Whose Side Are You On?
It’s becoming a more hostile environment to those who want to remain neutral when it comes to betting our lives and livings in this world. The political class seems intent on having any given citizen believe that politics is a luxury and not a necessity; one can choose whether to follow the political winds of change or just to stand aside. The political class also seems intent on encouraging the thought that it’s ok if we don’t pay attention because we work long hours, study hard, and try to keep roofs over our heads. I don’t have to ask anyone for their words to prove this theory; it has been proven by the lack of participation of local Ohioans as far as political party central committees go. It wasn’t hard for me to go through – I found my precinct/ward’s representative slot had been vacant, I got 9 signatures in my ward (only 5 needed to be certified as valid), and I went unopposed in the primary. One vote in, and I win.
I’ve been tempted to fall into the trap that I don’t need to access information as much as I do. I don’t stare at TV news scrolls 24 hours a day, I don’t refresh news stories constantly, and my car radio reception has taken a nosedive since my car was repaired due to hitting a deer during campaign season. I’ve almost been tempted to end internet access and just focus on taking care of my property and my family, and outside politics be damned. My logic was that no matter what happened outside my property lines, if any of it came to my front door, I could deal with it then.
However, the tax bill always makes its way to the dining room table to be reviewed. Intrusive laws remind me of how a contract between a land buyer and land seller is really a contract among three parties – the two I listed previously, plus government. Add to that the fact that we have allowed our various levels of government the rights to seize our gross wages before we even receive our paychecks. You don’t need a front door for that.
Lines are being drawn, and I want to be at the front lines for it. Maybe most of you don’t want to participate, but I do. So here are some world changing events that have happened recently, with paragraph bites to demonstrate the lines, and which side is the right one.
Israel
Israel is the only beacon of true freedom in the Middle East, is it not? I don’t know Israel well. All I know is that the country has faced resistance from extremist Muslims, the UN, and Jew-haters everywhere since Israel was reformed in 1948. All three of those subsets are so ingrained as to not deserve any public trust from any freedom loving individual; therefore, if they make so much noise about how bad Israel is, then maybe Israel is doing something right. Add to that the fact that Israel has continued to voluntarily give up land such as the Gaza Strip against the wishes of their countrymen, and the war continues. The burden of proof is on the extremist Muslims, the UN, and the Jew haters, not on Israel. Let freedom ring.
BP Oil Spill
BP screwed up. Mistakes happen, but this mistake has cost mankind 11 lives, and has caused the animal and plant kingdoms countless losses that we’ll never be able to tally years from now. BP has made the oil industry look terrible, and has given our opportunistic federal government another reason to level a campaign against capitalism. I’m tired of stupid mistakes giving the opposition more ammunition to make the fight that much more harder for us. I think if accounting scandals have led to our ability to jail CEOs and CFOs held responsible, maybe these standards should apply to true environmental scandals such as these. I’m not talking the decline of the dodo bird population, I’m talking the oil covered wildlife along the Gulf Coast along with the tourism industry that has all but vanished. No slippery slopes, please. We have enough of those.
Republicans and Democrats
I’m trying my hand at being a registered Republican for the first time in my life. Not because I want to follow party politics, but because if this country is to be saved from deterioration, we must utilize options already in place before embarking on unchartered territory. I don’t know what to expect, or what people expect from me, but I will strive to be a conservative voice that has been severely lacking in the past.
A purely democratic system is wrong, regardless of who is in the majority. Socialism is also dead wrong. Freedom must be maintained or it will be left to deteriorate. Freedom and liberty must be guarded by highly vigilant people who can be trusted to do so by those who aren’t able to be so devoted for whatever reason. It seems socialism is wanting to use the vehicle of democracy and the Democratic Party to let freedom decay into a lower level of mankind – where we voluntarily surrender our liberty to our elected officials without a shot being fired. The media has somehow become a cheerleading vehicle for this, and people seem to allow themselves to be told what to feel about certain situations. I’m not saying news and opinion shows should stop their schtick; they shouldn’t. It all boils down to the people. You can go down the candy aisle, but you don’t have to buy the candy. You can watch Glenn Beck give his opinion, but you don’t have to allow it to substitute it for yours.
Democracy and socialism are beautiful systems and methodologies until you throw numbers into the mix. Numbers are the breaking point. Numbers are the ultimate in accountability. If everyone were highly capable of obtaining the correct information and had high skill levels in statistical operations, then the numbers would speak for themselves and the political tricks would be seen through, as well they should. I was told by one person that the reason he would vote for me for Richland County Commissioner was because with me, “two plus two would always equal four”. Damn straight. Two plus two can never equal five, no matter what spin the press or political hacks try to put on it. You can’t tell me black is white. You can’t put gray where it isn’t. Anyone that cannot define an “unfunded liability” without looking it up on Google should just stay home on voting day. Free lunches and broken promises lead to riots in Greece. We’re heading there. If it came to a violent revolution against a government that is very intent on retaining its overbloated power, whose side are you on? I don’t want another Tiananmen Square, I don’t want another failed uprising that Iran just had, I don’t want my life to exist at the behest of Kim Jong-Il. Even if we wanted to give a government full of good people more power to set things right, there’s nothing to stop bad people from utilizing the same power to fight against us. Worse yet, good people go bad when power is dangled in front of them. Money, power, prestige, and ego strokes hurt everyone, even at the local level. That is why government power should be minimized. Power to the people of 300,000,000+ and counting seems to me a better option than surrendering that power to hundreds of elected and unelected officals at the federal level.
To remain “neutral” is to allow the deterioration to happen, and falsely allow the neutralite to claim that they aren’t responsibile for the results. Not anymore. To not pick a side is to have the side picked for you.
Resistance is not just revolution. Resistance also comes in smaller, incremental forms, such as telling the census worker that you refuse to answer their questions. Resistance is putting up with shallow fair-weather friends that abandon you at the first sign of political disagreement. Resistance is pitting your home-schooling ethic against the teachers’ unions and our socialistic way of collecting school district taxes. Resistance is insisting on birthing your newborn child at home with the assistance of midwives, and not an automatic conforming to the habit of going to the hospital, as if hospitals have had to exist as a prerequisite long before we let mankind reproduce. Resistance is telling doctors that you refuse to let them vaccinate or let them take blood samples if you don’t want them to. Resistance is taking the long hard road full of people annoyed with you, irritated with you, and wishing you took the same simple road as they did. Resistance is taking the time to understand ourselves, and surrounding ourselves with those who think outside of others’ boxes. Resistance is knowing what’s right and using absolute determination to stick to it no matter if it goes out of style with other people. Resistance is no longer giving in to people that yell at you if you know they’re wrong but would give in just to avoid hassle. Resistance is hassle. Resistance is determination. Resistance is knowing who you are, and how you won’t let others chip away at it without just cause. Resistance is not letting ANYONE take anything from you that you don’t want them to have. It’s easier to give in and go “neutral”. I know who I am. Whose side are you on?