Kicking it all off by waxing political.

As a man just starting into middle-age, many things are suddenly starting to make some sense to me and other things are starting making me go, "Huh?" We will explore the meanderings of my mind on many issues that face America today from the viewpoint of an average American. You might agree, you may not; but that is what makes this such a great country. I will listen and consider any opinion as long as it is well thought out and not just soundbites being parroted around. I am willing to learn, but I am fairly set in my ways and my mind will be hard to change. I also do not take spelling and grammar into consideration as these were never my strong suit.

On with the show...

Politics have always made me go,"Huh?" But suddenly (well, over the past ten years or so) I have started to pay attention, read and learn, develop my opinions on several issues. After all, truth is often subjective to a point and opinion is the main guiding factor for our mindset and that on which we base our lives.

I tend to identify mostly with the Republican party in the sense that I am a fiscal and social conservative for the most part. But with the way the GOP has been wobbling around all over the idealogical map, I could almost be considered a Libertarian as I will not sacrifice my ideals and principals just to follow a bunch of people who tend to follow polls that are fuzzy science at best.

I support our President for the most part, but find myself separating from him on many issues: immigration, education, and the war to name a few.

I have supported the war in Iraq since its inception and will always support our troops; but I feel that we are now done there. Having family and friends who are serving there right now and given what they are saying about the war indicate, to me, that we should start a "Phase II" to the liberation of Iraq. Let's pull back to Kuwait or Saudi Arabia and train the Iraqi forces and then arm them (this will eventually bite us in the butt, but that is for another time) and send them back home to deal with the insurgents. We will still have troops in the area if needed and could even patrol the boarders to help keep foreign fighters and weapons out of the country. Then the bulk of the troops could go into Afghanistan and re-suppress the Taliban and perhaps flush Bin Laden out of Pakistan; with or without their permission. I do not claim to be the smartest man in the world (Joe Average) and I can not be the only person to have thought of this line of action.

I do applaud President Bush for holding to his beliefs and sticking to his guns this far. I will always feel that we have done the right thing in this regard. The Liberals (can't say Democrats, because they don't all feel the same) will put our troops, the Iraqi people, and our country in danger if they put a time line or budget restrictions on the Iraqi war. And that is a very slippery slope that we can not afford to approach.