Looks like the auto industry is out for a piece of the bailout pie too. Our government really is becoming a federal soup kitchen for the corporate poor. Who knows what ailing and failing industries will crop up next looking for their fair share of the handouts. This is, of course, the government’s fault as they set a precedent with the Wall Street bailout.

Even the rhetoric used by the auto industry mirrors that used by financial institutions and Paulson, Bernanke & Co. Here’s a quote from an industry source on what would happen if Congress goes on break before money is doled out (I say before because everyone knows it’s just a matter of time):

If Congress ends its autumn lame-duck session without helping the automakers, policymakers are taking a “substantial risk with the economy,” an industry source said. The automakers and their allies warn that failure of the Big Three could cost 3 million to 5 million jobs when the impact on related industries is calculated.

Imminent doom and destruction if nothing is done…when have we heard that before? Hm.

Their claims about the impact on parts manufacturers and car dealers may be legitimate, but they’re nothing new in a capitalistic economy. Competition exists to weed out the weak, and it just so happens that Chrysler, GM, and Ford are weak right now. If they go under it’s because of natural market forces, not neglect. Isn’t it odd how capitalism is great when you’re winning but sucks when you’re losing?

They have had many opportunities to respond to imminent competitive threats from foreign auto makers and their cheap, more fuel-efficient cars. Yet they haven’t done much of anything. Ford, for instance, recently issued a sizeable press release about their new 2009 and 2010 lineups that doesn’t explicitly mention, even once, the miles-per-gallon capabilities of their cars. And besting Honda and Toyota by 6mpg is not something to brag about. They are already innovating the next leap in efficiency. Give them a year, they’ll beat you by 10 or 20.

Our car companies are failing. There’s no denying that. That’s part of our economy, though. If my industry was failing, I don’t know what tune I’d be whistling. But I hope now that if/when that occurs, someone is smart enough to advocate against wasting billions of tax payer’s dollars (that have no sound financial backing, but I digress) to revive a faction of an industry whose time has past. If Ford, Chrysler, and GM can’t compete within the reality of the global economy, they should be removed from it.

Yes, this means a potentially crushing blow to our economy now. We’re all in recession mode, though. We’ve all cut back or are in the process of doing so. Let’s take the hit now instead of drawing out the deaths of these corporate giants.

Also, if you’re in the mood for a little more “it’s our fault we’re here but we’ll blame you for inaction if you don’t save us” fear mongering, check out GM’s Fact and Fiction site. The video in the corner is laden with interesting facts and figures. My favorite part happens around 3 minutes and 32 seconds in:

We can loan $25 billion now…or lose $156 billion later. What will we do?

The key word being now. How much more will they want in 3 months? 6 months? A year? Not a bone in my body believes their issues will be solved with $25 billion. If that’s all it would take to revive our auto industry, it would already have been done. The we part is great, too. Once again, profits are theirs and losses are all of ours.

I’m still waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out and scream “America, you got punked!”

One of my main grievances with the Wall Street bailout is how the banks aren’t being held accountable for their mistakes (and the hallway conversations and murmurings tell me others are bothered by this, too.) To put this in perspective, what if every American said to the government “Pay off my credit card debt, car loan, and mortgage or I’ll kill myself tomorrow.” Would the American government absorb our words and fork over billions to save us all? Not a chance. But that’s essentially what Wall Street did. They held a gun to America’s head and told Congress to fork over the dough. By exploiting the world’s fear of a market collapse, the irresponsible banks strong-armed their way into a deal which has, so far, lived up to little of what it promised. Where’s the liquidity? Where’s the oversight?

These banks were suffering because they took on debt they couldn’t afford. What’s the difference between those banks and the millions of Americans suffering because of similar irresponsible decisions? From a purely situational perspective, not a thing. It’s the level of accountability, however, that most Americans have that draws a distinct line between them and the financial robber barons. It’s true that millions of people in this country live off the welfare system, but those millions are overshadowed by a larger majority who accept their irresponsibility as their own and take personal accountability for their actions. Rather than make others suffer for their mistakes, they choose to cut back on spending and trim down their life styles. Even while wishing the opposite, they understand government won’t be there to bail them out because that isn’t the government’s job.

Yet somehow, in a country for the people, an accountability asymmetry has emerged. We could all stand up tomorrow and, as Wall Street did, threaten to derail the domestic and global economy if our demands aren’t met. But we wouldn’t. We don’t operate as if our government is a soup kitchen, and our corporations shouldn’t either. We do not share their profits and they should not share ours. Our government pitifully acquiesced. They made a mistake. This bailout is a slap to the face of hard-working Americans who struggle each day to climb out of the holes they made for themselves. And you know how they learned to climb? Out of necessity.

Given the bailout, our financial industry will remain unaccountable for its actions. They pulled one over on us. They got us to sacrifice our ideals and our money in the face of a threat that has yet to actualize. What happened in September was the pièce de résistance of eight years of fear mongering and an utter failure of our political system. What an immense disappointment.

Americans have a right to be outraged and dammit we should be.

The argument against gay marriage I hear most often is that our country was founded on Christian principles. The founders, so the argument goes, were religious men who, with pen in hand, inscribed their pious beliefs upon the pages of our Constitution.

This argument is entirely inaccurate.

Though they may have believed in God, they knew the perils of combining organized religion and government. And for that reason they deliberately worked to separate church and state. In that vein, the uprising around Proposition 8 is justified. Let’s argue against tax breaks for churches. Let’s argue for limiting their ability to influence legislation. And if we want to remove marriage as a legal entity, to strip the very word from our laws because it is a religious, not legal, institution, let’s come together and argue for that.

But if what we are arguing for is the right to marry, as ordained by law, this uprising is misguided from the start. We cannot, from the left sides of our mouths, support one constitutional staple (personal liberty) while from the right violate another (separation of church and state). The issue here is not marriage, but the organized religious infiltration of our government. If we want proof of the devastating side effects of the coupling of organized religion and politics, look no further than the current Republican Party. Once champions of liberty and freedom–a party that ended slavery and fought to give women the right to vote–, they are now a castrated political entity. Their mouths may move but the words that come out are seldom their own.

Organized religion and liberty are mutually exclusive. The sentiment of the organized religions is that it’s OK to believe what you want as long as it’s what they want you to believe. Liberty is as they define it. And that, not two men or women spending their lives together, is a complete betrayal of what we stand for. That is a plague that will systematically destroy what we care most about.

If we’re going to fight, let’s attack the root of the problem. The biggest issue we face today, the number one problem preventing progress, is the power that religious organizations wield over this country and its government. They have hampered the progress of science, education, and civil rights for too long. Their beliefs last only as long as the ignorance they are based upon. Liberty endures. And a country based on liberty will endure, as well.

So if this debate is to be about reason over dogma, about prying our country out of the crushing jaws of organized religion, and about fighting for the rights of not just gays but all people who want to be free to make up their minds about what’s right for them, it’s one worth waging.