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Life Arts    H3'ed 7/13/13

Why a Better America Is Not on the Horizon

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Message Ian Hicks
North Charleston's 4th of July Festival
North Charleston's 4th of July Festival
(Image by North Charleston)
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North Charleston's 4th of July Festival by North Charleston

North Charleston's 4th of July Festival by North Charleston

North Charleston's 4th of July Festival by North Charleston

This Fourth of July my wife and I accompanied her sister and our nephews to the local park to view the yearly fireworks. As we sat there making small talk and people-watching, I couldn't help but feel less than optimistic about the future of our country.

The fireworks display is set on a major river that divides the town in half, with observers packed into one of the major city parks. The roads are closed to allow people to safely find a place to sit and view the show. However, the streets were blocked by crowds of people oblivious to their surroundings, due to their preoccupation with texting on their phones or eating greasy junk food. Discarded Doritos bags and fast food containers littered the ground. Everywhere you looked, there were masses of tweens, as well as new parents in their late twenties and early thirties, who seemed completely unaware of everything transpiring around them. Dozens of people lined up to use the Porta Potty near me, waiting well over a half hour in line, while a second lavatory sat unused 30 yards away. Groups of people simply sat or stood in the middle of the street, as opposed to the grass, blocking the pedestrian traffic trying to navigate the roadway. Cars waited in line staring at police officers and the erected roadblocks as if they might magically disappear. 

As I took all of this in I couldn't help but think, Is this the average U.S. citizen? Are these the people that we are trying to wake up? If they were made aware of what our government is doing, would they be able to comprehend it and, if they did comprehend, would they even care?

Sadly enough, I don't believe the majority of Americans do care about what is going on in our country. I have resigned myself to the belief that, until there is a major catastrophic event that upsets the constant stream of reality television, social media, mainstream media, Obama-phones, and government assistance, we others--those of us that are awake--simply do not have the numbers to affect the necessary change. And let there be no doubt in your mind, we need numbers.

There is constant talk that Americans should take to the capital like the Egyptians. Consider this: 22 million Egyptians signed the Tamarod petition, before thousands descended upon Tahrir square in protest.  Contrast this with one of the largest petitions in U.S. history, the one used to recall California governor Gray Davis. It cost potential candidates millions to hire paid signature collectors to gather approximately 1.6 million names. Likewise, one of the largest online U.S. petitions ever garnered a mere 248,000 signatures in an attempt to label Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group.

To compare apples to apples, Egypt was able to gather signatures from approximately 27% of their population prior to having thousands descend upon their capital. To represent the same percentage of the populace, a petition in America would need about 85 million signatures. To put that into perspective, every person in California, Texas, New York, and Indiana would need to sign. It's easy to see that the evidence suggests Americans are currently too complacent and fractured to unite in the numbers necessary to be taken seriously by the powers that be. There simply is no way, short of a major catastrophic event, to mobilize a significant number of people to action

With that being said, I truly do not believe we can vote our way out of this situation. We are essentially given a choice between two candidates that are for all intents and purposes clones of one another and, even if we were offered a true presidential candidate who is for the people, one politician cannot upend the current system. Nothing short of an armed uprising or a simultaneous replacement of almost all politicians occupying federal office by third-party candidates will affect the necessary changes to put our country back on the track to greatness. Unfortunately, this simply will not happen until the majority of U.S. citizens, the sheeple, are affected by something that matters to them. Unfortunately, it seems that losing their constitutional rights falls into the category of things that don't matter to them, no matter how much we wish it did.

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I am a currently unemployed College Graduate who is part way through his MBA. I love my country but I believe it has lost its way and needs to be once again elevated to that shining beacon on the hill.
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