Why I Am SO Mad!

There is one thing that has made me more angry in this insane world of government shut down than any other thing. And it is one that does not even affect me personally. And yet this one act make me so angry I could spit and say something very unladylike. Which idiotic government action is it? (Are you waiting with baited breath, because there are several to choose from?)

It is the closure of EVERYTHING the government can lock up or barricade.

Open air monuments are closed. Roads are blocked. Barricades.  Locks.  Chains.  Signs: Keep Out! It has required more people, and more effort, and therefore more money to close these sites then to just let them be.

But I have no vacations planned and am visiting none of the sites that are affected. Why am I so angry?

I don't usually write about politics. Mainly because I hate it. That is a strong statement, but I truly do intensely hate politics.  I know a lot about it- my family members have been in it and some still work on it. I have been a part of long family discussions around the dinner table discussing the ins and out and pros and cons of positions and candidates.

But being so involved means I REALLY know what goes on in the inside.  In the back rooms. Where character and conviction have no place and there is no such thing as honor.  I have watched, powerless to change anything, as men with honor and conviction are ridiculed by the press and stabbed in the back by their colleagues.  I have seen and heard truth trodden in the dust of convenience. It is sort of like having been given a tour to a hot dog making factory and then never being able to eat hot dogs again.

So back to the point. I have really pondered: why do these closings make me so very angry? And then I figured it out.

This is a sign, a demonstration, a perfect piece of evidence that the government really does think it owns everything. They are barricading everything just because they can and acting like a bully who, because he is bigger and stronger, thinks he can push every one around and have his way whenever he wants. And because of his size he gets away with it....even if he is wrong.

It is like the kings of old who would rather have the people starve them let them hunt off the royal lands.

Yet there is a huge problem with this attitude. Our current government, in all its domineering, chest-puffing attitude has forgotten one very important principle. It is the principle that makes America different. It is the principle that has allowed freedom to continue. It is the principle that is ON THE LINE at this very moment. It is the the first three words of the constitution:

"We the people"

Our government, in our country, works FOR the people. It was stated perfectly by Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address:

"government of the people, by the people, and for the people."

If you climb over the barricades that have been guarded by up to 10 policemen, you can read these amazing words above Lincoln's head at his Memorial in Washington, DC.

This current government has forgotten one very important thing: they don't own anything. The people, as in the citizens of the United States, own it all!

Because if government monies went in to procuring land or developing a monument, where exactly did those monies come from? And then what about the fact that many monuments were largely funded by private donations in the first place? My husband's grandfather paid into the FDR Memorial so he would have had as much ownership as any arm of the government does. But if he were alive today he would not be able to walk up and touch it.

The current government has lost touch with the foundational principal that they work for us, that we own everything, and that they are employees not employers.

I guess I am mad because I don't like to be bullied. I don't like to pushed around. I hate injustice.

And not only am I angry, I am scared. I am scared that we are about to go hurtling over a cliff of government control from which we can never return. And then the freedoms upon which I was raised and of which I learned in school will be a thing of the past. And my children and my grandchildren will only be able to read about those freedoms, yet never enjoy them.

Does this make you mad too? Then let your Representative, and your Congressman, and you President know. Because, after all, they work for you!

Because if not now, when? And if not you, who?