As the election year drags on, I have actually begun giving strong consideration to voting for a candidate I would have never considered. While I disagree with many of his ideas, it is quite possible (depending on the LP candidate) that my vote may go for Ralph Nader. Why is this? First of all, integrity. While I don't fall for the "Chicken Littles" of this world, Nader is at least a true believer. One who takes his responsibilities seriously. You can use a lot of adjectives to describe Nader...

I've decided I'm grateful for the drawn out Democratic Primaries. See, they've begun to show the DNC candidates as what they are. As Obama began amassing a lead in delegates and popular votes, the shrew in Hillary came out. At this point, I'm doubting there's anyone to the right of Mao who will vote for her. After all, they'll have Ralph Nader, who has FAR more respect among the left than Hillary EVER will. For that matter, he has more respect among the right and independents, for while we do...

Every once in awhile, I will get a comment about how I attack the left more often than the right. This apparently comes from the confusion with one dimensional political charts that define everyone as left, right, or center. Because I am not Democrat or Republican, I must be centrist. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have said many times before that I am neither fair nor balanced. The truth is, I'm a reformed leftist. As in HARDCORE leftist. I was a firm believer in the nanny st...

One of my pet theories about creating a functional society deals with micro- vs. macro- socialism. I've detailed the two before, so I won't revisit that here. One of the reasons that microsocialism doesn't get much airplay, is because true socialists don't like it. And the reason why shows precisely why socialism is wrong. Say you have two communities. Community A is, basically a commune. Everyone contributes equally to the commune, everyone shares equally in the commune's wealth. It's a b...

I have to admit to being late to the game on this one, and I find it interesting to wonder why. For a long time, I have taken a stance on Guantanamo Bay that has been less than popular with the right wingers. Some (a very small minority, but enough to be noted) have even gone so far as to question the patriotism of any who deviate from the Bush administration's hardline position on maintaining the base and denying basic human rights to its occupants, claiming that the fact that they are well ...

I find white supremacists to be a pretty despicable lot, all in all. I really wish there was a way to boot these people off the planet, frankly. But if I were in Ron Paul's shoes, I would be doing precisely what he's doing. Paul, one of the pack of GOP Presidential candidates, has received heavy criticism for a $500 campaign donation from a white supremacist. He has been pressed to return it, but says he will keep it. Although I support Paul, I will concede that his spin on why he is ...

This is kind of a redux, but I figured I'd start fresh for those who weren't around for the first article. When I was younger, I was a pretty die hard socialist. For many years I counted among my friends one J. Quinn Brisben, the 1992 Socialist Party USA candidate for president. In fact, my three year old son was named after Quinn, who taught me a lot about the labor history of the United States. As I've grown older, I've come to eschew the state socialism of the Soviet Union, China, and C...

(Disclaimer: This article is a parody and not to be taken seriously): "You have the right to free speech As long as you're not dumb enough to actually TRY it!" (The Clash, "Know Your Rights") You don't need to look very far to see places where people have abused their freedom of speech: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/18/national/main2699800.shtml I guess I don't need to say much about this one. Fred Phelps and his group have protested funerals of every high profile death ...

Mike Huckabee's been making waves in the GOP primary race. I had wondered why, but hadn't paid horribly close attention. I have, of course, long known who Mike Huckabee is and why he will always hang on at some level. But I admit I was somewhat taken aback by his recent poll numbers. Huckabee is and has always been a Republican's Republican. He's been doing the prolife lecture circuit for many years now, and has long been a favorite of conservative kingmakers. But it was his recent endorsemen...

Ever since I first heard about the idea of a flat tax, I thought it sounded pretty cool. But I was hushed by the voices of my colleagues, who called a flat tax "regressive", and further indicated that I was a traitor to my class. The idea, they would tell me, is to tax the rich more so that the poor don't have to pay taxes. One little bitty problem with that. Nobody gets out of paying taxes. Noone. In fact, when the oil prices began their stratospheric climb, I distinctly remember a member of...

I am not a Mitt Romney fan. I personally am not supporting him in the primaries, and I wouldn't consider him on my top two or three ideal candidates out of the field. Yet if he wins the GOP nomination, he stands a better than even chance at winning my "lesser of two evils" prize, and I find it curious that most of the religious right has not endorsed him as their candidate. As many of you know, I have a love/hate relationship with Mormonism as the faith of my upbringing, a faith I personal...

One of the most hypocritical things I have heard from the mouths of liberals is that race and gender do not matter. The fact is, not only does the far left not believe it, but race and sex are oftentimes the ONLY thing that matter to them. And the 2008 Presidential Primary race underscores that pretty heavily. I can't tell you how many times I have heard someone on the left say they want to vote for Hillary because she would be our first woman President. Or they want to vote for Obama beca...

I remember countless tyimes throughout the last several years when our sitting President would invoke God. The far left would shout from the highest rooftops that he was violating separation of church and state by making his faith public. That's why I find it compelling that one of Yahoo! News' lead stories features one certain former first lady's attendance at a Methodist church in Des Moines Iowa, without a hint of the irony of the article's appearing without sharp criticism: http://new...

Following in the footsteps of the DNC, the Republican Party is now promising to penalize several states for holding their primaries too early. This has been one big, nasty mess all around with states fumbling over one another to hold the "first" primary, and the craziness would be good late show material if we could get the writers off of their strike. On second thought, that might mean no new episodes of "Cavemen", so let the strike continue! There is a very simple solution to this quagmire,...

Throughout my life, I have always been told that Republicans are the party of the rich, and Democrats the party of the poor. This is likely because Republicans have traditionally been associated with conservatives and Democrats with liberals (the truth of those stereotypes is not something I will discuss in the body of this article; it's too tangential). What I have noticed that feeds this stereotype, though, is that conservatives are better business people than liberals. And because people a...