The 4th of July is certainly a momentuous day in the US's history and given our status perhaps world history. People rising up to throw off a perceived oppressor is a good thing. Building a country on the ideas of rationality and fairness is also a very good thing. Obviously it would have been a great thing if our Founding Fathers had really meant "all people" when they said "all men." Let's not fool ourselves, they didn't. Women were not their equals, and heck, they didn't even mean all men, since most of them were slave owners.
Their warts aside they did give us a wonderful gift, which we're squandering like so many spoiled brats who don't know the good thing they've got. It seems that Madison was probably right that political parties aren't a good thing. He finally gave in, resigned to the fact that they were going to exist, and so must we it seems. Unfortunately loyalty to the party (and personal advantage/power) seems to be out weighing loyalty to what you think is best for the country and the people. Some of this is going to be unavoidable, but it sure seems like the pendulum (I hope) has swung pretty far away from its ideals.
I'm always filled with conflicting emotions whenever I stop and think about this country. On the one hand we do try to help a lot of people around the world, though perhaps not enough (I know we give more money than anyone else, but we also give a smaller percent of our money than they do). I'm filled with a naive hope that we'll be able to return to the ideals laid out at our country's founding and which Lincoln fought for, that a "government of the people, by the people, for the people" should thrive here. The bitterness of the personal attacks by members of both parties tends to thwart those hopes though.
Such negativity engenders more despare and hopelessness among the people that it's no surprise to me that we have such embarassingly low voter turn out. Who can get excited to participate in such a hateful undertaking? Add to that the perception (probably accurate) that special interest money really determines things in the capital and that our votes make little difference, and you've got a recipee for failure. Of course, we get the government we deserve. If we all just grumble about the system being broken and then walk away from it, nothing's going to fix the system. I have no answers right now about how to fix the system, but I sure think it needs to be fixed.
We need to do something to give us all more confidence that the people we elect are really going to try to do the things we want from them. We need to do something to get people excited about the political process again. We need to make people care again.
politics
