Civility and Parties: Opening Pandora’s Box

Pardon me if you anticipated some discourse on manners and social occasions, but the topic is slanted toward the political rather than the amiable gathering. We hear Democrats and Republicans alike collectively espousing the importance for everyone to behave in a respectful and civil manner. However their self-righteous lecturing sounds a dissonant cord, incongruent with their regular and bombastic diatribes against their opponents or individuals who hold an independent or divergent view. These Party pillars of political puffery preach that they do not advocate violent action against other because according to them, in America we do not advocate violence as a political means. They then proceed, almost without even a grammatical pause between their pronouncements of civility and respect, to rail against whomever dares to contest their positions or authority on what is right. I believe that the idiom which applies is: That once should practice what you preach.

If this behavior were simply just another characteristic demonstration of their skills, understanding and wisdom then we can hardly be amazed by our political leaders. As they do not exhibit any propensity for ability, comprehension or judgment in their legislative efforts; should we really expect that they would perform any better in their campaign ventures? With their persistent demonization of their immediate opponent, whether that is from within their own party or is on the other side, are these partisan individuals completely oblivious to the motivations and stimulus that they induce in supporters? Perhaps they don’t understand the power that words have to evoke and justify actions which they will later insist that they had neither the intention nor the expectation of propagating. Is this the caliber of intellect that the ‘best and brightest’ of our elected officials are capable of bringing to the table? Apparently so.

Regardless of their objectives in employing their invective oratory to garner the political support of voters and lobbying organizations, they are culpable for the harvest that comes from the seeds that they have sown. Who does not know that breeding hatred and prejudice will bear a bitter fruit? As we see the rancor and hostility that has become the norm between the Parties in Congress, between the Party loyalist in public events, and among position-aligned media entities offering biased and self-serving grist; there can be no doubt that the Parties are the manure that feeds the weeds of hatred and violence that comes from this ignorance.

When party-line adherents begin to take violent actions against individuals or groups that they have been convinced are the enemy or need to be punished for their transgressions, this creates the catalyst for reciprocation. Provoking the ‘eye for an eye’ reaction is too often an impulsive reaction that occurs from that primitive mentality that sees itself being attacked and that defending itself allows for and justifies actions that are contrary to and beneath our American creed. The consequences of politically advocating hate is never going to produce benefits for anyone in the society except the politicians who will gain position and power by feeding the rapacious fear that they engender. The founding Fathers intended that our democratic system would be driven by honorable people striving to serve the people and to deliver to the people peace, health, happiness, prosperity, and liberty. None of these American values are promoted by nor secured through the dispensation of hatred and division; and the politician who rely upon divisive language and behavior are remiss in their duty to America and lack the integrity consistent with American values.

The only recourse for the American public to avoid the dangers and disasters that will and has sprouted from this irresponsibility of the Parties, is to stand-up to the politicians and political groups that fixate on position but not issue, on self-righteousness but not justice, and on rights but not responsibilities. Your decision to participate, support and vote for any candidate must be because they offer solutions to real problems that they explain and discuss sufficiently to convince you that you understand the problem and that they understand the problem and that their remedy is appropriate, effective and rational. Yes, it will be difficult to find a politician that can or will do this; but you do have the one thing that will force them to change their behavior and to serve your interests and not theirs. You have the vote that they desire and require. Without your support they are impotent, unless you are inactive and passively let them proceed without any consequence from ignoring your interests.

Which is Better?: Small Government / Big Government – American Intelligence Test #5

Once again we have an advocacy group chanting the ever popular refrain: “Smaller government is better” and sung to its counterpoint melody: “Big government is bad”. So this seems an appropriate time to take another perspective view on the state of intelligence in America. With another outbreak of news stories of some recent Tea Party activities in Nevada, I have concluded that there has to be a relevant theme for a test. And so there is, it’s: what’s the appropriate size for government? Now this question is American-centric, the reasons and justifications for the correct size of government is not a universal rule. Therefore, the correct answer should not and cannot be applied to the governmental systems of others; whether democratic or not.

So I will follow my usual format. I will present a handful of questions (which is usually five; if I put in a sixth, consider it poetic license), and in some instances commentary to place a particular context for the questions. After the questions section, I will provide my answers to these questions. As before, your score is your responsibility to assess. And a willingness to deceive yourself as to the correctness of your answers or beliefs, is just another measure of the actual intelligence level that is being measured. To paraphrase Lincoln:

Some of us can fool ourselves all of the time, and all of us can fool ourselves some of the time, but all of us can not fool ourselves all of the time.

Prepare yourself as the opportunity to fail is at hand. Oh, and going back to previous questions to change your answer is deserving of an incorrect score on the previous question(s). Surely you have anticipated the first question.

Question 1: Is smaller government superior to larger government?

Yes No

Context: Let’s consider the size of government in this context as the number of departments, agencies, centers, commissions, services, councils, courts, administrations, offices, committees, boards, task forces, programs, panels, foundations, endowments, institutes, corps, commands, authorities, and bureaus that exist to provide the functions that the government has legislated to provide. So the size of government would be the sum total of all services and tasks that are performed for and provided to the citizenry.

Question 2: Is smaller government superior to larger government?
[Didn’t expect this one did you?

Note: This is not the question, so answering it will not count as correct regardless.]

Yes No

Context: Reset your thought process, for this question consider the size of government to be the number of individuals who directly work for one of the Government’s entities as a civil-servant or a contractor to a Government entity. This would include all branches of government. It does not include us mere tax-payers that do not fit as a member of the above set.

Question 3: Is smaller government better than larger government?
[Hey, it’s a theme; deal with it.]

Context: To this question the size of government should be equated to the amount of taxes that you pay. Size is thus related to the extent to which the government is directly involved in the economy.

Yes No

Question 4: Who is responsible for the size of government being to big?

[A little variety is the spice of life!]
Context: If this isn’t obvious then who do you hold to be the most “at fault” (i.e., to blame) for the government being to big?

A. Republicans
B. Democrats
C. Neither
D. Both
E. Voters
F. Lobbyist
G. Political Parties
H. None of the above
I.   A, B, E, F, & G

Question 5: Is the ‘size of government’ even a question that informs or addresses the issues that a society is struggling to deal with, or is it just another ‘slogan’ issue that is used to distract the attention and thought processes from anything else that might expose the actual nature, cause and responsible source of the problems of a society?

A. Yes, it is a useful question
B. No, it is a distraction from substance
C. It depends on the issue
D. It’s all that politicians have to lead with, they lack solutions

The Critical Question X: Do you object to the size of government (being to big) in every area that they operate in today?

Context: Is the size of government universally to big or is it only to big in some areas and not big enough in others?

A. Yes
B. To big only in some areas
C. No, not to big anywhere
D. It is not size that explains the problems with our government

Ding! Times up. The test is done, and you can now assess whether you scored high, low or in the middle. For anyone with an interest, here are my answers.

1: No    2: No     3: No     4: I     5: D (half for B)     X: D

I think it is what the government does and does not do that constitutes the value or the lack of value that one should ascribe to the government. It is how effectively they deliver on the roles that we and/or our representative assign to them that matters. Size is an issue only as an artifact of their incompetency or their abuse of position or power; and for the most part even here it’s not how big or little they are; but how far they are removed from the American principles that government officials, public officials and civil servants should aspire to that makes them

If you haven’t figured it out, I am not interested in a non-factor in the inadequacies of the government that we have collectively crafted to waste our energies, money and values. The problems you have today with government are not the result of the last year, or even the last ten years; they are the result of acting without being responsible, and of expecting to get things without consequences or the sacrifices that go hand in hand with the desired selfish demand. Yes, I hold the citizens responsible for the situation we are in. As for politicians, well since they don’t know what to actually do they resort to prostituting themselves to whatever group(s) they think will keep them in office.

It’s Not A Debate, It’s The Sin Of Congress

We are witnesses to the recurring sin of Congress. While today it is the Republicans and Democrats, this demented ritual has been performed by previous incantations of the political parties. The Republicans and the Democrats are simply the current evolutionary variants of the failed members of the species. With the passage and signing of the Health Care Reform bill and its signing into law, the Republicans are rallying the troops around the battle standards to both delay and detract from any effort to address problems with the Senate version, and to establish a goal to campaign on and to then repeal the law. In automatic and predictable response to the Republicans strategy, the Democrats are marshalling their forces; so that like the Republicans, they to can fight the glorious pitched battles before the rapacious party loyalist and the pandering media eager to serve the myopic public the latest in meaningless Congressional bloviating.

So after contending over the bill for a year, without any serious or dutiful effort to work on a collaborative approach to Health Care Reform, both parties will continue their bickering and harping about the misguided intentions of the other. Thus instead of fulfilling their oath and duty to serve the country and the public, neither party will focus on significant issues of substance or purpose. Rather, these partisan party stalwarts will seek to play to the ideologically petrified concepts of their “bases”. Do the politicians have no comprehension that these self-proclaimed sacrosanct positions are the root-causes of the disastrous circumstances that Congress has created over the years to deliver the country to the unstable state in which the rest of us have to struggle to survive?

Shouldn’t members of Congress and the Administration of either stripe be held responsible for their actions? Congress should not be able to just create laws and programs that promise to provide those governmental services that they see as necessary and appropriate to their views without regard to consequences. They should be courageous and honorable enough to place the burdens of cost and sacrifice onto the populace that expects to receive the benefits. Perhaps most or all members of Congress and the Administration were poorly served by the American educational system. Did they never learned the basic concepts of cause and effect, nor grasped the fundamental and simple reality of the three laws of thermodynamics that apply to every endeavor whether governmental or private? If they did, they behave as irresponsibly as if they had been home sick when it was taught.

So we will watch the politicians ‘debate’ their positions, without rhyme or reason and without any understanding of how to affectively achieve whatever goal and objective that they have. No matter who wins the day, each party will direct the country toward their vision of the American dream. But since they don’t understand what the problems actually are, and don’t know how to create a rational and intelligent approach to addressing problems in practical terms; the politicians will produce bigger catastrophes and more destructive social institutions than they could were they actually trying to harm America.

And this is the sin of Congress. In their partisan blindness, their sins are visited upon the country.

Congress: The Inept Versus The Incompetent

Tonight, the Democratic House passed the Health Care Reform bill and its corrective counter-part against every political maneuver and effort that the Republican party could rear in its opposition. After over a year of political constipation, the two parties conceived a bill that not only does not benefit from what a collaborative effort could have achieved; but which is and will be continuously beaten and whipped into an even more ineffective approach to correcting the Health Care system. This is because both sides will struggle to find ways to either interject additional requirements that pervert the overarching objective, or they will seek to remove or constrain the reach of the bill from areas that well funded groups and industries want eliminated. And with their lobbyist armies at their beck and call, they will coerce and tempt the Democratic and Republican members of Congress into serving their will.

And the American people will rally behind the rhetoric of whichever side they have chosen as their team, with the same passion and enthusiasm that they grant their favorite sports team. In fact, their allegiance and support of their party is as unimportant and irrelevant as their loyalty to their sports team. Many are members of their party because it’s a family tradition, and doesn’t require any thought or insight whatsoever. Others are one-issue fanatics, they are addicted to some idea or topic which they are fervently convinced is only supported or supportable by one party or the other. Then there are party affiliates who have bought into the ideologies that are presented as the underlying themes of the individual parties; not that these themes and principles mean anything to the party itself. And lastly, there are the unaffiliated and unaligned; you know the independents, and these folks are fundamentally orphans of the system. They cannot find a political family that will either accept them or more often that they can find any value or confidence in. But in their dissatisfaction with the Democrats and Republicans, they cannot find any other affiliation with which they can align themselves and through that collaboration achieve the goals that they seek for our society. Thus we have the political leadership that the Democratic and Republican parties have delivered.

What is the nature of that leadership? We have Democrats, who have hammered together an assembly of ideas and approaches that reflect vested interests and compromises that changes the Health Care system but does not move the system toward anything that will improve it. Expanding coverage requires that the system will have to handle more of the population, but does not impose on the system that it be better, affordable, or beneficial. We have Republicans, who work to thwart the efforts to change the system, not by offering superior approaches or improvements in the mechanisms that will deliver Health Care to the public; but by resisting the bill to only achieve their political goal of defeating their opponents with no consideration of their service to the American public.

If either of these parties had even a couple of true public servants, they would have stood up to their respective party leadership and refused to allow the American people to be abandoned and offered up on the political altar of these parties. An altar upon which the public is rendered for the benefit of ideology without regard to justice, domestic tranquility, the common defense, the general welfare, or in securing our liberty.

Are these politicians compelled to act in these heinous ways? No, they are not. They are not trying to harm the American public, but they are unable to understand that they have demonstrated that they are incompetent in dealing with the issue. Neither Democrats nor Republicans have shown that they are able to come forward with proposals and plans that will address the very core factors that have produced the problems in the Health Care system today. I am sure that they would all love to come forward with ways to fix the problems with Health Care, but since they do not they demonstrate only their ineptness.

So lets vote these folks back in office again, or lets kick out everyone of them and replace them with members of their respective opposing party. Because that will clearly fix the problem, like it has every time before.

If the Democratic and Republican politicians are incompetent and inept, what must we say about the American public who persistently put them in these positions of power and responsibility?

Western Economies Know Best

Due to the economic recession that has financially damaged countries globally, European countries have begun to support the US’s position that China should allow their currency to float like western currencies. This position is intended to restore rational market forces within the international trade between China and the rest of the world. With the current China policy to tie the value of the yuan to the dollar at an artificially low level, thus benefiting exports to the US and other markets and reduces import levels from external countries. While the global economy was appearing to be vibrant, few countries were backing the US position. Now that reality has set in, and market forces have asserted their inevitable influences upon the economic environment, other economies are feeling the consequences to China’s policy. So tension levels are rising between China and it trading partners in the West over this issue.

Some of your illustrious senators are going to come to the rescue here. They are going to propose to apply stiff penalties if China fails to align its currency with other currencies to allow for international control of exchange rates. Now with other countries getting interested in the issue, they may even make a case to the World Trade Organization to obtain broader sanctions on China.

Now here are the two questions that I would ask these congressional leaders:

First, if the US can import goods from China that are cheaper than they can be produced here in the United States, aren’t we benefiting from this Chinese foolishness? It’s not that China is cheating us out of anything, they are paying us to buy from them. A long-term strategy that they cannot sustain and that only transfers value from them to us.

The error and failure in the US is not that China is willing to sell us products far below the true costs that they incur; but that Americans are buying products that they cannot afford. If we purchased within our affordability then the China policy would not represent the threat that we are allowing it to be in our economy.

Second, why are the senators taking such a limited and near-sighted approach to this problem. Is China the only country that operates with their currency controlled by the government rather than the international markets? And why not undertake to create a policy that addresses the root-cause of the problem rather than a reactionary one that requires politicians to intervene in situations that they are neither competent in nor suited for handling? And its not just American politicians who fail to recognize the inadequacy of their skills and understanding, the political leaders of every other country are equally inept at addressing such issues.

Perhaps the senators could seek advice from people who might see a solution to the problem rather than a stick with which to beat a dead horse.

The Government’s Plastic Just Went Bad

Flash! The Social Security System has returned to a net losing operation.

And more importantly: Congratulations! to the American public for being historically stupid and self-deceived. For a society that consistently professes to not like, trust, or expect anything good from politicians the American people appear to be incapable of acting in their own interests. Americans deceive themselves into thinking that the political party of which they are a member consists of politicians who miraculously are the only ones who can be trusted and relied upon. It doesn’t matter which party it is, their members are delusional morons. There is some evidence that gradually more and more people are breaking through this delusional disorder and recognizing the necessity of seeing these societal parasites as the unhealthy drains on our country that they are. But when the election seasons return, these independents massively select their choice from the classic ‘lesser of two evils’ and vote for one or the other major party candidates. So as a result of this failure on the part of the public we are left with nothing but Governmental failures and the privilege of paying the bill for the corrupt, self-serving and wasteful programs and policies that serve their interests but not the American public’s interests.

One monumental example of their failure and our imbecilic passive acceptance of their incompetence is the Social Security System. As you read this, the Social Security administration is running the program in the red. They are paying out more monetary value than they are bringing in. This would be fine, if they had reserves to draw upon that came from the current recipients, but they do not. So every day now, the Social Security administration is calling in IOUs for the funds that they collected from the American working population, but then turned around and loaned to the Federal Government for other budget items. This happened before, about thirty years ago; and politicians of that day stood up and did exactly the wrong thing. They did what politicians always do, they lied to the public and told them that they were going to solve the problem. And they did solve their problem, which was doing something that made the real problem move out in time and become our problem, only bigger. And as part of that sleight-of-hand they raised the Social Security rate (tax) on everyone but mostly on the 90% of the population that earns middle and low incomes; and to add insult to injury they raised the age of retirement.

So let’s keep trusting the Republican and Democratic parties, because they are sure looking out for us.

Everything Has Been Asked and Discussed

President Obama today said that the Health Care Reform topic has been fully questions, discussed and debated; and that there is nothing more to be discussed. Where have I heard this intellectual logic before?

If I recall there have been several renowned and illustrious personages in the past who have rendered this equivalent assessment about a variety of areas of human endeavor. And as we all know, things have not worked out well for their declarations of completeness. In this case, President Obama may be right, because he did refer to everything in the context of the Republicans and Democrats, and he was in fact referring to the members of Congress and the two parties. And in terms of the knowledge base available to this group of people, they have probably discussed everything that is within their collective scope of understanding and ability. But let’s face it, these are not folks who possess a wealth of knowledge; and they certainly don’t have a clue about how to solve a problem. So yes, Obama is right; the Democrats and Republicans have discussed everything that they could think of with respect to addressing the Health Care problems and ways to solve it.

But, he is also wrong in the context of having every question or most certainly every solution to the Health Care dilemma facing the country.

And in typical politician manner (independent of party) he is going to move forward to accomplish his objective. This is mostly because absent any notion that there are far better ways to address the Health Care issues, he cannot conceive of any other means to fulfill a political promise. Likewise, his Republican opponents have rallied around their in-depth assessment that exclusively centered on how to say: No!; regardless of facts, values or benefits to the public. As for innovative ideas or approaches that would actually significantly contribute to addressing the very problems that the Republicans are most rabid about, they don’t have a clue.

One can only hope that at some point, one of these political parties or both will figure out that they may actually have to find someone who can tell them how to solve these problems. But that is not their style nor their nature. They are more likely to pursue their “visions” of the “right” way to do this. They will turn to the failed methods that have let us down time and time again. Not to worry, Congress always has a back-up plan when their plan fails. After they have wasted billions, if not trillions, on their solutions; Congress will come and require the American public to fork over more money to pursue some other scatter-brained solution that will be doomed to fail from the start.

Fortunately, whichever party puts forth the particular plan that is passed; they will blame the other side for being responsible for the failure and get their party supports to believe them. Let it never be said that Congress cannot get more money from your wallets.