Political Post #1

Okay, here's probably my last post of what has been a fairly busy day for me. I guess as my first political opinion delivered herein, it should be more general than most succeeding ones I post here will be. Generally, then, I suppose many folks would label my politics as "liberal", and some of the Tea Party faithful who've drunk too much kool-aid might even call me a radical socialist card-carryin' commie-nazi bastard who loves islamofascists, atheists and goats about equally well.

Well, keeping in mind that American politics in general these days seems to be constantly shifting rightward at about the same rate that 90% of the American economy is shifting downward, I guess I can admit to being on the far left at this moment in time. Which for most of American history up until about 1980 would have probably placed me as a moderate-rightist, somewhere between a Grover Cleveland Democrat and an Eisenhower Republican. In my opinion, the kind of person America needs in leadership positions today should in general be a fiscal conservative and a social liberal (though on specific issues they might very well sometimes stray from that description).

Unfortunately for us all, since about 1980 we've tended to have leaders who are more the opposite, so now we have a land where the tv commercials are more squeaky-clean of sexual references than most other countries in the world but where most of the interior rivers spawn fish so full of mercury that I'd turn into a walking thermometer if I were foolish enough to eat one; where the top one-percent or so of income-earners make almost forty percent of the money; and where so-called "liberal" politicians or media-folk who run into a scandal are often forced to resign immediately from their position and apologize to the world on bended knee while "conservatives" often are allowed to simply claim some version of "youthful exuberance",  or "Satan made me do it" and are soon right back plying the good old fundraising circuit like nothing happened.

If I were to make a wish-list for what I'd like to see happen in this country, item number one (and the only thing I'd ask for if I were allowed just a single wish)  would be "restore our Constitutional rights to where they were before the constant chipping-away of a whole series of 'Imperial presidencies', which admittedly began far earlier but which has really seemed to accelerate since 1980 and particularly since 2001". If that makes me a radical socialist, then so be it.

Or maybe I'm wrong. At least I'm willing to consider the possibility. What do you think?