"After 42 years on this planet, seeing what I have seen in both major political parties in the United States, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that both parties care about their party's power, and the ever increasing power of the state. They care not at all for individual liberties, the US constitution, or limited government."
Nate, I am your age and I will take this all one step further.
Yes, we all support one party or another for perceived benefit of our own special interests, maybe even dabbling in third parties for legitimate, well-grounded reasons and intentions, or perhaps just for the edginess of it all.
But my new theory is that what we really have in America now is a one-party system masquerading as a two-party state.
Look at the lack of substance among the candidates, the willingness to mudsling just because they have no worthy message to sell us, the uniformity of their positions that cannot even come close to meeting the needs of the everyday working American, much less the "least among us".
Look at the real agendas they all seem to ultimately march behind, concepts like the abolition of national borders, the legitimacy of torture, whether or not the poisoning of the food supply and even the safety of children's toys is worthy of debate.
Spying, wiretaps, habeus corpus, and election fraud from one side of the choir....political correctness, a lost sense of sovereignity and the devaluation of nationalism, "activist" judges and the ever-popular nanny state, with its low water levels and phosphate bans, lol, from the other side of the choir.
Can you imagine such ideas being floated around fifteen or even ten years ago without being immediately shot out of the water?
Yet, amongst the growing yowls of indignation, and despite growing numbers of Americans recognizing that they see at least kernels of truth in ALL of the insanities put forth, regardless of party affiliation, they have us at each other's throats, and, beyond that, now infighting WITHIN the infighting.
There is a CONVERGENCE of interests at work here, and it's easy to see because its not the few issues the candidates are willing to address that have us at odds.
It's the multitude of new issues not quite ready for primetime or polite discussion over the dinner table, yet they gnaw at us in our private moments, or maybe in predawn quiet musings with a trusted partner, if we are so lucky.
Much guff is spoken in the name of "change", "readiness from day one", and even "straight talk", but what is remarkable about today's candidates is how similar their positions are, how similarly insufficient their policies seem to be for today's rapidly changing world, and how fundamentally Americans don't trust ANY of them, as much as we fight for our favorite's every touchdown, every bit of yardage gained.
I believe many of us don't trust the process from top to bottom, but don't trust ourselves to demand the necessary reforms, or even to figure out for ourselves what they really are.
That's what I've been kicking around. Voting in one's preferred candidate and convincing ourselves our choices matter in the overall scheme of things isn't worth a tinker's damn if the candidates don't even have the courage of their own convictions and are willing to distort or even flat-out lie about the other guy's positions and fall all over themselves to "reach across the aisle" and pat themselves on the backs about their great compromises.
Meanwhile, the elitists seem to have everyone's interests but the everyday American's at heart, and the control grid ensures our continued enthusiastic participation in this false dichotomy while throwing up every wedge issue and manufactured outrage they can concoct out of thin air, just to keep us distracted from discussing real change and demanding the fundamental restructuring, the rethinking, and profound shift in values the 21st century and our survival as a nation require.
I'm of below- to average intelligence and I believe we are smart enough as a people, as part of a larger world, to take these challenges on, confront them, and help make the world a better place for it. I'm just not sure the powers that be will let us anymore.
Thanks for listening to my ramblings, but I really am looking for ideas.
And, yes, I've been nipping at the Riesling again...
