Liberalism, as an idea, may not be the enemy that I think it is. However, government is. They have continued to chip away at our liberties and our pocketbooks. George W. Bush made it a point to chip away at our liberties in the name of safety, and Barack Obama has made it his mission to chip away at our pocketbooks.
Everyone thinks that the bailouts were needed because of the "too big to fail" crock. A free market economy, allowed to function, with limited government intervention would have sorted through the wreckage and guided itself out of the recession. Meaning that the banks/airlines/or any other business that were weak and had made poor decisions would have been bankrupted, while the strong businesses that had made good decisions would have weathered the storm and absorbed the market share of the recently deceased competitors. All of which would not have cost taxpayers a dime.
And yes, the argument can be made that all those companies would have laid off so many workers and then there would have been catastrophic consequences. I would think that the other companies, to include upstarts into business, would have at least partially filled the void and created new jobs for those out of work. The other half of my argument is, when did Americans become so dependent on their government that they would actually think that it is the realm of the Federal government to provide you with a job?
I think you are correct in part, that a balance is needed. However, the swings back and forth are not what this country needs. A balance is one thing, a pendulum swing from one end to the other is something completely different. Spending any amount of time traveling this great land will reveal a glaring inconsistency in liberal thought. Most people want the government in their life as little as is humanly possible. Most people would like to have as little of their earnings as possible taken by Uncle Sam.
And finally, in regard to your last admonishment that I can either run for office or work on the campaign of someone I believe in. The latter half is true. I could work for those candidates I believe in, except there's one problem. I have a full time job. I donate to political campaigns, I keep up with politics, and I vote in every local, county, state and federal election that comes along. That's about the best I can do, given the fact that I have to support myself and ensure that I'm not living off the government tit.
Could I really run for office? I don't think my employer would be very happy about me taking a few months off to pursue another job. Nor do I think that the thousands of dollars required (on a local level) or the millions of dollars required (on the state or national levels) are falling from the sky. So let's be serious. The only people in this country are the wealthy, or political operatives that can get the party and its resources behind them. And since we are only getting that sort of person in office, the results are a government that is firmly detached from its constituents and beholden to whatever interest it is that got them elected.
As far as presidents go...I skewered every president that has served since I've been writing this. So far that's just GW and Mr. Obama. Both of whom, are huge disappointments. As presidents so often are, or in the case of my lifetime, always are.
Bush put this train on the track and Obama is shoveling coal into the fire as fast as he can.
When will someone out there realize that what's happening in this country is hilarious because it can all be traced to one thing. Government. Make no mistake, I don't wish an overthrow of the government. Not hardly. But anyone who has seen the government working for the past 8-10 years knows this. Anything that the G gets a hold of, they fuck up. Its as simple as that.
Define Insanity: doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.
American insanity: Looking to the government for solutions when the government cannot even manage to spend less than it takes in.
Balance that!
Great cartoon! Sometimes letting something fail is the best way to correct the problem, but we just don't want to do it. For years we have thrown money into an education system that is mediocre at best and a failure most of the time. We shore up farmers with subsidies. Now we have all the bailouts. People are always willing to take money when it is offered to them without thinking about where it comes from or what promises you have to make to get it. It is frustrating.
ReplyDeleteCan you really think of any way that we can have an election system where you didn't need vast sums of capital behind you in order to get elected? The choices are:
ReplyDeleteMilitary over throw: need money to buy guns.
State run elections: Um...do you really think they would be fair
Current System: Get a group with funding behind you.
Perhaps there are others, but they don't occur to me right now.
So, yes, become the representative for a group of people requires fund your election. And then, once you win, you are still just one of many people competeing to get your particular legislation through the voting process. You need to learn the process their, just like you needed to learn the basics of rifle marksmanship, land nav, and the rest of SMCT in order to be a decent infantryman. There is a significant investment in learning any profession, and politician is no different.
At the extremes we have pure Democracy and dictatorship. Both have their problems. Representative government is a balance between those two. There are many versions of it around the globe, most veering more parliamentary then ours is.
As for those rights that the President's are "chipping away at." they are a relatively recent phenomenon, too. Much of the freedom of the frontier that lead to the American revolution was bought at the cost of the Native Americans, and on the back of slaves. Gradually, women and minorities have gained equal protection under the law, but it has only been in the last 100 years.
It was the Republican party that undercut the attempt to put some oversight into the Patriot Act, not the left, and not the President. This is, I think, a clear case of that party voting against the very principals for which it stands.
As I see it, the Republican's are angry that it was swept out of power, are vilifying the left. The left is angry that, after given Bush carte blanche after 9-11, is surprised that he used it to pus through his own, publically stated agenda, both domestically and internationally.
But in both cases, it is aeasy to spout rhetoric, dig in your heels, and say "everything is wrong, everything needs to be changed." wehn in reality, the changes that we want are in inches, not miles.
Education is important, we want the schools to be bettwer. We may disagree on how to do that, but the goal is the same.
No one wants to increase the national debt. The difference is the degree of risk posed by doing so versus leaving exiting conditions to worsen.
No one wants to leave America vulnerable to attack. No one wants to lose precious liberties. No politician wants to be the person responsible for letting either of these things happen. We may chose which liberty is more important to us. We may disagree on the necessity of the Second Amendment being a liberty or a liability. But the discussion held by getting on a soap box and shouting at the top of your voice does little to help educate people that don't understand your point of view.
Thanks for responding. And please keep writing.
I apologize in advance for nitpicking a fantastic post, but just for clarity, I believe the bailouts happened/started under President Bush, not that you specifically stated otherwise, but that just seems to be one of those "memory hole" things that bugs.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, appreciate the comment and you reading...read some of my older stuff and you'll see. I am not a big fan of GW. I see where you're coming from though. Oversight on my part.
ReplyDeleteOK, since you guys know at least that I am a real perosn, and not a spammer, perhaps it is OK if I try to pimp this here. Yes, I've posted this on other milblogs. Figure it is the right audience.
ReplyDeletePlease let your readers know about a new milblog. MAJ Phalan is a FAO with an interesting job...touring around Afghanistan and making sure that we know what the ey are doing with the weapons we give them. And he has kind if a weird sense of humor about it.
Check it out. He's just getting started.
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