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Something for you to think about

A group of 12 politicians from both parties were asked to suggest how to make us better educated as voters. Here are the results:

1. Learn by carefully listening – logically, without emotion – to each candidate to hone and confirm your values by recognizing those of each of them.

2. Teach kids well in advance to respect and honor political institutions that do good, and dislike those that don’t.

3. A huge problem is knowing how to rid big money out of politics.

4. Don’t rely on the power of labor unions any longer; there are only 7% of them left anymore.

5. Realize that there is no middle class any longer – only poor or rich on different levels, so know where you stand.

6. Remember: To run for political office, a person must be a pathological narcissist or, at worst, a darn good liar.

By now, your lines have been drawn for the upcoming election (called by most experts “the most important election ever”). You may have already voted or are still hanging in the air, waiting by the moment for some sign to send you in one direction or another. Perhaps these comments made by a remarkable writer for the Orlando Sentinel some years ago, written to enlighten us as well as to help in making future voting decisions:

– Politicians are the only people i the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

– Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits?

– Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation, we have inflation and high taxes?

– A hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices (545 human beings out of over 300 million)

are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague us.

– Special interests and lobbyists (and there are thousands) have no legal authority to coerce a senator, congressman or president to do one cotton-picked thing – but they do, and we let them do it.

– What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall.

– A president can only propose a budget; he cannot force the Congress to accept it.

– It seems inconceivable that a nation of over 300 million cannot replace those 545 people correctly. I cannot thinks of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 454 people. – if they fix the tax code, if the budget is in the red.

– There are no insoluble government problems. Those 545 people shift blame, but they and they alone have the power to improve things.

They should be accountable by we the people who are their bosses; we could vote them all out of offices and clean up their mess.

Finally, just for the record: Did you know it was proclaimed by Cicero in 55BC that “The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debts should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome becomes bankrupt. People must again learn to work instead of living on public assistance.”

What have we learned over time? Apparently not much yet.

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