Know when to walk away. Know when to run.
I promise not to speak in the third person, but I am going to use my personal life experiences as a metaphor and morality tale of wasteful government spending.
See, I'm what you would call a shooter. I roll bones, its what I do. My alleged stint with the D & D crowd notwithstanding I only shoot dice for money. I'm a numbers guy and I'd hate to waste a string of hits on a game of Monopoly. Back to back yo elevens and all I get is a stinkin' get out of jail free card? No thank you.
...actually let me grab that card just in case.
The reason I bring this up is not to act the big shot like Leroy Brown (fyi: the baddest man in the whole damn town) but to setup the next paragraph.
There's been many times where Ive just been absolutely crushing the craps table. Hell, after a hot roll from the Rhino once, the Ritz in San Juan shut our table down. Pussies.
...or maybe they didn't like Rhino calling the stickmen Papi. Tough to say.
Thing is, when you're winning big, its inevitable that a buddy of yours is probably losing big elsewhere. So, you do the right thing and throw them some chips. Nobody tells you to do it. The pit boss doesnt take your chips and divvy em up. The dealer doesnt give you half your winnings and other half to the loser. You just do it. Its the house's money after all. You don't ask if they're going to cash in and order twin Taiwanese ladyboys from room service or instruct them to stay away from the Pai Gow Poker table with the cooler. You throw them chips and go about your business (as far away from them as possible).
You are never getting that money back. Ever.
...and there will come a time you regret it.
Politicians don't understand this but they should because to them everything is the house's money. They are not earners, they are not producers. They are not the winners.
...but they think and act as if they were.
Fact is, they are the fucking mush. They are the cooler. They don't know how to create wealth, only destroy and tax it. They throw around money like they won it but in reality they are the loser being tossed chips out of pity. Only difference is, the taxpayer doesn't have a choice.
It's not charity, its theft. It's criminal. It's immoral.
It's the platform of the Democrat Party.
It's what's happening right now.
3 comments:
You're right; it is our money. And we do have a choice in how it's spent, because we have a democratic form of government. Imperfectly so, to be sure. There were elections in 2006 and 2008, for example, and one side lost. Seems the majority of the people were fed up with corruption and incompetence.
Is government spending immoral? Depends on how it's spent, I would say. Was it immoral during the Bush administration. Were the hundreds of billions spent in Iraq immoral?
Is taxation immoral? Not in and of itself, unless you want to live in a cave somewhere, hunting animals for food. You don't like the Democratic platform? Vote against it.
Thing is Gary, what Obama is now doing is what he denied he would do during the campaign. Thats the crux of the biscuit. He lied. 95% tax cut to all Americans my ass, wait til cap n trade kicks in and 100% of Americans gas and electric bill doubles, or in his words SKYROCKETS!
Taxation is and of itself is immoral. Its the forceful taking of anothers property. Its feudal system. Now I would tend to agree that it may be a necessary evil to a small degree, but its gotten a little out of hand. Taking half my earnings is a bit egregious.
Dont get me wrong, the Republicans are just as bad on spending, and that will inevitably be W's legacy. Pushing the snowball down the hill of socialism.
I like PJ ORourkes take on government spending in Parliament Of Whores, if you wouldnt kill your grandmother for it, then its not worth having or something like that, its been years since I read it.
Point is we dont need the vast majority of what govt spends our money on.
Obama lied because you think cap and trade will double our PGE bills? What if it doesn't? Then was he telling the truth? Obama is trying to do something about global warming. I know you don't believe in it but he promised to do something about it. Look, you don't like Obama because he's a liberal. I don't expect to turn you around.
I don't want to get into a Republican/Democrat debate. I'm not that big a fan of the Democrats. I really don't want to get into a liberal/conservative debate either. There are conservatives I respect if if I don't always agree with them. The American Freedom Agenda crowd for example. Today's conservatives have nothing to offer. What's their program-- let's do all the thing we didn't do when we were in power? For the last decade or so conservatives have relied on bumper sticker slogans. The problems with that is that sooner or later the other side comes up with some bumper sticker slogans too.
I sympathize with conservatives. Your job historically is to lose. To stand athwart history shouting "stop", as William F Buckley put it. Conservatives lost on the civil rights movement (most would go so far today as to admit they were wrong), they lost on abortion (except for those like Goldwater who never thought it was a conservative issue), lost on school prayer, lost on pornography, lost on big government, and now seem to be losing on economics (too soon to say for sure).
I really hope that there are some intelligent, thoughtful conservative out there today, quietly reading and studying and thinking and coming up with something that can be called a conservative political philosophy and program for our time. All movements go too far, as Bertrand Russell said, and I am sure we liberals will live up to that.
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