Politics...Meh

I try to stay away from the fray that is national politics, honestly I do, but it is like watching an episode of Springer. You know its a train wreck, you know people are acting like fools on national TV, and you are just waiting for someone to throw a punch, or a chair. Sometimes I believe that following national politics is better then any quasi-reality TV ever conceived. No one can make that stuff up.

Why is it so entertaining? Because common sense, taking care to be up front and honest, and respectful dialogue has flown right out of the window. We have republicans refusing to vote for something democrats propose, without bothering to read the proposal to see if it has any merit. We have democrats calling republicans names,and not even trying to work with republicans, we have both trying to second guess the voters, so they can get another term. In fact election campaigns start earlier and earlier every season. And no one is addressing the problems we face.

Then we have voters,who for some really bizarre reason I can't quite pin down, who have decided to be angry, and would prefer to let other people sway their mindsets on all things political.  These are people who got cushy jobs doing nothing but talk about how right their opinion is, and downright make stuff up on the spot, or in other words, the facts are how that person views them. That is what they do, and people take what they say as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Blows my mind. It is almost like these guys are the televangelists of the political spectrum.

In all this, one doesn't see much in the way of getting down to the whys, and hows. The whys are how do we fix our health care system, including Medicare which is the biggest money sucking vortex we have right now? How do we fix our financial house, including our banks,large and small? How do we encourage jobs in our own borders and stop the exit of job opportunities to places far off our shores? How do we actually rework our energy needs that are long term, renewable, safe, affordable and green? There are some wonderful solutions out there. Sadly many of them are not popular, because it passes some of the responsibility back on to us, the voter. Apparently the American voter doesn't want that responsibility, because it may mean higher taxes, higher prices on commodities like gasoline, and getting used to a different health care format. Those may be only short term fixes until things get straightened out, but no one, not even our government wants to propose these things. While cutting costs on  certain programs can help, it still isn't addressing the core issues. I don't know why people aren't saying that, or doing something about it.

 It also means that we need to get our facts straight on issues, which is easy. Just go to any congressional website and one can read pending bills from the comfort of your own home. Don't like what you read? Email your congress person and let them know. Don't like how they vote, then vote yourselves come election day, or run for their seat.