Third Rails of American Politics, Pt. 1

(In case anyone noticed I didn't post last week, it was because I was gone all week. I'm also busy working on stuff for school [countdown - 20 days], so my posting hasn't been perfect. Just wait until September and I should be in the swing of things again.)



I don't know when exactly I first heard the term, but the concept of a Third Rail of American politics interests me. For those of you who don't know, the third rail in a modern train track is the one that carries all of the electricity. It is also unique in that you die when you touch it. True to the metaphor, politicians die the second they decide to touch this issue. Of course, being the brilliant genius I am, I decided to put on some rubber gloves and try them out for myself. A fair warning: Do not try this during an election!



1 - Cutting the Department of Education (or, better yet, Eliminating it entirely)

This is pretty lethal. Just about anyone who tries this ends up frying in the end. The reason - teacher's unions. More specifically, the fact that they make make an already broken system even worse. In the always brilliant words of John Stossel, "America's decision to have its public schools run by a government monopoly is stunningly stupid. Having a union-dominated monopoly run them is even stupider. [italics Stossel's]" In the minds of most normal people exists the unquestionable idea that free markets work. But not in the minds of the folks at the Department of Education and the Federal Government. That's why we put more than half a billion dollars into the ED last year. Billion! With a B! In fact, this Third Rail wasn't too controversial for a long time. As recently as 1996, Bob Dole, the GOP candidate at the time suggested the Department be "cut out." But in 2000, Bush II, the King of NeoCons, decided to expand the ED and passed No Child Left Behind, which any child can see put us far behind the rest of the world, or, at the very least, did nothing to help for a lot of money.

2 - A Non-Socialized Health Care Plan

All of the Democratic candidates (excepting Obama and Gravel, who are sensible people) must have had a few too many "prescription drugs" from Canada, because they seem to love the broken system of Single-Payer (i.e., Marxist-Leninist) Health Care Plan that makes our public school system look like it was designed by Jefferson himself (who, by the way, abolished taxes while President). Hillary and Edwards, for the first time in world history, both took one (1) single stance on an issue the first time - for a mandated national Health Care system funded by taxpayers. If one would like to see how that's turned out in Canada, try and get a life-saving procedure performed on you there and see if you live to tell the tale. Rudy Giuliani has proposed a non-Socialist plan to fix our (terrible) system. We'll see just how long it takes the liberal Land Sharks to devour him for it.

I'll continue these another time. They're vital to the survival of any potential political creature of the future. Plus, I like them, and it is my blog, isn't it?