First of all, welcome to my blog.

I am not a professional writer, rather, I work in the IT industry.  I am going to make horrendous grammatical errors, typo’s, and other forehead cringing mistakes.  If you can tolerate that flaw, we’ll be fine.  I’ll do my best to express my points without “murdering the teachings of how to express oneself using the English language.” 

Ever since I was in high school, I have had a passion for politics. I took a debate course to satisfy a prerequisite for a speech class and I was hooked.  Political discussion, I thought at the time, was important because policy from a national standpoint seemed to affect many of my classmates.  I used to listen to their views and came to the conclusion that elitism corrupts the young mind and sets rather gloomy expectations.  The disdain for government authority, or for that matter, ANY authority, was typical for those who chose to take debate class.  I was one of the few conservatives.  The thrill of making my fellow students and human beings uncomfortable most likely started here.

I started high school at the end of the Carter administration, when the country was suffering from a myriad of problems that blinded a simple country boy from Georgia who relied a lot on his faith.  Ironic that the Baptist teachings to a peanut farmer would lend itself to a very progressive, and failing national policy on just about everything.  His heart was certainly in the right place, but he was no FDR despite his best attempts.  At least, FDR was willing to go to war.

When Reagan came into office and gave us the “Morning in America” promise, many had become hopeful.  When the first few years proved difficult in bringing about Reagan’s vision, the media became hostile.  The negative news stories and strong opinions of how the Reagan revolution was turning in on itself inundated the population, and his poll numbers started to sink.  Only after the economic turnaround in 1983, did the public began to see his vision start to pay off which resulted in his record Electoral College demolition in 1984 against Walter Mondale.

The media, however, was still unforgiving, constantly questioning the policies of an administration where economic results were great, but where scandal began to appear.  The faults of an administration became front page in an effort to show that while Reagan commanded a great following of the people for bring America out its decline, the fourth estate was doing its job to highlight the indiscretions associated with power.   It was clear that, even with such good in a person, the actions of others can tarnish your achievements under the proper illumination of good journalism.  Reagan is regarded well among the retired journo’s and policy pundits of that time, but they still recognize, and often illuminate, his failures despite his domestic and foreign policy accomplishments that changed the world.

Fast forward to 2009 and you can see a transition from the days of where journalists keep a close eye on government to one of almost capitulation and adulation for a leader.  I am not one to disparage the Office of the President of the United States.  I certainly offer no ill will to the man himself, whom I believe is a good and decent person.  His policies, spoken word, and actions that drive his administration: fair game.  Except of course, when today’s news media assume everything he is doing is for the greater good, for your benefit.  This is where the media has failed America.

One of the founding principles of this country is an inherent distrust of the government.  The Articles of Confederation were a direct result of the distrust, where a weak government was in contrast the oppressive monarchy represented by King George III.  Of course, it was a colossal failure from the start.  The new Constitutional Republic formed in Philadelphia and pressed hard upon the people by its few, but eloquent supporters, gave us a stronger, and yet, still limited government.  People back then were very distrustful of a government, having lived for decades under British control that got worse over time.

Even then, the newspapers and journo’s were against it.  When the Constitution was ratified, things were quite tenuous.  Over time, though, the government became accepted and its elected leaders continued to strengthen its abilities to make it effective for the people, until FDR.  Today, the “mainstream” media has accepted that the government is good and that more control is even better, despite the historical record and obvious facts.   No longer do editors cast doubt on a government’s ability to do good: It’s widely expected that any government program will solve any problem, especially social issues.  And yet, despite that belief, there is not one scintilla of evidence that any government program has managed to meet its objective either in policy or legislative goals, not to mention benefited the country as a whole.

I suppose though, this is our fault.  We listen to candidates who “promise” to fix our ills, only to hear the same thing each and every election despite the glaring and obvious fact that the ills remain, and in most cases, re-elect the same promises.  President Obama said he would give us good jobs for the middle class, and yet, it’s the biggest declining class, while expanding the poor class.  Even the rich are getting richer.  He tells of the increasing wealth gap, but during his administration, that gap has increased dramatically.  The media, for its intended purpose, refuses to look into this because Obama is their man.  I would imagine the great pioneers of journalism are shaking their collective heads, wondering, indeed, what happened to all the principles they had worked hard to follow and build upon.

I could go on and on, however, these observations, though, are overly simplistic, but certainly true.   For me, the purpose of this blog is to express my opinion of what is happening and where we are going, and hopefully, to help others see what needs to be done to turn this around.  I will post many opinion articles and attempt to share my views on what I think we should do, or what I see happening.  There may even be a prognostication or two.  This will most likely be a one-sided debate, but I’m hopeful it will bring more people and ideas to the table.

Finally, I hope it will be as much thought-provoking as entertaining.  I am one who believes you can never take yourself too seriously. Some posts will be specifically to change the mood up a bit.  I hope you enjoy.