My opinion on Americans in general and politics today

Published on February 1, 2008 By CharlesCS In Politics

I was born and raised in this country. For as far back as I can remember I have always been proud to call myself an American (even if a Puerto Rican is an American either way). I love this country, what it stands for, what it took to make it such a great country; love, strength and sacrifice. I always have and always will thank those who worked hard to make this country the greatest country in the world (regardless what anyone else might think), those who fought and lived or died for the security of this country and those who continue to work and fight for it today. With that being said, I am disappointed with the direction our country is going. And I am not necessarily talking about President Bush or Congress and the Senate. I am talking about the American people, the ones with the real power, the ones who can actually make a difference.

What's my beef with my own people? Simple. Today we are living in a society based on how much money one can make in as short amount of time as possible. Both the Republican and Democratic party's main bait is money, or the equivalent in free stuff. Lower taxes, universal healthcare, free child care; has everyone forgotten the best things in life are those you earn by working hard? Every penny I have I worked hard to earn, I gave 100% plus every time. I may have hesitated from time to time but I eventually jumped on a new challenge and to this date have yet to fail at anything I took on. Sure, I may have lost some of the jobs I had in the past but believe me when I say that it was not due to my work performance. I love knowing what I have I paid for it with my sweat and blood. I regret wasting my chances to be more than I am when I was single and going to college. I was dumb enough to drop out twice making excuses for not being able to go to school. For the past 10 years I have suffered those mistakes but it's never too late. I will go back to school soon; I will take advantage of my position in one of the largest companies in the US to educate myself and move up in life.

But I am saddened with the fact that people are voting for today's Presidential candidates not because they are smart, or well educated, honorable, caring and/or truthful. No, people are voting for Republicans because they could get more money back on their paycheck, tax refunds and purchases. People are voting for Democrats because they will get free healthcare, free child care and more money while not working. For crying out loud, most of the Media calculates who could be the winner based on how much money the candidates are wasting on their campaigns. Are you serious? People are actually looking at who spends the most and then making an uneducated decision?

As someone put it nicely on ParaTed's article "It's just our "Dancing With America's Next Top Idol" mentality. We're not electing a government, we're choosing a winner.". I couldn't have put it better myself. All we would need is for Simon, Paula and Randy to host the next Democratic and Republican debate, a $1 million Presidential grand prize and a way for people to vote via their TV, Cable and/or Satellite remote control and we got ourselves the next Reality TV revolution that we can call "American Presidential Idol". Yikes! It almost makes me wanna vomit just thinking about it.

Come on people. What ever happened to working hard, earning your way and feeling proud of your accomplishments? What ever happened to, as the movie Robots puts it, see a need, fill a need? Is the American Dream really to make as much money as possible in the shortest amount of time as possible regardless of who gets screwed in the process? Is screwing each other the future for this nation and maybe even the world? How will we react when we're the ones on the losing end of the deal with the rest of the world? There is still time, but I'm afraid our current choices for the next President of the US will only make things worse and delay our chances of turning things around for the better. Both sides of the isle are not focusing on the real issues of this country, they are more concerned with buying people off with free gifts and money. As far as I'm concerned that only makes us a bunch of sellouts.

It's never too late for change. Wake up and smell the deceit coming out of our candidates mouths. Stand up and make a difference, for yourself.

Comments

EmperorofIceCream

on Feb 01, 2008

You write as if the American people are mere dupes and fools, their supposed good sense and decent morals hijacked by a band of criminals. People get the governments they elect. Governments produce policies and decisions that reflect what politicians understand to meet the concerns, needs, desires, of the people who elected them. If you persistently elect the members of the same political elites, each with their own relatively unchanging political agendas, you will get the same rotating cycle of policy initiatives that are related solely to the needs, wishes, and desires of the elites from which you draw your government.

The problem isn't with government - which is doing exactly what you elected it to do - keeping the same tired, decrepit, inefficient political machine functioning to maintain the status quo. The problem is with the ignorant, the single-issue-obsessed, the lazy, and the stupid - who form the electorate that sends people into government who govern in the interest of issues and causes that are of concern to them, not of concern to the electorate.

Americans generally are intellectually lazy when it comes to politics. They see no further than the ends of their own noses - otherwise pious non-entities such as Huckabee could not be in contention for the Presidency; otherwise the super-slick and the super-pretentious, such as Romney, could not compete. I don't give a damn whether Romney is a Mormon, a Satanist, or a Baptist. What repulses me is that the man has never suffered a day in his life and what he knows about the lives of ordinary Americans could be written on the back of a book of matches with a paste brush. Yet he believes he can somehow represent the interests of all Americans. The man is either deluded to the point of hallucination; or a fraud who, like Bush, will serve only the interests of those elite groups in which has membership.

Neither, if any of you had any sense, would that mewling political infant Obama, or the demented harridan Clinton, be in contention. The first knows nothing and his first term in office will be nothing but a series of disasters: his inexperience and juvenile idealism will ensure it's so. As for Clinton, you only have to look in her eyes to see the out and out lunacy lurking there.

McCain is now so old that the strain of his first years in office will kill him - and then we will be at the mercy of whatever vice-president he selects to serve with him. Possibly Giuliani, if McCain wins and has any sense, and then at least something might get done. But until the American people understand that they get the government they want and deserve, the commodification of our national life will continue on just as it is, America will continue to produce nothing but weapons she either gives to the Saudis or squanders on pointless wars that yield America no good in return, and her politics will remain where it is - at the level of squabbles between pampered children who have no real understanding of what it is they're fighting over.

You accuse the current crop of candidates of deceit. There's no deceit involved. What's happened is that the principles of governance of a Republic have been forgotten, and what presently substitutes for those principles are short term greed, denial of urgently pressing issues such as energy security, and complacent hubris.

And the fault is yours, because you elect these idiots. If you elect idiots for their idiocy you can hardly turn round and expect them to behave as serious, intelligent public servants dedicated to the welfare of the Republic, rather than as criminals, buffoons and venal clods whose interest is in securing enough pork for their constituents so that those constituents will once again returm them to power and the whole wretched circus continue on as before.

You elected them. You are to blame.

CharlesCS

on Feb 01, 2008

First of all, I like your reply. You pretty much pointed out what I was trying to say. Which is what confuses me when you say that somehow I believe it's the Gov'ts fault when that is far from the truth. I thought that was what I said on this article.

Actually , to me, most Americans are fools and lack some good sense, which is the reason we are where we are today. People are too busy either at the doctors office for any little pain, watching TV, playing games, browsing the Internet, working 2 jobs and/or drinking and eating to have time to educate themselves beyond what Elementary, Middle and High School gave them and they retained. Going to college now a days is more about getting by with good enough grades, partying and coming out in the next college porn flic or Gone Wild series as oppose to making a better person out of themselves to someday provide for a possible future family and their country.

The problem isn't with government - which is doing exactly what you elected it to do - keeping the same tired, decrepit, inefficient political machine functioning to maintain the status quo. The problem is with the ignorant, the single-issue-obsessed, the lazy, and the stupid - who form the electorate that sends people into government who govern in the interest of issues and causes that are of concern to them, not of concern to the electorate.

Americans generally are intellectually lazy when it comes to politics. They see no further than the ends of their own noses - otherwise pious non-entities such as Huckabee could not be in contention for the Presidency; otherwise the super-slick and the super-pretentious, such as Romney, could not compete. I don't give a damn whether Romney is a Mormon, a Satanist, or a Baptist. What repulses me is that the man has never suffered a day in his life and what he knows about the lives of ordinary Americans could be written on the back of a book of matches with a paste brush. Yet he believes he can somehow represent the interests of all Americans. The man is either deluded to the point of hallucination; or a fraud who, like Bush, will serve only the interests of those elite groups in which has membership.

Neither, if any of you had any sense, would that mewling political infant Obama, or the demented harridan Clinton, be in contention. The first knows nothing and his first term in office will be nothing but a series of disasters: his inexperience and juvenile idealism will ensure it's so. As for Clinton, you only have to look in her eyes to see the out and out lunacy lurking there.

McCain is now so old that the strain of his first years in office will kill him - and then we will be at the mercy of whatever vice-president he selects to serve with him. Possibly Giuliani, if McCain wins and has any sense, and then at least something might get done. But until the American people understand that they get the government they want and deserve, the commodification of our national life will continue on just as it is, America will continue to produce nothing but weapons she either gives to the Saudis or squanders on pointless wars that yield America no good in return, and her politics will remain where it is - at the level of squabbles between pampered children who have no real understanding of what it is they're fighting over.

The Gov't is not the main problem, but they are part of it. This is a group of people who we put our trust into and all they do is take advantage of the ignorance of the average American and play smoke and mirror games with the issues that plague the Nation. All to benefit those who endorse them and themselves. Take Bush for example, it would seem to me the man really does not care about his legacy in the history books of the future. How can anyone work so hard to gain the highest position in this country and not care that he could go down in history as the worst thing that could ever happen to the US short of a nuclear explosion? The options we currently have to vote for is kinda like having 2 giant meteors heading towards Earth that could kill all life and only 1 missile to destroy either one and your only option is to chose which meteor you want to kill us all.

You accuse the current crop of candidates of deceit. There's no deceit involved. What's happened is that the principles of governance of a Republic have been forgotten, and what presently substitutes for those principles are short term greed, denial of urgently pressing issues such as energy security, and complacent hubris.

I beg to differ, deceit is a political trait. No one ever runs for any political position while stating everything they have ever done wrong in life or admitting to having done anything really bad (normally they try to sugar coat really bad situations in the past as "it could happen to anyone" moments). I have to agree our principles have gotten lost thru out the years and replaced with a fast food like system where everything looks good on TV, but underneath the lettuce and pickles lies the real truth.

And the fault is yours, because you elect these idiots. If you elect idiots for their idiocy you can hardly turn round and expect them to behave as serious, intelligent public servants dedicated to the welfare of the Republic, rather than as criminals, buffoons and venal clods whose interest is in securing enough pork for their constituents so that those constituents will once again returm them to power and the whole wretched circus continue on as before.

You elected them. You are to blame.

Thank you for agreeing with me. This was my point all along.

Dr Guy

on Feb 01, 2008

Money is just the overt symbol. The core issue is control. Who has it. Conservatives want control over their own lives, liberals want to control everyone elses. Money is the means, not the ends.

CharlesCS

on Feb 01, 2008

Money is just the overt symbol. The core issue is control. Who has it. Conservatives want control over their own lives, liberals want to control everyone elses. Money is the means, not the ends.

I think money and control are like french fries and ketchup. they just go together.

CharlesCS

on Feb 01, 2008

Wow, I got featured. Cool.

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