Constant Opinions

Found an interesting take on President Bush’s 2007 State of the Union address. It strikes me as a pretty good and interesting analysis.

The list of things President Bush didn’t talk about is very interesting and very pointed. Previously highly important topics such as abortion, stem cell research and same sex marriage were ignored.

He did bring up private school vouchers. This is one of those ideas that sounds good on paper, but when you give it some thought some problems quickly come up. Just little things like what happens to the lower quality public schools when the only students left at them are the ones who really don’t care for one reason or another? That’s probably a family problem, and the students wouldn’t do any better in private school, but taking resources from them so they have no chance isn’t reasonable.

Then there’s the problem of giving public monies to private, or more specifically religious, schools.

Suffice it to say I’m not a voucher fan. I know a lot of people who pick which school their kid goes to, even if it’s not the nearest one, and that makes more sense to me. If parents want to pay more for private schooling, let them handle it on their own. No need for a government subsidy. The public schools need the money far more.

He also discussed immigration reform. I am in complete agreement that something needs to be done. My one hope is that it will be worthwhile, reasonable and humane. Simply kicking the illegals out isn’t likely to work the way one would hope.

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind seeing a solid guest worker program. I’d also like solid enforcement and penalties for those who hire illegals who aren’t here under a guest worker program. A good balance of finding ways to let some illegals work legally and trying to get control of the overall problem is what we need.

The only question is can our politicians successfully implement something like that?

And of course he talked about the War on Terror. How could he not?

Surprise, surprise, no solution there, just that it’s going to be a long time, probably generations. The hatreds on both sides are quite powerful and fuel each other.

I’ve found the claims made to deprive suspected terrorists of civil rights to be quite problematic. On the one hand, damn! These guys are tough to catch and even harder to nail down a reason to keep them.

At the same time I hate seeing anything erode civil liberties. It’s too easy to redefine words such as “terrorist” and “sympathizer” and so forth to mean your opponents. It has the potential to be a major problem.

Besides, I would love for our country to be so proud as to say that we won’t give up our liberties no matter the threat. It scares me sometimes that this may not be practical, but it’s what I would like to hear.

Technorati Tags: 2007 state of the union, President Bush, terrorism, speech

Filed under: Politics