Greetings and Thoughts on Government

Hello folks, I'm the Devil's Advocate. It is my endeavor to present a fair presentation of events political or otherwise. For political instances, I will not be presenting a Democratic Party perspective, nor will be presenting a Republican Party Perspective. I will endeavor towards accuracy without joining an elite consensus.

It is my position that Government exists not as a necessary evil, but a necessary good. Our government exists to benefit citizens in accomplishing things that we cannot accomplish as individuals. In many ways it is quite effective in such as well. For example the roads that are used for transportation of all. Our military is supposed to exist solely protect our people. The FAA exists so that airplanes do not collide with each other. There are many things that our government does and does well. Though not all things that are done by our government take care of the interests of all citizens.

I will refrain from going further on the negative side of government as that can be its own post though.

It is the goal of a democratically elected government to look after citizens. We have created this government to be bigger than ourselves. Our government exists for defending ourselves; for maintaining the basic infrastructure we use. For keeping our foods and beverages safe from the adulteration of toxins. We also have used our government to help so that when our citizens fall they can pick themselves up more easily.

I shall return to this at another date.

GOP Senate candidate wants to drill in Lake Erie

You read it right. GOP Senate candidate Pat Toomey wants to open up Lake Erie for offshore oil and gas drilling (Salon.com). Has he not been seeing what is going on the Gulf of Mexico? We're facing the worst environmental disaster and oil spill in our country's history and he thinks it's safe to open up the Great Lakes to drilling? Has he lost his mind? An oil spill the magnitutde of the one in the Gulf could destroy Presque Isle State Park, Erie County's biggest tourist attraction. Presque is home to beaches, the best fishing spots in the area, and a wildlife sanctuary home to dozens of different species of native and endangered plants and birds. We lose Presque Isle, our economy goes with it. Businesses that thrive off of visitors at Presque Isle will go out of business. And that's only factoring in the northwest Pennsylvania area. There is also the areas in Ohio, New York, and Canada. It took decades to clean up the Great Lakes, we don't need to go back to that time period. Our country is not in that dire of need for oil to risk destroying the largest collection of fresh water lakes in the country.

26% of Americans don't know who we declared independence from

On this Independence Day weekend, a new Marist Poll was recently released regarding how many Americans know that we declared our independence from Great Britain. The results were published today and they are somewhat worrying. 74% of Americans know we separated from Great Britain. Another 20% weren't sure while the remaining 6% listed another country, among them the front runners are France, China, Japan, Mexico, and Spain. Seriously?! This as me worried as a future history teacher. First off, Mexico wasn't even a country in the 18th century, it was still under Spanish colonial rule. Secondly, the West didn't have open relations with China and Japan during the colonial era. Thirdly, how could someone be that ignorant? I am really astounded by it. I have my work cut out for me in the future.

Welcome to my new blog

That's right, I've entered the blogosphere with my interesting take on politics. I feel that the younger generations don't have their voices heard enough. This is not meant to be a liberal blog, as many will view my posts, but rather one for all points of view. That is why I am searching for bloggers of opposing views to bring color and variety to this blog. With that said, I hope you enjoy The Young and Opinionated.