Unnecessary wars, Ukraine crisis, drug testing

Up until the Vietnam conflict, the longest war our country had been involved in was the Revolutionary War (eight years). The many other conflicts were resolved within the term/terms of single administrations.

We have now seen three major wars — Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan — that have spanned at least two administrations, the first initiating hostilities, the second contending with it regardless of his agenda.

And all three wars seem to have been ill-conceived and ended badly.

War is not to be entered into lightly, regardless of circumstances. We do not want to see such fiascoes as the 30-year or 100-year wars that devastated Europe.

The crisis in Ukraine provides another excuse for Republicans to use President Barack Obama as a punching bag for whatever ails the United States.

What would they have him do? Start another war?

He is not able to make all decisions by himself.

And if people understood how complicated foreign policy is and how so many other nations are involved and affected by our decisions, maybe they would find it in their hearts to cut the president a little slack.

Republicans accused the president of not acting after our embassy was attacked in Benghazi. They call other countries second rate. They refer to former President Jimmy Carter as spineless.

I challenge Republicans to come up with all the answers to rule the world as they would have the president do.

He cannot act alone and has to follow the rules of his office. Being ignorant of all the facts is a common theme.

Cheers for U.S. District Judge Mary S. Scriven in Orlando, Fla. She recently struck down as unconstitutional the Florida law that required welfare applicants to undergo drug testing, setting the stage for battles that could affect similar efforts nationwide and in Missouri.

Scriven said, “The court finds there is no set of circumstances under which the warrant-less, suspicion-less drug testing at issue in this case could be constitutionally applied.”

Missouri welfare recipients continue to be unconstitutionally tested. Drug testing is a huge failure in Missouri, which budgeted $493,000 on drug testing for this fiscal year. The Star reported that in the first eight months of the program, 636 persons were tested for drugs among 32,511 welfare applications. Only 20 came back positive.

Missouri’s Republican legislature passed the drug-testing law over the veto of Gov. Jay Nixon.

If I hear one more pundit say it’s the United States’ fault that Iraq has slid back into chaos, I’ll scream. Truth is, if we just wanted stability in Iraq we would have left Saddam Hussein in place.

He was scum, but he knew how to keep order. But no, we spent a decade, thousands of American lives and billions of dollars to hand Iraq to its people, and what did they do?

They did what was expected and started killing each other along ethnic, political and, worst of all, religious lines — the very same thing the rest of the Middle East is doing as we speak.

The U.S. can do nothing to help people who care more about whether their prophet left his legacy to his wife’s father or his cousin than about building a free and fair society. It is a place where too many children are taught that dying for one’s country rather than living for it is a good thing.

And until they wake up to that fact, all the armies in the world won’t change their fate.

Sometimes we have to choose between two alternatives. On wind power versus killing birds, do we choose birds over clean energy?

Most electric power today is produced by burning coal. Each ton of coal burned produces several tons of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. And from the coal we also get a negative bonus of toxic mercury.

Natural gas-fired power plants are cleaner, but they too produce several tons of carbon dioxide for each ton of gas burned.

So, do we sacrifice some birds and have clean energy, no CO2 and no mercury? Or do we just leave the birds alone and go with a warmer planet, rising sea levels, toxic mercury and weird weather?

So, Bill Gates is back atop his perch as the richest man in the world, with his net worth estimated at $72 billion, according to Forbes magazine. He is now at the pinnacle of the richest 1 percent in America.

For those who enviously decry this, and with what many would describe as obscene wealth, consider the following from the Feb. 4 Star article, “Gates tops Forbes’ rankings”:

“A record 1,645 billionaires (worldwide) made the list this year, with an average net worth of $4.7 billion.” Of these, “1,080 were self-made (66 percent), 207 inherited wealth (13 percent) and 352 (21 percent) inherited a portion but had increased it.”

The point is, a majority created their own wealth, some had a helping hand and increased their wealth and just 13 percent were born with the proverbial silver spoon.

This top 1 percent of the wealthiest receive great criticism for their great fortune, but most had to work for it. Also, many of the top earners are generous with their considerable contributions to worthy causes, witness our own Kansas Citians: the Kempers, Kauffmans, Helzbergs, Blochs, Stowerses and many others.

I have no problem with the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans.

My guess is that most do more good than they’re given credit for, the hundreds of thousands of jobs they’ve created being just one example.

The notion of paying college athletes outside of their athletic scholarships amplifies and promotes two major problems sweeping the United States: polarization and inequality.

In recent years, society has become more and more polarized with growing inequality and an erosion of the middle class.

On one end are the wealthiest 1 percent, and on the other are the bottom 99 percent, with little to no middle ground anywhere in sight.

While polarization is a term predominantly used in politics and economics, it is just as at home in sports, considering citizens in the United States tend to put athletes, collegiate and professional alike, in that top 1 percent.

If the NCAA decides that paying its athletes outside of their scholarships is justified, it is essentially saying that college athletes are more deserving than other college students, further separating the two groups on the social scale.

And, yes, they are two separate groups.

At most NCAA Division I universities, the majority of “student-athletes” are not students at all.

It’s a sad yet accurate depiction of reality in the society in which we live.

I admit I said a few choice words while dealing with the healthcare.gov website.

But what a great outcome.

My monthly premium decreased by 55 percent.

My deductible decreased by a whopping 85 percent.

Prescriptions decreased to $8 per prescription.

And my benefits are much better.

I have my new insurance plan card, and seeing the much lower bill for January coverage was such a relief.

Thank you, President Barack Obama.

Recent news reports indicated a shortage of professional clowns.

The opening last week of the Conservative Political Action Conference completely refutes those reports.

We wish that Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration and our Kansas Republican legislators would stop working on an agenda of anti-education, anti-voting, anti-gun control, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-jobless, anti-Medicaid, anti-poor and pro-Koch brothers and start working on something all Kansans want:

Stopping those dang spam phone calls.

This story was originally published March 9, 2014 at 5:00 PM with the headline "Unnecessary wars, Ukraine crisis, drug testing."