Political Ponderings part three
Part Three, continued from Thursday’s Column
(My opinions don’t necessarily reflect those of the hosts of this website, its subsidiaries or friends or family or anyone else even loosely connected with anyone who may, at one time or another, have glanced at this website! These are my opinions alone. Please don’t sue me.)
Conclusion-ish:
I think we must stop accepting the way things are done just because that’s the way they’ve always been done, because it isn’t working very well. I am fully in support of the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” philosophy, but our government is “broke” in virtually every sense of the word. If people ran small businesses the way our government is run, there would be no small businesses.
In big business, you’re allowed to cheat, lie, mislead and run your company so far into the red that your eyes are bloodshot and still have a company to run. And, if you’re that far in debt, you can appeal to the government for a loan so that you can continue to do bad business. At least, that’s the way it looks to me. The government seems to behave the same way. Where else can one have a national deficit (debt) that is greater than its income yet continue to exist?
Small business doesn’t work that way. Small business requires that you actually have more income than outgo. In small business, if you don’t pay your debts, you go out of business. If you run out of money, you can’t just go in the back and print up some more. Besides, the federal government doesn’t like that and will arrest you (they don’t like the competition). It seems to me that the federal government likes to say, “Do as I say, not as I do.”
So, just who is it that will stand up and say, “Wait a minute. This isn’t working. Before we go telling other people how to live and operate their businesses, shouldn’t we fix our own?”
How do we change our government? How do we fix it? Who will do the fixing? Has our government become so large and segregated that we can’t change things? Have we become a society of people so much more concerned about the latest fashions and whether or not a sports star is having an affair that we have no room for concern about the state of our country’s future?
Many years ago, when I was much younger and a member of 4-H, I had the opportunity to perform at the Evergreen State Fair as a member of the horse drill team. I remember feeling very powerful and in control as I directed my very large horse within the group of twenty or so other horses. There was no little pride for me as I trotted and loped and turned and twirled in time with my team-mates. Then, after we’d finished, I was sitting astride my horse outside of the arena.
The act that followed us was the team of Budweiser Clydesdales. There were eight of those huge horses pulling an equally huge wagon, and their finale included running from one end of the arena, at a full gallop, through the exit. While it definitely took a bit of time to get those horses up to speed, once they were at a full gallop, there was deafening thunder and awing, intimidating power… and it was coming toward me and my suddenly-tiny horse very, very quickly.
I think about that image when I ponder our current government. Has it gotten so big, so fast and so wildly powerful that all we can do is get out of the way? Is the person driving those horses capable of holding on to all of those sets of reins, let alone capable of controlling the beasts? Is anyone actually driving the team at all or has the driver simply gotten so out of control that all they can do is hold on and hope the horses choose to stop before they kill someone?
I don’t have the answers, I have only questions and a few, simple ideas. I don’t know how to get those ideas enacted. I don’t even know if my ideas should be enacted. I do, however, recognize that what we’re doing currently isn’t working.
They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.
It is, indeed, a time for change, but who is going to change things, what are they going to change and how are they going to do it?
Until next time…
D. S. Vic
Please include Northwest Journal in the subject line of all Email. JD_DSVic at Yahoo.com
Copyright © 2010 D. S. Vic
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