10. Global Warming
What? But with oil executives out of the White House, the entire country will be run on wind, solar, and pixie energy!
Well, yes, there will almost certainly be more emphasis placed upon alternative energies for the next four years, and with plenty of good reason - regardless of your feelings about global warming, any reduction of America's dependence upon foreign oil is almost unquestionably a good thing. As far as Al Gore's nemesis goes, however, there's a bit of a problem with believing that we're about to see a sudden end to carbon emissions, or even a reduction in their worldwide levels. You see, that lovely fact that Joe Biden loved to throw out during the election - that China is building two extremely dirty coal power plants per week - applies to much of the industrializing world at similar rates. Half of the human population is rapidly advancing on Western civilization, and that advancement isn't being done with polar bears in mind. The rate of pollution increase in the developing world is greater than the rate at which we can realistically decrease America's carbon output, so any efforts we make to bring down our greenhouse emissions won't actually reduce their overall levels - they'll just increase at a slower rate.
But, hey, there is still a chance that all of this matters about as much to the Earth's climate as Joe the Plumber.
9. The War on Drugs
For what seems like the 44th consecutive administration, absolutely nothing will be done to change the budgetary black hole that is the War on Drugs. Billions of dollars are spent every year at every level of government in the endless crusade to "save" innocent Americans from the evil, godless, perhaps even terrorist-loving substances which are deemed to be illegal almost completely at random. Many of the items you can pick up from your local pharmacy are actually worse than most narcotics, and a good number of them are just slight variations on otherwise banned substances. Reigning supreme above all other idiocy is, of course, the continued status of marijuana. What more Americans need to realize is that the "fight" against pot isn't just a matter of whether or not you actually use it; billions of your dollars are being spent to "protect" you and your Doritos from the college kids who toke up once a week in the apartment down the hallway. In a time when we're going into debt more quickly than Sarah Palin at a high-end department store, is this really what we want to be spending money on?
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Originally Posted by tangent4ronpaul
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