And they're off: Time for the manure shoveling

I remember a time, perhaps a time where I was more naïve than I am today, when I looked forward to the election cycle. It was a time that once inspired and encouraged me as I listened to powerful words from the men and women who sought to take up a "selfless" torch and lead our country onward and upward toward further greatness. It was a time that once had me foolishly wanting to engage in politics so much so that I declared myself a Political Science major during the brief time I spent in college at Mercer University. Oh, how blissful ignorance was. I often wish I could return to the times when I believed in those people and bought the load of excrement the overwhelming majority of them were selling.

Now, times have changed. Actually, I don't think the times have changed as much as I have. The election cycle no longer inspires me. Earnestly watching debates or fervently listening to campaign speeches no longer encourages me to be a bolder citizen. Now, they just make me role my eyes and say, "Yep, here we go again. Is this a rerun?" It's time to put on the old rubber boots again, get out the farm tools and prepare to start shoveling for the next 19 months in a graven attempt to hopefully determine who is less full of it.

Rhetoric, the same old tired rhetoric spun by individuals with the same do-nothing qualities as so many who have come before them and taken to the podiums the last election cycle and the cycle before that and the one 10 years before that, etc. Don't get me wrong; the speeches are absolutely magnificent in most cases. They're held in fantastic arenas filled with a multitude of individuals who are still drinking the Kool-Aid of this next "great leader." They have their signs held high and will consistently interrupt with uproarious cheers as the perfectly worded and precisely emphasized address is delivered. It will be a grand scene of inspiration and confirm for many that indeed this IS our man (or woman)!

Ted Cruz gave the first speech of an actual 2016 presidential candidate this morning, and as I witnessed the above scene unfold inspiration and patriotism were not the feelings I was overcome with. Instead I began to feel like that old broken down farm mule is getting ready to be saddled up and ridden once again down the same old trails, past the same barbed-wire fence that runs alongside the same dilapidated farm house as has been done each and every day for as long as can be remembered only to come full circle and be put up in the same old barn at the end of the day.

Now, don't get me wrong – I like Ted Cruz. From what I've seen during his brief tenure on the Hill he seems to have more guts and gumption than most, but at the end of the day all of the "straight-shooting" hard-nosed rhetoric that punctuated the end of each paragraph of this morning's speech will wind up as empty as a baseball stadium in December.

I listened to inspirational promises on how the border will finally be secured and the sovereignty of America will once again be reinstated. No, it won't.

I listened to how the multi-faceted burden that is Obamacare will finally be eradicated and a more realistic approach to health care will be installed. No, it won't.

I heard fanciful notions of a shrinking, less intrusive federal government that would go so far as to abolish the IRS. You know what? That's not going to happen, either – but with each pointed, well-articulated campaign promise the crowd surged, just as they've done for so many others in past cycles and just as they'll do for Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Elizabeth Warren, Hillary Clinton, Scott Walker and whoever else can spin a speech and convince We the People that things will be different under them.

Well, it won't. Elect whomever you want and think you're basing it on what they tell you in some beautifully delivered campaign soliloquy, and I'm here to tell you that nothing of a material nature will be different. For a vast array of reasons it seems that no leader in our modern era (at least in this country) has the marbles of a substantial enough nature to stiffen his back against the threat of unpopularity long enough to make any fundamental change.

Sure, they can all spin a speech and inspire enough of the masses, but to me the fancy talk has long become stale. To the politician types out there who will be seeking my vote and the votes of many of my fellow citizens in 19 short months, you can take your rhetoric and stick it squarely up the northbound end of that southbound mule. It's time for someone to stand up, face adversity and embrace the "dare to be great" situations that face leadership in America and delivery. This nation cannot endure another administration that's talented at talk, but devoid of action. America needs that next Churchill-type leader who will establish principles, bow his neck and, by God, lead on those principles.

Read Rocker's firsthand account of his public battle with the PC thought police: "Scars and Strikes," at the WND Superstore

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