Words To The World #6

I hate to harp on the same subject, but I won’t hesitate to do it if I feel it is necessary. Every time I hear a religious leader say the words, “I don’t agree with…” or “I don’t believe in…” I cringe. Because in this day and age what it invariably means is, “I think we should control people who don’t agree with me, and force them to comply with my own personal beliefs.”

Here’s the thing. One of the 458 million things I am sick and tired of is the conservative right claiming to be for “less government” all the while accusing the liberal left of being for “more government.” To put it very bluntly, it’s just a load of crap -- and I’ll tell you why.

The liberal left will stand up and create government agencies and programs and pass laws to protect the individual, the little guy, and people’s personal rights and freedoms. Does this expand government? Only if, at the same time and on the other hand, they fail to strip out the laws and regulations that go against these very things, i.e. reducing other parts of government. One would hope they can do both so that we, the people, do not become strangled and choke on restrictions of personal freedoms, rights and choices.

The other side -- the conservative right -- is no different. There is no mere attempt on their part to “reduce government.” It’s a fallacy. At the same time as they make that claim, they act to pass laws (i.e. growing government) to restrict rights of those with whom they do not happen to agree. And, of course, they will reduce government by removing restrictions such as those against corporations which protect the individual, the environment, etc. (Just watch what Dubya’s administration has been up to at the eleventh hour…)

Both sides will alternately grow or reduce government as they see fit -- it’s just a matter of the emphasis on what or who to govern, protect or restrict. I fail to see how any individual (which, at the end of the day, we all are) can support the type of government growing and reducing that happens from the right. People don’t win; non-sentient entities win.

And here’s another thought. At least the liberal left doesn’t make the thoroughly hypocritical and misleading claim that they are reducing government.

Here’s an idea. Let’s say that the conservative right decided to stop trying to tell everyone else how to live their lives. Let’s say that religious leaders actually followed the doctrine and teachings of He who they supposedly represent, and stopped trying to control the actions of others, leading instead by example. Don’t agree with gay marriage? Fine, don’t participate in it. But don’t use government, i.e. don’t grow government, to remove freedom of choice from those who believe differently than you.

You can feel free to condemn, argue, and point out -- you should have the freedom to express how you feel. But when you begin to restrict, control and force, you become tyrannical. And that was not the example set by He whom religions claim to follow. If people are to come around to your way of thinking, it should only be -- must be -- by their own free choice and decision. Not because you forced them there.

Someone wise (and anonymous) once said, “Because you have silenced a man does not mean you have converted him.” Telling others that they can or cannot live a certain way does nothing to help your case. It drives people into desperation, underground attempts to act freely, and breeds resentment and contempt for you and your causes.

In short, it works against you and accomplishes nothing other than to make you feel better at the expense of another. And shame on you if you do.

The Emerald Quill

Words To The World #5

If you ever have any doubt that we here in America do Christmas to an excessive, fanatical point, I have simply to point you to that tyrannical chain of retail juggernauts we all know and loathe called Wal-Mart. I’ll skip the anti-Wal-Mart diatribe for now -- it’s been done to death. But I suppose I should explain why I was there, and what horrors I saw.

While with my kids this weekend, we needed a quick, inexpensive lunch fix. The local Santa Clarita McDonald’s -- the one which has always been so busy you were lucky to get into it -- had been removed. With McDonald’s reporting record profits throughout this year, and this one having been such a strong location, this is a mystery. You could hear the locals pondering it when we went in to the nearest alternative McDonald’s -- at Wal-Mart. (By the way, economists who didn’t know we were in a recession until last week could learn a lesson here: If McDonald’s is having a surge of business, it’s because people en masse are being forced to eat cheap. Direct indicator.)

So we went into the McDonald’s at Wal-Mart and, upon finishing our pseudo-meat, liver-killing meal, decided to stroll over and have a look at all the Christmas decorations. They were so abundant and visually loud that it would have required the McDonald’s meal to have blinded us for us not to be drawn in to the madness.

We walked into the Christmas section and were greeted by a slim, young Santa. Oh, he had the red suit, the white beard and the little wire rim glasses, but he looked like a high school kid in the outfit. I asked my teenage daughter if he went to her school, and she acknowledged that he looked familiar.

We turned next to the wall of “push-button” decorations -- a huge, tall section of these variety of animated things you see everywhere with a button that says “try me” and, once pushed, begins to wiggle or move and wail some awful version of Christmas song in some awful voice, annoying every customer and worker in the place. (I think an effective penalty for criminals would be to stick them in a room full of these things all playing at once. No one would ever think of committing a crime again after a trauma like that.) (Actually, I’m not sure what prevents employees from going postal during the holiday season with these things in the store.)

There were like 87 different varieties of Santa doing some odd thing, including one where he turns his backside to you and shakes his money-maker in your face. There were about 87 more with animals of all kinds, doing a variety of things, singing a variety of songs or playing a variety of music. There were also several different snowman themed ones, including one which hiked up its skirt to reveal the bloomers underneath (something I never knew about snowmen, but there you are). Did all of this really start with Billy the Big Mouth Bass? Like the jerk I am, I pushed as many of the “try me” buttons as I could get going at once and walked away. That’ll teach them to put so many on display at once.

Serenaded by the cacophony, we then walked under the ever-growing variety of big, fat, inflatable decorations. Here we saw more snowmen, animals and Santas in a variety of goofy acts, all ready to be blown up. As tempting as it was, I opted not to purchase and bring home for display the Santa with the serious camel toe problem.

There were a lot of tree ornaments. Some of them were nice. Some of them were incomprehensible. I’ve been in Christmas-only emporiums that had fewer ornaments. Where do they all come from? Where do they all go?

There was a long stretch of nutcrackers. I had to wonder if there was any relevance to the fact that, with the male styled nutcrackers, you put your nuts in their mouth to crack them -- but with any female styled nutcracker, they create an opening in her chest to put your nuts in, rather than having you insert your nuts in her mouth. We actually did find one, and only one, instance of a female styled nutcracker that was set up so it was her mouth that cracked your nuts, just like the male styled ones. But there was only one of her, and all the other nutcrackers would have nothing to do with her.

At last we reached the branded Christmas section. There was an entire array of John Deere decorations. Disney/Pixar CARS decorations. Hannah Montana decorations. But nowhere did I find any Obama decorations. No Keith Olbermann decorations. No gay couple decorations. And then it finally occurred to me.

Christmas is for kids and redneck conservatives, but it’s especially safe for redneck conservative kids.

And then I remembered where I was, and why it might seem that way, and we got out of there.

The Emerald Quill

Words To The World #4

Over the last several years, any one of us who drives an automobile (regardless of whether it was made in the good ol’ U.S.A., Europe, Asia, or the Congo) has felt the unmistakable pinch of price gouging at the gas pump. And now, in a related story, any one of us not living in a cave in Afghanistan (and probably them, too) has heard about the American automotive industry’s cry to the government for a financial bail out.

I have a few words on this subject.

For the last year or two, oil companies such as Exxon Mobil have reported unearthly record profits… all in the face of consumers who were being asked to pony up an unrealistic amount of cash to support rising oil prices and, hence, this unprecedented rash of record profits. If something smells foul in Denmark, it’s probably oil.

Meanwhile, back in the auto industry, manufacturers who have been challenged for several years to develop more alternative fuel vehicles have stubbornly refused, clinging instead to the earth-draining practice of churning out gas guzzlers. All this in the face of evidence that this is not good for the consumer *or* the planet. Collusion with the oil companies? One might suspect…

And this brings us to now, as Congress debates whether or not to dump a pile of taxpayers’ cash into an industry which, when presented with opportunities to do so, has done nothing to help the taxpayers.

Now, I can’t say that I’m not for bailing the automakers out. I would rather have seen us pass on bailing out the financial industry than to see us let good ol’ Chevrolet go the way of the dinosaurs who have contributed so much to their success. But here’s how I think the bail out for them should work.

Since the oil industry was able to price gouge consumers so heavily to the extent that they could report such extreme record profits, and since they very largely have the auto industry's products to thank for those profits, let’s take a little payback for all that price gouging *and* solve the automakers’ economic crisis all in one swoop.

Insist that the oil companies sponsor the bail out of the automotive industry.

Every one wins. The automotive industry survives. Consumers/tax payers don’t have to get involved. And the oil industry can show us, for a change, that they’re not always just big, heartless, opportunistic leeches, and that for all the profit we’ve given them, they can be -- like all Americans -- good enough to help out and give back when the chips are down.

We’ve certainly greased their palms enough over the last few years to expect a little something in return.

The Emerald Quill

Words To The World #3

It’s on everyone’s lips these days. Or, at least it was until the financial industry, and then the auto industry, and probably next the duck-plucking industry, needed “bailing out.” Our attention has been completely consumed by the economic crisis, sweeping all other urgent matters to the side like the portion of Thanksgiving leftovers that no one wants to take home.

To what do I refer? Health care.

It was a major referendum during the recent presidential campaign. If you didn’t have at least a loose plan to address it, you didn’t make it to the final finish. In the end, despite some promising ideas from the Obama consortium, the whole idea of health care for America has apparently slipped through the cracks. While Obama has been selecting his cabinet, he has yet to put any medicine in there, and that concerns me. Yes, the economic crisis is urgent, and it makes sense to prioritize that. And yes, there are still foul terrorists at large in the world, so foreign policy needs to be addressed quickly as well.

All this aside, I still feel that America’s health care continues to be a major priority, as well as education. If we’re looking for CHANGE, I’d like to see us CHANGE our sense of priorities. The economy and foreign policy are vital -- I’m not arguing that point. But I don’t see any CHANGE from the same old, same old in over addressing these areas while treating healthcare, and education, like the red-headed bastard stepchildren. I suddenly can’t recall the last time I heard any broadcaster or politician utter the words “health care.”

For me, and I’m sure for many Americans, health care is priority one. When insurance companies deny their services to people who are already ill, there is something extremely unethical going on. How can we allow businesses to exist and practice in an industry where the Hippocratic Oath is (or should be) the golden rule, and yet not expect them to service the ill and infirm? How is that even possible?

Furthermore, if insurance companies were to deny coverage to, say, African Americans, wouldn’t we straighten that out immediately? If they denied services to Jews? Women? (I would say to homosexuals -- but we already know that it’s okay to discriminate against homosexuals, apparently.) How do we allow discrimination of ANY kind to exist and pretend to stand against discrimination?

Allowing the sick to be denied services is blatant discrimination. It’s an extension of another discrimination we’ve been ardently stamping out for many years now: discrimination against the handicapped. If we’re going to mandate that a certain percentage of parking spaces be provided for the handicapped at all businesses, must we not then mandate that businesses in an industry that revolves around the Hippocratic Oath must NOT discriminate against those who need it the most?

Fine, fix the economy. Go ahead, see to foreign policy. But if Obama’s administration doesn’t step up VERY swiftly and provide a hard, clear, definitive kick directly into the collective gluteus maximus of the health insurance industry, his presidency will already be a failure.

After all, if you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.


The Emerald Quill