Category Archives: Corporations

How Small Of A Government Is Small Enough?

Posted on by

For years, Republicans have demanded a smaller government with limited powers. Indeed, Grover Norquist has said, “I want to shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.’

Okay, I get it. Republicans really hate government. But given the fact that our federal government is already the smallest in 47 years, and given that the size of our federal government ranks just 120th in the world as a percentage of GDP, when will Republicans consider it small enough to drown in the proverbial bathtub?

Exactly how small is small enough?

Roughly a third of all US federal employees are dedicated to national defense. Another 10 percent are in the Department of Homeland Security created by the Bush administration following 9/11. Yet another 10 percent are in law enforcement and prisons. According to Republicans, all of these people are necessary. In fact, Republicans constantly call for increasing the size of our military and border security!

That leaves roughly half of all federal employees to manage all of the remaining functions of government. Of those, nearly half work for the quasi-governmental US Postal Service. Do we no longer need mail service? If not, who is going to deliver your bills, your payments, your magazines, your checks? (Not everyone has access to the Internet, and it has not yet proven to be secure.)

The remaining 600,000-plus federal employees manage all other aspects of government. So what goes? Do we get rid of the IRS which collects the revenue to run our government? If so, how does the government get the money it needs to operate? Do we actually expect it to run on private donations?

Do we eliminate Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps? Then what happens to the elderly and the poor? Do we eliminate unemployment insurance? Then what happens to those who can’t find work?

Do we eliminate our federal court system? Do we eliminate our foreign embassies?

Do we eliminate government regulators? Then who becomes responsible for food safety, drug safety and transportation safety? Who keeps banks from taking all of our money and causing a complete collapse of our economy? Who keeps corporations from defrauding our citizens, pillaging our land, dumping industrial waste into our waters and poisoning our air? Who builds our highways? Who keeps hunters, fishermen and commercial interests from “harvesting” species into extinction? Who keeps corporations from clear-cutting our forests? Who subsidizes research and our universities?

It’s one thing to say that government is too big and out of control. It’s quite another to face the reality of living in a plutocracy with corporations and the greedy allowed to completely run amok.

If Corporations Are People…

Posted on by

In its Citizens United decision, the US Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people – with all of the rights of individuals. The “justices” didn’t mention the responsibilities that go along with those rights. Like the responsibility to care for your neighbors.

But, just for a moment, let’s assume that those five old men in black robes who voted in the majority were right. If corporations really were like people, one-sixth, including their CEOs, would be unable to afford health insurance. One-sixth would not have enough food to eat. They would not be able to afford lobbyists. Few would have pension plans and large investment accounts. Most would not be able to retire when they became elderly. And most would not have enough money to contribute to political candidates.

If corporations were like people, they would not be able to negotiate a plea after committing illegal acts, then pay a small fine and deny any admission of guilt. They would go to prison.

If corporations were like people, they would receive no tax-free subsidies to acquire space and land. They would have to pay property taxes on their buildings. Other states and cities would not offer them millions in incentives to relocate. All but a tiny percent would have to pay their fair share of sales taxes and income taxes.

And what if the members of Congress were like the people they’re supposed to represent?

Instead of being paid $174,000 per year, representatives would be paid an average salary of $50,502. Half would make less than $27,000 and 16 percent would live in poverty. Some would be hungry and homeless. They would have no staff to do their work for them. They would actually have to read the bills before they vote.  And they wouldn’t begin fundraising and campaigning for the next election the day after they’re elected.

We’ve come a long way from the representative government our Founders envisioned. A lo-o-o-o-o-ng way!

Let’s Try To Become The Nation Our Founders Imagined.

Posted on by

In reading The Untold History Of The United States by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick (a gut-wrenching, powerful and well-documented book), it’s clear that, contrary to what we were taught in history classes, the US has long been a cruel and greedy empire.

For more than 200 years, we have engaged in wars of choice with no other purpose than to capture territory and extract resources. We have brutally murdered, tortured and subjugated indigenous peoples, all the while patting ourselves on the back for bringing them “Christianity” and “civilization.” We perfected mass murder and water boarding in the Philippines. We forced China, Japan and Korea to bow to our wishes for trade. We exerted our will in the Caribbean and South America in order to claim their resources and protect the interests of our corporations.

We occupied Cuba, Dominica, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama and the Philippines. After World War II, we occupied Germany, Italy and Japan. We have sent our troops to every corner of the Earth and have long ruled the air and the seas. According to Stone and Kuznick, “by 2002, we had some form of military presence in 132 of the UN’s then 190 member nations.” And, by my best estimates, we have been at war for all but 33 years of our history.

Why? It mostly has to do with business.

We forced our will upon nations in order to control their gold, silver, copper, aluminum, rubber, sugar, fruit, land, even drugs. More recently, on behalf of our industries, we have pursued oil in the Middle East. We helped to overthrow democratically-elected governments in Chile, Iran, Iraq and elsewhere. We supported and trained death squads in El Salvador and Nicaragua. And we have bullied almost everyone else.

All the while, we celebrated our victories along with our good intentions.

Is it any wonder, then, that our people have long admired the Romans? In reality, we are them; a power-hungry nation of avarice and cruelty. Like the Romans, we believed that the gods or, in our case, God was on our side. We called it Manifest Destiny; the God-given right and responsibility to govern all those people we considered incapable of governing themselves. Of course, “those people” just happened to be people of color.

We have become the kind of empire our forefathers fought to escape. The Founding Fathers had high ideals; that all people are equal and have a right to life, liberty and happiness. Yes, many held slaves, but many wrestled with that fact and sought a way to end slavery while holding the states together. For example, although he was a slave holder, Thomas Jefferson wanted to bring slavery to an end. In recognition of the complex politics of the issue, he likened slavery “to having a wolf by the ears. You can neither hang on nor let go.”

We can’t change the past, but we can change the future. We must strive to be better; to lift people the world over out of poverty; to support and restore freedom; to end hunger; to rein in greed; to help educate children; to create jobs; to increase the sustainability of our all-too-fragile planet.

We may never be able to end wars, but we should make them increasingly rare. We should have a strong defense, but we cannot and should not be the self-appointed police of the planet. That was never the intention of the Framers. Rather, they believed that we should be an example to others; a model of liberty and justice for all.

We haven’t been, but we still can be.

“A Holocaust In Slow Motion.”

Posted on by

That’s how one interview subject described our War on Drugs and mandatory sentencing in Eugene Jarecki ‘s film, The House I Live In. The film won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, but I only recently had the opportunity to see it, and I can tell you I left the screening feeling as though I had been eviscerated.

Seeing the reality of how our nation deals with issues such as poverty and race will not only shake your belief in our justice system. It will make you question the ideals of our nation.

As the film shows, our justice system has long been used to oppress certain groups by separating them, confiscating their property and concentrating (incarcerating) them. From our nation’s very beginnings, the group most notably affected by the system is African-Americans. But the system has been used against other groups, as well. For example, laws against opiates were created to punish Chinese laborers who began taking manual labor jobs away from whites in the 1800’s. Laws against cocaine were created to punish African-Americans who began taking jobs away from whites in the early 1900’s. Laws against marijuana were created to punish both African-Americans and Mexican-Americans who were taking jobs away from whites in the 1900’s.

Things actually got worse for these communities in the 1970’s.

That was when President Nixon announced the War on Drugs and directed all levels of law enforcement to attack drug use. Nixon’s war also included substantial resources for drug treatment. But that changed in the 1980’s under President Reagan. Reagan cut funding for treatment and pushed Congress to institute mandatory sentencing guidelines which forced judges to hand down draconian sentences for minor offenses. In other words, he took the ability to judge out of the hands of judges and allowed the system to more easily target African-Americans who were increasingly being displaced by layoffs in large manufacturing plants.

With the introduction of cheap crack cocaine, the laws were changed to include the so-called 100 to 1 rule – it took 100 times more powder cocaine to be charged with felony possession than crack cocaine. You see, since crack cocaine is cheaper, it tends to be used by poor African-Americans, while powder cocaine tends to be the drug of choice for upper middle-class white people. Of course, this rule led to our prisons being disproportionately filled with African-Americans. (The laws have recently been changed to a standard of 18 to 1 under the Obama administration.)

Law enforcement agencies were further encouraged to focus on drugs through laws that permitted them to confiscate property – cash, vehicles, even buildings – used in drug crimes. As a result, many police departments have begun to rely on this property in order to finance their operations. That, in turn, led to even more focus on drug crimes.

When President Clinton pushed for the “Three Strikes and You’re Out” law, judges were bound to level draconian sentences against people convicted of three offenses, no matter how minor the crimes. This led to so much prison overcrowding, it opened the opportunity for corporations to build and operate prison complexes at substantial profits.

Our white population was relatively unaffected by the War on Drugs, other than the occasional interruption of drug supplies and exposure to the scare tactics used by politicians to get elected. That changed with the introduction of methamphetamine. Suddenly, a large number of poor, unemployed white people became drug users and were eventually sent to prison. This created yet another source of revenue for the prison industry.

Most of the prisoners now languishing in prison on drug charges are non-violent drug users and small-time dealers. They are disproportionately minorities, even though drug use for minorities is about the same as that for white people. (According to Michelle Alexander who wrote The New Jim Crow, as many African-Americans are now in some stage of our “justice” system as there were slaves at the beginning of the Civil War!) Most prisoners come from poverty. Most grew up in deplorable circumstances. Many were unable to find jobs that would allow them to support their families. Most sought to escape their misery by resorting to the use and sale of drugs. Many have had their families torn apart, leaving children without mothers and fathers, and likely perpetuating the problem and creating future sources of income for the prison industry.

As one law enforcement officer said, “We may as well make it illegal to be poor.”

What are the consequences of our failed War on Drugs? Taxpayers are forced to pay enormous sums to house, feed and care for our prisoners. At the end of 2012, we had 1,571,013 prisoners in the US, more than any other country. We have 176 prisoners for every 100,000 of our population, surpassing every other nation on Earth, including China, Cuba and Russia.

And how much has the War on Drugs reduced drug use in the US? Zero, zip, zilch, naught, nada!

Meanwhile, we have painted ourselves into a corner. We have built entire industries upon the War on Drugs. We have police, judges, attorneys, prison guards, and corporations that rely on a steady stream of offenders to fill our courts and our prison beds. We have manufacturers dedicated to designing, developing and building weapons systems for the drug war. Even if we can elect politicians with the will to change the system, a large portion of our economy has become dependent on the system. It’s much the same as our war culture. If we ever decide to quit outspending other nations by a hundred, a thousand or a million to one to feed our bloated war machine, our economy could be devastated.

Give into our better nature and we will not only return thousands of people to their families. We will put thousands of people out of work. And what will become of those prisoners who are rightfully returned to society? Many of those who were non-violent when they entered prison have been forced to become violent in order to survive prison. How will they support themselves? Many have little education and few desirable skills. Many will be forced back into the same environment that led to their problems in the first place. Most will be unable to find a job, especially when unemployment is already high.

In order to fully address the problem, we will have to create jobs that pay a livable wage. We will have to fund treatment programs, along with education and training programs. We will have to reduce or eliminate poverty. We will have to rebuild entire communities. We will have to improve public transportation to expand the area in which these people can seek jobs. We will have to change the way we police those communities. And we will have to give judges the latitude to mete out justice…real justice.

America, land of the free? Not yet.

A Nation Of Crises.

Posted on by

Every day I receive dozens of emails and letters asking me to help save the oceans, save the environment, save children, save wildlife, save food stamps, increase the minimum wage, stop voter suppression, stop global warming, stop the pipeline, stop racism, stop the attacks on women’s rights, stop the attacks on education, stop the attacks on science, demand gun control, end hunger, end poverty, etc., etc., etc…

It’s all very depressing.

Of course, these are all very real and serious issues, and the organizations asking for help are well-run and well-intentioned. They deserve our support. But I finally realized that all of the issues are related. They are all the result of corporate greed and ideological candidates supported by billionaires and big business.

Our oceans are being destroyed by greedy oil companies and by large, commercial fishing operations. Our air and water are being polluted by corporations who would rather dump toxins into the environment than sacrifice a portion of their profits to clean up after themselves. Poverty and hunger are the result of corporations who are more intent on rewarding investors and executives with large bonuses than paying workers a livable wage. Global warming is the result of corporate-backed congressmen who prioritize subsidies for oil companies over subsidies for alternative energy sources.

Many chronic health issues and diseases are the result of corporate farming practices and food processing companies that intentionally poison our food in order to increase profits. The attacks on science, education and voter rights are designed and paid for by large corporations in order to maintain control of our government. The lack of funding for social safety nets such as food stamps, Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare are the result of corporate fraud and abuse, as well as tax loopholes that allow corporations and the wealthy to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

Almost every one of our problems is the result of large, multinational corporations and the billionaires who run them treating the Earth as a source of commercial resources and people as commodities.

Since I can’t afford to donate to every good cause, I’ve decided to donate to candidates who place people above corporations.

I will vote against candidates who support corporations that pay employees a minimum wage while paying CEOs millions; that damage our environment and our food supply. I will vote against those who accept large donations from such corporations regardless of which party they represent. I will not spend another dime to purchase products and services from corporations that harm our citizens, our nation and our environment.

If corporations only care about money, I will deny them the thing they want most. I hope you will consider doing the same.

Contrasting British Politics With Ours.

Posted on by

On a recent trip to Scotland, I participated in a rally for Scottish independence…a Scotland independent of the United Kingdom. Although I strongly believe that outsiders should not be involved in local politics, I joined the march in support of my friends.

What I experienced was extraordinary.

The leaders of the Scottish independence movement were positive, upbeat and forward-thinking. Despite the fact that the people of Scotland have been underrepresented since the formation of the UK, there was no anger; no frustration on display. On the “telly,” there were reasoned discussions and debates. One evening, representatives of both sides debated the issues with facts and little emotion. The moderator interrupted on numerous occasions to ask a follow-up question or to challenge a viewpoint. Over the course of the debate, the viewers, and probably the participants, had a genuine opportunity to learn.

Now imagine something similar transpiring in the US.

Imagine if the so-called “Independent Republic of Texas” followed through on years of threats to secede from the US. Imagine the vitriol and anger. Imagine the rancor and misinformation that would dominate our media. Imagine the long list of talking points that would be “reported” by Fox News Channel, MSNBC and the rest of our mass media.
By the time the process was over, most of the rest of us would be ready to secede from each other.

In fact, we’re now experiencing incredibly high levels of vitriol over a much lesser issue…simple budget negotiations.

Now ask yourself, why? Are the citizens of Scotland and the UK really so very different from us? Why are Britons able to remain civil while debating issues of political import? Why can British reporters hold politicians accountable when our reporters can’t? Why are British elections held over a matter of weeks, while US elections are now perpetual? Why are millionaires, billionaires and corporations unable to secretly buy votes for British candidates, while they are allowed to own most US candidates and offices?

I don’t have the answers. But if we want this “grand experiment in democracy” to last, we better find some fast!

Who’s Really Responsible For Our National Debt?

Posted on by

It’s popular for the Republican Party to blame our $16.7 trillion debt on President Obama. Certainly, like all presidents, he has some responsibility for it. But a much larger share of the responsibility goes to President Reagan, President George H.W. Bush and, most especially, President George W. Bush.

You see, the increase in spending in 2009 following the economic collapse of 2008 should rightfully be attributed to the Bush administration. That’s because the 2009 deficit was the result of a spending bill, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), authorized by Congress in October of 2008 and signed by President Bush months before Obama took office. In fact, spending in the first year of any administration is always the result of the previous administration. Properly credit 2009 spending to Republicans, and you’ll discover that President Obama has been responsible for the lowest spending increases since Eisenhower. Similarly, he is responsible for the most rapid cuts to our deficit in more than 50 years!

While it’s true that the debt has increased 18.5 percent since Obama became president, as discussed, he should not be held responsible for most of that increase. Even so, it’s still less than the 20.7 percent increase in national debt that accrued during George W. Bush’s second term. And it’s only marginally greater than the 13 percent increase during Bush Sr’s term, and the 11.3 percent increase during Reagan’s first term.

A better measure of Obama’s spending comes courtesy of Rick Ungar, a contributor to Forbes Magazine (hardly a bastion of liberalism). According to Ungar, in President Obama’s first term, overall government spending grew just 1.4 percent as compared to 7.3 percent in George W. Bush’s first term and 8.1 percent in Bush’s second term!

So why do Republicans continue to place the blame on Obama? First, it’s a matter of political convenience to portray Obama as a “tax and spend” liberal. Second, the narrative is relatively believable since government spending skyrocketed during the first year of the Obama administration. Third, the media has done a very poor job of countering Republican misinformation.

In order to truly understand the federal debt, you have to look at the history of US borrowing.

Following the Revolutionary War, the US debt stood at roughly 35 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It again reached that level following the Civil War. In both instances, the debt was brought down by a combination of increased revenues and spending restraint. During WW I, the US debt again rose to approximately 35 percent of GDP. Before it could be paid down, our economy collapsed leading to the Great Depression. That was quickly followed by WWII. The two events caused the debt to soar to more than 117 percent of GDP. But, through a combination of post-war prosperity and income tax rates of up to 91 percent during the Eisenhower administration, the debt was again brought under control.

By the end of the Carter administration, the national debt had been reduced to 32.5 percent of GDP.

President Reagan’s expansive military spending during the Cold War once again caused the debt to soar, reaching more than 66.1 percent GDP. Under Clinton, it was reduced to 56.4 percent of GDP. Then, under George W. Bush, two wars (one of which was a war of choice) and lax government oversight led to the Great Recession – the worst economic calamity in nearly 80 years. At the same time, a Republican-led Congress cut taxes (and, therefore, revenue), particularly for the wealthy.

President Obama inherited a debt of more than 84 percent of GDP, along with a worldwide economic collapse, double-digit unemployment, spiraling health care costs, two wars estimated to have cost more than $6 trillion, a Congress that refused to rescind the Bush tax cuts, and a uniquely obstructionist Republican Party.

All of this was roughly the equivalent of combining the costs of World War II and the Great Depression without the primary mechanism needed to reduce the debt – taxes!

President Obama was left with few choices. He had to stimulate the economy through loans and tax cuts in order to put people back to work. This led to reduced revenue. He had to wind down the war of choice in Iraq as quickly as possible. He needed to stabilize the war in Afghanistan that had been allowed to languish under Bush at a cost of $1 million per soldier per year. Moreover, since few Americans had been asked to sacrifice for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, unlike World War II, they felt no need to pay for the wars through increased taxes. Indeed, even though federal income taxes were at a 50-year low, extremists funded by billionaires created the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party.

All of this led to the growth of our debt, which now equals nearly 102 percent of GDP.

Certainly, this debt is of great concern. But it’s not the short-term crisis Teapublicans would have you believe. (It’s the equivalent of a family earning $100,000/year holding a $102,000 mortgage.) And, without modest tax increases, there are few ways to reduce the debt.

One is to grow the economy, and according to most economists, including Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, the economy is on the verge of significant, sustained growth if the nitwits in Congress would just get out of the way and stop dragging us from one self-inflicted crisis to another.

Two is to make cuts without adding to unemployment. (For example, we squander tens of billions each year on weapons systems that our military doesn’t even want, but Congress refuses to defund them because doing so would cost jobs.) And, once the economy shows sustained growth, programs such as food stamps can be cut – especially if we raise the minimum wage to reduce the large number of working poor who have little choice but to rely on government assistance.

In summary, contrary to what Teapublicans would have you believe, our national debt is not Obama’s debt. It’s the result of decades of wars, tax cuts, regulatory indifference, a struggling worldwide economy, out-of-control health care costs, greedy corporations that off-shore both jobs and profits, and a dysfunctional Congress that not only fails to help the economy. It makes decisions that are actually preventing economic recovery!

As a matter of fact, the Tea Party seems determined to force our nation into default. And, like the debt, they would have you believe that it’s all Obama’s fault.

How The People You Elect Are Turned Into Highly-Paid Puppets.

Posted on by

On Tuesday, Heritage Action, the even more political arm of the Heritage Foundation, sent a memo to Republican Congressmen telling them to vote against the bipartisan Senate bill that would re-open our government. As a none-too-subtle threat, the memo noted that the organization would be “scoring” Congressional votes.

In other words, do as we say or we will make sure you have a difficult, and expensive, primary fight!

This is really nothing new. Well-financed ideological groups have controlled our Congress for decades. The four-million-member NRA has long scored votes at the state and national level regarding gun safety and other issues of interest. The US Chamber of Commerce has spent billions to elect officials who are friendly to large corporations. The American Medical Association, Big Pharma and the Insurance Institute of America have spent billions to protect their out-of-control profits in health care. Large corporations peddle influence through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Even churches keep score, picking and choosing winners in elections.

What is new is the sheer amount of money and power now exerted by outside interests. Following the Supreme Court decision that equates money with free speech and the decision to equate corporations with people, the amount of money in politics has increased dramatically. In 1998, it’s estimated that $1.6 billion was spent on US elections. In 2012, that number exceeded $6.2 billion! And the Supreme Court is currently hearing a case that could further open the floodgates.

There are now dozens of highly-partisan “think tanks,” PACs, SuperPACs and lobbying groups that hold out the carrot of campaign financing and brandish a whip for any legislators who get out of line.

If an elected official wants to retain some semblance of independence from the big-money interests, he or she has to constantly beg constituents for money. Is it any wonder, then, that within a month of the 2012 election results, candidates were campaigning to raise funds for their re-election?

Most Americans can see the problem, but they continue to hold their noses and vote for candidates who are more interested in their re-election than the interests of our nation. There is only one way to stop it…stop it! Stop voting for candidates who put corporations ahead of people. Stop voting for candidates who put the interests of their party ahead of the interests of our nation.

Just stop it!

Falling Behind Russia.

Posted on by

For those Americans who still consider Russia a rival of the US, I have bad news. We have fallen behind the Great Russian Bear in one important economic category: Russia is one of the few nations on the planet with more economic disparity than ours.

In the US, the top one percent own 40 percent of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 80 percent own just 7 percent. But in Russia, just 110 people own 35 percent of the nation’s wealth! According to a report by Credit Suisse, “Russia has the highest level of wealth inequality in the world, apart from small Caribbean nations with resident billionaires.”

Damn those Russians! We used to be number one!

Of course, this means our greedy billionaires will need to step up their game. We know they’re trying. The Koch brothers funded the government shutdown over “Obamacare” in order to maintain the status quo. Wall Street, the health care industry, and defense contractors have increased their lobbying groups in Washington. And the US Supreme Court is currently hearing a court case that may allow the obscenely wealthy to better purchase politicians and political favors under the guise of free speech.

But even that may not be enough. So the bought-and-paid-for Teapublicans are working overtime to privatize Social Security, Medicare, our military, prisons, schools and every other institution in the US. The claim is that this will make the institutions run more efficiently and more cheaply. But, in reality, privatization merely makes these institutions less responsive while adding to their costs and the corporations’ bottom lines.

But who are the poor and the middle class to complain? This is about national pride. We’re exceptional!  We have to be number one. USA! USA! USA!

If Teapublicans Want To Be Taken Seriously, They Should Lose The Superiority Complex.

Posted on by

They need to stop claiming that they’re the only real patriots; stop pretending to be the only true protectors of liberty; stop wrapping themselves and their ideas in the US flag; stop quoting the Founding Fathers, at least until they read the Constitution – the whole Constitution – and stop believing that God has taken their side.

Most of all, they need to lose the anger and hate!

There are some important questions our nation needs to answer in our future. What should we expect of our government? What government programs are essential? Which ones can be cut? When does government become an intrusion into our lives? What should be the role of the US in the world? How much military spending is enough? How much is too much? What is the role of money in elections? How much influence should the wealthy and corporations be able to buy? What, if any, role should religion have in government? What can be done to keep ever more lethal weaponry out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill? What should be done with the millions of undocumented immigrants who are already in our country?

These are all legitimate questions that need to be answered. But we can’t have an honest debate as long as one side assumes that it has all the answers and, worse yet, that the other side has no place at the table.

Our government was founded to provide for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for our citizens. All of our citizens. Not those of one political party, ethnic group, race or religious belief.

The Founding Fathers argued intensely over the powers of our government. They debated their positions in the Federalist papers. Those on the side of a strong, central government won. As a result of the Framers’ decisions, our nation has had unparalleled success.

We should not hate our government or each other. We should debate loudly, but respectfully. The only ones who deserve our wrath are those who don’t vote and those who dismiss the views of others. That includes those who would hold our government hostage until they get their way!