In itself, no, it's not an indicator of stupidity or dishonesty. You might need to write your boss' cell number on your hand; you shouldn't need to write your own name there.

That's reasonable, though it does highlight one problem with allowing concealment to be a local issue (though I tend to agree it should be. ) It's hard for me to fully articulate, but the idea of concealing deadly force unnerves me on a primal level. While not everyone with a concealed weapon is a criminal, almost every armed criminal will try to conceal it until ready to use it, and if discovered before they commit a crime, concealment bans become a way to PREVENT more serious crimes. I can't imagine many scenarios where possessing a weapon becomes a greater deterrent by adding concealment. I tend to think of it more along the lines of the TX shaped wooden sign I used to see at a local shop: A picture of a revolver and the caption "we don't dial 911. "

Yes, there are qualifications for office; there's nothing in the Constitution that bars a qualified candidate except the 26th Amendment and the birth requirement. And I think you give Reagan too much credit; I think he was as much a believer in the imperial Presidency (in his own image) as Nixon and Bush 43, and even had he needed to rationalize it with something like the Cold War creating an extreme situation akin to America on the eve of WWII, he'd have stayed in until forced about by defeat, death or incapacity. Especially since, once again, he admitted after leaving office that Alzheimers was affecting him by the end of his second term.

Accountability is not a given in the private sector as it is in a free democracy. Maybe on paper, but it ignores things like monopolies, collusion and exploitation, the things private industry critics of government like to ignore. Really, the only differences between a government service and a private one are that the former isn't obligated to bill you more than it costs them to provide it nor do you automatically have the option of replacing them with someone better.

I don't think a state governors senior staffer has the kind of resume that says he's suited for a given private position because of his public ones. We're not talking about a lifer who hits mandatory retirement age and ends up as a Boeing consultant.

The gas tax was what I had in mind, yes; theoretically, if you have a lot of toll roads the gas taxes primarily used for road maintenance should be less. Though I wouldn't take it as given.

I generally agree; while I'm not a fan of them myself, I do think the HPV vaccine should be freely available to everyone who wants it. Ironically, that's one of the issues with Perry executive order (which the state Legislature basically met with "Aw, HELL, no!" ) that Gardasil is still a fairly expensive vaccine, in part because it has to be administered multiple times to be effective, and that requiring it for every school girl in a state of ~20 million was going to make Merck a LOT of money.

It's a touchy and fuzzy area (sex ed itself, I mean, not the anatomy involved. ) It's all well to say, "not my kid" but maybe I don't want your son pressuring my daughter into sex, or refusing to wear a condom because he doesn't like how it feels and, anyway, he hasn't slept with a LOT of girls and she can't get pregnant since she's a virgin. If we accept compulsory education (and some don't) then knowing how to minimize the risk of pregnancy/STDs as a result of sex is at least as important to society as knowing how the inverse square rule of gravitation. Guess which one most people use more. The suggestion kids are learning about sex in school is laughable; it's often true, but (usually) not because of the teachers....

I was trying not to go there; illiteracy can be a sensitive subject for some (flip side, most of them won't be offended by reading our comments on it. )

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. My uncle was in his early fifties and had a good union job when a rig decided not to wait for the rig ahead of him to make a left turn, drove around him, and steamrolled my uncle in his SUV, killing him instantly. Had he lived another twenty years (as his father did) his earnings alone would've been over a million dollars, and social security would've been even more; not only that, but the truck driver already had a record for unsafe (and on one occasion, drunk) driving in a rig, but the company hired him knowing that. He'd already earned enough money that he paid cash for his brand new SUV (a total loss, naturally) and the only reason he didn't pay off his new house in cash is that he didn't want to completely empty his bank account. Flash forward a few years and one of his daughters has a newborn, is about to be unemployed for reporting illegal activity by her employer, and they're turning off her lights because she can't make her bills. Her sister is in a similar situation because taxes on dads new house are around $3000/year. Oh, and their father's dead, too. How much is that worth to them? Where should we set the limit? Why don't we just let their lawyers and the companys both make their respective cases and let the jury decide instead of having the state or federal legislature do it for them? Since that seems to have been the idea for the Founding Fathers I see no reason to change it, and many reasons not to do so. In this particular case the company chose to settle out of court for a clean million, in large part because they knew they'd lose a trial and have to pay much more; how inclined do you think they'd have been to do that without that nearly certain possibility? Maybe my cousins should've been forced to prove their case in a trial in between burying my uncle, but I don't think so.

It's not like companys can't appeal if they think the verdict is wrong or too harsh, and whether or not they do judges have been known to reduce judgments or order juries to make new ones (in fact, exactly that happened in one of John Edwards' "Four Trials. " ) Let a jury of peers do their job as the Constitution and God intended.

Sounds a lot like group think to me, but, once again, there are fewer variations on "the old ways are best" than on "change. " Bush never struck me as sincere while Governor or President; there are plenty of other examples (such as the "downsize government" candidate leading the biggest and most expensive expansion of government in US history) but the best is still invoking 911 at every opportunity while telling me how unconcerned he was about the man responsible (then denying it later. )