An outdated Government

Our national government was founded from our constitution; the constitution was adopted in 1787. 1787 people! And after 27 amendments we still are relying on the Electoral College to elect our nation’s president. And that’s not the only institution created by the constitution that I believe needs a modern update, but I’ll get back to that in a moment. I understand why the Electoral College was created in the first place, because back in the day (pre 1800’s) the common folk were not privy to or educated on political processes or inclined to take interest because the hustle and bustle of everyday living back then was all consuming that’s all they had time to think or worry about. Yet now-a-days we have all these excellent inventions to spread the knowledge about. With the radio, television, and the internet available to the masses as well as more and more college graduates then before I believe we could now rely on our own public mass to make an informed/educated on who should run our country. In this day and age I do not believe the Electoral College is necessary for “informed” votes to be accumulated to elect the president. The constitution should be updated to reflect the nation’s current social and economic status.
Also what is up with the Congress being able the pass and create laws that are unconstitutional and then later sometimes years or even decades later they are overturned in the Supreme Court. The congress can do that because they can get away with making a law that is contrary because of the fact that the constitution can be so loosely interpreted. If the constitution was more straightforward I think that Congress wouldn’t be able to get away with creating unjust laws in the first place. Therefore I believe in the projects that professors and undergrads are undertaking in splitting up the constitution amongst separate groups of themselves and editing their particular portion to be more comprehensible and reflect modern times, and then compiling them together into one whole revised and modern const. I do believe the restrictions and freedoms of the national government should be “updated”.

Can McCain handle his/our buisness?

Bill Hare’s blog “McCain Implodes; Women Will Not Forget”, is right on in calling out McCain’s interviewee shortcomings. However I really didn’t catch the connection with women not forgetting, yet he did mention briefly the awkward exchange between the two presidential nominees about the abortion issue. I mean it was definitely referenced, but the blog seemed to be more focused on McCain being offensive in his mannerisms, and not being that well of a public speaker. If a potential president can’t handle himself in stressful public situations do we really want him handling the nation’s affairs or dealing with foreign leaders? “In the third debate McCain made his first two appearances look like controlled perfection as, in an effort to be aggressive and cut into a strong lead that Obama holds in national polls, sputtered, sighed, mumbled and grimaced.” He is intimidated; he couldn’t even hold ground during the second debate. He kept pacing back in forth as if a little kid holding it who needed to badly visit the restroom.
Yet McCain is trying to convince the public that he is ready to be a president in a way that his rival is not, he went on to say that he would “look Vladimir Putin” in the eye upon meeting the Russian president. Uh yeah ok, “Oddly enough, as noted by numerous viewers, McCain looked edgy and appeared unwilling to look Obama in the eye.” It seems as if McCain isn’t ready to handle such a position of importance, he can’t even control his facial expressions, which as a public speaker he should have a handle on. He’s totally giving himself away, when the important and delicate issue of abortion was brought up the Arizonan Governor “responded in a manner that might well have reduced him to instant political tumbleweed.” McCain does not seem to understand the importance of understanding itself. “Instead McCain in a few seconds that will haunt him for the rest of the campaign, he grimaced, made hand gestures resembling an over the hill baseball umpire trying to decide whether to call a base runner out or safe, then launched into a response that was not only bad politics, but belittling and discomfiting such a serious topic, not to mention mean-spirited.” In conclusion, I agree with Bill Hare, do we as a nation want this man to have access to the nuclear trigger?

What's One More War?

Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations. His column first ran in the Los Angeles Times. My critique is over the edition in the Austin American Statesman. Bacevich seems to be commenting on the war in a liberal fashion. Directing his attention toward the fact that nothing has been resolved by way of the Bush Administration applying armed force.
What’s one more war? We’re already throwing tons of billions of dollars into the “War on Terror”, it’s just a deficit, we can start another war even in a financial crisis. Bush is getting America into it’s third war right before the end of his term. Proclaiming that Pakistan is the key to gaining the upper hand and possibly terminating Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorism. Bush has already thrown 13 billion dollars at the Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf in a policy that was aimed at aiding the “elimination” of terrorism by the Taliban and al Qaeda. According to Bacevich Musharraf is a incompetent dictator who did little action on his end of the deal and no progress was made toward defeating terror by befriending the Pakistani president. I agree that Bush should not lead us into another war, Afghanistan and Iraq have finically drained us enough we should not prod Pakistan.