Merris, I haven't quite figured out what you are promoting. I agree that some things need to be done better. My question is do you want government doing it or do you want private enterprise doing it? To my mind, this is the difference between Republican and Democrat philosophies. I heard Obama talking about "hands on" control of education. The last thing we need is more "hands on" from the federal government, in any field. I believe most of the problems with education and some other things now is that it is in the hands of the federal government. You can say that I strongly favor states rights.

Conservatives are not pessimists. We just like government to be as small as is practical, whereas you seem to favor it being bigger. Hope I'm wrong about that.