Dear 21st Century

Dear 21st Century.

I am here to comment on the future I see, a future that has wound through history to arrive in this present. The advances in some things have been so incredible as to take my breath away. From the horse and buggy to rockets and men on the moon is indeed wondrous. The progress of relations between black men and white men has not moved so quickly, but has at least it has continued to move forward. But the government I truly believed was “of the people, by the people, for the people” has become of the politicians, ignored by the people, for big business.

I have a hard time fathoming how most Americans can not care how their lives are being run, and those that seem to care, care only about complaining. As wrong as I felt the Confederacy was, it was a people standing up for what they believed and taking action. People that knew what was at stake, elected leaders they trusted and supported them. For the Americans on both sides that cast their lots to eternity for this country’s great ideals, it is imperative that all those who follow must maintain vigilance over the course of this country and its leaders.

It is time for the people to reunite this divided house. It is up to every person to plant the seed of honor, of honesty, of the next future, in the present before we destroy ourselves. If we do not reclaim our government soon it will not be worth retaking. If we use not our ballots we will be forced back to bullets when the safeguards of our liberties are removed from the constitution. If you do not have the heart to help I beg you to hold your criticism of those that stand against the tide of injustice. With truth we can meet any crisis and now is the time to demand truth from our leaders, and part from those who lack integrity.

It is hard to talk ill of my great country, but it is harder yet to look upon a people that are not wiser today then they were yesterday. If you want to be proud of this place you live, you must live so this place will be proud of you. My great concern is not with whether the government has failed, but whether the people are content with that failure. Do not be content with anything less than excellence in your leaders, and do not confuse affluence with excellence. With an assault of ballots we the people can overthrow, not the constitution, but the men who pervert the constitution.

Sincerely
Abe

Veto the line item veto.

Pork, pork barrel spending, hardmarks, softmarks, earmarks. They keep changing the name but it is all the same thing. Politicians inflating the budget by adding unnecessary crap to needed bills. There have been a couple of attempts to give the president line item veto, but what good would that do? If congress passed a bill that really was needed and the people wanted it, but the majority of those that voted for it was of the other party, the president could line item veto the good parts, and the oppositions pork while leaving his own party's pork intact. Not a good idea at all.

What I say we need is a concise bill into law that requires every line on any new bill must be directly related to and reference the 1st line of the bill or the line directly preceding it. Sure this would mean there would have to be a lot more bills going through congress, but they would all be of manageable size and the politicians might actual read a few of them. Does anyone think any of the Senators or Representatives actually read the over 2000 pages of the current health care bill before voting on it. Or even the 451 pages of the bail out bill. I seriously doubt it.

Somehow the pork has got to stop.