A Little Healthy Outrage

Your Representatives Are Stripping Away Your Rights. So What Are You Doing About It?

By Synnove Bakke | The Save Jersey Blog

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our childrens children say of us, we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”

– Ronald Reagan

The State House in Trenton, New Jersey.
The State House in Trenton, New Jersey.

Well, well, well, the Democrat controlled legislature disappointed us again. All twenty-five gun law bills passed Thursday. I wrote an opinionated article on this yesterday.

Being that NJ already has the strictest Gun laws in the nation, lets look at why the twenty-five gun bills passed. Read my not so humble opinion, on why we now have to deal with them passing. I’m seriously grumpy today. As a political junkie with a burning desire to make a difference in today’s political world, and make sense of it, I tend to burn out now and then. I’m getting there now, but after a break I’ll bounce back shortly.

I know too many of the voting, and (sadly) non-voting public care more about what the Kardashians are wearing, and where the next celebrity party is at, but in case one or two of you happen here on accident, read this, and try to think a little.

I have walked door to door all over as Republican committee woman, and also for candidates. I must have knocked on thousands of doors the last few years, and have been floored by the clueless answers I get at times. Most people do not know who represents them, let alone the identity of anyone in our President’s cabinet.

I moved back to the US from having been born here, but lived out of the country for 20 years, and I feel at times that I love this country with a stronger passion than many Americans who have lived here all their lives. That makes me sad on our amazing country’s behalf.

I am making sure my children learn, and loves the American history like I do, and I make sure they never forget to be grateful for how lucky we are to live here.

It doesn’t hurt to be educated on important stuff that affects your and your family’s future. In fact, when you choose to be uninformed, I blame you for what happens to our families and our economy in the future. Because you don’t know enough to vote for new blood nationally (for the “Kardashian followers, we have 2 U.S. Senators and 12 Congressmen representing us in DC from NJ) or locally, we’re stuck with the same reps for years and years. Some of them even have cob webs growing around them from being in office so long. The power has gone to their heads, and they start doing shady things (see Bob Menendez) and most of the time, they get away with it.

I feel this is partially due to an uneducated public, and a Democrat strong-hold on major donors, and contacts in said representatives’ districts. The longer a rep holds office, the harder it is to replace them, regardless of how effective they are as our reps. They could stink to high heaven (like my kids say) but we are still stuck with them. A sarcastic, and grumpy “Thank You very much” from me today!

I also blame you, the uneducated public for the state of New Jersey’s economy, because you allowed Corzine, and other representatives like him, to wreck havoc unchecked for many years. But then you redeemed yourself somewhat when you gave Christie a shot. He’s doing his best, but is now getting stone walled on many issues in Trenton, due to a Democrat majority in both houses. You need to do your job as an American citizen, and a voter from NJ, and inform yourself on who represents you. I’m not saying all NJ Democrats are bad. There’s some Republicans in NJ that I’m not too happy with as well.

If nothing else, think about this, there are young men in our Armed services that died, and are still dying for the pleasure and right that you now have to live in a mostly safe, free country. A country in which you have all kinds of rights, including freedom of speech, and you get to vote on top of it. You do have a say about the future of our country if you choose to vote.

Please show our heroes and your children some respect and caring by knowing who you vote for. You can find your US Reps here, and your State Reps here.  For your local and county reps, you can visit your County clerk’s website.

Your local Reps affect you in many more ways than you realize. For instance, the next time you whine about Christie raising your taxes, I want you to take a look at how your township reps and county reps, and even your US Senators and Congressman voted on taxes and other Bills. Keep in mind that Christie put a cap on your property taxes a few years ago to prevent local townships from raising them uncontrollably. New Jerseyans are still among the highest paying property tax payers in the nation, and we didn’t get there overnight. That was the sad status of NJ when Christie took over the Governors seat, and people were leaving the state in droves. Elderly people could not afford to stick around with their grandchildren, and new couples could not afford to buy their first home.

Yes, we are still paying an incredibly high amount of Taxes because Christie alone can’t fight this Government overreach. Democrats and some Republicans just love to give us everything we want, sometimes because they misguidedly think they’re being nice, and other times, because they are looking to get re-elected. But like most of us teach our kids, you can’t always have what you want. When your state, and country is suffering financially, and is in debt over its ears, it’s time to curb the spending.

If you are daring, you will take a look at the current US Debt – 16 Trillion and counting. Then take a look at NJ State Debt clock.

Notice how NJ’s revenue is smaller than its spending? Would you and your family get away with spending more than you have? Would you get away with unsustainable debt in the long run?

It’s all there for you to see, because sin d our NJ Reps love making everyone “happy,” you, each NJ citizen now owes $11,500. And because our national Reps also love making you happy, you owe $52,000 for the feds.

Take a closer look at that Debt clock, and tell me you feel good about your childrens, and your grand childrens future. Tell me you have done your part in making NJ and our country a better place. If you can’t tell yourself that, then get off the couch, and get involved. Remember: we only have one life to live, and shouldn’t you live that life to the best of your ability?

Synnove Bakke
About Synnove Bakke 27 Articles
A 2015 candidate for the N.J. Assembly, Synnove Bakke was born in New Jersey to immigrant parents but moved back to Norway as an infant where she lived throughout her childhood and young adult years. She returned to the U.S. after graduating from nursing school to work as an au pair for one year. She quickly fell in love with this great country and never relocated back to her native Norway.

3 Comments

  1. @Joshua The political process can't work if citizens don't mind the shop. Never assume anything. Keep up the pressure 24/7.

  2. @Joshua. Christie is in favor of a few of these proposals and once campaigned for assembly on his support for the so-called assault weapons ban.

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