I ain't nothin' but a houn' dog

I read a lot of political stuff in the news. I have been more or less following national and international politics for five years. I still don't know what to make of it. Sometimes I want to give up trying to figure out what's really going on.

I want everyone to know that although I may express strong opinions on ethics and morals and such, I understand that these things have little to do with politics. Therefore, try not to take my political writing too seriously.

But please don't discount it either. In my conversations with co-workers, family, and friends, I have noticed that too many people have too much confidence in their own understanding and too much confidence in government. I know, I know, everyone professes to be very cynical about government these days, but let's face it. We say we don't trust our government, but we trust them with everything.

Time and time again I have had conversations in which I point out inconsistencies and hypocracy perpetrated by our own government, and the stock response I receive is, "Well, yes, that's true. But out government officials know more than we do. We don't know everything that goes on."

Why don't we know everything that goes on? Aren't we-- who live in the greatest representative republic in history-- aren't we supposed to know what is going on? Every nation has to have secrets - I'm not talking about things related to our national security or cloak-and-dagger stuff. I'm talking about what our own public officials are doing and their reasons for doing it, and how they are spending our money.

For example: when I point out to people that every rationale we have had for going to war with Iraq has been either 1) mistaken, or 2) a lie, hence the administration is either incompetent or untrustworthy, the reply I get is always something like, "That's not true - there's more going on than we know about. I'm sure there are actually good reasons for everything that happened."

I'm sure there are other reasons for the war. I just get the sense that if we good American subjects were aware of the reasons, we wouldn't like them. And that's why we have not been told what the real reasons are.