It's really sad to see how certain morals we once held in the US are quickly degraded. One of the things I hope people understand is that the United States is not a democracy - we're a republic. Furthermore, it's not so clear that democracy is such a good thing in itself. Much like the word "liberal" has been thrown around so much that it's lost it's real meaning (a classical liberal is today's Republican), "democracy" has also lost it's meaning.

I guess today, more than ever, democracy simply means a government where the peope can ultimately decide things. But a true democracy is one where 51% of any vote is the "right decision." Essentially this leads to the situation where 51% of the people can oppress 49% of the people.

The Republic is set-up so that a few people, whose power is still weakened by a balance between people and government, can make the best decisions for the whole of the people. The recent sharp divide over Iraq is not an indication our government has failed - it's an indication that it's working.

Although this would be open to debate, I personally feel that the situation in Iraq has been more than beneficial to the coalition. Every day we find more evidence of terrorist links between Hussein's government and various terrorist groups. On a humanitarian level, we're finding stories of the atrocities commited by the Hussein government against its people - a situation that would lead Locke to push the Iraqi people to overthrow their rulers. Because of the strength of will of our government, they were able to face the opposition and clearly outline a plan of decisive action (unlike other previous Presidents who shall remain unnamed).

In any case, the current political situation worries me ... a lot. The increasing power of the government (which I am strongly against), coupled with the reduction in taxes (bad) with a soaring government budget (really bad) is not leading to a situation 5 years down the line that I would be happy about.

The problem is not Bush, although I'm sure you Bush bashers would love to blame him. The problems lie fundamentally deeper - it's in the way our actual political parties run. In theory we have a system where two supposedly opposing parties run to help keep things in balance. More than ever, the previous election made us realize that these parties are not different at all - whatever theological differences their parties state, they are both backed by Big Business and their generous financial contributions.

We've degraded into a plutocracy of sorts where money buys power. So how do we fix this?

It's not too easy to fix a situation where we have to reform the people in power. I'm honestly not even sure what measures would have to be taken in order to achieve such an ends. All I know is that with every passing election, it becomes more clear that the power of Big Business is increasing. The DMCA was only the first step - the very fact that a group of corporations is able to push such a broad and vague law into legislation is a scary thought.

I don't really like any of the politicians - watching the Democratic debates just made me feel dirtier. Here are right upper-class men who are arguing over nuances in health care and other things when the very issues that are most important to the citizens (an erosion of rights) are being ignored. Why does no one tackle the ludicrous Patriot Acts? Why does no one talk about corporate scandals?

I'm not a fan of Bush, but I'm also not stupid enough to realize that he's the cause of our problems - we would be in the exact same boat with Al Gore (actually, we probably would be worse off since he's the most indecisive person ever).

The American educational system has completely eroded the skill of critical thinking. Everywhere I turn I see ludicrous arguments based on weak links that have been propagated by reading CNN.

I'm not going to bother defending arguments that I'm not a critical thinker myself - although I don't feel that my critical thinking is perhaps up to the level of someothers, at least I try.

Most people when they debate something (whether it's something I agree with or not) like to take arguments already given to them instead of trying to figure out what they really feel. And that pisses me off.

I'm not going to be a naysayer and state that our power is declining as a country - but as a race, we're definitely suffering. The only reason why the US will continue to be a power is because we allow for free thinking - although we clearly lack a development in critical thinking, we still have an edge over countries like China that demand that their citizens think in a certain way.

Whatever.