Submitted by ssbaker305@yahoo.com, Aug 19, 2008 11:16

I really wish the autocratic nations would stop financing our bad (debt) habits. It would teach us to stand on our own two feet for the first time in two generations. Our way of life — borrowing from everyone, not producing the goods and services the world wants — is unsustainable. Democracy is increasingly seen, correctly, as an elective way of governing. Rather than democracy being the end point of human political development, it now looks like benign dictatorships (Russia, China) are more the "natural order of things." The only way out of this is to become economically and energy independent again. We should buy from the world, but we shouldn't owe them. We need to go back to exporting more than we import, and leading the world in innovative technology, and the energy patch would be the best place to start. Sadly, there is no sign of this happening, except in the vague promises of both candidates.

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