Stuck Between Liberalism and Conservatism

Let me first say that I am neither a Democrat, nor a Republican. Some may call me a Moderate, but it is of my belief that moderates are just a mixture of whiny disgruntled outcasts from either party, who did not get everything they wanted. Some people say I waste my vote, while from the other face tell me how important my vote is, but only if I use it for their favorite candidate or political party. Despite what anyone says, I consider myself a 'consumer voter'. Like picking the best apple out of a basket, I compare the candidates available and make an informed decision based on personal research and the candidate's previous performance. If all of us this did this more often, we would probably have better candidates to choose from

Originally I was born a Democrat, and remained a loyal one until the middle of the Reagan era. My parents were true-blue, pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps FDR Democrats. My father would only drive a Ford, and proudly displayed their framed JFK full-page newspaper clipping with "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." printed on the bottom. My parents lived through a Great Depression, World War 2 and the Eisenhower years, remaining loyal to these Democratic ideals, and instilled them in me. I was happy being a teenage Democrat. I wholeheartedly supported the investigation into that evil Nixon administration. I admired the protesters who cried out, "No more war!" or "Equal rights for all!"

So what happened? What made this loyal Democrat turn from the party that nurtured him? This is a complicated answer that took a couple of decades to evolve. In simple terms, something a Democrat can understand, I just matured quicker and I don't like whiners. The party has moved away from the ideals of FDR and JFK. It is not so much that I changed, but the party has changed and expected me to blindly follow along with their slogans and rhetoric. These tactics were successful in the years after Nixon, when my naïve eyes could imagine a bright future. My generation, known now as the Blank Generation, believed our older hippie brothers and sisters when they told us of the changes they would make when they came into power. We believed their rhetoric about the earth, personal freedoms, individualism, and free speech.

So what finally happened after the hippie generation came of age? They were just different faces telling us the same things, and denying us personal liberties and use of verbiage. Flying around in jets and being driven in big engine limousines they tell us to conserve, even though thirty years ago we heard the same things from their then hippie lips. Who exactly are we conserving for? We cannot drill for oil because it will endanger a tree or a bird, but abortion and stem cell research are a-okay. Hug a tree but human DNA is expendable? We can call the President of our United States a Nazi, but you are a social outcast if you utter what is considered a derogatory description of a homosexual. I keep hearing about how bad the minorities have it. Well I am a minority, and I participated in the many programs Democrats insisted upon. I pulled myself out of poverty on my own initiative thanks to these programs we are still forced to pay taxes for. I made it out, so where is everyone else? And shouldn't these programs have worked by now? I am so tired of hearing that 'the man has got us down'. The tools are there, do something about it, or stop complaining.

These are the contradictions and denying of rights Democrats spew out of their mouths daily. 'Support Our Troops. Bring Them Home!' What kind of logic is that? Support our army, but don't send them anywhere. Isn't that the mentality that offered the opportunity for Japan to attack Pearl Harbor? At times Democrats act like children, and display temper tantrums with ludicrous reasoning when they don't get their way. What the Democrats do not realize is that the American people have grown wiser, and are beginning to see through all the smoke screens of unverified accusations, slogans and attacks.

Let me give you some examples. Have you ever been to a seminar where you work, for training or staff workshops? How do you feel when you are asked to pair off into groups and work out your assignment? Do you really think it is effective, or are you doing this school-age routine because you have to? In school when you were told the horrors of the evil gateway drug marijuana and how it would lead to harder drugs, did you know anyone that was a heroin addict? Today we are told that five million smokers die daily. Is this Broadway production really a shrugged off 'typo', or just a way of to hide the fact that anyone who smoked and died was counted, regardless of what they actually died of?

These tactics of half-truths, and then accusing the other side of doing the same things are getting to be tired and obvious. I think people are much smarter than politicians give us credit for. It used to be you could just shout out, "Nixon is evil." or "Stop the war!" and everyone would just join in. Then the hated veterans of Viet Nam came back and told their side of the story. That was when I first became aware that I had been listening to former middle-class hippies who had their parent's money to escape into college and complain from there.

Our older brothers and sisters protested for this, and protested for that. They painted pretty signs to get their message across, and claimed it was them that stopped the war. Maybe, but in reality we were in Viet Nam so they could drive on the rubber of their VW buses to the protest. In the end, they put down their protest signs, abandoning their flavor-of-the-month issues, and began thinking about themselves and their parents' threats of cutting off their money supply if they didn't get back to class. Remember the 'Me' generation? It was actually the same hippie generation only older, and more self-centered.

Americans are beginning to see through such feeble attempts of rhetoric mind control, and Democrats just don't get it. Stuck in a forty-year old hippie-tactic mud hole, Democrats refuse to recognize that people are not falling for the 'vote for change' slogans anymore, because in either party's hands nothing will actually change. Around fifty-one percent of the American population does not vote in a presidential election, and the numbers go higher locally. Fifty-one percent. That means that the majority of the American population does not vote. Why? Even though I do vote, maybe this fifty-one percent feels the same way I do.

Just think if there was a party that inspired this fifty-one percent to vote. Even with both of the major parties combined, they would lose because these non-voters are the actual majority of this nation. Whoever attracts this population could win an easily decisive election. Some people call my vote a wasted vote. But I see these same people quibble over menial things in a restaurant. If only they applied such standards to the people they voted for.

Even though candidates deny it, a dirty campaign works best for both parties. They have figured out that most people grow tired of dirty campaigns, and less of them will vote after finally being fed up with the whole affair. The reality is that dirty campaigns are part of the strategy. The less people who vote will make the few that do, appear like a majority. Dirty campaigns are actually intended to dissuade the majority of people from voting.

In any event, although both of the major parties may not need it, do you want my vote? Offer something more than the dribble you have propped up over the last twenty years. Inspire me, give me new ideas, challenge me, show me that you are interested not in yourself, but the whole of the American nation. Lose your special interests, because most of us cannot relate to them, and the money could be put to better use for the benefit of ALL Americans. Stop hating an alleged Big Brother when times are good, and blaming or running to him expecting a hand out when times are bad. Social acceptance goes both ways, so grow thicker skins.

Prove to me that you really care about this country, not with scripted words and slogans, but with action and leadership. Soldiers will willingly follow a lieutenant up a dangerous hill, only if the lieutenant has proven his courage and leadership abilities to them. Whoever can capture the public's imagination may not win the presidential election, but may inspire more participation, and prove to both parties that the influences surrounding them are not parallel to the ideals of the majority population of this nation. We can only hope.