Obama Comes To Austin

Our President was in Texas yesterday.  It seems as if much is being made in the news about how the Democrats are shying away from him, and he is following in the Clinton and Bush/Cheney footsteps of being shunned as a political spokesman, but is still active as a fundraiser.

Much was also made of the fact that our Governor, Rick “Good Hair” Perry, hand delivered a letter asking for more troops while our POTUS was on the tarmac.  Of course, this is important.  We need to do something about the border situation, as the violence in Mexico is beginning to flash.  I would suspect that we will eventually see it approached, at least politically, as a “refugee” type situation.

To me, however, the real kicker comes from his speech.  I am a very vocal proponent of “free thinking”, urging all people to abandon political parties altogether.  I honestly believe that our limited selection of political mindset is a tyranny imposed on the American people.

Consider the following excerpt:

Now, when we talk about this going back thing, I notice some Republicans say, well, he just wants to bash the previous administration.  He’s looking backwards.  He’s trying to take the focus off the tough economic situation that a lot of people are feeling. No, no, no.

The reason we’re focused on it is because the other side isn’t offering anything new. I mean it would be one thing if having run the economy into the ground, having taken record surpluses and turned them into record deficits, if having presided over the meltdown of our financial system, that they had gone off into the desert for a while and reflected — (laughter) — and said, boy, we really screwed up. What we were selling didn’t work. It badly damaged the American economy, and now we’re going to come back with a whole new set of ideas.

The transcript can be found here, at the Los Angeles Times website.

So what he is saying, in essence, is that we should elect the Democrats in the mid-term elections because the other option just doesn’t seem to be that good.  I would say that he is right in that the “other option” isn’t so hot.  But why should I then be left choosing a candidate that I really do not want just because I am trying to prevent the damage done by another?  I hear my fellow countrymen saying things like, “Yeah, I just choose the lesser of two evils”.  Why?  Why do you accept this?

Freedom means having a choice.  Without a choice, your freedom is useless.  Like a bird spreading his wings, a patriot MUST be given the chance to exercise his/her freedom.  Not doing so creates a withered and atrophied appendage, preventing him/her from ever taking flight.

I propose that we are not free.   Perhaps it is our government that has done this to us?   Perhaps it was conspiracy to subvert our freedom that caused our political choices to be whittled and narrowed down?   Perhaps the two parties collude to maintain a status quo that they themselves have built in order to retain a power structure?  I honestly believe this is wholly likely.  But that does nothing to explain how it continues.

As I mentioned, it seems that most are aware of the lack of quality of the candidates presented to us.  Yet it is still tolerated.  No third party candidates ever get a foothold, and most people view voting for a third party/independent candidate as if it will only be “wasting your vote”.  Few realize that this mindset causes you to forfeit your freedom.

Perhaps one day people will wake up and realize that all the complaints that they have about our political system are wholly within their ability to fix.  All it takes is to stop complaining, and to do something.   Regardless, to continue to support the two party system is madness.  Neither party has done us particularly well, and neither has a decent plan on how to fix what they have broken.  And, just like any job, they are only going to work as hard as their bosses make them.  So in the end it is the apathy of The People that is the driving force (or lack of force).