My name is Lewis Voyles; I live near Detroit, MI. I'm a simple man with simple ideas. Why can't politicians figure this out?
  I believe that drugs are bad. I believe the drug war is worse. Legal drugs would create a legal market. The black market for them would cease to exist. The violent crime that partners with the illegal distribution would cease to exist. Our drug laws invite crime. People are gonna use drugs; just as people are gonna drink, but alcohol is regulated and taxed. The government has a modicum of control of booze, but no control over drugs.
A black market doesn't care if it sells in the ghetto or the schoolyard. It is far easier for a teenager to get weed, coke, meth, or X than alcohol, even beer. A legal market would put drugs in the hands of adults and out of the hands of our children.
   A legal market would give the government FDA oversight to dangerous substances and open the door to medicinal study. Our Government is made up of lawyers; decisions about what we put into are bodies is best left to doctors (after ourselves, of course).
   Finally, the golden goose, taxes can be put on drugs. Taxes that could be used for education, highways, alternative fuel reaserch, or even, god forbid, National Health Care! Tens of thousands of law enforcement types could be diverted to catching violent criminals. The DEA could start chasing TERRORISTS; they're already set up for the kind of defense that would secure the Homeland.
   I'm no lawyer, but it doesn't seem too difficult to understand. Drugs are ruinng this country a lot slower than the drug war.

 The middle class is the backbone of this nation.  It was built on the blood and sweat from  working class toil.  Free trade pits the American working class with the working class of third world countries like Mexico and the communist systems of China.  We have an immigration issue with Mexico now because their standard of living is so much lower than ours.  For the American worker to compete we must accept lower wages.  Lower wages mean that we can only afford the cheaper products made in Mexico or China.  It's a vicious circle with the middle class getting poorer while the rich get richer.
   Ending free trade and imposing fair taxes on imported products would promote American jobs by making imported products at least as expensive as American made products.  Big money wants us to believe that the American economy is better off because they are better off.  The truth is that when everyone does better, everyone does better.
   The average working class family pays 30% of it's income in taxes.  Big money pays less than 10% of theirs!  The bigger the money the lower the percentage gets.  That makes no sense.  The working class should pay a much smaller percent and as the money gets bigger the percent should get bigger.  Wouldn't it be terrible if the rich couldn't afford a second airplane while the working people would be better able to heat their homes?
    The abortion issue, family values, and gun control are side issues that distract the American middle class from noticing that big money is getting richer on our backs and making us pay for it.  We, the middle class, are the largest portion of the population.  In a government of, for, and by the people, our voice should be loudest, but we are too busy working.
   Big money and special interest have lobbyists in Washington and state houses representing them.  We have no one, not even our elected officials. They listen to the lobby.  The American working class needs to start electing working class people to office.  We should be electing doctors, teachers, mechanics, plumbers and even preachers (not evangelists!) to represent us.  No one but lawyers like lawyers; why do we keep electing them?  Oh yeah, ...and outlaw the lobbyists!  Get big money and special interest out of government.