Elections and Ideas

I've been away for a while. Personal and business problems have kept me busy, but I hope to shoot off more frequent posts. But, as always, life in reality comes first before life on the virtual page.

Yet, this time away from writing has given me thoughts (GASP!). Like, the GOP won't fix anything when they gain whatever power they'll get from the upcoming elections. They hoot and hollar now, but like 1994, little change will come from it. It may be little good change, but we don't need little. We need big. We need a massive reduction in the federal government's spending, size and power, but all we'll get probably is maybe another 10-year tax cut, or maybe a shot at Obamacare repeal, or maybe... yeah. If all three of you fans have been reading this blog steadily, you'll know that Michelle and I (mostly Michelle) have been spilling out the details on why we need this hard change economically. The Fed has been f**king up the economy since its inception, taxes are overly complex and oppressive, politically connected corporations use lobbying due to over regulation and get little turfs carved out for them by friendly Congressmen (coughBARNEYFRANKcough), unions suppressing American innovation for lifetime comfort on your dollar; crap like that. Even if the cutesy named “Wave” happens, and the GOP takes everything but the kitchen sink, I doubt they'll do what is necessary, or hold to even 1/10th of whatever promises they've made this cycle. No one should forget 2002-2006. It's just how it goes, no?

I voted straight Republican on my mail-in ballot. I'm thinking I should of voted otherwise.

And this has nothing to do with the good people who support the GOP or some of the better people who are holding office that are GOP. This has to with the fact that our economic changes need to happen quick, not piecemeal. Giant debt, massive government brick walls, an elite in Washington; these things didn't happen overnight. This goes back to the tail end of the 1800s and the Progressive Era. Teddy, Woody, Franklin, and the rest of their lot. The idea of “progress” swept over all the nation, not just a small cabal. But it died, or so it should have. But a bad idea 100 years ago affects us now. We have two houses of Congress at the behest of voters, not one. We have a unaccountable cartel of banks running the economy and encouraging the government-backed risk and government-ruled social justice crap that tanked us in 2008. We have giant liabilities called “handouts” people will fight and kill over. None of this is sustainable. None of this is freedom.

And none of this will get fixed when it should if we let the GOP establishment, and yes, even the Tea Party, keep the status quo through naivety.

When President Obama talked about change, but what he really meant was nostalgia. He threw back to the days of proto-fascism, state-run society and organic nations.

When WE talk about change, we talk about real change. Adaptation to a new world that has left the industrial era of mechanical dreams and world peace. We live in an increasingly decentralized world. Central powers are declining. Alliances crumbling. Nations that'll survive will survive by cutting the fat off their budgets and their societies. That means less entitlements, more freedom. Harsher responses to attacks, less wars of ideals. We've done a lot of good in the last 100 years, but it can't last. Afghanistan needs to be our last hurrah in to good-deed wars. We need to let Europe sit on its own. Our bases need to shrink, though not disappear. The next war, God help us if we have one with Iran, needs to be about two things: vengeance and victory. Democracy isn't a war goal, its a dream of think tanks. We simply can't afford another Kosovo War or 1994 Haiti or Panama.

Our future goal should be maximizing freedom, because the freest of nations will survive the next decade of economic turbulence. Those like China, building cities where no one lives to use surplus labor, will die quickly. We do not want to be China.