Monday, March 17, 2011

Another typical summer day.  Sleep in.  Do nothing.  Watch baseball.  So satisfying and unsatisfying at the same time.  Highlight of the day was definitely cooking dinner with mom.  I was in charge of the meat and potatoes, she was in charge of the vegetables.  I cooked those steaks to perfection.  Next to that was just hanging out with my bros watching the Braves game.  Something so simple yet so fulfilling.  I leave for Pennsylvania, where I will be working all summer, in five days so I am trying to enjoy Winston-Salem as much as I can until then.

Since there is not a whole lot going on in my life, the topic of today's discussion is one that I have though a considerable amount lately, especially today.  It is on the political front, so apologies if that is something of no interest to you.  My question to both myself and you is, "What is America's role as `good guy` in the world?"  Where do we need to send our aid?  How much aid do we need to send? In what form is aid best served?  Terrorism is most certainly a problem, but with it stretching across the glove, most considerably the middle east, where do we learn to stop?  Is there a certain point where we just let these countries take care of themselves?  The moral side to us will always tell us to protect the little guy and send aid to help out those oppressed by either radicals or dictators, but our budget is strongly telling us the other way.  The U.S. had the second to last space shuttle launch either today or yesterday, which is closing out the end of an era.  Is it the right decision to end our space program to save money when we are still pumping money into the Middle East?

Considering the top political analysts cannot answer these questions, I will not try to on this simpleton blog.  Those are just a few issues I find relevant and interesting.  I absolutely think some sort of balance is needed and that we should always keep our budget under control.  Money should definitely be used for aiding wars and countries which we feel morally obliged to, but not just thrown at every 3rd world country with poor leaders or extremists causing an up rise.  In the end, our political leaders are elected and paid to make difficult decisions, we just better hope they can make the right ones.  Our budget is completely out of hand, reaching its "cap of borrowing" at 14.2 trillion today.  That essentially means nothing though.   Good thing the world is ending in 2012...

My quote to live by of the day that should probably be called the quote that sounds like it means more than it actually does is as follows:

"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens." -Jimi Hendrix