MFIllini5,
The whole "free market, personal freedom, do whatever you want, buy a 1000 hp Challenger because you can afford it, environmentalists stopped refineries" theory doesn't hold water.
Sorry, I can believe this statement or my own lying eyes. I'll go with what I have seen and continue to see. I live outside of NYC, as such, I peer into their culture through their local media. What I get to witness is Environmentalists clamoring to shut down the Indian Point Nuclear Power plant while at the same time whining about having power deficits and perpetual brown outs.
Government is a reflection of the people and while I'm not so magnanimous as to give my talent to the lowest possible bidder for the good of the whole and be virtuous and altruistic and completely selfless....arghh.....I'm getting queasy at even typing this mellifluous dreck..... If I were born of privilege, then I would certainly be compelled to give my talents so benevolently with no or less than fair market value for my skills, knowledge and abilities...BUT...being that I grew up scrapping and wanting what others had (sure relegate me to avaricious shallow person, but I'm not only a few real material treats Chally being one and best), I guess I was tempered to be driven to look out for me and my family FIRST, friends second, community after and so on.....BUT gettting back to Government being a reflection of the people it serves, I think you're missing some key components in your observations. I think the pervasive problems in our country can't so quickly, conveniently and easily be attributed to the boogie man as personified by you as
Meanwhile corporations have infiltrated the federal government and essentially locked us out of it.
though I believe there is some truth in this, I believe it starts at culture as government, again, is a reflection of the people it serves (at least right now ours is supposed to as long as it remains a Democratic Republic), and the culture has been, IMNSHO, largely degenerated, gelded of spirit, spoon fed, given too much and expected of too little. Politicians don't lead they follow (polls, and when you follow the people blindly you teeter on mob rule, true democracy is not always the best thing) I think of my grandfather's generation not so far from mine and the sacrifices made by the entire culture and expectations and OLD FASHIONED morals, people of PRINCIPLE, and I think of what my generation is and where it's going and that's why I ruminate of a restart.
I find this statement:
"I am unlike most people, in that through my job I aim to give back to others."
particularly offensive (not only for its imbued tone of martyred self aggrandizement) as it is naively, utterly and completely flawed in logic and contradicts the very PRINCIPLES (that tenuously remain) this country was based on being free enterprise and CAPITALISM. To take a position that you are SO righteous is a specious folly. The cold hard fact is we are all cogs in a machine (at least those of us who work) and as such OUR JOBS EXIST (ALL OF US) because we "give back to others" otherwise there'd be no value in our existence, no merit for our compensation and we'd be shiftless neerdowells prospering on the GOVERNMENT (who determines WHOM shall both provide and receive philanthropy thusly forcing their very particular morals on us) teat. We give back or we become unemployed.
As for those who "whine about the government" and do nothing; I have to defer that point to you, unfortunately there are not enough people who are passionate about their "Government Job" to really try to offer the people they serve value rich return for their taxes. It is easy and therapeutic to whine (about for the most part a grossly inefficient organization who coerces you out of your income to do things on behalf of you), but you're right where apathy goes unchecked great civilizations slide and eventually perish. Th