Guest Commentary – Fantasy Candidate Part 4

Tonight we delve back into the fantasy candidate series from Jon Smith. For those who read Jon’s site as well as this one, he has already posted this article there. However, there are quite a few of you here that do not regularly frequent Jon’s site, so I wanted to make sure that this gets seen by all of you as well. Tonight we delve into the positions that Jon’s fantasy candidate would take on existing legislation that we should be working to repeal. I have tried to think about everything on the list and I don’t see any of these that would be bad to repeal. But I do absolutely agree with Jon that on many of them we would have to take a slow approach that allows the pain from elimination to be minimal. I think that this part of the series will perhaps be the one that has the most constructive discussion around it. I will be interested in seeing what areas you think he missed, or what areas that he hit that you disagree with. I know that some of them seem to be simply “anti-Democrat” positions, such as health care, but if you are against repealing it, please explain why. I will do my best to be involved in the discussion on this article over the next few days as well.

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Tuesday Night Open Mic for July 27, 2010

We come to open mic off of some solid conversations around government’s fiscal responsibility and the impact and effectiveness of the massive regulations that are imposed on private business in America. I appreciate all the comments from folks around the topic, as it is one that I think is the most formidable problem for the country today. If we don’t stop ruining the economy of the United States, it is that which will eventually cause everything to crumble and put us into chaos and rebellion. For the open mic topics we have a college dictating what students must believe religiously, a Senator trying to fool us into believing that regulation would work if it weren’t for Republicans, a move to ban Fruit Loops from being advertised during cartoons because it is unhealthy for children, and the Governor of Pennsylvania advising the President to not appear on the View because it is not a serious program. As always, I encourage all of the readers here to post their own topics as well for discussion.

How Many REALLY Want Freedom?

I have been thinking a lot lately about the concept of freedom and liberty as it pertains to the discussions that we have here at Stand Up For America. I read the responses that come in to the things that I write. Often I can find plenty of people who are more than willing to agree with me or tell me how wrong I am. But what I have have been attempting to ascertain is the level of commitment that people have to the principles that they espouse on this site. Remember, quite a while ago, I spoke to the idea that some things I would write would be discussions about how things should be while others would be more concerned with dealing with where we really are. Well, what I offer tonight is a bit of a combination of the two. Because in the discussions that we have been having around the way things are, I have begun to feel like the way things should be is not something most are comfortable with.

Tuesday Night Open Mic for February 23, 2010

We come to open mic not a moment too soon! It seems the topics the last few days have lit a fire behind some people and the discussions have been great. There are obviously some fundamental differences in the starting points for different folks in the conversations. I hope that in the future we have the opportunity to discuss those starting points specifically, rather than lightly flushing them out in order to make a point on something else. For example, the taxes are or aren’t theft discussion is one that I will write about soon and we can have a whole day dedicated to that debate. Should be interesting. For the upcoming few articles I have some plans. Now that I can see Mathius is back among us, I will finish the answer to his post as promised. I will also be starting the series I have been promising. My thought is Thursday night for the Mathius article, unless a guest commentary article shows up in my inbox. And then Sunday night for the beginning of the series. For open mic tonight, I am posting fewer topics initially, simply due to time constraints. So there will only be two to start. But I will add others as time permits. Perhaps not until Wednesday afternoon.

Health Care Part 1: Making The Case for Reform

So I am finally ready to begin the health care series that I have been working on. I will say up front as I begin this series of articles that I am NOT the expert in this arena. I wish that I could say that I am. But there is so much information out there, and even more misinformation out there, that it might take a lifetime to read it (and the first lifetime of reading may only get you through the bill itself once they are done writing the massive thing). I wanted to take a moment here in the first part to this series to discuss the “need” for health care reform. Health care is such a gigantic subject, and there are so many parts to it. So the term “health care reform” in and of itself does nothing to tell us what part of the system they intend to “reform” (since government is doing it you can read “reform” as RUIN). We will get into the actual proposals and bills being offered in later parts. For now, let’s understand what is in play and whether the claims being made about the need for health care reform are accurate.