A few thoughts on the election: I try to avoid the politics, but this morning I feel compelled to speak out. I stayed up late last evening to watch the election results in disbelief.
- Being a conservative.
- Being a person who just wants to be left alone to work and live.
- Being a person who believes in the Constitution in it’s literal sense.
- Being a person that believes that luck is when opportunity meets preparedness .
- Being a person with a good heart, is passionate about his work, and that generally has a positive outlook on life.
- Being a person that is a realist.
I awoke the same way I went to bed at about 2:00 a.m. Eastern Time this morning. I awoke feeling beaten. I awoke feeling like the dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that truth, justice, and the American way, that being an American is somehow, now different from what it was as a child of the 80’s growing up vaguely remembering sitting in the back seat of my parents car as a young child sitting in the gas lines for hours while my parents waited for gas, as I now do as an adult in the state of NJ post Hurricane Sandy.
The upside, more people again came out this year and voted than had in the past 20+ years of voting. People voted for their second time ever. Sadly, they voted for:
- Personal and business tax increases
- Increased leverage in the Senate keeping them further from wanting to compromise in the center to achieve goals of the people.
- More executive orders that will never be publicized further limiting our freedoms
- Fear for the First and Second Amendments are up for slaughter as we know them.
- More national debt
- Obamacare, which will put doctors out of business, and make waiting for health care unbearable for those that need it immediately.
- I fear for Israel and the changes that will come to the Middle East in the coming years. They are on their own.
- Energy as we know it is going to change as we know it, and more jobs will be lost in that sector.
I woke in a veritable depression. I woke looking out the window not recognizing the street in which I live, although it is impossible for it to change less a natural or manmade disaster. Ironically, I had hope. I had hope for change. I had hope that our nation’s population was not a nation that would be looking for handouts. A country that wanted to get up and build itself again.
Yet I woke this morning feeling the liberties and the freedoms that I believe in are about to change, forever, permanently. Did I think Romney was the right alternative. Honestly, I wasn’t sure. Did I believe that Romney could change the economy and create jobs in a frist term of a presidency? I did not. The jobs, sadly are permanently gone from out economy. They are all outsourced and not coming home, both manufacturing and administrative in nature. Very drastic measure would have to have been made hurting business at home to bring back manufacturing. But I will post a whole set of thoughts on that another time.
I feel nothing is going to change. I feel nothing is going to get better for those that have been hurting now for 5+ years. I feel our President’s personal agenda will continue to trump the needs of the people. Will out incumbent president mend fences, make change, and can we hope that he reaches across the isle to make real compromise and make real change the people can believe in? Again, I “hope” so, but my hope is gone. My hope is fallen through a hole in the floor.
Again, we as people must work harder to:
- Earn less money
- Watch the landscape of our lives transform in front of us.
- Watch the self entitled get handouts without trying to make change or innovation in their own or others lives
- Watch int he next 12 — 36 months as we become like Greece as we go north of $20B in national debt
- Watch as our children’t future is fundamentally changed before our eyes, ensuring that they have to make 300,000+ dollars annually to eek out an average living at best as adults, assuming they are ambitious enough not to be part of the handout system.
I fear we will no longer be the United “States” of America, but are not moving towards the United “State” of America. One in which we will not see the wheels of prosperity, nor will we see the wheels of liberty. I leave you now, lost in my own thoughts as I try to make sense of them by writing this post. I no longer know how to feel or what to think. Everything I think I was taught about the experiment of our Republic is falling apart before my eyes. Am I going to be the sr. citizen that is sitting on the park bench in 30 or so years saying, “I remember when we were free” in a whisper to a child playing in the park?
One thing remains a fact, however. A fact that is undeniably as solid as a 100+ year old oak tree; that we have become a nation of sheep. A nation of takers, a nation where the entitlement mindset trump human innovation? Questions for me to ponder. Questions for you to ponder.
I implore you to comment with your thoughts. I am eager to learn what others are thinking. Even comment anonymously if you must. I would still like to hear from you.
I woke up feeling much the same way. (Some random thoughts in place of a coherent statement.)
*My biggest fear is who now ends up in the Supreme Court. With “Conservatives” like Roberts making decisions like that regarding Obamacare, perhaps that it already lost too?
*I think the Country has already gone off the proverbial cliff, “we” just don’t know it yet.
*I don’t think either Party is really on board with the Constitution as it was intended. Those who do are in such a small number that they get laughed at and labeled extremists.
*Money is the only thing that matters.
*I worry for the future in store for my young daughter. How do I prepare her for what lies ahead?
*I think once it is obvious that we’ve gone down the wrong path, again, looking back in 20 or 30 years to today, we’ll perhaps say we lost our chance. We were sheep, lambs to the slaughter.
*The History buff in me tries to remember that Americans have been through bad times before too. We’ve gotten through the Civil War, Depression, World Wars, and the like, but I’m not convinced the people are as resilient or principled as then. Such conditioning as to the wisdom of Government to do everything.
*All this talk about compromise. It seems for the Republican to survive, they need to become even more like the liberal? How is even less differentiation a good thing? It seems either compromise or staying true will lead to a smaller, and less effective opposition. What’s the solution? Fight the good fight I suppose, and come what may.
*What is the big deal about minimizing America’s exceptionalism? Don’t people understand why this country has achieved so much in its short history? Nothing else like it. Ever. Why do so many people come here? Because it is NOT like where they live now. If we’re on such a rush to make the USA more like other places, what will make us different? I suspect nothing. We’ve actually been doing many things right over the decades.
*Have we ever really been Free? Is freedom an idea of the past that we’ve lost, or a dream of the future that we strive to obtain (or retain?)?
In reply to suburban .
suburban Lusitan Thanks, man. I really do appreciate it. We are getting by OK — all of my family is safe and that is what is most important. I’m glad you made it through in good shape. I’m looking at this as a good learning opportunity for me. And it will further solidify the support I have from my wife on our preps.
I do wish Romney would have been able to pull it off, but just consider how difficult it is to run against the socialist fantasy of “we (the govt) will give you everything you want”; it’s like running against Santa Claus. Sadly, it also shows the depth of stupidity and dependence to which the majority of Americans have sunk. In the end, this will only accelerate the disintegration. All we can do is build our community of like-minded individuals, and prepare as best we can.
In reply to Lusitan .
Lusitan I am sorry to hear that you are still dealing with the aftermath, but am glad the family was able to bug out and get to safe ground. We’re all learning as we go on this one, with the exception of a couple of guys that I know. Please let me know if there is anything I can do. Not sure where you are, but if I can help in any way, please let me know.
As for the election, you are right as is bfescoe in the reply below. Marginally better, would still ease the pain a little, however, and when you are talking such large numbers of unemployed, even “a little” can be quite a large number.
It’s all wait and see at this juncture, however.
Take heart, my friend. Romney would have been marginally better, but he wasn’t the answer either, because the problem at this point is too far gone for one person to correct, even a president.
We just need to keep on doing what we have been doing — building our self-reliance skills and building the community of people who share our values and beliefs in what this nation is supposed to be about.
Like you I’m in NJ and STILL dealing with the aftermath of Sandy (and now Athena) … we’re still without power/heat/hot water, my wife and kids had to execute the bug out plan while I hold down the fort here, the generator is running, the preps are being used and I’m learning as I go. Of course I am disappointed that the ultra-statist Obama was reelected, but dealing with this stuff over the past week tempered my reaction to the election results, because I see how at the personal level there are still so many other things that I can do.
So don’t let the Thug-in-Chief bother you. Fly the Gadsden Flag in your heart and just stay the course.
The fact of the matter is that this country was going to slip towards serfdom no matter who won. When people are too comfortable they get lazy and complaisant. Romney probably would have only slowed it down… a little. Eventually we will end up having to pay for our debits and over spending. Until people really feel the pain, nothing will ever change.
In reply to UKJohnM .
UKJohnM Thanks for your comment, and you are not the only one that feels the way “we” do. I have spoken to many people today already that feel the same way. They hear empty promises and rhetoric, with little actual passion or action to make the change that they need to survive. They are beaten down psychologically, so it is easier for them to give in to forsaking their liberties. It is sad really.
We are well on the way to simulating Italy and Greece’s financial strife, and with it will be the loss of many freedoms as the masses will be ready to give into whatever the government wishes. So sad…
Although I am a ciztizen of the UK I am deeply moved by you sentiments. What has happened to the America I knew of as a child, an America that I thought was a free country and wished that I had been born in.
For me the results of this election are a death kneel to the people of your great country. You are right that the US is going down the same road as Greece, Spain and other European countries. I watch it from the outside and can see them same mistakes these countries have made being made by your govwernment.
The people in the UK gave away any freedom they had years ago don’t let your people do the same.