Ideology trumps critical thinking

Our Arizona legislature substitutes ideology for critical thinking.   Now that they have a veto-proof majority and the leadership of both houses, the GOP  used this opportunity to get out their wish list.  This is the list of previously rejected bad legislation about immigration, education, guns and power grabs.  And they have already accomplished a lot of it.  They want to require hospitals, teachers and other public workers to check on citizenship and report illegals.  They have cut hundreds of millions from K-12 and university budgets to further degrade pubic education.  Concealed weapons are legal for most people 21 or older, with no permits or training required and legislation is pending to allows guns in college classrooms and campuses, despite pleas from all state university presidents and police groups.  Also in the works are bills to dictate budget management to counties and cities.  And in a triumph of hypocrisy, they claim this budget is balanced, with no gimmicks. Unless of course you don't notice that they have passed on expenses to counties and cities that will be passed on to us.  But the biggest lie is that the state can't afford programs for the poor, for critical medical transplants and for children.  The truth is we don't have enough money because the GOP refuses to look at the revenue side of the ledger.  We can't cut our way out of this, so the legislature passes down  costs to us and tells us "see, no new taxes" with a straight face.  They seem willing to sacrifice Arizona's future to remain true to their ideologies rather than think to solve problems or even to listen to those who do.

Pick and choose ammendments to the U.S.Constitution?

It’s interesting that those wanting to change the 14^th amendment to the U.S. Constitution about citizenship of children born in the U.S . use the argument that times are much different now than when the amendment was enacted.   They say the Supreme Court should review it in the context of today’s world and change the interpretation to reflect those changes.

Odd that the same argument seems not to occur to them regarding the 2^nd amendment as well.   Certainly things were much different in 1791 when it was ratified.  There was little or no standing army or police forces.   Most states had a militia, made up mostly volunteers.  And the weapons of the time are a far cry from today’s.  Is it time to review the 2^nd as well as the 14^th?

Why I don't trust conservative politicians

Why I don’t trust conservative politicians.

(and the more conservative they are the less I believe them)

They are self-centered.  They think everybody should share their views and will use their positions to impose them on the rest of us.  For example, the mayor of Gilbert (and three council members) railed against allowing retailers to conduct liquor sampling.  He said “his family frequently shopped at Sam’s Club, for example, and he would not want his children to be in an atmosphere where alcohol could be sipped.”  So because he doesn’t want his children to see adults sipping alcohol then no one else should be able to.  I guess he never takes his children to see a professional sporting event where beer is served or eat in a restaurant where there is alcohol being sipped with a meal. 

They are controlling.  It’s my-way-or-the-highway”.  They are never wrong (or will   admit it if they are) and they will use any tactic or scheme to get their way. 

They are hypocrites.  They profess one view but then get caught doing the opposite.

 For example the “family values” types who have affairs or visit prostitutes.  Or the

Anti-gay champions who get caught themselves making gay love.  Or take the debate

over extending tax cuts to the rich and for funding additional unemployment benefits.  On the one hand, conservatives demand tax cuts for the rich, but extending those breaks will expand the budget deficit by many billions.  And then the conservatives (of both parties) argue that we can’t extend unemployment benefits because that will increase the budget deficit.  They want it both ways.

They only see things in black and white.  The world is either right or wrong, yes or

 no, good or evil with no middle ground or gray areas.  No exceptions, please; it’s

 easier that way and little thinking is required. 

Excepional Nation

Exceptional Nation?

We’re not exceptional in a lot of ways:

trail in infant mortality rankings

lag  behind in K-12 education quality compared to most of Europe and Asia

don’t have the best health care of the largest democracies

don’t have the most and best manufacturing jobs anymore

trail in public transportation nationwide

But we are exceptional in other ways:

largest prison population per capita

largest military budget in the world

largest equity gap in wealth in the free world

most number of bankruptcies due to medical expenses

largest bonuses and bailouts to CEOs and corporations

Largest corporate donations given to political advertising

Time for politicians to stop bragging and get busy.

What were we thinking?

Our governor and DPS chief ditched freeway cameras and $39M in revenue but can’t find $1.36M for lifesaving Medicaid transplants?  We have no problem accepting gambling money (lotteries and casinos) but not from traffic violators.  Those “darn cameras” also catch criminals: two murderers lately and an unknown number of lesser crooks (car thieves, smugglers and kidnappers for starters).

Thirty-nine million reasons for safer highways and catching crooks. And those transplant patients?  Too bad for them it happened to be an election year.