Mad as Hell

I am a little bit spoiled. I have expectations that things will work a certain way – and when they don’t, I have less patience than I wish I did. This is especially true with technology. I’m of an age where I know the complexities it takes to make things happen, but am so accustomed to having it that I have little patience when there’s an interruption in the Cable TV, the high-speed wifi Internet, etc. I have to remind myself of the progress in my own lifetime – the computer on Apollo 11 that took the first men to the Moon is less powerful than what I carry around in my shirt pocket every day.  Frustrated as I may get when tech doesn’t work as I think it should, nothing compares to the angst that the American political system can generate.

I don’t think of myself as one of those Angry Tea Baggers fuming against the government. The Government has a role to play in our lives. The Founders pretty clearly laid out in the Constitution how intrusive it should be. Over the history of the U.S. there’s been an ongoing debate about the tension between those who see a more activist role for the State and those who prefer less of one. That’s a good thing, and something to celebrate. Whatever size and role you think the Government should play in all of our lives - the one thing we should all be able to agree on is that it should be done properly. There should be no room for incompetence. That's not the case and I'm Mad as Hell about it!

Let’s look at some of the top issues facing Americans today. Regardless of your political persuasion – whether you think that what the government is doing is good or bad – we can all be mad about how it’s being done.

•  The U.S. Government spends $1.20 for every $1 it brings in. Total debt is nearly $18 trillion with each person owing about $55,000.  
•  The military of the United States is deployed in more than 150 countries around the world, with over 160,000 of its active-duty personnel serving outside the U.S. and an additional 110,000 deployed in various contingency operations. 
•  The President of the United States, a former Constitutional Law Professor, maintains a kill list and decides whom to eliminate without the benefit of a trial, evidence or a defense.
•  Congress worked 107 days in 2012 and 113 in 2013. 
•  The largest agencies of the Federal Government – including the IRS itself - can’t be audited because their books and records are in such bad shape. It's been this way for decades now.
•  Director of National Intelligence James Clapper gave the “least untruthful” answer to Congress about gathering data on millions of Americans. That was after he initially said he didn’t lie. Most recently he claims it was a “mistake.”
•  The Secret Service not only allowed breaches of security and its own policies, it didn’t disclose them until under oath. 
• The Veterans Administration and the roll out of the Affordable Care Act show that despite best intentions, government's management of health care has a long way to go. 
•  The head of the Centers for Disease Control and the Administration have minimized the outbreak of Ebola in the U.S. as a paranoid fantasy. Meanwhile cases are popping up and people are dying in the U.S. The Director of the NIH said this week that the Republicans have caused the problem because of “budget cuts” making a medical catastrophe-in-the-making political.

There’s plenty to be frustrated about. Is the Government – whether Legislative or Executive – lying to the public on purpose? Or are they just incompetent? Probably a little of both.

Paddy Chayefsky’s 1976 movie “Network” is largely famous for its character Howard Beale who persuades viewers to shout out of their windows "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" It's time to start yelling once again.

The time has long passed for Americans to hold its leaders accountable for the inept handling of its affairs.