Allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Michael Hendricks. I used to frequent the KOS on an almost daily process. Then a few years ago I just kind of stopped. My writing juices just kind of dried up on me. I used to write hear and on another webpage but one day while writing I realized I had nothing to say. I used to write on the other page just to annoy the TEA partiers that frequented the page, but even that got to be a strain. So I just quit.
I have always loved writing so to get to a point that I did not want to write caused a great internal issue. I am now 37, about to turn 38, I have a Master’s degree in History but I do not work in the field of history. I work in a call center taking calls for a national protection plan.
Anyways, the reason I am here today and the reason I suddenly want to write today is that one of my former mentors from college, known online as P*ssed Off Southern Pastor, suddenly made me realize that our voice has become almost silenced in the South. Think about it. In Arkansas alone we have elected a man as governor that in his previous failed attempt at becoming governor said that there was documented evidence that children raised in a gay home turned out worse than those raised in a straight home, though he never actually stated the study that showed that evidence (hint: it didn’t exist or had already been debunked). One of our state representatives threatened, on social media that he would shoot someone next time they asked him a question he didn’t want to answer. One of our Congressional representatives penned a letter to Iran telling them that if they signed a deal with the United States, that Congress would vote it down and recently stated that those on Social Security were on a downward spiral to meth addiction.
In Kentucky, voters just “elected” a man governor that has stated very loudly that he would do away with Obamacare in that state, despite the state being one of the states that has successfully implemented Obamacare and has become a model on how to run the program. This act, if successful, would throw hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians off health insurance.
I spent the majority of my life living in three states: Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Nebraska. So you may be asking yourself how did you become so liberal living in deeply red states? It is an excellent question and basically the simple answer is that my parents let me make my own choices and believe how I wanted to believe. Being able to make my own choices and believe in what I wanted to believe has led me on an interesting path. I used to be what I call a conspiracy theorist. I fully believed that there was more to the Kennedy shooting than we knew, I openly questioned the moon landing, the Loch Ness monster. Hell I even believed that aliens were responsible for crop circles. However, 9/11 changed all that for me. In the months and years following that tragic day I heard all the conspiracy theories that surrounded that day until one day I sat down and actually watched some of the videos. The video that finally shook me of my conspiracy theory days and woke me up was the one stating that the only thing that could have actually hit the Pentagon would have been a missile fired by the US military.
After all the meandering of this diary you may be asking yourself what is my point?
My point, simply is that as far apart as the fringes of the political system are (and yes I consider myself part of the fringe left) there is still room for compromise for the greater good. This will not happen with the current crop of hack politicians vying for the Republican nomination for president. I will not run through the entire list but four are worth mentioning. Trump is a fraud in a suit, who stated in 1998 that he could run for the Republican nomination and win easily, Carson is a complete joke with crackpot theories of our past, Fiorina has proved how disastrous a president she would be considering that she can’t run Hewlett Packard, and then there’s Bush, who makes his brother George look like a genius.
What we need now is more coming together not pulling apart. Our infrastructure in this country is a mess. We need to be more worried about the next major bridge collapse than the next terrorist attack, because the former will happen a lot sooner than the latter. We need to worry more about our education system than our next war, because, frankly if we don’t educate our children we will not have leaders for our military.
All I am basically saying is that I may be one of the few bright blue dots in a sea of red but it is time that we start shouting over the pointless arguments that have consumed our politics.
We, the blue dots, need to bring everyone together, the adults, and those that can think clearly for themselves and not be told how to think and work to making a better future for the common good.
