ATS and OWS: What the heck, ATS?

Here is the thing. You have the TEA Party, which has gone relatively quiet, you have OWS which is in the forefront. .. and not too long ago there was a group that attempted to do a Third Continental Congress. The handwriting is on the wall that We the People (as misguided and disorganized as we are) are all starting to agree that the system is broken. And has been broken for a long time.

I, myself, have known that there will be a war in this country since about 1986 or 1987. That there will be violence and blood on the streets. Back then, I always assumed that it was from outside influences. Originally I thought it would be another country. In time, I came to realize that the enemy was indeed ourselves.

If you look at the core complaints of both the TEA Party (before being co-opted to a political party) and OWS, there are some valid arguments to be found. But neither addresses everything to be said. Neither has finalized practical solutions. They both see greed as the core problem, but it is more than just greed.

In my opinion, the greatest of our problems (but not the only problem by far) in the US today is the lack of self-determination. Long gone are the days when a person can truly make their way in the world by the sweat of their brow. Yes, you can still be a farmer or an entrepreneur, but it isn't the same. Too many regulations and rules have to be adhered to in order to not be shut down. And I don't mean the dangerous things being prevented. But if you grow too much grain, you become punished. If you sell your gasoline too far below your competition the suppliers will stop supplying. Those sort of things. God forbid you have to hire someone to help you, because you just opened a tome of regulations, taxes, payment schemes and other government interferences to the healthy growth of your endeavor.

The point of people being against OWS is because many see things expressed that they do not like. And a big thing for me is that many of the "demands" cried out for if implemented would only create greater dependancy on a system that is already broken. Which would require deeper burdens on the people to supply the means to those demands.

One of the things that Thomas Jefferson wanted was for education to be provided for everyone at no cost to the individual. That it would be a regrettable burden of the taxpayer, but the trade off was an educated and productive society. The compromise was public schools (today K-12). Jefferson wanted college to be free for those that excelled in their studies. And by academic scholarships, some do attend college for free. However, there are very few in this country that receive as most scholarships are based on athletics. I, myself, could have been granted a full ride to the University of Tennessee provided I changed my major to Music (Education or Composition). The basis for that was not so much merit, but that I earned the admiration of Dr Julian for telling a good joke. I turned it down, despite having later to have to withdraw for financial reasons as well as inability to attend required classes for my major as preference was given to Seniors to use as a liberal arts dump class.

And while the above was a tangent, it also demonstrates the problems of preferential treatment. Which is a huge problem in this country as well. That often things are not done nor awarded on merit alone but on the old coat tails of nepotism and "politically correct" associations. And in that vein, OWS is asserting itself as such an association since it is in line with some of the more extreme ideologies of liberalism...ie socialism. And personally, I am not convinced that the original goal of the movement was a campaign trick for Obama's re-election in 2012 that has just spiraled out of control as more people joined the bandwagon. Time will tell if that suspicion was true or not. Question is if it would be reported in the mainstream media if it came to light.

Or maybe I have become too jaded for seeing schemes and machinations as the people of power do things to sway the masses that are too easily tricked into joining a cause without research to its purpose. So many what it is that do not like the most is that people become involved out of knee jerk reaction to hearing something that they liked without placing thought into the solution. Sort of how I say what makes a person famous is that enough people say they are and that causes others to believe it.