Pardon my political cynicism, but this Shakespearean quote expresses my feelings toward today's political chaos better than I can myself. I am a registered Independent ( conservative, evangelical) and frustrated as heck at the bone-headed belligerence of the party lines of both the Democratic, and Republican parties. Its time we as responsible Americans take charge of both parties, and serve notice that the politics of yesterday ( meaning the last 50 years) is no longer acceptable, and either they clean house on their greedy, irresponsible policies, and practices, or we will clean house of them. The third choice is a new third Party, which is more difficult to create with sufficient credibility, though the Tea Party is making a stab at it ( see my last post).
Fifty years ago America was entering a period of heightened economic prosperity, though much of it was created by the early stages of Government induced inflationary spending, to soften the effects of both the Great Depression, and World War II. If that had been limited to several years before our government began to pay off the principle of our debt we could have handled it well enough. But successive Congressional, and presidential administrations found it easier to simply pay off the interest, and allow the whole debt to increase, leaving the increasing mess for their successors to deal with ( which of course no one did). Our present-day hyper-inflationary quagmire is the horribly painful result of that profligate Government spending, which left the impression for those who did not understand what was happening that this kind of prosperity was both natural, and reliable for the indefinite future. What we were not told was that it would all come due eventually, in the form of runaway hyper-inflation like Germany suffered in the 1920's, and which Hitler used to justify his reign of terror ( especially on the Jews). We are now approaching a time when our currency will collapse, and we will suffer such runaway inflation that it will make Germany's 1920's look like a kindergarten parody. This may well be the harbinger of the the economic crisis the Bible describes in Revelation chapter 6, when it talks of a future time when a man's daily labor will earn him merely enough to pay for a day's amount of food. ( See Rev. 6: 5,&6; where it talks about the "opening of the third seal".)
What we desperately need is at least one Party that will actually stand for righteousness, in the face of a population that has been conditioned to believe a whole series of political lies, to the point where they find the truth to be hilariously rediculous ( i.e., John Stewart, of the "Dailey Show", who has made a lucrative career out of witty ridicule of the truth, and the few people who have the courage to speak it, almost exclusively conservatives. This follows the old tried, and true tactic of Liberal politics: "When you have no good argument to the contrary, simply ridicule the opposition". Although I must credit him with some hilarious wit concerning "Obamacare", recently. I suppose that fiasco seemed to be just a bit too lame-brained for him to pass up the opportunity to slam it good, even if it was a liberal "sacred cow". I tried hard not to laugh at his quips, but the absurd irony of it all got the better of me. It was hilarious! Too bad Stewart's not on our side!)
Today, we have a Democratic Party that once was the bastion of Red-neck racism, Ku Klux Klan protectionism, and horrified resistance to anything that smacked of Big-Government spending, because it threatened their racist-based political empire, which was breathlessly waiting for, "the South to rise again". This is the basis of liberal politicians trying to associate tax cuts with Racism. Simply associate something you ( the liberals) hate, with something that is universally despised and you won't need to explain why you hate it. As the party found that Government spending could quiet the outrage of the masses and coincidentally guarantee re-election, the party slowly changed from it's racist roots to one that merely bought off criticism by throwing taxpayer's money at whatever special interest yelled the loudest. But the exponential nature of inflationary spending necessitates continued spending, at greater and greater levels, or the whole "house of cards" will collapse in on itself, leaving whatever party is in control to take political responsibility for the inevitable deflationary depression that must follow. We are on the brink of that point now, we just can't see it because the Fed has continued to cleverly hyper-inflate the currency sufficiently to temporarily disguise it from public view. At some point their efforts to continue doing so will become inadequate to hide it, and it will all collapse. Till then, we will continue to have a welfare system that rewards teen-aged girls for intentionally getting pregnant ( when neither the father, nor the mother intend to get married and raise the child, but prefer to let the Government pay for it all), and they find that the more children they have ( regardless of how many different fathers) the more profitable it is. Also, we will continue to struggle with a financially bereft Social Security system that continues to foment the lie that it is paying money that we have saved from our employment years, rather than paying out cash borrowed from general tax revenues. The Democrats continue to ignore this bankrupt quagmire, preferring to throw more inflated money at it, while hoping the crisis will somehow disappear. And the best idea the Republicans can come up with is to raise the eligibility age a few years, which is a heartless rip-off of those who will truly be in need in future years, when they are unable to work.
The obvious solution to Social Security's financial stability is simple, but politically painful for the politicians who must vote it into law. They must have the courage to recognize that the real purpose of Social Security is to provide Emergiency Aid to the elderly who can demonstrate that they can not provide for their care themselves. Obviously, this excludes those who are so rich that they can afford to pay for their own needs, instead of receiving benefits that are as much as six, or seven times greater than those who are desperately in need, when those obscenely large benefits wouldn't begin to pay a small portion of the cost of the rich person's lifestyle, which they can easily afford themselves. Why does the Government continue to pay huge benefits to those who don't need it, and a comparative pittance to those who do, and still wring their hands worrying about how to save Social Security from bankruptcy??? It's mind-boggling lunacy that can't pass for status quo anywhere else but the Federal Government!
Now for the Republicans, and their Sacred-Cow Tax Breaks, and exemptions for wealthy Tax(non)-payers. They have become the Lobbying equivalent of Meth-amphetamine addicts who desperately protect every tax loophole that benefits the rich ( individual and corporate), at the expense of the slowly disappearing middle-class, who's left to pay for the profligate spending of the Democrats. If Congress would ever do the right thing ( fat chance!) and create real campaign finance reform by limiting contributions to a $100.00 maximum for each individual,( who must declare it, legally), while abolishing all foreign, and corporate contributions ( including Labor Unions), then we might have Congressmen who campaign for what they actually believe to be right, rather than what they have sold themselves out to be to the lobbying interests, to raise sufficient funds to get re-elected. If every politician were so limited in how they raised campaign funds ( legally, at least) they would need to earn it by convincing there constituents that they represented money well spent. And they would have to spend it more surgically, which means fewer media ads, and thus less influence for the media ( which we all know is corrupt and nauseatingly biased). Then there would need to be careful accounting of how much is raised, and exactly how it is spent, so any campaign that spends more than it can account for will immediately set off alarms for corruption prosecution.
This is what I believe needs to happen if America is going to save itself from declining into a third-world economic status, in the not too distant future. But I'm afraid I remain skeptical that there remain enough courageous voters in America to hold our politicians to these standards. Pardon my cynicism, and pray God that I'm wrong!
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