Peggy Noonan’s WSJ column of July 12th was regarding our current immigration crisis. In the column she compares how Washington sees the crises as political and everyday citizens in a much more alarming way. We never imagined that America would have refugee camps housing thousands of children? Then who would have thought that our political system would become so dysfunctional? She compares the nation to a house where the owners can’t both make their mortgage payments and keep up the property.

The metaphor continues that on top of that you wake up one morning to find that there are people standing on your property just looking at you. They begin to gather in your garage and crawl through a window to your cellar. You call the police and when they finally come they take a few people away, always to be replaced by so many more. Your elected officials can’t stem the tide and the news media after a day go on to the next story. Our political leaders shout that the other party is to blame. It appears no one is in charge. No one will take responsibility.
I not only feel that no one is responsible about immigration but that no one in Washington will take charge and will take responsibility about anything. The adults have fled and the children can’t come up with solutions from our failing tax system to social security to our roads and so many other things. The other party or political opponent is to blame. Our elected representatives whether in their first term or tenth say they are powerless to correct what needs to be corrected. It is reminiscent of Pogo’s “we have met the enemy and it is us”.
Closer to home we have AAF that wants to barrel through our community after getting our tax dollars to build their new track. The summer rains will result in the Corp releasing water from the lake again devastating our lagoon. Our governor now claims to be with us except when it impedes FEIC or Florida Crystals. Our former governor, who wants to be our next governor, panders to those he once called liberal Democrats when he pretended to be a conservative Republican.
Our nation and state are not political board games where politicians get to manipulate and move citizens as if they were pawns. We elect people to office and send to Washington or Tallahassee to solve problems and fix things. They are not there to collect money for the next campaign or rig the system against the people to enhance the coffers of big business or labor.
We need a change and that must begin with us. We need to vote and not leave elections to the extremes on either side. We can’t be so dogmatic in our beliefs that we would encourage our leaders to destroy rather than fix the system. As citizens is it too much to ask, that we sacrifice and work with all our fellow citizens, whether we disagree or not. We all need to help America pay the mortgage and fix the roof.