Absolutely Rosa.... the night of the elections the terrorists were the only sound drowning out the clapping of the dems.

First it is important to recognize that the poor in the US are the richest among the poor in the world, and it is our democracy, capitalisim and our values that allow that. If you have been to Africa, South America or even Eastern Europe as I have..... you would understand that our poor are not all that poor in comparison. Its ironic that our poor are disporportionately obese. You will be hard pressed to find people that do not have shelter, running water, and electricity in this country. The vast majority of the worlds 6 billion people do not have those luxuries. Do you know how easy it was to find poor and hungry in socialistic Russia... where they did to guarenteed wages, and tried to force everyone to share the wealth. In that type of system, there is no incentive for the smart to work hard and succeed. The reality is it is the gamblers, risk takers, and hard working people in this country that make the jobs for the rest of us.

Ben Franklin said it best when a woman asked him what type of government they had. He told her, "A republic, if you can keep it".

Sir Alex Faster said it clearest. "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, and is always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage. "

What pray tell you does the 14th amendment have to do with guarenteed wages? The 14th amendment does guarenttee that the government won't sieze wages, life, liberty or freedom without due process. The 14th amendment guarentees the right to vote, the right to males 21 years of age or older who have not participated in crimes or rebellions. It allows the federal government to borrow money for war, to supress rebellion and fees related to the same. If your idea is that the poor need to vote themselves wealth from those that earned it... you scare me, because Ben Franklin said that when that happened our democracy would end. Those that are having their money siezed to be given to the poor will excersize the ultimate right of protest our government-- the 2nd Amendment. As Thomas Jefferson said in the federalist papers--the right to overthrow a tyranical government is 1 of the 3 reasons we were given the second amendment.

Don't get me wrong, I do help the poor. The very simple reality is you cannot legislate them to wealth and a good life. The more we have tried over the past 20 years, the wider the gap between rich and poor wages have grown. Jesus advocated giving your own money to the poor so that you could store up treasure in heaven. He never advocated the government doing the churches job. Don't quote Jesus on helping the poor unless your tithing your 10% and giving to your church to help the poor. I can say that I am no fan of Walmart. I am no fan of our national debt.... but our debt is the lowest as a percentage of gross domestic product in the civilized world.

The truth of the matter is that our national debt, along with the institutions that the Federal government put in place (the federal reserve banking system primarily among them) are major reasons that the US economy has not seen a major economic downturn in nearly 70 years. World war II and the devistation that the rest of the world faced largely brough the US economy back.... but if you remember the 1970's you know that this country was not a consumer nation until much much more recently. The federal reserve banking system, global monterary system, and US foreign policy allow the US, among other first world nations, to export much of their inflation and many economic problems onto the rest of the world. We do not allow other countries the luxury of not paying back their national debt as slowly as we pay ours back, and the money we do loan them for major works projects--almost exclusively gets returned back to US companies and workers. Globalization and capitalism have helped the vast majority of Americans live higher on the hog, but its true that they will not maintain it---because Americans simply are not competative with their counterparts around the world. Moving to a flat tax system that taxes foriegn and domestic products equally is about the only system we could implement that would help American goods and services compete with those in China. Right now businesses are punished for producing product in the US, they have to pay taxes that they do not have to pay if they import. We have the lowest unemployment and the highest real buying power that this country has ever seen. It is unsubstainable....their are many things that go into it, one is that our kids do not work as hard as we did....

Sam C. "WalMart is discounting basic items due to sluggish sales. Consider that. WalMart survives upon the middle class and the middle class and below are suffering. "Livng wage" is not merely an ideological football, it is the foundation of the consumer economy and American prosperity. "

Tracy: You really do not understand our country. Living wages are not the foundation of American prosperity or our consumer economy. Hard work, sweat, blood, and going above and beyond is what made our country. America's prosperity is based on the ability for people to know that if they work hard, harder than the guy next to them, if they think smarter than the guy next to them, and if they do more than the guy next to them that our society will allow them to succeed. Our prosperity comes from the fact that anyone can go from poor to rich by finding a need and filling it.

No... sorry you don't get rich in this country by simply showing up at a job and doing your duties for 8 hours. To succeed in this country you have to put in your time.... you have to find the whole you want to fill, then you have to study, you have to be creative, and you have to come up with new ideas and get where you want to be. It doesn't work for you to simply show up and expect a hand out.

Is that fair? I guess it depends on your idea of fair. Is it fair that when I was working 60 hours a week putting myself through college while my counterpart was partying his way through college on his parents dime? Do I now owe a lower standard of living for myself to pay for a higher standard of living for him? I say no...I say we get out of life exactly what we put into it.

We can have debate on alternative methods of achieving our desires.... but minimum wage doesn't matter. Minimum wage laws do nothing but increase inflation, which then hurts the person you are trying to help the most.

I have no problem with minimum wage laws. You double minimum wage, and you will double my wage, you will double the wages of union workers who have indexed wages, and yes you will double the wages of the mulitmillion dollar a year CEO. Businesses work off of percentages.... so the higher you bump the uneducated guy at the bottom, the more you have to incentivize the educated guy in the middle and the superstar at the top. You take the wages of the h.s. kid that works at BK and you double it, you make the price of a value meal go to $7. This causes less people to eat at the chain, and now you lay off 20% of the people that work there because they aren't needed. While at the same time you lay off some of those people, you find automation methods that now become practical to implement instead of the uneducated employee and you make the remaining employees work harder.

Instead of artificially inflating the wages of these people, we need to educate them and move them into higher class jobs. As we educate and move people out of minimum wage jobs, we naturally increase the wages of the bottom rung. Supply and demand dictates that as employees become harder to find, their wages will go up. I lived in Indiana a decade ago and this principle worked very well. At the time the economy was in great shape... McDonald's paid the bottom workers a $200 signing bonus, gave them bus passes and wages in the $12 to $13 an hour range. Helping people move out of their situation is the only way to truly helping them.... handouts do nothing for anyone.

Yes, the stolen elections only happen when Dems loose.... just like we only get rid of bad leaders when reps decide its time to get rid of their own. The dems would rather hold power than hold their leaders accountable.

We have closer elections than we have ever had in history... its time that we put in place a system of verifying people are American citizens and who they are when they vote. We need to validate ID when we have people vote, and I agree with others that we do need a paper trail.

Thank you troops.... but I gotta ask why the Canadian military?

Hopefully we remain committed to actually winning (or something that actually resembles it)... I mean our enemies are killing themselves fast enough that they can't last forever. I agree with you Lynn, we did just declare victory in vietnam and came home. Our country can't afford to do that again.... the world knows better.

I think that a plan to actually split Iraq into a country of 3 regions with a weak central government may not be a bad idea. After all the US was designed the same way, our central government had almost no power for anything other than war, the power to arbitrate trade between states, and serve as protector of civil rights when we created them. The last 100 years, primarily the last 50 years has been the power grab by our own federal government. So why couldn't Iraq start with a weak federal government, that can strengthen itself as it earns credibility? Rebathification (bringing back some of the leaders during Sadam) is another idea that may not be a terrible idea, though I was originally opposed to it. Some of these ideas were on the table, and I am not sure Rummy had to leave to get them in place...

Well put... I think there is little doubt that the republicans lost this election, and not that the democrats won it. I hope for America's sake that the dems bring in a new moderate liberalism. If they govern this country from the center, like President Clinton....... then they likely will retain their party for many years to come. If they govern from the far left as the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, John Kerry and John Edwards.... their role in leadership will be very short lived.

American's didn't leave the values of the contract with America..... the republicans did.

It is important to have the world understand and respect our election process. It is not good to have them believing that our foreign policy has been undermined, regardless of whether you agree with it or not. It is a sad sad day for America when any American party has the support of the likes of Chavez, Kim Il, and the Iraqi insurgents. Having the leader of Al Queda in Iraq send messages to the presedient saying that he won the war because the democrats won the election..... is a very strong and powerful statement as to who supports the democratic party. While I don't believe the elections were significant (the democrats didn't even pick up the average 33 house seats in a 6th year presidential term, and the ones they picked up were only picked up by the smilimest of margins), the insurgents won't see any reason to give up now--they will be re-invigurated. Like Vietnam and Koera, the enemy doesn't care how many more lives it looses than its enemy--it only cares that it outlasts its enemy. It knows that it cannot out power us, it can will make it easier to recruit suicide bombers and other terrorists.... a sad sad day for America.

It is important what the world sees from America. Where you are wrong is in thinking it is important that they must agree with what we do. They only need to see that America lives up to its ideals and follows through on what it under takes. For America to be right in the eyes of the world, it simply has to win--it does not have to agree with us. We have to follow through on our commitments and do what we say we will do. This country is weakened in the eyes of the world when we do not have the political will to follow through in our commitments. We would be vindicated in the world and have public opinion on our side if in 10 years we had turned Iraq into a light of democracy in the middle east. The fact that Iran and Syria are emboldened and willing to continue to send insurgents into Iraq is reason to increase the scope of the war... not a reason to cut and run. Leaving from Iraq will make it more than 60 years since the US had the political will to win a war..... something that will embolden our enemies around the world.

Something like... "Won't you hear me"