And there’s also the old adage that, if you’re under [30,40,50, pick your threshold] and are not a liberal, you have no heart; if you’re over and are not a conservative, you have no brain.

Clearly I’m doing it wrong. I started out ultra conservative and have become more liberal since. Always swimming against the tide, I suppose. How many others can lay claim to both condemnations (no heart and no brain)?

CNN: Forbes: Paulson is ‘worst’ treasury secretary in modern times

Forbes magazine President and CEO Steve Forbes called Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson “the worst treasury secretary we’ve had in modern times”, citing, among other things, the government’s handling of the housing crisis.

When asked if he has confidence in Paulson, Forbes responded “No, sadly, Wolf. He’s about the worst treasury secretary we’ve had in modern times.”

I’m no fan of anything our government has done leading up to and reacting after the housing crisis. Consequently, I’m no fan of Treasury Secretary Paulson.

But labeling him Worst isn’t doing anything to solve the problem. Instead it’s one more sad step in the degradation of our intellectual vigor.

… and don’t let that “in modern times” qualifier fool you. Such phrases are just a passive admission that the speaker is too lazy to research his own comparison.

We need two parties. In fact two aren’t enough — our two-party system tends to yield simplistic, take-it-or-leave-it choices. Better to have three parties, four, five. Dissent safeguards against lazy excesses. It sharpens us, teaches us, prompts us to shore up our weaknesses.

Do you think that we have only two parties as a consequence of our laziness? Or is merely-two-partiness somehow a natural product of American-ness. Seems as far back as whigs & tories, the U.S. there have always only been two parties; and any new parties (Republicans) develop at the expense of a self-destructing party (Whigs). Which of our current parties do you think is more likely to self-destruct, and what kind of phoenix-party might emerge?

“Reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

I don’t know if you were there when Tom Clancy addressed the Whiting Engineering school in Shriver Hall (I don’t remember the occasion), but he opened with a line like “I like engineers; they’re usually conservatives, because by nature they have a strong grasp on reality”. I think it’s easier to make a “case” that conservatives are closer to reality, because it is the liberals, not conservatives, who aspire to be dreamers, idealists, revolutionaries, etc.

And there’s also the old adage that, if you’re under [30,40,50, pick your threshold] and are not a liberal, you have no heart; if you’re over and are not a conservative, you have no brain.

I am also inspired by the 3,4, or 5 party model you suggest. In fact it has made me want to consider voting for another candidate who I know will not win! But it would get my voice heard — that between the two choices, I chose none!

One reason that we only have these two to select from might be the political mudslinging. Colin Powell said he would never run for president simply because he wanted to protect his family, especially his wife and the skeletons in her closet. This political ugliness has made us a worse country because self respecting, dignified individuals don’t want to run because it is an ugly process.

Well written and un-American in its thought provoking nature!