American hypocrisy

Americans. Happy to spend millions in Walmart every year on Chinese junk, thus providing thousands of jobs to Chinese people while outsourcing American manufacturing jobs, because they "save money". Righteously indignant when Walt Disney does the same with only 350 jobs. Well played America. Well played.

Pensions for politicians

Deep Thought: What if pensions of politicians were limited to the average compensation of their constituents? Further, if their household income exceeded that of the average family, they would forfeit the pension. Thank you Mr Politician, we appreciate your service, now get to work and do what the rest of us do.

Body Cams for Politicians!

IDEA FOR THE DAY: Body cams for politicians. Streamed live, 30 minutes off-camera break every week for a conjugal visit. 10 minutes for bathroom break 5 times per day. Ladies and gentlemen, that elected politician belongs to us. Let's make sure he's doing his job.

A government of the people?

We learned in school that our government was of the people, for the people, and by the people, but is it?

When you voted for your congressman or senator, had you met the person? Have you met the person yet? When have you ever seen an elected representative in a grocery store, at your church, in your school, or at your workplace? I bet for most people, they never have met an elected representative, and for those who have, were you allowed to carry on an extended conversation where you could share your political beliefs and ideology? More likely than not, your questions were either scripted or at least reviewed prior to you being able to actually ask the question.

Ever been to a townhall event? Were all your questions answered, and did you feel as if the politician knew you were present? Did you find yourself wondering how the people asking the questions were chosen and how they picked the questions in the first place?

How do politicians get elected? Ever asked yourself that question? Who paid for their commercials, and if all you know is what you see in a political ad, how do you know you are not simply voting for the best marketing agent?

Where does the money come from? Have you ever made a political donation, and if so how much was it? You probably donated less than a $100, and do you think everybody else did also? Of course they did not. So where did the millions of dollars come from that paid for all the television and print ads?

Political Action Committees (PACs) donate millions of dollars to candidates every election, and have you ever met a member of one of them? How do you know if they share your views? Do you realize that every PAC has highly paid staff members whose main goal is elect a candidate friendly to their agenda? What if the true PAC agenda is not the same as yours? What if the name of the PAC is simply chosen to make you think it supports your interests?

It is time for Americans to wake up. There isn't a politician alive who shops in the same supermarket as you. They receive six figure salaries with medical care much  better than what you will ever receive. They drive nice cars, live in nice homes in Washington DC, and eat at fancy restaurants. They don't wash their own clothes, shop at Walmart for underwear, go to Payless for shoes, or cut their own fingernails. These politicians live in DC, and come back to your district to show face every once in a while because they have to do so. But you never see them, and you don't even wonder  about how strange that might be, for a person who votes in your behalf, who affects so much of your life, for you to never even meet the person one time.

You aren't represented by a neighbor because once elected, they experience more of DC than they do of your hometown. Basically, your elected representative is a resident of DC. Your interests are being represented by a person who doesn't even live near you anymore, and his or her perspectives are built based upon scripted questions posed at phony townhall meetings where everyone cannot even ask a question and only certain people can actually speak.

Back in DC, high paid lobbyists fund your Congressperson's extracurricular activities by taking them to social engagements, vacations, dinners, ballgames, etc. When have you done any of those things? You can't even walk into your representative's office for a meeting, and if you did, you would have limited time and could only talk about the agreed upon topics.

Before you get to thinking that your elected representative actually shares your interests, think about all these points. Our government is most certainly not for the people. It is for the lifestyle of those who have been elected, and they will do whatever it takes to keep themselves in power.

Government is a result of society

Looking for the inherent problem with government? It is society itself. People cannot live together without pushing someone to the top, and the person at the top is never perfect, fails to make good choices, and eventually disenfranchises those beneath him.

When you look around at the people in our community, who do you see receiving the favors, running the town, and dealing out preferential treatment? Is it a surprise to know they are people of power, money, relationships, and influence?

If the people at the top have all the money and receive all the favors and preferential treatment, what is left for everyone else, and how do we live? And by that, I mean how does the middle class live?

Every lobbyist in every state Capitol and in Washington DC is an actual person, are they not? They eat, breathe, walk, talk, and exist the same as we do. They have human parents, live in homes, and drive cars. Yet, in spite of all their apparent similarities with you and me, they have more access to our elected officials than we do!! When were you last treated to a high power lunch in exchange for your vote for a slimy Congressperson?

We know how corrupt they are; we joke about it; and we commiserate about it. We don't ever do anything about it though. Most people reelect the same silver tongued Devils year after year and complain about it just the same.

We are our own worst enemies in that every chance we have to do something, we send the rascals right back to the Capitol to do the same things all over again. We demand corrupt leadership. And we get it.

True Leadership

True leadership is borne of fortitude, strength, and willpower. Reagan was this type, without a teleprompter, with a backbone of iron. There is not an Obama alive capable of such a speech as this, be it Barack, Michelle, or one of his kids. They lack ability, conviction, and forethought. They lack judgement, passion, and principle.

Under Barack Obama, we've taken many steps backward while hope has dwindled and opportunity declined. Obama won't be here forever, but hard working, principled Americans will be. And we will come back swinging. In one flush, Obama will be gone, and his smell will dissipate. At that time, we will rebuild what he broke. Because that's what we do.

Selfishness and the collective

We are told that it takes a village. Takes a village to what? To raise our kids? To live our lives? To make a living? In the mind of a collectivist, the answer is all of the above.

The collectivist believes that each person depends upon the works of the collective to live his or her daily life, that each individual has an impact upon his or her neighbor. In collectivist thought, each person has a responsibility to look out for his or her neighbor.

Hundreds of years ago when our forefathers stepped foot on our country, while it was the land of plenty, they still had to work for everything. Fast forward to today, and the land of plenty busts at the seams. One no longer need to sweat or blister to eat good food, live in a nice home, drive a decent car, own an advanced cell phone, etc. Our society places all these technological developments and more into the hands of consumers through tools such as credit and government programs.

In the beginning, in the wilderness, self sufficiency and self reliance were two qualities that equated to survival, yet time advanced to the point that one no longer needed to depend upon himself or herself to survive or even to have nice things. Most, if not all, amenities are now attainable even to average people, so lack of scarcity in society may be our own downfall.

Advance more changes in society governing politically correct thinking, and it ought no longer surprise anyone to find why we are where we are today. A prevailing wisdom is that selfishness is wrong and that when one thinks of oneself first, that person ought to be ashamed. Selfishness now equates to being miserly. By making people feel guilty for thinking of themselves, collectivists hammer home the thought that society is more important than the individuals who make up the community. The problem with their logic is that self sufficiency gets hammered at the expense of easy living. In a land with no scarcity, how important can it be to do anything oneself? You don't have to work, just let the collective provide it.

If people stop working for themselves, for whom will they work to support and to whom will they turn for the things they want to buy? In the collective, everybody works and everybody receives, right?

The idea that collectives are the best way to exist undercuts the idea that many people crave independence and that subjugation to the collective means forfeiture of total independence. The next question asked ought to be about how much independence must get forfeited? Well, that depends upon those in charge of the collective in that they make the rules.