Guilty

We live in extremely turbulent economic times, where plenty of blame is being thrown this way and that in an effort to avoid culpability. The politicians blame the banks; the banks blame the politicians, who turn around and blame Wall Street, who blame the politicians, who then blame the oil companies, who are pretty much everybody’s punching bags. No it’s the enormous price of healthcare because of those greedy insurance companies, it’s the special interest groups, the EPA with out of control regulations, no it’s definitely the politicians, it’s the Republicans, no it’s the Democrats, it has to be the Media. Guess who it really is? Guess who the truly guilty party is in this entire mess of payoffs, oh I’m sorry I meant “campaign donations”, and corruption? Guess who stood back and watched the Federal Government get bought off by every Special Interest under the sun, from ACORN to the Environmental Lobby to the oil companies to the Health Insurance Industry to the banks on Wall Street? Have you figured it out? You look at them in the mirror each and every morning.


We are the guilty parties in the equation because we have sat back and watched it happen, re-electing the same corrupt politicians over and over again and expecting things to get better, more honest. It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle they stand on because, but for a few honest men and women, they are all either crooked or enablers to this system of thieves. They are in collusion with one another while blaming each other in the public domain, just take a look at how much Goldman Sachs gave to Barak Obama $994,795 during the 2008 election, which was 2nd to the University of California at $1,591,395. Then they pay $6 billion dollars in taxes in 2007, get a $10 billion dollar bailout, and shift their assets overseas so they end up paying only $14 million in taxes in 2008. Our politicians make the laws that make this possible, never mind that Goldman Sachs is set to make billions in the Chicago Climate Exchange if the Cap-and-Trade legislation passes. Republicans and Democrats, all guilty, all looking the other way, and all put there by us.

The American people as a whole have an extreme case of ignorance. Ask any random person on the street and they couldn’t name the Supreme Court Justices, they wouldn’t be able to accurately say what legislations were currently under consideration in Congress, or name the purpose of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution (or any for that matter). We are uneducated when it comes to the operations of our own government because we fail to see how it is our responsibility to remain educated. As long as we remain so we live our lives while ignoring whatever unethical plan or deal politicians are coming up with this week. The American people then buy every line fed to us during the election cycles, and vote in whoever sounds better because we fail to truly consider what is at stake for us and our children.

We only start paying attention when something bad happens, for instance the oil spill in the Gulf. It is awfully hard to plug a hole that is a mile under the water, so why would we even drill for oil that far out? Well they don’t talk about all the oil America has on land that we are restricted from drilling for or the fact that the platform was out that far because restriction prevent them from drilling closer to shore, or that the federal regulators were not completing the required inspections of the rig. A horrible accident happens in the worst location and we blame whoever is politically convenient because some politicians and the media are good and spinning words. We fail to ask what happened that made this disaster possible in this location. And we ask ourselves how the Germans people didn’t know about the genocide being perpetrated by the Nazi’s, or how the Japanese people could be convinced that Americans bombed Pearl Harbor ourselves. We are as guilty as them in our own ignorance and things are only going to get worse in this country if we fail to wake up and accept our responsibility for what is happening in it.

Finding America

When we think about America today do we truly considers ourselves a part of it? Do we truly look around and feel that sense of belonging and pride? Or do we simply live the lives we have, moving from day to day within the sphere of our own influence without much thought of what we are? Do we even know what we are? I guess that opens up a whole host of answers depending on us as individuals. Am I merely a hard-working family man struggling to get by as are so many others in these difficult financial times? Am I a disabled veteran whose career was cut short so that he might in the end find the love of his life? Am I a frustrated taxpayer, a worried father, a loving husband, the head of a household below the poverty line, am I America?

I am not nearly arrogant enough to believe that I represent the cross section of society, but is it really necessary to have so much in common in order to be the same? Is not America the great melting pot? The place in the world where we are free to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the place where we are not limited by the situations of our birth, but by the work we are willing to put into the pursuit of our dreams. Are not the richest among us, the most successful and hard-working, the most highly educated, and influential a piece of America? Are not the blue collar factory workers laid off in tough economic times, praying for what work a high school diploma will garner not a piece of America? The teacher, the lawyer, the homeless, the police officer, the soldier, and the fast food worker are all a piece of what America is. Yet in this great tapestry there are those who would use these differences as a way to power. As a way to divide and gain advantage.

I like many of you look at what has happened in this country over the last ten years and wonder what it has become. I wonder if the crooked politicians, bankers, lobbyists, unions, special interests, and judges truly have the power to dictate what America is. I wonder if the Republic can stand when "the will of the people" has simply become a catch phrase like "the greater good" and "equality" and "tolerance" in order to justify a transformation we do not desire. I wonder if America will become Europe, trapped in a vicious cycle of socialist policies that have ruined economies and lives. I wonder if it will become China where information is control by the powerful to maintain that power. I wonder what America will be, and will it still be us. Will it still be the melting pot, the city on a hill, the source of freedom, not of outcomes but of opportunity, will it still be a place where the dream is possible.

A dread fills my heart even having to ask these questions, because in the end America should not be changing. Are the rights upon which we were founded alterable? Are the freedoms we enjoy some fluid law subject to whims of political movements? Or should they be the solid foundation upon which we can build our lives? If we are to find America we must look not at the present or the future but to what made us the way we are. We must look to those things that enabled us to get this far. America is not the sum of our differences, it is the freedom to have those differences, it is the freedom to pursue the dream without being hindered by the government, for government is not the source of our comfort and our rights it should be the protector of them.

In the end I guess America should not be what we are, but what it is that allows us to be what we wish to be. It is what we wish to leave our children, and the struggle to find America is a responsibility of those who truly wish to be a part of it and love it for what it protects not what it gives.