A Republic, if you can keep it...

How do I feel? I am saddened. I am saddened for our country that was, I am saddened for our country that is and for our country that will be. I stopped calling myself a Republican years ago when “W” was president. I fear our Republic is dead. I have heard pundits say the Republican Party died in this election. No it was the Republic that died. It was on life support but now it has passed on. I am not sure what we are now but the founding fathers would not recognize us as the free republic they gave all to establish. A quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin just about sums it all up “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” In the last few years I have seen and heard many things that have caused me to despair. Talking with coworkers, inmates and random people on the street I have met a few who are well informed and knowledgeable about the state of our country and the issues affecting us all. Unfortunately the majority are woefully uninformed and either ignorant or purposefully spouting lies to the true state of our country. I personally believe that it is ignorance.  The general population is simply ignorant about our founding, the Constitution, economics, our government, so called “entitlement” programs, taxes and just about any other issue you can think of. They see money from the Government growing on trees or coming out of some magic pot. They do not know and cannot conceive the true size of the annual deficit and our national debt. Tax the rich they say and all will be fine. They have plenty of money. Even if we took every penny all of the millionaires in America had. It would not close the annual deficit. We do not have a revenue problem we have a spending problem. Another quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin says “This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins.”