We are being barraged every day with election coverage, only slightly being interrupted by the occasional celebrity death or gun shooting. What really has amazed me over the last 3 elections is how the politicians continue to keep us divided but even more shocking is how we the people continue to be selfish and keep ourselves divided.
Every election the candidates attack each other hiding any real communication about how to solve the problems. As each election grows with social media, it has created an environment where we have actually surpassed politicians in attacking politicians. We blame everything from race to rich people for every problem in the country which stops us from creating real solutions. When are we going to step up and take our responsibility for our country and the problems that are part of it?
First things first, no matter who is elected, politicians are suppose to do what is best for ALL the people. If a candidate is Pro Life, they do not only serve Pro Lifers, they also are suppose to serve Pro Choice. It doesn't matter if they are Republican, Democrat or Independent, they are still to do what is best for everyone. So if this is true, why do we continue to let ourselves be divided into ‘groups’ instead of fighting to work as one country.
Something the people also forget is that the politicians are to do what is best for the country. Not everything we want or believe is what is best for the country as a whole and we need to live with that. I think it is very interesting that we vote for someone that promises us all of these things or who has the same beliefs as we do but then criticize them for doing what is best for the country instead of just us. Having millions of different people in this country means having thousands of beliefs and if anyone thinks that every belief is what is best for the country, they really need to take a reality break
Lastly, why is it that we feel that people cannot change the way they believe. Just because they said or did something 30 years ago doesn’t mean they can’t change their thinking now. A lot happens over 30 years and sometimes this can change someone’s beliefs as much as a good argument can. It scares me more with someone who doesn’t change with the times than someone who does. Politicians need to understand this and be able to explain why they have changed.
We are currently favoring Bernie Sanders as a candidate to the point of even blaming everyone of trying to stop him from being elected. He is using the right way of communicating where we are uniting, which is good because it gets us talking about issues. However, when you continue to blame people, it keeps us divided and stops us from really making good changes. For example, you can expect to instill free health care for all by not only taxing the rich but the middle class and upper middle class will be effected and that needs to be discussed. Helping others is always something we should do but if someone is going to make $500 less a month who is not 'rich', should we not be trying to help them as well.
We favor Mr. Sanders because he has given us the illusion that he cares. When you really listen, he is saying some of the same things our current President has been saying for eight years. However, no one is out there cheering for the President because we have been blinded by all of the attacks on him. Maybe he didn't get health care for free but he is the first President to get many uninsured people the health care they needed. He also got 'don't ask, don't tell' repealed basically telling us that everyone is the same who is in the military. He said immigrants that come here 'illegally' shouldn’t be removed from their families despite the damage to his reputation. Even though people highlighted it as a bailout, he saved millions of jobs giving money to the auto industry. Is the reason why we do not see this is because it currently comes from an educated, strong black Muslim man versus an old, Jewish 'white' grandfather.
http://pleasecutthecrap.com/obama-accomplishments/
Even Hillary Clinton has been fighting for the same things but no one knows because all we care about are emails and war. She is the one that tried to get health care going 20 years ago and when Congress tried to water it down, she said no because it wouldn't do the job. She is the one who has been fighting for families and women since the beginning of her career. She is fighting for minimum wage and wage inequality but she is fighting it understanding the entire impact, not just promising higher wages. Even recently she understood that the coal companies in WV would not get their jobs back, no matter what anyone said and tried to get us to focus on helping the people of WV. Yet the people of WV were cheering for Mr. Sanders, who is against coal, because they thought she was trying to 'fire' them. It shows what we choose to hear versus what we should be hearing. Yes she makes mistakes but every mistake has two sides to the story before judgment should be passed. Below we can see how progressive Ms. Clinton is versus Mr. Sanders and even though he is more progressive in most areas it does not mean she should not be considered the same.
How do we end up with Donald Trump as the Republican candidate? I think it is because we understimate how some people really view the world and their issues. Think about it, if your job was outsourced to Mexico and you see millions of illegal immigrants coming here and getting better treatment than you, why would you not go for a person who says a wall should be built. Tell a person who had someone die in 9/11 that Muslims are not an extremist religion and that a war on ISIS is not warranted. We are so busy being distracted by the things he says that we are not even thinking about the needs and wants of the people he is effecting.
A large conversation during this election cycle is the idea of 'free' tuition to public institutions. One of the arguments is that most high paying jobs need some kind of degree so we are holding back people from the American Dream. Although I do agree that this is needed, are we really looking at the solution in the right way? Do we really have enough high paying jobs out there for all of the people that will now be getting a degree for free? What happens if someone gets let go because the person who just got a degree is hired as a cheaper alternative, isn't that still an unemployment problem?
Are we really discussing all of the issues related to this topic or are we just happy with 'free' tuition for all? I do not see anywhere that says what responsibility is on the student if they do not graduate? Are we going to have any contingencies if graduates do not find a job or one they got a degree in? We are so focused on the tuition subject that we almost forget that there are alot of people currently indebted with student loans. They now have to see all of these people getting a 'free' pass while they get forgotten? Have we ever thought that people who worked hard for their degree and career do not want to have less money to help people get theirs for free? Maybe the reason it is not discussed is because the people cheering for it might not like the answer.
What about the true cost of the 'free' tuition? The money will be raised by the taxing of Wall Street transactions but has anyone really thought about how that will effect the stock market? People may not care but unfortunately, our economy rises and falls with the stock market and anything that causes a decline will effect the economy in other ways. In the program, states have to take over the tuition program after 6 years, so this means that states will have to come up with the extra money to do this. Ways to do this are usually cutting programs or raising taxes.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/what-would-bernie-sanders-wall-st-tax-look-like-2016-02-14
Let's talk about the 'evil' corporations. Corporations are part of this country, they are building a business to provide goods and vices to us. If they did not exist there would be no jobs, there would be no Starbucks for us to get in the morning. If something is changed in the country that minimizes profits or worse causes a company to go out of business they should have a say in this. Going out of business or having to lay people off because of low profits is not good for the country. Maximizing profits may seem evil because of the practices that are done but in the end public corporations are bound legally to maximize profits for their shareholders. When this doesn't happen, their stock goes down and people do not invest as much.
http://www.litigationandtrial.com/2010/09/articles/series/special-comment/ebay-v-newmark-al-franken-was-right-corporations-are-legally-required-to-maximize-profits/
There is a huge cry over the $15 minimum wage. First of all, anyone who thinks this has no effect on prices or a business really needs to get a better understanding. If a company wants to stay in business they have to do what the market dictates not necessarily what is best for the business, which means sometimes bending over to customers. So if you raise the cost of doing business without being able to raise the revenue coming in, how does one not see the business having issues? If costs begin to get too high, they might have to lay someone off and make the $15 people do more work or worse shut down.
It has been said that raising wages increases morale and makes people more productive. To me giving people more money to make them more productive is the same as giving an animal treats to do tricks. No treats, no tricks. Low wages, low productivity. If we do not see that as a problem, how are we really looking at the problem. If we believe that someone who took 10 years to get to a certain pay rate point is going to love seeing a person who just came on get a high amount, then we are kidding ourselves. Morale and productivity should be about treating people with respect and doing the same for the company that is paying you. It shouldn’t just be about giving people more money as a detrimate to the business.
The final point on increasing the minimum wage to $15 a hour. If you are living in the slums of LA and you make $15 an hour you may be making more money, but it doesn't mean you will have a lot of disposal income. Living in LA still means high rent and the higher up you go the more rent it will be. So unless everyone is going to move to Rock Hill, SC where expenses are lower, then you still will have issues with your living situation. Wage increase is not the only thing that needs to be done to help the poor.
Do people ever notice that when we fight for something good, an unseen bad comes with it. Do we really think that when we fight for the reduction of fossil fuels, it doesn't effect the people who are working in the fossil fuel industry. Companies will decrease business or maybe even close down. People will be laid off. Even people supplying the fossil fuel company are going to decrease in business. If you read about the state of Alaska right now, the state is starting to go broke because of the oil industry struggles, just think if they had to pay for free tuition.
People say that we have an incarceration problem in this country, many are in for 'non violent' crimes. First of all, stealing someone's property is still a crime and if you do it over and over again it means you have no regard for the law or people so why should you not be put into jail. Plus by stealing someone's property and it is not returned, insurance rates go up and people start judging people of different races and living areas by those incidents.
Next is the drug offenses, we insist that it is better to give people treatment than put them in jail. We can say what we want that the CIA made people do drugs or that poor people have no choice. Doing drugs or not doing drugs is a choice and being addicted is what comes from that choice. If you want to convince me that treatment is better than jail, then tell me how many people are cured from treatment the first time and tell me who is going to pay for these treatments.
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/27/472023148/legalize-all-drugs-the-risks-are-tremendous-without-defining-the-problem?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social
There is a lot being said about breaking up the big banks. If they are too big to fail, how would decreasing their current activity not effect the country? They are said to be the reason for the housing crisis in 2008 and they are very responsible but where is our part in this? We were the ones that were so gullible to take on mortgages that we could not afford, why is the bank to blame for that? Would we have been better off if they had said no. How soon we forget that as early as 1980 the interest rate was 20%, can you imagine trying to pay a loan with the interest at 20%. That means for $100,000 mortgage would be a monthly payment of $1,600, who can afford that?
Campaign finance is another hot issue, we need to get money out of politics. The one part of this that I have an issue with is that the money is not the problem, it is the integrity of the person accepting the money. Businesses should be allowed to donate to candidates because again they have just as much at stake as anyone in the country. So if a company spends millions giving to a candidate and a person in a trailer gives $27, do they deserve anymore or less cooperation from the candidate. The candidate has to do what is best for the country and for ALL people, not just from those that give them a donation. If they cannot follow this then they should not be elected.
A large portion of our money goes to military spending, thus hurting our country or so it is said. We complain about war and actually are blamed for causing wars. Does anyone even think about a world where America is not helping protect the world? Think about us withdrawing from South Korea, what do we think would happen? Do we think North Korea who is deprived of resources and their people are screaming for help, would be nice? Maybe the solution is removing sanctions from these countries then everyone can do business with them. We never complain when we help countries such as Haiti with disaster relief but that is money that they will never give us back. So where is the complaining then?
We are a country of 320 million people and in that country are people that have lived through the Great Depression, World War II, Vietnam, Jim Crow laws, having dogs and hoses turned on them while the country watched, waiting in line for gasoline, AIDS, 9/11. They grew up when there was no unemployment benefits, there was no welfare, there was no social security or 401K. Their decisions about candidates are based on things we can’t even fathom yet we ignore what they have to say. We focus so much on the young people’s voice that we ignore a lot of other voices, even the so called 'evil' ones.
We have alot of issues in this country and fighting for them to be fixed is what we should be doing. However, fighting for something where you have not taken into consideration all aspects is like going to a 1 hour meeting where the real problem is only discussed in the last ten minutes, it serves no purpose. Everyone in this country is effected by these decisions, young, old, black, white, etc. We need everyone’s voice to be heard, even the ones we may not like. We need the ‘voice' to not be 'trolling' comments behind the security of our computer. That only highlights the fact that we are not taking responsibility, we are just continuing the division of ourselves.
We have been a divided country from the beginning of our history, it is just in a different way and we continue to let it happen. At first it was land owning white people while blacks, women and Native Americans didn't count. Now it is Occupiers, Anonymous, Socialists, Republicans, Democrats and Black Lives Matter saying one side is wrong and our side is right. We need to stop our selfishness, our hatred and understand that every voice counts when it comes to making this country better. Until that happens, we are not only stuck with what we have, we are the ones that helped create it and we need to get over it.
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