I just registered: http://www.speaklikeaveep.com. Check back in a day or so when I get a blog up there.

When druggies are cutting back from $100 buys to nickel and dime bags, you know it must be tough.

I saw a preview of the New New RNC last night on Fox in a short interview with Congressman Ryan after they called it.

"We need to get back to our roots..." "Smaller government...", "We can't be afraid to stand up for our principles...", "Smaller government..."

When the Republicans are in power it's all you can eat pork, big government spending, and unlimited deficit spending.

But as soon as they get kicked out of power, suddenly they rediscover "fiscal conservatism". The new strategy of the Republican party is going to be about small government, reduced spending, and balancing the budget.

It's how Newt did it in the 80's and it's the only card they have left to play. For the past three decades, Democrats have been the real fiscal conservatives. We need to be sure that we don't let Republicans steal the mantle by fixing the country's problems and reducing the size of the government (as Clinton did) at the same time.

-Jason

It's time. Every thirty years or so, progressives take 3 steps forward, overreach, and then Republicans push us 2 steps back. That's still progress.

Since the end of the civil rights movement, Republicans just completed their cycle of pushing us two steps back. They did not unwind us back to the middle ages, but they certainly did erase many gains in tax structure, church-state, environment, regulation, etc.

We have about as strong a mandate and majority in popular vote, state, governor, and federal elected offices as we can reasonably hope for. So if not now, then when are we going to make the next push forward?

-Jason

Brightstar2, don't you know that shadow government has had OBL hypnotic disinfo implantation technology for years -- there's no need to even lie about their strategy anymore!

Rodriguez's premise that Churches want to exercise some kind of male authority over women is a weak explanation for why they would want to prevent gay marriage. If so, wouldn't they prefer for children to be raised by two fathers instead of none?

The obvious reason is that exploiting anti-gay sentiments (already woven into the fabric of many societies) and scapegoating a minority is a time-honored and proven technique for consolidating political power.

would be to build a strong carbon cap and trade regime that ties into foreign trade.

If polluters had to buy a license from the government to pollute the public commons, and that money was used partially for enforcement, but mostly to pay incentives to companies who generate clean power, the resulting carbon marketplace would quickly generate over a trillion dollars of _private_ investment into clean energy R&D.

If done correctly, cap and trade would use non-taxpayer money to address: job creation, the dominance of American industry and technology in the 21st century, the environment, global warming, peak oil, energy independence, and national security.

Read "Earth 2" for a great summary of how previous cap and trade markets have historically been used to create huge profit centers for companies and greatly exceed government cleanup mandates at the same time.

-Jason

How come we haven't heard discussion of the creation of a new anti-terrorism alliance? Not a regional alliance like Nato or a combined observational force like the UN, but something like a treaty of nations with a shared interest in stomping out terrorist camps and providing support to secular forces in countries such as Pakistan which have a good shot at becoming secular democracies if only they had the strength to survive the onslaught of terrorism that would result in moves to solidify their control over the government and military.

It's too costly for the US to play world police forever, alone. But with the proper mandates, a roving international force could tackle much larger problems at less cost.

Wow, looking at these letters, it seems like Salon readers are ready to abandon pragmatic politics and go back candidates who expresses idealist views that mirror their own beliefs. How quickly we forget the lessons of 2000.

The problem is not with Obama's ideology, it's with the American public. If you want Obama to solve the world's problems in one fell swoop, it's up to you to do the hard work of shifting public opinion to the degree where making the changes we all know are needed will not put another Bush or Palin in the White House.

star

When I started working and thinking about how to buy a house, save for retirement, and make investments, etc, I got some good advice about how to structure your portfolio: keep 6 months of life support in a liquid account for just such an emergency. Getting laid off needs to be part of your plan before when figure out how much house you can buy.

Hiding religion under yet another layer of abstract language does not make it more believable.

There's no need for this article to compare how America or other societies measure up; this pieces stands on it's own as a great manifesto on "the fundamentals of liberal society" (as LR, Amity put it).

Lind's truths are self-evident, and they outline the true goals of an idealized American society. America is still on the leading edge of liberal societies, and after a recent course correction, I think we have at least pointed the boat back in the right direction.

I'm looking forward to reading more from Lind.