The Mighty Middle

Alright, so now that my employment worries are cleared up, I have more room in my head to think about other things. More specifically, I have room to think about social concerns and politics. So lets take out that particular dusty soap box. . . and up we go.

Political parties are deadly, toxic, inherently corrupt organizations, and both are equally anti-American. I have ranted about this before, yet I have not even scratched the surface of all of the things I think are wrong about political parties and American politics in general.

The parties are both (or all if you count the Libertarians, which I don't) anti-American. None of them, regardless of how they talk about social justice or patriotism, have the best interests of America the Country at heart. None of them represent America first. If anything the parties do benefits America in any way, it is only a pleasant side effect of the parties serving their own interests.

Rather than serving the country, political parties do a direct disservice to the country. They polarize the populace, and rob citizens of their constitutional right to be represented in the law-making bodies of the state. Here is how it plays out:

In order for anyone to have a chance of getting elected, they need a ton of money. So, unless you are a savvy Mitt Romney or a zany Ross Perot, you will not have the funds lying in your own pocket to make a successful run at office. In order to get the funding needed, candidates sell their loyalties (if not their souls) to one party or another in return for the financial backing of a mega-large organization. No later than that initial point, the candidates are no longer representing the citizens of their area. Instead, they begin to represent the interests of the party they have joined, which don't have a snowflake's chance in hell of being representative of the population that voted for them.

In the last 3 elections we have seen a country that is so evenly divided down party lines that even presidential elections have been decided by mere handfuls of votes. The senate seat in Minnesota is a perfect example. It is nearly a 50/50 split even in major races. If we had 3 parties, the split would be somewhere around 33.3333%. But to the victor go the spoils, so whoever comes away with the win can then proceed to represent their constituents in name, but their party in fact. To ensure the financial support needed to gain re-election, the winner then needs to play a game of favor-mongering to make sure the party likes them enough to pay their bills come next election season. If the majority of their constituents want something that the party is not in favor of, then the citizens are left out to dry, while the party gains more power.

There are a few politicians who buck this trend, and I applaud them. But even they are stuck in a system where they have to dance to the tunes the two parties are playing. The end result of all of this is that the overwhelming majority of Americans, who find themselves ideologically somewhere between the stances of the Democrats and the Republicans, are forced to pick the bad fit that fits the least bad. We are not as ideologically divided as the parties would make us. We agree far more than we disagree. If the fight is the left vs. the right, then you need to know which side you stand on. But from where I see it, the true fight is much more the right and left vs. the middle, and every time that fight happens, it is the American people who lose.

Political parties are a toxin to democracy. Like George Washington feared, they have corrupted the republic, and turned our would-be democracy into a farce. I cannot vote for what I want, because none of the parties want what I want. They want to be opposed to one another, and I want compromise. They want to lean away from each other to highlight their differences and justify their existence. I want the American people to lean closer and find a productive middle ground. That can't be done when the shots are called by opposing teams. So that is why the parties are both anti-American. They work together to divide our country. It is a Mason-Dixon line of ideology that keeps us from being One Nation under God. That is Anti-American. Membership to the parties keeps our representatives silent and forces them to follow party lines. They prevent political progress and stifle social growth. They are bad all around, and what is worse, we don't even need them. Our democracy would be better without them.

Colorado, Round 2

OK. On Monday I start my new job at Bridge House, and I am super excited. Not only because I will be working full time again, but also because I won't have to worry about impending homelessness and looming destitution, both of which I would just as soon do without.

Bridge House is a great place, and I am stoked to work with a new population, where I can continue to grow and expand my therapeutic repertoire. I really am very excited. I am supposed to come in on Monday and start to learn the ropes, get to know the staff there, and maybe even start to work with my clients.

The clients I will be working with are in Acute treatment, which means they are, for a variety of reasons, unstable and need intensive, in-patient treatment for a short-term basis. These are not individuals who need hospitalization, but rather folks who have had a major incident in their lives and need some insulated time to recover. As I understand it, I will be working with a lot of the community mental health hospitals, and referring a lot of clients to other facilities once they are no longer good candidates for Bridge House services. For my part, I will be working on assessing and stabilizing my clients, working with them intensively for a few weeks, and then helping them find a suitable next-step.

I am really excited about a few features: for one, I will be working intensively with my clients, seeing them multiple times a week. For two, my case load is not going to be ridiculous like it was at my last job. I will only have 5 or 6 clients at a time, so I will be able to stay on top of things without getting my cleints mixed up. Also, I won't have to do any traveling, which was a huge time-drain and schedule-scrambler.

Plus, Bridge House is a part of the Arapahoe-Douglas Mental Health Network, which is the county service for both Arapahoe and Douglas counties. ADMHN is really huge, and they have a multi-facility approach, and tons of resources at their disposal. I am stoked to work in a multi-disciplinary team, and they have already shown me a great degree of respect and consideration.

So yeah, I am excited. The job that brought us out to this neck of the country turned out to be a huge disappointment, but it may just have opened the door for us to find something even better.