Delftsman

INDIAN CHIEF, VERY SMART!

An Indian walks into a cafe with a shotgun in one hand pulling
a male buffalo with the other. He says to the waiter, "Want
coffee." The waiter says, "Sure, Chief, coming right up." He gets the
Indian a tall mug of coffee.

The Indian drinks the coffee down in one gulp, turns and blasts the
buffalo with the shotgun, causing parts of the animal to splatter
everywhere, then just walks out.

The next morning the Indian returns. He has his shotgun in one
hand pulling another male buffalo with the other. He walks up
to the counter and says to the waiter, "Want coffee."

The waiter says, "Whoa, Tonto! We're still cleaning up your
mess from yesterday. What was all that about, anyway?"

The Indian smiles and proudly says, "Training for position in
United States Congress: Come in, drink coffee, shoot the bull,
leave mess for others to clean up, disappear for rest of day."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I thought about this joke, and thought it was a good jumping point for a little essay on what I think is currently wrong with this country. I couldn't get it to gell though, so I asked a friend of mine over for a mug of some cyber jumpstart, with the request that he jump in anytime...(JB's comments/additions in bold)

Here goes:

It seems that our current government works exactly in the manner portrayed in the joke, the members of Congress use a scattershot method of addressing problems that only serve to make an even greater mess and then just walk away from the consequences of their actions. When it comes time to account for the mess, they are nowhere to be found.

You might want to toss out the idea that they tend to favor expediency as influenced by
current event (polls, fingers in the air, et al), to the longer view of
unintended consequences.

I KNEW there was a reason I wanted you to go over this!

The interweaving web of special interest groups clamoring for their narrow goals, lobbyists clamoring for their little piece of the pie (holding out huge sums of money to ensure that they are heeded) and polititicians trying to accomodate them all, no matter that many of the interests are in direct conflict with each other....

That's exactly the problem the major political parties face at this time.
Too many dollars from too many directions and they are conflicted. To wit:
The holiest of the liberal sacraments is abortion, why? Because their
biggest contributions come from that direction. Republicans, while the
majority of their contributors are the little guys (No Soros and Company
checks) are conflicted by the immigration issue. Why? Two reasons in my
opinion 1) the black voting "block" seems irreversibly left, unless/until
the CBC in it's present form is removed, this is not likely to change. 2)
The next large voting block coming into the picture is the Latinos, as we
know they are now the largest minority group and the conservative message
has appeal to the useful members of this populace. The wobbly knees won't
come out and deal with it out of fear of alienating the "good ones". This is
pure bullshit to anyone with half a brain, but we're talking congress here.

And to make the situation worse, we have a general populace that, as long as they are not personally affected, tends to ignore the whole sordid mess.

Biggest problem of all right there. The republic was formed and a
constitution created to provide guidance for governance based on the
assumption that the general populace would make INFORMED and MORAL decisions
regardless of self-interest, recognizing that in any form of government/laws
exercising control over a widely diverse group some disparities would arise.
We as a nation are too diverse for One Size Fits All governance. The logical
conclusion our founders created was Federalism, the concept of best rule is
the closest rule. We grow farther from that principle, it would seem almost
daily.

A friend of mine stated last night that he believed that we are living under a government of Corporate Facism, where the real power was issuing from the board rooms of a few multinational companies. I think that big business/big labor does have a large role, but in nowhere near the manner that my friend believes. They influence the course, undoubtedly, but they don't direct it.

That's the old Straw Dog argument. Business is irrevocably tied to
governance in that it is the sole generator of wealth which our form of
governance relies on to function. The solution to the problem is the reverse
of what your friend might think. Reduce the size of government (and we can
dramatically) and this in turn reduces the symbiotic relationship. Smaller
Government=Smaller $$ to be confiscated from individuals and business, thus
reducing the incentive for business to influence governance in the interests
of their own profit.

So just what is the answer? Hell if I know.

I think that enacting the Fair Tax would be a good first step in taking power away from the corporate lobbyists and radical special interest groups. (yes they are different)

Hell yes, Boortz is dead-nuts, spot-on correct. The Fair Tax would again in
my opinion be the quickest and most successful means of realignment of the
republic to our founding tenets.

Requiring all legislation to have a study done of the possible end/side effects of it's enactment would serve to slow down the rash of knee-jerk reactive legislation that has proved to be counterproductive to a fee flowing economy.

Good idea, but who gets to do the study? Sorry, can't answer that one it's
a paradox. Guess thats an idea needing furthur study.....

But what is most needed is an actively engaged and informed electorate,

As old Wil would put it "There's the rub". See above comment regarding an
informed electorate. Personally, I think Heinlein was on to something about
earning the franchise to vote. OH the Horror.... actually requiring people
voting to you know, have a tiny clue? I've seen the current naturalization
exam bank questions. I submit sir, that perhaps 20% (at the most) of our HS
graduates could pass the exam. Think about that, the average newly
naturalized citizen is on the order of 70-80% more knowledgeable of our form
and function of government than our own populace. If you have no CLUE as to
how government should work and is designed to work is it possible to ever
exercise a wise choice? Stick to slot machines, the percentages are better.

and how do you ensure that? Maybe one person at a time....
I think that the blogosphere can be a tremendous force in this arena.

Those that gravitate towards blogging tend to be the more informed/interested, and with the speed at which information, opinions, and possible solutions can be transmitted, it's possible that we have a whole new way of righting the the ship of state and putting it back on a course that will satisfy the greatest number of people.

Funny you bring that up, I've been having an extended discussion with Mike
in Chi regarding this exact concept. The blogosphere can be a Sixth Column,
as you put it precisely we tend to be orders of magnitude more informed and
interested that the average Joe. Blogging can't be done in 15 second sound
bites, it requires thought and the ability to articulate your point (or if
you're glutton for punishment you can be just an average troll) in an open
forum. You have to take a stand and fight or instant irrelevance is the
result. A self-correcting, positive-feedback system. It's very nature, over
time tends to correct one's viewpoints to a strong position (as opposed to
pure silliness).

If you think of the WWW as a gestalt of the wishes and opinions of the people en masse, why not use it to try to formulate new policies? It's not possible at the moment, but I believe that it is something that should be considered for the future.

True enough and the factor would be some form of alliance between camps,
think about the 13 colonies and of course a leadership.

One problem with this idea is the possiblity of a true Democracy in action, and as the founding fathers were wise enough to know, that course lies in the direction of mob rule and the tyranny of mass group think. But it also would be the perfect conduit to determine just what the thoughts of the majority was thinking, so as to formulate policy that was ameniable to the greatest number.

Exactly why I understand libertarians but view it with a certain disdain as
it approaches mobocracy. Possibly another paradoxical position in that some
or many will refuse to devote the necessary thought to derive rational
opinions.

It all boils down to education in the end. An educated populace with MAKE (hopefully good) policy happen, whereas an indoctrinated populace will allow policy happen TO them, imposed from above.

Currently, it seems that our education system is far more indoctrination than true education, and it's been caused to be that way because of the PC special interest groups that have taken hold in the corridors of power. These need to be rooted out and exposed for what they are. They flourish because too many good people are too afraid to seen to be "insensative" or "uncaring of the plight of _______". We need to overcome that fear and promote the use of common sense and logic in government, and combat the use of "feel good" policy that ultimately is to the detriment of those it is intended to help.

Multi-Culti/PC must DIE and quickly or we can write off an entire
generation)

Yes it will hurt, and the longer it goes on, the more it will hurt to correct. But we have to wean people off of the idea that there is no pain or sacrifices to be made in life. The current idea that government is capable of eliminating that pain and those sacrifices will ultimately lead to a tyrany that is stricter and more evil than any imposed heretofor.

Just some food for thought and consideration of how such a new process could be implemented for the best effect....

Thanks for listening to me spout off, JB, maybe it will strike a chord with someone....

No Problem, young Padewan...

Posted by Delftsman3 at July 3, 2006 02:40 PM | TrackBack