Timberwolves still very much in Rubio hunt

..even though I consider myself a moderate, I tend to be a true believer while acknowledging government has a purpose. It is just better to keep the money close to home where there is more accountability. I think the nation needs a national energy policy (beyond drilling in ANWAR). Gamers bemoan the cost of solar and wind energy while refusing to add the cost (human and monetary) of two Mid-East wars to the cost of oil. However, I don’t think we need a bureaucracy for education (which can be handled on a state level). The economy has been tanking and foreign relations are tough, yet on a too-powerful national level almost all incumbants return. The people have a vote but the system has been rigged/gerrymandered so we have little power. Why do power players defend the two party system?? It keeps them in power.

I like your take on the gamers, such as conservative talk radio hosts. If you need a new bridge or road, make it private and put in a toll road. Just make sure all of the bridges and roadsin my area are already built by taxpayers so I don’t have to pay a toll.
I want to keep taxes as low as possible, but the uber wealthy should pay their fair share since they benefit the most from this great country. We all have opportunity for success, but reality is not everyone can make a million dollars a year. The elimination/reduction of the Estate Tax is disgusting. Why is it any worse to tax a spoiled 30 year old who inherits grandpa’s millions than it is to tax someone who wins a $5,000 jackpot at a local casino. Yes, grandpa paid taxes on his money, but the money someone puts in a slot machine has also been taxed! GAMERS, they have always bothered me, I just never had a term for them.
By the way, I could rant as long or longer about libs, but that’s for another time. This is why I think it is important to control the size of government, especially nationally.

…about stereotyping until I read Frank Luntz, visited CPAC’s annual convention and received a 1st person account from a Grover Norquist Wednesday meeting from a GOP former Hill staffer/current lobbyist for a local defense contractor/friend. It’s pretty out in the open.

Here’s a short story: I was out in DC during Katrina. I was staying in the hotel that is hooked onto the FEMA building and directly across the street from the Department of Education. My guess is that the hotel bar was something of a watering hole for both agencies and I spent some time watching the devestation listening to a table full of former conservative Hill staffers and current FEMA employees talk about how the response to the disaster could be “leveraged” in a way to create sympathy for their particular political leanings. Now I am in no way shape or form saying that this was an agency-wide response to the disaster; I’m also not saying the response was a conspiracy; rather, that these guys were aware of the impact of bad government in real time and weren’t exactly torn up about it and I’m fairly certain they weren’t alone (especially judging by the use of Katrina as an example of bad government in the health care debate). Just a bunch of drunk former Heritage guys out on the town. ;) Of course, the really bad stuff happens at the 30k foot level. That’s where the foxes really guard the hen house.

My point here is that there is an active and out-in-the-open faction of the conservative movement that is working to destroy government…to drown it in a bathtub as the popular phrase goes. I have listened to think tank meetings where strategies to “take it all down” are discussed; one in particular used the example of the former Soviet Union as a template to “spend the damn thing out of existence”. In this case, the “damn thing” was the US government…well, mostly 20th Century liberal government. Despite its many flaws, there is no similar cynical cognate on the other side of the isle. There are stereotypes that his close to the mark, but nothing along the lines of that type of cynicism.

I think there is a vast disconnect between the electorate and our elected on this front. I completely understand and sympathize with what Rumblebee writes about below. I want low taxes, competency, good government, little intervention and so on and so forth. I’m pretty sure the vast, vast majority of people do (except the wackos). Unfortunately, Mr. Smith no longer goes to Washington and until the money is ran out of town the only place opinions like this will matter are in electoral politics (the jokers still need people to vote for them), family/friendly arguments and comment sections. The political sausage isn’t made like it used to. The problem is no longer ideological; it’s procedural and systemic. Too many people who want the car to crash are working on the engine, and the way to make the engine work as efficiently as possible has been torn apart and thrown away. There really has been a sea change in this regard in the last 15-20 years and it represents far more than a simple cyclical changing of the political guard. It’s fundamental and corrosive.