The Olympics - A Rant

I've had this post sitting in my drafts for a while now, but have been busy and other things kept coming up to write about. But now I have a CNN article to reference to make me all the more annoyed.

I grew up with the naive, idealistic view that the Olympic Games were about countries setting aside their differences to meet in friendly competition every 4 years. It just seemed like such a nice idea, "We don't like you, but let's have a little fun anyways." I was annoyed to grow up to discover that, like everything else, even the Olympics were tainted with whiny, lying, corrupt politicians and their political nonsense.

CNN is running an article which talks about how 15 members of the House of Representatives are "urging" President Bush to not attend the Olympic games as a protest against their human rights violations involving Tibet. First, such an action would be one of the most blatant international episodes of the pot calling the kettle black that I've seen in a long time. Aside from that it just seems so childish: "I'm not going to talk to you unless you do what I say."

I hate how whenever I read about something involving politics and politicians I feel like I'm right back in 7th grade and my classmates are fighting about who gets to be President of Student Council. It's a big, pointless, waste-of-life popularity contest, where all the contestants have resorted to digging up as much dirt about the others as possible. They greet you with a smile and shake your hand while selling you out to the corporation that writes the biggest checks.

I am a huge advocate of transparent government. Guess what elected officials, you're there to serve me. That's what the term "civil servant" is referring to, not that we serve you. As an elected or aspiring elected official you should give up certain rights in order to protect ours. You should be required to disclose all of your assets to the public. Maybe you should have all of your phones wiretapped by the same invasive laws you pass, and all of your conversations should be made public. Perhaps then you'll begin to understand why we don't like these laws. Maybe if your kid was dying in some hole of a country because of the lies you told you wouldn't be so quick to start a war by spouting those lies. Perhaps if we had a system like those of old where the leader led the army in conflict you wouldn't be so willing to invade foreign nations.

Sit up and listen America. The government exists to serve you. They should be doing what you want, not what some big company that knows how to bribe wants them to do. They shouldn't be exempted from the very laws they pass, they should be the first ones affected by them, so that they know what it is they're doing to this country.

If they're going to change the food-stamp program, they should try to live off of it for a month and see how the feel about it first. If they're going to start a war, they should go fight in it. If they're going to increase the length of patents for medical drug companies, they should see what that does to the people that can't afford the price of the prescription drugs they need for a drug that was created 12 years ago.

Stop being whiny, teenagers and start being adults. I'm sick and tired of politicians acting like they're in middle school.

Go to the Olympics and have fun, that's the whole point.