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.)