This will probably come as a huge shock to many who know me now, but I was once, not too terribly long ago, a hardcore conservative. The only channel I watched on TV, ever, was Fox News. I even had this little poster that said “Republican Girls Are Hotter.” Now to shock and amaze the people who knew me then, I am not a Conservative Republican anymore. But neither am I a Liberal Democrat. I’m not Independent, either. I Am Aware. Aware that the only purposes labels serve are to divide and cause dissension; aware that what goes on behind the closed doors in this country is much deeper and darker than the watered down propaganda that assaults us daily. I am aware that this country was founded by people who had the courage and tenacity to do something that had never been done before, yet I am all too aware that this legacy has been bastardized and we are now a country full of lemming-like people who only want to do what everyone else is doing, while simultaneously condemning those who do not uphold a standard of “normal,” which in essence does not even exist, except of course, as an arbitrary and unattainable standard.

So to the conservative front I ask, how is it that you can say you believe in small government, yet believe at the same time it is the right of the government to judge sexual preference and what women can do with their bodies? Morality, it seems, is simply a breeding ground for intolerance. And to the liberals I ask this. How is it that you can promote personal identity and far-reaching social ideals, yet believe that the government and the self-made rich have an obligation to help people who will not even help themselves? To everyone, I exhort the notion that our entire view of our country today is disillusioned, and we perpetuate the confusion by insisting on discussing the solution without even knowing what the problem is.

***** (Click here to learn about the problem)

I can teach you how to lose a debate with a liberal, it is simple. I can’t teach you how to lose to a conservative, because in their eyes there is no reason to debate, “that is how they were raised!” and they have no time to pretend like they are listening to you. But with the other side of the aisle, the policy-driven intellectual elitists (that’s a compliment, well, at least the last part is) are ready at a moment’s notice to dissect and analyze the logistics of the proposed “solutions” and how they make logical sense and are a good move for the country and the betterment of everyone. They also want to know what exactly it is within the law that induces your dislike for it, and that is why, and how, I lose. Every time. Because I don’t give a rat’s stinking ass what is in the policy, the only thing with which I choose to concern myself is what is behind the policy, and the implications and danger it suggests for the future of our country.

I would not even attempt to tell anyone which specific line and paragraph I do not like about certain policies, and I am not at all afraid to admit that I do not spend my time with my head buried in convoluted legislature and mind numbing newscasts.  I have a general distaste for the operations of the modern federal government as a whole, and I do not care to listen to the guy who gets paid by the guy paying the government to tell me what he thinks I need to know. I am unable to debate the merits or shortcomings of the law because I have no decisive, factual information and absolutely no desire to obtain it. This is not to say I do not have well thought-out arguments or opinions based on fact, my facts simply come from sources that retain a blanket view of the outside perspective, sources that are not always considered viable by those who choose to merely believe anything they are told instead of searching their own head for common sense analysis. Someone asked me why we have a certain inane and ridiculous traffic law that no one knows and much less abides by, and I replied “I dunno, they probably just have laws like that so they can pull over black people.”  My opinions and theories are just those, opinions and theories, but they are viewed and expressed from an unbiased, philosophical perspective of human life and our purposes, duties, and responsibilities as individuals, and those within the ranks that “govern” us, a perspective I have been cultivating and pursuing for over fifteen years. Perhaps it is also a result of having read way too many Nancy Drew novels as a child. The most famous literary female detective of all time always found her who by following the why.

Let me put it this way, in the light of our most recent policy crisis: As I see it, Obamacare is duct tape on the Titanic. It is not a long term solution; because it reeks of a desperate attempt to further enslave a country’s people to a system that is corrupt but profitable, and therefore now a modern American Institution. The problem is not that Americans need insurance to receive medical treatment, the problem is that Americans have to have insurance to receive medical treatment in the first place! There would be no need for insurance, except catastrophic perhaps, if the medical industry was regulated and not allowed to price gouge any more than a gas station during a hurricane evacuation. But we turn a blind eye to the fact that the Titanic is sinking, and rather prefer just to put a piece of duct tape on this hole that we found. And look how pretty the duct tape is, what’s your favorite part of the duct tape? What don’t you like about the duct tape? Who fucking cares?! It’s duct tape!!!

Furthermore, I believe the debates over this issue are meaningless and insubstantial because all they do is divide us as a people, pit one side against the other, red against blue, my opinion, your opinion, yada yada yada. All those “yada’s” do nothing more than serve as a veil over our eyes and as a car-wreck-like distraction which aligns our focus on the conflict, and not the solution… the ugly, deadly show, and not the beautiful wide road up ahead. The true and only solution will not arrive until we unite and open our eyes to the fact that the We the People are giving the American government way too much power over our lives and our destinies, and we have relinquished our cultural identity to its private interest pandering. Instead of fostering and perpetuating intelligence and free-thinking like it was designed to do, it has now become a horrified and paranoid wreck, thrown into a tumult by the possibility of unity among those who choose to see its decay, its demise, and its close-to-irreparable disintegration of the Individual. If we were all to cease with the labels and the dissent and the enraging need to be right, we could spend more time empowering ourselves and our minds and less time succumbing to the mass marketing, brainwashing consumerism, and fascination with financial debt. When you free yourself of that label of which you are so proud, when you refuse to succumb to the frenzied need to live up to an inane social standard, when you realize that the only two things you need to live a healthy and prosperous life can be found between your ears and growing in the ground, you will open your perspective and begin to see the motives behind what our government is doing. And when you cease to consume yourself with the logistics of their actions, when you stand up for yourself, as an individual, to live your why with an unrelenting determination that you have a specific purpose to fulfill with your life, more beauty unfolds: You realize that nothing “they” do really matters, anyway.