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Saturday, March 3, 2012

Why Would Anybody Want To Be President

      It is a amazing to me that people will spend millions upon millions of dollars to get a job that only pays $400,000 a year.  Of course it is not their money they are spending in most cases.  So why would a person spend that kind of money to get the job, for the power, for the fame.  Surely not because they want the responsibility.   Maybe they think they will change the world.
   
      Here are some interesting trivia about Presidents you might want to impress friends with.
         
             18 % of our presidents have died in office.  Some by natural cause and some by assassination.
 That means that almost one in five presidents die in office.  The Presidency is evidently a high risk job. .

             !6 % have been shot.

            37% of those who died in office were in there second term in office.  Proof that politics can kill you.
                        The longer you stay the greater the risk.
             9% of our Presidents have been assassinated.  That means you have almost a one in ten chance of dying in office.  Those odds are almost worse than playing Russian roulette.  Guess mos people seeking the job have not done the research to know the risks that come with the job.  Only an idiot would want such a high risk job.
         
 50%  of those that have been assassinated were in their second term in office.  Which definitely proves  my theory of higher risk if you serve longer.

      When it comes to getting the job, education is not mandatory but it helps.  Twenty per cent of the ones who have been President did not graduate from college.  In fact a couple had no formal education.  Having not gone to college did not hold them back though.   While twenty five were lawyers.  Twenty percent (6) of those who were lawyers did not have a college education.  They were self taught and motivated.

       Four of the Presidents were professional soldiers and at least two of them graduated from military academies.  At least four of them attained to the office of President based largely on their role in the military.
Washington, Jackson, Grant and Eisenhower were held in high esteem because of their military records and not from their non military accomplishments.  Several others were military veterans with impressive records.

       In America's times of greatest trial we have had leaders who were not college educated or did not hold a degree.  Washington, Lincoln and Truman had no college degrees.  So God evidently provided men with strong common sense when the nation needed strong leadership.

      When you do look at the educational backgrounds some colleges standout.  Before the Civil War four of the Presidents had been graduates of William and Mary in Virginia.  From the beginning to now seven have been Harvard graduates,  Yale has produced five Presidents.  So it seems your choice of place of higher education can influence your chances of being President.

      America has proven to be a pretty good place to achieve the American dream by working your way up from the bottom.  Religious backgrounds have varied.  We even had a Quaker for President.  Even racism has not been a bar to reaching the highest office in the land.  When the Constitution was written blacks were considered only three fifths of a man.  That was changed with the Civil War and now a man of Color has achieved to the highest  office in the land.   He was raised by his mother and his white grandparents and he evidently was fed a full measure of the American dream.  He not only believed it.   He pursued it and proved it is truly possible for anybody to become the President of the United States of America.  He proved the dream is true and works. Now that he has the job, he seems to be struggling to figure out what to do with it.   He has views that our considered wrong by many Americans, but his life view is tempered by his upbringing. Having lived overseas his view is more comprehensive. He has seen  that America is the land of opportunity and hope. He could not have picked a worse time to become President, but history has shown divine providence provides the right man for the job at the right time.  Lets pray that is still the case.   There is only one thing that will keep you from becoming President of the United States.  You have to be born here.  That has been an issue since the President took office, but it has not been proven that he was not born here.  It is time to give the man a chance to do the job he was elected to do.  Hopefully his "change" will not tear America apart.  Time will judge if his actions are right or wrong like it has every President before him.

       As a "Christian nation" if we have elected a man who does not believe in and live the Christian values this nation was founded an based upon,  we will get our just reward.  Whatever that may be.  While Obama does and says many things I do not agree with.  It is my prayer that my judgement is right.  That he will do the right thing in the end.  We have a nation of checks and balances.  In the end he can do no more that the Congress allows him to do.  My hope and prayer is that he not be made the scapegoat for the whole mess America finds itself in today.  He was given a broken system with a broken and empty piggy bank and given the job of fixing the mess created over a period of eighty years.  Things do not happen in a vacuum and they do not happen in a day.  Just as I explain in my blog, of 20 Feb America's Political Suicide, this mess was set up to happen by a compromise by Clinton and Gingrich clear back in the 90's.  The stage was set by actions they took.  They passed the bill to give housing to people who could not really afford it.  Then they made the largest capital gains tax cut in history.  That tax cut took immense amounts of money out of the governments pockets and gave it directly to the wealthy.  The main problem was that they made no corresponding cut in spending.   So spending went on its merry way and when the housing crisis happened capital gains drained the system as it was given to Wall Street Bankers in the form of bonuses.  Now today we are seeing the real cost of the deal they made.   The nation can still be saved, but it will take a determined effort and cooperation between the President and Congress and sadly I do not see that happening.  Fortunately for Obama history will see and show what really caused this whole mess and he may be vindicated as a victim of circumstance.

      In the past there were a couple of men who took matters into their own hands and tried to make America great again. Both Booth and Oswald were deluded but living in times when there was a great amount of hatred in America. My first forever memory was walking out of my sophmore shop class and hearing President Kennedy had just been shot. I remember watching the Oswald shooting on live TV. Later in the sixties I was in Vietnam when both Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were killed. Things seemed to mellow out during the seventies to the nineties, but then they started getting dark again.

      The hate in America today is something I have a hard time getting a grasp on. The election of Obama seeemed to churn up emotions and common sense went out the window. Since the Trump election hate has seemed to permeate our culture. People I have considered friends for years have disowned me because I do not like Trump. My Biblical view is that of Jeremiah 17:5 which says. Cursed is the man who puts his trust in a man. While Proverbs 6:16-19 tells of seven things God hates. To like what God hates would take a fool or an atheist. I choose to believe God.

      It has been thirty-four years since Ronald Reagan was shot. With all the crazies in America and candidates out on the trail sticking their finger in the pot and agitating them, I think the forty year average is in risk of fulfillment again. Neither side is seeking to accomplish anything new, Their main goal is to undo what the other party has done. That is not progress. My prayer is for peace and common sense to prevail, but what I see is an evangelical movement in Ameica that is deceived.

      Just for the record I vote independent. The Constitution and the Bible guide my views. I spent thirteen years in the military, ten of it overseas.  As a history buff I try to look at the whole picture.  Not just what I can see right now.  Hope some body gets something out of this.

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