In a voting nation, an educated electorate is paramount.
QUESTION # 1: How and when will we get our education?
(a) the smart, peaceful, and responsible way?
(b) or the hard and painful way?
QUESTION # 2: If you picked # 2 above (or the hard, painful way), how long before we start to see painful consequences of so much fiscal irresponsibility? Some people think it's bad now, but can it get worse?
Polls show Congress' approval ratings are in the 11% to 28% range.
But Congress still enjoys cu$hy 85% to 90% re-election rate since 1996.
Why do we repeatedly reward incompetence, corruption, and greed with perpetual re-election?
The incumbent politicians obviously think they are doing a fine job, since they have seen fit to give themselves 10 raises between 1997 and 2009 (while U.S. troops risk life and limb, and do 2, 3, 4+ tours in Iraq and Afghanistan).
Human nature is, unfortunately, appears that that we put off things until the painful consequences provide the necessary motivation to finally do something.
Is it possible that we may wait too long (again)?
After all, the majority of unhappy voters finally ousted 206 members of Congress in year 1933, but the Great Depression still lingered for almost a decade.
The economic factors appear to be worsening for most Americans.
Major factors are massive nation-wide debt, falling incomes, shrinking middle class, rising energy costs, energy vulnerability, incessant inflation, excessive money printing, 78 million baby boomers that will soon start expecting their benefits at a rate of 13,175 per day, etc., etc., etc.
Yet, like the Titanic, we keep sailing right toward the iceberg.
Changing course in time won't be easy (if even possible).
Especially if most voters repeatedly reward Congress for these 10 abuses.
What is your prediction of the future?
For the next 4 years?
For the next 8 years?
For the next 12 years?
July 6, 2009 7:06 PM
d.a.n, short of civil war or revolution, social change occurs in increments.
One enormous change which has been underway for a couple decades is the rise of the registered independent voters. Their numbers now exceed registered Democrats or registered Republicans. Clearly, they represent an enormous segment of voters who have lost faith with the status quo and the way the two major parties are handling our nation and its future.
The next incremental change that must take place is raising the awareness of the vote out incumbents option, as opposed to the voting for the lesser of evils, or not voting at all. There are signs this evolution is occurring.
VOID has received an invitation for a 30 minute interview on RHINO radio, next Friday. The media and the public are looking for VOID. They are seeking out an organization like VOID to address the national misdirection. VOID will be here to be found and further, VOID is actively reaching out to voters with our mission and strategy.
Where we are heard, we are understood and accepted as having the right course of action.
My crystal ball is on the fritz, so I can't tell you which election will be the watershed election that removes 30, 40, or 50% of incumbents, scaring the rest into representing the reforms the voters expect. But, I am absolutely confident that each election brings us close to that one. The polling numbers show that to be the case.
July 8, 2009 5:06 PM
Dan,
QUESTION # 1: How and when will we get our education?
Part of the problem is we're not being educated. The public school system was implemented to give our children a better future by providing them with the education to participate effectively in our society. Look at the last several generations of graduates of that public education system. Are these students sufficiently educated to prepare them for their place in society?
Without an informed electorate, we cannot make responsible choices. In order to change the education system to properly prepare this nation's youth, we need responsible representatives willing to make difficult choices that ensure our youth have this education. Yet the current incumbents profit from a poor education system.
As a people, we have an obligation to educate each other where our education system has failed.
As you said, the situation can get much worse. The only way to resolve the crises we face is through cooperation. Cooperation, true cooperation, is not going to start with the politicians who get mileage from divisive politics. It must start with the people.
July 9, 2009 8:41 AM
Quite right, Stephanie.
Just this week some folks discussing American education were deploring the neat total absence of Civics education anymore, in high school or college.
Not history, but civics, current, active, participatory civics. Seems this has been gutted from most of the curricula across the country. Explains a lot.
July 9, 2009 9:02 PM
Agreed.
We're not getting educated the smart way.
But we will get our education one way or another.
The sooner, the better.
At any rate, the voters have the government that they elect, and re-elect, and re-elect, and re-elect, until that finally becomes too painful.