Comment on Tea Parties

Today across the nation, Tea Parties were held supposedly to demonstrate outrage at where our tax money is going. The analog being the Boston Tea Party which protested the taxation without representation in King George's court.

Well the last time I checked, the people voting on the spending of our tax dollars were duly elected. Possibly without revealing their true intentions but were duly elected by the majority of the people that they are supposed to be representing.

Obviously, the President, whom many attending these tea parties blame, cannot be removed for 4 years. But the Congress can be changed and probably will be to some extent during the next election. But consider this, no one said it was going to be easy to turn this country around. No one said the choices would be easy. But we are Americans, we have always pulled ourselves up by our boot straps and gotten the job done.

Lately, we have become a nation of whiners, complainers, blame the other guy, etc. We as a nation have failed to take responsibility for our actions. Instead of insisting on the truth, we sadly sit by and morosely wail about what this country is coming to. How can this happen to us? We let it happen. We blindly accepted as truth the rantings of people who really did not know as much as they and we thought they did.

We have become a nation of 'I got mine, who cares about everyone else'. Well if you don't care about your neighbor and he happens to be recruited by a radical organization, who do you think he is going to come after. The guy who got his first. A bit far a field but not by much. Look around your neighborhood, how many houses have been foreclosed, how many of your neighbors are out of work, how many properties have been on the market for months or even years before they finally sold.

Do we need to watch how our tax money is being spent, of course we do. But you don't resolve anything by following pundits of the flash and dazzle. You research. Everything is on the internet. Even things you don't want there someone can find. Get informed, listen to many voices, not just those that shout the loudest.

The truth is out there, it isn't pretty and wrapped up in a pink ribbon. Not everyone is going to like it or even agree. But it is what we as Americans believe in, it is our right to know the truth or as much of it as we want to know. But don't blame someone else for your shortsightedness. Don't trot out the old revolutionary war cry and try to make it work for today.

This is still the greatest country on earth and I for one would rather live here than anywhere else. Do I like paying taxes, no and I grumbled the entire time I was working on them. However, without taxes there would be no schools, no roads, no police, nothing that we so casually take for granted.

Use your common sense and be part of the solution, not contributing to the problem.