Can we get past these days?

I agree, Mr. Quinn, that our current political environment is deplorable! I applaud your very wise support for congressional term limits as one part of the solution. But, also, please consider this: Our founding fathers intended that citizens not satisfied with their current government would vote them out of office.
Please consider this:
“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.”

Paraphrased: “We (all) agree that no person is created to rule or serve and that each individual has the same rights to life, liberty, and trying to be happy. We (all) agree that humans created governments to achieve these ends more effectively. Also, (everyone) agrees that when a government breaks that social contract, the people governed have a right to change their government.”

I do not agree that “we are a society of complainers, irresponsible individuals and takers.” Rather I would submit that we are society wherein:
1) Republicans under the Bush administration created an economic situation (and a SCOTUS) which has resulted in an ever widening gap between “the 1% and the 99%”. Middle class wages have been dropping for two decades as the war on unions by “the 1%” has succeeded. The correlation is graphically undeniable. The unions are being broken by outsourcing their jobs overseas. Those that you call “complainers” are pleading that they cannot survive at $7.25/hour while living in this country.
2) If you have studied the amounts of money received by people on unemployment insurance, food stamps and other forms of “welfare” that make them Lyan Ryan’s “takers”, you will realize that no one would strive to collect those benefits and stop trying to be gainfully employed because they cannot sustain their families on those meager amounts of money for very long at all. They are not “irresponsible individuals and takers”. Rather they are being beaten down by those in positions of great power. As evidence, I offer you NAFTA and the pending TPP.

So the questions arise: 1) Why do poor white people in the old Confederate states vote for Republicans who are dedicated to driving them further into poverty than they already are, denying them heath insurance and denying them the right to vote? 2) Why do citizens of 24 states vote to elect Republican governors who refused Medicaid expansion which would have provided them with much needed healthcare insurance?

The answers seem to be obvious:
1) The oppressed are struggling so hard to stay alive with minimum wage jobs (if they can find one), that they have no time to understand the political realities that are unfolding around them.
2) The vast majority of American voters are completely uninformed because:
A) ABC, NBC and CBS refuse to broadcast the truth of Republican obstructionism because they must maintain viewers and profits above truthful and factual reporting to the American people.
B) CNN seems to try, but they still try to straddle all fences at the expense of facts and the truth.
C) MSNBC broadcasts all factual information and backs it up with charts, graphs and experts.
D) FOX (FAUX NUZ) is merely a mouth peace for the right wing. Their broadcasts are biased, misleading and/or false on their best days.

So potential November 2014 voters are terribly misinformed and ignorant because they do not have the luxury of dissecting current events that you and I enjoy as retired people. And so it goes: these poor people vote for the very same congress members who are persecuting them because they don’t know any better.

It’s a very sad situation indeed as our nation moves toward oligarchy and theocracy sponsored by “the 1%” and Republican leadership. As a Political Science major, I never really imagined that members of congress would undermine our nation’s economy for their own personal gain. As a 40+ year businessman, I never really imagined that our corporate officers would harm our company’s future to enhance their own wealth and careers. As a patriot, I never realized that Dick Cheney was personally making millions from the Iraq War. But then I was raised in a small town in Iowa and never encountered these evils in my youth.

Happy Fourth, Mr. Quinn.

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