My pal and fellow Ban the Ban-ner, Ryan Evans, had a great post on his blog today that I totally relate to.  The title is "Why it’s Hard", and I feel his pain.

It’s pretty easy to feel defeated once you’ve finally opened your eyes enough to see that no political party is going to save America (nor any politician, for that matter).   It’s easy to lose hope when it appears that everyone around you is throwing so much faith behind these fallible humans whose corruption grows deeper and deeper by the day. 

When I left the republican party months ago, I did it with much sadness.  It almost felt like a death.  I had been a republican my entire life (a neo-con is probably a better label), and it felt good to be a part of something bigger than myself. 

But as I’ve grown older–and hopefully, wiser–I’ve discovered that we can no longer put any faith or trust behind our political parties.  Don’t get me wrong, there are many people who firmly align themselves with political parties that mean well and have the best of intentions.  There’s no doubt about that.  But I’m starting to understand why so many of our Founding Fathers were afraid of the ‘power of the party’.

When free citizens living in a free society begin to elevate the importance of their party above the importance of their freedom and their country, and compromise their beliefs by supporting politicians who turn away from the core principles of the party, freedom will soon give way to government oppression.

When free citizens begin to rely on the elect in their respective parties to eliminate every perceived misfortune in America, they begin to expect godlike miracles from these mortal men and women.  They expect them to eradicate poverty, eliminate any sort of illness or disease, save people from their own poor life decisions, remove risk from financial investments, cure substance addiction, and change the earth’s climate.  Change the earth’s climate!

When we watch our parties attempt to outdo each other with their miraculous promises that they can never follow through on, and then actually believe that they are capable of performing these ‘miracles’, we are not only fooling ourselves, we are entrusting these corrupt illusionists with our freedom.  Like a traveling tent preacher who claims that he has the power to heal, these politicians are taking our money and individual rights in exchange for empty promises…and they know it.

Someday in the distant future, our great-great-great-great grandchildren will study about how the Americans worshipped political gods, and how we laid the fruits of our labor at the alter of government as a sacrifice for our societal ’sins’. 

So what do we do?  Well, what I’ve chosen to do is not vote for anyone who doesn’t respect freedom, and to not support anyone who insults my intelligence by attempting to convince me that my vote and tax dollars give them superhuman powers.  I’ve also decided that the most good that I can do for my country is to take care of my own affairs in a responsible manner, be respectful and kind to those around me, and attempt to spread the word of freedom in my own community, county, and state through non-partisan, grassroots activism.

I’m not attempting to convince people to leave their parties.  They’ll do that when they’re good and ready.  I just think that we all need to step back and look at this political circus objectively, and identify government and politicians as corruptible, fallible humans rather than divine beings.