Obama is an eloquent speaker.....

I hope that senator Obama can deliver on these promises. In my fantasy land, Obama would adopt the foreign policy strategies of Ron Paul and it would make the dream ticket. These proposed economic polices are not bad, in fact many of them are what needs to be done to move the nation and our economy forward into a global world. This is one of the areas that the good Senator and I agree on, that keynsenian economics are much better that military keynesianism, now if he would do that instead of a guns and butter platform we would be in much better shape as a nation.

Love him or hate him, the one thing that Ron Paul pointed out eloquently is that it is virtually impossible to avoid national bankruptcy if you try to have have a huge military budget and social programs. So too often the left says we support social programs and the right says we support the military programs and then they wind up supporting both to the detriment of the republic and its form of government and to benefit a small social class. That was not the intent of the founders, the maximization of human liberty was, but that liberty at least in Jefferson's mind did not include the idea of a standing army at all, and did not include the idea that government needs to take care of us from cradle to grave rather that government gives the common man a fair chance to do the best he can and a level playing field to do it on. I know many libertarians are going to disagree with me on this; but the protection of labor was a central tenet of Jefferson and Lincoln's platforms. And both were disappointed when they tried to enact their policies, both were called radicals by the oligarchs for advocating a policy of equal freedoms and equal human potential. One faced down slavery and lost, the second ended slavery but died too soon to change the landscape of the business world and repeal child labor. It was this desire for cheap labor that the founders warned us mercantilists looked for, and would use any vulnerable population to accomplish. "Owing no allegiance to their own land..."

It would also save me from having to accept a job in EU or New Zealand when I want to stay in Delaware.

What amazes me, is that I get job offers from the EU, Great Britain, Argentina, Chile, China, New Zealand and Brazil almost daily; but despite applications to over 300 companies in the United States I am lucky to get a single call back or even an e-mail response. It tells me one of two things, either I cannot cut the slack in the US, or our standards are so different from every other country in the world that you would need four or five advanced degrees to get anywhere.

It shows me that somewhere there is an effective lack of understanding about the nature of living and working in a global world where we still have the chance to provide real leadership and promote fair trade and cooperation.... through our unique system of republican government and free markets that are open and transparent. Adam Smith advocated a kind of capitalism that we would not recognize today. It was basically a social activist capitalism with fair trade, reduced tariffs, and more liberty and government regulation of those with the most capital. And incentives for those with the least capital so that each person would have a chance to develop their potential and increase their share of capital and TO DO WITH AS THEY PLEASE as long as it did not harm their neighbors. Now if I were to make over 10,000.00 in one month I automatically get reported to the SEC, who refers that to the IRS who can audit me at the end of the year and take up to 45% of what I earn.

It amazes me that our citizens are forced to make these draconian choices that no citizen of virtually any other country in the post-industrial world is forced to make and that rather than solving the problems government and business have found ways to profit from the misery of the people.

That is not a successful strategy for the future.

I think if we took the approach that Adam Smith recommended, provided a standard of liberty to our people and limit the authoritarianism of our corporations and did more to work with each other instead of against each other in some Hobbesian struggle of the fittest for survival we would be a lot better off and our standards could set an example for the world. To do that we would need to change our foreign policy, exercise multilateralism, and realize the potential of a global community. We either become a 21st century Jeffersonian republic or we allow our businesses to move away and depress wages to the point where citizens here live like the people in Africa and India.

I certainly do not want us to move in that direction. We need to get government out of the market only when the capitalists are ready to share an equal stake with the citizens. Adam Smith discussed this, and said that the biggest threat to capitalism were often the overzealous greed of those with too much capital. It has been called the "Divine Right of Capital" and it needs to go the same way as the "Divine Right of Kings" if we want the people of our Republic to thrive moving into the future. I am watching the kids of Saudi Arabian Kleptocrats take places in our universities, without regard to the labor potential of our own people, and high positions in our industries without regard to developing our markets. And get preferential treatment because of both our belief in multiculturalism, and our overriding desire to reclaim capital for a CEO's golden parachute.

That cannot be good when I only have enough to eat beans and some rice, when adjunct professors make less then the manager of McDonald's, and a worker a KFC with 5 drug convictions makes more than me with a Master's a awards and certificates from three countries.

Sorry for ranting.