Tag: life

Who’s Got the Check?

Ever been out to dinner with friends? Do you ask how the check should be divided beforehand? Or is there a normal discussion about it? In the end someone has to either pay the check or divide up the check. It is just as simple as that when it comes to goverment spending. Someone has to pay the bill when it comes do. We have for years been punting the issue to the next generation and the next generation after that. It is akin to leaving the dinner check on the table and saying the next guy will get it. That never happens, businesses don’t allow that. Its pay as you go.

Maybe its all the conversation going around the table. People are forgetting the check will come eventually. I have sat at a table with friends trying to decide who should pay for what. Most of the outcomes where a division based on orders. You ordered it, you pay for it. Some cases there has been a member of the party that pays the entire check. But more often than not it is divided by people in a fair manor. Every time you go out, you expect the same person to pay. Regardless of what you ate or drank, the same person has to pay. To even regard that the person ate or drank, that person should pay.

I don’t have a problem with this as long as all parties agree. If they don’t agree, then it isn’t an agreement. What if the person paying the bill demanded some of your income in exchange for this? What if you still had to pay that amount to the person even when you did not go to dinner? We would claim this to be rude, unethical, and unfair. What if the person said he had to buy several dinners for those that would not or could not feed themselves? And the person still told you to pay. Would people agree to that? Agree to pay for others that contribute nothing to the dinner? They aren’t there for conversation or company, they just need a meal. What is the difference between that and the current situation?

Has anyone ask the current interest we will be paying for the last stimulus package? I care but I don’t know how many others do. To me there are large problems to stimulus packages. Who is going to weather the storm from paying the current bill and the next one? There will have to be a major reduction in spending at some point to pay for that. At least when you go to a restaurant you can see a menu with pricing to see what your contribution should be. Washington never tells or releases all facts. If they did, Americans would talk about it. Side note, most talked about issue in the bible? Money. Yet we refuse to pull the wool over our eyes. Sitting blinding in the dark we can see even the smallest candle flame. In the light of day, the sun burns its brightness onto the earth and we cannot see any candle.

We live in both the darkest and the light. We should never forget who snuffed the candle of freedom and liberty. More than that we should at least know the reason for it. It should be a heck of a lot better than ” Because it’s good for you”. It should have more breath than whimpering that. I firmly believe that we have been sold a Golden Gate Bridge located in Minnesota. We have great pictures they gave us, but it is only a picture. That bridge is not there. It will never be there because no people built it there. People are the ones who build things, People are the ones who destroy things, goverments should only provide for the common good. Roads, bridges, airports, defense, immigrations, and should do that by the majority of the people’s will. It should never be for the goverment to tell the people it governs by consent what is important to the people. It should always be the will of the people and the people shave the will to withdraw consent of governance. Those we call elections.

It is important to remember one simple fact. Goverment has no right or business to legislate morality. It gets us all in a very tight box. We should use the law as a continued resource for those who can not redress their complaints at any other level. Section 5 is very clear on who can sue who. To tell someone they can or cannot do something based on a morality is wrong. It should be closer the issue of your rights versus other rights. Your actions can only come into question when they intrude on other rights. You, me, everyone has rights until we greviously violate someone elses. We have spent way too many years discussing in justice to find that we have state sponsored injustice.

What if instead of calling the government when we feel injustice, we take it to that person and reasonably talk about it. We pull that person to the side and tell that person what they have done to violate our rights. Then we talk about where to meet. Remember compromise? We have done it and still have the capacity for it. We just need to remember when someone is talking, someone should listen. We could then use the documents that all our rights are handed down from and see where is the middle ground. One case in point, your neighbor wants to build an eight foot privacy fence. Your neighbor asks you what you think. You say the view will be damaged. The neighbor say the deck you have easily allows you to see above the current fence. Should we involve the government? Or the courts. Yes, if we can’t agree and see the middle ground. No, if we see that we can fix this among ourselves. Which is often the case when we remove the emotion and think passionately that everyone in this country has the same exact rights.

What does that mean in our little dinner scenario? All parties need to agree to the division of the check in a way that doesn’t infringe on the rights of others. You want to be a nice person and pay the check, great. But I wasn’t invited to dinner. I didn’t get a meal. But they are making me pay part of the check. That is the biggest infringement on my rights to date. Now, the government is ordering dinner again. Not a dinner I wanted. Nor one I was invited to. Yet, I will pay part of the check. My one month old son is going to be responsible for what I can’t pay. Isn’t that a violation of his rights that he can’t fight for yet. He is going to pay for bailouts to states and cities for the rest of his life. He nor I asked for that. Should I demand money from the government because I can’t plan for the future. Or that I cannot have a voice in this. I have to wait for the congress to tell me what is a right?

The is no world that makes sense when all the citizens have to pay for the shortsighted failures of government. They had to know that if they shut down the economy in part, that it would have an effect on the amount of money coming in. A very few states have fully funded rainy day funds. They will do ok. Some states spend so fast that even they can’t keep track of the money. Yet once more, people in Washington are telling us we are all going out to dinner. Wait, only the ones they deem important. The rest of us don’t get to see the menu or the cost. We are without a meal and at home waiting for the bill.

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What is Going On?

What in the world is going on? People are out doing god knows what. Tearing this down, building new things, and yet we still remain. I have seen so many changes in my life. I have experienced so much of the changes in society. Most of those are over time. Unlike today where it changes quickly. I am just amazed at people. I feel no anger or remorse for the past, but I understand why some people do.

There are so many news stories and news outlets, it can be difficult to know what is true or not quite true. In the continuous news cycle we have, the story is often repeated rather than explored. I was taught about yellow journalism in school. Its an interesting concept. Today we call it spin. The deeper truth is it really doesn’t matter to most people. However, to some it is the only thing that matters. Many don’t realize the truth like the problems we want to solve are more complex and not black and white.

We have a spectrum of color across the truth. We deny want doesn’t serve us and praise the things that do. I find the truth is a sliding scale of narrative. Your truth is determined by your experience. Just as mine is determined by my experience. That is both the beauty and curse of the individual. When we take our case and cause into the limelight, we fail to start from a shared experience. We start from the point of danger. Its the same thing we all do. We all are ruled by our own prejudices. But we certainly don’t have to be controlled by it . Nor do we have to listen to it.

The simple and obvious point to start from is find the shared experience and then dialque from it. It is a fairly simple example. We were all born, grew up, attended some school somewhere, felt emotions, and formed ourselves. I tell my son that we should be divided between two categories in this country. US Citizens and those who aren’t. It isn’t about nationalism, but about having too many categories. It would give us a common starting point. In my eyes, we all have the exact same rights. Black, white, Asian, LGBTQ+, gender variants, and the new categories have exactly the same rights. No one more than any other.

I don’t care what bathroom you want to use, in the light of dusk they are still bathrooms. Should we have an argument that lasts years over it or just make bathrooms with one toilet, one sink, and one door? I would rather solve the problem than keep hearing about it. Does everyone have a right to be respected? Absolutely, but remember that fixing problems is a catalyst to that. We all fear change and what we don’t know, but that shouldn’t be a consideration. If we only rely on past experience, we can’t look forward.

I empathize with those who have experienced racism. It literally breaks my heart. No one should be harassed, beat, or be shot for there different skin color. No one should be dragged out of a car at gun point. I know this because it happened to me. Not because my skin color, but because my plate was from a different state. I was pulled out because I “made them nervous”. They questioned me about having a gun. They asked me why I was in that neighborhood. So, I have a little bit of the shared experience. People may say because I have not been discriminated based on skin color. I have been discriminated for economic reasons, family history, military service, and sometimes in the places I have lived for my skin color being different than the rest of the neighborhood.

I have experienced the isolation from that. I went to a very decent high school in a very affluent area as the poorest family. My stepfather was a hard working man who wanted the best education for us. Even if it cost him everything. Which in the end it did. Believe me, he said several times that he knew it. He is a great man, great human being, and he sacrificed for us. He has a lot of opinions that I don’t agree with, yet we can still discuss the issues. His views were shaped in the 50’s and 60’s when the world was different. Maybe we should all look at the source of our own basis.

Some people were forced to come here and do manual labor. They would be forced to pick cotton by hand, It is horrible that people had to endure it. This I know for the stories of my mother hand picking cotton for next to nothing as a child in the south. Yes, she is white. I grew up most of my life before high school in a single parent home. My mother worked several jobs to support us. She was no saint when it comes to being a nurturing mother. She was heavy handed and dealing with her own demons from her trauma.

My father and mother split when I was 4. I wouldn’t see him again until the state police sent me a picture and an interview. Most of my life I have had to figure things out by trial and error. I had little moral compass and did things to try and feel better. But it can be tough growing up without a father or the love of your mother. It is confusing with a step parent and rules after having to fend for yourself. It can certainly explain my many failed relationships. I like this gives me a little glimpse into the experience of many blacks in this country.

I think the only left we can do is go forward from this point. Finish tearing down the statues, disband the parts of government that aren’t color blind, and protest. When we are done with that, lets sit down and figure out the solutions to problems. Let’s fix our house first, then we can truly show the world what freedom means. And what freedom and liberty feel like. Quit screaming at each other. Slogans do nothing without actions. Actions do nothing without respect. Respect is American. We can figure this out when we have enough sense to talk to each other.