Do You Trust Our Government?

I must at admit: Until recently, I did.

I'm not a big conspiracy theorist. I don't look for the shooter on the grassy knoll. I generally like to think that our public servants (of all types) are well intentioned individuals, who seek their positions in order to do good by our society and to have a positive impact. Maybe that is the case. Maybe we're just seeing that one man's positive impact, is another man's civil war.

Anyway, I'm sure most of you saw this news: Navy Exchanges Fire With Suspected Pirates (off of Somalia)
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Somalia-US-Pirates.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Am I the only one who is starting to hear this stuff and thinking: Who was this exchange with and why are we calling them "pirates"? Could they have been merchants doing trade with a country we're not friendly with? Could the term "pirates" simply be part of the PR management by the government to make it appear that we're attacking "bad people" and we shouldn't question why?

I do realize that allegedly the US ships were fired upon first and that we were able to control the situation with very little bloodshed. In this way, there is a good chance that our sailors over in this part of the world are doing a great job keeping the peace and representing our cause. This is by no means an attack on their efforts. They should, no doubt, be applauded for all they do.

I guess the reason for this post is to reflect my admission that I am now more than ever questioning information that is disseminated to the public by the US government. From what I can tell, I'm not alone. Again, we all have a ton of examples of why this is the case: WMD in Iraq, Iraqi ties to al-Qaeda, lobbying cover-ups, Plumegate, etc.

It truly is a sad state of affairs when you don't believe what your government tells you. I thought that is what the Chinese are dealing with. I thought that access to the truth was something for which nations like ours once went to war.

Not one to sit around and talk idoly about problems, I plan to take action. Action in the form of supporting candidates who I believe will "do the right thing" (hats off to Spike Lee). I plan to ferret out "good" candidates (at all levels) and expose them to my reader base here on my blog.

I also plan to encourage people I know personally who I believe could do great things in politics: LCDR Michael Foley, Hon. Francis Foley, John Pleasants, Alex Collmer, Kevin Cornils… I believe others will come out of the woodwork as I start to establish myself as a focal point for involvement. As a last resort, I will personally become involved if I feel that there are no better alternatives. While I'm not the tallest nor best-spoken candidate who's ever thrown their hat in the ring, I certainly feel that I could do a better job than we're seeing today (at many levels). It also feels as though it's been increasingly hard to find candidates, from both parties, who truly represent the broader constituency of the moderate majority. It is with this low bar - that sad state of bi-polar partisianship and poor leadership - that I am able to realistically consider a life of public service.