Comments on: Crossing the Sex Line… http://blog.locustfork.net/2009/07/crossing-the-sex-line/ A Wide Open Weblog for Big News, the Big Picture Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:37:39 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Mamma Osaka http://blog.locustfork.net/2009/07/crossing-the-sex-line/comment-page-1/#comment-3035 Mamma Osaka Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:58:21 +0000 http://blog.locustfork.net/2009/07/01/crossing-the-sex-line/#comment-3035 The Republicans have been playing monkey business with family values for years. They may talk about family values with repressive measures limiting access to abortion, but their main focus is on cutting benefits to pregnant women, eliminating health care for the bottom 90 percent of Americans and increasing the burden for Social Security on poor people not the ca increasing the $100,000 cap on Social Security. At its inception that amount was including all Americans, now inflation has rolled the contribution level to just above minimum wage, and exempting billionaires from their fare share of taxes and penalizing working people. The Republicans have been playing monkey business with family values for years. They may talk about family values with repressive measures limiting access to abortion, but their main focus is on cutting benefits to pregnant women, eliminating health care for the bottom 90 percent of Americans and increasing the burden for Social Security on poor people not the ca increasing the $100,000 cap on Social Security. At its inception that amount was including all Americans, now inflation has rolled the contribution level to just above minimum wage, and exempting billionaires from their fare share of taxes and penalizing working people.

]]> By: Yana Davis http://blog.locustfork.net/2009/07/crossing-the-sex-line/comment-page-1/#comment-3034 Yana Davis Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:00:11 +0000 http://blog.locustfork.net/2009/07/01/crossing-the-sex-line/#comment-3034 Well, let's be fair. The Republicans aren't the only ones who've had tawdry illicit affairs. It just rankles more with them because they loudly preach (and that is the word, isn't it?) "family values" while acting like teenagers on spring break in Panama City. Our society is whacky on this issue right now. The Republicans have set themselves up for this through their social agenda politics. The general notion prevalent now -- the "meme" as Eric Drexler would call it -- is that politicians should be living squeaky clean, almost saintly lives. That of course is nonsense, but the GOP has made personal morals a political issue, and they are now hoisted high on their own petards. Sanford, Ensign et al offer still more reinforcement for the notion that having professional politicians is a bad idea. We ought to limit everyone to one four year term in whatever office you can get yourself elected to and then out you go, disqualified from further elected or appointed political office of any kind. And for those who say we'd lose all that experience, I would rejoin that losing the experience we have now is not a bad idea and, secondly, that in a country of 250 million people there are always going to be plenty of qualified newcomers to elect to office. Well, let’s be fair. The Republicans aren’t the only ones who’ve had tawdry illicit affairs. It just rankles more with them because they loudly preach (and that is the word, isn’t it?) “family values” while acting like teenagers on spring break in Panama City.

Our society is whacky on this issue right now. The Republicans have set themselves up for this through their social agenda politics.

The general notion prevalent now — the “meme” as Eric Drexler would call it — is that politicians should be living squeaky clean, almost saintly lives. That of course is nonsense, but the GOP has made personal morals a political issue, and they are now hoisted high on their own petards.

Sanford, Ensign et al offer still more reinforcement for the notion that having professional politicians is a bad idea. We ought to limit everyone to one four year term in whatever office you can get yourself elected to and then out you go, disqualified from further elected or appointed political office of any kind.

And for those who say we’d lose all that experience, I would rejoin that losing the experience we have now is not a bad idea and, secondly, that in a country of 250 million people there are always going to be plenty of qualified newcomers to elect to office.

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