Tomorrow will mark the 230th birthday for this great nation I call home. (BTW, there's been an excellent series on the
History Channel about the revolution I would highly recommend.) It was a huge, blind leap by our founding fathers to lead us onto such an uncertain path. They were rising up against the mightiest army in the world at that time and secured our freedom.
Many things have happened since then changing the world sometimes for the better but sometimes for the worst. I was thinking, 'what would the
founding fathers say about what is going on here in the USA today?' I tend to consider myself both and neither a conservative or a liberal. Politics has become so much about the party line than the good for the people they represent or America. It seems that the two parties must be polar oposites on many issues to distinguish themselves from that other party.
Midterm elections are coming up this year and we are seeing it in Congress. Legislation about immigration, flag burning and the list goes on and on. My friend Doug made a good point the other night. Like a magician, the congressmen are holding out their left hand and shaking it...pointing at it and making a big deal about 'look at THIS hand, its all shaky and causing me to look CRAZY'. While the right hand is in your pocket grabbing your wallet, cash, and anything else of value while your entranced by the 'shaky hand'.
You heard about immigration reform, you heard about the flag burning legislation but did you hear about them passing a pay increase for themselves? I really think proposing and passing a pay raise for yourself is a conflict of interest. If I could pass a pay raise for myself, what do you think I would do? They are 'supposed' to represent the interests of the people from their districts. I think we should decide on if they should get a raise. They already get conpensated for expenses such as travel and whatnot, then they want a raise on top of that. They haven't given the hard working people of America a cost of living raise in about 10 years (minimum wage).
I like President Bush much more than the other candidates two years ago. But some of the things the government is doing truely and deeply scare me. Its a well known fact we cannot 100% protect ourselves from another possible terror attack. They are infrindging upon civil liberty after civil liberty to try and protect us. Too many people are blindly saying, 'Oh, its going to protect us. Go right ahead' when they should be saying, 'Now wait a minute, what does all of this entail exactly?'
AT&T has amended their privacy policy to one that means you basically do not have any privacy in their eyes. They can and will give over all your data, such as who you have called, what websites you have visited, how long you were at that site, and what links you clicked on, in the blink of an eye to a government official. Why? I thought there was a thing called 'Due Process' that they had to follow but apparently this is not so anymore.
Even in a time of 'war' the President and Government Officials should have to abide by certain laws. This has been seen a few times during the years. I do like you George Bush, I really do, but there are a lot of things that I do not like about how your administration is going about things. It looks like Big Business and Big Oil is really got a strangle hold on our government from my point of view.
I hope it gets better without getting too much worse...
Tomorrow, I will do my usual celebration of the country getting older. Grill some meat, sit back and ponder what the founding fathers thought and imaginated for this fine countries future direction. I hope we have somewhat fulfilled it. But don't forget Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Adams, Henry and Paine among many others. Hopefully the History Channel will be showing some good stuff.
"Give me Liberty, or give me death" - Patrick Henry March 23, 1775
~Brian
