Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Politics and The Decline of The United States

Not since the time of Theodore Roosevelt has politics been so broken along party lines and so controlled by big business.  In spite of the oft touted and repeatedly failed 'trickle down' theory espoused by many politicians, lower taxes on corporations has not increased job production.  In fact corporations have moved jobs overseas and are even now, attempting to merge with overseas corporations to establish that their headquarters are overseas and avoid paying the little taxes that the United States does impose on them.

When corporations and the top 1% were paying their fair share of taxes, the United States thrived.  Roads were built, jobs created and infrastructure maintained.  Once the tax burden was shifted from corporations to the middle class, the United States declined, roads and infrastructure has been left to fail and the middle class has all but disappeared.

Medicare and Social Security which was designed to keep seniors and those seriously disabled from sinking into poverty, are being attacked as contributing to the National Debt.  Revisions to both are being touted as reducing the debt with no mention as to the thousands of people who depend on these services.  In spite of laws being passed that supposedly would equal the playing field for owners and employees alike in the field of retirement savings; more and more it appears that loopholes exist for those wealthy enough to find them.

Far too often once an individual reaches the state level in politics, their campaigns are being funded by special interests to the detriment of the people who elected them.  If they go on to the Federal level, they are so firmly in the pockets of special interests that elections are no longer fair and unbiased.  If you are funded by a large corporation, drug company or other special interest you can afford to flow the airways with negative ads.  Comments are taken out of context and numbers are manipulated to show whatever the manipulator wants to show.

The United States will continue to decline as long as people refuse to think for themselves and listen only to a few voices.  We must continue to educate ourselves or we will have no one to blame but ourselves when the country fails.

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Discrimination

When you hear the word "Discrimination" you naturally think of racial or sexual discrimination.  But, unfortunately, discrimination has many sutle forms.  Whether we know it or not we discriminate against someone, somehow everyday.  We may not vocalize it or make it apparent but it is there.  It is in our thoughts and actions.

When we were first created or born, we were pure and innocent.  We accepted everyone and everything for what it was.  We were amazed at the smallest detail and at the largest expanse of night sky.  As we grew older we were influenced by our parents who were products of the past and the accepted norms of that time.  We were also influenced by our playmates, classmates, employers, friends and the society in which we grew up.  We were also influenced by our own fears and misunderstandings.

We discounted certain people, places, foods, etc because our parents influenced us against them and our parents in our child's mind, were infallible.  We held to these beliefs because they provided us with a sense of comfort and belonging.  Even after we became adults it was difficult to shed these beliefs because they were so much a part of who we were.  If we had an open mind, receptive to change, eventually our views changed along with the times and we discovered that the beliefs of the past were just that, beliefs of the past.  Not necessarily wrong but no longer relevant to the world today.

Unfortunately there will always be those who want to cling to the past no matter how irrelevant or hurtful.  They continue to spew the hatred of the past cloaked in new language or in a different light so it is perceived as being different.  But it is not, it is discrimination.  It is "us versus them" wrapped up in either religion, politics, greed, or fear.  We all retain a healthy fear of certain things, certain animals to help us stay alive.  That does not make the things we fear bad or wrong.  It doesn't mean we need to eliminate these things or people. 

Discrimination is based on the fear of what we do not understand.  Humanity has overcome its fears in the past and become explorers, inventors, scientists, etc.  Once we stop fearing each other, except when it is justified, discrimination will be eliminated.  Politicians use fear to get us to vote in their favor and not always for the best.  Our creator gave us something no other animal has, the ability to reason.  To determine for ourselves the difference between right and wrong; to see the good along with the bad in people; to rationalize and think for ourselves and not be driven by instinct entirely.

Once we as a world begin to use this ability to reason on a more consistent basis, not only will it be a better place but discrimination as we know it will disappear.