poli-tics = many bloodsucking insects...

I just saw something interesting. You know? One of those things that makes you go, "hmmm... kinda ironic, don'tcha think?" It was a group, a political issues one, I think. The title was something like "Abolish Abstinence Only Sex Education - Power to the People, not the Government". Now, aside from any issue I have with the main subject of the group, it was the tagline that really caught my attention. "Power to the People, not the Government". It just made me think about all the people who blame EVERYTHING on the government, and especially the president. The sex scandal that ex-president Clinton went through was probably one of the best things that ever happened to him, really. Think about it. When you think of Clinton, what is the first thing that comes to mind? His failed, but continued attempts at bringing peace in the Middle East? Anything about his economic policy, or what he did (or didn't do) for the economy? For most people, no. They aren't going to remember any of the military encounters that occured during his administration or how unbalanced the budget is. For the most part, all people will remember is that he got caught cheating on his wife. And really, it didn't end up hurting his popularity too much. I heard someone make the joke that at least he will have something interesting to put in his biography.
One thing that really got me was the way that one US student in Lebanon or wherever was acting when they got caught over there in the middle of everything and couldn't get home. That's just stupid. First of all, if you insist on going to school overseas in the Middle East for whatever reason, you are running the risk that you might get blown up or something! Seriously though, that girl had all the time in the world to get out of there. She had over 2 weeks as the conflict was imminent to get clear, but she didn't. The government offered to get her out of the area, and she declined. But then once the shooting actually started, she freaked out and started blaiming the president for the fact that she was in the middle of a war zone. I don't care if you like the president or not. I don't care if you think that Saddam had/has weapons of mass distruction or not. But if you can't see how grateful the people of Iraq are now that he isn't using their children to clear mine fields, then you should take a serious look at yourself. This is not a perfect world, and there are not, unfortunately, perfect ways of dealing with things. War is messy. Even if we didn't find what we thought we would while we were there, that isn't even the point. Saddam is not on trial for manufacturing weapons of mass distruction. He is on trial for MURDERING hundreds, thousands, maybe even MILLIONS of people! The culture of Iraq is different from ours, and we should not expect that they will immediately forsake thousands of years of tradition and wholeheartedly embrace our culture. However, we have hundreds of military personnel over there, following their orders, and trying to help those who have been oppressed for generations.
So, basically I'm not really apathetic when it comes to politics, I just think a lot of people are totally into it are way too excited about it. Government and politics are NEVER going to solve the world's problems, but they do have their uses.