I ain’t nobody. I’m just a simple transplanted Arkansas country boy. I’ve got some college, but never graduated. I quit school to get married and raise a family. Since 1984 I’ve worked hard and struggled to see that my kids were cared for, my bills were mostly paid, and my obligations met to the best of my ability. I pay my taxes. All of them. The ones that come out of my paycheck. The ones they charge on the gas I put in my car. The ones they charge when I pay my light bill. The ones they charge when I buy food. The ones they charge every year for the things I’ve finished paying on, like property. I pay my way. I don’t begrudge anyone for partaking of government assistance. If they need it, we should help. I don’t begrudge anyone trying to legally immigrate to this country to find a better life. More power to them. We need motivated people here. What I do have a problem with is the lack of options when I go to the polls.
I’m not a lawyer. I couldn’t write a law out on paper, even with the whole internet backing me up. I don’t pretend to have all the answers or even to know all of the questions. I use a mixture of country wisdom and common sense to come up with most of my opinions. I like a good solution to a common problem, and I don’t particularly care if who comes up with the idea is a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, conservative, liberal or a member of the Mickey Mouse Club. I vote for people I believe can find answers to our problems. I want to be represented by people who can bring the problem solvers together, no matter their ideology. I don’t see anyone like that in politics today, either in the state or federal level. The politicians are all at war for power, all the power, and will shut out anyone not in their party. It’s appalling. Shameful. Disgusting.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. We keep putting professional politicians in offices where they could care less about the good of the common man, and just serve themselves and their own agenda. They take money from big business, special interest groups, other countries, and from us. They spend millions of dollars and most of their terms simply trying to get re-elected so they can keep suckling on the teat of power. Meanwhile, we get taxed to the gills while we just try and survive. Both major parties have become so intoxicated by their own propaganda, so intent on proving the other party the villain, that they have no idea what we, in mainstream America care about. It sickens me.
I’m begging all of you “servants of the people” to stop it, for God’s sake! Balance your own checkbooks, buy your own groceries, pay your fair share of taxes, cooperate with each other and care about the things we regular people care about, for a change. Stop thinking that government solves everything. It doesn’t. Never did. The government should be like doctors (or at least how doctors are supposed to be) in the whole “do no harm” sense of things. Build our roads, encourage business to prosper, protect your citizens, and try not to dabble in limiting our personal freedoms. In the process, try and be people that we can trust with the purse strings of this great nation. I wouldn’t trust one single senator, representative, or Presidential Candidate running today with my lunch money, much less the keys to the national treasury. Be honest. Be prepared to compromise and find middle ground. Quit struggling so hard to keep power that you forget why your there in the first place: to represent what the CITIZENS want you to do!
Most of all, I’m asking you to be adults. Every election looks, and sounds, like a couple of middle school kids arguing over milk money. Arguing over your golf game. Fingers wagging, names being called, wild accusations and charges being filed every time someone gets pissed off. All the while you steal the nation blind and blame the other guy. That’s not how you govern anyone. Especially yourselves.
America says “Help! I need an adult!”
God bless y’all, and God bless the United States of America. Happy Independence Day!
Rolling Stones 