The need for individual action and asking questions

Like many in America, I am disgusted with the political environment of today. But I think we're not taking the best steps to improve it. And it all starts with you and me; we need to step up to the plate and handle our own problems on an individual and local level instead of at the national level. One size has never fit all, and what might work for a little town outside of Austin, TX will probably not work (at least not in the best way) for someplace like Portland, OR.

What I see happening is the wrong questions are being asked of our candidates. (I'm not religious, but I feel the sting of a book title from 8 years ago: "If God Wanted Us to Vote, He'd Give Us Better Candidates.") We need to remember three key points:

• Our elected officials are our public servants. We can - and should - kick them out if they are failing in their duties.
• Each elected position is like a job, and we are the employers. You never want to hire someone without asking them questions and determining whether you can depend on them.
• Experience in elected office is not necessarily a good thing. It may mean that the person is part of an already bad system and not willing to change anything about it.
  

Our media is failing in these respects. It has not given us an accurate picture, and is no longer checking out everything before they report on it. Here is where we need to do more free thinking rather than listen to what we're told:

• The campaign ads are not how prospective employees would recommend themselves to an employer; it casts doubt on your manners and your integrity. So I believe that they should be ignored completely.
• Like her or not, Sarah Palin is getting the short end of the stick from the media. Lately I can't go to the market without some tabloid - I include People and US Weekly in this category - printing something negative about her. By contrast, Barak Obama has hardly faced any hard questions from the media, or had his past investigated by the "journalists" who dominate the news programs.
  
• Media biases run amok today. I've seen newspapers fail to note when a disgraced official is a democrat and not white. But anything "bad" about a Republican appears, and it's open season. Hardly equal opportunity employment conditions.
• Virtually nothing has been raised about Obama's connections with a minister whose words should alarm the average citizen. Yet I would bet my future children that if John McCain had connections to white supremacists, the media would be all over it.
  

How can it be okay to attack a mother who happens to be a Republican, and not okay to say anything negative about a man whose past is not mentioned in anything except a positive light? Or to make experience an issue with Palin and not with Obama? How can it be right to replace the old double standards with new ones that go in the opposite direction?

I want to see people - everyday people - asking hard questions of our candidates, and researching their records and past. I'm reading about both candidates, looking for the good and the bad about them, to make an informed judgment. I will admit, I'm inclined to vote for McCain and Palin, but I intend to be well-informed about it. I don't agree with some of the positions, and no one can expect us to agree on everything, but what information I have pushes me toward the position that they are the best choice we have available.

I will update this blog as I learn more, and when I see something that should be commented on from the standpoint of acting in the interests of responsible liberty. I started this blog because I felt someone needed to voice concern over how responsibility and individual action have been discouraged. When I have proposals for ways we could be more active and rely less on the government, I will post them.