Eat your Peas, Fair Share, Equality, Shared Sacrifice, Class Warfare, Change, Hope.
This political season has already established talking points and canned responses which takes valid arguments and points of view and dumps them into two categories…Left and Right. How can I rise above the kneejerk reactions to really get to heart of the issues, in order to best determine which of the two parties candidates will fail me the next time we vote? That’s the best we can do, right? I want a political party that takes a stand, instead of leaning left or right. I don’t want to leave it up to a party hack to tell me which way to think. I will determine if I want something…based on my values, which are nestled nice and neat in what I call “logic”. Hell, I’ll even use a dictionary if I have to.
“Eat your Peas” was Obama’s way of saying we have to do the hard things. Nice thought…but a lot of this administration is based on sayings that don’t have credence. For instance, if weare to really eat our peas, why are we still bailing out failed tech/green companies? Why do bailed out banks get interest free loans from the Fed, then instead of loaning the money, they buy Treasuries and get tax payer paid interest…without paying interest on the loaned money? Why is Sammy Haggar still making music? Why are we paying for Cowboy Poetry in Nevada when we have people camping out on city streets in tents? Not logical. Serious problems need serious solutions…and it looks like this administration just passed the peas.
“Fair” share. Dictionary.com defines fair as “free from bias, injustice and dishonesty”, “proper under the rules”. If millionaires are being targeted…is it because they pay less than the rest? How can we have fair taxes when the millionaires have teams of lawyers and CPA’s to find loopholes to get out of paying certain taxes….WAIT…”Proper under the Rules”…they are playing by the rules set up by congress and their lobbyists. So, it may not be the same…but it is fair…right? Don’t hate the player, hate the game? How about hate the rulemakers?
“Equality” Dictionary.com defines as “Same” “Like or alike in quantity, degree, value” “Balanced, proportioned” “Uniform in operation”. If two people are in a room, and one pays income taxes and the other doesn’t…is that equality? Again, the rules of the IRS skews the game table, making equality impossible. Does it not make sense to change the rules instead of blame the players? Is it really evil for someone to not want to pay MORE money in taxes without representation for those taxes? Especially when the government spending the money has no interest in saving or being frugal?
“Shared Sacrifice”…AKA Skin in the game. Dictionary didn’t help here, but doesn’t this point to fair and equal? Perhaps there is a lack of incentive to the lower income to accept a higher tax of some form because they are EQUALLY against the very notion that their extra dollar will be spent by this government responsibly. They probably know people bilking the system that is set up to support them. Who wants to pay more into a system that is broken? Social Security…anyone? Maybe more money isn’t the “hard answer”?
“Class Warfare” this one on Dictionary.com pointed right to “See Marx”…hahaha, that’s telling. “Conflict between different classes in a community resulting from different social or economic positions and reflecting opposed interests.” “Struggle for political and economic power carried on between capitalists and workers” There is only one way class warfare can be used…and that is to have someone on the outside sowing the seeds of inequality. Warren Buffet is better than John Smith because he has a yacht. Hate the rich, because they have what you don’t. If a billionaire would only forgo his golden toilet the rest of us would have enough food. These are all easy arguments to insert into a desperate and frustrated people…but is it true? If we took all of Buffets money, and all of Roseanne Barrs, and all of Bill Gates cash…and gave it to the gov’t…would we be done? Our total income from Fed Income taxes is roughly 1 Trillion. Social Security brings in another $Trillion. So would the 100 Billion from the richest actually do anything, besides make a few more people poor…as I’m sure their companies aren’t going to succeed if all incentive to work is taken away. There is no equality with this tax structure.
“Change”…this one is the most fun and scary. Dictionary.com states, “to make future coarse different”, “To transform, convert” . I want to point out a glaring problem I have with this administration. If they thought that promising change…true change we can believe in, was possible…they were either naïve and incompetent, or outright lying to us. Neither is acceptable. The myopic outlook is more painful to accept, because we all want to believe that change is possible. I don’t recall hearing Obama’s speech where he said, “I need 8 years to fix Bush’s fault”…he said he could make changes NOW. Change was not predicated on the House, Japan’s weather, Muslim uprising, or unicorns…it was a bold statement backed up by what can only be called “the same”. Donors getting paid back with tax money, businesses strongarmed by gov’t departments, wars in countries that we will never make allies, Senators and their relatives getting rich...off of tax money…which they now are calling for more of. How is this change?
“Hope” Dictionary.com states, “feeling that what is wanted can be had, or events will turn out for the best”, “looking forward with desire and reasonable confidence”…the problem with Hope is that anyone can hope. There are no rules for hope. I hope my electric bill goes down…even though I don’t use less energy. I hope I get a raise, even though I don’t want to put in more hours at work. I hope my lawn comes back greener than ever…even though I didn’t plant seeds or water it. “ I hope we can change what’s broken with the system…but I don’t want to consider altering my position on ___ fill in the blank.” Can anyone point to someone on this list who is honestly different? Romney, Perry, Obama, McCain, Gore, Kerry, Bush… this is what we get to choose from? I’ll just sit at home and wait for my lawn to grow itself. Who knows, maybe it’ll work if I hope enough.
Where did this huge pile of ….peas come from?
Rev
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