The Government
We Deserve
I’d
like to talk to you about the elections of 2012.
You probably think it’s odd to start talking
about that now, after all most people don’t think about elections, or
politics
in general, except during an election year.
You
see, I think that’s a mistake. The
choice of who is running the country, and I’m talking about Legislative
as well
as Executive branches, is an important decision.
Important decisions should never be left
until the last minute.
After all, would
you wait to make the choice about who you’re going to marry until you
were in
the church, waiting to walk down the isle?
By that time, you’ve got a very limited number
of people to choose from. Basically
at that point, you have only the
people who are in the church.
Yet
that is exactly what Americans do for every election.
They wait until the candidates declare
themselves a year or so before the election.
Most I suspect, wait until the field has been
narrowed down to just
two. Do you marry
the organist, or the
minister?
You
think that’s funny? It’s
more truthful
than you realize. After
all, by the time
you have only two choices for office, whatever office, you’re talking
about two
career politicians. These
are people who
do this for a living. If
we’re going to
use a church wedding as an analogy, we might as well take it all the
way. The minister
and organist are two people
you’re most likely to find in a church at any given time.
They
are also probably the two least likely people you’ll really be happy
with.
Sow In The Spring...
So That You May Reap In The Fall
Why
start thinking about an election that won’t happen for another three
years? Because
every day, politicians
make decisions that affect you. They
decide what you can or can’t do. They
decide when you can or can’t do it, and where.
Unfortunately in recent years, they’ve been
deciding which of your
rights they’re going to take from you.
How
can they do that? Because
you let
them. We all
let the politicians
do whatever they like, and all we do is complain about it. We’ve let the politicians
convince us that
it’s in our best interest to let them make all the choices for us. We have let them convince
us that we have no
power, and believing that, we have freely given our power to them.
People,
for the most part, are apathetic about politics.
It’s only leading up to a major election,
that people take claim to their power to choose, but even that is an
illusion. Who is it
that decides what
candidate a political party will put up for and support in an election? We The People? No, it’s the political
parties themselves who
choose.
Sure,
we have Primaries and Caucuses, but let me ask you, how often have you
seen a
better candidate passed over by a party, in favor of someone else? We The People don’t even
actually elect the
President. That is
done by the Electoral
College. Who
decides the members of the
Electoral College?
The Electoral
College was established in Article II of the Constitution. While state law determines
how the Electors
are chosen, they are usually chosen by the political party committees
within
each state.
That
means the political parties, The Democratic and Republican parties,
from each
state are the ones most likely to decide who will elect the President. Each states Electors, as
well as the three
from the District of Columbia, are supposed to vote unanimously for one
candidate
based on which of the candidates won the popular vote for that state.
If
candidate ‘A’ wins the popular vote in the state of Nebraska, all the
Electors
from Nebraska vote for candidate ‘A’ in the Electoral College. While that is what’s
supposed to happen,
there’s nothing in the Constitution that requires an Elector to do that. They
could just as easily vote for the candidate of their choice, or their
party’s
choice.
Now
I’m not suggesting that sort of thing has ever changed the outcome of
an
election. I am
however trying to point
out the system of controls that the politicians use to their advantage,
to give
us the illusion of power. You
should
pay attention to that man behind the curtain.
Why Vote For The Lesser Of Two Evils?
Most
people however, just cast their vote, usually for the lesser of two
evils in
their own mind, then complain about the winner, whether they voted for
him or
not. Why vote for
the lesser of two
evils? Why not take
an active interest
in who gets picked to run for election?
Sure,
there are those who actively support one candidate or another every
election,
but the majority of America’s citizens don’t.
It’s this majority that I’m speaking to.
Most Americans can’t be bothered to take the
time to research what a
candidate for office really believes, yet they don’t believe the
campaign
promises they make. The
vast majority of
people rely on sound bites to make their choice.
How well can you know a person based on 10
second clips? That’s
not what I would
call an informed decision.
Fifteen
years ago it took a lot of effort to get information about a
politician, and
what they were doing. Now
we have the
internet, and you can find everything you want, sitting in the comfort
of your
living room, in your underwear. TiVo
Must Watch TV, and take some time to learn about who you might want to
vote
for.
Right
now, there are a lot of people who are quite literally scared to death
over the
healthcare reforms President Obama wants to pass.
Every bill that gets put in front of Congress,
is on the web.
Both
House and Senate
bills are there for anyone to read.
Yet
no one does. If you
are reading this,
you have the ability to see for yourself, exactly what the Healthcare
Bill
says. But
you
won’t, will you?
Whether
you think you are for, or against the Healthcare overhaul, you owe it
to
yourself to take time to read
what Congress is voting
on. Then you can
tell your Senators and
Representatives how you feel about it.
They all
have email.
We
The People have forgotten that the elected officials in government work
for us,
not the other way around. Is
it any
wonder that they feel that they can do whatever they want? If a Senator slips a 200
million dollar
amendment that will benefit some of his friends into a Bill, who’s
going to
notice? Certainly
not the people who
elected him. After
all, politicians know
better than we do, what’s best for us.
Isn’t that why we elected them?
If
you’re idly sitting back and just complaining about what our government
is
doing, instead of actively participating in government, you’re part of
the
problem, not the solution.
If
you can’t
be bothered to check even the bills that you think might affect you
personally,
you’re part of the problem, not the solution.
If you think someone else
is going to fix thing for you, you
are part of the problem, not the solution!
You Can Do Something
No
one but Congress has the time to look at every Bill up for
consideration. Even
they usually have assistants read
through the Bills, and tell them the basic idea, but if the majority of
Americans looked at just a few Bills up for vote, most all of the Bills
put
before Congress would be scrutinized by someone other than the
government.
How
easy do you think it would be for Congress to vote themselves a pay
raise, if
they knew at least some Americans were likely to read it? How fast do you think word
would cross the
Internet, if just a few people saw such a Bill?
How hard is it really, to send one simple
email to everyone you
know?
We’ll
send
out emails telling us
how many years of bad luck we’ll get if we don’t pass it on, but we
won’t
inform everyone we know, of a Bill before Congress that may be of
interest?
What
does that say about our society?
We
have the ability to see in fine detail, exactly what our government is
doing. Each and
every one of us has this
ability. You can go
into any library in
the country, and get free Internet access, so anyone can find out what
our
government is doing. Yet
we don’t.
A Vigilant America
In
World War II, Japanese Admiral Yamamoto refused to even
consider an
invasion
of the US. Why? Because he knew that
Americans owned guns,
and he feared that there would be a gun behind every blade of grass. Just the idea of a
vigilant and armed
America, was enough of a threat to stop the entire Imperial navy. That’s power.
What
do you think the threat of a watchful and caring America would do to
the
politicians who’ve made a career out of taking what they want, because
no one
is watching? How
likely is a Bill,
filled with pork, that benefits some Congressmen, or their friends, to
pass if
Congress is flooded with email telling them not to?
Ok,
so your Congressman is flooded with email telling him that his
constituents
want him to vote against a particular Bill, but he votes for it anyway. What now?
You
fire
him!
That’s
right,
come the next election, you vote him out in favor of someone who will
do what you want.
We only have to
look back as far as this last election, to see that it can be done. Americans voted out
Republicans, and voted in
Democrats because they didn’t like the job the Republicans were doing.
If politicians
felt that it was no longer a matter of how much money they used to get
their
faces out to the public, but how well they followed the desires of
those who
put them there, elections would be a lot less expensive, and government
would
be made over in the image of the people, not the other way around.
These
people work for us. We
are their
bosses. Everyone
from the local dog
catcher to the President of the United States, works for us. Every employer has the
right to fire any
employee who doesn’t do the work they were hired to do.
Politicians, our employees, are hired to vote
on the laws we decide, as we decide they should.
Allowing politicians to have free reign to do
as they wish, is bad management.
Who Am I?
So
who am I to be telling you what to do?
Why
should you listen to me?
What
qualifications do I have?
I’m
an American citizen. That’s
the only
qualification any of us need to decide who represents us in government.
I’m
Joe Average. I work
hard when I can find
work. I pay my
taxes, and try to keep up
on my bills. I
believe I’m at least
moderately intelligent, even if I don’t have a degree.
I believe Americans are smart enough to make
informed decisions, though they may need a kick in the butt to start
doing it.
I
have become a small business owner because I can’t rely on someone else
giving
me a job. Even if
my business isn’t
making any money yet, it’s my part of the American Dream, and I’ll be
damned if
I’ll just sit back and let the government tell me how to run it.
I’m
not running for any office, I’m just a guy with an idea and a camera.
I’m
not telling you who to vote for, or what Bill Congress should pass.
I’m telling you to look at
that yourself, and
make up your own
mind. If you vote
for a candidate because he’s the most popular, or because someone told
you that
you should, you’re not voting for your candidate, you’re voting for
theirs.
If
you
don’t know that Congress is passing a
law that will allow the police to tap your phone for any reason without
telling
you, are you still harmed by it?
I
believe that as long as the American people are apathetic about our
government,
we will get a government that is apathetic to our needs and desires.
I believe that if we
choose to, we can have a
government that does what we want them to, and that we can be proud of. We get the government we deserve.
The Power Of One
We
have been brainwashed into believing that one person can’t make a
difference,
even though the rallying cry has been “One person, one vote”.
Call this an experiment in
the power of
One.
I
believe one
person can
make a difference, if
that person is willing to stand up and be counted.
I
believe one person can inspire many, and
those many can inspire millions.
If
millions are inspired to stand up and be counted how can they be ignored? The 2012 elections will
tell this experiment's success or
failure.
Up
until the next election, I plan to put out videos, and written rants,
telling you how I
see
things. You may not
agree with
everything I say, but you might agree with some of it.
I want to make you think.
The most dangerous thing to any government is
a population that thinks for themselves.
I
believe that Americans are tired of politics as usual.
Hell we voted in as President, a man who
promised change, even if he never told us what change he planned.
I’m neither pro
Republican, nor pro Democrat,
I’m pro American. Who
you vote for is
your choice. I just
want you to make an
informed one.
I
believe we have the right to revolt against our government and change
it as we
choose. That right
was given to us in
the Constitution. All
we have to do is
claim it. We did it
in the last election,
but I don’t believe we changed it far enough.
All we did was trade one career politician for
another.
I
believe that if we want true
change, we need to find people
who want
to make a difference, and elect them to office.
This country was founded on Democratic
principles and Capitalistic
ideals.
We
got the
Democratic principles
from the ancient Greeks, but the Capitalistic ideals were all our own. What would George
Washington, or Thomas
Jefferson say, if they were to see what we have done to their
beloved
Republic?
Ideas
can’t be jailed, or killed, or silenced once they’re out. Britain learned that 233
years ago. As
long
as We The People are complacent, our
government can do whatever it wishes.
Whose best interests do you think your elected
officials really have at heart,
yours, or their own?
Barak
Obama was right. It
is
time for a
change.
It
is time
for Americans to take
back their rights and their country.
It’s
time for our duly elected government to
listen to the American
people, and do as we say.
I
believe that it’s time for Americans to wake up, and take control of
their own
destinies.
I
believe that America is the best
country to live in, even with
its
problems.
I believe that
any problem can be solved, if the people want to solve it.
I have faith in
America and her people, but that’s just my opinion.
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