"Go Get Me My Stuff "!
"What'd I tell you....go get me my stuff"!
In a world of children, priorities of any real significance are damned to the backwater of personal consciousness and replaced by insignificance. That is the present world that we live in, the result of the children of the baby boomers coming of age. Two generations who refuse to grow up, having bought into the idea of eternal youth as a template for life. Both have carefully pushed aside anything that smacks of adulthood for fear of contamination—and are now at a crossroads, but are unable to recognize the sign post, “trouble ahead.” This is what happens when childishness is adopted as a way of life—and we are about to pay a very heavy price for it.
Our economy is in shambles, the result of the staggering overspending of a Federal Government that has printed money like a gang of counterfeiters with a Robin Hood complex. No one president is responsible, or congress for that matter. Not any single Democrat or Republican. Not the Koch brothers or George Soros, MSN or Fox News, Barak Obama or George W. Bush. It’s a systemic failure that every great culture eventually faces, whether they're a formal democracy or not. Eventually, the wealth dries up and with it come the demands to fix the problem, meaning; “Go get me my stuff!” Where the stuff comes from doesn’t matter. It’s the myth of the “free lunch.”
Our economy is in shambles, the result of the staggering overspending of a Federal Government that has printed money like a gang of counterfeiters with a Robin Hood complex. No one president is responsible, or congress for that matter. Not any single Democrat or Republican. Not the Koch brothers or George Soros, MSN or Fox News, Barak Obama or George W. Bush. It’s a systemic failure that every great culture eventually faces, whether they're a formal democracy or not. Eventually, the wealth dries up and with it come the demands to fix the problem, meaning; “Go get me my stuff!” Where the stuff comes from doesn’t matter. It’s the myth of the “free lunch.”
"What'd you mean there ain't no free lunch"?
Some four decades ago, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Premier of The Soviet Union proclaimed, “Soon we’ll be able to give our citizens free lunch.”—triggering a giggle reflex among economists the world over who quickly responded “There’s no such thing as a free lunch!” They understood what the leader of one of the world’s greatest super powers didn’t, that unless lunch miraculously manifested itself like manna from heaven, there could be no free lunch. Absent an act of God, lunch would remain absent.
Why is there no “free lunch?” Does anyone really need to ask that question? Why not ask, “Why is there suffering?”--and then determine to get rid of all of the world’s heartache with a happy face and a tuneful refrain. Why not ask, “Why must children get sick and die?” and then solve the problem by handing the reins of the largest healthcare system in the world over to politicians with no background in medicine.
Why is there no “free lunch?” Does anyone really need to ask that question? Why not ask, “Why is there suffering?”--and then determine to get rid of all of the world’s heartache with a happy face and a tuneful refrain. Why not ask, “Why must children get sick and die?” and then solve the problem by handing the reins of the largest healthcare system in the world over to politicians with no background in medicine.
"Looks like it's free to me"!
The logic appears to be that businessmen are greedy, motivated by money and power, while politicians are altruistic and thoughtful. This would be the same politicians that have run up a massive national debt, started and maintained endless wars, and misused their power to rob Peter in order to pay Paul, skimming as much as possible from the Federal trough, and then passing the debt to every succeeding generation. It's what every magician and salesman, every politician and creep, big and small, recognizes as the “Will to power.” A mixture of sleight of hand, (Distract your audience with a flashy move while the real mechanics of the trick are being carried out behind your back.) and your audience’s short attention span will do the rest. It’s always the predator that you don’t see that kills you!
Maybe if we remove money from the equation we’ll eliminate greed. Let’s see….Hmmm? We can get rid of that nasty coinage and go back to a barter system, maybe that’ll do it. So, if I need my car fixed, I can barter with a chicken or something else that I just happen to have lying around, but, what if my mechanic doesn’t need a chicken? Expand that idea to include every need bartered for and you have a culture thrown back a thousand years, impoverished and ignorant. Even then, the Europe of the Dark Ages had the excuse of the Black Plague, which killed off almost half of its population, including scientists, artisans and craftsmen, leaving an illiterate and superstitious populace to grapple with rebuilding. What’s our excuse? Without pestilence and disease, willful ignorance has been sufficient.
How, then, do we eliminate greed? Certainly, not by eliminating money. It is the “…love of money that is the root of all evil.” not money itself. Money is good.....in fact, it’s very good. Money makes trade for goods and services far more efficient, and as such, far more prosperous than any other means of financial exchange. This is especially true for the poor, where limited economic opportunity means that every dollar earned has the maximum value. The rich can afford losses, the poor can't.
The greatest threat to freedom will always be government, not corporations. Walmart may wish to compel you to buy their products, but only government has that authority. Oil companies can't tax your income, or write laws that can turn average folk into enemies of the state. They can't start wars, throw you in prison or determine that some people should become the slave of others. Only government has that kind of power. When business and government collude to rob the people, it is government that is always the senior partner. And, it's why government power must be restrained and diffused. That was always the intention. Not so the money men can take advantage of the poor and helpless, but to give the poor and helpless a voice when no other form of government will.
This brings me to the real problem; which is a nation of people so conditioned by slogans, that they can see the slogan and nothing more—a waving flag with images of Americans hard at work, playing with their children, mowing their lawns in the suburban paradise of myth, movies and imagination, running through fields of amber-colored grain, a patriotic song in the background, singing, “One Nation Under God,” and “We the People.” With a thousand questions left unanswered or never asked to begin with, you can’t hope to answer a question if you don’t, first, know what to ask. And that would be the real problem.
Mark Magula
Maybe if we remove money from the equation we’ll eliminate greed. Let’s see….Hmmm? We can get rid of that nasty coinage and go back to a barter system, maybe that’ll do it. So, if I need my car fixed, I can barter with a chicken or something else that I just happen to have lying around, but, what if my mechanic doesn’t need a chicken? Expand that idea to include every need bartered for and you have a culture thrown back a thousand years, impoverished and ignorant. Even then, the Europe of the Dark Ages had the excuse of the Black Plague, which killed off almost half of its population, including scientists, artisans and craftsmen, leaving an illiterate and superstitious populace to grapple with rebuilding. What’s our excuse? Without pestilence and disease, willful ignorance has been sufficient.
How, then, do we eliminate greed? Certainly, not by eliminating money. It is the “…love of money that is the root of all evil.” not money itself. Money is good.....in fact, it’s very good. Money makes trade for goods and services far more efficient, and as such, far more prosperous than any other means of financial exchange. This is especially true for the poor, where limited economic opportunity means that every dollar earned has the maximum value. The rich can afford losses, the poor can't.
The greatest threat to freedom will always be government, not corporations. Walmart may wish to compel you to buy their products, but only government has that authority. Oil companies can't tax your income, or write laws that can turn average folk into enemies of the state. They can't start wars, throw you in prison or determine that some people should become the slave of others. Only government has that kind of power. When business and government collude to rob the people, it is government that is always the senior partner. And, it's why government power must be restrained and diffused. That was always the intention. Not so the money men can take advantage of the poor and helpless, but to give the poor and helpless a voice when no other form of government will.
This brings me to the real problem; which is a nation of people so conditioned by slogans, that they can see the slogan and nothing more—a waving flag with images of Americans hard at work, playing with their children, mowing their lawns in the suburban paradise of myth, movies and imagination, running through fields of amber-colored grain, a patriotic song in the background, singing, “One Nation Under God,” and “We the People.” With a thousand questions left unanswered or never asked to begin with, you can’t hope to answer a question if you don’t, first, know what to ask. And that would be the real problem.
Mark Magula
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