I learned long ago that decisions made by those who are elected to do so have an enormous influence on my life as an individual.

I could give you a short, or not so short, history of what I mean. Starting with the circumstances of how I came to be in this world. My dad always told me that had Harry Truman not made that famous and difficult decision, it was entirely possible that I would never have been born. My dad was in the Navy, and was headed into a place where he felt there was a good chance he could have died had the war not ended when it did. As you can see, my name is Boomer.

I could go on and on about how political decisions had an influence on my career. And then I could talk about how I navigated through the tax laws to make the friendly parts work in our own financial decisions. And about how lower cap gains have been my friend through real estate sales and investments. And how although it is not in a big way, those friendly cap gains made it possible for us to employ a few people on a project or two around here. Kind of a microcosm of employment opportunities, a microcosm influenced by big political decisions.

And then I could babble about how I saw this mess coming due to political idiocy. But nobody would believe that part anyway. Remember Cassandra in the Trojan War who kept yelling, "Do not bring that wooden horse inside these walls."

And then I could rant a while about how my party of my lifetime left me in the last election to be a woman scorned. Out here with all that fury, but with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The Republicans did what I feared would happen by pandering to the far right because power is everything and that is what they perceived as the easiest route to a block vote into power. (And how's that been workin' for 'em, huh?)

My, my, I seem to be on a rant this morning. I am sitting here listening to my gardening show like I do on Saturday mornings a lot. And I saw this question, and off I went it looks like.

(And btw, I like what 12ridehd has to say here. About how we should help those who help themselves and all that. Picture me holding up one of those little "I agree" signs.)

The point of all this is, to answer your question, my politics are not so much influenced by what I read as by what I see. And right now I see some daggone scary stuff.

Boomer