As anybody who hasn’t rolled their eyes, clicked “Like” and then clicked “X” to scurry out of my political posts knows, I’ve been saying since I started FiftyFourAndAHalf.com (because I was pissed off at the GOP), that a huge part of the problem is folks drank the “don’t tax me, bro” kool-aid. That people don’t understand that Ronald Reagan was wrong.
There. I said it. Lightening did not strike. The lights didn’t even flicker. The planet continued to revolve on its axis and on its course around the sun.
Reagan was wrong many times in my opinion. But he was never more wrong than when he put into motion the dysfunction we are now experiencing in our government when he said:
The Government is Not the Solution to the Problem;
Government IS the Problem.
Government, because it is made up of fallible human beings, is by definition, fallible, too. But we don’t need to cheer on its destruction, its dissolution, its dysfunction.
And so I will defer to President Obama, who reminded us all, whether we needed reminding or not, that there is a vital role in our country for the Federal Government. But a whole lot of folks had forgotten.
We hear all the time about how government is the problem. Well, it turns out we rely on it in a whole lot of ways. Not only does it keep us strong through our military and our law enforcement, it plays a vital role in caring for our seniors and our veterans, educating our kids, making sure our workers are trained for the jobs that are being created, arming our businesses with the best science and technology so they can compete with companies from other countries. It plays a key role in keeping our food and our toys and our workplaces safe. It helps folks rebuild after a storm. It conserves our natural resources. It finances startups. It helps to sell our products overseas. It provides security to our diplomats abroad.
So let’s work together to make government work better, instead of treating it like an enemy or purposely making it work worse. That’s not what the founders of this nation envisioned when they gave us the gift of self-government. You don’t like a particular policy or a particular president, then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election. Push to change it. But don’t break it. Don’t break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building. That’s not being faithful to what this country is about.
I will now return this blog to its normal realm of humor, things (other than the GOP) I think are stupid, and incredibly embarrassing situations I write about rather than telling them to people who can identify me.
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