It Seems To Me
I readily
recognize I don’t know everything, and I don’t pretend to, the thoughts of my
critics notwithstanding; but it seems to me that, in their mismanagement, our
government is treading a perilous path in these difficult times, rapidly
approaching a line in the sand; which, if they cross, will lead us beyond a
point of no return.
You might
correct me on this, but I believe our country and our people are different from
those of other nations. We are different, if for no other reason, in that we
were born free. Personal freedom is ingrained in the minds of every one of us
from the very beginning of our great nation–the Revolutionary War; and that
inner subconscious belief continues with us to this very day–whether we were
born here or immigrated. Freedom is ingrained in our culture–freedom of speech,
freedom of thought, and freedom of action, limited only by that of others, i.e.
my freedom ends where yours begins.
In the
beginning, our Constitution, approved in 1789, was written and approved behind
closed doors by the power elite of
the time and given to us, we the people, for our approval, effectively telling
us we were free. Subsequently, the Bill
of Rights (the first ten amendments) was added, again increasing our
freedom. Further along in history, we decided that the people would elect
members of the Senate, once again increasing our freedom. Then, in 1865,
slavery was abolished, followed one hundred years later by the Civil Rights Act
of 1965. As a nation, freedom is all we know–this is the color of all our glasses.
I mentioned earlier
that our government is treading a perilous path. A government of the people
exists for only one purpose–only one. That is to manage the affairs of our
nation. As the Preamble to the Constitution says, “In order to
form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the
blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…..”. Managing the affairs
of our nation, in my opinion, does not constitute playing chess with party
politics at the expense of the people. I heard former Senator Tom Daschle say
on Washington Journal this morning, to the effect that, what our government
needs is a good dose of bipartisanship. My contention is that, what it needs is
a good dose of patriotism–patriotism for our nations’ affairs. Rather than the
one and one half days per week they are now working (they go home on Thursdays
and return on Tuesdays), we need them to take care of business and relieve us
from our overwhelming stresses; and you can believe–they are overwhelming to
all of us. We can use a little bit of that Tranquility
right now.
Now, having provided
the groundwork, I’ll get down to it. Our nation and our people are under
immense stress right now. I’ve pointed it out over and over in my several
postings to this blog, but I’ll briefly do it again:
1. We
have approximately twenty million people either unemployed–looking for work, employed
part- time, or who have given up looking. Our recession may be over, but we are
still in depression.
2. Many,
if not millions (I don’t know how many, but too many) are living in cars, under
bridges, on the streets, or in homeless shelters. They are living on welfare,
securing food from food banks, eating out of dumpsters and food kitchens, or
whatever.
3. Since
the 1970’s, and more so since the 1980’s, income and wealth of our middle and
under classes has steadily decreased right along with their standard of living.
The rich have gotten much richer and the poor have become poorer.
4. As
a result of the burst of the housing bubble and financial collapse of the financial
markets in 2008, millions of our people have lost their homes, are under water
with their home mortgages, and over their heads in personal debt with no
apparent way out.
5. Large
corporations (long standing members of the power
elite, our Shadow Government), in order to increase their profits, have
been outsourcing jobs to slave labor abroad, exacerbating unemployment and
reducing tax revenues. You call it what you want, but a rose is a rose is a
rose. I call it slave labor. Not all, to be sure, but many of our slaves in
1865 lived better than those to whom we are now outsourcing.
6. On
top of all of the above, our nation is saddled with a national debt of $17
Trillion, accumulated over a short period of thirty-three years–a debt so huge
that our ability to manage the nation’s fiscal policy has been seriously
constricted.
7. Now
comes the Affordable Care Act, aka Obama Care. This nation severely needs a
healthcare system. Every thinking person knows that. We need a new system to
improve the health of our people; and we need a new system to reduce costs (and,
therefore, our deficit). The way this system is designed, however, presents
severe hardships to far too many of our people who live from one paycheck to
another (if they are employed, that is) and employers.
8. I’m
sure there are more sources of stress to our people at this time, but I’ll name
one more and conclude this posting. There is the stress of NSA, our National
Security Agency. This is a big thing, folks. If you don’t think so, why do you
think they kept it a secret? Have you heard the news today? They are even monitoring
many of our conversations as we walk down the street. Let’s cut this to the
quick. If our government can monitor us this closely, they are only half an
inch away from having the ability to dominate and control us just as many
dictators have done throughout history. Adolph Hitler and Joseph Goebbels would
have loved to have some of our security systems. Are you a Democrat? Are you a
Republican? Mmmmm……
Now, folks, tell
me. Isn’t this more than enough stress and uncertainty? I submit to you that
these problems are and/or can be simpler to solve than our government,
Democrats and Republicans alike, are making them. They are simple, but they are
significant, however. It has to be obvious to all that our people are in turmoil
and under heavy stress. It’s a known fact, also, that our people are armed to
the teeth, just as is our Department of Homeland Security which has been buying
ammunition by the billions of dollars for quite some time (Check out www.infowars.com. There is a lot of
political propaganda in the website, but so also is such with Fox News, MSNBC,
etc.–You can sort out the truth from fiction). My point is that, surely, our
government doesn’t want to continue their present mis-governance, introducing
even more stress points upon our people. Trust in government is the lowest in
many years. We don’t want it to go even lower, so let us not let Pandora out of
the box. Once she is out, it will be a long time before she gets back in, if
ever. Once the first shot is fired, what little democracy we have left will be
gone, I believe, forever.
Ronald Miller
mtss86@comcast.net
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