I read on San Francisco Chronicle that "conservative" outlook is wrong (less government regulations) and the opposite is right (a lot of government regulations).

I can only represent this by comparing it to a pizza, with one pepperoni, and another pepperoni. Each pepperoni changes details once in a while, and try to keep opposite of each other, in nearly all the details.
That's all the things/ideas that people can think about, the country, the world, the events, etc.
And the Democrat camp, and the Republican camp. Each so busy in PR-ing itself and anti-PR-ing the other, that it's more about being a peer pressure group, and who can make the most headlines and embarrass the other side the most. People rarely think.

To say/write something rather not too fun to read, the American people (99%) seem to think everything happening in life is because of government (that 1% who work in government), and never think about themselves (the 95%).

The country is founded as government by the people for the people. One of the founders, I forgot which one, wrote that a Gospel-believing/living people is necessary for the governing of the US, and the Constitution can only work with that kind of population.

In practical terms, this means, the people have the responsibility of being responsible and honest, as much as possible.
That means, to not live beyond what people can afford, and not spend money you don't have. So when I read (on the Atlantic, or Time magazine, or maybe articles from both) that the average American is $17000 in debt of credit cards, that's really horrible.
There wouldn't have been a mortgage crisis (and I am talking about mortgage, that means wildly borrowing money to buy houses without expecting to pay it back), if all or even most of 300 million Americans were responsible in not overspending, and not getting in credit debt. This happened because way too many people were doing it, and Wall Street is only part of the whole. In the Atlantic article there was a description of how people used to save a higher percentage of their income, then things got really consumerist and people made this culture that a person should express himself/herself in the amount of things they buy. And mothers could buy bags/shirts with "born to shop" for their kids. So people's saving first were double digits, then went into the single digits, and then wildly borrowing money became the fad, so people's savings went into negative percentages, and kept spending money they didn't have.

This is ridiculous.

Then the person writing the article in Time, wrote that President Bush never advocated being thrifty as a virtue. And it's from reading that line that I wanted to write this.
The point is, President Bush is elected to run the macro of the country, a President is not supposed to be in people's living rooms, bedrooms and bathrooms telling them how to live. If people wastes money or wildly (should I say, immorally) borrow money they don't have, it's not the President's job as people's nanny to come to their doors and tell them to be financially more responsible.

That's each person's individual responsibility, about as important as the much-talked about Bill of Rights. People seem to only talk about their rights, and never talk about their responsibilities. And it's ridiculous to expect the President (though I am sure the author was thinking him as symbol of the US government) to supervise everyone in their personal responsibilities. That's not something that can be blamed on the government.

So, when individual people are financially immoral in a widespread fashion, it's not like more or less government regulation is that relevant.


The American people are rather fast at blaming the government, and never themselves, even when the mortgage (and specifically I am talking about people, in their personal lives, pretending they have money they don't) and credit card debt was widely done by the most average person.

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and, on a completely unrelated thing, the beginning of Time magazine mentioned Finland make more gun control laws. The problem is, a criminal will just steal one (it's likely very easy in Finland), or get from black market. So teachers should be armed in schools, like Southern states are doing in the U.S. That would really end the issue.