Friday, September 02, 2005

what?

so i was reading this article: Politicians failed storm vicitims and i found it sort of unbelievable. i mean, i guess that i think that those expectations of the govt are just plain unrealistic.

ideally, of course, the govt would always do the right thing - the best thing, and they would be able to predict calamity & protect against it... that would be ideal. but the truth is, in our system, there is a certain amount of game-playing & politicizing that occurs. the politicians know it, the people know it - everyone knows it. it's a fact of life. it's a truth of any govt.

and the truth is, sometimes their priorities are screwed up. many times they are fighting for things that really don't matter, except that they will get them more money to run in the political arena. i know this.

but i look around at the world, and all of the other political systems, and i don't really see a better way of doing things - i really don't. at least here, when people send aid, the aid actually gets to the people who need it. at least our politicians haven't built great big warehouses where they are storing all the water & food that is enough to save millions of lives if properly distributed. at least here, the other people in our nation care enough to sacrifice to provide for others in need. at least here, we have the option of speaking out, complaining about how things happened, and working toward a better solution next time. at least here the people who were injured actually have a voice - and not only that - have a lot of people advocating for them.

our nation is unbelievable. and it's not really because of the govt system. that's part of it, of course, because our system has a fair amount of accountability. but the real reason that our country is a great place to be is because of the wonderful people who are reaching out right now. it's great because people literally stop their lives, offer their homes, go to the site of the disaster to help, and actually care enough to DO something.

we have a lot of problems, and having lived overseas in other countries, i am the first to criticize many of our cultural values and even our governmental structure. i would like to see a lot of things changed and made better. i'm going to law school because i want to be a part of seeing that happen. but lets not forget that we do have a great nation. our way of govt is flawed, to be sure. but i don't think it's worse than others. govt will always be flawed because the people who run it are flawed. but we have so much to be thankful for in the everyday person that lives life here, and who is willing to give of him or herself when needed. we can be thankful that the way our govt is set up actually encourages that kind of giving.

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