SHAME ON US

     I recall a time in the not too distant past when, as high school students, we used to scoff and sneer at those backwards countries that built up their militaries while their people and their most vulnerable suffered want and need. The blinds are off. We no longer have that moral authority. 

     The so-called "fiscal conservatives" don't even want to spend the money to take care of the vets after they've used them up, much less the poor, the uneducated, the unemployed, the sick, or anything else that won't turn a profit for their super-wealthy, corporate and industry donors. 

     What the hell have we become? Just how ignorant are we? Bickering over which party has the religious high ground, trying to dictate who can marry who, encouraging the government to regulate what goes on in bedrooms and in doctor's offices in the name of morality when this is the REAL IMMORALITY that is tearing this nation up from its foundations. 

     We don't need to have a military budget larger than the next ten largest combined. We only need to have a military budget larger than the second largest. SHAME ON US!

LARGEST NATIONS BY POPULATION*

1 | China | 1.36 billion people |

2 | India | 1.28 billion people |

3 | United States | 319 million people |

4 | Indonesia | 247 million people |

5 | Brazil | 200 million people |

* http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=largest+nations+by+population

LARGEST NATIONS BY AREA*

1 | Russia | 6.593 million mi^2 |

2 | Canada | 3.855 million mi^2 |

3 | United States | 3.719 million mi^2 |

4 | China | 3.705 million mi^2 |

5 | Brazil | 3.288 million mi^2 |

* http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=largest+nations+by+area

LARGEST MILITARY EXPENDITURES*

1 | United States | $503.4 billion per year
2 | China | $114.7 billion per year
3 | France | $55.29 billion per year
4 | United Kingdom | $53.43 billion per year
5 | Germany | $41.8 billion per year
6 | Japan | $35.48 billion per year
7 | Italy | $31.72 billion per year
8 | Saudi Arabia | $30.98 billion per year
9 | Russia | $29.81 billion per year
10 | Brazil | $27.76 billion per year
11 | South Korea | $23.57 billion per year

*http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=largest+military+budget (2003, 2005, 2006, and 2007 estimates)

United States: $503.4 B  vs. Next 10 Largest Military Expenditures Combined: $444.54 B

Road Map

Greetings folks! Hope everyone is having a good week.

I've been thinking about how to proceed with my blog. There are many hot button issues I want to share my take on and current events will most certainly raise new issues in the future. I've decided to begin by laying some ground work and setting the tone in my first few posts.

My Objectives for Kentuckiana Blue:

• Educate
• Motivate readers to become engaged with the political process.
• Encourage civility in political discourse.
• Encourage adherence to a code of ethics when debating political issues.
• Encourage open-mindedness and critical thinking concerning the issues and potential solutions to the problems facing us as a state and as a nation.
• Provide resources for action and for further investigation.

My Code of Ethics:

• My honesty is in my own best interest. If you find me to be dishonest, I've lost you as a reader. If you consistently find that I am being truthful, I will gain your trust and, hopefully, retain you as a reader. It's just that simple.
• I will support my arguments with bipartisan/neutral sources as often as possible.
• I will provide citations with links to my sources so that you can determine for yourself the trustworthiness of the source.
• I will alert readers of any source I have cited that is known to embrace a left-leaning or right-leaning position.
• If it comes to my attention that I have provided inaccurate information, I will issue a retraction as an addendum at the top of the post involved as well as a brief new blog post about the discrepancy. The post itself will remain in its original state for reference.

Tentative Outline of First Few Posts:

• Links Every Well-Informed Voter Should Have
• The Myth That Your Vote Doesn't Matter
• Brief Refresher on the Founding Documents
• Brief Refresher on the Three Branches of Government
• A Closer Look at the Bill of Rights
• -Isms and -Archies

First Post! A Short Tale of Devotion to Two States and of Personal Evolution.

Greetings internet travelers, family, and friends. 

This is my first post to my new blog, so it will be brief. I am a 50-something grandmother, a divorced mother of two grown sons, a daughter of two loving parents and the oldest of two sisters. I practiced as an LPN in three different states for over 25 years. I worked my way through LPN school as a nursing assistant. Prior to that, I was an assistant manager of a fast food seafood restaurant fresh out of high school. I attended high school in Hopkinsville, KY, and graduated in 1980. I completed nursing school in Madisonville, KY in 1982. I consider both Louisville, KY and Clarksville, IN my home towns.

I have two states that I call "home" - Kentucky and Indiana. I am actually a Hoosier by birth and currently live on the Indiana side of the river. I've lived most of my life in Kentucky. Both sides of my family are multi-generation Kentuckians. My paternal grandparents moved to Clarksville when my father was a young boy and lived there until the time of their deaths. Most of my family still lives on the Louisville side of the Ohio River. My father was stationed in Okinawa, Japan when I was born and my mother lived with her parents in Louisville but she chose to have me in Clark Memorial Hospital on the Indiana side of the river. Just giving a little history to explain my devotion to both states. My blog will focus on political issues in both states and the country at large, with a few posts on history, genealogy, family, and community events thrown in for good measure.

You may have deduced, given the title of my blog, that I am a liberal. You would be correct in that assumption. I did spend most of my life as a "Reagan Republican" and I come from a very long line of Republicans. Most of my family are still Republicans. My parents taught my sister and me to think for ourselves and to consider opposing views with an open mind. I tease my dad about that. If he had not taught us to be so open-minded, I would still be a Republican. I want to point out to my fellow liberals that neither of my parents are extreme in their conservatism. I actually suspect my mom may be left of center, but she has always secretive about her activity in the voting booth. I know that my father doesn't hesitate to cross party lines when he feels the Republican candidate is not well suited for the office. My father sincerely hoped that President Obama would be a successful president, even though he did not vote for him. We disagree upon whether he has been a successful president or not, but he never hoped for President Obama, or the country, to fail. He is also a fan of President Obama's public speaking skills, even if he doesn't agree with him on the content of those speeches. My father is the man who taught me, at a very young age, that bigotry and intolerance are wrong. When I embraced Paganism, he responded with tolerance and respect for my faith. I expected no less. He was very disturbed by the bigotry directed toward Muslims in the wake of 9/11. My daddy is a good man, even if we do lock horns over politics. He certainly does not fit the current stereotype of extreme right wing conservatives. I don't like stereotypes, especially when applied to my family, so I thought I would explain the conservative side of my family at the outset.

I ask those who visit to take into consideration that the ideological shift I experienced does not come out of thin air, nor does it happen overnight. This was a long, careful thought process that involved research, soul-searching, more research, deliberation, discussions and debates with both liberals and conservatives, and re-evaluation of my social and political beliefs. When I completed that process, I emerged on the other side a liberal. I ask the reader to approach my blog with an open mind, as well.

I will end this first post with a most appropriate quote by a fellow Louisvillian.

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life. - Muhammad Ali

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/wasted.html#SEj9QqewyuLst3xU.99