Forwarded email propaganda.

Here is a forwarded email I received this morning. Following that is my reaction, that I just could not help but provide.

Father/Daughter Talk
A young woman was about to finish first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and among other liberal ideals, was very much in favor of higher taxes to support more government programs, in other words redistribution of wealth.
She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.
One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the need for more government programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school.
Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that he had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying.
Her father listened and then asked, 'How is your friend Audrey doing?' She replied, 'Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes,she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over.'
Her wise father asked his daughter,
'Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.'
The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, 'That's a crazy idea, how would that be fair! I've worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!'
The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, 'Welcome to the Republican party.'
If anyone has a better explanation of the difference between Republican and Democrat I'm all ears.
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This is stupid. To imply that all college professors are turning students into liberal tax-happy democrats is naive and narrow-minded. On top of that, to simplify democratic thinking to only the matter of welfare is insulting. I graduated from college a few years ago and I would consider myself a fiscal conservative, but how can I dare side with republicans when the federal debt has TRIPLED in the last 8 years under their leadership? Times have changed and the republicans are no longer a fiscally responsible party. This story should end with the dad saying, "Why doesn't Audrey go to the local recruiter and join the military so she no longer has to worry about bad grades in school? That way she can help our overstretched military and she can die for the noble country of Iraq, like every good young person should!"

The truth is that yes, welfare is poorly mismanaged and abused, and needs to be fixed. But the idea is a good one. People need help from time to time, especially when corporations are allowed to outsource all but minimum wage jobs to other countries. To affirm that anyone down and out should go without help and just die in a gutter is sickening and I really hate to hear anyone dip to that level just because they are disappointed at the incompetence of our government. There is no excuse for losing your compassion for your neighbor.

Anyway, the point is that even in its poor state, welfare is such a miniscule cost to our country compared to the 75% of our national budget we spend on WAR, and we could do incredible things within our own country, while lowering taxes, if not for our desire to rule the world and take over countries and, oh yeah, 'kill the terrrrrists'.

This kind of rhetoric in the email is spewed by someone who argues against spending money on civil programs like education, vilifies college education and professors, and then makes numerous spelling, capitalization, and punctuation errors in the email and doesn't even know to use double quotes around quotations.
This kind of rhetoric makes people vote George W. into 4 more years, because they're scared of a stupid little program like welfare. (Of which the republicans are in no way making an effort to reform or stop).
This kind of rhetoric will make people vote for McCain, because they're too scared at being seen as supporting welfare to bother stopping a war that has needlessly killed 4,000 soldiers and 500,000 Iraqis.

Please, consider all the issues and don't simplify party affiliations or presidential elections down to stupid shit like this. This is why we're in this mess now.

Some reasons to vote Obama.

Obama is the only candidate to have released his tax forms. (neither McCain or Clinton have)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/opinion/15fri1.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin


Obama has released his earmarks. (Clinton has not)
http://obama.senate.gov/press/070621-obama_announces_3/

Hillary Clinton reigns as the Queen of Federal Pork
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aXWIZU3DOyr4&refer=home

Obama was rated #1 in environmental policy by the League of Conservation Voters
http://presidentialprofiles2008.org/

Obama was right about Pakistan, back when Hillary was calling him "naive"
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/06/navarrette/?iref=mpstoryview

Washington Post gave Obama's economic plan an A- and gave Hillary's a C.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/22/AR2008012202614.html?hpid=opinionsbox1


Wall Street Journal preferred Obama's healthcare plan over Hillary Clinton's
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120234937353949449.html

Judge Obama by his legislative achievments, which are quite impressive, according to the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010303303.html

And don't even get me started on hemp.

The War on Pot: America's $42 Billion Annual Boondoggle

By Rob Kampia, AlterNet. Posted October 9, 2007.

What would you buy if you had an extra $42 billion to spend every year? What might our government buy if it suddenly had that much money dropped onto its lap every year?

For one thing, it might pay for the entire $7 billion annual increase in the State Children's Health Insurance Program that President Bush is threatening to veto because of its cost -- and there'd still be $35 billion left over.

Or perhaps you'd hire 880,000 schoolteachers at the average U.S. teacher salary of $47,602 per year.

Or give every one of our current teachers a 30 percent raise (at a cost of $15 billion, according to the American Federation of Teachers) and use what's left to take a $27 billion whack out of the federal deficit.

Or use all $42 billion for a massive tax cut that would put an extra $140 in the pockets of every person in the country -- $560 for a family of four.

The mind reels at the ways such a massive sum of money could be put to use.

Why $42 billion? Because that's what our current marijuana laws cost American taxpayers each year, according to a new study by researcher Jon Gettman, Ph.D. -- $10.7 billion in direct law enforcement costs, and $31.1 billion in lost tax revenues. And that may be an underestimate, at least on the law enforcement side, since Gettman made his calculations before the FBI released its latest arrest statistics in late September. The new FBI stats show an all-time record 829,627 marijuana arrests in 2006, 43,000 more than in 2005.

That's like arresting every man, woman and child in the state of North Dakota plus every man, woman, and child in Des Moines, Iowa on marijuana charges ... every year. Arrests for marijuana possession -- not sales or trafficking, just possession -- totaled 738,916. By comparison, there were 611,523 arrests last year for all violent crimes combined.

Basing his calculations mainly on U.S. government statistics, Gettman concludes that marijuana in the U.S. is a $113 billion dollar business. That's a huge chunk of economic activity that is unregulated and untaxed because it's almost entirely off the books.

Of course, the cost of our marijuana laws goes far beyond lost tax revenues and money spent on law enforcement. By consigning a very popular product -- one that's been used by about 100 million Americans, according to government surveys -- to the criminal underground, we've effectively cut legitimate businesspeople out of the market and handed a monopoly to criminals and gangs.

Strangely, government officials love to warn us that some unsavory characters profit off of marijuana sales, while ignoring the obvious: Our prohibitionist laws handed them the marijuana business in the first place, effectively giving marijuana dealers a $113 billion free ride.

All this might make some sense if marijuana were so terribly dangerous that it needed to be banned at all costs, but science long ago came to precisely the opposite conclusion. Compared to alcohol, for example, marijuana is astonishingly safe. For one thing, marijuana is much less addictive than alcohol, with just nine percent of users becoming dependent, as opposed to 15 percent for booze. And marijuana is much less toxic. Heavy drinking is well-documented to damage the brain and liver, and to increase the risk of many types of cancer. Marijuana, on the other hand, has never caused a medically documented overdose death, and scientists are still debating whether even heavy marijuana use causes any permanent harm at all. And then there's violence. Again, the scientific findings are overwhelming: Booze incites violence and aggression; marijuana doesn't.

Despite all that, we now arrest one American every 38 seconds on marijuana charges. And we do so at a staggering cost in law enforcement expenses, lost tax revenues, and staggering profits for criminal gangs.

The alternative is clear: Regulate marijuana just as we do beer, wine, and liquor. The only thing lacking is the political will.
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Original story from here.

If you're interested in Obama's views on religion.

Now, normally I would be the first to get sick at any presidential candidate's speech on religious views, but I have to admit that this was a very well crafted and well delivered speech. I expected religious pandering and the view that you need religion to define morality. What was said was much more inclusive and reasonable a speech than I may have ever heard from a political candidate before. So, if you have the time, please watch.