Memorial Day, 2018
I think it's worth honoring this day not only those who gave their lives, but also that which would compel a person to serve in the first place.
And this is an idea, enshrined in our constitution, that each and every person matters, that each voice be allowed to speak, and that we, all of us, are adult enough to be able to bear the thoughts and ideas of others, that the worst that will happen is that we will learn something.
They died that we may be free, that we may have the opportunity to take responsibility for our own lives, that we may invent, and grow, and pray, and play, and be ourselves.
And we may remember too that we made mistakes along the way, that people died and suffered who didn't need to, that people still do. But this doesn't dim the vision.
We are human. We are not perfect. But we do hold to a vision, to an ideal, to the notion that striving for it is worth our while and our lives.
And it is the men and women who have served that made this life and the near limitless opportunity before us possible.
Thank You. May we live our lives so as to honor what you have bequeathed us.
Feeding the Goose 2018
It's time to feed the goose again. Jim Rohn suggests this is a good way of looking at our tax burden. It's the taxes we pay that provide the structure we have to generate the immense wealth that we do in America.
If you want the golden eggs, you must feed the goose.
And I have no problem with this as far as it goes. But we're feeding that goose to pay a debt. $64,000 a person. This is twice the median income for full time workers in the US, but we only have 126 million of those.
If You Choose War . . .
If you want to see it as a tragedy, I'm not going to take that away from you. Tragedy is a part of the human condition. We all have our tragedies, individual, group, religious, national even.
It's what you do with that tragedy that's on you. A constructive way to deal with a tragedy might look something like asking yourself:
Putting the Horse Before the Cart
I almost bought an old skoolie today, the one you see above. I figured it would be a kick-ass way to start my listening tour. And then I ask myself if I'm not coming a little unhinged, putting the cart before the horse so to speak.
You see I only ended up checking it out because I was doing some research to be able to intelligently create the vision. I was looking for a price . . . . That's not really true either. I already knew the prices, and insurance costs, and how much daily operation could cost. Maybe I was actually looking for a deal so good I couldn't pass it up, maybe I just wanted to give myself a good kick in the ass and get things started.
Let the Dreamers Dream
It's not the Dreamers, It's the Dream
The wall is bullshit. The problem is not the wall. The problem is that we don't want to pay for you to dream.
The problem is the New Deal. The problem is narratives of victimhood and subsequent entitlement.
The answer is simple. Get the Feds out of the entitlement business. Let's start with healthcare and education; no let's start with welfare, and just to be fair, let's start at the top.
If you run a business that is too big to fail, then let's make you personally accountability for the failures. If you couldn't foresee the risks and took them anyway we'll claw back your bonuses. But let's not go so far.
Let's start with not subsidizing industry, or labor for that matter. If a job can be done by a wetback for $10 an hour, why should we pay $30.
The Kind of Dream I Can Support
If you dream of coming to work, to become American, to learn English,… Actually who cares? Even if you come to earn money to send it somewhere else, I'm okay with that.
But if you come to get free healthcare, to have someone else pay for your education or food, or to freeload here because the freeloading is better, I don't want you.
So how to create this utopia (and I get it brings an attendant evil as well). Stop the handouts, and not only to the freeloaders, to the unemployed, to the elderly, to the retired, but starting with the oil companies, banks, all the exploiters of our natural resources.
Ours is to defend and create a level playing field. It's not about guest worker regimes among (more inequality), but about creating a different bottom by removing it. Let the market sort it out.
Let the dreamers come, let them work. Let them create, let them contribute. Let them put “native” Americans to shame. Let them raise the bar. It's the only thing has ever made us better.
