What Next?

Today's pre-selected topic is "Other random stuff" and I'd like to talk about the USA.

I consider myself fairly patriotic. I love the word "freedom."
That word alone (or a form of the word) has made Braveheart one of my favoritest movies ever.
From the opening scene's impression-generating line "your heart is free William, have the courage to follow it" as Wallace's father is dying.
To its recurring use in Wallace's speech before the Stirling battle:
WW: "What will you do without FREEDOM? Will you fight?"
Sissy Guy: "No, we will run and we will live."
WW: "Aye, fight and you may die. Run and you'll live. At least a while. (awesome dramatic pause) And dying in your beds, many years from now. Would you be willing, to trade, all the days, from this day 'til that?...for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives....but they'll never take...OUR FREEDOM (insert cheers and emotional Scottish music).
And the very memorable single word statement made by Wallace at the very end of the movie as his guts are torn from his body. "FREEDOOOOOOOOOOM........"
I am honestly getting a little teary-eyed thinking about it.
I even have the Stirling speech downloaded as a file on my iPhone. I used to listen to it every day on my way to work at Chrysalis. Just to get me through my then freedom-less days.

That said, there are few places that have the type of liberties that we enjoy in the US. I have never feared civil punishment for walking down the street. I can write just about whatever I want on a website - that could potentially be viewed by the world - without fear of reprisal... e.g. Fuck you Obama. And I can start a company doing just about anything that I am good at if I have the drive, the ingenuity and the resources.

So...don't get me wrong. I love this country. As citizens, we can do more and achieve more here than we can anywhere else in the world. And we have.
But today, we are heading down the wrong path.

Free markets and capitalism are not about bailouts. But we continue to send money to companies that are not even viable entities. For what? Fear? Fear of what? That the stock market will take 24 months to rebound versus 15. I'll wait the extra three quarters if my tax dollars aren't spent on shitty companies staying afloat. Sure we need to change some rules around financial markets and leverage, but don't try to fix that which can't be fixed. GM was not profitable for decades. What was there that was even worth saving? Obama spent billions of your money to delay an event that any businessperson could have told you was inevitable. Thanks for that Mr. President.

Free health care for everyone sounds nice. But why the hell do I have to work to ultimately pay to bring someone else's kid into the world? If you can't pay your bills, stop having kids. Let alone 18 of them. Screw this socialistic form of government-mandated redistribution of wealth. If Gates and Buffett want to give millions away to help the world, good for them. They earned that right and they can spare it. But don't make me do it as I am fighting to rebuild a future for my family. And certainly don't pick and choose for me how it is to be spent.

I am all about government support of business growth and helping to stimulate the economy - i.e. Tax breaks for new businesses or benefits for companies that hire significant employees during under-employed periods. But creating government jobs simply to have a place to put people is ridiculous. Obama initially talked about job creation...through private business. Then he talked about "saving" jobs versus creating them. And now he's not even talking about job creation or saving them via supporting private business. He now speaks and references police stations in podunk towns that did not have to let 18 officers go because they got stimulus money. What?!?! That's the cure? Letting unnecessary government jobs stick around. We pay those salaries. You and me. And we have no say in the matter. Please reference my "e.g." comment four paragraphs above.

There are bills being passed these days that are thousands of pages long. Pork and other unnecessary dollars are being thrown around as if it were as plentiful as Hydrogen. Do you know what the abbreviation "tln" stands for? "Townline?"..."Telephone?"...Nope. It stands for "Trillion." And I have seen it used many times recently.
This is what one trillion dollars looks like: $1,000,000,000,000
If you are a millionaire, you have at least this much money: $1,000,000. Looks small in comparison, no?
A trillion is a million million. Putting it into other relative terms... You could count to a million in less than two weeks. To count to a trillion, you'd need over 30,000 YEARS. People were not even talking modern languages 30,000 years ago. Two weeks ago it was simply June 16th 2009.

And this year, Obama and his "my tax money" spending policies will enslave future generations for decades to come. But that's okay, GM will soon & once again be producing shitty union-made cars; more Octo-moms will crop up across the country; and dozens upon dozens of DMV workers will stay employed so I can get my new driver's license with a micro-chip embedded into it...so my life can be more closely monitored by the government.

All I can ask is, what next?

Government is a good thing and it is necessary. And few places have a system anywhere near as good as the USA. But we are on the wrong track. I am proud to be an American. But I refuse to support socialism.

Socialism via Webster's Dictionary:
1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.
2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state

National Socialism via Webster: Nazism

#$@% that.