Guest Writer-Jeff Robb

Below is a posting from my brother and fellow-truth-lover, Jeff. His posts are like as my friend Mike says (alwaystilting.blogspot.com), raw or sushi politics.

We as Americans thrive on conflict and controversy, as long as we are not involved with it personally. Every 4 years as a nation we are given 2 candidates, which have opposing believes and ideologies. A Republican and Democrat are chosen to represent us. Who are these candidates chosen by, Republican and Democrats which are endorsed by the democrats and republicans that we voted into office, senators, congressman ect.
We do this every 4 years even though we KNOW that it is choosing the lesser of 2 evils. Why is it that we have 50 choices for Miss American but only 2 choices to run our country? I believe it is anchored in our government. They don’t want us to have more than 2 choices. The party lines are what separates our country. It keeps Americans divided. It allows our Government to easily blame the other party for an important issue not being handled. Imagine there were no parties. This would be a politicians worse nightmare. Without a party to hide behind then each individual would be held accountable and responsible for their own decisions. The politician would then have to make decisions based upon their individual beliefs, not what the party has spoon fed to them, or what is favorable in the party that they represent. Imagine how this would work in real life. What if you lived on a street where you had the “West” side of the street and “East” side of the street. The title alone would cause a conflict. You would befriend your own side and outcast the other side. Trash would be picked up on different days, you would use different landscapers just to spite your neighbors and you would have social gatherings that only included your side of the street. No one would want to live in this kind of neighborhood, but this is exactly what we have created in our government.
You would never see a defensive football player allow the other team to go unblocked and get a touchdown just because he was mad the quarterback threw an interception that put them in that position, Never! However, that same football team has all walks of life, black , white, gay, straight and yet every Sunday they have one goal, win for the “team”. They put all other issues aside and play for the team. Wow, what a concept. And what happens if the team leader doesn’t win a game that year? He is fired and replaced with someone that will.
Until we stop the party controversy we will NEVER have people that truly represent us. We stay on our party lines even when that party is wrong. As a nation we are ignorant when comes to understanding what each candidate stands for, we vote for president, congress, representatives and local officials right down party lines. I know one way to prove this, remove the (D) and the (R) from all voting ballots. Hmmm, very thought provoking, huh?
If being Republican or Democrat is so important that we allow this system to control our government, then next time I greet someone, or sign a contract or buy a car instead of saying hello, how are you, how’s your family, how’s work going, should I ask right away if they are Republican or Democrat?, nah, I will leave that callous, uncaring, thoughtless personality to the politicians.