I have friends and family on both ends of the political spectrum and everywhere in between. As far as myself I don't really know where I land at the moment. I thought I was a Libertarian for awhile, but then I realized how much I appreciate having health insurance that I can't afford on my own and its hard to call yourself a Libertarian and support massive government entitlement programs. I also flirted with anarchism for a bit after stumbling upon and reading the book Work: Capitalism. Economics. Resistance. But, call me greedy, but I really like private property so that phase didn't last long for me. During the recent presidential primaries, at first I was a full supporter of Rand Paul, but when he dropped out of the race I immediately put my support behind Bernie Sanders which is probably incomprehensible to some people, after all they aren't exactly cut from the same cloth. I felt almost like a full blown liberal when I thought Bernie Sanders might be our next president, that guy gave me hope for the Democratic party, until of course the party leadership secretly helped prevent him from winning the primary in favor of their darling Hilary. This of course turned out to be disastrous when Trump won, something that probably wouldn't of happened if Bernie had been the candidate. So my brief phase as a “Democrat” ended with the primary. Now I'm back to being nothing I'm afraid except very pissed off. I agree with things on all sides and I wish more people realized that there are good ideas on both sides of the aisle and maybe it's time for a new political party to help people stand together to improve our country instead of standing apart. I might not be sure of how to fix everything but I am sure of a few things.
For one, we don't need the “return” to law and order advocated by Trump and his horrible choice of an attorney general, Jeff Sessions. Crime is very low right now, but they are acting like nobody is safe. Eight years of very gradual progress towards ending the travesty that is the war on drugs might be completely erased before next year even gets here and then it's going to be right back to locking up every Tom, Dick, and Harry who makes the mistake of doing, touching, thinking about, or even being the same room/car/general vicinity of any illegal drug. The Trump administration is definitely going to help produce jobs, unfortunately the majority of them are probably going to be in the prison industry. The government shouldn't be locking people up for victim-less crimes, its a waste of resources and a flagrant violation of liberty. After all if the citizens of a so-called free society aren't allowed to do as they wish with their own bodies, the only truly “private property” that we own in this world, then how can they call themselves free?
Also, I believe that we simply don't need the government in our life at all, except to help and protect those who need it, and only if they want it. The Bill of Rights and the Constitution must be protected at all costs, and less power should be in the hands of the Supreme Court after all the constitution doesn't actually give the supreme court the power to decide what is constitutional and what isn't. Our government shouldn't be spying on its own citizens, it shouldn't be pulling you over and searching you every time you have a broken taillight or an expired document. The government shouldn't seizing our property and money without convicting us of any crimes. The police should be protecting and serving instead of attacking, detaining, and searching us. More and more people are slowly becoming aware of the fact that we have been a police state for decades now and it's just going to get worse if we don't come together to stop it.
Until our government is no longer oppressing us, then conservatives and liberals, anarchists and socialists, straights and gays, people of all races and religions need to stand up together to stop the oppression. If there is one thing a lot of people can agree on no matter what their political affiliation is, it's that the government isn't working like it should, and that it can be better. Consensus is the first step to change and at least we almost all agree that the government needs improvement. Now if we can just stop bickering for five minutes about health insurance, immigration, and whatnot then maybe we can actually stop this country from becoming even worse then it already is. Think about that the next time you have you show your papers to a police officer just to prove you have a right to go from point A to point B in your own country. Think about what you could be doing the next time one of your friends or family members is thrown into prison. News flash, the powers that be, the Trumps of the world, the Illuminati, or whatever you want to call them, they want us to be divided! They want us to be fighting among ourselves over petty issues while the government and big business (pretty much one and the same at this point) gains more and more power to make every decision for us and to control every aspect of our life. This is just going to get worse as technology improves and makes oppression even easier. Facial recognition, drones, cell phone scanners, they are all already here, so what's next? Are we going to have to give a DNA sample to get our drivers license to prove we are who we say we are? We are willingly speeding up this process for the sake of convenience by putting the tools the government needs to spy on us in our pockets and our living rooms. Hey Alexis are you listening to me right now? What about you Google? Until we are no longer living in a police state, we need to be very careful about how we use technology.
So are we going to worry about who is a “conservative” or a “liberal” or are we going to stand up with our fellow citizens and do something about getting our freedom back? We are living in a two party system, and those parties are the oppressed and the oppressors. The other distinctions that we worry about are irrelevant at the moment. First we need to be free again, then we can worry about all the other crap. It's time to come together and take our country back before it's too late and all traces of rebellion and original thought have been beaten out of us and we have all been turned into docile sheep doing exactly what we are told to do and thinking exactly what they want us to think. Your freedom is precious, but so is your neighbor's freedom. If we don't stand together for our rights and freedom, we will be divided and conquered by the same people and institutions who are supposed to be protecting our freedom for us. We can't depend on them anymore, we have to depend on ourselves and each other. If we do this, if we come together as one people with a common goal, nothing can stop us. Don't worry once we have our freedom again then we can get back to arguing about how to fix all the other problems.