The More Things Change...

Rs and Ds in America, like beer-swilling face-painted football fans, cheer their team on as they fight for control of the state. The winners (Youtube "I won") get to inflict their vision of perfection on all Americans until the next election.

Victorious in the last political Super Bowl because candidate Obama promised change from the Bush (R) administration, the Obama (D) administration in its first 100 days has busied itself "delivering on change" to improve the lives of "all Americans" by funneling vast amounts of money to failed bankers and car makers, deciding which big businesses succeed and which fail, and increasing taxes to pay for its vision of how Americans should live.

While the banker and car maker recipients of federal government largesse have undoubtedly had their lives improved, most Americans are facing pay cuts, possible unemployment, or have already joined the ranks of the unemployed. The workingman is now not only cutting back on superfluous spending, but sweating how to pay for gasoline, medical bills, utility bills, and groceries. In its first 100 days the Obama administration, just like the Bush administration, championed giving taxpayer money to failed bankers and car manufacturers. The main change is the Obama administration gives even more taxpayer money to failed businesses.

But Obamaphiles love the President and trust he'll ultimately change things for the better. Surely his well-meaning actions won't result in the evils of the Bush (R) administration as evidenced by Abu Ghraib, waterboarding, invading other countries, and maintaining concentration camps in Guantanamo.

To maintain such optimism, Obama supporters ignore the salient fact that those evil Bush policies continue under President Obama. The Obama administration continued the Bush administration policy of skirting restrictions on torture by sending prisoners to countries with no such restrictions, upholding the Bush administration detainee policy in Afghanistan, initiating drone attacks in Pakistan, and now keeping the military tribunals for Guantanamo prisoners that candidate Obama had promised to eliminate under an Obama administration.

How can anyone believe that simply changing from one person in an office to another will make things better? It's takes more than one person changing in the office and more than the administration changing to make a difference. The American people have to change and take responsibility.

Did the Bush administration force Americans to support the invasion of other countries? Most Americans were glad soldiers went overseas to invade another nation because they meekly believed what they were told about weapons of mass destruction. They ignored the fact that 9-11 was mostly the handiwork of Saudis, or that Congress violated the law by abdicating the requirement that it alone has the power to declare wars.

Did the Bush administration force Americans to support their troops when U.S. soldiers tortured prisoners or killed civilians? Once again, most Americans, meekly believed what they were told: that it saved American lives. Did it save American lives? Should we be in Iraq to begin with? How many Americans asked themselves those questions?

Did a small cabal of evildoers somehow deceive the vast majority of the American people and Congress as Nancy Pelosi, leader of the D opposition at the time is pretending?

Those who think that changing the President will solve our problems, ignore the fact that ultimately individuals act, not the President. They ignore the moral responsibility of individuals, as does President Obama, who doesn't want to prosecute those in the CIA who carried out torture interrogations.

The evils of the Bush administration occurred when Americans gave up their individual responsibilities for decisions about their economic well-being and sense of security to the state. The Obama administration continues the Bush administration move away from individual responsibility. It bails out failed businesses, continues the same foreign policy, and increases taxes on the few to pay for the many.

The real solution to the evil of what this nation has done lies with change in each of us to be responsible for our own decisions instead of singing pathetic paeans to our leader (pathetic Youtube video).

"A movement whose main promise is the relief from responsibility cannot but be anti-moral in its effect, however lofty the ideals to which it owes its birth." Hayek: The Road to Serfdom