In watching the ministrations of fury and folly that is our dyspeptic and near psychotic relationship with our government; particularly the jihad over health care, whether for or against, I must remark on the telling disconnect on what we think or believe ourselves to be, and what we really are.
Are we a pull up our boot straps, when the going gets tough; the tough get going, self reliant, can do people? Or was that our forebears? Are we less so? Are we more demanding of government, whether we're ambivalent about it or not, than those who trod before us?
Have we been so debilitated over government by all the bad press, republican hatred ( loathing; despising, whatever adjective you might ascribe to ), and sob stories that we, at once, are certain we're nothing more than lemmings led over the proverbial cliff while, paradoxically, fearful of having no one, or no institution to look after us?
The government does belong to the people. And whether the government does good or bad; represents all of us, or those able to exercise influence through lobbying or insider contacts; is efficient or non-functioning, is a byproduct of our oversight and participation. It is, whether we like it or not; our mess!
Whatever you may think of the good folks venting their spleens at the town hall meetings over health care, they do have a right to vent. They also ought to have the decency to sit down and shut up so others may vent their spleens. Evidently, based on the frenzied media coverage, this isn't happening. Rather than a spirited dialogue as to the nature and content of the bills the Congress is considering, we get to witness shouting matches and bizarre rants on the certainty of the governments plan to set up death camps for the elderly or any other non productive members of society who may burden our already over burdened health care system. There's a joke about that applying to members of Congress, but we won't go there. Seems unlikely. These are also the good folks who are certain that the gubmint is going to take their guns, that the UN runs the country, that good middle American folks will be run over by rapacious illegal immigrants who will suck every last dollar out of the public coffers first. Well, maybe not all of them; certainly some. It has also been pointed out by others that this wave of illegal immigration has been steady since 1492. I know a goodly number of folks who have many guns and none have had them confiscated or been forced to abide by pernicious and constraining laws.
Yet many of these same folks who are certain that the gubmint want to do great harm to them in their pursuit of happiness, are demanding that the gubmint forcefully, and through the full malice of the law, decide how others should pursue theirs. Judicial advocacy is good only when it is advocating what you may believe, and bad when it's for something you don't. So long as the great unwashed masses are not sucked into any overly distorted propaganda, most of this hand wringing happens on the fringes of society, as they say. Of course, history is replete with bad situations giving the fringe the power over the masses resulting in some of, if not the worst of, human terror. Remember, before the Great Depression, the Nazis were nuts on the right fighting the commie nuts on the left. Fringe groups ignored by the center.
That's not to say that the venters we see today are in the same boat as Hitler, although it's remarkable that republicans would liken Obama to him, but we risk losing the forest for the trees if we stand on the sidelines and allow their rants to shape the discussion on health care, particularly as it has no actual relevance to health care as so far written.
The fears about health care are, more over, revelatory as to our ambivalent feelings towards government control over it. Never mind that government already controls elder care which is happily roaring into insolvency. This is a byproduct of our inability to focus on what needs to be done before it becomes a crisis. So we'll wait until it is insolvent and then rush in as we did with the financial meltdown. Do we wait until health care itself reaches the point where it is unaffordable before we enact the necessary changes? I personally would not be surprised if it comes to that.
If so, then that answers our question. Doesn't it.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Wither the Caveman
Evidently, I've been remiss in cataloging my peeves of late. I haven't bluntly stated my vehemence in more than a month. Therefore, with insouciant haste, I offer the following riposte:
I am not a man of my times. Shocking as that my sound, it is sadly true. While I have tried my best to follow the herd in how I look, operate, conduct myself, relate to others, counsel my children, maximize my materialism with all manner of modern dross ( although I will confess that there are some items that call to me ); that I remain resolute in the facility of the Capitalist model; the romantic model; et cetera, ad nauseum; I am, congenitally, disenchanted with this age I find myself condemned ( Is that too strong a term? ) to endure.
Well then, you may ask: what is your " Age ", Joyboy? If this one's not good enough, or right for you, which age is?
After much thought, and I am, if I may say so; a thoughtful man, I believe the age in which I would fit in best is...........................
Caveman. That's right, caveman. Hunter/Gatherer; one evolutionary step up from Neanderthal. Stone tools in hand; adorned in animal skins; roaming the savanna, the valley; wherever the hell I might be; for better or for worse.
But what about our age of plenty; the lack of want, be it food or shelter, or the latest flat screen TV? While I would miss watching baseball in HD, the seemingly endless pursuit of material goods foisted upon me by our insatiable consumerism seems utterly pointless after a while. How many TVs is too many? How many cars? Suits? Well, maybe not suits, unless you are a Suit. Anyway, you get the point. Or do you? ( It might be judicious to point out that in our land of plenty there are those who sadly still go without the basics. Does that make it better or not? )
So let us compare, shall we. Perhaps you'll come to see my point. Perhaps you'll come to understand that I'm in the last desperate throes of my mental free fall.
Foremost is work. While there are those who have fulfilling careers, the vast majority of us spend the best years of our live laboring in boxes, working for peanuts, enduring "managers" more predisposed to personal politics than the overall betterment of their charges who endlessly throw their mediocrity at us, so that we can retire, at some point, when we've used up the best of our physical and mental potential ( one would hope, but there's no guarantee of that ); to do what? I've never quite bought into the idea of the retirement village. That bucolic idle where all is golf and cards in the southern sun. Do you work till you die? Probably, after all those material goods have to be paid for. There is also the nagging suspicion that such things as health care, food, shelter will be more costly as we trudge along.
A caveman goes out, hunts, and gathers up the Earth's bountiful goodness. Sure there are certain limitations; one's abilities, the general gathering positives of the region in which you've settled, and the other carnivorous animals duelling with you for the day's catch. Yes, it's physically demanding, but guess what? That's actually what we're designed for; being out and about, not rotting in a chair, staring into the luminescence of your monitor, vacuously working through the latest batch of pointless emails. I'm fairly athletic, enjoy being outside, and like the idea of having the rest of the week off after I've made my catch. Which allows me to say that I've contributed to the common welfare of the tribe.
Which brings us to our political institutions. As a caveman I have my tribe. Maybe there's a strong man running the show; maybe it's a autonomous collective; maybe it's a loose collection of families and the occasional outlier. Who knows. What it's not, is a vast bureaucracy built for the express purpose of stupefying, befuddling, and frustrating the masses. Say what you will about Nation States, be they capitalist, socialist, communist, or totalitarian, inevitably they exist to subjugate by willful manipulation and thuggery, by demagoguery, or by the sheer force of their entrenchment in our everyday lives to wear us down. Even here in the US of A, try to live free of government; can't be done. Whether by the noblest of intentions or the malice and terror of the worst, we live in the age of vast government. Wherever you may roam; you are within the jurisdiction of some governmental body. Not so in caveman days. Certainly there are tribal boundaries; but they ebb and flow. Walk a while and you're on your own.
Alright, let's get down to business. I freely admit to what I'd be losing; government services; fire, police, a social safety net, whether stable or precarious, and a national identity. I receive all of these by participating in society, by working within established business or government norms, allowing me to earn, hopefully, enough to support myself and my family, assuming I have one, and to pay my share, however that may be determined by government will or fiat, in taxes to support the government and it's programs. I may, or may not, have health care coverage. For that I live within the strictures of modern society. I have the privilege of living in an age of phenomenal scientific and technical advances unknown to generations not long before us. I will no doubt live twice as long as I would as a caveman. If I get injured, or suffer a life threatening event, I can reasonably expect to be taken to a hospital where I, at least, have some hope of survival. I wouldn't have to live in a cave, and for the few who do, they've converted them to modern versions there of with all the conveniences we've grown accustomed to. I can travel vast distances in a relatively short time; if opportunity affords it, I can see the world. Certainly by those standards, we live in a wonderful age.
So what's my problem?
It makes no sense to me. Do I buy stuff I need? Or do I consume simply as a lifestyle? What's the point? Will what I buy last, or should I care? I can always buy more. It seems pointless. We pick vocations based on probable income ( yeah, maybe not everyone, but it's the seducer everyone knows is in the room ), assuming we even have that choice, in order to satiate a need to collect stuff that requires more and more room. Big houses to store our material goods, of which we have so much that most garages, be they 1, 2, 3, or more, often have no room for the cars themselves. All of which has to be disposed of at some point. Our gift to our children, so they may negotiate with one another over who gets the bounty, or more likely, the joy of getting rid of it. Wearily we drag ourselves to jobs, controlled by persons, or persons unknown, who one minute extol us of our unique value to the company, and then have us escorted off the property when we become unwanted or unneeded. A lifetime in a grind for the purposes of continuing the consumeristic flog. We give up our freedom, our time in the sun; literally; our time with our children. We all lead separate lives flailing away to gain something we cannot hold, splintering families, all off on their own, so at the end we can die lonely in a home with other lonely, dying consumers.
I don't want to be kept alive just because I can be. I don't want to be part of a big impersonal machine.
I know that as a caveman I'll probably die young. Be it sickness, injury, exposure; having a tiger rip out my throat and feast upon my carcass. People die of those things still, although the tiger thing is, I would think, fairly rare ( Like my carcass! ). I'd have my family because you couldn't survive without it. I wouldn't live in a world of mass genocide. Sure, the horde over the horizon may come after us, but they'd have to kill up close and personal. No 600 yard kill shots, and the terror of bombs screaming into your world meant to obliterate everything. I wouldn't be bombarded by politicians more interested in themselves and their " agenda " than the common welfare of all citizens. Self righteous blowhards disgracing themselves with fearful bromides intent on stirring up peoples fears and hatreds. If that means I'd have to give up baseball in HD, so be it.
I'll sit at the edge of my cave, surrounded by nothing more than the sounds of the world, looking up into the heavens sparkling down upon me. God can be with me as nothing more than the Universe and a small carved figure. And if the tigers get me tomorrow, at least I know my place in the world.
I am not a man of my times. Shocking as that my sound, it is sadly true. While I have tried my best to follow the herd in how I look, operate, conduct myself, relate to others, counsel my children, maximize my materialism with all manner of modern dross ( although I will confess that there are some items that call to me ); that I remain resolute in the facility of the Capitalist model; the romantic model; et cetera, ad nauseum; I am, congenitally, disenchanted with this age I find myself condemned ( Is that too strong a term? ) to endure.
Well then, you may ask: what is your " Age ", Joyboy? If this one's not good enough, or right for you, which age is?
After much thought, and I am, if I may say so; a thoughtful man, I believe the age in which I would fit in best is...........................
Caveman. That's right, caveman. Hunter/Gatherer; one evolutionary step up from Neanderthal. Stone tools in hand; adorned in animal skins; roaming the savanna, the valley; wherever the hell I might be; for better or for worse.
But what about our age of plenty; the lack of want, be it food or shelter, or the latest flat screen TV? While I would miss watching baseball in HD, the seemingly endless pursuit of material goods foisted upon me by our insatiable consumerism seems utterly pointless after a while. How many TVs is too many? How many cars? Suits? Well, maybe not suits, unless you are a Suit. Anyway, you get the point. Or do you? ( It might be judicious to point out that in our land of plenty there are those who sadly still go without the basics. Does that make it better or not? )
So let us compare, shall we. Perhaps you'll come to see my point. Perhaps you'll come to understand that I'm in the last desperate throes of my mental free fall.
Foremost is work. While there are those who have fulfilling careers, the vast majority of us spend the best years of our live laboring in boxes, working for peanuts, enduring "managers" more predisposed to personal politics than the overall betterment of their charges who endlessly throw their mediocrity at us, so that we can retire, at some point, when we've used up the best of our physical and mental potential ( one would hope, but there's no guarantee of that ); to do what? I've never quite bought into the idea of the retirement village. That bucolic idle where all is golf and cards in the southern sun. Do you work till you die? Probably, after all those material goods have to be paid for. There is also the nagging suspicion that such things as health care, food, shelter will be more costly as we trudge along.
A caveman goes out, hunts, and gathers up the Earth's bountiful goodness. Sure there are certain limitations; one's abilities, the general gathering positives of the region in which you've settled, and the other carnivorous animals duelling with you for the day's catch. Yes, it's physically demanding, but guess what? That's actually what we're designed for; being out and about, not rotting in a chair, staring into the luminescence of your monitor, vacuously working through the latest batch of pointless emails. I'm fairly athletic, enjoy being outside, and like the idea of having the rest of the week off after I've made my catch. Which allows me to say that I've contributed to the common welfare of the tribe.
Which brings us to our political institutions. As a caveman I have my tribe. Maybe there's a strong man running the show; maybe it's a autonomous collective; maybe it's a loose collection of families and the occasional outlier. Who knows. What it's not, is a vast bureaucracy built for the express purpose of stupefying, befuddling, and frustrating the masses. Say what you will about Nation States, be they capitalist, socialist, communist, or totalitarian, inevitably they exist to subjugate by willful manipulation and thuggery, by demagoguery, or by the sheer force of their entrenchment in our everyday lives to wear us down. Even here in the US of A, try to live free of government; can't be done. Whether by the noblest of intentions or the malice and terror of the worst, we live in the age of vast government. Wherever you may roam; you are within the jurisdiction of some governmental body. Not so in caveman days. Certainly there are tribal boundaries; but they ebb and flow. Walk a while and you're on your own.
Alright, let's get down to business. I freely admit to what I'd be losing; government services; fire, police, a social safety net, whether stable or precarious, and a national identity. I receive all of these by participating in society, by working within established business or government norms, allowing me to earn, hopefully, enough to support myself and my family, assuming I have one, and to pay my share, however that may be determined by government will or fiat, in taxes to support the government and it's programs. I may, or may not, have health care coverage. For that I live within the strictures of modern society. I have the privilege of living in an age of phenomenal scientific and technical advances unknown to generations not long before us. I will no doubt live twice as long as I would as a caveman. If I get injured, or suffer a life threatening event, I can reasonably expect to be taken to a hospital where I, at least, have some hope of survival. I wouldn't have to live in a cave, and for the few who do, they've converted them to modern versions there of with all the conveniences we've grown accustomed to. I can travel vast distances in a relatively short time; if opportunity affords it, I can see the world. Certainly by those standards, we live in a wonderful age.
So what's my problem?
It makes no sense to me. Do I buy stuff I need? Or do I consume simply as a lifestyle? What's the point? Will what I buy last, or should I care? I can always buy more. It seems pointless. We pick vocations based on probable income ( yeah, maybe not everyone, but it's the seducer everyone knows is in the room ), assuming we even have that choice, in order to satiate a need to collect stuff that requires more and more room. Big houses to store our material goods, of which we have so much that most garages, be they 1, 2, 3, or more, often have no room for the cars themselves. All of which has to be disposed of at some point. Our gift to our children, so they may negotiate with one another over who gets the bounty, or more likely, the joy of getting rid of it. Wearily we drag ourselves to jobs, controlled by persons, or persons unknown, who one minute extol us of our unique value to the company, and then have us escorted off the property when we become unwanted or unneeded. A lifetime in a grind for the purposes of continuing the consumeristic flog. We give up our freedom, our time in the sun; literally; our time with our children. We all lead separate lives flailing away to gain something we cannot hold, splintering families, all off on their own, so at the end we can die lonely in a home with other lonely, dying consumers.
I don't want to be kept alive just because I can be. I don't want to be part of a big impersonal machine.
I know that as a caveman I'll probably die young. Be it sickness, injury, exposure; having a tiger rip out my throat and feast upon my carcass. People die of those things still, although the tiger thing is, I would think, fairly rare ( Like my carcass! ). I'd have my family because you couldn't survive without it. I wouldn't live in a world of mass genocide. Sure, the horde over the horizon may come after us, but they'd have to kill up close and personal. No 600 yard kill shots, and the terror of bombs screaming into your world meant to obliterate everything. I wouldn't be bombarded by politicians more interested in themselves and their " agenda " than the common welfare of all citizens. Self righteous blowhards disgracing themselves with fearful bromides intent on stirring up peoples fears and hatreds. If that means I'd have to give up baseball in HD, so be it.
I'll sit at the edge of my cave, surrounded by nothing more than the sounds of the world, looking up into the heavens sparkling down upon me. God can be with me as nothing more than the Universe and a small carved figure. And if the tigers get me tomorrow, at least I know my place in the world.
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