As I continue down this windy path we call life, bits of my innocence are recycled on a daily basis and converted to cynicism. If I don’t keep this process in check, I will turn into my grandfather in less than 5 years. Often times I realize the only true way to stop or reverse the cynical evolution of me is to ignore people and the way they behave. The more attention I pay to people around me, the more I lose faith in the human race. Never could there be a better example of this than in politics. I didn’t like elections or the people running for office in my 4th grade class, and the same goes for our local, state and federal levels. Popularity contest after popularity contest, it just gets more and more tired to me. We run around deciphering between the evils that are lying to us across the board.
What kind of person dedicates their life to appeasing people around them and winning elections? And why is the general population continually surprised when these folks consistently turn up shady goings on in their private lives? Open your eyes people!!! Politicians are slimy. I suppose there is a component of wanting to help make the world a better place (I can’t help but hear Jon Bender scolding Brian Johnson in the library) but this is less than half the story for these people as far as I am concerned.
The votes are currently being tallied. I better sit down before I pass out from excitement.
Sadly, our society is based on popularity contests; politics of every sort saturate nearly every aspect of our lives. And, yes, how the hell do you explain someone who devotes their life to such a nonsensical ass-kiss fest? What kind of person really needs that much attention? Or worse yet, what about those who aren’t even directly involved, that feed into it by actually becoming engrossed in the whole thing, and fuel the whole circus by giving it the necessary attention and reason to continue to exist. To ignore it altogether probably isn’t the best solution, but really what can you do when you’re the minority in the majority, so I’d consider it the lesser of the two evils and other than that I suppose you just keep aware and wait it out and make your stand within your own way of life. Let’s face it; most people don’t care to make the amount of effort it would take to change things, and those that do have too minuscule effect.
So in a Democracy we live and thrive, also we will suffer and scold the continual merry-go-round of terms served, political fund raising and elections held. In the middle of the ride we stop and think how little to nothing gets accomplished. Big ideas get shot down (like transportation bills) and status quo wins out.
I’m so tired of short sighted minds shooting down big idea people. The folks who try to build something to accommodate the growth of our region in hopes of allowing us to grow together end up targets of ridicule and greed because those who NEVER SPEAK OUT can finally be heard through their votes. That’s great. Good vote sir/madam. Do you have a solution you can share with the group or does your plan end at your vote?
Here’s a lesson for you…
Everything is expensive. Nothing gets cheaper. There is no easy way out of mending a grid locked region that grows by the thousands every year!! Sometimes you’ve got to pay up instead of hiding out in your burrows believing the inevitable will some day change.
Some day a transportation bill will pass because we won’t be able to move. Developers will continue to build farther and farther away from epicenters and downtowns in hopes of finding the perfect suburbia where everything you need is in your own little neighborhood and “why would you ever leave?”. The farther and farther we go, the more disconnected we become from each other until one day we look around us, and we realize we now live in our own version of Los Angeles- where it takes an hour to go anywhere at anytime. Sometimes it takes four hours if there’s an event. That day will come.
Then and only then will the quiet voices that are never heard finally speak out and say, “WE NEED A SOLUTION!!” We’ll pass a bill to fix the transportation system that will be extremely high tech and efficient. It will serve the millions of residents that funnel on to our roads and highways everyday and we’ll finally feel reconnected to each other and it will be great… and it will only cost four TRILLION dollars.
Thank goodness we bit the bullet when we did, huh?
On the flipside, if school levies continue to go down like Monica Lewinsky, there won’t be anyone around smart enough to devise a transportation improvement.
As the youth of America get dumber and dumber, do I effectively become smarter and smarter by comparison?
Suddenly I’ve talked myself out of ever voting yes for school levies!