And the Rockets Red Glare

Today is the 4th of July. A day we celebrate the founding of our country. I think back to the funny Simpsons line where Homer goes into a Kwik-E-Mart and asks to buy some illegal fireworks. After the back and forth, he is finally led into the back room where he purchases this awesome firework, and the Apu-like clerk exclaims
“Celebrate the birth of your country by blowing up a little piece of it”.

How true is that today. This is not going to be one of those rants or “try to be funny tongue in cheek that ends up being more of a foot in mouth”. This is going to be about something that this country, especially its leaders seems to have lost: Common Sense. That is right. It is going to be about Common Sense. One of the things that I think ought to be required reading every year in school from 8th grade thru a Senior in High School is Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. Everyone should read this every year. It is not long, and it is not hard. Paine provides some really good ideas, ones that basically led to the rest of the colonies realizing that they needed to break free from the Crown. And now we are in a very, eerily similar situation. We are not going against the Crown this time, we are going against the elite. We do not need violence, because the Founders gave us a more powerful tool than any weapon, this Republic.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

What wonderful words these are. And here we are, at a crossroads of sorts. We have a government who have left us behind. We have a government who no longer cares about the constituents they are supposed to be representing. We have this huge economic crisis that is happening right now, and the government’s solution is to keep spending and get us more into debt. We have this problem with companies and the free enterprise system, and the government takes over these businesses. Here are a few Common Sense ideas that may just apply here:
If you want to get out of debt, stop spending more to increase the debt
If you want to get out of debt, do not create more debt by buying on credit/margin
If you want the free enterprise system to work, then do not demolish it by absorbing it into government
If you want companies to succeed, then stop bailing them out and let them learn from failure
If you want to represent the people, then you must listen to what they want

I am currently reading a book by Glenn Beck, his Common Sense, which also has a copy of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense as well. I highly suggest this book. Whether you like Beck or not, whether you are a Democrat or Republican, I suggest to read this book. I have seen enough of the divisive methods that both parties use. This book makes a great case to start using Common Sense when it comes to our great Nation. Even the Founding Fathers had differences that they fought over long and hard. They did not let their “party line” get in the way of it though. Too many times political debates get too personal, too emotional and too heated. Are not the citizens of the United States, citizens? We are not the “evil” Democrats, or the “selfish” GOPers. We are citizens of the United States and we deserve better than what we are given in the Nation’s Capital right now.

It all comes down to Common Sense. We need to start exercising this instead of fighting on party lines. I want the people who are elected to represent me. And they are not. Take this Energy Bill this past week.
– My representative felt that a pageant of sorts in Georgia was more important than voting on the energy bill.
– A representative from Texas made the claim that he got many calls from people asking him to vote against the bill, so he went and voted for it.
– A representative from Ohio was against the bill, until they added her rider at 3 am that Friday morning, and all of a sudden, she was for it.
– Another representative was against the bill, but decided to vote for it to better position himself with the party.

Common Sense would tell you that these people do not care about representing you. So how do these people keep getting elected? It is time to change this government, not by violence, but by the methods given to us by our Founding Fathers. It is time for the people to say “Enough is Enough, We want our Country back”. If the people whom we elected are not representing us, then remove them from office. Do not vote for them again. Find others to represent you. Forget about the party affiliation for once, and find out who these people are, what have they done, and why would they be a good voice for you.

Take the time today, to read the Declaration of Independence. If we allow the same atrocities to happen, then we will have let slip this great Republic that the Founding Fathers fought so hard to give us.