Rants: Excuse Me, Do You Have Any Spare Change?

Every four years, we have several presidential candidates who come along and try to make their best pitch to America. They all try to sound different and promise they will be better than whoever the president is at the time, but just how different are they really?

Almost all of them will say words like “believe,” “change,” and “hope.” It didn’t start with Obama; no it’s been going on for a while. Obama just happened to squeeze the most out of the words; he is great at tugging on your heartstrings and making you actually believe in what he is saying. He is one of the best at this, which is why he is the president.

The election is no longer about who actually has the best plan for America. It’s a race to see who can trick the most people before it comes time to vote. Presidential candidates have transitioned into sharply dressed used car salesmen. They make a great first impression , look you right in the eye, and screw you over. Next time you watch a debate, listen really closely. Throw out all of the keywords and listen to what they are actually saying.

You might be surprised at what you hear (or what you don’t hear, for that matter). If you listen closely, you will find that most of them are indistinguishable from one another. Sure, they will “argue” about little things like what they’re going to do with illegal aliens. One will say, “We’re going to get them all—all of them—and deport all of them! But, we’re going to do it through self-deportation. Once they can’t find jobs, they’ll have to leave!” and the other candidate will say, “No, no. We can’t do that. We have to look at it case by case, if someone has been here x amount years we don’t want to take them away from everything they know.”

That’s their big disagreement? Are you kidding me? They are arguing about something they won’t even be able to accomplish. “Case by case?” Good luck with that. You see, they have to find these minute things to argue about or there would be nothing to debate! What they don’t want you to know is how similar they are on the big issue: spending.

Republicans and Democrats. One side claims they want to balance the budget but then they don’t mind spending trillions of dollars on militarism. The other the side claims they are the party that looks out for the people, but all of their programs end up making things worse for the people. Basically, they both spend a ton of money yet they get away with it because they claim it’s a necessity.

“We can’t cut any spending overseas! Not when the world around us is so dangerous.”

“We can’t cut any spending on all of these social programs! How on earth would people take care of themselves?”

Give me a break. The only candidate who talks about real change is the one candidate everyone ignores: Ron Paul. Even if you don’t agree with all of his ideas, you have to respect his honesty. He doesn’t go up on stage and try to sell you a car that is going to break down once you leave the lot. He gets on stage and tells you how to fix the car. He’ll look you right in the eye and say, “Hey, this car they want me to sell you sucks, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed.”

American is broke, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed.