A Little Deeper

Let's take that last post a little deeper.  Here are some statements from candidates for leadership office that should automatically disqualify them.

• I'll create jobs
• On Day One I'll [anything]
• I'll ensure the security
• I'll deliver an ultimatum
• I'll undo everything the last guy did (except the parts I agree with)
• What's good for the economy is good for America
• What's good for business is good for the economy (therefore--the logic goes--what's good for business is good for America)

Statements like these are made for one purpose only and that purpose IS NOT accountability.  When the buck is being passed, this guy will ALWAYS make sure someone else is holding it.

Friends, what is good for the people of the nation (as a whole) is good for the nation.  Good for business or good for Undecided Voter have such a small probability of being good for the nation that, to the extent that the candidate is successful in doing these things, they actually do harm to the nation by diverting energy and resources from those efforts that really would be good for the nation.

We simply can't afford to have a leader who has his mind made up before anything happens.  Does anyone believe the world is a simple, easy to understand place?  Does anyone believe that our role in the world is static (that the world moves around us)?

Less taxes and smaller government are standards not morality.  We should have the smallest government and the lowest level of taxation consistent with our place in the world.  Less for the sake of less is not different than more for the sake of more.  Both are evidence of mental imbalance and faulty reasoning.  One is named greed; the other has no name (though it is the opposite of patriotic).

Why do we have government?  According to the Preamble to the Constitution, We, the People, have created the government defined in the Consitution for the purpose of:   form[ing] a more perfect Union, establish[ing] Justice, insur[ing] domestic Tranquility, provid[ing] for the common defence, promot[ing] the general Welfare, and secur[ing] the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.  THAT is the why and it impossible to justify Cut Taxes and Balance The Budget [someday] as the how.

What's Good For The Economy...

I confess, I am REALLY losing heart when the candidate says (again) that experience in business is the best qualification for leading a nation.  The justification is the Economy.  We need to capitalize it to make it seem like something real.  The Economy IS real but not in the same way that Philadelphia is real.  Well, maybe there are similarities, but my point is that you can't put your arms around the Economy, you can't see the limits, there are no signs that say "now entering The Economy."

First of all, let me say that our nation, The United States of America, even though it does have boundaries, is every bit as subjective a thing as The Economy.

Would we continue to be The United States of America even if The Economy changed?  Of course we would--and we have.  The United States of America is whatever We, The People, are willing to stand up for.

Changes in The Economy have forced many of We, The People, to change the way we think of ourselves and our roles as individuals, citizens, providers, dependents, students, family members, soldiers, sailors, marines, teachers, mayors...  Initially change is hard.  It's like Letting Go of the pool gutter when learning to swim.  Finally though, we understand that we need to Get To The Other Side.  It's only then that we learn to swim.  The Letting Go is only part of the change.  This is the kind of change that we have to focus on because it's the only kind that positions us for the next one.

It is so SMALL and LIMITING and, yes, disheartening to think that business holds the answers for The United States of America.  We, The People, are this nation and let there be no doubt about it.  Not The Economy, not National Defense, not Business, not Education, not anything except each other.  When we stop doing the things that make each other healthier, more knowledgeable, safer, more secure in our hopes for the future and instead focus our efforts on making corporations safer and more secure, we are no longer part of The United States of America.  We have become something else, a virus that manifests as Us versus Them, They Shouldn't Be Able To, What About Me, This Is Mine, There Isn't Enough For You and a host of other symptoms.  None of the symptoms alone can destroy The United States of America, but untreated they spread until they gain control and We, The People, disappear.  When that happens The United States of America disappears except as a multicolored area on a map or globe.

The Middle Class

We have all been hearing a lot about the "middle class" lately and, honestly, I'm beginning to feel insulted by the references.  Much of this feeling probably stems from Barbara Tuchman's book, A Distant Mirror, which I am currently reading.

To try to provide a bit of perspective, I have read Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand) and I confess to a sense of horror and revulsion while reading the first quarter or so of the book.  I get it that Congressman Ryan felt the same things.  By the time I reached the end of the book, though, I was experiencing feelings that were the same but directed at the conclusions reached by Ms Rand.  From this I am willing to entertain the possibility that Congressman Ryan quite possibly never finished the book.  If he did then I'm forced to feel horror and revulsion at his conclusions.

A Distant Mirror is a history of the 14th Century in Europe.  The period from 1300 AD to 1400 AD certainly suggests itself as a distant mirror of our own times.  There was schism in what at that time was THE Christian church prompted by political concerns on the part of Church leaders.  Two Popes in two different capitals was the result.  Nobility was a constant theme.  "What is the noble choice?" the question most frequently asked by those in charge (who were, of course, those of noble genetic line).

The "companies," marauding bands of soldiers led by knights (who were nobles) without property, terrorized the countrysides of Europe and were ignored by the King and the landed nobles.

The Black Death made several appearances, killing nearly two-thirds of the population.  This was a serious drain on the economy but, of course, "the ecomony" was an unrecognized concept.  The King and The Church still had need of revenues to fund the lifestyles in which they had grown accustomed and the only source of those revenues was the Middle Class which was taxed unmercifully.

Education was not a concept that entered into any planning by the nobles and they paid bitterly during uprisings by the peasants and middle class when there was indiscriminate killing and destruction.  Fine distinctions as to who or what was responsible for suffering were beyond the abilities of people whose sources of information were gossip and the King's crier.

The most overwhelming indictment of the Nobles was quite simply that neither had knowledge of nor consideration for the lives lived by anyone else.  Glory and wealth (both obtained through constant warfare) were the reason (and reason enough) for whatever actions they chose to take.

The source of my discontent is the apparent notion (in our classless nation) held by a "leader class" that there are in fact lower classes which they may use for whatever ends suit them.  I'm quite sure that this is the source for much of the dissatisfaction we are seeing around the world as well.  The U.S. (leaders) sees itself as the upper class among nations with the duty to pillage and occasionally protect the lower class nations.

"Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it."