Undoubtedly there will be someone who will think that Eliot Spitzer, by resigning this morning, did the admirable thing.

In the final analysis, it might not matter that he did the right thing for the wrong reasons.

When you have nowhere to go, no way to win, such choices, even for the power hungry elite, become easy.

Had this been "just" an issue of him having sexual trysts with high paid call girls, there may have been an opportunity for a Clinton II. But this case to date, isn't just about infidelity or breaking the law with a prostitute. It involves other possible violations of the law, with fraud, inappropriate use of public funds, and possible mob ties.

Add on top of the fact that Spitzer was a no-holds barred prosecutor, who supposedly felt the law and justice trumped any possible mercy and leniency, then you have a story that is as ironic as it is tragic.

Sanctimonious, self-righteous people end up creating such a high standard for others, that not even they themselves can keep up with it. We're just too imperfect. Yes, some are less perfect than others--many of us make mistakes without trying to hurt anyone else. Others seem to take everyone else with them.

Since many have already commented on Spitzer, and what his wife and children must be going through, and have tried to figure out why he would do such things when the only possible outcome was to get caught, I won't add any of my own comments. To believe you couldn't possibly be caught when your life is more under a microscope than the several million citizens you govern... Arrogance, stupidity, call it what you will. It is, as the saying goes, what it is.

However, the larger question looming here is, will his fall and resignation matter? Will it cause other officials in high places to pause and take stock of their own situations? Will it reduce the numbers of the Foleys, and the Craigs and whoever else who has yet to fall from the woodwork?

Probably not.

It takes ego to put yourself in the limelight like politicians and celebrities do. It takes believing you are the best this country has to offer. It takes believing in yourself when others don't, or don't know who you are. It's not a road for the faint of heart. More than that, the family has to be tough, too.

I wish it weren't that way. I wish politics were more about substance and issues than personalities and sound bites. Unfortunately, most of us don't take time to sit down and look long and hard at all the issues confronting us. We're too busy being busy.

So, while the new governor of New York may be less corrupt, that doesn't mean wholesale changes in the government of New York is going to take place. It doesn't mean that the liberal beliefs or agendas that Spitzer espoused are going to be rejected or repudiated. The philosophies which put New York where it is, a pillar of liberalism, isn't going to change.

As tragic as this may be for Spitzer's wife and family, it will also be a relief. He has been caught after several trysts and several years of it, perhaps. The Spitzer family, at some point, will be able to retreat from the limelight and decisions, hopefully correct ones, will have an opportunity to be made.

In the meantime, like corruption will continue in New York, in Washington, and elsewhere because the Spitzers of America continue to think they can do whatever they want and get away with it. Too often, these are the folks with the drive to make it into government, because they're willing to sell their souls and do anything to get elected.

Not everyone, mind you. I hold out hope that there are still plenty of good, honest, hard working people who believe in this country and are more concerned about her and their families than they are about their next point of pleasure.

Still, it's time we realize that this is more the norm than the exception, and that the only way we're going to ever fix it, ever have accountability, is to send those who are decent and competent, not the loudest, or the most glib, or the most appealing.

There are few things which tick me off more than unelected judges making rulings, intentional or not, which take away the rights of citizens.

That is apparently what has taken place in California where the Second District Court of Appeals ruled that, at least in California, parents have no constitutional right to homeschool their children.

I am hoping against hope that this applies to the California Constitution only and has no bearing on the US Constitution.

Regardless, any constitution which would limit what kind of education a child or adult can receive will only perpetuate the existence of failing public schools. If there are no cost-effective alternatives--and private schools are not for everyone for a variety of reasons--then there is less incentive on the part of public schools (even less than there currently is) to do much of anything to try to innovate or improve.

I don't take a whole lot of things personally, but I do have a soft place in my heart for those parents who see a lack in public schooling and attempt to fill it.

I homeschooled my two sons for two years--during middle school. I did it because I questioned the type of education they were receiving, I wanted to stem the frequency of them being ill, and because the kind of social behavior or interaction they were going to have was not up to par with our family's personal expectations.

In the state where I live, unless the law has changed, you just have to let the local ESD know you intend to homeschool your children. That can mess with the state testing which is done at certain grade levels throughout their public school life, but other than that, there are few requirements. Of course elementary and middle school merely prepare students to graduate from high school, so things may have been different had the homeschooling taken place during their high school years, but I don't know that for sure.

Government should not be involved in how parents determine to educate their children. I agree that if they are going to go to a public school, then they want a certified teacher. I would go a step further, too, and wish for only good teachers, who know what they're teaching and what they're talking about, who leave their own personal opinions at home unless it's a part of an open dialogue where other views are also expressed, but I know that's not the function or purpose of public schools anymore.

That's not an entirely fair assessment. There are teachers out there which are not caught up in the liberal thinking of self-esteem and socialization comes first. And it is not entirely the fault of the school or the public education system that so many parents have abdicated their responsibilities of the nurturing, instructing and protecting of their children to the state.

However, those of us who still care deeply about our children and where they're going in life should not be stopped by a constitution, a court, or anyone else, from providing our children with an education of our choice. We all know as adults there is plenty that we learn in school which will never be applied in real life. The basics of reading, writing and arithmetic are essential--other things are not, and only cause stress or an overblown sense of accomplishment.

Personally, I think high school should truly be more about vocational training--the essentials should have been learned way before that and high school should be preparing students for some level in the work force. College has that responsibility, supposedly, but because of its structure and prohibitive costs learning is more stifled there than it is anywhere else. Most kids will not attend college, and those who do, will spend no more than two years of it trying to attain some kind of associates degree.

As it is, many of the companies which we feel are the wave of the future--the technologically based companies--need to train their workforce specifically to their way of doing things, even after they've come out of college, because no one is training them the way they need to be trained.

I have benefited from my own ongoing educational effort. It is not structured, I do it as I see fit, and I do it without paying anyone, for the most part.

It's called reading. If not books, then articles, and a lot of it can be found on the internet. You can find all kinds of things--more up to date, more recent, and more thorough a representation of the subject than what you will have time for in public school.

Government has a way, and courts in particular, of thinking they know what's best for you. They ignore the fact they would not exist if it weren't for the people in the first place. They produce no product, they do little to grow the economy on their own. They do their job best when they stay out of the way and rule according to what's best for individuals and making their own way as opposed to telling them what to do.

The question should never be what rights we have to education or anything else under the constitution. Constitutions are documents which  are too limit the width and breadth and influence of government, determine what worthy things, by common consent, the government will do for the people, not where it will interfere.

We, the people, do have a responsibility. We have a responsibility, if we have children, to raise them and provide for them. We really cannot abdicate authority or responsibility to the state, simply because we don't feel we have the time or the finances or whatever to do it ourselves. Those kinds of considerations are moot. They should have been considered long before a child is conceived, let alone born. I'm not responsible for raising your children, and you shouldn't be responsible for mine. If you like, I will help out, but only to the degree you permit it. That's how the village concept should work. It shouldn't be nanny knows best. It should be likeminded individuals raising their children and setting good examples and acting as reinforcement for others.

So, this homeschooling flap isn't just about formal education. It goes to the very core of beliefs and values and the reasons for which this country was founded: personal liberty and freedom. Courts should not be allowed to make such rulings. The constitution should have no power to determine what a citizen can or cannot do, only limit the powers of government. If Californians do not stand up for their rights, endowed by their Creator, then apparently it will be taken away.

How about frustrated?

There are some things that anger me--but it's mainly out of frustration.

Frustration that there are so many laws and regulations.

Frustration that the federal government is seeking to spend (at least) $3.1 trillion. On what? Part of my frustration stems from the fact I don't know where my money is going, or even why it is going.

Frustration that government does so little right and so much wrong.

Frustration that someone who's short on substance but great on style has a really good shot to become the next President of the United States.

I work for a living. I don't dig trenches or do anything which would be considered a hard living, but I do work. I provide for my family. I have bills and debts. I feel responsible. I feel like it's my obligation to take care of my wife and sons. I feel like no one else has the primary responsibility but myself and my wife.

So, it's hard when the federal government wants to do this or that. Be Big Brother, or the Nanny. It's frustrating when more of my tax dollars goes oversees in the way of aid to countries which later end up being our enemies, because we armed and fed them. It's frustrating when every new social or economic program gets sent out, or unfunded mandates get sent to the states.

Like the author of the article "Angry White Men" said, I want to make my own way in the world. I don't expect a handout, but I do expect a fair deal. Doesn't mean I'm guaranteed success, it just means I'm guaranteed to succeed or fail based on my own merits or lack thereof. I don't like regulations which inhibit what I want to do. I feel like I have common sense and the wherewithal to get something accomplished, and am not afraid to seek out guidance if I need it.

It frustrates me that so many of us are just letting things happen. Maybe we don't know how to stop it, but a lot of us either don't care, or somehow believe it's the role of the government to have such a say in everything we do.

It doesn't help that people aren't responsible. It's tragic when innocents are hurt because of this irresponsibility. Perhaps there are a couple of things government should jump in and take control of and do.

If businesses, for example, were self-regulating--or paid a third party perhaps to set and enforce standards, there wouldn't be others who felt government needed to keep a watchful eye. I don't buy completely the fact that the free enterprise system is infallible--but it's not because of the system itself. It's because, we, as consumers, don't do our due diligence when it comes to such things. We aren't all smart enough to be careful with the cup of coffee, and to not use products for what they were never intended to be, and we do sue over such things. Our health care system can point to all kinds of things. It happens to be the nexus for everything which can go wrong will go wrong. That said, we could have worth, and government owned health care is not the solution. Big business health care, at least for the common every day things, doesn't seem to be either.

We've been listening to the naysayers about the economy, as well as those who think things are just fine, and it's hard to know who to believe if you're not making money with your business, or you're going to be laid off or the company you've invested 10 years of your life is going out of business. There's some of that going on as always, just as there are those who are prospering despite of it all.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand we can't keep running up deficits on the federal government side, debt in our own personal lives, trade deficits, and whatever other negative growth we can think of before we'll be so far under we can't come back. There needs to be some restraint in spending on all levels. There needs to be some long term perspective and restraint, and to invest in a rampant consumption kind of system will eventually burn itself and cause even a harder crash. Resources are plentiful, but they are not infinite. Some moderation is essential.

So, there's plenty to be frustrated about. At the same time, we're the greatest country to ever exist, and continue to be the greatest country. People aren't looking anywhere else before they find out what we're doing our what our leaders think. We are the people the rest of the world turns to and depends on. If we're going to continue to be that world leader, we can't just run it into the ground, either through big government or free enterprise run amok. We've seen communism fall. We're witnessing socialism as it fails. We don't need to go that way.

We need to work on sustainable growth. We need to work on common sense and personal responsibilities, from the individual, to the family, to the community and all the way along the spectrum. If we don't, then we will fall, just as surely as other nations have fallen.

This is a choice land above all other lands, with a promise of protection and prosperity from the Divine. That promise is revoked if we don't keep our side of the promise.

So, am I frustrated? Yes, I am. I yet hold out hope, however, that we are not in a hole we cannot climb out of or a wrong course we cannot correct. It will take more than a president, or a Congress. It will take like-minded people everywhere to correct the course and keep the faith.

I ended my first post on this subject without drawing any conclusions on the Fair Tax, so I'll do that here.

Is the Fair Tax a better way to go then our current system?

Perhaps the better question would be, is it worth a try? I would have to say yes.

Trying it would be the only way to find out if it indeed does all what its proponents say it will. That's a major overhaul to bring millions of people on line with, but of the alternative tax system proposals to date, it goes the farthest in eradicating everything that is wrong with the current tax system. Anything that takes 60,000 pages to explain is sorely and woefully awry.

The vast majority of states in the union have their own sales tax. Piggybacking onto those systems would seem to be appropriate. Enforcement would seem to be easier than what it is now, where you have millions who can potentially accidentally or purposefully withhold incorrect amounts of taxes, not file returns, and spend all kinds of taxpayer money and their own time getting it corrected.

Placing the tax on retail goods and services makes more sense in a free enterprise system then taxing someone's wages or assets. It would seem to encourage more consumption then less, which would seem to be good for the economy as well as good for the government. The more the economy grows, the chances of their being more consumers with more money to spend increases. Even if they do get money to spend via a prebate, even the poorest among us get an opportunity to contribute.

It will put more of the tax burden on those who are the wealthiest. It has that as a selling point on the homepage of fairtax.org.

The wealthiest among us are the ones who have the most capital to do things. They also tend to consume more. Where we might be fortunate to have one home, they might own two or more, and ones which are more expensive. They will have other toys and gadgets, employ others to make their lives easier, etc.

What if they decided to consume less? Because they can, what would happen if they were to take themselves off the grid--revert to their own means of generating energy to power their own homes and businesses? What if they started dealing exclusively in second hand yachts and homes?

In fact, what if the entire nation emphasized buying more used things then new things?

Well, it couldn't exclusively do that. The manufacturing of new items would not come to a screeching halt, but it could conceivably slow the new product business. It wouldn't all go away because eventually used things break down and would need to be replaced. Repair shops might make a comeback.

However, we've been trained since our infancy now to consume. Most of us living don't remember the depression. While there's been periods of bumps along the way, the United States has not experienced the likes of a decade long depression. We've become accustomed to our luxuries. Many of them we would call necessities.

Personally, I'm not going to feel bad if the federal government has to suddenly start downsizing because not enough revenue is coming in.

If this Fair Tax did do all that it says it would, then we wouldn't be able to borrow from China any more because we'd be competing more aggressively with them, and putting more of their factories and companies out of business in the process, because corporations would return to the US rather than shipping overseas.

I think the economy could thrive quite well on a second hand industry. While it's outgrown it's current model, eBay has been doing pretty well for itself, and so have places like Craigslist.

What I would wonder more about is if this went the other way. I'm not an environmentalist or a conservationist, but as a realist, there is a realization that there's a finite amount of resources. You either need to renew them quicker, or you need to consume at a lesser degree than what they would naturally renew, assuming they do.

We're already accused of being a consumer culture. We're already derided for being the most wasteful. Great strides have been made over the course of the last half century to work on pollution standards, and smaller footprints for all kinds of projects. The technology and know how is there, or being put into place. However, if consumption was unleashed on even greater scale than it is right now, and we all bought into it, at some point, as the population gets larger and human expansion continues, at some point, whether it be 10 years down the road or several centuries, you do come to the end of the road.

Most likely, that's too much to read into this. Rarely does anything have such transcending effect on a nation. Of course, that might have been what people thought when the income tax amendment was ratified, or when social security and medicare were mandated.

If the highest this Fair Tax can go is 24%--if it's actually written into law as the ceiling--and if a concerted effort will still be made to shrink the size of the federal government, not just grow it, then I can see this as being the best thing that could ever happen to us. Having the cost of living decreasing while our wages potentially increase, along with our savings and our investments, would all seem to be a good thing. The amount needed to run government could go down because fewer and fewer people would rely on social security and medicare. Less people would be on welfare. And, according the website, this would also discourage illegal immigration!

As I said at the top of this blog, it's hard to tell just what drastic effects this might have on us. While there may be negatives, they don't seem to outweigh the positives. Government, business and consumer would all have to do their part.

I think it's worth a try.