STOP the Bleeding!

It's interesting to follow politics closely and then deal with people on a daily basis. I'm amazed at just how insouciant the average American is when it comes to politics and the life-changing decisions made by elected officials.

Let's read that again: the life-changing decisions made by elected officials. That is a hard pill to swallow.

A recent poll by Harvard Business Publishing listed Politicians in the top three of the least trusted professions in the United States. They were right up there with Lawyers and Journalists. Knowing this bit of information makes me wonder why so many people keep their head in the sand and expect that the government will fix things by passing another bill that will give us free healthcare, education, housing, and other community "transfusions". When someone is bleeding to death, a doctor will first work on stopping the bleeding before giving the patient a transfusion. America is bleeding profusely and our leaders are insisting on ignoring this fact.

I remember my father telling me that nothing is free and there is always a price to be paid, but I hadn't lived long enough to know what it really was. Well I've lived a while now and the cost of expecting the government to provide free healthcare and housing incentives (think ACORN and the housing bubble) is the freedom to think for ourselves, to create, and prosper. This country was built by people who struggled through adversity and triumphed. They didn't have it handed to them in a trust fund.

- A fine for not participating in government run healthcare?
- The government propping up failing companies like GM and Wall Street?
- State governments raising taxes when their residents are losing their homes and jobs in abundance?

Something more than my 401k is eroding here and it the very foundation of this country. Thomas Jefferson said: "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." Freedom to me is being able to create my own destiny by choosing how I want to live out my life (with or without health insurance) in a country that has it's borders protected and values its greatest resource: the taxpayer.

Be vigilant!

Note: this blog entry was inspired by A Free Man Thinking Freely - make sure to visit his blog.

First, You've Got To Get MAD

I'm tired of the business-as-usual kind of politicians. What ever happened to these "leaders" being a leader in the literal sense? Our founding fathers are turning over in their graves as our country is being lead down the garden path by a bunch of nincompoops. Yes, i just used the word "nincompoop" and I meant it. It seems that the majority of elected officials in this country are simpletons, with a clear lack of leadership ability and no sense of personal responsibility. This leads me to wonder how did these non-leaders get elected in the first place? Of course, by the people.... right? So is the root cause of our national leadership crisis in our hands? Yes it is and we need to own it.

We need politicians that are held accountable to their job performance. Where is their yearly review and performance evaluation? Isn't it true that when one is held accountable, that performance and productivity improves, just simply by paying attention to it? I.E.: The Hawthorne Effect. The US government is such a huge business, that accountability has become almost non-existent. Heads only roll when the press gets hold of some scandalous information and the people become outraged. If the fortune 500 companies ran their organizations the way the government does, America would not be the rich and prosperous country that she is (or shall I say, once was..).

I don't know what the answer is, but I know that more people are becoming disenchanted with the way things are being run in this country (on the left & right), and the "I'M MAD AS HELL and I'm-not-going-to-take-it-anymore" movement is growing stronger everyday.

Beale:

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth; banks are going bust; shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter; punks are running wild in the street, and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it.

We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat. And we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be!

We all know things are bad -- worse than bad -- they're crazy.

It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, "Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone."

Well, I'm not going to leave you alone.

I want you to get mad!

I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot. I don't want you to write to your Congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street.

All I know is that first, you've got to get mad.

You've gotta say, "I'm a human being, goddammit! My life has value!"

So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!!"