It is hard to be optimistic about the future of our country when I keep reading things like this:

Bank nationalisation gains ground with Republicans

Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator for South Carolina, said that many of his colleagues, including John McCain, the defeated presidential candidate, agreed with his view that nationalisation of some banks should be “on the table”.

The US Constitution is now a dead document. The political parties in power are simply fighting over the scraps, with no significant difference between them. And without anything to constrain the power of the federal government anything can happen. And it will. The gigantic bailouts and so called stimulus bills are only the start.

America is a good country, but as the cliche goes — “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

ETA: Glenn Beck had John Lott on to talk about this.

The point is, they’re going to have — look at what we’ve done to the banks in terms of the current financial situation, where we forced them through different laws to make loans that they didn’t want to make, make loans to people who didn’t have any down payments on it. That’s going to be on steroids when you have government there as a direct owner and it’s not going to be as obvious because you won’t have regulations that you can point to. You can just have the presidents of the bank doing what they’re being told by the politicians behind the scenes to go and do.