We are not a nation of laws, we are a nation of window dressing. This is why we have public relations firms, Fox News, and advertising agencies. The wealthy flex their muscles every day, and most people never pick up on it. The ideas of the founding fathers were good, but they did not anticipated corporations being protected by Wall Street lawyers. Does not do any good to have laws when
lobbyists buy their way around them.
Just last night on the news is was pointed out that Michele Bachmann does not have a chance of winning the Republican nomination, yet her supporters keep dumping money into her campaign. Why? Bachmann is nothing but a message delivery system, bought and paid for - a sort of megaphone if you will. The right is using her to push the agenda to the right.
Everyone has a price. The question is are each of us willing to take it when it is offered. Research shows that most people's confidence in themselves directly relates to the current balance of their checking account! Do not necessarily equate the price to be paid in dollars either. I am in advertising, we manipulate your children every Saturday morning to throw a temper tantrum if mom does not buy breakfast cereal with a lot of sugar in it. What makes it scary, is it is so easy. Selling a POTUS is almost as easy as selling Right Guard antiperspirant. It is amazing, but again it is scary. You spend $3 on an antiperspirant that does not work for you, no big deal. But, when you sell a person for political office, who knows what they might do? People act differently when they actually have power.
If I offer anything to USMB, it is that I force people to think outside the box. Over time all of us, myself included, find comfortable answers to the questions of life. We get lazy, we stop rethinking, and out come the platitudes. Based upon market research conservatives are more afraid of change. I too find some change uncomfortable, but embracing change is how one "keeps their edge" in an ever-changing world. So, I have learned to welcome change, even if it is temporarily uncomfortable. This is how we make progress with new ideas. I would rather fail at something new, than be one of those, "this is the way we have always done it" types.
The main purpose of a college education is to learn how to ask questions. If you know how to do that, you can stay on the offense and get the responses you want. My questions scare certain members, but it is really for their own good to open their minds. The kinds of answers that may have worked twenty years ago may not today. We now live in a world dominated by cell phones, and Facebook. "All in the family" and VCR's are history. Life has changed, we must adjust or be left behind.
I think it is reasonable to question the Americanism of OWS protestors, while questioning the actions of government. The OWS riots in Oakland, CA prove the point. America is not as enlightened as we believe we are. Someone is going to pay a price for that, and in my opinion it will be the Democratic and Republican Partys who have become dinosaures. My God Americans are taking to the street because they are losing their homes and jobs, how much more clear does this have to be? Meanwhile network news anchors ask, "What does OWS mean?" Well, duh, the American people are pissed, elected officials should know why, otherwise they should step down.
When you can get your thoughts together on freedom and liberty, please drop them into a concise three sentence paragraph. The end of your post sounds like a Pat Robertson political sermon. Please cut to the chase.
