Presidential Visit
President Bush visited Rochester yesterday pushing his social security plan. That in and of itself isn't really worth a post as far as I'm concerned. He pretty much stacked the deck at this thing and no one seriously opposed to it was in the room. However, this is not why I'm posting.
While watching news reports of the visit, the station spoke to some of the people protesting the President's policies. They then cut to a woman upset with the protesters. Her comment was essentially (nearly word for word), "If they like America then they should go somewhere else and get out." That really annoyed the hell out of me. If there's one thing I cannot stand, it's this America Love It or Leave It attitude.
Now, I'm not what you would call a big patriot. I'm not one of these flag waving God Bless the USA kind of guys. While I agree this is a great country to live in, I by no means think the US is the best country on the planet or something. There's other great places in the world to live where you can have just as good a quality of life. Sure, it would be different, but not necessarily worse.
Here's the thing, though. For those Love It or Leave It types, I think they have it completely backwards. After all, what kind of person gives up on something because it's broken? The kind that doesn't really care in the first place. If you REALLY love the USA, then if you see something as broken, wrong, or unjust, you should do everything you can to fix it. What it really boils down to is the Love It or Leave It faction doesn't want to bother to think. God forbid someone should have a point of view different than theirs or make them have to evaluate their beleifs. Because we all know it's too much work to actually find information, research a topic, and form an opinion based on what you find. So much easier to let someone else do your thinking for you. After all, the President must know best because he's the President. Or more likely, the President knows best because he's a Republican President who is not a no good fillanderer like Bill Clinton was and is a God fearing Christian so he must be right.
I'm sorry, I prefer not to leave my brain in a jar on the nightstand in my bedroom. A lot of people do not believe in the current administration's policy. They should speak up. After all, if enough people speak up, perhaps someone in Washington will wake up and realize that the People, whom they are supposed to represent, want things to go in a different direction. I personnaly think this social security plan is a bad idea. Bush is saying that having these personal savings accounts are like 401k accounts. How many of you out there got screwed about 2 years ago when the stock market tanked? Everyone's 410k accounts lost half their value in a few months. Has your's recovered yet? Mine haven't. Do we really want Social Security, which is supposed to be a saftey net of sorts, to be suceptible to these fluctuations in the market? Certainly, there are problems with the current social security system. But I don't think Bush has the right answer. And his problem is a large part of the country agrees with him. He's made the mistake of pissing off the AARP. Those people VOTE. The younger audience he's trying to convince doesn't turn out for elections anywhere near as much as the older folk.
To finish off, let's have a new slogan out there, America, Help Fix it or Shut Up.
While watching news reports of the visit, the station spoke to some of the people protesting the President's policies. They then cut to a woman upset with the protesters. Her comment was essentially (nearly word for word), "If they like America then they should go somewhere else and get out." That really annoyed the hell out of me. If there's one thing I cannot stand, it's this America Love It or Leave It attitude.
Now, I'm not what you would call a big patriot. I'm not one of these flag waving God Bless the USA kind of guys. While I agree this is a great country to live in, I by no means think the US is the best country on the planet or something. There's other great places in the world to live where you can have just as good a quality of life. Sure, it would be different, but not necessarily worse.
Here's the thing, though. For those Love It or Leave It types, I think they have it completely backwards. After all, what kind of person gives up on something because it's broken? The kind that doesn't really care in the first place. If you REALLY love the USA, then if you see something as broken, wrong, or unjust, you should do everything you can to fix it. What it really boils down to is the Love It or Leave It faction doesn't want to bother to think. God forbid someone should have a point of view different than theirs or make them have to evaluate their beleifs. Because we all know it's too much work to actually find information, research a topic, and form an opinion based on what you find. So much easier to let someone else do your thinking for you. After all, the President must know best because he's the President. Or more likely, the President knows best because he's a Republican President who is not a no good fillanderer like Bill Clinton was and is a God fearing Christian so he must be right.
I'm sorry, I prefer not to leave my brain in a jar on the nightstand in my bedroom. A lot of people do not believe in the current administration's policy. They should speak up. After all, if enough people speak up, perhaps someone in Washington will wake up and realize that the People, whom they are supposed to represent, want things to go in a different direction. I personnaly think this social security plan is a bad idea. Bush is saying that having these personal savings accounts are like 401k accounts. How many of you out there got screwed about 2 years ago when the stock market tanked? Everyone's 410k accounts lost half their value in a few months. Has your's recovered yet? Mine haven't. Do we really want Social Security, which is supposed to be a saftey net of sorts, to be suceptible to these fluctuations in the market? Certainly, there are problems with the current social security system. But I don't think Bush has the right answer. And his problem is a large part of the country agrees with him. He's made the mistake of pissing off the AARP. Those people VOTE. The younger audience he's trying to convince doesn't turn out for elections anywhere near as much as the older folk.
To finish off, let's have a new slogan out there, America, Help Fix it or Shut Up.
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