Independent Thinking |
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| By Jack Rooney
United States Senate Candidate, Indiana |
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"Every
Government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone."
(Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-1785, Query 19).
From the founding of our nation,
Independence was the major principle. That is why the founding fathers
called the first document of our nation the “Declaration of Independence.”
George Washington was an Independent write-in candidate as were all of the
original office-holders in the new United States Government.
The
idea that the people can govern themselves without a powerful monarch looking over
their shoulder was part of the revolutionary thinking of the time. The rights
of the people are greater than the authority of the ruler, and this principle
holds true whether the ruler is a king or a giant political party.
Today, America faces problems like never before in our
nation’s history. The economic collapse of our financial system;
staggering unemployment like that not seen since the Great Depression; national
security problems from foreign response to United States war-making policy; the
destruction of the environment and our shores (destroying the lives and livelihood of millions of Americans and adding to the already staggering level
of unemployment) has brought America to the tipping point. Many Americans
I talk to from both parties feel the nation has lost its way.
Since the major political parties have been the chief
architects in charge during this great American train wreck, it is reasonable
to conclude they can never place us back on the right track. The too-cozy
relationship between Washington and Wall Street led to the financial meltdown.
The too-cozy relationship between federal regulators and the oil industry led
to the disaster in the gulf. The desire to appease the industries that
manufacture war hardware has led to an unending expansion of wars throughout
the world, all supported, financed, and bailed-out of their bad management with
your money.
President Eisenhower warned, “...we must guard
against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought,
by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.” (Military-Industrial
Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961). It appears he was
spot-on. The military-industrial complex, the corporations who make WMDs,
weapons of war, support material and services to sell to warring nations, and
the financiers behind them, the multinational banks, are not to be confused
with the United States Military, our soldiers, as soldiers take their orders
from civilian authority, from the President of We the People, from you, at
least theoretically, but when the corporations control government, both
government and the military can be used as an extension of corporate power.
This is not the fault of soldiers; it is the result of a self-serving,
out-of-control corporatocracy ruling over your government.
Corporations have a conflict of interest between preserving
your inalienable rights and promoting their own corporate bottom
line—profit. The major goal of every for-profit corporation is to
exploit your wallet, to make as much money as possible for itself and its
shareholders by whatever means, and the large multinational corporations have
no national loyalties. They may not always be inclined to do the right thing
for America, and now many legitimate small business people who play by the
rules and have strong American loyalties are threatened by this giant group of
bad corporate players.
Bad
management of the business of the people, combined with the tendency on the
part of our elected servants to promote their own private interests at the
expense of the American people, has led us to this place. The effect is
cumulative; it builds over time, until, as Thomas Jefferson observed,
government begins to degenerate. The causes of the problems we face today all
point to the major political parties running the show, both republican and
democrat, tossing the political power ball back and forth to each other over
the decades. Some of the political leaders in these parties have been in
Washington more than half a century, gaming the system, leading the country to
ruin.
Effective solutions to the problems America faces today can
only come about from leaders not locked into the mindset of the giant political
parties controlling our public servants, beholden to the corporate money that
keeps them in power, and who routinely bow before the corporate hand that feeds
them. Those who have caused the problems in the first place seldom solve the
problems they create. They have a hard time with objectivity.
The solution is to change the broken political system that
brought us to this unhealthy state. The present two-party political system is not the
solution. It suffers not only from the “disastrous rise of misplaced
power”, but also from a systemic bipolar disorder caused by the internal
schism between the republican/democrat duopoly - it has all the trappings
of a house divided against itself. The solution, the cure for this political madness calls us back to our American roots in Independent thinking.
It has served us well in the past, it can serve us now.
Thinking that moves outside the party box, outside the
mainstream political system, can show America the way home. My
grandfather use to say, “If what you are doing is not working, then you
must do something else.” If you blot the dots on the Indiana ballot and vote the major political parties back into power in the next election, it is a vote for more of the same. If you want solutions, you can vote for Independents to act as mediators between extreme, diametrically opposed philosophical positions, candidates who are not part of the entrenched Washington political machine, Independent candidates who will look at the issues with a clear eye, diagnose the problems objectively, create constructive solutions that serve the people well, and return America to a state of health.
If you are not happy with the apparent choices handed to you
by the democrat/republican controlled ballot, vote to restore
America to the original intent of the founding fathers. Vote your Independence. You can write in the name of the candidate of your choice, or consider voting for minor-party candidates. This is not always an easy thing to do, as many minor candidates do not appear on the printed ballots of most states, and many voters never know they even have an alternative, Independent choice. The names of declared Independent candidates typically do not appear on the printed ballot. The bar has been set so high by the State and National election commissions (controlled by Republicans and Democrats, of course) most candidates can not reach the ballot access requirements without expending great personal weath and resources or obtaining financial backing from outside sources. The major parties in the U.S. have made it as difficult as possible for an Independent candidate to run against them by setting the bar higher than the average citizen can reach. Of course, when the two groups at issue in an election are the same groups writing election law, this is to be expected. These two parties have learned how to manipulate the electoral process to unfair advantage to keep political power in their own hands by limiting voter choices, to keep the power to themselves, so they can exploit Americans and siphon-off the wealth of the nation into their own pockets, with a result that has left thousands of small businesses in bankruptcy, millions of people unemployed, and endless debt to our children.
But you have a choice. You can Write-in the name of the candidate of your choice. But there are even rules about doing that and having your vote counted, so be sure to check the rules in your State about voting for write-in candidates.
Write-in votes are an indisputable Declaration of Indepencence. There are no hanging chads. This is your
nation, your government. You are its master. It belongs to no
political party, group, or corporation. Be independent— be
free. I ask for your vote.
Jack Rooney
This site is authorized and paid for by
Jack Rooney for United States Senate Committee
926 River Avenue, Indianapolis, Indiana 46221
Phone: 317-634-9440 Email: JackRooney@att,net
