real time with bill maher

I do love this show: he has real Republicans and real Democrats and he mixes it up and makes sure there are real arguments with honest beliefs on each side. If only real news shows could do the same.

I love his opinion on Obama - every time he tries to tackle a huge social reform there is a huge party standing in his way: the Democrats. "Democrats have moved to the right, and the right has moved into a mental hospital."

These are things my parents have been saying for years, and I, fairly untutored in politics, regarded their comments with faint skepticism until I began to see patterns in the newspaper articles.

I have an odd collection of beliefs:
I support abortion, but mostly because I fear what would happen to women, young and old, across the country if we lost the right to control our own bodies. There are babies out there - lots of them - who are better off not being born, especially those with physical conditions that would lead to miserable lives.

I do not support the death penalty, because a) people make mistakes, especially the police, b) I think people suffer much more in prison than they do in death and c)it wastes so much court time taking someone to death row. Lawyers should be focusing on things other than appeal after appeal, there are plenty of criminals to go around.

I don't think socialism is so bad in a diluted form, but I also don't think anything is good a purist form. What's so bad about a capitalist economy with a revised Social Security and universal healthcare? Make stuff like breast implants be entirely private, there'll be plenty of money for the HMOs and the hospitals that way.

I don't see what's wrong with drugs being legalized as long as incredibly stringent regulations are in place against driving or operating any sort of dangerous machinery while under the influence. Let people kill themselves, there are too many on the planet anyway.

I also don't believe that the government should hand out ANY marriage licenses at all - marriage is a RELIGIOUS contract, not a legal one. Let's let all citizens get full-rights civil unions from the government to protect inheritance, health-care decisions, etc etc. And then get separate marriage licenses from their respective religious institutions, who have every right to be as nasty and selective as they please. Orthodox Jews have been doing this since America was founded, I don't see why everyone else can't.

Oh, and I don't see that cutting down on pollution is so bad either. Suck it, GM, nobody likes your gas-guzzlers anyway.

Enough political ranting, I am finally finished with my awful PR class and I get to spend a week in Orlando relaxing!

Cheers!