A few thoughts on the elec­tion: I try to avoid the pol­i­tics, but this morn­ing I feel com­pelled to speak out. I stayed up late last evening to watch the elec­tion results in dis­be­lief.

  • Being a con­ser­v­a­tive.
  • Being a per­son who just wants to be left alone to work and live.
  • Being a per­son who believes in the Con­sti­tu­tion in it’s lit­er­al sense.
  • Being a per­son that believes that luck is when oppor­tu­ni­ty meets pre­pared­ness.
  • Being a per­son with a good heart, is pas­sion­ate about his work, and that gen­er­al­ly has a pos­i­tive out­look on life.
  • Being a per­son that is a real­ist.

I awoke the same way I went to bed at about 2:00 a.m. East­ern Time this morn­ing. I awoke feel­ing beat­en. I awoke feel­ing like the dream of life, lib­er­ty, and the pur­suit of hap­pi­ness, that truth, jus­tice, and the Amer­i­can way, that being an Amer­i­can is some­how, now dif­fer­ent from what it was as a child of the 80’s grow­ing up vague­ly remem­ber­ing sit­ting in the back seat of my par­ents car as a young child sit­ting in the gas lines for hours while my par­ents wait­ed for gas, as I now do as an adult in the state of NJ post Hur­ri­cane Sandy.

The upside, more peo­ple again came out this year and vot­ed than had in the past 20+ years of vot­ing. Peo­ple vot­ed for their sec­ond time ever. Sad­ly, they vot­ed for:

  • Per­son­al and busi­ness tax increas­es
  • Increased lever­age in the Sen­ate keep­ing them fur­ther from want­i­ng to com­pro­mise in the cen­ter to achieve goals of the peo­ple.
  • More exec­u­tive orders that will nev­er be pub­li­cized fur­ther lim­it­ing our free­doms
  • Fear for the First and Sec­ond Amend­ments are up for slaugh­ter as we know them.
  • More nation­al debt
  • Oba­macare, which will put doc­tors out of busi­ness, and make wait­ing for health care unbear­able for those that need it imme­di­ate­ly.
  • I fear for Israel and the changes that will come to the Mid­dle East in the com­ing years. They are on their own.
  • Ener­gy as we know it is going to change as we know it, and more jobs will be lost in that sec­tor.

I woke in a ver­i­ta­ble depres­sion. I woke look­ing out the win­dow not rec­og­niz­ing the street in which I live, although it is impos­si­ble for it to change less a nat­ur­al or man­made dis­as­ter. Iron­i­cal­ly, I had hope. I had hope for change. I had hope that our nation’s pop­u­la­tion was not a nation that would be look­ing for hand­outs. A coun­try that want­ed to get up and build itself again.

Yet I woke this morn­ing feel­ing the lib­er­ties and the free­doms that I believe in are about to change, for­ev­er, per­ma­nent­ly.  Did I think Rom­ney was the right alter­na­tive.  Hon­est­ly, I was­n’t sure.  Did I believe that Rom­ney could change the econ­o­my and cre­ate jobs in a frist term of a pres­i­den­cy?  I did not.  The jobs, sad­ly are per­ma­nent­ly gone from out econ­o­my.  They are all out­sourced and not com­ing home, both man­u­fac­tur­ing and admin­is­tra­tive in nature.  Very dras­tic mea­sure would have to have been made hurt­ing busi­ness at home to bring back man­u­fac­tur­ing.  But I will post a whole set of thoughts on that anoth­er time.

I feel noth­ing is going to change.  I feel noth­ing is going to get bet­ter for those that have been hurt­ing now for 5+ years.  I feel our Pres­i­den­t’s per­son­al agen­da will con­tin­ue to trump the needs of the peo­ple.  Will out incum­bent pres­i­dent mend fences, make change, and can we hope that he reach­es across the isle to make real com­pro­mise and make real change the peo­ple can believe in?  Again, I “hope” so, but my hope is gone.  My hope is fall­en through a hole in the floor.

Again, we as peo­ple must work hard­er to:

  • Earn less mon­ey
  • Watch the land­scape of our lives trans­form in front of us.
  • Watch the self enti­tled get hand­outs with­out try­ing to make change or inno­va­tion in their own or oth­ers lives
  • Watch int he next 12 — 36 months as we become like Greece as we go north of $20B in nation­al debt
  • Watch as our chil­dren’t future is fun­da­men­tal­ly changed before our eyes, ensur­ing that they have to make 300,000+ dol­lars annu­al­ly to eek out an aver­age liv­ing at best as adults, assum­ing they are ambi­tious enough not to be part of the hand­out sys­tem.

I fear we will no longer be the Unit­ed “States” of Amer­i­ca, but are not mov­ing towards the Unit­ed “State” of Amer­i­ca.  One in which we will not see the wheels of pros­per­i­ty, nor will we see the wheels of lib­er­ty.  I leave you now, lost in my own thoughts as I try to make sense of them by writ­ing this post.  I no longer know how to feel or what to think.  Every­thing I think I was taught about the exper­i­ment of our Repub­lic is falling apart before my eyes.  Am I going to be the sr. cit­i­zen that is sit­ting on the park bench in 30 or so years say­ing, “I remem­ber when we were free” in a whis­per to a child play­ing in the park?

One thing remains a fact, how­ev­er.  A fact that is unde­ni­ably as sol­id as a 100+ year old oak tree; that we have become a nation of sheep.  A nation of tak­ers, a nation where the enti­tle­ment mind­set trump human inno­va­tion?  Ques­tions for me to pon­der.  Ques­tions for you to pon­der.

I implore you to com­ment with your thoughts.  I am eager to learn what oth­ers are think­ing.  Even com­ment anony­mous­ly if you must.  I would still like to hear from you.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email