Presidential Debate

I haven't watched the previous ones. They raise my blood pressure too high to be safe. But I watched this one. First, an observation from a history teacher nerd: McCain described himself as a federalist. He's not a federalist. The original Federalists were the ones who supported the strong central government of the Constitution and when they later became a political party, continued to support a loose interpretation of the document. They believed that the power of the central government came directly from the people, not from the states.

Anyway, here's the other thing, what I wish I had heard from someone in the debate(s): America is a place of freedom. You get the freedom and the privacy to make the decisions that are best for you. I may not always agree with the decisions you make, but hey, they're yours and as long as you are living without hurting others then those are still your private decisions to make. We'll try to help you out so that you don't have to "choose" between two bad options, like eating or taking one of your kids to the doctor. It's disgraceful that we live in one of the richest countries on earth, even after our recent financial troubles, and we have kids and adults who go to bed hungry every day. That we have people who live in our country who are afraid of their neighborhoods or their local law enforcement, people who feel they have no other option than to sell drugs or resort to violence to make a living, to put a roof over their heads or feed their children. It's disgraceful and disgusting that we're seriously arguing about taxes on people who make more than a quarter million dollars per year when there are people who can't afford to eat, who send their kids to the shittiest schools imaginable. No one likes taxes, but they're the price we pay to live in a society. No one likes taxes, but I'd gladly pay more if it meant that all of our kids, regardless of parental involvement or location or color or class could go to good, safe schools, if all people could have a roof over their heads and enough to eat every single day and access to good medical care. The rest of it is all really bullshit.

Economic justice now. Bring it on.