Politics – Page 9 – Zombies Uncensored

What They Really Mean; Bipartisanship

After hearing several calls for bipartisanship, I thought it was time to update the list of words and phrases in political commentary and what they really mean. Politicians cry out for bipartisanship and then turn right around and debase any opposing views.

When politicians call for bipartisanship, it’s political theater to make it sound as though they are open minded and willing to work out a solution, but in reality are saying “I’ll listen to you when you stop being stupid.”

Bipartisanship – My ideas are good ones and the opposition is partisan, because they don’t agree with me.

What They Really Mean; Bipartisanship

Bipartisanship – My ideas are good ones and the opposition is partisan, because they don’t agree with me.

Toyota recall – Would you turn over damaging information to competitors?

When U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Toyota owners should stop driving their cars, questions immediately emerged about LaHood’s motivations. There is no way to prove of disprove his motives; only LaHood knows for sure what motivated the statement. The perception that our government doesn’t have pure motivations is real, and this view will continue as long as they are tied to GM and Chrysler.

One question to bring up is why Toyota didn’t address the defect sooner; was it because they didn’t want to turn over damaging information to one of their competitors? Toyota could claim they were worried about the severity of the problem being exaggerated by U.S. officials, and can point to LaHood’s statement to back up those concerns.

If new regulations are put into place to protect consumers from the defects found in Toyota’s cars, Japan could start accusing the United States of regulatory misconduct and unfair trade practices. There is no guarantee a trade war will erupt from the recall, but it is a possible unintended consequence.

There might be calls for a congressional investigation of the transportation department to make sure nothing fishy has been going on. As much as I like keeping congress busy with innocuous distractions, an investigation will just be a waste of time and money because it is so difficult to prove pure or impure motivations.

The longer government motors is in existence the more the problem will grow. When GM or Chrysler wins a contract with the government, the conflict of interest problem will be brought up again. Ford will be able to claim the government is showing favoritism each time they don’t win a contract.

This story is another example of what can go wrong when one institution of society becomes too entwined with another. Hybrids work well in cars, but government and industry hybrids are accidents waiting to happen. The government should have stayed focused on its role of governing and not subsidizing industry. Staying focused on protecting liberty it is the best way to govern and avoid conflict of interests and the resulting unintended consequences.

Ed Schultz and Sean Hannity team up to keep each other in the news

I’m wearing my tinfoil hat today; I’m starting to believe the cable news channels are part of a conspiracy.

This video from Ed Schultz “Psycho Talk” – 02/04/10 calls out Sean Hannity for being intellectually dishonest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RBo3cXZfTw

At some point you’ll see Sean Hannity talk about President Bush giving up golfing in 2003 to be “in solidarity” with the families of soldiers who were dying in Iraq. Hannity will then call Schultz intellectually dishonest because the clips were prior to Bush’s statement. Hannity might even call out Schultz while Schultz is on Hannity’s show.

In the media, they say to each other, “good for you, good for me.” Controversies are good for both sides in the media, as when Sarah Palin was on Oprah Winfrey’s show. Palin sold books and Oprah had good ratings, so it was a win-win for both.

I think both Schultz and Hannity are intellectually dishonest and wouldn’t be surprised to find out this back and forth is as staged as a wrestling match.

Don’t politicians generate enough intellectually dishonest controversies on their own? Are these two just tired of sharing the BS limelight with real politicians and have cut out the middleman?

As evidenced by the ratings for Hannity and Schultz, there is a market for political theater, but I think you should be a politician to play a part in the play.

Separation of State and Everything

How often have you heard people complain about religion in education, or business in politics? Do complaints about government being too involved in your personal life, or the media having too much influence over politics, sound familiar? It is because many of the problems faced today are caused by permitting or even demanding these institutions exert control over one another.

Here are what I consider to be the biggest institutions of society:

Religion – Education – Business – Government – Families – Media

The media is a mess with their entanglement with political parties. Schools have lost the focus of teaching and are a battleground for theology and politics. The lines between business and government are getting blurrier each day. Science has been rocked by the scandals of political influence. Even the definitions of marriage and family are being defined by the courts and voters.

Please take a moment to consider smaller connections between these groups as the path to follow. The old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups commercial with the line, “You got peanut butter in my chocolate? Hey, you got chocolate in my peanut butter!” ended with a delicious treat. When this same event occurs in society, we often end up with something that tastes nasty.

A sure way for things to get messed up is when any of the major institutions exert too much influence over any of the others. Each institution works fine by itself, when focused on its own area of expertise. It’s when these groups blend and mesh together that society goes haywire. They each perform best when they aren’t interfering or interfered by other institutions.

The economy is a mess, and much of the mess can be attributed to the government/big bank entwinement. Both exert too much influence over one another. The banks shouldn’t be coming to the government for loans, and the government shouldn’t be telling the banks to whom or how to loan money. Each side claims to have been seduced by the other. Wouldn’t we be better off if the two had never slept together in the first place?

The news media is another mess. There isn’t a whole lot of news covered in the news, but there is a plethora of political discussion. I’ve watched Mike Huckabee on Fox News–a combination of religion, politics and media. Being a pastor is a good thing; governors provide good public service, and a journalist discussing political issues is an important service. But these are three distinct positions. The flip side of Huckabee is Al Gore: Vice President, filmmaker and author, and environmental preacher. Separately each can be beneficial, but the resulting mixture of religion, politics, business, and media muddies the water, providing less news and more polarized viewpoints.

Some of the problems facing education can attributed to the distractions caused by external influences. Should schools be involved in leading prayers or used to teach tolerance? Schools are there to educate children with the tools they’ll need to survive as adults, and not to change the shape of the next generation’s society. They shouldn’t be used to install patriotism or environmentalism because that’s not their role.

The list goes on and on how each group causes problems for the others. This isn’t a left vs. right or liberal vs. conservative problem; it’s a problem with our society as a whole not enforcing boundaries. Each institution resents it when the other institutions cross the boundaries, but unfortunately the resentment they feel towards external influences doesn’t stop them trying to manipulate other groups.

The principle of I can’t be free unless everyone is free needs to be applied here. For each group to be free to achieve their goals, they must be willing to give up the influence they exert on each other. They have to be willing to clean their corner of society instead of trying to clean up society as a whole.

Separation of State and Everything

Here are what I consider to be the biggest institutions of society:

Religion – Education – Business – Government – Families – Media

Democratic Party no longer Socially Liberal

Rachel Maddow questioned why Republicans are considered the “natural party of fiscal responsibility” when they don’t have a history of fiscal responsibility. Now I’m questioning why the Democratic Party is considered the natural party of being socially liberal for the same reason.

Are they really socially liberal, as in permitting freedom of action, or are they trying to shape society to what suits them?

The health care legislation is far from liberal, it is very authoritarian because it is mandatory. The only liberal part of health care bill is allowing an exemption for the Amish faith. Liberty-minded people object to the health care bill on moral principles too; maybe if we formed a religious organization we could get an exemption.

The President and many other Democrats recently denounced the Supreme Courts decision on free speech. Now Congresswoman (D) Donna Edwards is introducing a Constitutional Amendment to undo the Supreme Courts ruling.

‘‘SECTION 1. The sovereign right of the people to govern being essential to a free democracy, Congress and the States may regulate the expenditure of funds for political speech by any corporation, limited liability company, or other corporate entity.

‘‘SECTION 2. Nothing contained in this Article shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press.’’

Media corporations will have freedom of speech. I guess all other groups will have to become part of the press to be able to speak on political issues.

Democrats are now defending huge amounts of deficit spending. Selling future generations into slavery is a far cry from defending freedom. Deficit spending in reality is a poverty tax, because poor people don’t buy up treasury bills but have to pay them back.

Instead of defending free speech they are advocating restricting free speech and have become the party of censorship. Some Democratic party legislators are interested in bringing back the Fairness Doctrine and others have proposed hate speech legislation.

In the past they would defend the minority view and now in power they defend majority rule, as in the majority of people voted for health care reform so its OK to force the minority who do not wish to participate to buy health insurance.

So tell my why again they consider themselves the natural party of being socially liberal?

Groundhog Day

So I went looking for news stories today hoping for something at least remotely related to an issue, but didn’t have much success.

I see Glenn Beck said something about Nancy Pelosi and Arianna Huffington said something about Beck. President Obama and Sarah Palin both spoke today. There were several political stories about one side being far superior to the other and new statistics to backing up the claims. The government will be spending more money, or taxing more, or both.

A few stories about global warming being real or fake. Micheal Jackson’s doctor is being charged for I don’t know what. A few more economic stories about how bad things are. Big banks something, something, something. Health care blah, blah, blah, blah.

Bad things happened in the Middle East. There is bad weather here and there. Something new about the iPhone, iPod, or iPad.

Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, so there will be six more weeks of the same news.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Distractions for Washington DC Cause Increase in Productivity

Each time the economy slows down, it leads to micromanagement at work. When a company is making money, the people at the top are either taking it easy or looking for new ways to make money. When the money isn’t coming in as fast as they’d like, they start looking inside their company for savings and efficiency. It turns into a living hell for the people at the bottom because everything they do ends up being micromanaged.

Many workers are hoping and praying for the economy to turn around just because they are tired of explaining how and why they do some of the simplest tasks. A slow economy leads to the annoying time-sheets detailing every minute of the day. Pointing out the loss of productivity to management caused by keeping track of work rather than doing work falls on deaf ears. Workers catch on to being micromanaged and learn to fake time-sheets so they can get back to being productive.

In some work situations, the micromanaging turns into having a supervisor watching over the shoulder of workers. Having someone watching everything you do doesn’t mean you are going to do it any faster, because it’s a distraction from doing the job at hand. Pointing out the loss of productivity from excessive monitoring will once again fall on deaf ears. Workers also learn how to play this game by finding things to keep their managers busy. Workers start complaining about how other departments are run and how much the “defective” departments are making their jobs more difficult. With any luck, the managers will all be busy in meetings fighting with one another so you can get back to work.

The same workplace dynamic of the people at the top needing to do something is taking place in Washington DC. Just as workplace management can’t acknowledge the harm they do by interfering with the job at hand, the government can’t see the harm they are doing to the economy. Reforming health care and new regulations for business are examples of the government micromanaging the economy, and when the loss of productivity is pointing out, it falls on deaf ears.

Politicians have no qualms distracting the public so we aren’t focused on the job they are doing, so I have no guilt in suggesting we distract the government so we can do our jobs. The Obama administration is starting to look at the Bowl Championship Series and that’s a good thing; as long as you aren’t part of the BCS. We need to come up with more innocuous distractions like college bowl games to keep them busy. I’m calling on my fellow American’s that when they are involved in any polling to pick the least intrusive option. If asked which of the following is most important – the economy – heath care – sexting by teenagers, for the sake of our future please pick “sexting.”

Businesses can’t use the same tactics workers use with faking their time-sheets. Faking time-sheets might get a worker fired, faking the governments time-sheets can lead to big fines or prison terms. Businesses can fight back by lobbying congress with useful distractions such as, coming up with a way to keep copiers from copying genitalia or convincing congress businesses would be more productive if congress could tell them the absolute value of pi.

If we all put our heads together we can come up with some new distractions for Washington DC. Here are a few ideas–not exactly good ideas, but something to get the creative juices flowing:

Demand all of congress visit every site in the world impacted by global warming before taking any action. It’s expensive, but trust me–it’s worth it.

If enough people film street lights and email them to their representative, we can convince congress there is an imminent alien invasion.

Protest anything from France.

Start a rumor terrorists are secretly sending commands to operatives through 4chan.

Ask congress to find out how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood (stressing how important woodchucks are to the economy).

The number of sex scandals by elected officials is destroying our faith in government and should be investigated by congress.

Local News should have Safety Tips for Voters

BBC One show Rip Off Britain had a show about convenience stores charging more than grocery stores. It seemed odd to me to have a show on the subject, because who doesn’t know a convenience store charges more? Why waste time warning people about something they learned as kids? How do you follow up a report like that? A story about fire is hot, fire burns?

I don’t mean any offense to the UK. The show Rip Off Britain is not a reflection on the intelligence of its citizens. In the US, almost any nightly newscast will have parental reminders along the lines of reminding you to put coat on because its cold outside, or too much sunlight will burn your skin.

Still, there were probably a few people out there that benefited from the show pointing out convenience stores charge more. Its just as likely someone benefits when they are reminded to use suntan lotion or put a coat on.

The political events of the last few years have had me wondering basically the same thing about politics. Do people need to be continually reminded about how politics work? Is a story about government incompetence news? Maybe people should be reminded from time to time about the dangers of politics.

Local news programs should have safety tips for forgetful voters prior to elections?

Politicians promises are more likely to be broken than kept.

If they are the lesser of two evils, it means they still screw some things up.

They can’t be on your side and working for everyone at the same time.

Corruption follows power and money around.

Whatever they say it will cost should be doubled or tripled.

Contrary to what most politicians believe, not every problem has a solution.

Politicians have been known to lie.