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. ...

Saw this at www.instapundit.com regarding an article in Today's Telegraph (UK), hardly a bastion of right-wing propaganda. At least $1.1 billion was paid directly into UN coffers, supposedly to cover the cost of administering the $67 billion scheme, while Saddam Hussein diverted funds intended for the poor and sick of Iraq to bribe foreign governments and prominent overseas supporters of his regime. . . . Although the UN Security Council approved the plan to levy a 2.2 per cent commissi...

The problem I have with the anti-war crowd, particularly those who are on-line, is that I find them intellectually dishonest. When someone tries to say "Bush lied about WMD" or that the invasion of Iraq was largely because we believed Saddam had stockpiles of WMD they are really being dishonest. But dishonesty in debate is, sadly, a regular occurrence. But when it comes to blogging, blogs can be re-read from the time frame.  And those who favored going into Iraq have been consistent in th...

If I were trying to model what it takes to become a world power in a competitive strategy game these would be the key factors I'd use: A single contiguous common market (currency, language, culture) A large population Abundant natural resources A free press Sufficient access to the ocean Relatively low tax rates (limited government) Relatively few impediments to starting a business Strong property rights laws (both physical and intellectual property) Light...

This whole war on terror thing seems rather all over the place doesn't it at times? What does Iraq have to do with 9/11? Americans asked the same questions in 1942 when Americans were attacking French soldiers in North Africa -- what did France have to do with Pearl Harbor? Wars only seem neat and tidy in hindsight. Only when all the facts and information are publicly available after the events are over can the tangled web of a global strategy be made to make sense. This war is no exceptio...

Here's a great article I found that really talks about just how absurd the situation is where people go from one day feeling great anguish about the abuse of POWs to the next day wanting to "turn the whole place into a parking lot" due to changes in events. The fact is, there are villains in any military or any organization. But there are also real monsters out there. Some people villify the United States. But what they don't seem to recognize is that there are real monsters that lurk out the...