Get Organized, America

Perusing a few of my favorite websites and feeds for a worthy topic, I came across Just a Girl in Short Shorts Talking About Whatever - Fed Throws Up Hands & Wall Street Runs. In response I originally intended to leave a comment, but as usual I got carried away in my writing and decided it was becoming too long to just be a comment.

What my thoughts centralized around was that so few people even know what's going on outside the sphere of their own personal lives. I've been out of high school for half over two years and I'm starting to realize that this "world" or "society" that we all talked about in class was not quite the same as discussing Les Miserable or, unbearably boring as it was, The Scarlet Letter. No, this world around me has come into focus a substantial amount recently. Now, especially as the elections near and I actually take part in selecting a candidate to throw all of my support to (Ron Paul), I realize that what we need to do is maybe "cater" a little bit to people like my former self by taking part in the effort to spread truth and information in such a way that most people can come to understand.

People allow themselves to be blinded to things around them in favor of living out their own lives in ignorant bliss, or say they have too many problems in their own life to worry about it. Either way, it's irresponsible because it's enabling some pretty horrible things to come to be that our descendants will have to deal with. Though the economy is considered a pressing issue for this coming election, nobody really cares to talk about it. They'd rather watch news about celebrity gossip and tips for a healthier lifestyle that they're never going to follow. Never mind the fact that our economy is running out of anything useful to produce. Instead of some major export that does anybody any good, 70% of our economy is run by people buying lots of "toys" and other useless junk. Where does that leave us when the economy crashes? When jobs are scarce and pay cuts incurred around the nation, who's going to buy all of this garbage?

Many people realize that an out-sourced factory means that there are fewer jobs here in America. They may even take into account that this means we are sending these foreigners our money as well to provide the labor. What they don't realize is that every product we stop making here contributes to the increasing possibility that the US just might not last forever. When the economy's down and nobody's out spending the money we need to support our own country, what will we have to recover? If we had some major exports being made here, some products that were actually MANUFACTURED HERE and, maybe for a change, WORTH BUYING then we'd be able to buckle down, make some budget cuts (personally and nationally) and just focus on bringing the money in. Instead, things will probably just get exponentially worse.

The newer Bankruptcy laws are not helping like expected either. It seems as though expecting a person to pay back the loans and credit within five years is a just thing to do. It probably means lower payments then they'd already have. However, many people in this position got their homes at a low adjustable rate. These rates will definitely go up a lot in a very short time here. When these rates go up, it becomes less and less reasonable for a person to keep paying on their homes, their cars, AND their payments arranged when they filed for Bankruptcy. All in all, expect a lot of forclosures over the year 2008, and remember that each one of those is costing society money.

Then what about the oil that, as I've mentioned before, we could've been weening ourselves off of already for a few years? Prices are only going to go up, and that's more money flowing OUT of the country instead of IN. Instead of buying their oil, they could've been buying GM's EV1 models or a similar American product that actually held any value. Don't get me wrong though, it would definitely take a lot more than one product or one company.

As I write this, the national debt is at $9,173,759,902,852. Broken down, that means that each of us is essentially worth -$30,179.93. With everything that we don't make here, that number gets worse. Every barrel of oil we buy, every dollar we spend at war OVER THIS OIL THAT WE SHOULD ALREADY BE BREAKING FREE OF is another dollar/barrel closer to, quite possibly, the self-destruction of our nation.

At Immigration Counters, you can watch in real time the costs of illegals in our country. It's almost as scary to watch how quickly these numbers climb as it is to watch our debt climb. It's changing as I go so these numbers will in fact be MUCH different by the time anyone reads this, but here are some figures:

21,259,292 illegal immigrants in the US

$43,892,613,000+ wired to Mexico since 2006

$345,856,200,000+ wired to Latin America since 2001

$397,483,935,830 spent on social services for illegals

$14,913,529,435 spent on illegal children K-12

$1,485,070,305 spent on incarcerating illegals since 2001

10,268,034 jobs held by illegals here

To those humanitarians out there who think these people are no burden and deserve to be here as much as we do, here's some proof that they are in fact a huge burden. True, they deserve as good a life as the next guy, but not at the next guy's expense. Look at how they gather here in our country to fight for their "rights." If they gathered like that in their own countries, they could bring about some major reform. But, then, so could we to our own country if people learned to gather and fight in groups for the changes that need to happen.

That, to me, is the biggest problem. All of these issues would be irrelevant if people weren't so apathetic. Maybe apathetic is the wrong word. Many people care, they just don't prioritize the needs of the many above their own. I understand this in a lot of ways. Working as the factory worker under strict attendance policy, I wouldn't have left work for a rally to fight illegals or save the electric car at the risk of being unable to feed my wife, and soon my own child. The people who win and who make reforms are the people who can gather the largest organization of people. That's supposed to be one of the most important principles in America. Majority rules.

If you, like myself, come away from this blog with that "gotta get out and do something" feeling, go join an organization that shares your most passionate issues. For example, I'm a strong supporter of home schooling becuase I feel the education system of today is inadequate. People aren't honestly getting any smarter than they were before. If anything, the opposite is happening. I was watching "A Christmas Story" with my wife today, and I was blown away by the way Ralph's teacher was able to talk to the kids. Now, teachers talk down to the kids like they're all perpetually two years old. As a result, your average high school graduate speaks no better now than (s)he did by the end of elementary. I myself remember feeling like I was taking the EXACT SAME English class every year from seventh grade on. So, I got online and did a search for "Utah homeschool organization." From result #1 I'm off to a good start, Homeschool World: Utah Homeschool Organizations and Support Groups. Now, say I join and X proposal comes up threatening to take away my right to homeschool my children. If I belong to an organization, I have a good source to turn to to gather in large numbers and fight it. If I don't belong to an organization, I probably just sit there staring at the headline shaking my head and thinking, "Well that sucks."