I was talking with a friend last night on IM and we got on the subject of politics. Interesting since we are on opposite sides of the two party system in this country. Disclaimer: I know we don't "technically" have a two party system, I'm speaking of the functionality of the situation, not the theory. So, we got onto the subject and we both felt that we were without parties. I think a lot of people feel that way. We have similar ideologies to our elected officials, but when it comes to the practicality of the issues, we are left thinking, "What happened to my party?". I don't have the answer to that question. I think we have a big mess that needs to be cleaned up. I think we have a lot of Americans who have become lazy and don't care. I think we have a lot of politicians who have taken advantage of the apathy and gone hog wild with their own agendas. Where is the country that is for the people? What happened to the notion that public office was to be a phase of one's life, passing in and out for a time. What is the sense in enforcing term limits when the same people are still in the same tired seat, pushing the same tired issues? Perhaps when people have a comfortable seat and an extra one with certain lobbyist's names on them, there is no need to feel accountable to the people. I don't think all lobbyists are the devil or that every politician needs to be put out to pasture, but some of them have permanent rear marks in their chairs. And to play devil's advocate, perhaps these people are voted in term after term because anything close to being accomplished has been two or six years in the making. Checks and balances are fantastic, but when we have masters of procrastination and red tape bureaucracy abounding in our capital buildings, well, I get sad and annoyed. So, in echoing that singer from that song that was played way too much in the nineties, forget where have all the cowboys gone. Where have all of the Mr. Smiths gone? If there truly was a Mr. Smith, he never would have gotten to Washington, no one would have helped him, and he certainly wouldn't have been as cute as Jimmy Stewart.
Do not comment on the cute thing, not a criteria for my vote.
1 comment:
Loved this post (even more so than the others, which had me laughing outloud). I typed a rather lengthy response on Facebook only to have it disappear before posting. Oh well. Here's my condensed response:
1. Couldn't have said/typed it better myself. You have a goft of writing and communicating, Stacy. I truly mean that.
2. I wholeheartedly agree with term-limits across the board. Starting yesterday. There are entirely too many politicians who have been in office longer than we've been alive. Enough said.
3. There is no system of checks-and-balances. It is, instead, creating committees to "study" the committees already in place to figure out what committee/s needs to be created to fix the initial committees' blunders, wasting of tax dollars, sugarcoating the real issues, etc. I am certain you get the point. So nothing is really ever solved.
4. Mr. Smith wouldn't have gone to Washington. And if he did, his little town would crumple under the invasion of WalMart without him there to fight it off and he would most likely be ruined by the Bureaucracy...which in turn would age him considerably in a short amount of time and he would no longer be so cute :)
**And NO I don't vote on the cuteness factor either. If that were the case I would have yet to have casted a vote since I inherited the right at 18!
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