Thank you for your comments. Connolly is on my “throw the bums out” list. I will be looking for candidates interested in fiscal constraint while avoiding divisive social issues. I respect everyone’s personal beliefs on those “divisive social issues”; however, I am uncomfortable when I see attempts to transform religious beliefs or personal decisions into public policy. There are a lot of people like me. People interested in actually winning elections should pay attention to the Independent voter who is disenchanted with political theology.

Your observations about the Coffee Party are (IMHO) correct. I was one of the first to join the Coffee Party. I was attracted by the vision of a neutral place where Independent voters might gather to discuss all sides of the issues. From the beginning, I suggested that perhaps the “Coffee Party” might not be the best choice of names because it implies the opposite of “tea” (or the “Tea Party”). My protests were ignored and the name resulted in a self-fulfilling prophecy of a group of Liberals and Progressives gathering together to promote and protect the Obama administration and agenda.

While coffee was the advertised beverage, I quickly discovered that you were also expected to drink the “Progressive kool aid” (and I stayed away from the pitcher). All you have to do is take a look at its website forum to understand that its membership favors big Government, high taxes (particularly as a tool for wealth redistribution), corporate nationalization, and a Progressive (IMHO Socialist) agenda.

My personal experience is that Progressives are very interested in telling people what to think, read, and do. This extrapolates into their vision of Government’s role in our Society. The world has plenty of experience with elitist political theorists deciding what’s best for “the rest of us”. I plan to work hard to prevent that from being the fate of the United States of America.

jeffersonconservative.com was started as a place to explore issues from a neutral perspective and share information for folks who prefer to “mix their own kool aid”. Time will tell if we succeed. I hope to see you at Starbucks one of these days… I’d love to chat. You might consider posting your thoughts here occasionally to help enrich the dialog.

Since the Health Care Bill lacks the usual severability clause (or a statement that should any part of the act be found Unconstitutional, it would be severed from the legislation and the rest of the act would remain in effect), should the Supreme Court find the requirement that everyone buy Health Insurance Unconstitutional the entire Health Care Reform Act may be in peril.

I voted for Obama because of his promise of brokering a bipartisan health care plan using a transparent process. He didn’t fulfill that promise.

For whatever reason (our early British heritage I suspect) we have pretty much stuck to two parties. This was not evident early on–in their attempt to develop the ideal system, our founding fathers thought it was enough to have a democratic republic, but it didn’t take long for them to figure out that people had some pretty strongly held views.

If you look around and see what happens in countries that have three or more strong parties,you can imagine something like what has just happened in Britain. No one has enough strength to do anything. The legislature becomes balkanized and coalitions must be sought in order to conduct business.

Hmmm–on second thought, maybe we should try it because what we have isn’t working well. But you know what, it’s better than anything else around.

http://www.slate.com/id/2161797/pagenum/1/

http://www.appappeal.com/app/kiva/

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_31/b3995088.htm

http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/2007/05/kiva-giving-a-virtual-hand-up-not-a-handout.html

http://www.reviewstream.com/reviews/?p=67966

If you haven’t made your micro loan yet, suggest you pull out your credit card and do it now!

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?keyword_list=Kiva&Submit2=GO&bay=search.results

I surely don’t have the answer but I know that “securing the border”, whatever that means, probably isn’t the answer. So perhaps we are going to see the Balkanization of immigration control or perhaps even a war with either Mexico or among ourselves. Maybe our Grand Experiment is going to fall apart over the very thing that got this nation started–immigration.