Some may give the President blame for how things are going. True, our President is not perfect. The main problem this President has, however, is that the whole Washington bureaucracy is too massive and we keep on electing legislators who do not have as much common sense as an average housewife when it comes to economics or anything else. It is time to can the special interest selfishness and start considering the good of the whole. Time for personal responsibility for all, not just those who end up paying most of the taxes. Help those of our own who need help to get back on their feet, and care for those who cannot care for themselves, but CAN the pet programs which do not offer any return for our hard earned tax dollar. Time to live within our means and maintain a balanced budget. A president has a giant hurdle in trying to accomplish anything given the climate of government constipation. (sorry, best analogy I could think of) Our current president is the one who said to open up oil exploration in Alaska because we're too dependent on foreign sources who like to hold us over a barrel from time to time. We complain at the thought of $3 gas. This President did not shut down oil exploration here at home. Neither does he control OPEC. He did not cause 9-11. How can we complain about what he has or hasnt done given the cards he was dealt? I dont believe our own petroleum industry has any real interest other than lining their own pockets. Maybe it is time for them to give a little back and help the situation a little, too. Alaska oil can be safely recovered, and other technologies developed. I for one think the President is doing as well as can be expected given the obstructionist tactics on Capitol Hill. But we like scapegoats, don't we? Well, if the American public starts electing legislators who understand how hard a buck is to come by then government will be more respectful of us in many ways. This is not a mere partisan issue. The government is not just one man. It is also Congress and the bureaucracy and the courts. Ultimately it winds up being "We the people". <br /><br />The divisions from within seem to be widening and getting deeper. This positively terrifies me. We've at least in part lost our compass because we have forgotten how we got here in the first place. Those who think they were clever by rewriting the charts midstream will one day find that their selfishly motivated trick will cause much pain and bitterness for all. Whether it be the "new morality" of the 60's or that said if it feels good do it or the "new economics" of more recent times (actually going back to the New Deal, really- bending the rules to allow us to spend what we don't have) it will end up the same- full of decay. Innovation is often good; I do not hate progress. I just hate irresponsible progress. Lets face it, the past wasn't always all that great either. When isnt the issue, direction and standing together is. Whatever bandwagon we declare wonderful won't matter unless we stand together and remember the basic rules: Love your God and Love your neighbor. (Those were the principles motivating our founding fathers) Those who engineered change based on selfishness (even if cloaked in the arrogant elitist hallucination that it is somehow noble) will find ultimately that our society has been weakened. If we fail to follow the same common vision, we no longer stand together to support each other. We rightly value individualism, but how about the greater good that the Founding Fathers had in mind as well? The freedom to be able to be responsible individuals and to help one other with help that is not impersonal and ensnares, but rather help that lifts up. Were the Founding Fathers thinking of their own comfort when they put pen to parchment in signing the Declaration of Independence? No, they were thinking of us, at potential cost of their own lives! Accepting the responsibilities that come along with freedom is what we must do. Without this connection to each other society begins to weaken in its fabric. If allowed to continue unchecked the decay will accelerate until finally, some sad day, our society will cave in like ancient Greece and Rome and every other great world power of their day. Wasn't it Lenin who said we'd one day fall from within? I sincerely hope that will be a long time coming, but is that not the road we are on? Can anyone name any civilization where contempt and disrespect for authority and each other grew so widespread where they remained prospering hundreds of years later? We could learn something from history here. I would tend to be personally inclined to blame a lot on the previous president and give a lot of credit to our present one. But doesnt that miss the larger point? Isn't the problem really much bigger than this? Isn't this really more a symptom than a cause? There are MANY fine people still around, I cannot deny that. Despite the occasional differences of opinion with some I have to say that the folks I see posting on this board are among the finest. You tend to actively think. You tend to see issues and offer answers. You tend to get up off the couch and do something with life. Debate and disagreement are not the problem, although underlying divisions may reveal a deeper trouble. I cannot say I have all the answers or am always right. I am human. Arent we all? But that can be a strength as well as weakness. The bigger problem as I see it is that so many on all sides let someone else do the thinking and doing. They sit on their couch in front of their TV with their favorite beverage and whine and complain that someone did not do enough to help them when they don't want to be bothered doing that for themselves because they might miss their favorite TV show. Some dont get involved with anything. Some dont bother to vote or only vote for whoever will do something for ME instead of our country as a whole. Im sure Im preaching to the choir here. Selfish APATHY is our enemy. That is how we got into this mess. If we collectively as a nation get back into thinking about what our freedom really means and forget about being so completely me oriented we will begin to heal. We saw the best in folks right after 9-11. I hope it wont take more of that for us to regain our senses. If we fail to stand together we will never be able to avoid more attacks from abroad, but the greatest danger remains from within.<br /><br />To borrow an illustration from one of Dr. Richard Swensons books, it is like we are on a raft. Same raft day after day. The water all around us looks the same too. This raft has been floating along all these years. Nothing different at all, or so it would seem. Because our focus tends to be rather close we fail to see the banks are more distant, that the water has grown both deeper and swifter. Society IS changing- rapidly. We grow farther apart. Families find more to divide over, relationships are breaking more often than ever before. But we fail to see the warning signs. Everything still looks the same from where were sitting. The river continues to gain speed. Faster and faster we go. But the banks are far enough away that we do not notice. See where Im going with this? Will our society survive forever on this course? Weve not seen any waterfalls yet. But does that guarantee that there will never be any? History says that there will be. There have been no exceptions yet. Our collective actions now determine our course. Will apathy someday sweep us over the falls to our destruction, or will we start up the outboard and motor to calmer waters? If were all arguing over who has to start the motor and who gets to drive we might just miss our opportunity. Something to think about, and hopefully in some way act upon also.<br /><br />God bless America!
