This is another in a series of the “Howard Beale Collection” (see movie Network)
I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's work, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do...
This is not a psychotic breakdown; it's a cleansing moment of clarity.
Howard Beale 1976
Rant Section 1 –
In my imagination, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison would be aghast at what the Democratic Party has evolved to be. Jefferson wrote in the 1820's about the consolidation of too much power within the federal government, when he thought most power should remain with the states
“ I scarcely know myself which is most to be deprecated, a consolidation, or dissolution of the states. The horrors of both are beyond the reach of human foresight."
And somewhere between then and now the idea that responsibility for success or failure in business could and SHOULD be influenced by the federal government came to supplant the idea that business fails when it does not meet the market standard, is no longer competitive and a myriad of other factors.
Businesses “too large to fail” ….well, in my profession (IT) that would be considered a single point of failure, which is why as business systems get bigger they need to have failover, not be depending on one source of data which is the lifeblood of a data system. So if the lack of regulation led to businesses being allowed to conglomerate to the point that a failure brings down the entire economy, who should be responsible? Imagine if in the internet services available ONLY AOL was the provider, or MSN or any of several. They control it, and when their service becomes unprofitable, they keep hiking the rates. And their employees keep getting better and better contracts as the rates keep going up; then one day a satellite company comes along, and says they can do it better and cheaper. People try it out and find indeed the service gets them online, is reliable (since there are no telephone/dsl/cable cross country networks). And to top it all off, the new company pays their employees half what the “land based internet” people make, which allows them to continue providing the service cheaper. So the ailing company does what? Cut costs and realign to the new model, or ask for a Federal bailout? Get the picture???
Rant Section 2
United States of America
We should endeavor to move in the direction of the red white and blue, not red versus blue in this country.
As a family we can squabble and disagree, but there should be some common ground in all saying we are first and foremost citizens of the United States of America. As someone who has seen the reality of living in a country not endowed with our freedoms, I honestly can say that I cherish living in this country, as screwed up as it is at times. This country is not perfect, and likely will never be so. That was the point to begin with, that a people with many different views could live as a nation under the single set of rules we call the constitution.
Rant Section 3
Constitution
I recently saw an interview with Justice Scalia, a man I have held in both hi and lo regard for some of his judicial actions. But on the point of the constitution, I tend to agree, the creators of that document, in particular Jefferson, thought the country should hold a strict construction of the Constitution, and stronger states with a weaker federal government.
And that’s the way I see it. If you don’t agree, hey, that’s your right.
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