Civil Discourse

Civil Discourse

You hear it more and more. The plaintive question: why can’t we get back to the days of bipartisan civil discourse? We all have come to think we like the image of our legislators behaving as a crowd after church on Sunday morning, everyone shaking hands and asking after the family. “How’s your mother doing Bob?” “How’s young Deborah doing at my alma mater?” “The scholarship and short cut through admissions? Don’t mention it. What are friends for?” Everyone is happy happy happy.

But there’s another image and that’s of a country retreat meeting of organized crime Capos getting together to civilly divide up the loot from the fleecing of America. Let’s be civil about this. There’s plenty to go around. No need to get excited. No need for anyone to be publicly bloodied.

I’ve taken the position that the latter scenario is closer to reality and decided that the more rancorous the debate the less likely it is that my pocket will be picked. This has been drawn as a Democrat vs. Republican issue, but it isn’t. This is a “have” and “want to take it” issue. The people have it (the money and the power) and the federal government wants it. With willing corrupted elected legislators on the side of the government, we the calm and gullible people are at a disadvantage. They rely on deceit, habit, and dogma to accomplish their goals. One party will play off the other against the people and in the end they get what they want.

This year alone has seen over 5000 pages of legislation voted on and passed into law before legislators had the chance to know what it was. It was voted on based on party loyalty and the “get along – go along” system where legislators know that if they are to “get” any juicy money projects for their constituents to pave the way for their re-election they have to “go along” with whatever they are told. What a humiliating existence that must be. Waiting on the agenda is the house energy bill which would, by the Presidents own words, “cause electric utility rates to sky rocket”. And in case legislation can’t be passed the plan is to simply use the regulatory function of the executive and just make rules. Never mind the people’s representatives, or the people’s wants. The government will do what IT decides is right with the thought that people aren’t paying close enough attention and will just go along. I hope they’re wrong.

I want MY representatives to look out for MY interests. I want him or her to argue tooth and nail against any unnecessary projects in whatever state or community where they’re proposed, and I expect for the representatives of my fellow citizens to do the same against MY requests from the government. In this way only the MOST WORTHY of fiscal expenditures will be made.

But that's just what an average guy thinks.

Information As a Distraction

I heard the President say something the other day that startled me. I guess that should come as no surprise, I’m rather easily startled these days. It came in a commencement address he gave at Hampton University in Virginia. What he said was this: “With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.”. The first thing that popped into my mind was that this IS the first Blackberry President, having to have made special arrangements with the Secret Service for encryption of his own personal communications device. Next was the time he claimed that Michael Jackson was on his iPod and his lovely gift to the Queen of England of an iPod with examples of his oratory prowess. The iPad is new of course and hasn’t neared saturation levels yet, but I suspect that it’ll mainly be a web access device. The X-Box and PlayStation are mainly gaming devices and really don’t fit the mix. The President has taken heat for being hypocritical on this gadget thing since he’s the first CrackBerry President and because his campaign used the internet so well, but that isn’t what bothers me, or what I think he really meant.

What struck me was that he actually said that “information” can be a distraction. Call me a centrist cook if you will, but I’ve always read and believed that information is POWER. That a man's life could depend on a mere scrap of information, that the big picture is made up of little bits of information, that if you had ALL the information from the past that you could predict the future. Okay. Why does this bother me? Well, it’s this guy that President Obama has appointed over at the Federal Communications Commission. Mark Lloyd is Associate General Counsel and Chief Diversity Officer. He’s a Marxist sympathizer and doesn’t believe in the marketplace of ideas. That being that if you have a good idea then people will want to hear more about it and the less popular ideas will lose favor. He believes in the “Fairness Doctrine” which is political “double speak” for a program that holds that if an idea has broad popular support then it must not be fair to those other poor ideas. Used cleverly by a government broadcast agency it COULD be used to control the flow of ideas and public discussion, much the same way as it has been in Venezuela. “These popular ideas are getting too much air time. We need to promote these other ideas”. An example on our own shore would be conservative talk radio versus say Air America. People voted with their pocket books and selected one and deselected another. The market place of ideas. Would the President like to change that by invoking the “Fairness Doctrine” so that progressive ideas would get more air time? I suspect so, but I don’t know. But that’s just broadcast.

But there’s this other thing. This Net Neutrality thing. Now who could be against something like Neutrality? Once again, I’m skeptical. I suspect government “double speak”. What it amounts to is the government taking over and controlling the internet. Now, they will claim that it’s ONLY to insure the smooth and free flow of information and that consumers of information have nothing to fear from the FCC, but then there’s that comment that the President made about information being a distraction (a bad thing). They (the FCC) are claiming that they already have the authority to do this and need not seek approval from Congress, but don’t worry. It’s only these tiny little things we’re doing. Let me ask the question: When was the last time you heard of any government intervention remaining tiny? It isn’t the nature of the beast. It’s like bacteria in a Petri dish. Unchecked, and given a supply of money it will grow to the size of its container. So say we acquiesce to the control of internet traffic without action by Congress. What’s then to stop the agency from starting to control content? Just to control access to child pornography. Just to control access to “hate speech”. Just to control access to distracting information that doesn’t serve to empower or emancipate. What if?

Now I’m not saying that the folks running the government these days are up to no good. I’m just pointing these things out. But I will say that that I lock my doors at night. Does it mean that I think that my neighbors are thieves? Mostly no, but I don’t know ALL of them. I lock my doors to protect the things I have from those that would take them.

But that's just what an average guy thinks.

I Used To Like The UN

I was taught to like the United Nations. We all were. It was the culmination of what Woodrow Wilson had tried but failed to do. The UN would give the small developing nations a place to stand against the Soviet menace. They stood no chance alone, but underneath the broad branches of the UN and the United States, they could safely weather the storm. How could you be a child under the tutelage of New Deal children and NOT be in favor of the UN? They had a veritable alphabet soup of organizations and agencies just itching to help us, the US, help the world, and of course that’s exactly what they would do. They would help us to spread democratic principles and the obvious and manifestly demonstrated benefits of those principles around the world.

Of course we never counted on the personal objectives of the leaders of 50 other nations or how things would eventually turn out. We, as children, thought as the rest of the nation must have that the common good was the goal, and that what was good for America was good for the world. I still remember the day my mother told me about the Tooth Fairy. My life would have been made simpler if she had told me about the United Nations at the same time. That there would eventually be 190 member states. That many of these would be given money with which they would buy arms and slaughter their neighbors as the UN stood idly by tsk tsking. That the international organization founded in part to prevent the genocidal slaughters of World War II would stand by while people hacked their “enemies” to death with long knives. That corrupt leaders would be allowed to divert aid into their own pockets to preserve their power and secure their retirements. That the UN itself would become so corrupt and inept that the dictator of a country the size of Texas could completely control its machinations. That this organization would issue resolutions and sanctions which upon violation would simply draw more resolutions and sanctions. And that the sanctions would be ignored by pretty much everyone. That the UN would become nothing more than a means to transfer wealth from the developed nations to the undeveloped. That the US would continue to host and support what has become a hostile entity on our soil.

If my dear mother could have told me all that then, I think I would be less disappointed today.

But that’s just what an average guy thinks.

First We Have To Fix This

Okay. I think I’m starting to see a pattern here. Stop me if I get off track. Here’s how I think this has gone: Obama’s inaugurated and his chief of staff Rham Emanuel says to him “Mr. President” he says “You never want to let a good crisis go to waste”, to which the President says “I’m not following you here Rham.”. Emanuel then explains that whenever there’s a crisis the people will rally around the leader, or at least give him the benefit of the doubt regardless of the merits of the plan. The President says “Really?” “You know, I hadn’t thought of that,” “but it might work”. To which Emanuel responded “You fucking - A – right it’ll work.” “Look here I’ve got this bill already drafted.” “Had the unions and Van Jones working on it since the election”. Then he signals an aide who leaves the room momentarily and comes back in with another young man and they deposit an 1100 page document on the table and then withdraw without saying anything. “You’ve been working on this since November?” the President asks. “Damned straight” Emanuel replies. “The way I have it figured we have until the mid terms in 2010 to ram stuff through, and we may as well get started”. “Stimulus package eh?” Obama mutters. “Yes...... this could work”. “What’s in it?” The President asks. “How the hell should I know” Emanuel snorts. “It’s 1100 pages. Who cares? It doesn’t matter”. “There’s lots of good stuff in there for us.... expansion of power.... bypass the Congress.... there’s a shitload of payback for the unions..... ACORN.... and plenty of loose cash for the Congress to spread around to soften the blow in the mid term.” “What we have to do is start screaming “FIRE” just as loud as we can”........ And that’s what they did. They came out and said “You know, we really want to fix the economy, but first we need to do this” and then they started screaming NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW. We have to have it NOW. Republicans tried to protest. NOW NOW NOW....... but what’s in it? NOW NOW NOW.... but it costss 750 Billion dollars! NOW NOW NOW.... but where’s all this money going? NOW NOW NOW..... IF WE DON’T PASS THIS NOW EMPLOYMENT WILL GO ABOVE 8%. WE HAVE TO HAVE THIS NOW. And have it they did. The vote was called for less than 24 hours after the bill was made available to members of Congress with ZERO chance that any of them would know what was in it. Then they did the same thing with health care. House passes a bill with a lot of YES votes thinking “There is NO way this gets through the Senate so it doesn’t matter if I vote yes or not”. Another 1100 page monster that no one knew much about. They tried to get it through the Senate before the summer recess. NOW NOW NOW but they just couldn’t do it. And then people got a look at it and the shit hit the fan. We were treated to 4 months of wheeling, dealing and the dirtiest politics this country has seen. We were also treated to the sights and sounds of a genuine American uprising. I’m guessing that a bunch of Senators voted yes thinking “this ain’t EVER mak’in it out of conference so I can vote for it knowing it’ll never pass, and won’t have to make any waves”. But then Nancy Pelosi did something unparalleled. She managed to convince the House of Representatives to swallow the Senate bill whole. Once that was done they could turn to the economy right? Wrong. Truth is they can’t fix the economy and they know it. So NOW they’re saying “Look, we want to focus on fixing the economy and jobs, but we can’t do that until we fix the financial markets”. And wouldn’t you know that they have another 1000 page bill that no one can read or understand all written and ready to go and they have Obama out there on the stump screaming NOW NOW NOW. They’re going to try to keep this up all the way to January when the new Congress is sworn in. Ladies and Gentlemen hang onto your hats. We’re about ready to see how much damage a progressive President and a compliant democrat Congress can do to a great nation in two short years.

But that's just what an average guy thinks.