Are we seeing signs that the unraveling might be reversed? It is too early to say. Try googling the last 24 hours of news for congress and townhall. The results will be a mixture of horror and hope. President Barack Obama is out stage managing his meetings (here). Other Democrats, however, have been less successful (here and here, for example). So they are struggling, and some have switched to virtual formats that allow them far more rigid control (here). Meanwhile, instead of reporting on the issues that have frightened and upset voters, much of the news media just highlights anger (here, here, and here).
As citizens, we have a management responsibility. Even when our employees (our elected officials) and the news media have lost their cool, we have a responsibility to keep our own heads clear. Otherwise, our families and our friends will suffer.
In many respects our government is like an huge corporation, and we are like stockholders. Most of us have just a small share in this corporation, but for all of us, it is virtually everything we have. If our government fails, we lose everything.
So even though each of us alone can do very little, it still behooves each of us to take an active role in the management of government. However, before we do anything, we have to figure out what we should do.
Many of us have begun to notice our government is spending money carelessly and that our government officials want unwarranted powers. Consider these outstanding items:
- Although they cost hundreds of billions, the stimulus bills never made any real sense. The bills just rescued big Wall Street players with political connections.
- For no apparent reason (Where is the science?), the climate bill (cap and trade) would stifle an already struggling economy.
- Even though 80 percent of us are happy with the current system, the Democrats want a health care bill that would nationalize and socialize medicare. When they must know socialism does not work, why would our elected leaders support such a crazy thing?
- When the public has already adamantly rejected the stupid idea, Congress still insists upon an amnesty bill for illegal immigrants.
Obviously, we have elected intractable idiots to our Board of Directors. How did we ever do such a stupid thing? The answer, unfortunately, is obvious. As stockholders, we voted for those clowns.
Look around. Look at our neighbors. Some are smart. Some are dumb. A few are very nice. A few are cruel and mean. Most are like you and me; they are happy tending to their own affairs. Yet many of us want something for nothing from government, and we have given little or no consideration to the consequences.
What happens as a corporation gets bigger? Doesn’t the company get more difficult to manage? What if we own stock in a big corporation? Don’t we have a choice as that corporation gets bigger? We can try to manage the company, or, if we see the stock going down, we can sell our stock.
As citizens, we are also “stockholders” in a big corporation. When our government gets bigger, it too gets harder to manage. However, unlike a commercial corporation, it is impractical to sell our shares in the government, and if the government collapses, we will lose everything.
As citizens, we must accept responsibility for our role in the mess we have created. So that we can understand it well enough to manage it, we must demand much less from our government. If we want our elected officials to be honest, then each of us must stop feeding at the government trough.
- If a function now performed by government can be just as easily performed by private entities, then we must demand our government give up that function.
- If it is the least bit practical for the users of government services to pay for the services they receive, then we must insist those users pay, not everybody else.
In fact, we should not be surprised that so many of our elected officials behave like cheats, frauds, and thieves. That is what we have elected them to be. We must recognize that nothing provided by government is “free.” Whenever a politician promises us anything, to give this thing to us, he has to steal something from someone. Redistributing the wealth is just another name for this stealing. All redistributing the wealth does is make thievery from your neighbors legal.
The Cartoons
For some reason when I was searching for cartoons on Congress and Townhall Meetings, this image came up. Yipes!
Here is the more traditional cartoon.
Tom,
glad to see you are ‘born again’ on staged meetings.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7880-2005Feb8.html
W was the king of them. don’t recall too much criticism of him then.
the Obama town hall gave out 70% of the tickets to randomly drawn folks.
i suspect that this lobbyist inspired hysteria in town hall meetings about birthers, death panels, euthanasia, communism, socialism, and Obama being a Nazi/racist will play poorly for those same people (moderates, blue dogs, independents, and moderate R’s [there must be a few left]) who voted for Obama last November.
i got to tell you tho, as a good UU i would be moved to violence if i saw one of those posters of Obama with a hitler moustache.
those who don’t want to move us a bit higher on the evaluation of our health system on the international scale …
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_compared#Canadian_health_care_in_comparison can just continue these transparent efforts.
the health care crisis essentially has the same genesis as the housing/banking meltdown. GREED.
Luke 9:1: “When Jesus called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure disease, and sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and heal the sick.”
direction we can use??? it’s time.
b
Bruce Roemmelt – How true! No one ever criticized Bush. LOL!
How very strange! To justify Democrats, you begin with a condemnation of former President Georg W. Bush. Then you call people complaining about nationalizing and socializing our health care system names.
How can you use the Word of God to justify redistributing the wealth? What about freedom of religion? If we are not free to make our own ethical decisions, particularly about charity, where is the substance of this freedom? When Jesus called the Twelve together, did they not choose to come of their own accord?
What gives you the right to use government to insist that your brothers and sisters to join you in your charitable acts? Have you the right to do what God will not? Don’t you understand that by using force to make others adopt your form of charity you take first steps towards tyranny?
The noose is particularly offensive, Tom, as it has racial overtones.
my favorite quote from the fringe…
“I don’t want socialized medicine, so keep your hands off my Medicare.”
OFL you talk about ‘freedom of religion’ then tell me how to interpret mine. hm mm
I’m just saying my belief is that Jesus would be for universal coverage. his thing was, see the sick, heal them. then there was that whole ‘money lenders in the temple thing’.
the “force” you allude to in a democracy, OFL is called an election. Obama won.
after this on, it’s on to the next task, doing the cap and trade, and hopefully we’ll get around to the real issues with redistribution of wealth. might be good to have a robust middle class again.
from… http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
Table 4: Percentage of wealth held by the Top 10% of the adult population in various Western countries
country wealth owned by top 10%
Switzerland 71.3%
United States 69.8%
Denmark 65.0%
France 61.0%
Sweden 58.6%
UK 56.0%
Canada 53.0%
Norway 50.5%
Germany 44.4%
Finland 42.3%
b
Bruce Roemmelt –
The same amendment that gives us Freedom of Religion also gives us Freedom of Speech. Did I force you to read what I wrote?
The fact is that Jesus had precious little to say about our mode of government. His teachings related to the state of our souls. Which leads me to ask: how does passing off our personal responsibilities to our government improve the state of our souls?
As it is, 80 percent of Americans are satisfied with their health care. The fact that some say silly, contradictory things in the defense of the current system does not make them wrong. Instead, it just means that even the ill-informed fear the proposed changes.
Capital has always concentrated in the hands of a few. Since relatively few people know how to manage capital assets, that is not necessarily a problem. What is pertinent is whether most people can afford to pay their bills: food, clothing, shelter, medical bills, etc. In our democratic capitalist societies, that generally does not seem to be a problem. Most socialist nations, on the other hand, have stagnating and floundering economies.
Instead of proposing limitations upon or even the destruction of competition, the competition that gives us choices and encourages innovation, perhaps you ought to go back to the drawing board. If you do not want to see wealth concentrated into a few hands, then fight politicians when they pass out political favors to their corporate friends. If you want more people to have more opportunities, fight the tendency of our leaders to concentrate as much power as they can into their own hands. All that power will do is corrupt them.