An Early 4th of July Thought....

It seems like everybody is miserable.

This seems to be a universal position. Everybody is bitching and moaning about something. If you are a Communist Lefty you are unhappy with the Right and continued ineptitude and failed policies of your Savior. If you're on the Right, you are incensed about Obama and his trashing of the Constitution and middle finger to Allies like Israel and Great Britain. If you are out of work, you are like 30% of the rest of the country and wondering when benefits will run out and whether a job opening will surface for which you are not over qualified. If you own a business, you are wondering when the government will finally back off and allow you to operate in a "semi" free market economy and not add to the unemployment numbers. If you hate Summer, you are bitching about the heat. If you hate big business, you are bitching about BP and the Gulf fiasco.

If you hate....you get what I mean.

The point I am trying to make is that it seems nobody is happy. At a time when the sun comes up in the East everyday, you can still draw a deep breath, and your children still love you....why is everything so exacerbated and full of intolerance and dare I say hate??

I'll tell you why: Americans took our hands off the wheel and allowed all the mother fuckers in government (Donkeys and Elephants) to sell us out. Factor in an infantile President for the last 20 years (present office holder included) and we have had this recipe for disaster brewing.

The American people have become more concerned with watching Lost or American Idol, then what their Congress has passed or failed to regulate over the last two decades. We have willingly been led to the altar and sacrificed as we were lured in by the Tech Bubble, the Real Estate Bubble, the Mortgage Bubble without ever questioning the fundamentals behind them.

We have no stomach for a protracted conflict in the Middle East because it is not convenient to us--regardless of big picture consequences. We would rather fall for bull shit straw men by complete idiots like Michael Moore, Bill Maher or Sean Hannity than actually study an issue and come up with an informed opinion. (I will not include Jon Stewart in the mix because although I do not agree with his politics, I do not find him an idiot.)

We have allowed our excess to make us insulated from the real world. Mind you, I am a hardcore capitalistic, fiscally conservative but socially liberal Republican. I will tell you from years of business ownership that once you relax, you become the second place finisher. We have relaxed through the Bill Clinton (an era of absolute nothingness), Bush (a lack of fiscal responsibility) and now Obama (to be remembered as our worst president EVER).

In doing so it has left us angry--angry at everything we perceive as different or threatening to our little lifestyles.

That is just plain wrong. We should be angry at ourselves. We the American people allowed this to occur. Nobody else is to blame.

We control our own lives, not the government.

We control our destinies, not some mentally retarded legislator.

We are ultimately the caretakers of this nation.

Whether Left or Right, if you love this country you understand this basic right.....

As we near the 4th of July, we should ask ourselves one question: What would the greatest era of our time have done? When confronted with tyranny, they took it on their shoulders to kick the crap out of everything and anything that came in the way of freedom. No ocean too wide, no mountain too high, no enemy too fierce.

We are still those people, we just forgot it along the course of some very fat years and even fatter legislators who preach discord from the top.

We are still the people that stuck it to the English in the beginning, and never looked back. Period. From Korea to Iraq, we are still the baddest asses on the planet who will kick your ass to the dirt, and then pick you up, dust you off, and help get you back on your feet.

That is who we are.

It is time to honor our forefathers by becoming those people again.

Happy Fourth of July!

-The Cap'n