Democrats are talking about "Two Americas" in which they crudely separate Americans into two categories: The noble have-nots and the corrupt haves. Calling such a description an oversimplification would be charitable. Republicans and Democrats talk past each other because they, fundamentally, don't understand each other.  There is no "compromise" really possible because they approach their positions from completely alien points of view.  When someone tries to pro...

In my earlier article on misjudging the American character , I argued that the world needs to give up this notion of demanding that we become introspective about 9/11. They need to stop trying to get us to ask "Why do they hate us?".  It ain't gonna happen.  Americans, as history has shown, will do whatever it takes to overcome an enemy. Whatever it takes. I pointed out that in 1945 the majority of Americans, according to polls at the time, supported the elimination of the J...

When I speak on-line on various sites, including JoeUser.com about the role of government, it becomes apparent quickly that many people think of the government as some sort of independent entity that is not connected to us.  Those people tend to favor having the government solve all kinds of problems, including problems better left to individuals to solve for themselves. People like me, as I discussed in the philosophies of the left and the right are wary of having the government do anythin...

Recently there was some debate about the current fiscal deficit. When people talk about balancing the budget, it is important to know what we spend money on. When someone just parrots "We need to cut defense" or "raise taxes" it gets frustrating because those things won't necessarily solve the problem. The real problem is much more complex than that.  In reality, the federal government has slowly morphed into a social program provider. Bush hasn't helped things either...

The political season brings out the worst in both sides. Too many people treat real world politics as a game. Not as a computer game , but a game of intellectual exercise. What they forget is that there are monsters out there. And once in a great while, a monster gets loose. In the 20th century, Hitler and his ilk were allowed to run amok across Europe and besides the 30 million or so who died in actual in the war, another 12 million were executed simply because they weren't the correct race...

In The Political Machine we are creating a PC strategy game in which players run for President. But no game would be complete without your candidate having to go on TV and answer "tough" questions. Not only do these questions make the player have to answer real world questions, but they help make players understand why politicians "spin" the truth. We've put together two editors that we use internally to build these TV interviews. The first one is called the Issue Editor. In it, we create pol...

In our upcoming game, The Political Machine, the candidates must occasionally do interviews with the press.  Coming up with questions is not that hard. Coming up with thoughtful answers is harder.  So we've decided to let users have a crack at it. Here is our first batch of 5 questions. If you were a Presidential candidate and had to answer in less than say 500 words (i.e. BRIEF answers) how would you answer these questions? Also, answers cannot reference the current President (or "...

People talk about democracy. But do they really understand it? How about representative democracy? Basically it means that citizens (the people) make the rules that we live by. We do so by way of voting for legislatures who will pass laws that represent our will. This was a major point of the Declaration of Independence. The law of the land would be decided by the voters through laws.  It seems a simple enough concept. And for our nation's history, it has worked pretty well.  When A...

At the end of the day the American people are going to have to make up their own minds with regards to George W. Bush. They will either conclude that 9/11 was unavoidable and the policy of going after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and then taking out Saddam in Iraq was a good thing or it wasn't a good thing. Richard Clarke, who has been testifying before congress, decided that Bush and his team didn't do enough before 9/11. Whether you find him credible or not probably depends on whether you believ...

One thing I do want to make clear: I don't think the United States is an angel by any means. And in fact, I think the United States pursues its self-interest quite vigorously. However, I think that the way the United States has defined its self interest has been done in a way in which other countries happen to benefit. Let me give you an example: During the European imperial age, the belief was that nations needed colonies to supply raw goods. Getting colonies required conquest, subjuga...

The economy is a complicated thing. That is, as a general rule, I don't like politicians of either party monkeying around with it.  The average politician has virtually no understanding about economics. Often times, it's worse than no understanding -- often they have no common sense about it. Let's use the minimum wage laws as an example.  To help those who make relatively little money, some people argue that we need to raise minimum wage.  So let's say we raise it to oh...$9. ...

Limiting people’s ability to participate in democracy is not good.   When you limit the ability of citizens to participate in the political process by restricting financial contributions you inevitably end up with a concentration of political power in the hands of those have the ability to get the word out without having to spend money.   This so-called reform would be little more than merely handing power to big media companies, celebrities and anyone else who can ...

If you have Drengin.net ( www.drengin.net ) you can now download the beta of The Political Machine. The Political Machine is a strategy game in which you run for President of the United States. Its home page is www.politicalmachine.com . Let us know what you think if you've got it here!

The war in Iraq is part of the war on terror. We are not in Iraq for the sake of the Iraqi people. Don't let those who favor military action in Iraq (or are against it) try to spin it that way. Our presence in Iraq has nothing to do whatsoever with how the Iraqi people feel about the United States.  Our soldiers are risking their lives in Iraq not for the sake of Iraqi's but for our sake. For the sake of Americans. It is often easy to forget, with all this talk of "liberation" that at th...

Someone on one of the forums said: "I find it embarrassing that anyone would brag about US foreign policy. We should be apologizing for it." Such self-loathing has always been typical of the left. The sort of pessimistic, glass is half empty views on any number of issue has always struck me as strange. In this case, it also strikes me as incredibly lacking of serious perspective on world history. I consider the US foreign policy, as a whole, to have been of great benefit to the world. ...