Your rights-Your responsibilities

I cannot stress enough how much caution we all must take at the ballot box next election cycle.  Listening to the political rhetoric to make our decision on who we want to represent us is not only a huge mistake but could be catastrophic to our government.  If we cannot maintain a safe balance in our representative mix we could wind up in an industrial dictatorship or in a budget disaster worse than we have yet seen.  We must curb government spending without giving up control of our government to the industrial elite in this country.  The rich in this country have had their sites set on all of government for decades if not the entire last century.  Proof of that is in the extent that the role of our troops that has been privatized and the rise of the privately run prisons in the United States.  If big business continues to displace our troops, our armies will no longer be run by the government.  Instead of the President being the Commander and Chief of the armed forces it will have a CEO and a Board of Directors who will make command decisions strictly on profits rather than need for protection of the U.S..

Equally troubling is the privatizing of the responsibilities of the courts and prisons.  Incarcerating those that pose a threat to citizens is the responsibility of the legal system and should not be handed off to private for profit industry.  As soon as it affects someone’s bottom line innocent citizens are incarcerated to produce profit.  That is not to say that innocent people have not been wrongly convicted of crimes in the past but that was a failure of the system, not a for profit decision.  Privatizing prisons is just a short step from privatizing our police force which is an even shorter step to the police having to justify their jobs by increased arrests and convictions in the interest of profit.

I don’t ignore the fact that government run agencies are horribly inefficient and wasteful.  I also concede that private industry could possibly operate certain agencies more efficiently.  I must insist, however, that private industry would, more than likely, be more corrupt and certainly harder to control than the government agency especially if industry is allowed the type of access to government it now enjoys.  Big business should not be allowed to own the government any more than government should be allowed to own all industry.

It is very easy for the candidates, no matter what party they belong to, to say “I am going to cut the budget” or “I will work to balance the budget.”  What is important is that they tell you ‘how’ they intend to do that.  It is important that they know who they work for and if it is big business they need to say so.  It is important that YOU ask the right questions and seek the right answers to ALL the issues not just one that you find important.  Vote smart, vote independent.