When You Fart in Church
...you end up sitting in your own pew.
I was about 10 when I first heard that Confucius joke. It's probably the day I fell in love with the double entendre.
Perhaps it is human nature to want things both ways.
That's what we are seeing after the Paul Ryan speech last night from the Republican convention. Fact checkers, that elusive group of elite media who make claim to winners and losers, have been all over the thing. It seems they don't really need to know what Ryan said last night, because they know what Ryan meant. Even if it was never uttered.
Fact checkers want it both ways. They want to create an environment where theirs is the final word, and they want to also find in favor of their opinion regardless of the facts.
But, it's starting to smell. This time they were caught and a barrage of backlash has them fact checking themselves. It's time the tide turn on the practice of opinionated fact checking. Identifying a fact with all caps followed by a colon doesn't make it a fact anymore. That revelation is just in time for the rest of us to start thinking about what we read with regard to the election.
Do me a favor and keep in mind how many times you want it both ways as we dabble in political rhetoric between now and Nov. 6th. No sense making this campaign season stinkier than it's already become.
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A friend and I argued the other day (you can't imagine me doing that, can you?) where I took the position that no, this isn't the most important election in our lifetime. That actually took place in November 2010. That election is the one which held this country back from the tipping point, from sliding over the precipice towards a controlled, more socialist nation. By laying claim to one half of one third (that's a convoluted way of saying "electing a Republican majority in the House of Representatives"), this country stopped the momentum. It's just a matter of finishing the job.
I have other acquaintances who are giddy that we might end up with a national R/R/R sweep emulating the one we picked up in Wisconsin during that same November 2010 vote. (A couple of us have dubbed it a pirate government. Let me know if you get that one.) I'm not so sure that's what we need. I like mixed government. Only the good stuff gets to bubble to the top that way.
If you go back to all those founding father lessons from civics class, you can deduce the magic of their plan. It's fitting the House of Representatives turned first and hard after two years of D/D/D government. (No nickname for that yet.) The House was meant to be the most responsive — the canary in the coal mine — if voting constituents didn't think things were going very well. Only the House has a two-year term.
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Only 67 days to go to Nov. 6th.
Michael McClusky
6:35 pm on Thursday, August 30, 2012
Our Founding Fathers fought against eachother tooth and nail when this country began. Think Jefferson and Hamilton. Now we have the pro-Jefferson side {Republicans} against the pro-Hamilton side {Democrats} Nothing has changed.
Cindy Kilkenny
7:05 pm on Thursday, August 30, 2012
That's a very good point. We're right back there. Will the outcome be as dynamic?
Michael McClusky
7:24 pm on Thursday, August 30, 2012
No, because neither side knows what to do about the economy. It is too complicated to figure out. We are descending on auto-pilot.
Cindy Kilkenny
8:03 pm on Thursday, August 30, 2012
Oh, there we will disagree. Both parties know what to do about the economy. So far neither have had the intestinal fortitude to do it.
GearHead
10:03 pm on Thursday, August 30, 2012
@ Michael: nothing complicated about cutting taxes, regulatory reform, and turning entrepreneurs free. Get out of the way!
Michael McClusky
10:21 pm on Thursday, August 30, 2012
GearHead, the problem isn't taxes, regulation or whatever. The problem is demand. Americans' income is declining and they can't keep up. Our economy depends on consumer demand. Do you see a problem here?
Jay Sykes
10:50 am on Saturday, September 1, 2012
@Michael McClusky... The evidence seems to indicate it's more than a demand problem. The razor-wire fence tax code, Congress directed the IRS to install in '04 to cage in the Wild and Woolly Corporations, is being breached.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444230504577615232602107536.html
Michael McClusky
11:31 am on Saturday, September 1, 2012
@Jay, I can see that taxes are a problem, but what they don't mention is that many multi-nationals do not care for the American cost of living either. It is far cheaper to have an operation in India, China and Mexico than in the US.
Globilization and free markets inevitably only benefit the few. The British Empire had free markets. At its height 1 in 3 draft age men were unfit for duty due to malnutrition. We have 45 million people on food stamps. See the connection?
Michael McClusky
8:18 pm on Thursday, August 30, 2012
Back in 2009 Larry Summers, Obama's chief economic advisor, concluded that the only feasible way to turn things around was to create trade surpluses. Since we average about 50 billion dollars a month in trade deficits, this is a tall order. It would demand that corporations think of America first. This isn't happening.
Cindy Kilkenny
8:31 pm on Thursday, August 30, 2012
That's because it would demand an administration to think of getting out of the way. That isn't happening, either.
Michael McClusky
8:35 pm on Thursday, August 30, 2012
Maximization of profit is the only creed that matters now. Companies will screw anyone for the betterment of the bottom line. Blame the baby boomers. {I am one of them.} Their selfishness knows no bounds.
Cindy Kilkenny
8:37 pm on Thursday, August 30, 2012
Hugs and stuff for playing, but I can tell this won't be going anywhere in my lifetime.
Go buy something. Pretend it's for America's sake. :)
Lyle Ruble
4:32 pm on Friday, August 31, 2012
@Michael McClusky & Cindy Kilkenny...Unfortunately the answers are not easy, but extremely complicated. If the government is a reflection of the electorate, then the dysfunction of government shows how dysfunctional we are. We have to demand our elected officials to represent us and not the plutocrats and oligarchs. If we're unhappy and we don't like the stench, we only have ourselves to blame. Quite honestly, I am tired of the fact that the baby boomers created all the problems, it's a continuum. The Gen-Xers are claiming that they can't be blamed for anything because it's all the boomers fault. It's time for all of us to stand up and accept responsibility for the mess we're in. We are only experiencing the consequences of supply side macro economics.
Randy1949
11:50 am on Saturday, September 1, 2012
I'm getting tired of the 'blame the Boomers' cliche. Lyle is right, it's a continuum. Did our parents suddenly stop voting the minute we turned 12? We have them to thank for Ronald Reagan and the beginnings of the trickle-down fiasco of the past thirty years. And did nobody gain the right to vote after us? From the comments i read, Gen-Xers are some of the most materialistic 'me-centered' people I have ever run across.
And no generation marches in lock-step. We all have differing politics and philosophies of life. What I sense here is the Gen-Xers and beyond gearing up to assuage the guilt as they throw the Boomers under the bus.
Michael McClusky
12:54 pm on Saturday, September 1, 2012
Pat Buchanon, the former presidential candidate, believes our society changed on two counts. The fall of the Soviet Union eliminated an external threat that most Americans feared and abhorred. Our united sense as a people eroded somewhat after that threat was gone. Also, the rapid decline in church attendance has helped along a less caring society. The sense of community has declined because of it
"I got mine- the hell with everyone else' mentality has grown substantially. Unless this tendency reverses itself, I think we are headed for anarchy.
Michael McClusky
4:50 pm on Friday, August 31, 2012
Lyle, you are right- there has to be compromise. However, the idea that some people have that our economic ills is centered around Washington is simply not true. It is the private sector that employs most of us, not the government. It is time for companies to actually start caring about their employees and communities. They are not burdens.
Randy1949
12:01 pm on Saturday, September 1, 2012
I agree. Profits are great, but not to the extent that they starve their consumer base. Americans cost more to hire, but companies should think of it as an investment in further sales.
Michael McClusky
3:37 pm on Saturday, September 1, 2012
@Randy1949 The problem with this scenario is that companies do hurt their customer base unknowingly. They only see next quarter's bottom line and not much beyond that. American corporations are particuliarly cricized for this. Long term consequences for their actions are not really looked in to. Our leaderless society is on a reckless course where no one knows where it is headed.