I am growing weary of all the political BS flowing through my Facebook and Twitter pages. I don’t want to offend my friends or anyone else with what I say next but sometimes the truth is hard. Most people (not all) are uninformed, don’t get half of what they hear on the news and are too lazy to research things they don’t understand. Instead, most just settle for sound bites and base their opinions on what they are being fed by the media.
“The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.” – Thomas Jefferson; June 6, 1807
Many others are driven by a single issue or interest or just so caught up in their own lives they are oblivious to what is happening around them. I am offended that things are posted as factual that are clearly designed with sensationalism in mind. False and misleading posts undermine your position regardless of which side you support. We seem to have lost the ability to have factual debates and instead seem to prefer emotional, fact less or lie filled diatribes. Our discussions have been reduced to calculated sound bites designed to manipulate or incite overreaction. Clearly, we have lost our way. Our country is in the worst shape in our history.
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” – Abraham Lincoln
I keep seeing pro-democrat or pro republican/conservative posts asking for likes or shares, extolling their respective virtues. News flash – they both suck! How about firing ALL of them as both parties have become jokes! By the way, when you look past the rhetoric it is hard to tell them apart. Let’s start over in 2016 and replace them all with leaders that will put government back in its place… which is out of our daily lives, period! The federal government was intended for defense, infrastructure and managing foreign affairs not deciding issues of marriage, diet or healthcare. Let the states govern (per the 10th Amendment) to the needs of their constituents. We need to start over with leaders who will follow the constitutional roles for each branch of government. It will take years to unwind the massive bureaucracy that is in place but that and a strong economy with jobs to make people self sufficient are required for the country to survive. Unfortunately, our country is overrun with people who want the government to take care of them rather than an opportunity to take care of themselves. Today, 44% of the country’s federal income supports entitlements. On top of that our infrastructure is crumbling and we keep handing out foreign aid, often to our enemies while borrowing money at a rate that is unsustainable.
“Nothing is so well calculated to produce a death-like torpor (lethargy) in the country as an extended system of taxation and a great national debt.” – William Cobbett; Feb. 10,1804
There is no such thing as “social justice” or “free stuff” – everything the government hands out has to be paid for by someone. Even in socialist countries there is a class system with “haves” and “have nots”. It is just in those places there are more “have nots” and less even less “haves” with little opportunity to change status.
Finally, if you want to participate in the conversation, please do it in a meaningful way. Be thoughtful rather than a bomb thrower. Research the things that fire you up. Don’t trust a single source for your news or facts. Fox News, CNN, NBC, MSNBC and the rest all have an agenda. Use all of these resources as well as the international press to study the issues and form your opinions. If we stay on the current path we will destroy ourselves as Lincoln suggested. We need common sense and an informed public to fix the problems we face. I still believe most Americans want a strong country, a strong economy and a shot at the American Dream. It is time to get informed, think for yourself and align your positions with your values not a political party.
Uncommon Sense 