Thursday, June 18, 2009

Letter From a Citizen

This is a great letter!

I am Janet Contreras, a concerned, home-grown American citizen. I am 53, and I have been a registered Democrat all of my adult life. Before the last Presidential election, I registered Republican because I no longer feel the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. I now no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me.

There must be someone, please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me you are there and are willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please do it now.

You might ask yourselves what my views and issues are that I would feel so horribly disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me? These are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:

* Illegal Immigration—I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S. I am not a racist. This not to be confused with legal immigration.

* TARP Bill—I want it repealed and no further funding supplied to it. We told you “NO!” but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze! Repeal!

* Czars—I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the Czars. No more Czars. Government officials answer to the process not the President. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.

* Cap & Trade—the debate on global warming is NOT over, there IS more to say.

* Universal Health Care—I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don’t you dare pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!

* Growing Government Control—I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Please mind your own business; you have enough to do with your REAL obligations. Let’s start there.

* ACORN—I do not want ACORN or its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them on every real estate deal that closes. Stop all funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audit and investigation. I do not trust them with the taking of the census or with taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before the taxpayers get any further involved with them. It walks like a duck and talks like a duck—hello… stop protecting political buddies. You work for the people. Investigate.

* Redistribution of Wealth—No. If I work for it, it is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth I support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do want me to hate my employers? What do your have against shareholders making a profit?

* Charitable Contributions—although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities where we know our needs best and can use local talent and resources. Butt out, please. We want to do this ourselves.

* Corporate Bail Outs—knock it off! Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we will be better off just getting to it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful, like ripping off a band aid. We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us a chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.

* Transparency and Accountability—how about it? No really, let’s have it. Let’s say we give the “buzz” words a rest and have some straight, honest talk. Please stop trying to manipulate and appease me with cleaver wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.

* Unprecedented Quick Spending—stop it, now. Take a breath. Listen to “The People.”
Let’s just slow down and get some more input from some “non-politicians” on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law.

I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant nor a violent person. I am a mother and grandmother. I am a working woman. I am busy, busy, busy and tired, tired, tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawns and wash our cars on weekends, and be responsible, contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same, all the while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.

I entrusted you with upholding our Constitution and believed in the checks and balances to keep you from getting too far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think that I find humor in hiring a speed reader to unintelligibly ramble through a bill you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not! It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face! I am not laughing—the arrogance!

Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it, but you expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children? We did not want that TARP bill. We said “NO!” We would repeal it if we could. I am not sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all the recent spending. From my perspective, it seems that you have all gone insane.

I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back!

You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington.

http://glennbeck.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/06/17/an-open-letter-to-our-nations-leadership/#more-503

Friday, June 12, 2009

Living Under a Rock

Today at noon, all major TV stations will switch to broadcasting their content in all digital format, and the majority of analog broadcasting will cease.

All but the highest-end TV's manufactured prior to 1998 lack the circuitry to receive DTV broadcasts on their own. However, anyone that subscribes to cable or satellite service is able to receive digital signals by default, because of the coverter boxes those services provide.

The transition has been in the works for over ten years. The relentless public awareness campaign began over two years ago, and was designed to ensure everyone that had an analog TV and over-the-air antenna was aware and informed of steps they need to take in order to continue watching TV. The full-on assault on public ignorance included commercials with dancing TV's, catchy songs, easy to remember steps, multiple websites, advertisements in every media imaginable, and even mobile "DTV Transition" trucks that set up in high traffic areas to get the word out.

The conversion date was set for February 17, 2009. But, the liberal Democrats, always the champions of the limp, lame, lazy and ignorant, threw a fit about people being unaware and unprepared (even after a two-year media blitz) and succeeded in passing legislation that pushed out the DTV transition four months, into June, where we are today.

Today's news headlines point out today is the day and, tipping their hats to the liberal Democrat nanny-state coddlers, most of the press calls out that "millions" will be left out and will be unable to watch TV. Despite the dancing TV's, full page ads, and unprecedented publicity about the change, news snippets shriek, "...likely stranding more than 1 million unprepared homes without TV service", "More than 2 million households are in danger of seeing their major broadcast TV channels disappear into a fuzz of static...", "About 2.2 million homes still not DTV ready", etc. etc. etc.

Evidently there was a survey taken by an "association of broadcasters", and that is where the numbers come from. Logic dictates that by simply answering a survey about a subject, you become aware of it if you weren't aware before.

The country is a big place. I'd venture to say that the number of households that are prepared for this switch are higher than 98%. Yet the media is trumpeting the plight of those poor, disadvantaged 2%, who are unprepared. At this point, there really is no excuse. Either those 2% are living under a rock, willfully ignorant, or just don't care.

Why is it that the media wants us all to feel outrage towards the transition? Why do they want us to feel sorry for those that will be "left in the dark"? At what point is it OK for us to be proud of our advancement into the digital TV age, and proud of our preparedness to do so, without the transference of guilt and shame by the media for leaving the small percentage of non-participants behind?

This is still America, and much to the chagrin of the nanny-state liberals, there are still expectations that people take personal responsibility for themselves and their standards of living despite the socialist & Marxist agenda of the current administration. The day that the government relieves the people of their personal responsibility for themselves is the day I move to another country.

So I say to all those that are being "left behind", willfully or not: get out from under your rock and participate in America, before someone does it for you.