Would you agree that without rules, there is chaos? #Rant
[I am a conservative, Independent and proud of it!]
The way I see it, conservatives are failing to speak up, and the squeaky wheel is the only one being heard.
Worse … those voices are loud.
That’s why so many changes have happened since the beginning of our country … not because everybody wants it, but because the loudest people stand up and beg for ‘whatever it is’ enough to wear down everyone else. Our country is changing from what we were created, to something that scares me. For me and for my children and my future grand children and beyond that. This isn’t a time to think about today … it’s a time to think about 10, 20 and 50 years from now.
Today, I’m standing on my soapbox. If you comment on my post without having read everything in it, stating your political opinion or how ‘wrong’ I am, I will delete your comment, because … well … that’s my rule and I’m stating it up front.
So let’s begin.
Think about the parent-child relationship. How many whines does it take for you to give in to your kid? One? Ten? A hundred? Unfortunately, I, too, am subject to this problem and in this, our country is, too. I don’t expect us all to agree. We never will. That’s not how life is supposed to work. What we all seem to be forgetting is that The United State of America was founded on a set of rules that are being more and more eroded every day.
You know what those rules are called, right? If not, you shouldn’t have a say or even a vote. Ooh, that’ll get some backs up. But think about it … if I didn’t know the rules of driving my car and I got into the driver’s seat, should I be allowed to even roll it out of the driveway?
To vote, you should know the rules.
Are our candidates for President following THE RULES? Is our current President?
You see … I’ve been watching the GOP debates and the press and news media coverage. I’ve read articles and talked about what I’ve seen/heard/read with other people. I’ve seen the Twitter posts and the Facebook messages about how the GOP candidates all suck for various reasons and our president is the most awesome guy in the world. To quote Seth and Amy and Saturday Night Live … “Really? Really?”
The more I watch, the more I get angry. Angry at my country, at the snobbish ways our country works, at the greed that seems to come with the political agenda of so many of our elected ‘officials’.
Have we forgotten where how this country started? We the people …. and under God … Yes … that’s where. And with a set of RULES. Again, if you don’t know what these are, read on, or ask a friend. Better yet, Google it because if you plan to vote, you should KNOW what you’re voting for or against.
The problem is so many people are letting the media dictate the future instead of educating themselves and making up their own minds. They flood Facebook and Twitter with cartoons of inaccurate information (democratic and republicans alike) and tell everyone to ‘pass it on’ as if it’s the right information and when called out on it, they don’t take it down or change their story. Because they don’t know. Because they don’t know the rules. Because they don’t know how to measure someone’s ‘worth’ as a leader because they have nothing to measure them by.
BUT THEY DO! We allllll do!
I made a vow once. To marry my husband, to be with him til death do us part. We don’t have to do that with our politicians. But so many of them aren’t keeping the vow they did make, with hands on the bible, and by following the rules.
I don’t care whether you’ll vote democratic or republican or if you’re an Independent voter. I am an Independent. Vote based on education of the facts. I look at history and the present. I look at what someone has done, how they have changed and what they say now.
And I measure that person against the rules. Against the foundation. Against what the creators of this country meant it to be.
When I manage a project, if someone on my team fails, *I* fail. If I can’t take the heat of that failure, I should not have been in the position I was in. It’s as simple as that.
As the leader of our country, our President is the one that will get the blame, should take the blame and should always, always, always be judged against the rules.
Here is where you say, “But Congress doesn’t let him!”
Don’t give me that. He’s the leader. As leader, he gets to take the blame. I agree Congress sucks, too because so many of THEM were elected without a measure against ‘the rules’.
This isn’t a game, though. Unlike when we were children, we shouldn’t be trying to change the game in our favor by adjusting the rules. We should be using the rules and principles to guide our lives, to govern our country and our states, our municipalities and counties, our cities and towns.
Those rules are our constitution. The Bill of Rights. Personally, I think we should go back to just those 10.
We’ve had them for a long time.
Here is where you say, “Well, old doesn’t mean it applies to today.”
I beg to differ. Our constitution — that Bill of Rights is the building block of our country. It supports us. It is the foundation. Without the foundation, the walls will fall, the roof will collapse and everything will come crumbling down.
How would you play Red Rover or Tic Tac Toe without rules? You’d fail. I’d fail. Rules aren’t there to take away freedoms. They are there so we all know what everyone’s freedoms are. EVERYONE’S.
If you take out a rule, the foundation will crumble. Just like a Coke can. Your entire weight can stand on an empty can if it has no indentions in the casing. If you ping it in the middle so there is a little dent and you try to stand on it, it will crush under your weight.
And if you don’t like the rules, what should you do? Change them? No.Β It’s like turning 18 and wanting to move out of your parent’s home. If the rules no longer suit you, you’ll have to find a place that does. But the rules didn’t change in your parent’s house. They remained. You just found a new place to make up your own rules … governed still by the over-arching ones that govern us all.
We need to rule by the rules, live by the rules and if we don’t like it, we don’t damage the foundation. We either ‘accept’ or move on.
So there. I’ve spoken. Enough said.
I’m a liberal Independent and a political science major. So I could argue politics all day long.
I’ll try and keep my opinions quick and to the point.
1) I totally agree we have a set of rules to follow. And no politician should run for office that has never read, doesn’t understand or care about the Constitution. Under both parties I’ve either heard promises made that couldn’t possibly come true because they are against the Constitution or the politician incorrectly quotes the Constitution or said proudly that they’d never read it. Why should I vote for you when the basis of your job is the Constitution? Would you hire a non-licensed plumber or electrician?
2) I don’t agree that everything falls on the President. Yes, he is the face of our government and should set our policies. But we are a three-tier system for the express purpose of not having one person rule us all. The President can try and set policy but until Congress enacts laws, those words are empty. The President can’t make us do anything. Congress can so long as the Judiciary deems they don’t infringe upon our rights.
The President should be charismatic – he needs the support of the people BUT ALSO the support of Congress. Because without being able to lead Congress the President has very limited powers. This is something that I think is forgotten. The President can not order Congress to do anything. They are equal but separate entities and should work to compromise on what is best for the United States of America. Because if the country succeeds, then so do the people. Just because a few people succeed does not mean the country does.
Aimee, I agree with almost everything you said. I am a conservative, too, and our leaders have moved away from the Constitution. I am so fed up with hearing how George W. Bush put us in the situation we’re in. Wrong. It began with Teddy Roosevelt, one of the most fast-moving progressives this country has seen, and it hasn’t stopped yet.
I’m tired of hearing how the Constitution is a living, breathing document and must be allowed to change. BS, I say. The Constitution is a contract, a binding contract. It doesn’t live, it doesn’t breathe to suit whomever has ‘the power’. Can you imagine all contracts made that whenever a ‘customer’ (US citizen), doesn’t like something, he can change the contract to suit his needs?
People are fickle. They’ll want what they want, when they want, but those wants don’t last. Today they want a law that says you can’t have chocolate ice cream on Wednesdays. Next year, they’ll want to revise it to say, well you can have it on Wednesday, but you can’t have any chocolate ice cream made with real sugar.
Congress and the President need to look at what powers the Constitution and the Bill of Rights provides. They need to turn the power back to the states for those areas that are not covered by the Constitution. I am beginning to believe a good man/woman will never become president because Congress is too greedy to allow a good president to do what needs to be done. We elect Congress.
It’s time to clean house and start over. The First Amendment GUARANTEES that right. We should exercise it.
I applaud you for standing up for your principles and ideals. More people should do so.
Well…I would challenge you to show me where in the original documents the phrase “under God” appears, as I’m pretty darn sure it’s not there. at all. Yes, “under God” is in the pledge, but the pledge wasn’t accepted by Congress until 1942 and that phrase wasn’t added until 1954, so it can’t be classified as part of the rules our country was founded on. π
And I can’t agree with going back to just the 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights… I’m extremely partial to the 19th and I’d think as a female and a mom of girls you would be too. I also really like the 22 and 24…
But I do agree that we have a set of rules for a reason. And we need to all follow them. That’s one of the great things about our country; there’s no one more “special” than the rest of us, we all are subject to the same rules. I do think there’s need to change the rules (see previously stated preference to Amendment 19)- but the key is to CHANGE them, not choose to ignore them. The founding fathers made it hard to ratify an amendment for a reason- it forces much debate and thought and disallows changing things willy-nilly.
I do agree we all need to know the rules. We all have a responsibility to each other, to future generations, and to past generations to preserve our freedoms and our country and to do that we have to understand the rules and the issues. We need to understand what can and can’t be done by the President, the judicial branch, the US Congress, the individual states. We need to take the time to understand the issues that are being undertaken, take the time to feed back to our representatives what we think and our expectations, and take the time to peel the onion, getting past they hype and the distractions, to what really are driving different agendas. I think in this fast-pace life though so many of us don’t take that time and instead follow whatever media speaks the loudest, or whatever media/politician agrees with one of our “hot buttons” even if they drastically disagree with everything else we believe in and it’s against our best interest overall to support them.
Thank you for standing up and saying you’ve had enough!
Mary
On an aside- I was writing so often to one of our elected persons that I actually got something from his office almost accusing me of letting organizations use my identity. So I stopped submitting my comments to him electronically and now write him handwritten letters on looseleaf and snail mail them to his offices. I don’t think he likes me very much! π