Where do we go from here?

President Obama has started his second term, and the American people have started their second sentence… though it was self imposed.

In two years the maneuvering for office starts again.  In three years, or so, we vote again, and in four years we get a new president…

Before long we will have another mid-term election to determine the make up of the Congress..  So what do we want this new composition to be?

Do we want to elect more liberals who appear to only want to expand the power of the federal government, or do we want to put people into power who see that BIG Government, or BIG BROTHER, might be the source of our problems…

It is nice to think that we could hand over control of our lives to someone who will take care of us  but, has the Federal Government taken care of us?  The percentage of food that is inspected is very low, with much of that being done by the very people who produce it.  Is it in their interest to find fault?  No..  All you have to do is look at the last outbreak of salmonella in cantaloupes that was due to an inspector who did not say anything about the lack of irradiation devices at the farm.  He was an industry supported inspector who was not properly trained.

The people who are responsible for the oil drilling in the gulf did a bang up job there, what with the explosion that caused the Deep Horizon disaster.  The Securities and Exchange (SEC) did a wonderful job in missing one of the largest pyramid scams in history in spite of the fact that a number of people had questioned the large size of returns that people were quoted.  All because Bernie Madoff had been a big wig a NASDAQ.  He even said, in an interview, that he was surprised that it had taken as long as it did to catch him.

The Secretary of Homeland Security said that it was the system that prevented the Underwear Bomber from setting off his device, even though it was just a dud and he was captured by fellow passengers.

If you really feel that more  of this is good for us, then let us make sure that the people we put into these post have some idea of what is going on…  Remember the fallout over the FEMA response to Hurricane Katrina?  The guy ultimately in charge of that, and who stepped down afterwards, had gotten the job because of the amount of MONEY had had raised, and NOT for any competence he might have had…

Sure there might be an advantage to having the Federal Government put someone in charge of a situation but, do we really need the FEMA official who cut off power to an emergency generators that was powering the local Sheriff’s department communications system, or the one who turned back trucks, sent by Walmart, that had food on them?  No.

On the other hand we have a group that sees the government as part of the problem, and wants to remove regulations that interfere with production..  Like SAFETY regulations?

This groups sees that regulations hinder business and should be reduced.  They did a great job on catching Bernie Madoff, or preventing the Deep Horizon disaster?  NO.

We need to make sure these people do the jobs they have, and not spend our money thinking of more bureaucracy that won’t do it’s job.  We don’t need to take back government, it is already ours, we just have to make sure that the people we put into office understand that they work for us, THE PEOPLE, and not business or special interest.

If we could count on the Federal government to protect us we would see a decrease in the number of people who think they have to be able to defend themselves.  There was a recent news item that talked about the number of people who falsified information when they tried to purchase firearms from legal dealers.  Why are they not prosecuted for this?

Why could they not protect our ambassador in Libya?

Why can that not seem to do THEIR jobs?

Sure the government is supposed to be a framework that protects us, and our way of life but, why do we seem to want them to do everything?  What we need to do is take care of each other.  We need to encourage people to help each other.  People who fall on hard times need help not hassle.  The homeless, people who have many different reasons for being where they are, need help.  They shouldn’t be swept away because of the idea that if the government can’t fix them they are not worth helping.  I got news for you!  Most of the time the government can’t even help itself.

WE THE PEOPLE must make sure that these people are helped, not driven under, and that the officials we elect understand they are expected to help US do this.  There are plenty of people willing to do this and their efforts must be supported.  Just look around at the organization that provide support  to the homeless, and help them.

People who have fallen on hard times, for whatever reason, need to be helped, not pushed away.

I don’t mean we should promote a socialist society but, we should help the helpless.

Enough of my rant..

Thanks,

That Joe Guy.