<p>“The good news is in the big picture the President really is pretty powerless on anything that really matters day to day.”</p>
<p>No disrespect intended, but wow. I mean just Wow! </p>
<p>I voted for Gore, but I could not in my wildest dreams have imagined the extent of the damage that Bush, the “compassionate conservative” who worked “across the aisle in Texas” and his administration could have inflicted on our nation. </p>
<p>In 2000, we had a budget surplus, we were the world’s only superpower, our currency was the most desirable and stable in the world, better than gold. Unemployment was almost eliminated. We were respected worldwide. </p>
<p>The amount of damage that this president has done to our worldwide stature is immeasurable. We are in a war that had nothing to do with 9/11 and that we didn’t need to be in. Getting out now will potentially cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. We no longer have healthy relations with Russia, and the cold war seems to be restarting. By naming the Axis of Evil and taking out Iraq, we stretched our military to its limits, and have motivated both North Korea and Iran to build up their defenses against us unchecked. We now face a nuclear North Korea and will soon likely face a nuclear Iran. Both of those nations saw what we did in Iraq and were motivated in their own self-defense. We have sent thousands of our children to their deaths for a war that didn’t need to happen over weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist. We are facing a much more threatening Iran that really is building WMD, but there is little political will and potentially not enough military power left in this nation to confront them. Face it, we are no longer the superpower we once were. </p>
<p>We have blown our budget deficit sky high because nobody asked the average citizen to contribute to the war effort with a temporary tax surcharge. I would have gladly paid it. The only people who have paid for this war are our fine soldiers who are getting screwed left and right. We have devalued our currency so now even the oil nations don’t want to hold our dollars and are moving into gold. The Canadian dollar is worth more for the first time I can ever remember and it’s just embarrassing because we’re just better! Bush goes to the Saudis and begs for more oil production, and it’s just embarrassing. I just read that Israeli travel agencies will no longer take bookings in dollars and it’s just embarrassing. In many parts of the world, we are viewed as arrogant and stupid because they see those qualities in our leader. Many of the students from the middle east who formerly would get their education in the United States and then return home and have fond memories of their lives in the US are now going to Australia instead because they are finding the US hostile. There was a recent article in the Boston Globe that almost all flights to Brazil are booked solid with illegal immigrants returning home because the money they send home is no longer worth that much and they could have a better standard of living back in Brazil. That is just embarrassing. </p>
<p>I’m an engineer. I used to work in commercial businesses but now I work in the defense industry. I never worried about outsourcing because at my level, I prefer to compete at my full salary with the most talented Indian and Chinese engineers who really want to work here at full price. I have no problem with a brain drain because we are the greatest civilization that ever was and this is the best and freest place there ever was to live. The best would always want to come here. But as we become a less desirable and dare I say embarrassing place to move to, I wonder if the world’s most talented will still want to come here. Then I have to compete with the world’s most talented who are willing to work at 1/2 price in Asia. Or maybe our currency will be devalued so much that it’s really full price in Asia. </p>
<p>Barron, the President matters sooooo much that I just want to shake you until you see it. Again, no disrespect intended and sorry for flaming.</p>
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McCain will keep us in this war forever, plus he’s too old. Ron Paul probably is, too. Hopefully, we won’t have to worry about the Republicans this go round.</p>