2008 REPRISE
I was looking through some of the essays I penned last year. Have a look.
Posted in September 2008:
Please tell me if you can which of the following notions that have been rolling around in my alleged mind over the past few months are not true?
1. Government spending did not get our grandparents out of the Great Depression. The Japanese accomplished that when they bombed Pearl Harbor, and business and government went to work building a war machine.
2. The current financial crisis is a wake-up call that history may record as a blessing that came along in time to avoid a much deeper problem. The devil is in details of what we do next year to avoid a repetition. Don’t ever forget the danger of what Alexander Hamilton called the tyranny of the majority . . . the unbridled power of 51%, who don’t know what they don’t know, to move in a stampede-like rush that’s difficult to stop until it goes too far.
3. Congressional politicians and like-minded pundits will blame everyone but themselves in an effort to use the current crisis to advance more extreme socialist ideologies. In fact this has already begun.
4. Social Security and Medicare are the next crisis waiting to happen, and if not approached by Congress in a more responsible, non-political, manner will be another wake-up call, far worse than anything we’ve experienced to date.
5. Congress for 80 years has used their taxing power to reward and punish. I’m not sure this is what the authors of the Constitution had in mind.
6. Few have acted like we’ve been at war since 9/11, because in wartime people are expected, even required, to make sacrifices for the cause. All most of us were asked to do was buy and spend. That does not mean, however, that we’re not in a war for our very survival.
7. When something sounds too good to be true it usually is. The markets always will make us pay for politicians who use their power to regulate to further their own or their friends’ personal or ideological agendas.
8. We allow candidates for elected office to buy our votes, and this makes our freedom more tenuous and the Congress less accountable for what they do and fail to do.
This was posted one year ago:
Fear is a great motivator. It can work for the betterment of individuals who respond with a clear head, or incite panic and confusion among crowds who don’t. It can work its force to move masses of human beings to do things that later make them blush.
Listen to what our politicians say when they’re trying to convince us what they want is right for the nation. Fear is strong medicine and neither Democrats nor Republicans are afraid to use it.
The use of fear to get people to act is by its nature negative and destabilizing. “The Sky is Falling,” says Chicken Little. (I guess that’s where we started using “chicken” as the moniker for being afraid.) This doomsday or Sky is Falling technique is used daily without shame by some television and print news media. If the story is worth repeating it’s certainly worth scaring people about, and some can really do the job . . . without in many cases knowing more than how to get your attention. If you don’t usually think of this as politically driven . . . think again.
Our system of checks and balances may top off the highs some nations obtain from power imposed achievement, like that going on in China, Russia and Venezuela right now, but our Constitution also provides a solid foundation for collective freedom of action allowing 350 Million Americans to act as one when they need to.
Better leadership always brings better results, and being afraid from time to time might even spur action in the right direction; but knowing this brilliant and many times proven Constitutional system is on our side no matter who’s in the White House or who are making our laws, gives us the strength to overcome our fear.
So think positive, and try not to let anyone frighten you.
And Last Summer:
While Congress is at it, they should either rescind Murphy’s Law, or stop acting like it doesn’t exist.
Murphy’s Law for those of you leaders in the United States Senate and, especially, the House of Representatives, who don’t know, states that if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong.
I doubt Congress has the power to rescind laws of nature, but maybe current leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank should start paying attention. These two speak and act as if they’re saying something makes it true, while Murphy’s Law assures they’ll be proven wrong every time . . . even assuming they were right in the first place.
Congress is responsible for passing our laws and spending our money. Do they assume when they pass a law that it will produce the outcome they intend? Do they keep tabs on how it’s working? Do they know in fact that things will not work out the way their words on paper state and intend? Do they have a clue that things are not right when a person, like the President of Fannie May, comes to them with buckets of money and other bribes, soliciting Congressional sanction for their misdeeds and miscalculations? There’s no better example of this Congressional failure than the debacle called Fannie May/Freddie Mac. This situation, and the resulting chaos, wreaks of Murphy’s Law.
Congress doesn’t administer the laws it passes. That responsibility rests on the shoulders of successive Presidential Administrations, but Congress has oversight of those efforts, a power that they love to exercise for political reasons after Murphy’s Law has kicked in and the nation has a resulting problem. But they don’t use the power to test the effectiveness of their own actions.
Our Social Security system and the many laws that Congress has passed, and failed to pass, to make it a pending disaster, is another prime example. Members of Congress seem paralyzed by the fear they won’t get reelected if they admit Social Security needs fixing. I doubt there’s an American alive who doesn’t know that the Social Security system is bankrupt. Congress knows damn well it’s their fault. They’ve borrowed money (interest free) from the funds taken from beneficiaries over the years and used it to buy other things. That money belonged to the persons who paid it in. Once again, Congress passed a law, a good law at the time, Murphy’s Law proved its case, and Congress sat on its hands.
The day is now here when Congress can no longer ignore the obvious. When, and if, they pass the right kind of legislation to rescue Social Security and our banking system, let’s hope they think about, and take into consideration, Murphy’s Law. It’s called being held accountable for what you can expect will happen. It seems sometimes that we don’t hold Congress accountable for anything.