Home of Today's Common Sense

 Published  Brownsbille Herald  December 21 ,2009

The Holiday Season is on us now the turkey is a warm feeling in the tummy and strains of Christmas music are just arriving. That warmth and optimism that only this season can engender seems to be slow to arrive. The realities of the New Year portending little improvement for the unemployed, the economy or the daily grind, are becoming stronger. Still to come is the New Year’s celebration and the look back at what has gone into the past and the resolutions to improve ourselves for 2010.
The War in Iraq seems to be slowing but the War in Afghanistan is becoming more tentative and touchy. The pressures in the area are creating stability problems in Pakistan which has overflowed into India. The fact that both countries have nuclear weapons, and also have social and religious passions that make the concept of mutual destruction an effective deterrent, much less valid. The likelihood that Iran may also join the nuclear club as well makes “the end of days” even more possible.
Closer to our daily lives the loss of the optimism and confidence we normally have in the future, has led to a weakening of the economy of the world. This was seen first in the lack of confidence the banks have in future business which has shown itself in the retreating from extending credit. The result has been that business that depends on credit such as larger valued transactions like houses, cars and appliances have declined.
Businesses now must do more to just survive day to day. This has resulted in laying off employees to save on wages and payroll taxes. The remaining employees have produced more with less enabling some business to survive. Some of the surviving businesses are in danger and are delaying any new recruiting or expansion because the specter of new and more expensive regulations and government requirements, as well as new and higher taxes to pay for the increasing government debt, continues to rise and deepen.
We can look forward to even more difficult times and I expect that others will be watching their money just as our family will, to assure we get good value for the fewer resources we have.
If we look back to the depression, the War put everyone back to work and ended it. The several recessions were lessened by reducing taxes on business and relieving them of expensive requirements and providing a stable outlook with less government interference with business and especially “we the people”.
For the foreseeable future all we see is higher taxation, more government interference with our health care, as well as the places we work for now.
In a letter to the editor entitled “Blame Republicans for milking taxpayers”, Celso Garcia would have you believe that The Republicans led by Reagan, Bush, Karl Rove and Tom DeLay gave “the goahead to milk the taxpayers for what they could bear”. I am not a Republican fan but I seem to remember serious tax reductions during the Regan years and a substantial drop in unemployment, particularly in the Valley from the 20% area down to 6% and I also believe it is still holding. I also seem to remember a few Democrats following along since such as those controlling Congress and a President. He goes on to point out that so many companies enriched themselves. I wonder who benefitted – could it be us retirees who hold the 401k’s that own them or the Government Employees’ pension that also depends on many as well?
Now we here the Obama administration promise us change and we got it. We still see that those who are supposed to help us continue to be too important to do it. They are only interested in the masses! Soon we may well be indistinguishable among the world masses. Will we be helped then?
There is some help on the horizon. The “Tea parties”, started by some Libertarians to bring focus on the need to reduce the tax burden, have caused a renewed interest and a grass roots movement.
This reminds me of a movie I saw last year that described the same problem and the solution. “Meet John Doe” – a1941 movie starring a bashful Gary Cooper with that famous, unassuming attitude, and Barbara Stanwyck.
Infuriated at being laid off from her job as a newspaper columnist from The New Bulletin, Ann Mitchell prints a fake letter from the unemployed “John Doe,” threatening suicide in protest of society’s ills. When the note causes a sensation, the newspaper is forced to rehire Mitchell. After reviewing a number of derelicts who have shown up at the paper claiming to have penned the original suicide letter, Ann and Henry Connell decide to hire John Willoughby (Gary Cooper), a former baseball player and tramp who is in need of money to repair his injured arm, to play John Doe.
The Doe philosophy spreads across the country, developing into a grass roots political movement, with financial support from the newspaper’s publisher, D.B. Norton (Edward Arnold), who plans to channel the support for Doe into support for his own political ambitions.
This movie focuses on the idea that most people are decent idealists who actually want to help the neighbor, but don’t want to admit it. They want to appear cool with whatever the popular thoughts are being advanced by their friends not what they have thought for themselves.
The bottom line was that we “the folks” are the powerful and are the only ones who know what is good for us “John Does”.
When we get tired of being mis-used by those that are supposed to work for us, we will start electing competent representatives to government and avoid wars and other crises. We need to start in the local elections as we already have too many less than greats there now.
The “Tea Parties” are gaining in size and popularity and some are referring to them as a potential third party.
Apparently there is some validity to this as many of the TV “talking heads” and other commentators that “owe” the two party system their livelihood are attempting to dissuade voters from such consideration with the assessment that the third party can’t win but only take votes away from the more favorable of the “chosen two”. To accept this concept is to limit the choices of “we the people”.
We need only look at an election, back a century and a ‘half ago. If only he two major parties were considered the Republicans would not be in existence, Lincoln would not have been elected, and slavery may have existed years longer.
I believe it is necessary to vote your conscience not just who your associates think is attractive or nice but that person who will represent you honestly and in good faith.
There is a party in existence that represents the ideals of less – more responsible government and lower taxes. The Libertarians are that party.
I wonder if the Libertarians will be the Party to revolutionize the United States to a better nation more responsive to its citizens like that other party a century and a half ago