Iowa Caucases

Thank the powers that be that the Iowa caucuses are over!!  It had gotten to the point with the media TV coverage of rampant speculation about which candidate was going to do what that it was sort of painful to turn on the TV.  So we didn’t!

It is true that Michelle Bachmann has dropped out of the race, but then in a sense that is sort of sad.  Her thought processes are so amazingly convoluted they are, or as a candidate were, hilarious.  Almost as hilarious as Rick Perry’s gaffes during the all too numerous Republican debates.  Really!  If one wants to reorganize the federal government by eliminating certain departments, for heaven’s sake, remember which ones you want to get rid of.  My speculation is that it won’t be long before Rick Perry is history. 

And that leaves us with five candidates: Buddy Roemer, who never makes it to the debate stage because he gets less than the 4-5% required by someone; Jon Huntsman, who is arguably the only adult in the room; Ron Paul, who is neither a righty or a lefty, which confuses some people into thinking he is sane; Mitt Romney, who strapped his Irish Wolfhound, Seamus, to the roof of the car when the family went on vacation; and Rick Santorum, who has a real problem with sex, which is easy to determine because he never shuts up about it.  Of these five, only the last three have any hope, at this point in time, of ever being the candidate.  That could change.

The underlying problem with these three is that they not only lack an ability to carry a thought to its logical extreme, which then makes it untenable, but they lack a certain sense of compassion.  Ron Paul’s statement during one of the Republican debates that if a person didn’t have health insurance, then went into a coma, he should just die.  If the individual didn’t have enough of a sense of personal responsibility to buy the insurance, then why should society have to shoulder the burden of his care.  There was no discussion as to why the individual didn’t have insurance.  Did the individual have a pre-existing condition that prevented his acquiring insurance?  Too poor to buy insurance?  Doesn’t matter.  He should just die.  Congressman Alan Grayson brought up the notion that the Republican solution to health care was that the person should just die quickly. Ron Paul has proven him right.

Then we have Mitt Romney.  His strapping the kennel, with dog, to the roof of his car, has a sort of sick humor to it, but it is also indicative of his underlying philosophy of business.  The business practices of the company he not only ran, but owned, Bain Capital, of buying up businesses, “making them more efficient” by firing employees, cutting salaries and benefits, cutting R & D, putting them into bankruptcy, then selling the assets, and other “efficiencies” made Bain Capital a lot of money, like millions, but it left thousands of workers and their communities in dire straits.  His objective was to make a massive profit, and he succeeded.  Sort of like strapping the dog to the roof.  His objective was to take the dog on vacation, and he succeeded.  Never mind whether the means he used to accomplish that was in the best interest of the dog! 

Rick Santorum is the ultimate in hypocrisy, however.  He talks a lot about his Catholicism, but it bears virtually no relationship to what the Church has taught over the last 100+ years relative to social justice.  He has latched onto anti-abortion and anti-homosexuality apparently as the only “Christian” values, but ignores the fact that Jesus apparently never mentioned them at all.  In all of my years I have never met anyone who was pro-abortion.  Some people simply want women who feel they must have an abortion to have a safe, legal one.  Many who are anti-abortion want to make sure that services are available to these women so that they can see a way out of not having an abortion.  But that thought apparently has never occurred to Santorum.  But it is also his constant ranting about gays in the military and his opposition to gay marriage, his opposition to birth control, and his really creepy descriptions as to why he is opposed to these makes me sure that he has a problem with sex.  He may have seven children, or however many it is, but all that indicates to me is that he has had sex 7 times.  Not necessarily an indication of not having a problem.  There used to be an old cliché, “Them what can, do.  Them what can’t, talk about it.” 

My own political philosophy, both in and out of office, was one of fiscal responsibility and social justice.  It was my contention that government should run as economically and as efficiently as possible.  Tax dollars should not be spent without great scrutiny.  We needed to be frugal because we needed those dollars for the services that people need to survive, and to be safe.  Like law enforcement, emergency services, schools, libraries, good roads and bridges, medical care, adequate pensions or Social Security, to name but a few.  We live in a complex society.  We need complex solutions. 

I sometimes feel like I have fallen down a rabbit hole.