When I was around 13 I found myself in a vehicle with a gentleman with a serious drinking problem. This particular day he was far past intoxicated into stumbling drunk. At one point he did ask me to drive. However, having never driven anything more than a bicycle up until that point and being scared to death I unwisely declined. In retrospect taking the keys away from him and being stranded would have been the better option.
Shortly thereafter I found myself an observer in a game chicken at 70 miles per hour. From comments spewing from this individual’s mouth, I do not think staying alive was high on his list of priorities. Someone once said that God watches out for fools and drunks, and there was a double dose going on that day. No one was injured, no accident ensued, and the destination was arrived at.
Currently in Washington what is transpiring is a game of chicken with the American public and big portions of the world being that scared 13 year old boy. What is happening in Washington can only be described as insanity. It is insanity with much larger consequences than a few folks dying in a car accident.
I’m not letting the President, the Senate or the House of Representatives off the hook. They are all intoxicated on power, greed, and money…among other things. I am laying most of the blame at the Tea Partyers and other delusional ideologues. They seem more than willing to run this country into the ground for a series of disproven beliefs. I am not even going to categorize them as ideas as they do not seem that well formed.
I am totally perplexed as to how these folks have come into the positions that they have. Somehow they have convinced the American public that we are all not in the same lifeboat and do not need to work together. They have also convinced many voters that there are large groups of folks in this country getting something for nothing. Now these ideologues are willing to send the world economy into a tail spin. That alone should tell you all you need to know about these folks.
I am not convinced that the problem is solely a”spending” problem. I am totally convinced that the tax system in this country is unfair. It is not unfair in the way the Tea Partyers would have you believe. It is unfair in that most of the burden falls on the little people. Corporations and the wealthy are not paying what would a fair and equitable income taxes. That should be one of the first things corrected in my dream world.
I will grant you that in more than a few places government is the problem. The problem with the American government is that it is no longer owned by the American people. The corporations have co-opted it from us in a not so silent coup d’état.
My question is how we wrest the steering wheel away from the corporations and wealthy and the keys away from the drunks in Washington. If we do not do it soon there will be nothing left of American but twisted metal.