Josh posted: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/185037.php

I am one of those who is with KK on why I believe Obama is the better candidate even though I have no illusions that Obama will be as willing an enabler if not an active participant in the PNAC agenda.

At this point there is nothing can be done to stop the laws of gravity acting on an empire that has gone off the cliff. America is Wile E. Coyote madly flailing his legs in mid-air. The difference between Obama and Clinton is that the one knows this and the other one doesn't.

My choice will go to the one who knows what kind of damage we will be dealing with when we hit the valley floor which will be orders of magnitude greater than what Katrina did to New Orleans. Between the ruthless white bitch and the black uncle tom, I'll put my faith in black folks to pull together in community than anything white folks can do with bullets and their doctrine of social Darwinian individualism.

Just heard on The Weather Channel that due to a tornado wreaking devastation somewhere south of Minnesota that the National Guard has been called out and martial law is now in effect for the region.

I'm sure martial law was imposed for Katrina as well, but I've never of it for a tornado. If it was, I never heard it on the weather channel. And when we had a tornado come through my part of Minnesota in 1998, NO ONE thought to impose martial law or bring the National Guard out for it.

To me, this bodes very poorly in the light of everything else going on in the country today, from the Halliburton camps to the EMS development of mass triage all done through the office of Homeland Security.

I don't have time right now to provide any further details but wanted to get this out.

Ok, so South Dakota has outlawed abortions and made it a crime to provide a safe, medical procedure.

So, life is safe for the fetus. But is life safe once it is born? Will those who feel that life is so precious that no fetus should go unborn also work to make the life it is born into worth living? Will the mother and the father, if he isn't gone, be loving parents who can provide for the child's needs? Will the child have enough food to eat, a decent and secure place to live, an education that teaches about the world and the people in it rather just how to be a cog in the money machine? Will the country and the world be a good place to live with friendly and kind people in it?

Or are the parents on their own, scratching for their bread, struggling to keep the child healthy, and fighting tooth and nail to keep from losing a job, being evicted, or going bankrupt?

Keeping women from having abortions is not the end of it. The care and feeding of the child must also be taken into account. Otherwise, it does no good to have the child be born only to die later on.

The outlawing of abortions doesn't prevent them and it certainly won't do anything to keep the child alive after it is born. Should the child die after birth from abandonment, neglect, illness, abuse, or privation, instead of saving a child, those who outlawed abortions will have killed it. By ignoring the conditions into which the child will be born, the blood of all dead children are on their hands.

This Democrat stands for people. The people must come first in every decision and policy. This is what it means in the Declaration of Independence when Jefferson wrote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [people] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men [people], deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

It is with these principles that the Preamble of the Constitution begins with "We the People..." and then spells out the duties that the government "of the people, by the people, for the people" are to be carried out. The legitimacy of that government is determined by how well it exercises "just powers" "to secure these rights" and achieves "a decent respect to the opinions of [hu]mankind."

Jefferson tells us, knowing that some people lust after power out of greed, selfishness, self-aggrandizement, or sheer insanity:

That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends [life, liberty, and happiness], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

and

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

It is with these words that Jefferson gave humankind not just the right but the duty "to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." This is the great light of hope and the beacon of democracy that shines forth to people everywhere on the planet.

But like any lighthouse, it is darkest at its base. America is in crisis. It is a constitutional crisis. Even deeper, it is an identity crisis about who we are and what we stand for. Which way this country goes depends on the candidates and the political parties understanding this crisis and speaking out for We the People who suffer at the hands of an illegimate and criminal government. They must show themselves to be new guards for our future security, safety, and happiness. They can only do this by returning to the People First principle.

Every issue (the war in Iraq, medical care and costs, jobs, children, poverty, pollution, etc.) is derived from and is secondary to this principle. It cannot be, when the root is neglected, that what should spring from it will be well ordered.* In other words, we would not have these issues if those elected to public office actually put the People First.