Election Issues Today

Former President Jimmy Carter has gone on record asserting that racism and fear are driving the anti-Obama anger, protests, and “heckling” even within the U.S. Congress.

I don’t doubt for a minute that, had Hilary Clinton won the U.S. Presidency, she would be subjected to the same anger and heckling that Obama is experiencing. That is a common acknowledgment: in surveys, white men, having to choose between a Black man in the Presidency or a White women….would prefer a Black man.

Note: The “Possibly-related Articles” below are links to other Today.com blogs which may or may not include other posts here on Grugger’s Way.

I must express my disgust at how the entire World’s economy seems to have gone down the toilet due to the cost of WARS around the globe!

We note that Bill Clinton left office with over $120 Billion surplus, and today the USA faces a $1 Trillion deficit–this year!   President-elect Obama stated yesterday that he thinks the USA must endure several years of $Trillion dollar deficits–due to federal bailouts, economic stimulus packages, tax cuts, and shrinking revenues.   But what has really destroyed the U.S. economy–and that of the rest of the World–are the costs of WAR.  

Wars in the former USSR states, the horn of Africa, and the Gaza strip affect ALL NATIONS!  The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are draining the United States treasury at such a rate that ordinary middle class taxpayers can not even comprehend the amount of money involved.  Staggering.  We can’t continue this.  It reads like a plot in a spy novel: Third world dictators and terrorist organizations undermine the economic well-being of the United States and Europe in order to further disrupt the civilized world so they can take over.

While our kids and small-minded adults of all ages fiddle with cell phones and gps devices, the serious enemies of our entire World structure are busy plotting how to destroy us.  They also use cell phones and gps devices–but to much more devastating effect. 

While Food Banks are hard-pressed to provide for all the needy in the United States, and the United Nations struggles with food for peace programs and health programs around the world, the USA, Europe, Russia, and Israel spend Billions on bullets and bombs and warships and soldiers.

I don’t know what the solution is, but part of it has to be for the civilized nations of the World to come to terms with each other–for our mutual benefit.  Dragging down the USA and Europe would destroy all of civilization.  We can’t start the World all over again.  It doesn’t work that way any more.  

The Arab nations must get past the ancient insults and colonialism and “jew” preoccupations and develop their societies within the structure of muslim-acceptable economic systems that will generate JOBs and FUTURES for all the young men of those countries who have NO JOBs, NO EDUCATIONS, NO FUTURES, NO WIVES AND FAMILIES, AND NO HOPES FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE–SO THEY JOIN UP WITH TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS THAT OFFER THEM SOME SENSE OF PRIDE AND PURPOSE–ALBEIT INSANE TO MOST OF US.

We need to extricate foreign armies from what amounts to inter-tribal rivalry and nation-state building in both Afghanistan and Iraq.  They have to do it themselves. 

California Prop 8 Ignores Civil Contract Law

Marriage is a civil contract, sanctioned by the State, recognized by other States, and by other nations of the World.

Couples do not enter into a contract with God; they enter into a contract with each other.  God doesn’t “join” any persons together.  Priests and ministers are allowed to “officiate” in the United States because of traditions developed hundreds of years ago, when churches and synagogues ruled the daily affairs of the masses.

The various States of the United States issue marriage “licenses” to couples who are entering into a “contract” by which they agree to accept responsibilities and debts of the other party, agree to share assets and liabilities, acknowledge rights of each party to inherit and act in the other party’s interest.

The contract is executed upon the marriage license document by affixing of signatures by the contracting parties and witnesses who attest to the identities of the signatories.  In some States, the equivalent of a notary public is required, e.g, a judge or elected official.  In some States, a minister, by statute or constitution, is authorized to officiate.  Even then, witnesses are required to attest to the identity of the parties.  In some States, the parties to the marriage contract merely have to sign the license in front of a witness, who can be anybody.  The marriage contract is legalized by the signatures of the parties involved.   There need be no judge, minister or any other “officiating” person or ceremony.  That is how the Montana Constitution reads. (Montana Codes Annotated 40-1-301 “if no individual acting alone solemnized the marriage, a party to the marriage shall complete the marriage certificate form and forward it to the clerk of the district court. “)

The marriage contract is a civil right.  There should be no rights of religious groups or beliefs that override the rights of individuals to enter into a marriage contract.  For voters to impose their own religious beliefs upon the civil rights of any individual citizen of the United States should be illegal and therefore the results of Proposition 8 should be promptly overturned by the California Court System.

The United States seems to be divided into two strong factions.

On the one hand are those who refer to themselves as “progressive,” and their political opinions frequently mimic their social opinions as well. This faction endorses interracial marriages and equal rights for all, regardless of race, national origin, gender, or sexual orientation.

The other faction uses religious and faith-based values to determine their political and social stances, and also seeks to impose those values or beliefs on the “progressive” faction.

Now tell me, does not the religious right, the ultra-conservative Christian and Jewish factions, use the same arguments as the Islamic mullahs who would impose “Sharia*” upon their populations?   Why do the most conservative of the Christian and Jewish faiths not see that they have much in common with the Islamic mullahs?  Why do they not see that what they seek to impose on others is a violation of the tenets of our Constitutional guarantees of “separation of church and state”?

*Sharia law is the instrument by which Political Islam seeks to control the Muslim world. The Sharia should be opposed for its imposition of theocracy over democracy, its abuse of human rights, its institutionalized discrimination, its denial of human dignity and individual autonomy, its punishment of alternative lifestyle choices, and for the severity of its punishments.

Our own freedom to practice what we believe is limited to the point at which they impair the exercise of that same freedom by others. I am so disappointed in the otherwise progressive voters of California.