Who makes your decisions?
Up until recently I was not affiliated with either party. This last primary I had to declare myself Republican so I could vote. That being said, I do not consider myself strictly Republican or Democrat. Neither party has a strangle-hold on good ideas or bad ones.
In an effort to get more informed, I signed up for the newsletters for all the major candidates running for president. The news filters the message and I wanted to give each candidate the opportunity to tell me their message in their own words.
So far I have been disappointed. The newsletters consist of nothing more than "vote for me, send me money and go get others to do likewise". There has been no real substance to what is being sent.
Today I received one from Hillary Clinton which read in part:
Americans need solutions to the challenges they face every single day, and they are depending on us to deliver them.
I wanted to send a rebuttal, but there was no place to send it. Instead, my rebuttal follows.
Americans do face challenges every day. Most challenges should be and are met by the people facing them. Americans are not children who need coddling but are inheritors of a proud tradition of meeting adversities and turning them into opportunities. The citizens of this country do not need or even want the federal government removing every challenge. Anything worth doing will require facing and overcoming challenges along the way.
There are of course certain challenges to which the federal government can and should find solutions. The first is partisan politics. What this country needs is a federal government willing to address the tough issues, regardless of who gets the credit. Hillary has not shown herself to be willing to do that. She has contributed her fair share to the political bickering that highlights congress and the presidency. She is not part of the solution but part of the problem.
Another challenge is ethics reform. The old joke about "how can you tell a politician is lying?" (His lips are moving.) applies as much today as when I first heard it, during Bill Clinton's term as president. Both parties are pork-barreling and there have been so many gift and bribery scandals that they barely even make the news. Hillary's proposed government reforms reform everyone else, but not the abuses in congress itself. Everything else is a band-aid.
Americans do not want the government to interfere in their lives to the level of solving their everyday challenges. Americans do want a government that can solve the larger issues and keep itself above reproach. Americans should vote for a leader who is part of the solution, not the problem.
The Stranger
This is very interesting and not the ending I had expected!!!!
A few years after I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was new to our small Texas town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around from then on.
As I grew up, I never questioned his place in my family. In my young mind, he had a special niche. My parents were complementary instructors: Mom taught me good from evil, and Dad
taught me to obey. But the stranger...he was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with adventures, mysteries and comedies.
If I wanted to know anything about politics, history or science, he always knew the answers about the past, understood the present and even seemed able to predict the future! He took my family to the first major league ball game. He made me laugh, and he made me cry. The stranger never stopped talking, but Dad didn't seem to mind.
Sometimes, Mom would get up quietly while the rest of us were shushing each other to listen to what he had to say, and she would go to the kitchen for peace and quiet. (I wonder now if she ever prayed for the stranger to leave.)
Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but the stranger never felt obligated to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our home... Not from us, our friends or any visitors. Our longtime visitor, however, got away with four-letter words that burned? my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush.
My Dad didn't permit the liberal use of alcohol. But the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular basis. He made cigarettes look cool, cigars manly and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (much too freely!) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing.
I now know that my early concepts about relationships were influenced strongly by the stranger. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked... And NEVER asked to leave.
More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you could walk into my parents' den today, you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures. His name?....
We just call him, "TV." He has a wife now....We call her "Computer."
kare11.com : KARE 11 TV - Health Care Article Health Care: Utah clinic gets it right: "There are many Minnesota groups, including Mayo, trying to improve the healthcare system here at home and around the country. They say nobody has it figured out 100-percent, but they're clearly impressed with a group of clinics and hospitals known as 'Intermountain Healthcare' in Utah."
