For those of you who are watching

and waiting with bated breath to see who the American public will place

at the helm of the ship, please consider that we are living with the aftereffects

of political power run amok.

Increasingly, those who govern

have lost touch with the governed. Powers that should belong to the states,

as ordained by our constitution, have been usurped by the federal government.

In turn, powers that should be the domain of local governments are under

siege by the states.

We are paying the highest rate

of taxes comparatively since World War II, and at the same time, militarily,

we are dangerously low in the readiness department, according to recent

Congressional testimony.

Many Americans are living in

their own third worldesque hell's kitchen, but increasingly our resources

are being spent improving the lives of faraway peoples in faraway places.

What has happened to America?

Are we the product of our own making, or have we become pawns in a twisted

scheme to "redefine government?"

I consider this election to

be THE election of all time, not because there are huge differences

between the two major party candidates, but because the differences that

are there are huge.

Let's look at truthfulness.

As Americans, have we not had enough of blatant truth distortion and double-speak

in the last eight years? If we had, wouldn't Gore's propensity for untruths

have already lost him this race?

We've seen Gore lie about being

lulled to sleep by a union label jingle that wasn't written until he was

in his late twenties. We've seen him claim to have invented the Internet,

when all he really did was introduce a big spending bill in Congress to

invest in it. We've seen him lie about past fund-raising illegalities.

We've seen him be party to all of the transgressions of the current administration

save one.

Then, he stood and lied last

week to beat the band about some old lady who spent her days walking the

roadways of her community picking up cans to pay for her prescription

drugs. This is the same lady who gassed up her Winnebago and came all

the way to the east coast to swoon for Gore at last week's debate. (By

the way, spell check suggested "windbag" as a substitute for

Winnebago.)

In the days to follow, her

son acknowledged on talk radio that he was responsible for helping out

his mother financially, but that she refused to accept money for her prescriptions.

Staged?

Raise your hand if you think

that the government's commandeering of prescription drug coverage is going

to help you get the medicines you need when you are sick.

Also in the debate last week

was a real tear-jerker about a girl whose Florida classroom was so overcrowded

she had to stand up in class. Truth?

It was the first day of school

and about $100,000 worth of new equipment, still in the boxes, had not

been unpacked and was being stored in her classroom. The child sat on

a stool for one class period. All of this was confirmed the morning after

the debate with the principal of her school.

And while we're on the subject

of schools, raise your hand if you think the $1.7 billion tax hike for

education, to build new schools and recruit 100,000 new teachers, proposed

one iota.

That number amounts to about

six teachers per school district around the country, so don't expect a

huge return on your huge investment. Never mind that the responsibility

for maintaining a public system of schools is the constitutional right

and obligation of the state (see Article X of the U.S. Bill of Rights),

not the federal government.

If we really wanted to improve

education, we would kill the cow. The federal department of education's

monolithic budget contributes a mere 7 percent or so in funding to local

schools. It covers somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 percent of the

states' department of education budgets. By killing funding to the big

one, you'd inevitably kill funding to the other, and keep tax dollars

in the local school districts where, by law and by Constitution, they

belong. One of the greatest determinants of public education success,

second only to parental involvement, is local control.

Either the American voting

public has somehow become enamored by a penchant for lying on the part

of their president, or enough is enough. Al Gore may be brilliant, but

when his intelligence is used to manipulate the electorate, he is also

a brilliant liar. His superior air wrapped around the notion that he knows

better what is good for me than I do is off-putting and downright creepy.

That's the biggest of all differences

between the Republican and Democratic candidates. George W. Bush believes

in self-determination. He wants you to have the freedom to direct your

own life. Al Gore wants to reward carefully proscribed behaviors and lifestyles

with kudos and services.

Raise your hand if you think

Gore's vision for your life is what YOU want for your life.

[Your comments are welcome:

[email protected].]