Here's why the broccoli argument during the Supreme Court questioning is specious. First, it wasn't meant to answer an actual question. It was meant to point to the "slippery slope." The wise and reasoned judges could have easily ascertained why health insurance isn't like a mandate on broccoli. Therefore it was merely a tool to impress upon people a specific point of view, versus a means of eliciting any real answer that the judge needed.

There are some in this country that claim we are a Christian nation, founded on Christian ideal, by Christian men and women. Then, almost in the same breath, they decry programs that feed the hungry and offer care for the weak as "over-reaching". Their claim is that these programs should be left to the church and to the good Christian men and women of this land.

Lately I've been getting frustrated with statements by citizens about our rights. Statements like "well our Constitutions gives us the right to..." That's a blatently ignorant. The U.S. Constitution does not grant or enumerate individual rights. Where necessary it specifies them. This happens in order to define how the government is limited, not in order to detail how an individual is allowed to exercise their rights. One exception to this might be when we specify limitations of one groups rights in order to protect either another groups rights or an individuals rights.

Some in the religious/political community would like us to believe that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation. Their primary claim being that the differences between Christian denominations and sects, English Protestants, French Protestants, Roman Catholics, Orthodox Catholics, Jesuits, Mennonites, and Lutherans, was merely a matter minor procedural differences. After all, they all worshiped the same big "G" God.

I often find an amazing amount of depth in what others might consider trite movie quotes. It's like a little bit of inadvertent zen... or is it, I wonder... I mean writers are certainly smart, at least some of them. Plus one would assume that if they are smart writers that they get inspiration by also being smart readers. So some philosophy must pass through their filter now and again. Right?

In the midst of a down economy, airline bankruptcies, skyrocketing CEO pay (up 37% for the year), flagging retail sales, ongoing partisanship in government, and what will prove to be a sucktacular election season I'm left wondering where the dreamers have gone. We were once a society of dreamers. Our families came here looking for better lives and endured amazing hardships to secure those lives. Sometimes this came at the cost of sacrificing themselves to the elements and losing other loved ones in the arduous journey.

I'm sick of congress and their partisanship, sick of obstructionism, vile rhetoric, complacency, status quo. I'm tired of being told what a horrible rating our president has (42%) while ignoring the fact that Congress rates in the single digits to low teens (9-13%) with as high as a 82% disapproval rating.

Pursuit of wealth for the sake of wealth is the 21st century's Manifest Destiny. People and businesses are attempting profit at any cost, because it's legal, their right, what people and businesses are supposed to do; short term goals do not equate to long term survival.

Profit taking and specifically, laying off employees, while necessary at times, can be the same as firing both a customer and advertiser. It's the inverse of workers negotiating themselves out of a job by demanding more and more perks. Companies are profiting their way out of business.

For a very long time I've been living in a sort of limbo. Friend limbo. I have a few acquaintances at work, some of which I've known for years, some I might consider good friends. However, when it comes time for the weekend I'm not the person they think of having over. I'll get invited to the big get-togethers, the ones where everyone is invited. It's the little "hey let's have dinner" or "come over and we'll watch [insert movie]" invitations that are missing.

I believe that we as a society struggle with being social and making friends at a fundamental level. I believe the crux of the problem is the overwhelming variety and abundance of people we have to choose from. I believe this also drives divorce as well as the ever decreasing number of marriages.