Wednesday, May 13, 2009

I went to a Protest!!

Ok....I guess I'll make this my first post to explain the title. A few weeks ago I went an Anti-Tax Protest with a friend at the state capital in Atlanta and I learned quite a bit. I enjoy chanting "less taxes" and "more freedom" and I enjoy doing something to show who and what I support. I also learned that it's not just the other party that are out there that are ignorant. I saw a few folks out there that are obviously upset that we have a black president. I saw some others out there that had signs that just didn't make any sense. They can't blame Obama for the taxes they are currently paying. He's just getting started. They can be mad at him next year and after. And I saw some folks saying they'll bring some guns to their next protest rather than the sign they were carrying. Ignorance is annoying to me. On either side. I realize politics is not interesting to everyone but it should be. At least interesting enough to keep them up to date on what's going on in the world. And you should be able to have at least some discussion about why you either support or not support any major thing going on, whether it's the budget or some piece of legislation. And certainly the idea of spending your money and my money through taxation! It is our money. As my boss would say, if we were taxed at 100% we would be slaves. Since we're taxed at 30% or wherever we fall makes us partial slaves. I may not go to that extreme but to a certain exten I do agree with him. This administration and all the other politicians decide how to spend our money. They’ll spend over half a million on an Air Force One flyover NYC that causes mass panic and hysteria just to create a little pin that you can be purchased in souvenir shops throughout Washington DC. This does not count the money it took to control the panic this flyover caused and the hours spent trying to find out who was at fault. You put your money towards that! You put your money towards bridges, airports, the study of volcanos and transgender interaction in Australia, and hovering trains, and momento coins, and whatever else that simply isn't needed in most cases. And another topic of discussion is how much power should the President of the US have over private companies? Should he be able to fire CEO's or control bonuses or advertisement money? Should he be allowed to select a Treasurer that doesn't pay his own taxes properly? Lots of areas of interest out there for me and possibly you as well!! One reason I decided to do this blog was b/c I felt it was not enough to talk or think to myself about politics and how upset I am and how disappointed I am about what’s going on in our country. I figured I might as well write to myself about how upset I am as well. Talking and thinking to myself just doesn’t cut it! I need to put it down in a blog to really feel like I’ve done all I can! I said once before on facebook that I hope some day I’m on a plane where terrorists try to take over and I’m some how able to fight them off and become a national hero and then use that platform to run for office and become a Senator or something. That’s pretty much my only chance! I don’t see it happening any other way. Not too many Sarbanes Oxley Accountants (if that’s what you want to call me) end up as politicians. So how else am I supposed to get there! I’m not going to start over and I’m not going to run for my Home Owners Associate Board thinking that’s going to get me to where I would like to be. So the only option is to save a plane full of people from terrorist acts and then be interviewed by all the major networks and talk about how I was doing my part to keep the country safe and how we as Americans need to do what we can to protect our country or start a blog that becomes a must read for millions! So we'll see what happens!!

13 comments:

Jessie said...

Well, I don't have to be very passionate about politics when I have a husband who is! You take the cake for the two of us!

Yep, you definetly went into the wrong field....but maybe someday you will get your chance but hopefully not through fighting off terrorists, I don't like the sound of that!!

Anonymous said...

I like this Nick! I have some of the same feelings as you, although I've actually never been to a protest. I sure hope I'm not on that plane being hijacked...I'll be sure to steer clear of any flights you're on!

Josiah said...

here, here! :)

Jennifer Ricker said...

lord have mercy on you nick bettes - you will be in my thoughts and prayers in your misguided anger towards the dems and our beloved President. i will still love you because you are my cousin and i feel that it's my duty to be there when you come to your senses. i love to see all your rants in print. do you really think that the false war we are paying trillions for is the same as a fly over? when the military budget was redistributed, there were many things that were as sci fi as what you mentioned that were cut...so we could re focus on the real threats to our country - say it with me people - AFGHANISTAN - and the war torn people that we abandoned when we made way for the taliban to take power after we paid for them to defeat the soviet union. all your worshipers probably still think iraq has something to do w/9-11-01. talk about misguided.

Nick said...

see....you're wrong again. Obama's scale down of the Iraq war is following Bush's scale down as well. He's trying to take credit for something that was already in the works by Bush. The current level of troops over there is still the same as when Bush was over there and the scaling back is roughly following Bush's time table that was determined before leaving office. And just to let you know, the cost of the Iraq war has not gone into the trillions and probably won't for quite a few years. It may never?? There has been no redistributing troops yet from Iraq to Afghan, it's just been more troops that were not deployed now being deployed to Afghan. And this redistribution of military spending could get scary considering we are at war and some of this money will go to pell grants. You have China increasing their spending while we're decreasing. I'm fine with it so far but if the cuts start to increase by too much it could get scary! Just depends on what's cut really. Not that much has been cut yet. I know he was trying to get injured troops to have their private healthcare take care of them but there was too much push back on that so he had to give up that idea. Really...you have to think, a 3.6 trillion dollar budget most likely didn't have many cuts. What was there, 18 billion? Mostly the F22's and some helicopters that would be used by the president. And there is a debate about the best way to fight in Afghanistan. More troops or more special ops? Increasing troop levels in Afghan may not be as successful as it was in Iraq.

And don't forget, Germany didn't attack the US either yet we went to war against them! You think that was wrong as well??

Jennifer Ricker said...

hitler killed millions of jews...there are so many dictators doing the same thing all over the world (can you say africa). why didn't bush go invade them? can you say....OIL and his daddy's people. i didn't mean anything about troop distribution or redistribution..who cares. i just know so many women in my parenting group who have kids who cry themselves to sleep every night cause 'daddy's away'. we didn't need to be there, it didn't make us more safe, and i think if all of the politicians had family in the war, things would be very different. THAT"S WHY WE NEED A WOMAN PRESIDENT?! I would vote for elizabeth dole:-)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the blog - I know when you have a real opinion it counts for something. I learned that over the years :) This will be one I check often to see what else we agree on! David is speaking at a July 4th Tea Party here in town.

Anonymous said...

Oh yea - here's a topic I want to hear about... that MOST of the US are considered on the 'watch' list for being terriosts!!!

Spencer said...

I was at the Oklahoma City Tax Day Protest!

It was great! Over 5,000 people! Except I didn't encounter some of the ignorance that you saw. Here we were all pretty much just against socialism. I have recently taken to blogging a little more about some of these issues. I just put a post on a blog set up by some of my college friends.

Go here to read it:

http://ourlunchmoney.blogspot.com/

-Spencer

Spencer said...

I can't stop laughing at the post that starts with "Hitler killed millions of Jews" and ends with "that's why we need a woman president"

I'm not sure who they are, but they are a parody of themselves.

Please, don't stop!

Nick said...

I hope she doesn't stop. Jennifer was my inspiration in starting this! I just invited some of her friends on her facebook to come as well so she won't be by herself.

I would vote for Condeleza Rice. Never would vote for Dole!

And how can you say it won't make us more safe if Iraq b/c a succesful Democratic country in the middle of the Middle East???? A place where people can throw shoes at a person (who happened to be Bush) standing right next to their President and only gets a few years in Prison rather than killed. That's pretty much what you would get here. They ahve protesters, people speaking out all the time. This wasn't allowed. Give them time, they'll figure out what to do with freedom now that they have it. The Middle East does pose threats to our security as opposed to Darfur. And if we did go there those same kids would still be crying themselves to sleep. And then if someone died from our country we would be hearing about how we should never have been over there in the first place. this has been said probably during every war, even WWII. We don't need to be over there, it's not our problem, it poses no risk to us, etc.

Why do you always bring up Iraq anyway? The stuff that has been making me crazy recently is how Obama now has his hand in everything, budgets, hiring and firing of CEO's, bonus approvals, etc for private companies! He's talking about taxing beer, chips and soda now. I'm sure only those making 250k or more use those things right, since no one that makes less will have to pay any extra taxes.

Spencer said...

I hope that didn't sound too harsh, I decided to blog more for basically the same reason. Some friends and family of mine are so misinformed and I never realized it until the elections. I regret not speaking out more, at least if things get really bad, I would rather be able to tell my grand kids someday that I at least did something.

Nick said...

We can tell them we blogged! I would love for the people around me to gain an interest in what's going on! I think I may do a post about why people aren't interested. I know I get upset at times when I think too much about this stuff. Most likely people want to avoid that feeling??? I'd be interested to hear other reasons.