Please Read These Words

C’mon jerk, fix the economy.  It’s your fault, ya know.  You’re in charge.  You keep telling us all these inspiring things about hope and change.  Why can’t you get 400 and something legislators to agree on fixing stuff?  Aren’t you powerful enough?  Oh, wait.  I forgot.  This is a democracy.  Checks and balances.  That’s right; you’re just an idea guy,  and the latest idea is to take something from those who have the most and give it to those who have the least.  That’s so unfair.  You’re a Nazi.  You’re a Commie.  Oh no, wait, you might even be a terrorist.  Where’s your birth certificate?  Mr. “Nobama”…  You’re like so dumb, and like making things so, like, bad for people!!

The truth is, we have plenty of money, and the potential for more wealthy, healthy life for all is very real.  It’s just that a lot of money is just sitting around making more money for people who don’t do anything good with it except spread it around to other people with a shitload of money.  Sure, some of it trickles down, but only enough to keep those in the middle and the bottom believing the lie.

Liberals complain that budget items like military spending are bloated and out of control.  I don’t know.  I sure don’t want to get attacked by terrorists again; that sucked.  I also don’t want to see our military using sub-par armored vehicles in whatever war we decide to fight.  So, what I do want to know–since military spending is a huge portion of the pie that could be spread around to help us without going into more debt–is what are the ratios in that budget?  What are “research and development” costs vs. operational costs?  Can we trim R&D without compromising safety?  Why not.  After all, look at the weapons our enemies are using.  We are against a bunch of MacGyver’s using some pretty old stuff.  Their greatest weapon is clearly an extremist fervor that no amount of technology will fully stamp out.  Our “shock and awe” only pisses them off more.  I’m not positive, but our technological might seems to only reflect the excessive culture that makes these folks call us “infidels” in the first place!

We have literally begun to fight ourselves.  If we are what has been depicted by the kind of rhetoric I hear on the extreme right and left, we too have become a nation of extremes.  If our sons and daughters are protecting us from extreme ideology, it might suit us better to move toward the middle together.  The farther we move apart, the sooner we will all go down.