When I was a young man news was
published in the daily newspaper. Local
news was investigated and written up by local reporters and proofed by the
editor. National news was provided on a
teletype machine from the Associated Press (AP) and United Press International
(UPI). It was an article of faith that
what was printed was true and unbiased.
At least everyone believed that and I suppose perception is
everything. I still think it was nearly
always true and a newsman’s reputation for truth and fairness was his most
important possession. I was in the
broadcast news business briefly in 1968 and at that time it was just as
reputable as the newspaper.
Now anyone
can get published just like this post.
No one screens it, I can spout truth or total nonsense and the chances
are it will be about equally believed.
If I say something like “Congressmen can retire after 4 years on 100%
salary” a sizeable percentage will believe it – especially if you are already
anti government. I’m pretty anti
government these days myself, but I have a major respect for the truth that
doesn’t allow me to publish nonsense. So
what am I getting at? I think I may have
just hit on what is wrong with the current political climate. There is no source for facts and truth. Or at least there is no easy way to separate fact
from fiction. Look at the sheer nonsense
being published by the political parties during this run up to the November
elections. This is actually an important election,
but are they offering real concrete solutions to the problems that the
politicians have made in the first place?
Not that I can find.
So far as I
can tell, the democrats (who have an actual current track record) are doing
nothing but attacking the character and/or personality of the Republican
candidate. If I find an actual plan from
them I’ll post it later. The
Republicans, or at least their candidate, have identified the problems we all
care about. I’m talking about terrorism,
border control, international trade and many more serious issues but if they
have offered a concrete plan to fix any of them it was lost on me. Oh, I forgot about the wall idea. At least it’s a ‘concrete’ idea. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist) Terrorism, hmm I guess that’s what TSA and
homeland security or about. They claim
it’s working. Many years ago I saw a
beatnik (remember them?) on a street corner in NYC just standing there and
snapping his fingers. I asked him what he
was doing and he said: “I’m keeping the wild elephants away.” I said there’s not a wild elephant within
10,000 miles. He said, “Works great
doesn’t it?”
As for international trade,
the solution is both simple and obvious.
We must make the playing field level.
American factories can produce goods as cheap as any after you adjust
for shipping. If a trading partner wants
to sell a product for 50% of what it costs to produce we simply add the other
50% in customs and use that money to subsidize our own factories. It wouldn’t take long for that to fix the
problem.
Let’s
forget this political correctness nonsense and stop immigration from Moslem
countries. In WW II we actually locked
up entire Japanese families for the protection of the public at large. Can you imagine that happening in the current
climate? If only 1% of Moslems are
terrorists that means that 10 terrorists get in with each 1000 immigrants. We just can’t afford that. We don’t owe the rest of the world a
living. Hell, we don’t even owe our own
citizens a living if they don’t want to work for it.
That’s how
I see it.
