It's Our Party, and It's Our Fault!

Written by: Kenneth Kolle

Senator Seum supporting Andy Beshear has very little to do with legalization and it has been baffling to a certain degree how quickly this gossip has spread; then again, it’s not surprising to me since gossip is the fuel that seems to always burn the brightest.

Political leaders like senator Seum that are taking on this issue are NOT just fighting so people can consume cannabis, they are fighting to protect an individuals constitutional right to pursue health, happiness, individuals right to privacy, and the protection against illegal search and seizure. This issue (cannabis reform and ending a war against a plant) is the most controversial issue that has affected each and every state and county in our country, and those same laws have been sured up by some of the most corrupt forms of political propaganda (racism and greed) in an effort to deter the weak minded scared politicians in order to steer them clear of the issue (being black balled).

Political leaders all across the country have studied and researched mountains of evidence to support changing these laws, Senator Seum is one of those political leaders.

Most of them we’ve talked to have been driven by the sheer level of corruption that has caused unimaginable pain and suffering because of laws that are broken on a daily bases in order to continue pursuing the war on a plant (which is ultimately a war against the middle and lower class). They, like Senator Seum, understands that these laws are in violation of our constitution, and their constituents are suffering because of them; and like many other issues he is currently working on, he cannot in good conscience allow the status quo to harm his constituents any longer.

Supporting someone other than Bevin is a good move; and it is a move that will help Seum help Kentucky.

This is not a one issue decision and anyone that really knows him knows he takes on a lot of issues that will make other veteran politicians hide in shame.

I’m not necessarily trying to change your mind about cannabis but, please try not to allow the naysayers to convince you he is making this move just for cannabis. He is making this move because the current disrespectful, belittling, rude, steal from the weak, and hateful behavior cannot continue to be our status quo.

I have gotten to know Senator Seum over the years and even though we don’t agree on everything, we do agree on changing this politically driven system from being a money mill for corruption and the fellowship, to a system for the people by the people.

Most of you that really know me, knows that I have always despised politics for one simple reason; politics isn’t a system designed to work for ‘The People,’ it’s only purposes is to strengthen The party, The Fellowship, The Family, organization, ideology, ect...’s agenda.

No one remembers anything from a few months ago, let alone from year to year, which is why we continue down this same winding road of “vote party values” BS; and don’t support anyone that doesn’t blindly follow the ‘parties’ ideology!! And ruin everyone outside our beliefs!!!

Party ideology is so distorted that no one party can say they are driven solely by the parties principles (whatever that means). Every party is dictated by those perceived to have power! Period!!

The current form of corruption we are facing IS a direct result of Party Pressure which can be traced all the way down to voting at the polls.

...We ‘The People’ piss and moan week after week about how our government officials are only taking care of their buddies (big business, or family) that make huge donations to their campaign but, every time we go to the polls most of ‘The People,’ vote straight party as if they are somehow strengthening their click by “promoting within.” It reminds me of those movies about the cool kid’s crowd...Each person in the click would continue to support the ideology of the “leader” in order to be part of the group and those most loyal get the perceived perks but, by the end of the movie it’s always revealed that the leader is only out for themselves and if it wasn’t for the naive followers the leader wouldn’t be able to function, but ultimately everyone supporting the leader was to blame because none of them could, or would, think for themselves.

Year after year, this same cycle plays out because it’s human nature to ignore the past mistakes and continue down the same zig zagging path of dispair.

Year after year Kentucky falls further and further behind while the spotlight shines brighter and brighter on the corruption, yet we still have a state full of naïve voters that vote straight party because it makes them feel like it’s going to change the status quo.

After many years of beating my head against the same wall as most Kentuckians do, my wife and I decided to spend the past few years in Frankfort instead of getting our information through the massively distorted grapevine. What we have found is that nothing gets done unless a select few allows it to be done; and most young politicians find out early on that they must either obey the process in place or they will find themselves sidelined, and voted out during the next election cycle.

Don’t get me wrong! Obeying the rules is a key factor to getting things done. But! In this case, the rules in place that allow 4 or 5 “leaders” to decide what gets heard and what doesn’t, works (for the party) only because each person in each party fears the repercussions their innovation and ideology may have if they challenge the status quo; which actually strengthens this notion that We The People must avoid seeking compromise, compassion, empathy, and innovation from the “other” party or we don’t get to play on the play ground.

Senator Seum’s endorsement will prove this theory correct!! I’m not saying we will, or will not, have a democratic governor in the near future but, I am saying those who will piss and moan the loudest will be those from the senator’s party. And those same people wouldn’t dare think of supporting the “other” party even if it meant saving a friend or loved one from the effects of their current leader.

('Leader', in this case, the governors race, is really giving to much credit when it comes to a governor because, the reality is the governor cannot pass any legislation, nor can he stop legislation)

Up to this point I might have made it sound like there isn’t any good honest senators/representatives working for their constituents. Even though it’s not so evident; there are many political figures currently holding office, and currently pursuing a position that are trying to change the system to work for ‘The People.’

Kentucky has been among the poorest states in the country my entire life and some will say its because the democrats have had control but, let’s not forget we have also had a republican leader in congress for 3 decades that is known for stalling legislation and building his empire while Kentucky continued to suffer.

I have noticed over the years that ‘The People’ seem to believe one person (or party) is always responsible for things getting done and one person (or party) is always responsible for nothing getting done; when in fact, it always comes down to who is wanting credit and who is getting credit.

Some say we should have term limits for senators and representatives; and this might not be a bad thing if we can figure out a way to keep our government operating (paying the bills) while training and retraining new people every few years. I know from a business standpoint this will be nearly impossible. Could you imagine if you were a business owner and you had to fire your employees every few years and retrain new ones?? Nightmare!!! No one would want to take on the challenges this would cause.

Nevertheless, no matter how you feel about term limits, or ‘career politicians,’ the fact is that Bullitt County has continued to grow within one of the poorest states in the country.

Who should we give credit to for our growth; this growth that has continued to happen even though we have been dredging through the worst recession, and opioid epidemic any of us has ever seen??

Does any one person deserve this credit?

NOT at all!!

This growth happened in spite of all the political power struggles, back stabbing, and corruption associated with politics.

That being said!

Senator Seum is the one being criticized for not taking care of Bullitt County and the Bullitt county GOP has even started (prior to him supporting a democratic governor) a campaign against him because they don’t want to have anyone from “the outside” representing Bullitt county.

Why is this?

I’m not going to add to the gossip but, everyone that has lived in Bullitt County as long as I have knows why.

Senator Seum did not publicly indorse Andy Beshear for any one reason; he is supporting a democratic governor because at this moment it is the best move for ‘The People.’

The gossip being spread around is that Senator Seum is only doing this to get cannabis legalization passed.

How can this be??

Andy Beshear hasn't ever acknowledged he supports full legalization!!

I have been to several meetings with the Senator over the past couple of years and I can tell you he has a lot of other issues he is working to fix and cannabis wasn’t the deciding factor here; and as a matter of fact it was a difficult decision made easier by the current conduct displayed by Matt Bevin and his blatant disrespect for Kentuckians, the unwillingness to help the low and middle class (teachers, retirees, nurses, ect...), and the negative national attention we are getting from his comments and behavior.

Leaders are those men and women that do NOT ride on the coattails of those with perceived power. Leaders are self-sacrificing men and women willing to put others first and they work to strengthen their community by lifting up everyone around them.

A moment ago I had mentioned how Bullitt County has been growing faster than any other county in this extremely poor state. Keep in mind Senator Seum is being pushed out of his position because he isn’t a Bullitt countian, which that can be debated based on the amount of growth Bullitt county has seen, and the lack thereof Fairdale has seen since he’s been in office.

Incase you don’t know Seum resides in an average house in the middle of Fairdale, not a big fancy mansion like the majority of the corporation funded politicians in non-preforming counties across the state.

Seum has been one of the biggest contributors to the Bullitt County GOP for several years and he has been a major part of the growth in our county along with the city and county leaders. Did this matter?

Not at all!

Why would this not matter?

Political power struggle!!

Politics are all about the party and the perceived strength it has.

There are those folks in Bullitt County (and Frankfort) that are puppets to this system and they are being driven by the perception they will one day hold this power. They would like you to believe they are leaders but at the end of the day they are just puppets riding the coattails of perceived power and they are ultimately weakening our communities by systematically unraveling what has been Bullitt counties lifeline for nearly 30 years.

Is this “lifeline” perfect?

NO!!

Local leaders credited with our success are also to blame for our failures.

No one is Perfect!

Nothing good can be accomplished without failure, and the right answer never comes from lies and corruption.

I’d rather have an imperfect leader willing to sacrifice himself/herself for my family than a selfish egotistical puppet harming my community with hopes of moving up the ladder.

Some might believe a third party is the answer, or even possibly that we need all new parties. A third party only splits the votes and I’m not convinced adding parties is a wise move.I think It will only add more confusion and ultimately we’d only be renaming what’s already in place. (I purposely excluded the write-ins and Libertarian party for simplicity)

Our founding fathers created a great system for us to follow and ‘We’ are the ones allowing it to fall apart. Gossip and corruption seems to have the controlling power and until leaders stand up and lead the squeaky and greasy, will continue to destroy our constitution and strip ‘The People’ of all the freedoms our founding fathers fought and died for.

What about the fact that Kentucky continues to ranks near the bottom in several important categories, including education and health, and most of the past 50 years have been governed by Democrats. Can we really Expect to return to a Democratic ruled government and see anything change?

Additionally, why should we support politicians that don’t support their party?

I have heard these arguments many times throughout my life and using these argument makes as much sense as ostracizing a political figure for supporting someone outside of his/her party; and blaming a political party has as many holes in the argument as a kitchen strainer.

If you research any number of politicians from either side you will find they have switched parties at least once and they have changed their stance multiple times, which further proves the need to vote for the person, not the party.

Some might come back with the fact that since 1947, there have only been 2 Republican governors, excluding Bevin, and they will stand by their statement that Kentucky's poor rankings in numerous area are a result of Democratic control, as if the three republicans have done any better at eliminating the corruption that has caused these reduced efficacies in our government.

It’s absolutely ludicrous to believing one party has a better chance than the other when, especially on a local level, most politicians have changed parties multiple times.

Furthermore, since we have to contend with a few that will bring up resent events in history, we must also look further back than 60 years. We should actually be looking back to the formation of other empires hundreds of years older than the United States that’s failed because they chose to put politics ahead of the people, and the democracies they had in place. What you will find is that we (The United States) is not the first to have a multi party system, and you will also find much stronger ones as you thumb through history; further reaching empires have fallen because party politics took control of ‘The People’ instead of the people controlling the destiny in which they (The People) wanted.

To put things a little more simple let’s take a look at something most of us can relate to; because who really cares about history, right?

If the government is a business, which it really is. Then we should look at the hurdles that can cause businesses to fail and come up with practices that will eliminate these problems and create a well oiled machine headed towards success.

(criticism doesn’t fix problems)

Note: I did say “WE,” so I am only going to give one example that most of us can relate to.

Let’s say you’re working at GE, Ford, Toyota, or UPS. (Exclude the Union aspect for the sake of simplicity. Most companies don’t have unions, and a union, also for the sake of simplicity, is just another company working inside a larger company)

Now, lets say you go into work on time everyday and stay just as productive as you must be to keep up with production rates and sorting requirements.

Now let’s say you have an employee that is sometimes late, takes extra breaks everyday and on occasion causes the line to be shutdown a few times a month but never gets wrote up, or fired because he/she is a kiss ass protected by a higher racking employee with authority.

These companies will most likely continue to profit and unless a foremen, or line supervisor takes action, production will never be what it could.

Now let’s say you worked at one of these places during a time when they paid piece work, production rates, or whatever it may have been called. All it really meant, was you, which most of the time was a line full of people, were paid a certain amount of money per hour of production, and if you (or the line) went above and beyond you got an additional pay bonus on top of your base pay.

(I get paid by the hour!! Then don’t expect more from people than you’re willing to give)

From a company stand point you might think efficiency, maximum rate of production would be ideal. And for the most part it is but, overall the end result is a product that cost more to produce. Sure!! You can argue the product is actually cheaper, or relatively the same, because of daily startup cost and so on, but this isn’t true when you become as massive as one of the aforementioned companies operating nearly 24/7; and technically our government is the largest industry/company in our country.

Now we need to further examine how the occasionally late kiss ass employee that holds up production causes way more problems then it might appear on the surface.

If maximum pay depends on maximum production and maximum production is disrupted even in the slightest way by an employee/co-worker, then would it be fair to say the entire system is dependent on every cog doing the best work it can, and if every cog does NOT accept responsibility for the overall success and demand everyone on the line to produce, then we all end up losing. We all end up facing the tough decisions a co-worker faces, and/or possibly a friend must face because they can either keep quite, or they can confront the co-worker which might work but, will usually end the friendship...Or, they can suffer until the entire company comes crashing down and everyone finds themselves starting the whole process over at another company designed to be profitable and effective using the same commonly used business strategies the first company was founded on.

You’re probably wondering how this is a correlation to what’s happening in our government.

Our country was founded on a democratic system sured up by a constitution which governors the way our machine (the country) works and this constitution isn’t much more complex then an idea behind a well ran company. You have rules/guidelines in place that sets the pace and insures maximum production by keeping everyone going the same direction while taking care of the needs of the employees which ultimately takes care of the company.

When you disrupt this process, or in this case, the constitution; and you (a representative and/or a voter) allow/overlook a senator, representative, a brother, a member, the fellowship, or your party, because speaking out may cause you to lose their vote; you are actually causing more harm and eventually, as the government is pressuring ‘The People,’ civil rights will be violated more frequently and eventually it will take a Civil War to see who is strong enough to start over; and starting over will most likely be with a celebration of independence sured up by a constitution very much like the one our founding fathers had already lost loved ones for because they needed to start all over.

War, whether theoretical, and fought to keep a job, child custody, civil dispute, for the most, causes more harm to way more people than acknowledging the actual problem and working to fix it together.

Blaming one party or the other is never the answer!!

Claiming the Democrats had control and it is their fault is absurd. Claiming one republican president is to blame for the mess our country is in is also absurd. (Or a single governor, or party, caused all the harm) Our government is a system for ‘the People’ by ‘the people.’ In simple terms: It takes an assembly line of productive people working together to produce a certain product; and in this case, it is a well ran country ran by the people for its people.

It always gets to me when I hear people saying this person is going to fix everything that’s wrong with the country, and/or our government. And even worse is when a politician comes out strong against his/her opponent from his/her own party with claims that they are incompetent and a disgraceful person that cannot be allowed to take the position they (the incumbent) holds; then a few years later they are defending them and encouraging us to vote for them because they are now supporting them for a different, less threatening position, only because they have become a soldier protecting the party, which isn’t any different than the line supervisor, protecting the employees that comes in late and holds up production but, kisses there ass in the process.

The problems we face are 'always' someone elses fault, or we expect them to be fixed by someone else because ‘We’ don’t have time to get involved with understanding what’s wrong so we mostly ignore everything, maybe piss and moan a bit about anecdotal ways we think will fix the problems, but, ultimately we all must demand the basic rules already in place be followed.

How do we do this??

First we must understand what it is we are fighting to protect.

Are we fighting for self-gratification, prosperity, liberty, health, happiness, or all the above?

I personally think gratification, prosperity, and all the above, will be obtained once we start fighting for our constitution to be upheld by a government that returns to putting the people before the parties.

How do we obtain this??

We must stop sending well intended representatives to be our voice and expecting them to all the sudden be a professional in every industry and somehow know everything that’s happening back home.

More times than not we send a common man/woman to Frankfort to be our voice and then we cut off communication with them, unless of course it’s to piss and moan about something they either know nothing about, or they have no control over. (...yes, I know this isn’t always the case, and the aforementioned employee wasn’t always slowing down production) Government seems to move at a snells pace but, it is, for the most part, always moving; and if we want things to improve within this machine we must stop blaming the process.

It’s not the process!

The original process put in place is a very workable process that will yield, liberties and prosperity for all if we remove the corruption (perceived power) sured up by our voting history, for parties and people, and or belief that we can elect a common man/woman and suddenly expect them to hold that position once ‘We’ quit voicing our concerns and offer our support. We cannot expect them to hold their position if we are constantly blaming the system and never offer a solution that will help return us to those common core practices where we share the responsibility of making sure ‘We’ all succeed.

(...donate to making them, your voice, be heard)

I know we live in a world where it seems too taxing to even keep up with how our neighbors are, let alone all the stuff happening in Frankfort and that is precisely why our elected officers fall victim to the process/corruption. If they don’t have the communities support (keep in mind, they are just a voice) then they must play the same game all the other representatives before him/her, or they face almost certain defeat during the next election cycle.

Not all representatives are worth re-electing, just as not everyone will make a great assembly-line worker; and this is why we have to occasionally replace them, but, we don’t replace the entire line because we get a few people that’s not working out for the overall good of the company, or the employees.

We must stop being mostly reactive and be proactive, and involved. We must be willing to help our representatives (regardless the party) and do the best job we can do with the information ‘We’ have available to us as a whole. It wasn’t set up to be us and them! It was setup only to be a ‘UNITED’ People, us!!

How do we strengthen a community?

Shop local!!

Sounds easy but, we all know convenience is key and Amazon’s success is proof we care more about convenience then we do about strengthening our community by hoisting up our neighbors.

Sacrificing a little to gain much more!!

Changing the status quo starts within, it starts at home, and it starts by helping each other be the best version of themselves!

We cannot continue blaming parties, or individuals, because when it comes to the mess we have, 'WE' are equally at fault.

Blaming parties and fighting for control becomes a war, and in a country with a constitution in place such as ours, a war will always cause more harm then good. It will cause vulnerabilities, in this day and age, that could possibly shift power in ways that will allow other superpowers to completely destroy this relatively young democracy.