The Second American Revolution
Read the paper, watch the news on television or go on the internet to find out what is happening in our always crazy world. There is a never a shortage of things that make us so angry that we want to just spit.
Case in point: Awhile back, The Houston Chronicle ran an editorial which decried the fact that our government officials, elected and not, have begun to view us as their customers, their clients. When I read that, I became absolutely incensed that these officials, especially the elected ones, have forgotten that you and I put them into their positions. We are their bosses, we pay their salaries and we can damn well fire them or remove them from their positions if they even begin to think about doing something that crosses the line of ethical behaviour in any way or if they don't do their job.
As much as that idea that you and I are customers of government upsets me, something else made me even more upset. Too many Americans are very willing to accept the notion that they are clients of the government... that the government is essentially there to provide certain benefits and services to them. The main thoughts running through the minds of such people, who even think about government at any level, are "What can the government do for me?" and "Look what the government did to me!" It isn't really difficult to see why that kind of thinking is probably much too prevalent. We are too busy, too tired or just plain too stressed out by everything that goes on in our lives, to do much more than grouse about the sloppy and ineffectual way that our governmental bodies function. Most of the time, we have precious little time to play our rightful roles as citizens of what is arguably still one of the greatest countries in the world. We hardly have any energy left over at the end of the day to actively speak out against the injustice, the inequities and the almost incredible lack of commitment among our representatives to solving the problems of our communities.
If you are like me, you want to just scream out loud and clear, " I am not going to take this garbage any longer!" But too much of the time, that is all that we end up doing. We all know that something "should" be done about this unacceptable situation and we all agree that "someone should do something" about whatever our not-so-noble representatives have done or have not done, to our satisfaction. And we leave it at that, "should" being the key word here. It is easier to vent our frustrations every day and then do nothing at all, than to actually do something about the mess that we are witnessing. It never seems to get any better.
So maybe now would be a good time for a second American Revolution. The first go-around, the American colonists were so spitting mad, that nothing short of throwing out the bastards and achieving self-rule was going to be acceptable. Now, we need to do whatever it is going to take to empower the stressed-out man and woman on the street to stand up and make some serious noise. It is time that we let the boys at city hall and the governor's mansion and the White House understand that we know the the political machine is badly broken and that we expect them to fix what's broken asap. They need to know that if they don't, we will throw them out, just like we did to the bastards that were around in 1776. Not so very long ago, the people of California did just that when they recalled Gray Davis, half-way through his term in office. One is not sure if they got anything much better, in Schwartzenegger, but hey, at least the folks in California made the effort. My hats off to them, no matter how it turns out in the end.
The American system of government certainly isn't a perfect system. But it sure as hell beats any of the other alternatives around today. It is the only one we have and the situation in the US is at a critical crossroads. We had better get busy fixing what is wrong with the machine, before we lose whatever rights we have under the law and the blessings of freedom, a little bit at time. Folks, that is already happening and if we learned nothing else from 9/11, it is that even the most unimaginable of things can happen here. So join me now and let's get the next revolution rolling.
Case in point: Awhile back, The Houston Chronicle ran an editorial which decried the fact that our government officials, elected and not, have begun to view us as their customers, their clients. When I read that, I became absolutely incensed that these officials, especially the elected ones, have forgotten that you and I put them into their positions. We are their bosses, we pay their salaries and we can damn well fire them or remove them from their positions if they even begin to think about doing something that crosses the line of ethical behaviour in any way or if they don't do their job.
As much as that idea that you and I are customers of government upsets me, something else made me even more upset. Too many Americans are very willing to accept the notion that they are clients of the government... that the government is essentially there to provide certain benefits and services to them. The main thoughts running through the minds of such people, who even think about government at any level, are "What can the government do for me?" and "Look what the government did to me!" It isn't really difficult to see why that kind of thinking is probably much too prevalent. We are too busy, too tired or just plain too stressed out by everything that goes on in our lives, to do much more than grouse about the sloppy and ineffectual way that our governmental bodies function. Most of the time, we have precious little time to play our rightful roles as citizens of what is arguably still one of the greatest countries in the world. We hardly have any energy left over at the end of the day to actively speak out against the injustice, the inequities and the almost incredible lack of commitment among our representatives to solving the problems of our communities.
If you are like me, you want to just scream out loud and clear, " I am not going to take this garbage any longer!" But too much of the time, that is all that we end up doing. We all know that something "should" be done about this unacceptable situation and we all agree that "someone should do something" about whatever our not-so-noble representatives have done or have not done, to our satisfaction. And we leave it at that, "should" being the key word here. It is easier to vent our frustrations every day and then do nothing at all, than to actually do something about the mess that we are witnessing. It never seems to get any better.
So maybe now would be a good time for a second American Revolution. The first go-around, the American colonists were so spitting mad, that nothing short of throwing out the bastards and achieving self-rule was going to be acceptable. Now, we need to do whatever it is going to take to empower the stressed-out man and woman on the street to stand up and make some serious noise. It is time that we let the boys at city hall and the governor's mansion and the White House understand that we know the the political machine is badly broken and that we expect them to fix what's broken asap. They need to know that if they don't, we will throw them out, just like we did to the bastards that were around in 1776. Not so very long ago, the people of California did just that when they recalled Gray Davis, half-way through his term in office. One is not sure if they got anything much better, in Schwartzenegger, but hey, at least the folks in California made the effort. My hats off to them, no matter how it turns out in the end.
The American system of government certainly isn't a perfect system. But it sure as hell beats any of the other alternatives around today. It is the only one we have and the situation in the US is at a critical crossroads. We had better get busy fixing what is wrong with the machine, before we lose whatever rights we have under the law and the blessings of freedom, a little bit at time. Folks, that is already happening and if we learned nothing else from 9/11, it is that even the most unimaginable of things can happen here. So join me now and let's get the next revolution rolling.
posted by hfireman | 3:03 AM
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