Colorado Springs

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, and perhaps I'm picking on one town unfairly, but what is going on with Colorado Springs? First, the city votes to not raise taxes in the face of falling revenue due to the recession, so HUGE budget cuts go into effect. The town becomes a microcosm of letting free market principles work. City street lights and parks are shut down. Citizens can pay to have service restored, so after awhile you can tell what parts of town are affluent enough to pay for city lights and what parts are not. Some folks are willing to pay more to have the service returned than it would have cost them in taxes. But this lack of logic doesn't stop the town.

Now, the story breaks that an Easter Egg hunt has been cancelled in the town because of over zealous parents. I want my kids to get eggs too, but sometimes you don't. That's LIFE, people. What is wrong with these parents? I think my own hometown has shut down it's easter egg hunt. When I was growing up, the local Lions Club would sponser this massive easter egg hunt at the city park. they would rope off different sections of the park for different age groups, and cover the ground in these frankly awful sugar 'eggs'. You could also get a golden egg that you would redeem for a chocolate bunny. After the event, everyone would receive an ice cream bar. My grandpa was a member of the club, and one year he just 'happened' to be helping out with the pen that I was going to be hunting eggs in. When the hunt starts, I naturally run over to my grandpa because he was spreading out eggs and I wanted to be near him. I vaguely remember picking up eggs and then suddenly I find a golden egg! Cool! My parents were happy but I remember them making a comment about how grandpa accidentally 'dropped' the egg when I was there. So it was fixed. That's about all the parental interference I recall seeing when I participated. I do remember when I was older and we went there with my younger brother some parents would jump in to get eggs. What is wrong with these parents? Aren't you just teaching your kids that 'Mommy or Daddy will be there to make all your problems go away.' ?

What I don't like about free market principles in these cases is that they are so focused on the individual. We live in a society. We all need to work together. I'm not advocating that everyone should have a government paid for ipad, but what is going on is haves vs have nots. Which actually if you think about it is exactly what free market principles advocates.

Kid Politics

I love how some conservatives claim that Obama has some kind of brain washing agenda to warp the minds of our youth. This American Life takes a tour of the Regan library and watches elementary kids attempt to reenact the invasion of Grenada. The kids are rewarded for choosing the path Regan took, and not rewarded for choosing otherwise. Who is warping our youth here? I mean, I think this scenario reenacting is a really interesting idea, but putting the kids into these situations and pretending them that they are making the decisions, then psychologically smacking them when they don't follow what actually happened is total BS and just teaches the kids to be sheep and be afraid of making their own decisions.

Contraception

The debate over contraception is really dumb. We've been through this, haven't we? It's moronic to go over it again. The Catholic church has to cover contraception under a number of state laws. It's suddenly a problem when it's a federal law? Come on. Rush Limbaugh is an idiot, but we already knew that. The coverage is not for sex. It's because you can use contraception to treat medical conditions. I overheard 2 VPs in my office talking about this issue. They agreed with the substance of Limbaugh's comments, but not of what he actually said. They don't seem to get it, either. I was tempted to inject myself into the conversation, but I'm just a lowly worm and it didn't seem like the right place to be tossing around the words slut and prostitute. If you have an issue with birth control being covered, then why aren't you livid by the fact that Medicare covers Viagra? That means I'm paying for all the old geezers to have sex! And that has been law since 2005. So spare me your BS over this issue. Or first give up your Viagra, then we can have a conversation.