Politicians will Bring a Change
In a few days, Tuesday November 04, 2008, the United States of America (USA) should hold the presidential elections. If you live in what has been labeled “battleground state”, “purple state” (red + blue = purple; apparently we do not believe other parties should be considered or have a chance), or “swing state” chances are you have been bombarded with hundreds of political ads in the past few months. In addition the major television broadcasting networks in their news and shows (i.e., “20/20″, “60 Minutes”, etc.) are constantly reminding us the opinions of some extremely small subsets / samples of the American population. Such opinions are bundled under the term “poll”. In order to make the poll results (opinions) sound valid, companies / organizations that conduct the polls and the margins of error are typically listed. Tune into a different television channel (specially if you have cable or satellite service) or pick up a different newspaper, and a different poll with similar credentials provides different results.
We Americans should ask not our neighbors, or relatives or friend, but ourselves the following two (2) simple and basic questions:
- Who the presidential candidates are?
- Why are they so interested in getting a four (4) year job?
Following the trust and theme of this web site, we need to use a logical and objective (not subjective) approach to arrive to a logical answer.
Lets attempt to address the first question. Both presidential candidates and their running mates are “career politicians”. We must ask ourselves who are these politicians. A “politician” is an individual (man or woman) that manipulates facts and opinions to achieve a purpose. The best source of additional information would be a dictionary. Today the best way to look up the definition of a word is on-line via the World Wide Web (WWW). A convenient way to reach several dictionaries at once is following the http://www.onelook.com link. “Career” is defined as a job, occupation, profession, livelihood, line of business, etc. While surfing the net between dictionaries you might also be interested in looking some old American terms “snake oil salesperson” or “used car salesperson” (note that I used the word “salesperson” and not “salesman” which makes the expression “politically correct”) and see if you can draw an analogy between them and “career politician”.
Now lets take a moment to think about the second question. Currently I am among the large (but sadly dwindling) group of Americans who have a full time job in the same field as my formal education and profession. I have been at my current job for about fifteen (15) years. I am constantly learning and fully enjoy my line of work. By the way I am not a plummer. Before the web became so popular, people would send their resume to companies in hopes to get an interview, which would lead to a job. Depending on the type of job and qualifications, the candidate would drive to different local interviews or would take a plane and stay in a hotel for a couple nights while the potential employer would determine if the job requirements matched the qualifications of the individual and most important if the personality of the person matched the culture of the workplace. Getting ready for interviews requires time and incurs in some expenses (paper, dress / suit, shoes, etc). These expenses are not an issue because the ratio of salary / wages versus expenses has and probably will always be negligible. Most candidates seeking a job typically look for jobs that would last many years if not a professional lifetime.
The last time I checked the US President position / job offers $400,000 US Dollars a year as monetary compensation. The job is extremely demanding in time and effort. The job poses many critical problems that will be very hard to resolve and the resolutions will most certainly affect the lives of all Americans. Who in their right mind would like to spend hundred of millions of dollars to get such a job? Most important, where is the money being spent in getting the job is coming from and how is it going to be repaid?
Given that we are Naive Americans we should just turn on our television sets, get the “facts” from the “politicians” paid by “political contributions” and on November 04, 2008 cast our votes. I am a Naive American and I approve this message!
