SageSuggestions : 2012-01-15

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

GOOD QUESTION

Well here we are again in the middle of our ongoing, seemingly never-ending, Presidential elections and being treated to debate (?) after so-called debate (?). From what I have seen these made for television sessions would not make a pimple on the behind of a real debate. For purposes of comparison, you might visit: Lincoln vs. Douglas and see what a real Presidential Debate should be like.

In our media driven world most of us are exposed to those who would be our President through these staged events where the questions seem to be couched in terms designed to create controversy between the candidates on stage rather than solicit answers which might help us choose the right person for office. Since most of the questions are written by the media or party operatives they are suspect to start with.

We are offered questions from the public either in person or through the various social media. One can only wonder about the criteria used in selecting which will actually be presented for an answer. In fact it matters little where the questions originate the answers are generally slightly related to the question. If you watched any or all of the debates have you ever heard a qustioner ask for a specific solution to one of the myriad of problems facing this country? Even if you were fortunate to get some sort of real answer to a question, it would, more than likely, be a solution proposed by one of the candidate's many "advisors" not from the candidate himself.

How then are we to decide who we should support for President? As a local TV station says "good question". In Lincoln's time, and even Truman's, candidates went out and talked to the people. They made speeches from the back of a railroad car, local park, and even a small town square. You could hear their words not something from a hired handler. Now this type of exposure is hardly possible today, unless you live in Iowa or New Hampshire, due to the shear size of our country. Incidentally, it's a good bet the number of votes cast in these critical primaries combined, are less than those cast for a Mayor of a medium sized city. Even if these candidates did take the time to go out and speak to the people the words would be vetted and controlled by those running each campaign. In no way would any candidate be allowed to utter a single sentence or phrase which could come back to haunt the campaign later on. Every answer, speech, interview, and response, is sanitized behind the scenes.

So once again you ask: How do I decide? GOOD QUESTION!

The Declaration of Independence

When in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their CREATOR with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness - That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Format of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying it's Foundations on such Principles, and organizing it's Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate the time Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes, and accordingly all Experiences hath shewn, that Mankind more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinced a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.

(The specific grievances are listed as is the Declaration of breaking the connections with Great Britain.

56 patriots (YOUR FOREFATHERS) signed the Declaration of Independence knowing they would be accused of Treason against the Crown and condemned to Death if caught!

YOU CAN READ THE REST OF THE DECLARATION ON LINE at: www.archives.gov>exhibits>charters

Gettysburg Address

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place--for those who have given their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate--we cannot concecrate--we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who have struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember, what we say here but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from this earth.
Abraham Lincoln

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Tuesday, January 17, 2012

GOOD QUESTION

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