'Obscene Pay'

I just read an article that put a sick angry knot in my stomach.

The city manager of Bell, California makes almost $800,000. It's police chief makes $457,000. PART-TIME (emphasis added out of disgust) city council members make almost $100,000.

The population of Bell? 38,000.

Needless to say, residents are pretty ticked right now.

UPDATE: Here is a nice article that goes into a little more depth and shows a nice comparison of salaries of Bell city officials with other officials (including the president).

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/scavenger/detail?entry_id=68559

Regulation Without Representation

I have a beef with regulation.

And it has nothing to do with thinking that there shouldn't be limits on what we can or can't do in America. Some limits that don't infringe upon our rights are needed to protect those rights.

My current beef is that some regulation is passed by a representative and some regulation is mandated by a bureaucrat. One of those shouldn't happen at all.

I also think that 99.9% of our regulation is garbage, but that is a whole ‘nother post.

I am of the strong belief that a government agency's responsibility is to enforce law not create it. We vote in lawmakers to do that.

When power is 'given' to an agency to create law, laws are being created without representation.

I may be treading on thin ice here, but it seems that regulatory agencies are sliding down greasy slopes. The more we create agencies to regulate and the more we give agencies to regulate, the more we are taking power from the people and the representatives that represent them.

With the new banking and consumer protection bill, a new agency will be created with new powers to regulate and create regulation. These will in effect be new laws that financial institutions and merchants will have to adhere to. They will not have been created by your representative. (And they’ll be most menos eficaz.)

I don't know why, but the more I think about regulation the more I'm irritated with regulation.

I want to know what makes you tick

The reason I decided to create this blog was because I was tired of the discussion (or lack thereof) that is done throughout the political scene. Whether it is the political ranting, name calling, exaggerations, or finger pointing that you often find political commentators such as Sean Hannity, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Glenn Beck and the whole slew of them doing, or just politicians in general that you feel you can't trust because they seem to say one thing and then do another, there seems to be a soul missing from what we should really be discussing about government and politics.

Don't get me wrong – I enjoy listening to political commentators. But I have yet to find one that I always agree with. They are usually too sensational or too opinionated for me to feel like they are always giving a fair analysis. But I do think they can often add value to political thought, sometimes providing legitimate points for thought and even action.

However, I'm tired of having to listen to a bunch of fuzz to pick out bits and pieces of truths that can really help this country as well as any other society in this world. I believe there are truths out there that don't change, and if we understand those truths, we can then reap the benefits that come with living by those truths.

I also believe that people are not as divided on what they want for this country as is often portrayed or felt among Americans. There are differences in opinion and even strong disagreements as to what is true or not true. In some of those cases there can only be one side that is right, but in many cases there is also the chance that we haven't yet dug deep enough to understand the underlying truth that everyone is trying to adhere to.

If it isn't already apparent, I lean a little toward what we in America call the Right. Yet I have a hard time labeling myself as a "conservative." Words can change meaning. A conservative in the United States today means something different than what it did a hundred or two hundred years ago. Even across the ocean you find groups labeling themselves as conservative who adhere to different principles.

I don't care about political labels.

I don't want to know what you label yourself as or what you label others as. I want to know what principles guide your thoughts and actions. I want to know why you think certain political actions are important and others not.

So if you are a "liberal" then why are you a "liberal?" If you are a "conservative," why do you classify yourself as such? Even if you don't classify yourself as either, what principles guide your current political leanings and vision for our country?

I want to know what makes you tick when making decisions or opinions on what the government should or should not do.

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