I'm Sick & Tired of...
... the lies, of the political doublespeak, of the apathy. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Two days ago, another Administration political appointee, claimed that slashing the DoD Budget was "driven by strategy." Repeatedly, I hear the Administration claim that it is "supporting" Our Troops and Veterans by demanding that Congress to charge them for the health care resulting from their military service. The Secretary of Defense spends Department of Defense money to the tune of $42,000/week so he can fly across the country for weekends off, while telling Troops they don't need inflation based pay raises. The same politicians then blame the others for "sequestration" which they both implemented to force their own hands to deal with financial problems later, rather than sooner.
And then, on Memorial Day, the POTUS had the Tomb of the Unknown and Viet Nam War Memorial shut down from Veterans so he could give campaign speeches and have what amounts to campaign photos put on the White House GOVERNMENT web site. In years past, this POTUS simply skipped out of town to party in his "home town" of corruption, Chicago, and enjoy private concerts, instead of fulfilling his responsibilities on Memorial Day. So, when I saw he was going to fulfill his duties this year, I did not want to make it political. But Memorial Day is NOT a photo op. It should not involve politics. It is not an opportunity for a campaign speech. It is NOT a day for a guy that walked past a recruiting office and decided not to go in, to prove how great he is. It is a day for those that still walk this earth to solemnly express our gratitude to those that gave their lives defending it.
But the problem is fundamentally worse than just another lying, self-serving politician, and his cronies. It seems that residents of the United States have accepted a fundamental flaw in the ideology of politics in the United States, i.e. that the President is the Ruler of the people of this land, or that Congress can implement laws overriding the US Constitution, or if they don't like the laws of the land, they can have the Supreme Court overrule the Constitution, because they said so.
The current crop of politicians in Washington are emboldened by the apathy of their subjects. Yes, I said subjects. The people residing in this Nation are treated more and more like subjects of the government, rather than Citizens, because they act like subjects, and accept the dictates of their ruler, occasionally begging for mercy and benefits, rather than choosing Liberty and Freedom. They've been sold an ideological lemon, i.e. that removing the rights and freedoms of their neighbors means they'll get more "free" stuff for themselves. The quick acceptance of pornographic X-rays and sexual assaults by government officials at our airports was just a symptom of this new mentality of subjects.
There is but one way to reverse the subjugation of Americans: the American people must renew their knowledge of the Constitution, and the reasons the founders created the government they did. When they do, they can then return Our Republic to its basis in Liberty, peacefully, at the ballot box. And until the majority of voters do understand that, no amount of violence could inflict Citizenship on them.
In the past few years, there has been some pushback, to the symptoms of the problem. There were protests to TARP, to the UAW bailout/takeover of car companies, to the legislating of Americans to buy health insurance, to higher taxes, and to bigger government, but the hubris of politicians that view themselves as rulers of the people has not been removed. After politicians openly stated that they would ignore the Constitution and do what they wanted, they were re-elected. And there are politicians that tout the Constitution to get or maintain their power, while still subverting the Constitution.
Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. Feudalism of the dark ages was repeated in Communism of the 20th Century. In the 1930's, a professor in Moscow predicted that Communism's Victory over the West would come, not with revolution, or even warfare, but internally after we believed them defeated. I grew up during the Cold War, and volunteered to man the walls to defend against that enemy. I studied its techniques, results, and effects. When it fell, I held my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop, finally accepting the professor was just another failed prophet, a decade later.
But today, I see the youth calling for its policies, idolizing its worst, such as Che Guevarra, begging the government to subjugate their neighbors, and accepting the rule of a hubristic ruling class. We live in a world where people tune out at the mention of communism, where "liberal" no longer is used to mean the Rights of Individuals over rule of Government, and many believe that it is unpatriotic to argue against the man elected to preside over Government of the People, not to rule the people. We live in a Nation where so many blindly support the rise to power of a political party, with no regard for the politics the party supports, nor the person whose name precedes the letter denoting the party, so long as the party gets or maintains power.
While ignorance of the law has never been accepted as an excuse for breaking the law, governments are producing laws faster than the politicians can even read the laws they are sponsoring, much less voting to emplace, or follow. On any given day, you are probably breaking a dozen laws you don't know about and a few you do. It's a money making venture for the government to fine you, and perhaps you just haven't been caught yet. For that matter, we don't even know how or how much we are actually being taxed anymore, much less what the politicians are doing with all that money. We only know they are spending more than we can give them. Hell, they don't even know where all the money is going, or where it is coming from. They just know they want more.
Some will argue that a strong national government is important for the success of your economic well-being, through the good of the national economy. Some will argue that the national government must be able to control your money, through taxes, tax breaks, regulation, etc., because forcing your neighbor to give it money will increase the free things in your house. Some will argue that you should accept government control of your life, so that the government can also control your neighbor's, the way you want them to. These arguments are not new. The Founders rejected them.
Liberty and Individual Rights are what made Our Nation great. The Founders rejected the notion of imposing a tyrant in Washington to replace the tyrant in London. The Founders set up a system of government that was united in defending the States from foreign powers, and in representing the interests of the States abroad. They purposely prevented the Federal government from imposing itself on the people, and established the Rights of the Individuals, over the government. The Founders understood that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, that seldom can be found a benevolent dictator. While the young Nation was willing to accept George Washington as such a benevolent ruler, he was wise enough to know that successors would not always embody the role of a statesman.
There are just too many examples in history of an oppressed people overthrowing their tyrant, emplacing a good ruler, and within a few generations being oppressed by his offspring or other successors. Sex nor skin color nor geography change the story. Women and men of all races, creeds, religions, and regions have been oppressive tyrants.
It does not matter what title a tyrant claims. "Good and Merciful Kings" have slaughtered their own people. The "People's Republic" of China is neither a government of the people, nor a republic. The "German Peoples Democratic Republic" (East Germany) was not of the people, nor democratic, nor a republic, but rather a satellite dictatorship of the Soviet Union, that murdered its subjects that dared speak out against it, or attempted to escape it into the Freedom of the West.
The rights of Iranian people to free expression, are as hollow, as are the rights of Cubans to make a living. The governments of both takes precedence over its subjects, and the tyrannical dictatorships of both are more concerned with their own power and luxuries than those of the people they rule. Wherever dictatorship, of any stripe, exists, the poverty of the people increases. The delicate balance a tyrant attempts to achieve is the one where the people are subjugated slightly less than their will to violently throw off their chains, while extracting as much of their wealth as possible. To achieve that, he will often give them cake, or a free meal, or a visit to the doctor, paid for out of their own labors.
Our Nation is in dire straits, economically, because we have abandoned Citizenship and the Liberty of our neighbors. Our Founders understood that rulers in Washington were far removed from the people. They put the responsibility of domestic governance in the hands of State governments, because those neighbors we sent to the state legislatures were far more likely to be known to us, to be responsive to us, and to be voted out of office if they failed to be so, than a ruler residing in Washington.
The path to prosperity does not lie in more money siphoned off your earnings or your neighbors', and more laws on what you and your employer must purchase, but in greater authority of yourself over your life, and greater opportunity for you to rise to the top on your own work. The Rights and the Prosperity those Rights created in this Nation cannot be protected if you and your Neighbor willingly trade them away for a free meal.
Until We, the People, respect the Rights of Our Neighbors, and re-learn why the Founders of Our Nation made illegal and Un-Constitutional, government interference in those Rights, then we will continue down the path of subservience to rulers in Washington, rather than choosing Statesmen as servants in Washington. And so long as we continue to support the increase in power and wealth of corrupt politicians that send us trinkets of "free" stuff paid for with our own labors, we will continue down a path of decline, occasionally under the illusion that things are getting better because our neighbor's behavior is punished by the government.
Stumble It!
