Political incompetence

This morning, my wife showed me an article that talked about Obama being a fascist. That linked to a lot of other articles about claims of fascism by political activists of all stripes. (Sorry, but I am not linking to a bunch of pointless name-calling.) I read enough of those to get really disgusted with the political activists in both our major parties. The republicans are rabid over what the democrats are doing and vice-versa. This president or that president was really the ones who are to blame. I did read one article that made sense for about half of it, until they unveiled their own political agenda. The sad thing is, that this seems to be highly representative of the mindset of the politically active. In conversations with the not so politically active, people are getting depressed. It isn't that they don't want to be involved. They do. But who do you vote for or support when all your options are repulsive. There are no political parties that don't carry major poison pills that are just too bitter to swallow.

I thought about it and have come up with a few points that to most of the people I have talked to, seem to be pretty common among the lay folk.

1. We don't want government to focus on what the corporations, unions, or lobbyists want. We do want them to make laws that make our lives better.
2. We don't want government to run our lives for us, that isn't better. We do want them to give us options to live they way we see fit.
3. We don't want government solve all our problems. And we certainly don't need them creating more problems for us. We do want them to give us the power and ability to address the problems we have more effectively, but the decision of how and if we do so should be up to us.
4. American interests are the things that are important to all Americans, not a few privileged Americans.
5. We want our freedoms protected, not so much from others exercising their freedoms, but from those who would take our freedoms from us, and government (of all levels) is likely to be guilty of that than anyone else.
6. We don't want to be treated like we are stupid. We are not. Just because we are not rabid and joined to one extremist party or another does not mean we don't understand what is going on. It means we have other priorities in life, and don't want what is going on to interfere with our other priorities.
7. We are generally willing to have government help those in need of help, but not at the expense of pushing a lot of us into that same category.
8. Apart from fulfilling some basic responsibilities (paying taxes, serving on juries, serving in the military in time of war), if someone wants to just be left alone, then we (first meaning the government, and second meaning the people) should leave them alone.

I am sure I could go on, and I know that not everyone would agree with each of these items in their entirety, but we the people would sure like to be treated like the government was there to serve us, instead of control us. This applies to the democrats and the republicans alike. For that matter, it also applies to the libertarian and constitution parties as well. There is no party that I feel like I can support wholeheartedly, or even halfheartedly. Every time I vote, I feel like I have to plug my nose. I hope for the founding of a party that really espouses principles that don't make me feel like I have to sell my soul to support, but for now, I guess I will have to keep plugging my nose.