When ABC News and President Obama talk about the people who would be affected by a government shutdown, the stories can be heart wrenching. But when you look at the underlying theme, it makes you wonder about the character of our nation. The “me, me, me, how this will adversely affect me” story behind the reporting on the possible government shutdown leaves a bitter taste. Government is way too big if people are going to be inconvenienced by its shutdown and America is too shallow if they’re going to whine about it.
Then you look at the GOP 2012 presidential primary polling and once again you question the character of a nation who prefers more of the “flavor of the day” to any real long term commitment to candidate, party or principles. Part of this is media stirred hysteria where polls bounce all over the place like basketballs. Part of it is the American people, the crowd if you will, whose heads bob all over the place watching the candidates go up and down.
Today, you’re for Mike Huckabee. Tomorrow you’re for Donald Trump, the new flavor of the day. Forget what Sarah Palin did to save the Republican Party by being on the ticket and forget what Rudy Giuliani did as Mayor of New York. That’s old news. A few months ago, Thune was the man. Then it was Pence. They’re off the presidential radar now, too. Herman Cain drew attention. Then some hitched their star to Chris Christie. Guys, come on. We’re not buying record albums here. We’re selecting a president.
No good great American democratic experiment is complete without nasty people spewing vile things at each other. Where would we be without affair rumors, lies about people’s children, death threats and false accusations? What good would it do to have a civil debate when you can mock someone, push them down or call them a racist? We spend our time painting people as pinheads or the worst people in the world, yet we never look in the mirror at our own miserable lives to find out where this hatred is really emanating from.
Don’t fret all the incivility, though. In one of the most heated political contests ever, David Prosser barely nipped by JoAnne Kloppenburg for Wisconsin Supreme Court Judge. Despite the Left’s clarion call that Governor Walker was trying to take down the world wide union movement and the right’s clarion call that the entire financial future of Western civilization rested on this election, 67% of registered voters stayed home. Yup, grab a beer, put on Jersey Shore and don’t worry about it. Who cares what happens to America? It always survives. Let someone else take care of it.
We are so spoiled to be Americans. We take so much for granted.
When the activists on both sides put their hearts and souls into fighting for something, don't we have a right to ask the selfish lazy Americans who stay home is it worth saving? Is it worth serving?
Thomas Jefferson would choke if he saw what our educated and informed electorate looks like today. The culture has deteriorated. People marry, have children and raise them until the point where the marriage falls apart and the kids get older. Once the parents divorce and the kids go to college, there moral foundation is further eroded at the point when they get their real indoctrination into life: a liberal arts education (emphasis on the word liberal). It’s here where they are radicalized beyond their upbringing. It’s here where they get to see what a sinkhole the world really is. It becomes a foregone conclusion in the mind of a young 20-something that Utopia cannot be achieved without the loving heavy hand of big government.
They graduate, get jobs in the media, law and academia so they can continue the cycle of this repetitive brain washing. Those who get their news and pop culture get it from these well trained messengers of liberalism. Keeping the fabric of society and the family together isn't as important as "me, me me," watching the daily dose of girls gone wild on MTV or the drug and alcohol laced rantings of people like Charlie Sheen.
Americans aren’t moving toward a future. They’re rubbernecking on the highway of life. Today’s go-getters aren’t the ones building businesses that will provide lasting prosperity for people. The go-getters are the ones who laugh at the lazy masses who don’t see them as they plan the new world order right under their noses. They continue to lop on law after law and regulation after regulation; and the sheep just keep letting them do it. Freedom with responsibility may be the nature of man, but totalitarianism will stifle this in our blind quest for creature comfort and world peace.
America is split right now between those who buy into the media, the academia, the pop culture and the rubbernecking and those who reject this for a simpler order.
Understanding conservatism requires a self education that’s worth more than any liberal art college credits. Conservatives resent the fact that these narcissists who emerge from our institutions of higher learning don’t have the values, business skills and financial skills of self made men, yet they are awarded positions of power and authority based on their sheepskins.
It's as if you have to find the Bible under the stack of Playboys. You have to navigate a world of bureaucracy before you can get to an honest day’s work. You have to build a social and financial fortress around you before you can just begin to live like a normal person and break even. Liberalism claims to be the thinking man's ideology, but with everything so greyed and muddled, it takes a deeper thinker in a conservative vain to figure his way through the maze of ideas that the Left have put between us and the simple concepts of God, country, family and limited government.
Sure,the elites tell us it’s complicated. It’s impossible for the regular person to navigate all the moving parts. They need someone to do it for them. When the rest of us realize that that it’s the someone that’s doing it all for them who’s actually the one complicating the thing, we want to fight that. We want to stop them from taking our freedom under the guise that it’s for our own good.
They hate it when we say there’s no reason to have to spend all this time going through the stacks of magazines to find the Bible. They hate it when we say we just want to jump in the car and go to work or we just want to turn the key and open our business without having the state in the way. Putting the key in is a direct act when there is no gatekeeper stopping us from getting to where we want to freely go.
So why are all these people vying for the Republican nomination? Do they think they can break through the viscous nature of liberal existence and get Americans to believe that balancing the nation's books, raising our children with values and defending our country from an impending caliphate is easier done without the cogs in the wheel of a bloated, over sized and encumbering government? We better hope so.
Problems will always exist. People will always go through the good times and the bad. Limited government will not change this. But it will reduce a lot of the man made effects that compound problems. When carrying the weight of the world on our backs trying to live, why do we let the government add more items to the pile?
So we are polarized. Conservatives will never accept progressivism. Progressives will never accept conservatism. But wouldn't a smaller government allow all sides to live in freedom without imposing on them? Until progressives get this, the battle for hearts and minds will wage. Our future leaders are not just going to be caretakers or problem solvers of the moment. They are going to have to cure our institutions and our culture if there is any hope to put to rest the misguided idea that collectivism works.
What about those on the conservative side? There is still much work to be done here. Everyone complains about this candidate or that candidate but few can stand up behind just one and push them as far as they can.
There is one among us who has everything we need to lead. Will conservatives drop the ball on this? Will the one who should lead end up throwing her hands up in disgust that it's not worth leading or that the people just don't see it yet? Robert Wiles at Palin Promotions writes:
America has been crying out “we need one of us", we get her, then start having second opinions about her. Sarah is all American. Her husband Todd is more in tune with the average American male than any Washington elitist out there. Americans gripe about the “elitism” in Washington; yet, we are sent a “Sarah and Todd” and we seem to question whether we want them to have a role in Washington.You wonder if Sarah Palin will assess the lay of the land and wonder if it's even worth it. She has worked harder than anyone over the past 2 1/2 years to craft her image, get her message out and fight for the country. Yet, the elites and the media keep going after her, hoping enough people don't see that. If she decides not to run, it will be a failure on our part not hers. It will be the failure of those on the right to recognize her value. It will be a surrendering of those on the right to the media and the elites.
Are we still good enough to save? Is this country still worth it? Are there enough of us left to get this car out of the ditch or is it too late?
This is the decision that everyone running for president has to make.
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