I guess I've always believed that if the United States lived as our rhetoric says this would be a great country. In particular rhetoric like this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among them are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
-from The Declaration of Independence

...that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
-Abraham Lincoln, from The Gettysburg Address

The reason I point these two out is because I believe this is what most people in this world want. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think so. I also believe that before arriving here, at least, anyone who immigrates to the United States believes this. I also think that most of the people of the world believed this after World War II. Eastern Europe during the Cold War must have because this is what they aspired to. Unfortunately this is not reality. The first statement about equality, I don't think so. More money, more equality and vice versa. All that stuff about Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of, HA HA HA, man I almost made it through without laughing. Just picture John Ashcroft and think of the patriot Act, enough said. A government of, by and for the people? Only if you consider Halliburton, Bechtel, AMD, Monsanto, GE, Eli Lily and their brethren "the people". So to take another line from the Declaration of Independence:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of The People to alter or to abolish it , and to institute new Government, laying it's foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect Safety and Happiness.

If we can't impeach at least we can elect someone else who will help us form a more perfect union.

A scandal greater than Watergate
Either President George Bush, and secretaries Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld, lied about the global threat they claimed Iraq posed, and deceived Congress and the American people. Or, they were grossly misinformed by their intelligence experts and must be judged fools of the first order.
- posted by Mom/Dad @ 8:11 AM