Monday Musing: Playing Politics

It still cracks me up and is a total waste of time, but everyday now and again I have to check out the comment sections on certain websites.  Politico and Yahoo are my favorite because it seems like it is different people always saying the same thing.  I guess I check it because every now and again there are a few reasonable people out there and that gives me a little glimmer of hope for the world. The thing that cracks me up is the fact that whoever they support, whether it is the person on the left or the one on the right, the majority of them always justify the bad behavior of the one they like by pointing out the bad behavior of the one they are against.

For example a conversation usually goes like this.

President Obama Supporter:  Bush raised the deficit by 5 trillion dollars while he was president.
Romney Supporter: That was over 8 years in office Obama has raised it 5 trillion dollars and his first term is not even over yet
President Obama Supporter:  If Bush would not have screwed up so bad Obama would have a surplus
Romney Supporter:  Obama can keep his HOPE because the American dollar is now worth only a little bit of CHANGE

Blah..blah…blah…

It is all the same, my guy is better than your guy because he is not as bad.  It is pretty sad when things have boiled down to that, but why is that?  My two cents worth is that is pretty much how our leaders treat each other.  Romney kept his dog on the rough so he gets hammered for that then Romney’s people come out and point out that President Obama ate dog when he was overseas as a child.  Romney and Bain Capital shipped jobs overseas President Obama got in bed with GE who has more workers working overseas than they do in the United States.  It goes on and on and on.  The sad part is that the two candidates cannot be honest because if they ever do then the media pundits, depending on who they are rooting for, will hammer the person that is being honest and pick one of the following this candidate, (insert name) is “out of touch, too rich, spends too much, does not care about the poor, racist, war on business, or war on women.”

So where can we find the truth.  One would think that we could turn to some of those truths seeking websites, but we should be wary of those too.  For example even the Pulitzer Prize winning politifact.com sometime skirts the issue on their tracking and rating their campaign promises.  Republicans get a broken promise rating when they promised that they will reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by “ending their government takeover, the reasoning the promise is broken is because, “Reform bills introduced, but nothing has passed.” This is a “Broken Promise” which is easy to see.

However President Obama gets a rating of compromise for the time that he promised he “Will require his appointees who lead the executive branch departments and rulemaking agencies to conduct the significant business of the agency in public, so that any citizen can see in person or watch on the Internet these debates.” Although the President will require transparency, some agencies haven’t always followed through.  Sounds like a broken promise also, but maybe that is just me.

One bit of advice to anybody who agrees with anything that you just read.  We all have to do our homework.  Do not get stuck on one channel, one website, or one newspaper.  It seems like everybody has an agenda these days because there is way too much money to be made by those in charge.  Like I tell my students whenever they have an issue, do not make your sole decision based on the words of the person who told you, always look at their actions, do your homework, and make up your own mind.  I think if we all did that then our politicians on both sides of the aisle would remember that it is a government of the people, by the people, for the people.  Unfortunately too many of us see it as a government that needs to take care of the people and vote for who will give the people the most stuff.  If we keep doing that then we just might parish from this earth.

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