An “honest discussion about race” …

“We need to have an honest discussion about race in America.”

How many times have we heard this? 

Problem is, the people asking for this don’t really want an “honest” discussion. 

And they don’t want to discuss all races.  What they want is to deliver another lecture about black people, by black people, to everybody who isn’t black, about how tough it is to be black, and how blacks therefore deserve preferential treatment.   

There will be no “discussion”; they aren’t interested in exchanging views. 

Despite that, and only because they continue to ask for it, here’s my view:

The only people who think about race all the time are racists. 

And yes, blacks certainly can be racists. 

I’m thinking in particular about those who view everything in the world through the prism of race – like Obama, Holder, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, John Lewis and others who always see a honkie in the woodpile. They are racists, plain and simple.   

To maintain that blacks can’t be racist because they’re black is as silly as saying that everybody who isn’t black is a racist.

Jeez., Give it a rest.

Okay, so this is for you – Sharpton, Jackson, Lewis, Rangel, Holder, et al: 

You know who I’m talking about – the black “leaders” who are always first to interject race, no matter what the context. Yes, you are the same ones who treat the black community as helpless children incapable of fending for themselves.    

You are obsessed with race.  We’re not. 

Outside of the black community, most of us don’t care what race anybody is. 

No, honestly and truly, we don’t.  That’s probably a surprise to you. 

Then again, as cynically as some of you try to manipulate events, perhaps not. 

We hardly ever think about race unless someone jams race in our face.  Or tries to transform something that isn’t about race into something that is, as you are wont to do. 

The Trayvon Martin circus, the manufactured outrage over voter ID laws and changes to the Voting Rights Act come to mind.    

However, just because the media make a big deal out of stuff like this, and you can put crowds in the streets, that doesn’t mean it’s a big deal to all of us.  Or even most of us.   It isn’t.    

By this point, we’re more like dogs watching TV – we hear what you’re saying, we see what you’re doing, we understand why, but it doesn’t make any difference to us. It’s nothing more than background noise to most of us.   

You see, we’ve heard it all before.  Your problems and issues never change. 

You’re always offended by one thing or another, regardless how innocent or innocuous.  You hear imaginary “dog whistles” of hidden racism all the time.  You don’t think a black person can get a fair hearing, much less justice, in this country.  You don’t think blacks are treated fairly but you can’t define what “fairly” is.

And you seem to be pissed off about something most of the time. 

It’s exhausting dealing with you.  And fruitless.  So many of us are giving up. 

No matter how much we try to help – or appease – the black community, nothing we do seems to work.  Nothing seems to please you.  There’s never enough.

When society tries to help the black community we apparently often do more long-term harm than the value of any short-term good.  So instead of giving a hand up to self-sufficiency, we end up giving a handout that leads to more dependency.

It’s the fulfillment of the cynic’s creed:  No good deed goes unpunished. 

Still, according to many black leaders, things are worse for blacks now than they’ve been in years, especially in terms of racism and discrimination. 

Since many of us lived through the 50s and 60s, we – and you – know that’s complete bullshit.  Society’s come a long way.  But a lot of black leaders keep beating that dead horse. 

Here’s a big heads-up to today’s black leaders:  It’s time to leave 1960 and the days of Bull Conner … America has moved on.  It’s okay to put the bullhorn down and join us. 

Want proof? 

Since the 1960s Americans of all races elected a black President, not once but twice. 

They’ve also elected black governors, legislators and other officials.  There are blacks serving as the heads of Federal, state and local government agencies, and black judges on a variety of state and Federal benches, including the Supreme Court. 

There are many other successful blacks in leadership positions in business, industry, healthcare, communications and education throughout our society.

How do you explain them? You don’t. You look the other way and pretend they don’t matter. 

You won’t be happy until … until … well, we honestly don’t know.  Perhaps never. 

And that’s part of our frustration, leading to our growing indifference. 

In many ways, your black community is like a black hole in our society – no pun intended. 

America’s poured trillions of dollars down that hole, created special programs out the wazoo and it’s like it never happened.  All of it gets sucked into a bottomless vortex.  After about 50 years of shoveling resources into that hole we don’t have a lot to show for it as a society.   

There are some positives.  Black life expectancy has gone up by almost 30% since the 1960s and is now roughly the same as whites.  Education has also improved:  in 1960 only about 21.7% of blacks had completed high school; in 2010 it was 84.2%, about the same as whites.  In 1960 only 3.5% of blacks had college degrees; by 2010 it was 19.8%.

So health and education have improved for blacks, which are usually key building blocks for success by other races.  What’s been the result?     

Unemployment remains much higher for blacks than for other races.  When the rate recently dropped to an average of 7.3%, the black unemployment rate jumped to 13.5%. The overall teen unemployment rate is 25.1%; but for black teens it’s up to 43.1%.    

Blacks account for about 13% of the U.S. population, yet account for about 40.1% of all males in prison or in jail, about 39% of all welfare recipients, and about 22% of all food stamp recipients.  The black population is disproportionally represented in being in the system, and largely supported by the system. 

Not a great record.  What’s the cause? 

Black leaders say it’s all the result of a justice system stacked against blacks, bias and prejudice in hiring, and a lack of funding for inner-city programs and schools.     

Okay.  Could there be different causes – maybe some more obvious causes?  

1. Perhaps more black males are in prison or jail because more crimes are committed by them, and some already have a criminal record that started in their teens which results in harsher sentences. 

2. Employers are less likely to hire someone with a prison record, which is their right, and many now do criminal background checks.  If you’re a black male of any age with a criminal record, your employment prospects are severely limited. 

3. Only about 9% of black married couples live in poverty.  Since 38.2% of black children are living in poverty, the vast majority of those are in single-parent or caretaker households. 

4. If you’re a single female in your teens with a couple of kids – and their baby daddies are in prison – you’re going to have a hard time finding and keeping a job regardless of what race you are.  

Don’t know about you, but I find these more plausible causes than a vast conspiracy by the legal system, employers, and state and Federal officials against blacks.

Frankly – and I think I may speak for a sizable portion of the non-black population when I say this – we’re tired of all the excuses.  We’re also tired of being blamed for your woes. 

It’s not our fault the black community as a whole has not been more successful.  We’ve done everything we could. 

But we can’t solve your epidemic of out-of-wedlock births, now approaching 75%, which almost assures a life of poverty for mother and child.  Just about all your other social and economic problems stem from this alone.  Yet you are unwilling to address it.  

Maybe if you tried to fix some of your own problems we’d be more compassionate.  But as long as you blame others for all your misfortunes, we don’t see the point. 

We know black leaders want us to think about the black community and its problems every minute of every waking hour but the reality is we don’t. 

We sense that we’re somehow supposed to feel guilty about something related to the black community all the time.  Probably slavery.  Sorry, but we don’t.    

Despite what some in your community say, we don’t sit around and plot how to keep blacks down, from voting, or how to imprison as many black men as we can.

It’s pathetic so many of your community still think a sizable number of Americans do.  It’s shameful that some black leaders perpetuate these myths. 

The truth is, most of us are pretty much done caring.  Plus, we’re kind of busy trying to manage our own lives; we don’t have time for endless reruns of the same stuff.  

We don’t look down on you, nor do we look up to you.  However, it’s fair to say that you’re strangers to us who, except for living in the same country, appear to have little in common with us, by your own choosing. 

We also don’t care how you vote, for whom, or why.  You’ve proven that you’ll vote against your own self-interests, and against your own beliefs, purely on the basis of race.

Which seems to us to beg the question:  Who is the racist here? 

So can we end this discussion?  Now you know how we feel.  Get used to it.    

The party of big business and the rich

For decades Democrats have claimed to represent the little guy, the ordinary working man, and have routinely demonized business in general, and Wall Street, banks, and big business in particular. 

They’ve always painted Republicans as in the pocket of corporate America and the wealthy. 

This is just amazing.  Not that they’ve used this class warfare strategy.  But that they’ve gotten away with it so long.

Today’s Democrats are really the party of big business, Wall Street, banks and the wealthy.  They have been for years.  All you need to do is look at where the funding for the party comes from and who Democrats favor when it comes to regulation and enforcement and bail outs.

It’s simply stunning that this is so obvious.  Yet hardly a day goes by that some Democrat or another is trotting out some worthless, unnecessary bill to right some imagined wrong ostensibly to make “corporate America” do the right thing.  Oh, the media will lap it up and continue promoting the mythology that Democrats are the only party trying to rein in corporate excess and to make the wealthy and corporate executives “pay their fair share.” 

The reality is quite different.

Take the dust up over net neutrality – the Democrats on the FCC want to give big bandwidth providers the authority to charge different rates to different classes of content providers. 

Personally, I don’t have a problem with that. It’s already started. Netflix has already cut a deal with Comcast to insure faster downloads for Netflix customers. 

Now Comcast and lot of the other big broadband providers are in favor of this change from net neutrality, of course. Small businesses and startups are generally opposed, as are most Republicans, because they fear the big companies – like Comcast – will force smaller companies into a non-competitive “slow lane” unless they are willing to pay more. 

This would favor big businesses that have the resources to pay more for faster downloads, and has the potential to put some small businesses and their end users at a competitive disadvantage.  As the champions of the little guy, why would Democrats on the FCC be in favor of it?  Could it be that one of the largest fund raisers for Democrats in recent years runs Comcast? Do you think? 

Then there’s the whole immigration debate.  While most of the press has been focused on those mean old Republicans standing in the way hard working – albeit illegal – immigrants, and what they see as praise-worthy unilateral suspension of immigration rules by Holder and Obama, you have to look at who benefits from guest worker programs and the pull-back on enforcement.

Here’s a hint:  it’s not just the illegal immigrants.   

In fact, this Administration – and Democrats in general – are taking credit for “compassion” when they are really, and consciously, doing what big business wants, but hiding that from the public.

Big business wants cheap labor. Deep-pocketed tech giants and others also want vastly expanded H-1B allowances – from the current 65,000 to about 180,000 a year – something Democrats were willing to swallow in exchange for other immigration provisions with higher PR value.   

Like a path to virtual amnesty, which plays well politically to the Hispanic community. 

I’m puzzled by this paradox:  How can Democrats be so “concerned” about the loss of American jobs when at the same time they want to legalize up to 11 million people who came here illegally to take some of those jobs?  Millions of Americans remain out of work; what purpose is there then to increase the size of the potential workforce? 

Spare me the “jobs no Americans want” BS.  Look at practically any construction site – do you think all those Spanish speaking laborers are there because there are no American construction workers available?  The reason so many illegal immigrants are employed in America is because they will work for less, plain and simple. That’s why employers hire them, and often a lot of them.

I guess Democrats expect that out-of-work Americans will vote for Democrats anyway to keep their benefits going, so they’ve moved on to corner the Hispanic vote. 

So here’s another paradox:  If Democrats are so concerned about everyone having the right to a “living wage” why are they willing to allow employers to hire illegal immigrants to work for far less? 

Recently, this Administration cut the financial penalties almost by half for businesses who hire illegal immigrants.  And who are these businesses?  Mainly big businesses, like large agribusiness conglomerates, big manufacturers and the like.  When the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – the mouthpiece for the biggest businesses in America – aligns with Democrats on immigration reform, that tells you something.

Need more proof? Look at the bail outs.  GM and Chrysler.  The big banks.  Wall Street heavy hitters like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.  Talk about the 1%.  Talk about the ultra-rich and the ultra-powerful.  And Democrats are the party of the little guy? 

Consider ObamaCare.  Sure, there were Democrat gifts to their traditional special interests.  Yet the biggest gifts of all went to the very same boogeymen Obama claimed his legislation was designed to restrain – the biggest insurance companies, hospital management groups and big pharma.  Hell, Democrats let these same groups, and other direct beneficiaries of the law like AARP, actually write parts of the Affordable Care Act. 

Far from being adversaries, they were all in cahoots together. 

Insurers positively salivated over the prospect of millions of new customers forced to buy expanded policies at higher rates and with much higher deductibles, partially subsidized by Federal dollars for many.  Plus, insurers were essentially guaranteed not to take a financial hit if things didn’t work out as planned.  What’s not to like about that? 

Hospital management groups thrilled at the possibility that more people would come in with insurance and potentially increase their overall revenue.  Kaiser Permanente got on board early and continues to trumpet the merits of ObamaCare to any and all.  If they were taking a big hit, do you think they’d still be so vocal and public in their support?    

AARP liked ObamaCare because they thought it would boost their prescription-drugs-by-mail business.  They also expected to pump up sales of their Medicare supplement plans when the law essentially forced people 65 and older off their employer-paid plans and dumped them into crappy Medicare coverage that practically requires a supplemental plan. 

Finally, big pharma got a pass. They dodged the bullet on having their prices controlled, or being subject to negotiation by the exchanges.

And who got hurt in all this? Why, honest, hardworking Americans who paid a lot more for a lot less; small businesses who saw their insurance rates skyrocket; private-sector employees who saw a bigger chunk of their paychecks taken to offset higher premiums, to name a few. Then there were all the folks 65 and older kicked off their company plans and forced into Medicare and additional costs for Medicare supplemental plans.  Let's not forget health care providers expected to handle more patients for less money. 

Just remember, this bill passed with exclusively Democrat support.

Last but not least, let’s look at the Democrat push to raise the minimum wage.  Does this hurt big businesses?  Nope – most of them are already paying well above minimum wage.  They are largely unaffected.  Who gets hurt?  Well, small businesses mainly, like restaurants, fast-food joints and other places that hire unskilled, entry-level folks.

Democrats like to chastise outfits like McDonalds and other fast-food businesses as “big” profitable companies built on the backs of low-paid employees.  What they fail to mention is that a lot of the McDonalds, Burger Kings, Pizza Huts and others they lump together are franchise operations – where the franchise owner works alongside his or her employees every day.  Trust me, unless somebody owns a bunch of Manhattan Bagel or McDonalds franchises, the owner’s not getting rich; he or she is probably working long hours behind the counter taking your order to eke out a living.

Talk to somebody who owns a single fast-food franchise sometime and see for yourself.  I have.  They aren’t living high.  Most are just breaking even at best.  Raise their employee costs and it means they can pay fewer people.  Which means they have to work even longer hours themselves.  Or shut down completely and put all their employees out of work. 

So much for helping the little guy. 

Wherever you look, the supposed party of the little guy, the protector of honest, hard-working citizens, is actually the party deep in the pockets of big business and the ultra-rich. 

There’s a very old saying about hypocritical Prohibition-era politicians who were “dry in the mouth and wet in the pocket.”

That’s what today’s Democrat party is.  They talk about helping small business. They talk about helping honest, hard-working people get ahead. They talk about helping American workers get good paying jobs.  They talk about having corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share.

But it’s all bullshit.

They’ve thrown in their lot with big business and the mega rich.  Small businesses and honest, hardworking Americans be damned.  All you have to do is look at the legislation they support, the regulations they enforce and the laws they ignore.    

You’ll see the fingerprints of big business and the ultra-rich all over those. 

Monopoly money

A million bucks is still a lot of money to most of us; not so much to others it seems. 

If you think anything under a fifty million bucks is not a lot of money, you’re probably in government or trying to get money from the government. If you routinely talk in terms of billions and trillions, you’re definitely in government.

The bigger the numbers get, and the more we hear them, the more desensitized to their magnitude we become.  It’s hard to comprehend a billion dollars – think of it as 1,000 stacks of $1 million each.  Yet we spent more than $800 billion – 800,000 of those stacks, or about $2500 for every man, woman and child in this country – in a “stimulus” program that accomplished very little. 

Almost nobody blinked.  $800 billion just appeared.  And was gone.  Just like that. 

Now, I don’t remember anybody passing the hat and telling every person to put in $2500.   I don’t remember a special assessment, or a telethon to cover the cost. 

So where did that money come from? Did our government pull it out of some secret stash it’s just sitting on for times like that? If so, how big is that stash?  Who refills it? 

Is there a secret government gold and diamond mine or hush-hush alchemy project in Area 51 that produces a never-ending stream of riches?

You might think so, given our politicians’ cavalier attitude about spending.  The public seems to believe there’s an endless supply of money, too, given their constant clamor for more government spending on everything from bike paths to beach restoration to bail outs on bad mortgages. 

Government money is increasingly seen as “free” money for the taking; it’s from the government, after all, so who is counting?  What’s a billion here or there?  It’s not even a rounding error in a trillion-dollar budget.  Consequently, spending or wasting only millions is much less important. 

When Obama and his entourage went to Africa it was estimated that trip cost taxpayers $100 million; the family vacation in Hawaii was a relative bargain at about $16 million. The “date night” to New York in his first term was a paltry $12 million.

For reference, each hour flying on Air Force One costs more than $288,000, so round trip air fare for one plane to Hawaii was more than $8 million, alone. When Michelle took the girls and their friends on that little jaunt to Spain for shopping and then dining at a great five-star restaurant, figure travel time at about 12 hours each way, so round trip cost us about $7 million just for air fare.

Now Obama supporters and Democrats in general are quick to point out that these aren’t out of line with costs during the Bush administration. Or what Bush trips and family vacations cost when W was in office. They are correct.

However, that somewhat proves my point:  the amount of money being spent by politicians and government is no longer “real,” and hasn’t been for years.  That’s communicated to the general public every day.  It’s hard to convince voters we’re in dire financial straits – which we most certainly are – when politicians waste hundreds of millions on themselves and other stupid stuff all the time.   

When the media breathlessly reports on the globe-trotting Obama family, and the nightly news covers every fundraising stop using Air Force One, you almost never hear what those trips cost taxpayers. That’s because the perception is that those trips are essentially “free” since they are paid for with government money and use government staff and aircraft. 

As one former Secretary of State would say:  “What difference does it make?”    

It’s easy to see how the government is perceived as an ATM with no limits.  Instead of popping out 20s, it pops out millions, billions even, and it never seems to be out of money or out of service. 

It’s also not surprising that there are always beggars hanging out by the government ATM.  They’re not in tattered rags but often in expensive suits. There’s a fair mix of blue jeans, Birkenstocks, dashikis, Dickies workwear, and orthopedic shoes, too. Everybody has their hand out.  Everybody wants to show they are more needy – or deserving – than the next beggar in line.  

Homeowners with bad mortgages.  Students with big loans. Failing businesses and banks.  Public school systems.  Poorly managed cities and states.  Bankrupt pension funds.  Advocates for the homeless, the hungry, the disabled, the elderly, and the “working poor.” 

Everybody wants – no, demands – their “fair share” of government money.  They see government spending millions and billions on all kinds of other stuff, why shouldn’t they get some, too? 

Everybody feels entitled.  Our government has a hand in this.  It keeps growing the number of those eligible for subsidies and credits. It’s also paying out more and more to those deemed “victims” of one thing or another, whether or not it’s actually at fault.      

I know this is going to seem cold and cruel, but it didn’t make any sense to have the government give millions to victims of the 911 attacks.  The government didn’t have anything to do with their deaths.  As compassionate as it seemed at the time, it set a terrible and stupid precedent.

Then, to add insult to ingratitude, a lot of the survivors’ families claimed the government didn’t give them enough. They demanded more. 

Every time there’s a tragedy now, people expect government to start handing out cash to the “victims.”  It makes no difference whether it was an act of terror or simply the result of a stupid personal decision, people expect the government to step in.

That sends the wrong signal and reinforces the belief that there’s infinite money on the table.  Give us a good story and you can have some.  Break our hearts and we’ll give you more.  Show us pictures of your kids and the sky’s the limit. There’s always more government money available. 

And government aggressively promotes that by encouraging people to sign up for free this or reduced cost that, all courtesy of your rich Uncle Sam.  It’s small wonder that many Americans don’t – or won’t – accept the fact that we’re in deep financial trouble as a country. 

All anyone can see is that there’s always more money. 

The public doesn't seem to notice the gradual, yet very real, loss of purchasing power of their dollars.  Sure, they see prices go up on a lot of things, but politicians tell them that’s somebody else’s fault.  Or not to worry because they'll get a subsidy to help pay those higher costs. 

Nobody in government – regardless of party – wants to deal with the real issue.  They’re afraid it’s too complicated, and too unnerving, for the general public.  In truth, it’s also because there’s no easy way out now, no magic formula, no “politically viable” way to explain it without admitting complicity.  Better to pretend that things will somehow work out. 

Meanwhile, the public is oblivious to the fact that easy money pumped out by the government by the billions for every pork project, crackpot social engineering scheme, subsidy and tax break, and to pay interest on our ever-expanding debt, is diluting the value of every dollar. Between exempting people from paying taxes and/or giving them money to offset the cost of something they should be paying for themselves, it’s all less money coming in and more going out. 

When you’re spending too much and taking in too little, you can’t simply borrow and print your way out of the mess you’re in.  No country has ever been successful doing that.  Sooner or later you run out of other peoples’ money and nobody wants to hold your currency. 

You also can’t tax your way out.  At some level, higher taxes suppress economic growth and reduce overall tax revenue.  Plus, really rich people can just leave and avoid your taxes altogether. 

There’s a simple economic truism:  Print too many dollars and each dollar is worth less. It makes no difference whether you’re printing more dollars for a good cause, to repay loans, to stimulate the economy, to bail out an industry or group of debtors  or whatever; the net effect is the same:  more dollars in circulation = less purchasing power for each dollar = ultimately higher prices all around.

Forget all the Keynesian crap and wonkish talk about “increasing the money supply” and “multiplier effects” of government spending.  That’s all misdirection. 

The fact is, our government spends much more than it takes in in taxes and fees. To cover the shortfall it sells interest-bearing securities – in effect a mortgage on future government revenues – to investors here and to foreign investors like China. It also sells these and similar IOUs to itself to offset what politicians continue to loot from Social Security and other “guaranteed” funds. So a lot of “reserves” are really just paper promising that the government will pay itself back at some time in the future. 

And it prints more money.   And issues more securities  

That’s what’s going on right now.

It’s a house of cards and everyone in government knows it, from the President on down.  Congress knows it.  Most financial-beat reporters in the media know it.. 

Yet everybody keeps acting like it’s no big deal. 

It is a big deal.  Both parties are at fault.  So is the American public whose never-ending demand for its “fair share” off government money is based on the mistaken – and dangerous – belief that there are always more billions stashed away somewhere.

There aren’t. 

The debt the government is accumulating is real.  The IOUs it’s floating are not.

At some point it will come to a head.  Someone will have to tell the public the party is over. 

Even if we took the entire assets of the wealthy in this country it wouldn’t make a dent in the deficit of $16 trillion, which is a number so large it’s hard to imagine.

So think of it this way:  In a country of 320 million people, that’s $50,000 – in today’s dollars – for every man, woman and child. 

That’s real money. 

We the Sheeple

At first I thought we were just becoming dumber as a nation. 

I couldn’t understand how so many ordinary Americans simply couldn’t comprehend simple math. 

Simple stuff like:  If Jimmy has two apples and gives one apple each to Sally and Jill, how many apples does Jimmy have left?  Or to put it in a more relevant perspective:  if the Federal government takes in $2 trillion a year in taxes and fees, and spends $3 trillion a year, how much money does the Federal government have left to spend on other things? 

This type of stuff seemed to baffle a lot of people. 

They also seemed unable to separate something clearly false from reality. 

When Obama said in 2009: “no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what. ” – that seemed to me to be pretty straightforward.   Practically a guarantee. 

Yet when millions lost their doctors and their plans because of Obama’s signature legislative achievement, it was as if he’d never said that. In fact, Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, said that people who claimed they lost their doctors and their plans because of ObamaCare were liars. 

And a large part of the public shrugged and said, well, okay.   

When the government briefly shut down and idled 800,000 non-essential government workers, the public was outraged.  But when 5 million or more people lost their healthcare insurance they were promised they could keep, crickets.  Probably that old math problem again …

Then I had an epiphany. 

It wasn’t that the nation was becoming dumber. 

A lot of Americans just didn’t care anymore.  About anything. 

Economics.  Politics.  National defense.  Foreign affairs (unless these involved Bill Clinton or celebrities).   The national debt.  Education.  Healthcare.  Taxes.  Farm subsidies.  The growth of entitlements.  Holding politicians and government officials accountable.  The IRS investigation. 

You know, all the things Republicans and Fox News keep bringing up? 

Americans didn’t give a rat’s patoot about any of this stuff.  They couldn’t care less.

It’s clear to me now that a growing number are only concerned about what affects them personally, right now.  Stuff that happens to other people, and stuff that could happen in the future doesn’t interest them at all. 

If it doesn’t impact them now, they don’t care. 

This also means they don’t care what anybody else does, unless they get affected directly, and immediately, as a result. 

In the abstract this seems like a virtue.  Live and let live.  Don’t be judgmental.  Don’t try to tell others what they should or shouldn’t do.  If it’s not doing you any harm, what business is it of yours what others do? 

In reality, however, it’s become an easy excuse to justify indifference and ignorance. 

If people claim not to care what anyone else does, what the government does, what the laws are, or what’s happening in the world around them, it’s not a case of live and let live. They’re simply hoping things they can’t be bothered to understand will take care of themselves. 

That rarely works out well. History has proven that time and again. 

Still, a large number of Americans are apparently happy to ignore the world around them; their assumption is that someone else is already taking care of the important stuff so they don’t have to. They can’t see wasting their time trying to figure out if whoever’s running things is really up to the task at hand, or just screwing things up.  Life goes on, regardless. 

Besides, if anything was really that important, they’d hear about it on social media or someone would interrupt their favorite TV or cable show with an announcement.  Otherwise, who cares? 

Consequently, they are blissfully ignorant about current events here and abroad. They don’t bother reading a newspaper, watching the news on TV, or listening to newsbreaks on radio.  In fact, they aggressively avoid exposure to news.  News is just background noise getting in the way of something they really want like movies, music or other entertainment.  So most don’t know what’s happening in their own city or state, much less what’s happening elsewhere.  

And they don’t care.   They truly believe that what you don’t know can’t hurt you.

Now, there’s a great temptation to think this is largely a trait of the young – like adolescents, teenagers and the 20-somethings.  It’s not.  Talk to young adults in their mid to late 30s. Talk to people in their 40s and 50s, too.  Go ahead.  I dare you. Ask them about almost any current event – you’ll be stunned by how little they know. 

You’ll be even more stunned to find out how little they care.  At the same time, they’ll be stunned you even bothered to ask.

Lack of knowledge you could almost understand.  Many folks tune out under the weight of information overload. 

But lack of caring?  That’s harder to accept. 

If Americans don’t care about what their government is doing, how the government is spending their money, what laws will or won’t be enforced, and what threats lurk in the outside world, this opens the door to an autocracy that will take their indifference for consent. 

Sort of the situation we find ourselves in now. 

And American democracy will go out not with a bang, but a “whatever.”

The real two-party system ...

The real two-party system today has nothing to do with party affiliation.   It’s now the de facto ruling class versus the working class.

Who makes up the ruling class?  Start with establishment types like Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Lindsey Graham and John McCain from the Republicans.  On the Democrat’s side you have Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin among others. 

In short, members of the ruling class include the deal makers in government willing to put their own and their supporters’ interests ahead of what’s best for the country as a whole.

Add the legions of government employees and their unions, politically appointed regulators, government contractors and suppliers, as well as the entire lobbying industry that relies on currying favor with the government for sustenance.  Then throw in businesses and industries that wouldn’t exist – or be nearly as profitable – without government support. 

Now you have a fairly complete 50,000 foot view of the greatest domestic threat the American public has ever faced in modern times …

The political establishment. 

The members may not always work in concert, but their goals are the same:  To enrich themselves and their friends at the government trough.   

The political establishment is essentially lawless, unless you consider the law of the jungle – in this case survival of the most politically connected.  Its legislative members routinely exempt themselves and their allies from laws and regulations they’ve initiated yet don’t care to follow, while enforcing those on the rest of us.

They see nothing wrong with carve outs for each other and their friends.  Until recently few Americans probably knew that the Republican and Democrat parties received a total of more than $36 million in government money in 2012 to help with the cost of their national conventions. 

This gift from taxpayers to the two major political parties only surfaced because Eric Cantor and others in the Senate pushed a bill to redirect that money toward pediatric cancer research. 

Guess where the $36 million originally came from?  You know that box on your tax returns to direct $3 of your tax to Presidential Campaign Financing – the box pushed by campaign finance reform advocates?  Your money was used to subsidize lavish events for Republicans and Democrats.  Nice.  

Do you still believe the political establishment doesn’t work in concert, across party lines? 

There are also apparently no penalties for its members for stealing on the job, padding contracts, investing based on insider information, breaking laws, misusing government resources, or other serious offenses that would land normal folks in prison for a long, long time.

Just remember the GSA scandal.  Also remember the guy who took the EPA for about $900,000 while falsely claiming he was also working for the CIA – over a period of almost a decade.  Now an audit of a small number of credit cards used by EPA employees showed that 75 of the 80 or so transactions reviewed had been misused for about $80,000 in personal charges, including for family gym memberships, child care and gift cards. 

And you can bet these are just the tip of the iceberg. 

Anybody who believes government employees are solely focused on serving the public is delusional; a large number are focused on serving themselves and their bosses at our expense. 

What makes the political establishment such a threat to our society is not the money they take from us and squander.  No, it’s the power they continue to accumulate, aided and abetted by a complicit media that refuses to do its job. 

With enough power the political establishment can do whatever it wants.  We’re seeing that now.  We’re so far in debt it’s almost beyond comprehension.  Yet the political establishment continues to borrow more and more so it can spend more and more on whatever it wishes.

The political establishment is already powerful, pervasive and pernicious.  It’s also seductive.  Because it controls how much money exists, who gets more or less of that money, where and how many jobs are created using that money, and how much it takes from each of us, it can use that power to bend others to its will. 

Because it controls which laws are created, and which laws are enforced and how, it has near tyrannical control over all of us.  It can use various branches and agencies of the government to harass, intimidate, and crush political adversaries with virtual impunity.  At the same time, it can turn a blind eye to criminal acts it chooses not to prosecute. 

It’s also one of the few solid growth areas in our economy.  While the rest of the country suffered mightily during the last recession, the political establishment prospered.  While ordinary businesses had to lay off workers, hiring was up for the political establishment.  It even managed to find money to buy parts of major industries, bail out banks and favored companies, and fund pet projects.

The traditional Republican Party wants you to believe none of that would have happened had they been in control.  That’s simply not true.  Establishment Republicans are just like establishment Democrats, united under the motto of “go along, to get along.”   

The truth is, when Republicans gain enough power they are no different than the current Democrats.  Republicans are just as likely to drive up the deficit while expanding the size and scope of the Federal government. 

Nixon gave us the EPA and OSHA, among others.  Reagan was the first U.S. President ever to boost the deficit over a trillion dollars in a single term, mainly through spending that largely benefitted defense contractors.  George W. Bush will be remembered for the costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he also gave us the budget-busting prescription-drug coverage plan.  And George W. was a groundbreaker when it came to deciding what parts of what laws he planned to enforce through “signing statements.” 

In reality, the only actual differences between establishment Republicans and establishment Democrats are so minor as to be laughable. They are cut from the same cloth.  They believe in using government money to win friends, influence enemies, and further their careers.

Are there loftier motives at times?  Certainly.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a perfect example.  So is the Americans with Disabilities Act.  Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. 

More often than not, unfortunately, most pieces of “bipartisan” legislation are a witches’ brew of self-aggrandizing publicity, special interest payoffs, pork, and pet projects.  (Drill down on the details of the most recent “farm bill” and see for yourself.) 

So while establishment types in both parties want you to believe the parties are fundamentally different, they’re not.  Sure, on TV they appear to be at each other’s throats.  But behind the scenes they are back slapping and high-fiving as they cut deals and swap votes to help one another.

Republican and Democrat incumbents work together to protect each other from competitive races in their home districts.  They also join forces to limit any reforms that might make them more accountable, or to tighten ethics standards.  Republicans have no problem funding a pork project in a Democrat’s district in exchange for a pork project in their district. 

Most of all, they’ll form whatever unholy alliance is needed to keep the status quo intact; neither establishment Republicans nor Democrats want to change the way things work . The system may appear perverse and counterproductive to most rational observers, but the players understand how to work it for maximum gain. 

That’s why the Tea Party is so reviled by establishment types on both sides of the aisle, and the bête noir for government employees and contractors.  The Tea Party threatens the status quo.  They are outsiders not willing to play the game according to the establishment’s rules. 

Career politicians like Boehner and McConnell, and Reid and Pelosi – all of whom kissed ass for years to get where they are – are confounded by newbies to the club who don’t bow down to their elders. Worse, the Tea Party types are vocal and not content to vote the way they’re told.

Folks like Kelly Ayotte, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Mike Lee are heretics to the political establishment.  They challenge the hierarchy.  They refuse to be “managed.” They say things that are true, but uncomfortable for party leaders to hear. 

They aren’t “team” players, in simplest terms.  And for that, they’ve been dismissed as Tea Party extremists or misguided even by members of their own party.      

Make no mistake, the idea of a Tea Party-style grassroots resistance to business as usual threatens a way of life for the entire political establishment, so there’s a bipartisan move to destroy it by whatever means necessary. The last thing the political establishment wants to deal with is millions of pissed off voters who might want to cut spending and rein in government expansion. 

Just listen to how Boehner, McCain and other establishment Republicans attack the Tea Party. It’s eerily similar to the talking points for the Democrats.  The media’s also doing a job on the Tea Party whenever they can.  TV and movie producers are doing their part as well.  

Lost in all this focus on the “vast right-wing conspiracy” of the Tea Party is a very simple truth:  the Tea Party isn’t even an organized party.  As far as I can tell, this loosely knit coalition has no positions on social issues.  It appears most Tea Party-type groups are generally focused on fiscal responsibility and stopping wasteful spending. 

Which, to me, seems like a good idea. 

I suppose that scares the crap out of the political establishment.  It must; otherwise, why would career politicians, public sector unions, the media, Hollywood and others unleash such vitriol on what truly started out to be a grassroots American movement? 

The Tea Party has been accused of racism, being anti-science, anti-progress bigots, homophobes and whatever else can be slung at them.  None of which has been proven. 

If anything, perhaps the most frightening thing of all for the political establishment is that most Tea Party supporters seem like perfectly normal middle-class Americans who don’t want to see their taxes go up anymore. 

How dare they. 

The only non-violent way to stop the political establishment is to overthrow them at the ballot box.  That requires putting up and supporting commonsense candidates who represent our interests, and not the interests of the establishment.  

That means taking a reasonable approach to spending, scaling back the domestic reach of government, reducing Federal payrolls, decertifying Federal public sector unions, ending no-bid Federal contracts, enforcing ethics laws, and staying the Hell out of social issues. 

It also means realistic means testing for benefits, strengthening the safety net for those who truly need it, and making national defense a priority. 

Oh, and upholding the Constitution.  

You know, the things that are important to us. 

It can be done.  It has been done in the past.  And we need to do it now. 

Daylight Saving Time ...

The “spring forward, fall back” nonsense always infuriates me. 

I’m a reasonably intelligent guy but I’ve yet to understand why we do this.  There’s absolutely no rational reason I’ve ever seen for setting our clocks back an hour in the fall, and then forward an hour in spring. 

Proponents claim it gives people more daylight hours.  They also claim it saves energy. 

What it really does is to compel folks in the afflicted time zones to run around and reset every clock, watch and device dependent on a clock twice a year. And for what?  So they can screw up their circadian rhythm for a few days? 

Honestly, there’s no point to this.  Some NY politician first brought up this idea for the U.S., which shouldn’t really surprise anyone. It was stupid when it started and remains stupid today. 

Hate to burst everybody’s bubble, but the number of daylight hours has nothing to do with setting your clocks forward or back.  There are always fewer hours of sunlight each day as we head into winter; then the number of hours of sunlight each day increases as we head out of winter.

There’s real science behind why that happens, but one thing’s for certain – changing your watches and clocks has nothing to do with it. 

So it’s always been a dumb idea.  But leave it to Congress to make it even dumber. 

It was bad enough when we all accepted when this futile illusion would begin and end.  Makers of electronic devices used this predictability to preprogram a wide range of devices so they would automatically change their displays for us.

Then, not long ago, actually with the Energy Policy Act of 2005, bureaucrats and politicians decided to change the start and stop dates. Why?  No idea.  I suspect nobody in Congress did either.  The net result was to start DST a little earlier and end it a bit later.  (It now starts the second Sunday of March, and ends the first Sunday of November – just for the record.)

So now DST is about 4-5 weeks longer than it used to be.  Woo-hoo.  Don’t you feel better knowing that your government can control the number of daylight hours there are, and has decided to give you more of them?  Well, where’s your gratitude? 

Of course all those devices preprogrammed with original start/stop dates now have to be manually set.  But that’s a small price to pay for more daylight hours, right? 

Now, if we ended this madness what would happen?  Would schoolchildren have to trick-or-treat in the dark again? Would energy consumption soar?  What about school kids waiting in the dark for their school bus?   

Will all Hell break loose?

Nope.  Just look at Arizona.  They’re not on DST.  And they seem to be doing quite nicely without it.  As we would.   

The coming revolution ...

I keep wondering when the public is going to wake up and realize what’s happening.

I’m starting to believe it either won’t, or it has and doesn’t care.   It’s possible we just haven’t reached a tipping point yet, and when we do all Hell is going to break loose.     

I think we’re hurtling toward a cliff.  In fact, I believe we are accelerating toward it now.  Every day we get closer to the abyss.  Or to a revolution. 

There is a point when the elasticity goes out of a population.  There ceases to be a flexibility to roll with the punches, to turn the other cheek, to absorb and not retaliate in kind. 

It happens most often when predictability and stability are in flux.  That’s because people prefer predictability and stability; the alternative is chaos and chaos always makes people uneasy. 

When institutions start acting unpredictably they are like the canary in the coal mine; anxiety rises that chaos is imminent.  If government starts acting erratically, anxiety goes up.  When banks can no longer be trusted to keep your money safe, anxiety goes up.  When government starts being seen more as a corrupter than a protector of values, anxiety goes up.  

When established norms – like enforcement of laws, punishment of lawbreakers, protection of civil liberties, and the right to free speech – are no longer the norm, anxiety also goes up. 

In short, anxiety goes up whenever the foundations upon which we build our daily lives – and are at the heart of our core belief systems – are shaken.  People often don’t recognize it for what it is.  They have a feeling that something’s wrong, something’s out of balance, but they can’t put their finger on precisely what it is often because it’s so many things. 

Little things start to add up.  Then the hits keep on coming. 

When there’s enough anxiety among enough people, they will attack the source of chaos in an effort to restore normalcy.  Because that’s what most people really want – they want consistency and predictability; in other words “normalcy.”  They can get used to some changes over time, but not sudden shifts in the tectonic plates of their reality.

That’s where we are now.  A large part of society wants to overturn what are essentially bedrock American values. 

Like self-reliance.  The work ethic.  The value of a good education.  The dignity of supporting yourself and your family.  Being responsible.  Leading the free world.  Maintaining peace through strength.    

And being a nation where the rule of law is more important than the rule of man. 

America is still the land of opportunity, which is why so many other people in the world want to come here.  Those immigrants – legal or otherwise – still believe in the American Dream:  if you work hard, you can succeed. 

Too bad so many citizens here no longer believe that.  Too bad so many of them want to destroy our basic values to make themselves feel better. 

Maybe they want to lessen their guilt for failing to take advantage of the opportunities this great nation has always provided.  I suppose it’s easier for them to change the rules and blame others instead of sucking it up for their own lack of ambition to change their lot in life.    

The bigger problem is that so many of them now no longer believe in democracy, maintaining the balance of power in our government, and protecting our basic rights to free speech, assembly, and to worship how and where we please. 

Many Americans clearly prefer a simpler authoritarian style of government.  Which is great, as long as whoever is leading that government is doing what you want. 

When an authoritarian government ceases to do what you want and starts doing things you don’t want, then it’s not so great. 

In fact, you start thinking of it in different terms.  Like oppressive.  Dictatorial.  Tyrannical. 

So you see, it’s often a matter of perspective.  Right now, a lot of Americans are all in on the power grabs by the Democrats and Obama; they don’t see anything wrong with it.  To them, it’s a way to get what they want without the bother of following the Constitution or established law. 

Which is all fine and good – for them, for now.  But if a Republican as far right as Obama is far left – say Rick Santorum – gained the same power and started using it just as cavalierly, they’d be outraged. 

Let’s say Santorum decided to make prayer in school mandatory.  Suppose he decided to start channeling big chunks of Federal money to the Catholic Church, and decided his DOJ should instruct state Attorneys General to no longer prosecute pedophile priests.  What if he decided to use an Executive Order to wipe out health insurance for everybody but Roman Catholics? What if he pushed through appointments to the Federal bench of only conservative Catholic men who shared his views on contraception, abortion and the role of women?

Some people – especially Catholic conservatives – would cheer him on.  Others would be horrified.  But really, what’s the fundamental difference between all that and what Obama has done?   Not much.   

It’s abuse of power.  It’s just a question of who is abusing it. 

There’s a reason why the founders insisted on a balance of power among three equal branches of government.  Specifically, it was to prevent this from happening. 

Right now Obama and Democrats are tipping the scales too hard.  Public anxiety is rising. 

ObamaCare alone would be enough to have many wondering what the Hell is going on.  We’ve lost our leadership of the free world and now have to look to Russia to solve diplomatic problems.  Our enemies no longer fear us, and yet the Administration is opening promoting scaling back our military to pre-WWII levels.  AG Holder did instruct state Attorneys General recently that they didn’t have to enforce laws they didn’t agree with.  VP Biden was  quoted recently as saying how great it is that single mothers can quit their jobs to spend more time with their kids because they don’t have to rely on a job anymore to get healthcare.

WTF. 

It’s getting too crazy.  And irrational.  And that’s the breeding ground for revolution.