Like It Mattered

What's the old saying? You can lead a voter to a trough of poisoned Kool-Aid, but you can't make him drink it, unless he's already developed a taste for it. Or maybe it's something about tainted tea, I can't remember exactly now. My point, and I do have one, is this: American politics is broken.
Like the Obamacare website, there may be no amount of repairs and updates that make this tired old machine function properly again. That siren call of "Hope and Change" seems like the stuff of dreams now. Guantanamo Bay is still open for business, and the economy is still cruising along like it was going to be 2008 all over again at any second. It used to be that I could take solace in the aphorism that used to be applied to the weather in my hometown: "If you don't like the weather in Boulder, wait fifteen minutes." That idea was easily transposed to government: "If you don't like the government, just wait until the next election."
Well, a couple things about that: My good friend and confidant who lived with me back in my college days had his own version of that weather thing: "If you don't like the weather in Boulder, MOVE!" Which brings us to the love it or leave it mantra. I don't know if I want those to be my only choices. I want to believe that I am working every day to make my city, state and country a better place. I know that this process relies on compromise, and I'm not foolish enough to think that I can get what I want by simple force of will. Or shutting down the government.
It would be an awesome thing if there was some sort of united moment for these fifty states. Like the singing of "God Bless America" on the capitol steps. Like a government by and for the people. Like it mattered.