This is the first of what I hope to be many posts regarding the state of America currently.
After my escapades in the religious forum and sphere of discussion, I came to realize how illogical, unrational, and simply misinformed most people are. We live in a nation where most of the population doesn’t even accept evolution as a fact, believes in a Christian god, and a large majority of the electorate thinks Jesus is coming back within their lifetime…
I was disgusted and all but hopeless about politics until very recently, when I found a candidate: Ron Paul. This isn’t an article to gain support for Ron Paul, however; rather, it is about my journey learning about the political arena. Unfortunately, it is far worse than I ever could have imagined, and I fear our country is sinking faster than the Titanic.
It is unfortunate that the only mainstream news stations in America are owned by large corporations, and even worse, are caked with political bias. But not political bias towards Democrats or Republican, as it appears to me now that, to steal a line from Bill Hicks, you can either like the puppet on the right or on the left. Bias towards big government. Bias towards corporations (for obvious reasons). This is, for many people, the only
Regardless of whether one believes the constitution to be a revolutionary and incomparable set of rules to build a country upon, we live in a time where it is violated constantly, breaking a promise that was made by our government with the people of this great nation long ago. And yet, nothing has been done. Perhaps it’s because people want to trade freedom for safety, or perhaps the government has finally reached a size where the people are afraid to stand up and fight against it.
When we vote, we are voting for candidates instead of ideas. People vote for those who are likeable. Our society is not intelligent enough to even begin a discussion regarding which ideas are best. Every forum of discussion I’ve seen in the political arena involves a lot of “this philosophy or idea is stupid.” That’s where the conversation ends. No discussion about cause or effect of certain philosophies, no historical evidence or proof of the results of running countries a certain way. And this is the American electorate. We are the laughing stock of the world, and rightfully so. We claim to be spreading democracy when we should be a republic. Americans are proud to be so, regardless of ignorance, as if being American is far more important than being intelligent.
There are only two political parties, and millions of ideas are lost because nobody running in a different party has a snowball’s chance in hell. What happened? I’m sure there’s many places where we’ve gone wrong, but I feel like hope is lost. Even if I was able to speak individually to everybody in the nation, I couldn’t have a rational discussion about politics. In fact, we’ve made it off limits in polite discussion, making it even harder to convey and share ideas with one another, or make any progress whatsoever. The TV feeds people information. As Al Gore stressed in his book, it is a one way conversation: TV to mindless sheep.
It feels so overwhelmingly hopeless I don’t know where to begin, or even if I should. Maybe it’s time to head to Denmark or Sweden. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s come to this realization, but what a disheartening and frustrating realization it is.
I hope somebody else can relate.
