Tag: politicians

“If lawmakers were elected for life I believe they would do better. A man’s thoughts are naturally on his next term, more than on his country.” – Will Rogers, 8 June 1924

I don’t know about this one Will. It is kind of scary to me to think of having any politician get a lifetime appointment. But maybe you are right that some more noble beings might step up to help lead our country if they did not have to spend all their time getting re-elected instead of trying to accomplish the degree of good they want to accomplish.

I am currently reading a book entitle “The American Senate”. I will likely do a full report on the book some time in the future but for now I just want to point out that I had forgotten that through most of our history U.S. senators were not put in office by a fickle electorate but instead were appointed by State legislatures. So, at least their campaigning was limited to a very small group. Did that make them more statesmen and less politicians? I will have to study on that but I expect it to be the case.

We are generally very poor at predicting the future. Congressman Ryan who is a radical right conservative in the House of Representative recently proudly put out a ten year government budget that he proclaims will starve us from our legendary deficit spending.  With his ten year budget in hand he keeps ranting about where is the democratic ten year budget. I think maybe my Democratic friends are just too smart to try to predict what will happen in ten years. It is almost certain that it won’t represent what Mr. Ryan predicts.   Let’s face it we are just terrible at predicting the future next year, let alone in ten years.

But, political budgets are not what this post is about. Instead it is about predicting the future of our personal transportation vehicles, otherwise known as cars. I have been a car guy on one level or another for more than fifty years. During the early and mid 1960s I could tell you just about every car make and model on the road. I lived through the midwestern version of the movie “American Graffiti”.  I was a car guy even before I could afford to own one; not so much any more.

But let’s get back to predicting the future.  I can remember going to the 1960 New York World’s Fair during our high school graduation trip in 1965. It seemed like it was almost all about the future. The predictors back then knew for a fact that way off in the year 2000 we would all be driving cars that few in the skies. Roads would no longer be necessary and gasoline would be a thing of the distant past.  They were sure that all car would be nuclear powered by that distant date.

Flash forward those forty plus years and lets look at where we are.  Still driving gasoline polluting global warming cars over just as many pot holes as in those days.  I think the politicians are about the only ones who bought into that 1960s prediction as they quit collecting enough taxes to maintain our highway infrastructure. It continues to crumble down with no end in sight. It may be that in the future our cars will have to fly as our roads will probably become un-driveable.

I am going to talk a little about a tough one here and that is the “A” word. By that of course I mean abortion.  It seems to be the sole driving force for many voters in this country.  As long as the candidate says he is against the “A” word then many seem to flock to him. This is especially true for the so-called evangelicals among us. I personally don’t see any politician’s words associated with corresponding actions about this topic. I know Mr. Bush gained the Oval office twice primarily because he was against abortion but there is nothing in his record to show any accomplishments in this area?

Are evangelicals duped by politicians who say they are against abortion but then do nothing to even try to reduce it? In my mind the answer is an emphatic “yes”. I know I used to get this message regularly from the pulpit. Abortion was the driving issue and nothing else mattered.  I do grieve that abortion happens in this country and around the world for that fact. But since it is now the law of the land in almost every country in the world  except the Muslim dominated Middle East I don’t see much of a chance of eliminating it. So, when it comes to politicians the “A” word is just not much of a factor in who I vote for.  Instead I look at how the politician treats those who are living on the margins of society. To me those folks who are living in very cruel circumstances are as important as the lives that were never realized due to abortion.

Jesus, who is the foundation of my spiritual being didn’t have much if anything to say about abortion but he had loads to say about loving your neighbor and taking care of the poor. His words found in the Bible in 1John 3:16 are paramount in my life.

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.  And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.  If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them,  how can the love of God be in that person?  Dear children,  let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.  

Jesus says here that if you don’t have pity for those less fortunate than yourself then you don’t have the love of God in your life! That is a pretty dramatic statement that doesn’t get preached about much in our present day churches but was very prevalent in the early Christian church. I just can’t understand how those who scream about abortion can then go and enthusisatically  rip the safety net out from under the poor.  Of course I am making a generalized statement here that certainly doesn’t apply to all Evangelicals.  I was an Evangelical myself once and these words certainly don’t apply to me then or now.

Instead of concentrating on eliminating abortion, those who scream the “A” word should be strenuously working to reduce its occurrence instead of  trying to make it against the law. They should put most of the energy they throw at the “A” word and use it to help their brothers and sisters in need.

Some people seem to think that those two holes on the sides of your head are for relieving pressure from your brain when you have to think too much.  Kind of like that weight  thingie we put on the top of a press cooker. I will hereby tell you they have another use. They are for listening. Listening includes hearing things that you don’t already know or maybe hearing a different explanation for things you think you already know.  Many of us seem to get something in our head about a subject and then batten down the hatches on our brain holes.  That seems to be particularly true of our politicians the last decade or so.  I think someone epoxied all the politician’s brain holes as soon as they arrive in Washington. We need a good ENT guy to check that out!

Some seniors I have come across seem to think that when you reach a certain age you are not able to learn anything more so they effectively fill their brain holes with cement.  Let me tell you that the condition for all of the above has a name.  All us seniors love knowing the technical names of all our infirmities; this condition is called “Lazy Minds”.  Let’s call it LM for short.  All the best conditons are known by their initials. 🙂

Lazy minds allow us to think that we have all the answers to everything and there is nothing worth hearing anymore. That was kind of like that guy from the U.S. patent office who wanted to close it down in the early 1900s as everything had already been invented! But I must say that LM is not a condition limited to politicians and senior citizens. It afflicts almost all of us. Particularly all of us in the United States.  We don’t seem to think we can learn anything for anyone else so we close up our brain holes to anyone who doesn’t speak our form of English (if you can even call it English anymore).

Jonas Sulk invented a vaccine for polio about fifty years ago and he became very famous for it.  Can you imagine if someone came up with a vaccine for LM how famous they would be?  Not only famous but also very very rich.  I wonder if any of the pharmaceutical companies are doing research to cure LM? Maybe we should tackle that as a national priority after we have the cure for cancer.

And the journey goes on….