Resurrecting the Voice of the American People

The Primary and General elections of 2008 have come and gone. And the Voice of Reason lies in state. It went down with a solemn and overwhelming vote for a promised cleanup of this country. What has become of this nation between then and now can only be described as utter confusion. This, in part is caused by the People--not the President.  Sadly, voter turnout continues to display a shameful lack of either patriotism or civic duty. Where other countries--such as those where we are willing to lose our lives to defend their sacred right to vote--have citizens willing to risk all to state their opinion about who their leaders should be, we, for the most part, couldn't care less. In fact, we leave the decision to the very few to decide for us our leadership, yielding our responsibility and our interest to others. What if those who vote on our behalf have values that are opposite to ours? Apparently it doesn't matter. What if those who vote in our stead know little or nothing about how our government works?  Oh well.  What if they are connected to all the things we claim are the problems in our system?  What if they need a translator to read the ballot? Too bad.

It is frighteningly too bad.  In Houston, the fourth largest city in the nation, less than 13% turned out to vote in the November 2011 election.  It was a "sleeper" by anyone's definition.  But sleeper or not, the act of speaking one's mind should never be considered optional. To Houston’s mayor, an incumbent who just won her second term, the sleeper was to her benefit.  After spending millions on her campaign and despite having relative unknowns for competition, she narrowly squeaked out a win.  What would have happened if the other 87% had turned up at the polls? Or, even 50%?  Surveys from before the Primary race showed Parker’s popularity dropping like an anvil—just above 30%, a statistical sign that she would lose the election.  Instead, the low voter turnout may have favored her.  This example is not the exception.  Across the nation, elections have dwindled to virtually nothing.

 In 2008, an election in Utah was won by 8% of the registered primary election voters, which retired one of the most statistically conservative Congressmen in the nation--Chris Cannon.  Excepting James Hansen, Cannon's record included the highest number of passed legislation in the history of the state of Utah. But 87% of the state's eligible voters said "so what?" by not showing up to voice their opinion.  So a minute cross section of society decided for the bulk of that district's citizens who was going to be their Congressman.  While the winner of that race, Jason Chaffetz often boasts winning by more than 60%, it was 60% of the 8% that showed!  Bluntly put, it was The Chaffetz People who decided for the rest of their district who would win because the rest blew off the importance of that election. As Congressman Cannon said it, "Chaffetz people came out and mine didn’t, the people have spoken."  But that is, as they say, history--a history that continues to repeat itself as Americans have yet to recover from their apathy. The operative word is "yet".

While the numbers voting in primaries across the nation in 2008 were still extremely low--a pattern over many previous elections--an undercurrent was building. The Obama administration, liberals and the liberal media (meaning, THE media) act as if that undercurrent is a deadly rip-tide caused by the Tea Party movement. News of their contempt for the Tea Party people is also history.  But a careful look around, across all political sectors, shows much more than a single movement emerging. Indeed, within the Tea Party movement itself, there is a diverse cross section of political perspectives that have come together with one force and one objective--reduce the size of the Federal Government.  Translation: cut the spending, cut the control of states, cut taxes, cut the crap. But outside the movement, splinter movements, and other conservative movements have emerged. It is a focus that has proven to scare the bejeebers out of liberals.  The obvious answer is to label (or libel) the Tea Party movement as a specific kind of people--"Bigots" to divide and conquer, "white" to split the vote, "paranoid" to divert attention from constitutionally destructive maneuvers, "extremists" to prove they are not normal, and "Republican, or former-Republicans" to put a party label on them. Nice try.

If anything, those attempts have only spawned the growth of American activism.  Thus, a new strategy must be implemented to calm the grassroots rip-tide.  That new strategy happens to be the oldest: Fight fire with fire.  Now comes, Occupy Wall Street--the antithesis of anything Tea Party in a movement. Well, sort of.  The movement has yet to be defined. In fact, watching a clip from Steven Colbert, who interviewed, with his classic sarcasm intact, two Wall Street Occupiers(OWS), should put to rest any questions about the legitimacy of this so-called (counter) movement's ability to define itself, produce any viable solutions, or prove it is anything different than the same 'ol, same 'ol in political griping and having a cause without actually having one. To be fair, OWS and past "anti-" protests are not the same.  The Tea Party is actually an "anti-" protest. But even the radical protesters of the 60's--despite communes, and communism, "free love", and free drugs, as horrific as those "changes" were--would not have defecated in public for attention, or stepped in front of moving vehicles so they can claim to be victims, or create riots then innocently look around as if they had done nothing to start the conflagrations. Even the rioters of the 60's, and 70's had the strength of character to claim their role in them. –And despite their liberal and outlandish living--had a sense of dignity. So, while Soros, who funded Adbusters, whose president, Kalle Lasn (a Canadian), started Occupy Wall Street as a social experiment, expected this latest strategy to take down the insurgence of activism from regular Americans a notch or two, it will fail as well. The differences are far too glaring for the public to not easily promote conservative activism over the OWS mess.  Another nice try.

Exercising our voice is the most important check in the Constitution and the most challenging to maintain. The fact is that there are people from all walks of life emerging from the ground sick and tired of an acid reflux government.  The people may not see the ulcers forming, but they sure feel it in the gut!  Unfortunately, there are still far too many Americans willing to blindly go their way without a single care about what is actually happening to their society. It is a frightening paradigm.  Milk of Magnesia has been, at least up until now, readily available and pretty cheap.  

This kind of American is like the cat, who believes that because its head is hidden--and it can see nothing--that its backside is safe when it remains openly and fully exposed. For this American, slowly but surely becoming extinct, their rude awaking is still at hand.  Benjamin Franklin warned that apathy will destroy this Republic as our country's system will not survive if we are careless and cowardly.  That has turned out to be prophetic with our current President.

Interestingly, rip-tides are caused from two opposing forces crossing over and under each other.  One creates a strong push forward from the top while a vacuum-like suction from below pulls everything out to sea.  Thus, riptides are the cleanup crews of beaches and shorelines.  "Rip-tide" may be an apt and flattering description of the Tea Party and subsequent activism of the general population--cleaning up the system. It is no wonder apathy is the worst fear of Founding Fathers such a Franklin.  Without it there is no rip-tide to clean up collusion, corruption, cronyism and so forth. It is also no wonder those involved in the latter fear the upswing in American activism. Instead of fearing the rip-tide, let us help it along with more water to increase the tide for the coming election.

Our survival as the Republic we were designed to be depends on our activism at the polls and in our daily opportunities to speak up and out.