstayed their visas because Mexico, Poland, and a lot of other countries offer their people no real chance to max out their human abilities.

OK…we’re exceptional. So how about putting that special mission and ability to work figuring out a way to basically wipe out poverty in the country without (a) welfare, (b) tax breaks, (c) government spending (c) and destroying government?

How can we unleash the entrepreneurial energy in our country without letting the small percentage of economic sociopaths wreck the system for everyone else? It is not a question of less government regulation so much as smart government regulation that doesn’t hinder business formation and growth, but creates a level playing field for everyone to compete in.

To what degree do we use our tax codes to manipulate the economy? More tax credits for renewable energy? Good idea except when the tax credits end up fueling Chinese manufacturing of solar pv units instead of creating US manufacturing jobs.

More free trade and globalism? Or fair trade that takes away the ability of other countries to screw our workers.

Actually, listening to the debate between the left and the right it appears that both sides have some really good ideas to use our exceptionalism to make good things happen. The problem is each side rejects ALL of the other side’s ideas and suggestions because of where they come from. Conservatives won’t tolerate even thinking about a proposal that came from a liberal and vice versa.

That isn’t American Exceptionalism. That is just plain stupid.

All these ideas are “American” because they all come from exceptional Americans. In that disagreement is a lot of potential to figure out the flaws, and then go forward and take a shot at things.

When we decided to go to the moon did anyone really have any idea of how to actually get there? But a whole bunch of Exceptional Americans (including taxpayers) got together and we did it.

I hope in 2011 the left quits trying to make its point abut taxing the rich, and the right quits beating up liberals because they want the government to actually accomplish something, and put all that exceptional energy towards creating 20 million new decently paying jobs in this country.