On top of that particular idea, or even as a replacement, I believe we should throw in a requirement that takes precedence over age alone. This requirement to vote involves citizens earning the right to vote. Many people may have an issue with that because they believe all American citizens are entitled to certain privileges… voting in my mind is a privilege to be earned. You have to earn your driver’s license… You have to earn your way into college with good grades… You have to earn your way for most anything that means anything in our world. However, the right to vote is given as a simple return for becoming age 18.

Voting to me is one of the most important tools of a democracy and therefore it should not just be handed out to those who do not earn their right to vote. You may say that isn’t exactly a democracy… Well, according to various definitions of democracy, it is. Our citizens are still free, have a right to the power to become an elected official to govern at any level, and they have certain unalienable rights and freedoms from being an American citizen. Earning the right to vote does not deprive any citizen, but it creates a specific delineation amongst the citizens. The delineation revolves around a citizen filing taxes.

You read that right. You get the right to vote if you file taxes. I don’t care how old you are, if you file taxes, you get the right to vote. Why? Too long have our political races been determined by the non-working leeches of our society who only vote those people who promise to provide them government welfare, wealth sharing, and other tax subsidies. Citizens who have paid into the tax booty should have the ultimate say in how their money is distributed. Non-filers are nothing more than people with their hands out asking those who work for a living to provide for their way.

This is of course the straight and narrow point of view. There would be several distinctions which would allow those who cannot work be given exemptions. Disabled people, married homemakers, etc would all be given their right to vote. My problem is with those who have the ability to work and do not. My problem is with those who should pay taxes, but do not. My problem is with those people who drain the wealth from our society and provide nothing in return. Everyone can do something valuable, not doing so and asking for something in return is as greedy as the Wall Street financial wizards who raped our economy of trillions in wealth over the last few years.

Simple and easy, earn your right to vote by working for a living. Working for a living provides a much different perspective on life and responsibility than living a life of entitlement. People who have a third, or more, of their check whacked off with a rusty IRS tax blade have a much better idea of how this country should be run than those who have their life funded by the government. Paying taxes earns the right to vote.

The natural side effect of this policy is that voter fraud would be drastically reduced. Before you would be allowed to vote, you would have to file taxes, which would mean you have a valid Social Security Number and that you are also an American citizen by place of residency, etc. There would be a centralized database of all tax payers with the right to vote and as they enter their vote, they are tracked and marked. Protect the computerized environment from tampering and you have the ultimate no-recount necessary voting application.

We need to understand that our lives and freedoms are not simply bestowed upon us because we can perform such necessary tasks as breathing oxygen or blinking our eyes. We need to have a system where those who provide for the country are rewarded and not reprimanded. I believe we should be required to earn the rights we have, not simply given them because we turn a certain age. Think how much of an impact this simple ideology would change our world… Rather than a society of lazy people with a self serving sense of entitlement, we would have a group of people working for the betterment of our nation… as our forefathers did.

There is a major difference between being inconsiderate and downright disrespectful and rude. As I read the news and associated blog sites online, I am overwhelmed by the complete lack of civility people have with their online personas. I call them personas because if their actions and words are anything like their online gibberish, they would most likely be instigating fights every time their mouth utters a spoken syllable.

People have used the “anonymity” of online to disguise who they really are and with this disguise, they are continually revealing their distinct lack of maturity and respect for others around them. What really bothers me is that the “normal” people that frequent sites rarely speak their minds because they have become afraid to speak up in fear of a public flame war. It appears that the vast majority of online conversationalists is decidedly liberal and of the mind that they can do whatever they want without any ramifications.

I’ll admit that I frequent several sites and read news stories and posts but I don’t join in. In the midst of 300 posts, a rational statement is thrown under the weight of such ignorance that it simply fails to dent the careening momentum of the massive stupidity. At times, I will read something so disgraceful that I am left speechless. I can’t believe people think a certain way let alone write it for everyone to see. Sometimes, I think people post online just to push the limits of what we will accept.

If we don’t respond, these people will continue to think that their actions are acceptable because they haven’t been reprimanded. Eventually, their online persona will infect their real life persona. I believe our society is currently at this stage. After a generation of young adults has grown up with the Internet in their life, they cannot distinguish real life, from online life. They act the same and they allow their mouth to speak anything that comes to mind without fear of retribution.

What we are really missing are the mentors of our lives. There is a distinct lack of mentors in our real lives and there are zero mentors online to direct people and keep people in line. Online is a place where anything goes and everything is acceptable it seems. Our real lives have been infected by this way of thinking and we are paying a social price for that.

My online persona is the exact same as my real life persona. I treat people online the same way I treat them physically. What I think we need to do is return correctness to our online communities. Sure, it is exactly like trying to move a mountain, but we can all do our part to inject a little bit of rationality, respect, and civility in the sites we visit. When you read something that offends you, post a rational response to it and let them know what has been said is disrespectful, hurtful, or just plain wrong.

Don’t fear the online flame wars, they will happen. But, if other normal people see the fight being taken, they will be more comfortable joining in rather than diving in by their lonesome and simply giving up. We need to do something because the longer we allow the online community become so acceptable to outrageous behavior, the worse our real world will become. Our younger generation already has no idea how to discern online life from real life. Their facebook or myspace is more important to them than their grades are…

You may be reading this thinking that you are in fact the epitome of normalcy… everyone should persevere to be more like you and things would be better right? I’m not even going to say you’re wrong because you may in fact be right. But, what I do have to say is that while I don’t think I’m any worse than anyone else, I am most definitely not normal in the sense of the world’s definition of normal today.

Number one, I believe that Christianity deserves a more prominent role in our society… Let me restate that… I believe the role of Christianity in the United States should be returned to its rightful place our forefathers intended for it to be. Our current society and governmental policy has desecrated the spiritual relationship our country was built upon in an effort to satisfy the liberal elitists and minority segments of society with unending rivers of cash.

Number two, I believe that the people should run our country, not the government running the people. Our government is not working for the people at this stage of our country’s existence… it is feeding upon the power that it has been given in an effort to rule our people thinking that it can make better decisions for us than we can for ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure I can make my own decisions without some politician telling me what to do and how to live.

Number three, I don’t believe in being politically correct. We can be congenial and friendly without having to succumb to the mind numbing actions being politically correct involve. If we can’t coexist amongst one another without offending each other, maybe we should have classes on being tactful and respectful rather than being force-fed something that only covers up people’s true feelings. Being politically correct doesn’t solve anything, it simply sugar coats the situation and makes for very fake conversations and relationships.

Number four, I don’t think the government is here to solve all of our problems. I believe the American citizen owns the power to change our world. We can’t rely upon or depend upon government handouts, stimulus packages, or interventions to solve our issues. Do you still have your mom and dad bail you out of trouble when you have issues? Does your dad come and change your tire if it’s flat? Does your mom still do your laundry and make you supper? We need to outgrow our dependence on government and relearn how to govern ourselves.

And finally number five, I believe every single person in our country, male and female, should be required to complete a full year of military service before turning 18. No, I’m not talking about joining the National Guard or Army… I’m talking about a year long (not school year, a full 365 days) course providing every young person a sample of discipline, structure, and military training that will lay the foundation for a strong young mind preparing to enter adulthood and the real world.

Do you think this sounds very normal in today’s society of religious decline, government handouts, and decreasing military recruitment? Our society is all about getting things because of some sense of entitlement. Where did the concept of earning what you deserve go? We have been trained to rely upon our government for sustenance and we have allowed our spirituality be gutted simply because an elite few has decided they don’t agree. We don’t respect our military the way we should and we do things right only if we are recognized and rewarded in some manner. I’m glad that I’m not normal in the eyes of our world. If I were called normal by the “normal” people of this world, I would be ashamed of myself.

Recently some stores have increased the costs of cigarettes due to a governmental increase of the cigarette tax. It actually starts on April 1^st but some are already passing along the new taxes to smoking consumers. How much of an increase? Try a 155% increase on for size… It effectively makes a pack of cigarettes cost $1 more and a carton $10 more. The taxes are a way to increase the revenue of the various government entities in an effort to offset the losses in tax revenue received through the gas taxes. No, gas taxes did not lower, the amount of miles being driven has, thus less gas being bought and taxed.

Back to my threat… My primary reason for even saying such a thing revolves around the various “days off” associated with smoking and the ensuing breaks to feed this harmful addiction. Let’s just say a smoker takes an extended break each morning and afternoon… we’ll just throw 15 total extra minutes a day into the equation. 15 extra minutes devoted to smoke breaks that your normal non-smoker doesn’t utilize. Bathroom breaks and all that other stuff are effectively cancelled out in this simple equation. The bottom line is the smoker takes an extra 15 minutes a day off in this example. 15 minutes per day comes out to 75 minutes per week, 5 hours per month, and 60 hours per year… all devoted to smoking… while at work.

Let’s say we all get 2 weeks of vacation (80 hours) each year. We have just almost doubled it by simply smoking each day. And, we get paid to do it. Sounds great doesn’t it? Well, it does with all things being equal. But, smoking isn’t exactly an equal thing… we all know how harmful they are and over time, can dramatically affect the standard of life. Smokers are known to become more susceptible to various respiratory illnesses among other sicknesses caused by a damaged immune system. We can actually throw in a multitude of sick days taken by your average smoker per year that immediately decreases the hours worked even more. If we just throw in say 3 extra sick days per year as a direct result of smoking ailments, we are now up to an extra 2 weeks per year off.

You may not think that sounds like much, but multiply those numbers out over a 30 year career. That comes out to 2400 hours less work as compared to a non-smoker… 300 less work days… well over a year of actual work. That’s the smoker’s vacation.

But, at what cost does the smoker actually pay for this vacation? Various studies have tried to put a number to the amount of time you sacrifice of your life per cigarette you smoke. Searching the internet for a few minutes gave me an average of about 10 minutes of lost life per smoke. So, a smoker who smokes on average of 5 cigarettes each day is costing 50 minutes of their life. Just using the 5 day smoking workweek, this comes out to a little over 4 hours of lost life per week. Multiplied over that same 30 year period, we have now lost about 200 hours of our life each year because of smoking, or 6,000 total hours for a grand total of over 250 full 24 hour days of our life.

These are small estimates in my opinion. I believe I am underestimating the amounts of cigarettes smoked and the amount of time associated with doing so. But, given this simplistic example, a smoker has traded almost a year of the end of their life for almost a year and a half of extra vacation time over their 30 year work career.

I’m not quite sure the tradeoff is worth it given that the last remaining years of a smoker usually aren’t the most fabulous and of a healthy lifestyle. The tradeoff is probably closer to a 5 or 10 to 1 ratio. Smoke and yes, you get extra vacation time, but the last 5 to 10 years of your life is going to be very poor. Is the vacation time worth sacrificing your last years of life? Quality of life is important and it will be dramatically lower for a smoker in the waning stages of existence. I’ve seen this first hand. So while I threaten to become a smoker to generate more vacation time for myself, I am rational enough to know that is not the right, or sane, choice. Purposefully sacrificing my health for such nonsense is irrational… not to mention more expensive these days. Receive the vacation time, but you are costing yourself more money and pain in the end hands down.

Now, being a full grown adult, I haven’t bought a pack of cards in about 25 years. But, that almost changed the other day as my wife and I went down the aisle I didn’t even know existed at our local Wal-Mart… the ultimate kid’s dream, an aisle filled with cards of all shapes, sizes, and type. I stared at the various boxes and thought to myself how much money I had wasted through the years on these simple little pieces of cardboard. Even knowing that, I almost bought a pack of cards. Not baseball cards mind you, but Barack Obama cards. Yes, our new President has his own special edition inauguration card set.

I picked up the pack intent on buying them… not because I’m a fan, more of a joke kind of thing. However, my rationale soon kicked in and I placed the pack back in its box and laughed at myself for even coming so close to spending money on such a trivial item. The package of cards was priced at $1.98 and came with 6 cards and a special sticker. Of course, there is a set to collect and the entire collection consists of 90 cards and 18 stickers. Sounds fabulous for the card buying public doesn’t it?

Looking online, I can find many places selling these small “moments of history.” I am simply amazed by the fact that there are trading cards available of Barack Obama. I know he’s become one of the most widely recognized political figures of all times, but are “baseball” cards really necessary? To me, these cards are nothing more than political propaganda created to spread the ideology of the Liberal Democratic movement. The more these types of things are constantly placed in our daily lives, the more we as a society come to accept it.

Winning the hearts and minds of a society has long been an avenue to win a war. While our country is not exactly at war with each other, we are definitely separated by a clear division between ideologies… Liberal versus Conservative. Over the last generation, both sides have had their chance at power and they’ve each done their best to destroy the “losing” side. However, as all things do, their power ebbs and flows as society eventually becomes disenchanted with the policies of each after tasting them for too long.

Conservatism was in power for quite a long run earlier this decade, but over the last few years, Liberalism has retaken the political landscape. This time, unlike any in the past, they are using their vast coffers of cash in an effort to control the media and publicity for their cause. They are focusing on winning the hearts and minds of everyone who doesn’t investigate and decide on their own what they believe in. The general public is being force-fed the liberal agenda and many of them are willingly falling in line as the promises of government handouts entice their votes.

Obama baseball cards may appear to be innocuous, but political propaganda is never harmless. As Hitler arose to power in pre WWII Germany, political propaganda was utilized to sway the hearts and minds of its citizens so that his political policies would be readily accepted. I’m not saying Obama is the second coming of Hitler by any means, but the tactics he and his party are utilizing are straight out of the textbooks utilized by the tyrants of our past.

While writing this article, I was given the pleasure of watching a commercial for The Tonight Show telling me that our President will be a guest on Thursday night. Maybe it’s me, but I don’t see the point of our sitting President being a guest on a late night talk show. There are more important things to utilize his time for. The only thing this type of appearance can be used for is the furthering of his agenda and giving us more political propaganda. He is always in our face, always in our news, always in our ear… the more he is around us, the more we accept him… at least that’s the hope of his Party and his Liberal friends pushing their agendas. Be aware, don’t succumb to complacency and miss what the true story is… always question authority when power and money are to be gained.

Our current social times has placed being “religious” into what many consider some sort of horrific stigma. Nobody wants to be labeled the “Bible Thumper” within your group of friends. People have been led to believe that being “religious” must mean that everyone is closed minded and all followers must abide by some specific doctrine or they are not accepted. The last I checked, Christianity is much different than the religion of Islam… However, people have associated nearly all religions with such radical ideology and have thus started turning their backs to religion of all forms and fashions.

I’m not so sure that these times are any different than the past. It seems to me that religious people have been generally treated differently and persecuted throughout our world’s history. But, the United States is a relatively new society as compared to history and we were founded upon Christianity and the freedom of religion as one of our fundamental building blocks. If we are losing contact with our roots, where are we going?

Some people may think that we are becoming more affluent and intelligent as we gain more knowledge regarding the science of life. Some people may think that religion was just a figment of our immature minds looking for meaning to our otherwise mundane existences. Whatever the case may be, more people are choosing to not believe in anything rather than believe in something.

A fast rising segment of society is the so-called Atheists. These people have rejected the idea of God and choose to believe in nothing. The number of Atheists has doubled since 1990 according to the report. Another segment that is growing is the agnostic group. This particular segment has not completely rejected the idea of God… they just choose not to believe at this point.

Another alarming fact from the report is that those who call themselves Christians has declined from 86 to 76 percent. There are several “reasons” given for the decline… from various political parties establishing footholds within certain religious segments to the horrid news stories of religious leaders doing unthinkable things while in power. If these are reasons to discount or reject God in your life, I would say God was never in your life…

America has long been the hope of the free world. Our personal ties to Christianity have long been one of the building blocks of our great society. If you follow the tumultuous existence of our last few generations, you can very easily track the increasing number of Americans who have no faith to the increased violence, lack of hope, and general downward spiral our society has undertaken. Some of these are fact and some are opinion, but who can argue that the United States is in the best of times these days? That’s right, no one can.

As we allow our faith become overrun by those with no faith and no hope, our society will continue to pay the price. Our nation is a Christian nation… at this point. The remaining Christians in our society must make it a point to make the right decisions and live our lives according to our Christian roots. We have seen that the mistakes made can be devastating and can turn people away from hope and Christianity. It is up to us to turn the tide and show the world that being religious and being a Christian is nothing to be ashamed of. I’m proud to call myself a Christian, even though I am not perfect… the last I checked, neither was anyone else.

During the Obama campaign to become President, he consistently spoke about how he wanted serious earmark reform and how he was going to limit the total earmark spending to that of 1994 levels. His opponent, John McCain, vowed to cut earmarks off completely. They are frivolous wastes of money. If they cannot pass on their own, they should not be force-fed to the American public through the blatant misuse of political power and agenda pushing. In 1994, about $7.8 billion was spent on earmarks… I guess that promise is out the window.

The $400 billion bill contains nearly 9,000 earmark line items that account for almost $8 billion of American taxpayer funds. These are the line items that have been identified by various groups and are public knowledge. Obama himself has acknowledged the existence of these non-essential additions of expenses… his excuse is that he did not have time to examine and prioritize the current bill. The timing of the bill was of the utmost importance to keep the doors of the government open… Do you care if the government’s doors are open? Aren’t they closed for the majority of the year anyway while the politicians are off vacationing on taxpayer dollars or off throwing parties sponsored by the ultra-rich lobbyist parties?

How did this bill come about? How come the President, who is the figurehead of the Democratic Party, can’t convince his own Party to do away with unworthy earmarks throwing tax dollars away? The Democrats are the ones in power in both the House and Senate… and they have been since 2006. I suppose the Republicans are at fault or the Bush administration had something to do with the Democrats flaunting their newfound power and pushing their precious agenda forward at the expense of an already suffering nation. $8 billion more down the drain… in a time when unemployment is on the rise and the stock market is at 12 year lows.

I cannot understand how people can turn a blind eye to what is going on now that the Democratic Party has ultimate control. Obama has turned his back on his campaign promises in an effort to satisfy his true liberal political roots. He is cashing in the American dream to satisfy the debts he owes… the debts he created in becoming President. Oh, you may be one of the naïve people who believe Obama won on his own merits and political rhetoric… hardly. He is a figurehead pushed upon us by a vast legion of liberal elitists. He’s a transparent blowhard politician through and through and they always answer to someone. I’m not a tin foil hat wearer, but where money and power exist, there are people conspiring to gather more of each at all costs.

Obama, our political savior has become nothing more than a rubber stamp for his liberal friends and their policies… well, his policies. At just more than 50 days, Obama’s approval rating has already begun to slip. His own Party is becoming antsy in how he is handling the economic crisis. The $800 billion stimulus bill passed, but not in the manner that made Obama look “Presidential.”

There is nothing that can be done now, Obama will sign his name onto this new bill and we will see another $8 billion burn while many of us continue to lose our jobs, our retirements, and our house that is/was our family’s home. How many politicians do you know who have lost their house… their car… their retirement… anything for that matter? Not one. The Washington political families are safe forever, they have padded their wallets from raping the American citizens for decades… they have only the blackmailing lobbyists to worry about along with their own indecency.

It’s another sad day for the American citizen whether you’re an Obama supporter or not. You are losing your rights, your future, and your Constitution just as I am. If the first 50 days are a representation of what we’ll get for the next 1,400 while Obama is President, there may not be 50 states in our Union. Some states do have sense and we all have a Constitutional right to defend what this country stands for. People forget that states voted to become a part of the Union, the smart ones may remember that we can vote ourselves out of it.

Day after slumping day, we continue to receive horrid reports of just how bad the jobs sector, housing market, and world financial system really is. Any thread of optimism is crushed by the daunting weight of reality. Not only has the American economy slipped into a wild tailspin, the entire world’s economy has. That is to be expected given the globalized economy and America being the world’s number one economic engine. It’s simple trickle down… or waterfall down at this point.

Everyone wants things to turn around, and turn around quickly. But, that is equal to asking to win the lottery of all lotteries. It just isn’t going to happen. There is one major reason why we will not experience a quick turnaround at the level of you and me, let alone at the corporate level. That reason is the fact that the credit market has seized with little to no hope of it releasing in the near term. A harsh reality may be that it will never return to what it once was.

Since the credit card market boomed and basically gave credit to anyone who could show any sort of income (and many who didn’t have any income), consumers began using this “free” money to fund their lifestyles. This so-called “credit wealth” allowed us to live beyond our weekly, monthly, or even yearly means. Many of us have extended ourselves past the year timeframe into many years. We never really think about it when the going is good, but now that the economy has hit the skids, the bills are coming due as our take home pay is raked across the coals by increased costs of living without adequate raises to make up the difference.

The credit lines have shrunk, but the bills are increasing… it’s a no win situation. I believe several things have all hit the “sweet” spot and the catalyst was the price of gas. Consumer credit boomed and raged out of control as banks tried everything to gain customer count and increase their “assets.” The housing market was an inferno out of control and everyone knew the bubble would pop, but nobody expected it to simply implode in a few short months. And then there was the price of gas… the summer of $4 per gallon gas. We borrowed, and borrowed some more, until our wallet was stretched as far as it could go. Our theoretical budgets could not withstand the doubling and tripling costs of gas to drive back and forth to work, let alone the increased costs of goods and services passing along the costs of higher oil and manufacturing costs.

Gas prices were the catalyst that pushed our economic boat over the edge. We were maintaining our credit wealth as best we could until the real monthly bills became so overly exaggerated, we couldn’t push the costs of living out into the future. Initially, the savings (what little of it there was) we had, were used to augment our income to take care of the “temporary” costs increases. As these increases were seen as less than temporary, our savings were burned through and then the credit lines were strained even worse. The bad situation was turning into a horror show.

Now, after more than 15 months into this recession, there still appears to be no end to the downturn. Billions, and even trillions, of dollars have been injected into the system in an effort to save what little confidence we have left. These people are hoping for a return to how things used to be. I don’t think we’ll ever see things return to that stage. If we do, this recession will have solved nothing and will have only served the purpose of extorting houses from many families and dashing the retirement for untold thousands of hardworking American citizens. We all need a return to normalcy. We cannot fund wealth with credit. Credit is necessary, but to an extent to augment our daily lives, not finance them. Until we realize that as a nation, we will continue this road to nowhere. The consumer must change and most of all, we must realize that the government is not going to save us. We must save ourselves by spending more appropriately.

Now, we have passed the initial 50 days of Obama’s term and the DJIA stands at 6,595.16 as we prepare to enter an even more tumultuous economic period. As of right now, the DJIA has had nearly 32% of its value sheared off. Since November, over 2.5 million workers have lost their job… since the beginning of the recession (officially started December 2007) 4.4 million jobs have been lost. It’s fairly obvious that electing our “saving grace” did nothing to cure the confidence in our markets.

These declines have occurred even with Obama pushing massive spending bills through Congress in an effort to stimulate our economy. Bush injected over $750 billion into the economy before he left office along with untold billions of dollars in ancillary stimulus money. Obama has trumped that bill by handing out nearly $800 billion and writing into the federal budget, another $750 billion for 2009. On top of that, Obama has agreed to spend over $400 billion in “health care reform.” Obama’s stimulus plan was pushed upon society as the great job saving machine that would generate 3.5 million jobs… over the next 2 years.

Looking at the analyst’s forecast for the next 2 years, they predict that unemployment will reach 9% this year… it’s at 8.1% as of this article. Next year, they are predicting well over 10% unemployment. These are estimates that were made AFTER Obama’s stimulus plans… wrap your mind around that, or better yet, your wallet… People are unrealistically focused on the unemployment rate when they should be watching the under-employment rate. The under-employment rate takes into account people who have completely given up looking for work and also includes people who are working part time jobs who need full time jobs but cannot find one. This number represents the true state of our job market.

So where does that number stand at today? Try 14.8% on for size. 8.1% unemployment supposedly equals 12.5 million people according to the government stats. 14.8% equals nearly 23 million people either out of work, given up on finding work, or involuntarily working part time jobs. These numbers are based on the idea that 155 million or so Americans work for a living.

Right now, let’s just round off the spending that we know of to $3 trillion. That means that our government has spent almost $20,000 per working American in an effort to stop the bleeding. Have you seen this 20k in your bank account? Have you seen your taxes reduced by 20k this year? Have you seen your house value go up 20k or lose multiple times that in value? Has your stock portfolio increased by 20k or dropped even more? Where is this money going? If the money was going to those who “create” jobs, then why is the economy shedding our jobs at a much faster pace since the money was injected than before?

Common sense would make you think that the injection of these massive amounts of money should have at least given us a plateau in job losses. I understand that the Democrats in the house say that the current economic hardships are the results of the Bush administration’s legacy. Let’s put some rationale to that ideology. The Democrats were in charge of both the House and Senate and also controlled almost 75% of state governorships since 2006. The recession started in December 2007. The Bush administration’s legacy from 2000-2006 was far from a recession. In those years, the Republican Party controlled the majority of political power seats. Sure, the effects of everything takes time to truly pan out, but the turning point was the date the Democrats took control of our country and their inability to curtail their partisanship and hatred of Bush. They allowed their political feelings affect how they governed our country and now we are all paying the price for their failings.

Where did our Presidential placebo go? The bounce we were so focused upon receiving did not happen. Rather than an uptick in our financial markets, a curtailing of our job losses, and a wealthier nation, we are now at a point where we are just entering the deepest valleys of this recession. I am convinced that we are going to see even worse times as we search for the rock bottom of our economic downturn. Millions more Americans will lose their jobs, billions more American taxpayer dollars will be spent without our agreement, and our stocks will continue to fall while we watch the foreclosure signs weather in our yards and our bank accounts shrink into penny savings. The placebo didn’t work and neither is spending money we don’t have. Placebo… we need the real deal.

At some point in time, there are those who actually aspire to become politicians. Yes, even young people desire to become politicians because they are the people in power. Politicians can create immediate impact and change in the lives of our citizens very quickly. However, the young people looking to hold these offices are often looking at it with an innocent point of view that allows them to see the inherent power as something they can use for the good of everyone. They know they can protect and help those in need and help foster a better land.

Somewhere along the line, between the young innocent eyes and the jaded adult eyes, things change. No longer are the political offices used to protect and serve the people, they are there to promote self indulgence, greed, power, money, and ego among many other selfish wants. On the way to achieving these political offices, our young politicians will have their innocence downright ripped from their heart and soul as they play the politics game.

There is no “honest” way to win a race these days. The vast amounts of money and lobbyists behind the major political parties cannot allow a level playing field. Even at the local level, the people with the greatest chance to attain office are those who have lived with the local in crowd of those in local power. The people with strong ties to the banks in town, the business leaders who run the chamber of commerce, the business owners who play the silent partners in the major dealings of the town… Even at the very basic local level, there is still a great amount of power mongering and ego driving.

Political aspirations usually start out as innocent as wanting to become a fireman, but in our current lifetime, nobody can make it through the process without become jaded, changed, and run by those who put them into power. In my mind, our politicians are all run by someone. There is always a man behind the curtain. That man may be a political party, groups with money beyond belief, and even people using blackmail. There is always someone to answer to once political office is achieved.

This is why we do not see any average citizen take any important office. All we are treated to are lifelong lawyers, political leeches, and political office families that pass the torch down from generation to generation as if it’s a rite of passage. The problem with this process is that these people have long forgotten what common sense is. They continually over think everything. They pour over statistics and polls of their supporting demographics in an effort to maintain votes for the next election. They fail to realize what is best for the country may not be the best for their own individual political aspirations.

Making the right decision is hard enough without trying to make everything politically correct or ok by your party’s so called standards. The simple test should be is it fair, and does it promote the growth of the United States while staying true to the Constitution. Our politicians have created such horrendous examples of laws that nobody can figure them out… just check out our tax laws.

We need that nature of the young to return to our lives. We need innocence to return. We need lifelong politicians out of our lives and we need real Americans in our offices to lead us. Who better to lead than the average citizen? The elite classes who run our country have been out of touch with America for too long. They need the boot and normalcy deserves a return to our lives.