What's Wrong With The Country

When I sit and think of the condition our country is in this days it depresses me.  What's happened to the entire political system?  Supposedly it's a democracy that by definition makes it by the people, for the people.  Yet, it seems "the people" have strayed away from the simplicity of the very beginnings of our government.  Sure, you can sit back and say the rich control everything with large sums of money and they buy elections, control communications and exposure, etc. but where are the people on election day?  I saw a graph show the disparity of what's actually reported and how voter turnouts should be calculated.  Given, the author of this graph made a valid point in that most voter turnouts are calculated by number of votes cast divided by number of citizens of 18, which includes many people that are not eligible to vote (such as felons, etc.).  Instead, the author took the number of eligible voters and re-did the graph.  Granted the adjusted calculation was higher; but it was still at approximately 62% in 2008 versus 56%.  The graph also showed that rates were at their lowest in 1996 and have been on a steady increase since.

My question is this.  Is 62% good enough?  Yes, it is a majority of eligible voters, but if this country is supposed to be for the people by the people, then where are we?  We seem more content to sit back on our couches and rear ends, listen to the folks running for office so they can get the perks and extra money that comes with the office, and then complain about what's going on.  If you don't like what's going on, then don't vote for the incumbent.  If you don't like the other candidates don't vote for any of them either.  I think one of the silliest things anyone can do is a straight ticket vote.  Just check one Party and be done with it.  That's lazy.  Not everyone in a single party actually think the exact same way.  If you don't believe that watch the debates.  Do your homework, check out the candidates, and make an educated vote.

That's my rant for the night.  I could keep going, but I'll save that for another blog.  There are two things that are going on in America right now that has and is continuing to be our down fall:  laziness and greed. (I'll blog on that later.)

So, here's my first blog.  I've always thought of doing one, but just never got started.  Then I ran across this Blogger website, and figured what the heck.  Why not give it a try?  This blog will mostly be random things that pop in my mind.  It could be personal, public, political, religious, secular, whatever.  I'm just going to use it as an outlet to vent, or as Dennis Miller used to say back when he had his HBO show (which I miss!!!!). . . . "I don't mean to get off on a rant here, but. . . . "

I just see this as a good outlet to get my thoughts out there on whatever's bothering me at any particular time.  The world we live in seems to get more complex each and every day.  What used to be small communities of people has truly turned into a world-wide situation.  Something can happen on the other side of the world, and the entire world will know about it in minutes.  That's something that used to take days when I was a child.  It seems as though the butterfly's wings have gotten bigger and the effect is faster and more drastic than it has ever been.  Technology is great, but there is a fine line between us controling it and it controlling us.

So, check in from time-to-time if you like what I have to say.  Or, it you totally disagree with something I post, I invite you to calmly and peacefully post a rebutal.  I love listening to opposing opinions, and I'm perfectly fine to agree to disagree.  That doesn't mean I think that those that disagree with me are stupid, wrong, or insane; it just means that I've learned another point of view and increased my own knowledge.  Don't get me wrong.  I have opinions, beliefs, morals, and thoughts.  What I don't have is a closed mind that mine are the only ones out there and that those parts of life are absolutes.  There are billions of people on this planet.  How can one person or one group of people be so arogant as to think their view(s) are the absolute truths?  Symantics come into play in many of these and some beliefs that people think are opposing can actually be related in some way or another.

Just remember, live your live with an open mind, but don't open your mind so much that your brains completely fall out.