The Beer Summit

A while back I got pissed off about every body bitching politics on Facebook. Complaining about the President this, the Republicans that, the Democrat's something else. All bitching but no one offering any better idea's. 

If you don't have a better solution, what's the point in bitching about what some one else is trying to do to fix the problem? I also took exception to the amount of disrespect for our elected leaders. 

So I issued a challenge for people to put themselves in a Beer Summit with President Obama. I asked four questions: 1.) What beer should be at the table, 2.) What would you respectfully discuss with the President. 3.) What one question would you ask and 4.) What one opinion would you offer.

Nobody excepted the challenge.

So I did. 

Of course I went overboard. Here ya go:

Ok,
Question #1: A New Glarus brew
should be in the fridge because if Scott E get's invited to a Beer Summit with
the President it's going to be news and if I can get a great little Wisconsin
Brewery some nationwide exposure, I'm on it. Since it's winter I choose
something dark and hoppy, so Mr. President fill 'er up with some New Glarus
Staghorn. We'll both be glad you did.

Question #2: The topic
I would like to offer my opinion on is Government itself. My opinion is that the
whole thing has gone nuts. Our elected officials, including the President
somehow forgot why they are there. The whole idea is that we are a free nation
and our country should operate as We the People would like it
to.

We cannot stick millions of people in a room to decide
what we should do, so our founding fathers came up with this really neat idea of
having a few people get all of the info and opinions of the rest of us and then
go into a room and say “well my constituency says...” and then do what it
appears the majority of us would like to see happen. They created the Presidency
in case of a tie, not to have a ruler, which is why we went at it with Britain
in the first place.

Somewhere along the line we lost that. The people we elect talk about how they are going to represent us when in fact they get there and aren’t representing anyone.

They’re just voicing or voting their own opinion or the opinion of some company or
industry who are willing to pay for their next re-election campaign.

In my opinion Mr. President, our politicians including you, are doing something completely contrary to what they are supposed to do; to the point that really they do nothing. They simply posture and create discord among the people they represent.

There’s lots of talk about the “issues” but quite frankly there is
never anything really being done.

In the four years that you have been President it is my opinion that nothing has actually been accomplished. Please do not take that statement as me having anything against YOU being President. Even our wars which have been declared “over” are still not really “over”. Government has been at a standstill because it’s more important to say disrespectful things about each other about the “issues” than to sit down and figure out what to do.

It’s not about solving problems and things we face, it’s about who can make who look worse and get the most radical individuals on their side. It is my opinion that people have come to hate each other, not over issues and solutions, but over posturing and celebrity politicians. This country was created to get away from the hatred of English
rule and create a land of life, liberty and happiness. Where hatred exists,
happiness cannot.

It’s my opinion our founding fathers would freak right the hell out if they knew what we have done with the license they granted us to interpret their intentions when they created this country, and their compatriots fought and died to make it possible.

In my opinion, the one single key to solving the issues that face us is to get our
politicians to quit being politicians and be the representatives our founding
fathers intended. If we cannot do that we will never get back on track short of
disbanding our government and starting over and that is ridiculous because the
guys who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence were some of the most
intelligent individuals who ever walked this planet.

It is also a ridiculous idea to attempt to disband the government and start over because of the fact that despite the right wing maniacs who like to point out that our forefathers built that option into the countries fabric, the United States Military is too
big for us to over  take and our politicians would never agree and therefore would turn our own military upon us and all that would be lost is lives and nothing would be gained.

It is also my opinion Mr. President that your CHIEF duty as President is to make these nincompoops do their job. If they’re doing their job and hit a 50/50 split, you get to be the tie breaker. If they are not doing their job it is up to you to refocus them on their mission. As President you should not be involved in these petty squabbles.

Having held a few management jobs, it’s never been my place to solve the problems. I have guided fellow employees to refocusing on the problem instead of trying to one up each other.

Your job is mine on a larger scale. My fellow employees and the customers we serve do not hate me or try to make me look bad or make ME the issue. Yours do.

My opinion is that if you go back to your job and make our representatives do theirs, things will change.

It’s also my opinion that because the Constitution does allow you to have the final say via several complex processes, doesn’t mean that should ever occur.

I’m rather disappointed in any statements about Executive Orders because quite frankly, Executive Orders are the easy, lazy way out of a situation.

It is my opinion that that is unnecessary in any issue I have seen thus far in my life.

It is my opinion that you are a decent man and could be a great President if you do your job as the founding fathers intended. I bet they wish they would have included an actual job description as much as I do.

You have some good base ideas. National, affordable, acceptable healthcare is an awesome idea that’s been kicked around forever. You are trying to make it a reality, but the method isn’t working. On the one had I’m of the opinion that we’ve kicked it around and got nowhere, so here we have a plan that sucks, but lets go ahead and try it and work out the glitches. 

The problem is too many people are unwilling to deal with the glitches while it gets worked out. That being the case it shouldn’t be forced upon us. Take that thing back to the drawing board and find a plan we’re more willing to try out. The fact is if the majority of us Americans think the plan is too glitchy to try, our government must be of the opinion that it’s too glitchy to try.

Something also needs to be done about the whole gun thing.

Nobody likes psycho’s gunning down ton’s of innocent people but the control idea’s that are getting kicked around really don’t  jibe with the rights we’re afforded by the Constitution.

We’re in a place where something needs to be done, but again it needs to be agreed upon and show that it will be beneficial. Another very bad place for a knee jerk Executive Order. 

It’s my personal belief there’s no real reason anyone NEEDS a machine gun, but as a musician I do not need seven guitars in my house, 5 of which I rarely play. But every once in awhile I get them out individually and have a little fun. That’s me exercising my right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I could crank them up and infringe on someone else’s right, but should every musician in the world have their instrument taken away because I did that? Probably
not.

Make no mistake, I was raised a hunting boy and I’m all for it, I know you don’t shoot deer with a machine gun, but you don’t need a Porsche to drive to work either. It’s fun. So what. The guy shooting his M-16 at the rifle range or his backyard isn’t hurting anyone and in fact he’s probably helping our crappy economy because I’m sure M-16’s and their ammunition aren’t cheap.

So there is my topic: Government itself. I slipped in more than one opinion but really, we’re drinking Staghorn and talking and how many Beer Summits with the President am I actually going to get to have?

I wish I actually had a Staghorn but that is actually only offered in the fall. A man can dream.

Question #3: What one question would I ask? Easy. Why do we not have National
Binding Referendums? The entire premise of our Government and Constitution is
based on We the People, but We the People don’t really get a say. We are at the
mercy of those who allegedly represent us deciding issues upon which industry is
going to provide them the most campaign funds. National Binding Referendums
would solve every problem we have.

I wasn’t even born yet and to this day I’m pissed off that politicians who wanted to be President got jealous of FDR and decided to make sure that We the People couldn’t re-elect a guy we thought was doing the job we wanted them to do. 

In case you haven’t noticed Mr. President, I am neither 100% Democrat, nor 100% Republican, and I’m certainly not a whack job “independent” (My apologies to Ron Paul and Ross Perot who had some great idea’s but maybe were a little bit more nutty than realistic). I am a 100% Harley riding, blues playing, job having American male over the age of 40 who values my fellow Americans and fellow man in general far more than Government. 

I firmly believe that Ronald Reagan would have at least matched FDR in terms, and people can hate me if they want but President Clinton would have gotten at least one term over the two he served. If it ain’t broke don’t say it needs to be fixed because X number of years have passed.

So, since right now everyone wants to be political instead of solving problems, as a relatively cool guy who has good taste in beer and the power of the leader of the worlds greatest nation Mr. President, why not issue an Executive Order that all important issues be put to National, binding referendum? You will do all future Presidents and politicians a huge favor. 

Hell, you might even be able to save us some money and kickstart the economy by
eliminating some jobs in the House & Senate. It really doesn’t take more than one person from my state to go in and say what I want. Especially since the current congress gets so many months “off”. They should be working five days a week covering their state, finding out what we want and not getting busted for taking luxury vacations when out of session on taxpayer cash. 

The rest of us are in session at least five days a week 52 weeks a year keeping this country living and moving.

Forget the other crap and issue that order so we can tell the Government what to do. Then we don’t have to worry about who is more of a celebrity than who.

That one Executive Order will secure your legacy as the greatest President ever. The one who cut out the bullshit and gave the country back to it’s people. That’s way cooler than being the first President with an African-American heritage.

Think about it. 

Question #4: My one opinion of your actions and proposals. I can keep this one short. You have very good undeveloped ideas that would be of benefit to the citizenry if properly developed. However, rather than making Congress develop them into workable solutions you have shown a tendency to be somewhat childish and remind me of the kid who had the baseball and bat when I was a kid and the rest of us just had gloves. 

The deciding to take your ball and bat home so no one could play is a bit beneath your office and the man I read about for years before he was elected President. You should never threaten Executive Order. You should only make the one I described above.

Last word before the Secret Service takes my drunk ass (man, those Staghorns go down easy don’t they” B”?) back to the hotel via Presidential Motorcade: For reasons
that are nobodies business but mine, you are the first person I ever cast a vote
for President for. At 46 years old. This past election. The MAIN reason is, I believe any man charged with running this country can only just get started in four years. Had I voted earlier in life I would have voted for President Ford, President Carter and President George H.W. Bush exactly as I voted for you and for the same reasons.

But with you, there was one more reason: You convinced the people of this country four years ago that you could bring hope and change. The very fact that we as a country with an extremely racist past could elect a person of African-American descent as President was hope and change in and of itself. I voted for you to have a chance to do that completely and finish the job I know no one could do in four years and I haven’t seen anything different since I learned how to use the electronic voting
machine. What I’ve seen is more and more discord among the people of this
country.

Only you Sir can rekindle my anger over FDR.

Make me wish I could vote for you
again.

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