The government needs to keep me happy. Not me in the figurative sense as in, middle aged suburban white guys built like the president. No, they need to keep me, Tom – the guy who’s writing this happy because it’ll be hell for us all if they don’t. And it’s really just one aspect of my character that stresses why the government should think I’m so important at the moment. I'm typical of the kind of guy essential to any redistributive system.
I don’t expect fairness – never have. I didn’t expect it in school. I don’t expect it from the government, or from my employer, or from the police or any of the institutions of life. In fact, there have been points in my life where I felt like every two bit authoritarian bureaucrat had a photo of me in his wallet that he would whip out whenever he was wondering who he should give the shaft to.
Anyway, I don’t expect the rules to be fair. But I’ve always been a guy who believed he could prosper no matter what the rules were. And let me tell you, its guys who believe things like that who are the ones who build nations. We are the golden geese of the redistributive class. We make all the wealth that is subsequently taken from us and spread around to people that the politicians think 'deserve' it more than we do. And we continue to do it, even though the rules are stacked against us.
In fact, somewhere along the line I even decided that if they’re going change the rules in the middle of the game, even THAT won’t keep me down. So long as the rules they used to change the rules were constant, I’d just work so hard and persevere so strenuously, that even the rule change won’t break me. And it hasn’t – not yet anyway. It’s often been brutal, but I’ve managed to achieve a few of my goals.
But now the Democrats have decided that they are not only going to change the rules, but they are also going to change the rules by which they change the rules. If they lose an election, they’ll skip town. If the Whitehouse doesn’t like a law they’ll simply ‘deem it' unconstitutional and abandon their duty to defend it in court. They appoint czars which operate outside any congressional review, and empower bureaucrats to do through regulatory fiat, what they can’t do by passing a law.
The media doesn’t mind any of this because they’re all democrats too. And because they don’t mind, the vast majority of Americans who don’t think about politics very much don’t really mind either. To them it’s little more than coffee break banter. They chat it up at the water cooler and try to think of jokes to tell about it. but it doesn’t really concern them the way ti does a guy like me.
And all of that is why the government should be thinking about keeping me happy. Because they can squander my taxes on high speed rails, idiot green job programs, and BS union giveaways. They can cheat me, and lie to me, and rob from me, and then change the rules to make it illegal for me to complain, and I won’t let it keep me down. But if they start screwing with the rules, then I’m going to take my ball and go home; and all those politician A-holes can steal from each other.
I’ve spent a lot of energy lately trying to explain to people that printing money doesn’t lead to hyperinflation. The thing that causes hyperinflation is when people lose confidence in the political system’s ability to rationally solve problems. You can disagree with Ben Bernanke, but you can’t say that he isn’t acting rationally. He may be wrong, but he’s thought about what he’s doing and has a sound and rational argument for all of it. You might think the costs aren’t worth the benefits, but that’s not the same as believing he’s acting irrationally.
But this nonsense the Democrats are pulling now is the kind of thing that leads to REAL political instability. It’s not just rigging the game it’s abandoning the rules. It’s trying to win at golf by tackling your opponent, or running a football play that calls for shooting the opposing quarterback with the starter’s gun. And all it accomplishes in the long run is that it makes guys like me lose confidence in the political system’s ability to rationally solve problems. It makes us believe that we can no longer predict how the world will work. And when that happens, we won’t take your paper, even if you give it to us for free.
So the government needs to keep me happy. They need to quit screwing around and act like grownups. Because when they push it so far that I give up, everyone that they need will also give up too. And make no mistake... it’s the redistributors who need us - not the other way around.
2 comments:
"But if they start screwing with the rules, then I’m going to take my ball and go home; and all those politician A-holes can steal from each other." So basically, you are John Galt!
Seriously though, I'm not so sure the Democrats fleeing Wisconsin is a totally illegitimate parliamentary tactic. Particularly if they're willing to accept the consequences (rat's away, break out the cheese as we discussed earlier and no paychecks until they pick them up in person). I don't see it as very much worse than a filibuster. Even if I'm wrong, what's the point of trying to shame a Democrat?
It doesn't come close to the antics of the last congress (deem-and-pass, midnight Christmas Eve votes) or worse yet, the Obama adminstration considering itself under no constraint not only from the constitution, but from either of the other 2 branches.
Some in the pro-2A community here in VA were quite upset at AG Ken Cuccinelli's office for vigorously defending George Mason University's on-campus gun ban in court. But compared with the Obama administration's rule by fiat, Cuccinelli's fidelity to the duties of his office and his role in the process look a lot better. Still it sometimes feels like we're losing the war because we insist on protecting civilians while they use human shields.
In a manner of speaking I suppose I am yeah. My point is that this is the kind of rewrite that doesn't fly with the investor class. It's a destruction of the rule of law by attrition, and it's going to come back to haunt them.
We aren't in a fiscal condition that we can afford too much of this stuff. right now we have to avoid any sudden moves that might frighten people into thinking of us like another Argentina. If we lose the designation as the safest place to be, then it's really all over - it'll be thunderdome time. And this is just the kind of tactic that will get us there.
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