Wiped out...

Although a lot of younger people might find it hard to believe, it wasn’t very many years ago that indoor plumbing was a luxury not every family enjoyed. When I was born, my family lived in a farmhouse that had running water inside, but the bathroom facilities were located about fifty feet from the back porch, down a well-worn path in a little building affectionately known as the outhouse. Not having any electricity for light, heat, or ventilation, it was utilitarian structure, and most people didn’t tarry there any longer than necessary, especially in the dead of winter or the heat of summer.

  Even with its drawbacks, it usually fulfilled the gastrointestinal needs of both family and visitors to our home. It also happened that this particular outhouse had another drawback, that being a questionably reliable door latch. One breezy summer day, while we were sitting and visiting on the back porch, one of Mom’s friends decided she needed to visit the privy.

  Between the breeze and the faulty latch, the stage was set for a most unfortunate occurrence, when the door blew open and exposed (so to speak) the surprised lady with her dress up and her pants down, to the just as surprised crowd gathered on the porch. Her dilemma, of course, was whether it was more important to finish the job at hand, including the paperwork, or stand up and make an effort to close the door in hopes of maintaining a little bit of dignity. Mom made us all go into the house immediately, so I never really knew which course of action she chose. I certainly never had the nerve to ask.

  I imagine we have all found ourselves in situations occasionally when we just didn’t have enough hands, time, or money to do everything that needed to be done. Those are the times we have to decide what is the most important to us, but I’m not convinced we always make the right decisions. I am convinced that the more limited we are with time or money, or both, the more important it is for us to make the right decisions.

  Our representatives in the federal government spent a lot of time in the last few months arguing about whether or not there should be a few more restrictions placed on people when they decide to purchase a gun. The people who think there shouldn’t be more restrictions won the argument for now, but the people who think there should be more restrictions have vowed to keep on arguing. They’re also arguing about whether gay people should be allowed to get married, whether or not people who sell items on the internet should pay sales tax, and they’ve even managed to work in a couple of conversations about which country does or doesn’t need to be invaded next.

 Now, I understand that our representatives are supposed to argue, but here’s the thing. The federal government is $16 trillion in debt, and it’s adding another $1.2 trillion each year. It is approaching $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities, and it’s printing $80 billion in new fiat money every month.

  Regardless of how you feel about gun restrictions, gay marriage, the internet or Syria, the reality is, first of all, we have to get a handle on the federal government’s debt and spending. It’s by far the most urgent problem we face.

  And we need to do it pretty soon, before it wipes us out.

And the winner is...

  I don't remember getting a lot of blue ribbons when I was in 4-H. I guess we didn't have what you would call "show cows", or good enough dirt to grow prize winning vegetables, and it was hard to get that wood working project sanded enough when you didn't start making it until the night before the fair. It was alright, though, because I knew the kids that worked harder would get the better ribbons. That's just the way things worked.

  I also knew that when we did our chores, we received our allowance, and if we sat in the car and didn't complain, we could have a candy bar when we got to Saffer's General Store, or at least we could get out of the car and go in and look at the candy when we got to Saffer's General Store.

  I was walking into Gary's hardware store the other day and I noticed this poster:

  Apparently, some of us can get a free cell phone and free monthly service. I thought maybe it was a prize for working hard or something.

 

  Apparently not.

 

  In order to qualify for a free cell phone and free monthly service, you have to prove that you are already receiving some other form of assistance from the government. If you don't receive any assistance, you don't qualify for a phone.

 

  We used to reward hard work and punish failure.

 

  I wonder what went wrong.

The road we're on....

   There is currently a highway funding bill moving through the Indiana Senate that will penalize counties that haven’t adopted a local wheel tax. My home county, Wayne, stands to miss out on getting a little over half a million dollars a year from the state, which would be used to supplement its three and a half million dollar road budget. It makes you think about where the money really comes from, and where it really goes.

   I’d guess that there are about 68,000 people in Wayne County. I'm guessing that about 41,300 of them drive. I'm also guessing that each driver probably averages using about 15 gallons of gasoline a week. Like I said, I'm just guessing.

   If those guesses are anyways close to being right, that means Wayne County drivers buy about 32,214,000 gallons of gasoline each year. We pay 56 cents in road use taxes for every gallon we buy. That totals up to about $18,039,840.00 per year from Wayne County drivers. That doesn't include the 28 cents in sales tax we're also paying on every gallon. It doesn’t include the diesel fuel that brings in 74 cents per gallon, either.

   The state and federal government gets the lion’s share of our road use taxes, and before they send a small portion of it back to the counties, they spend a big portion of it on a lot of projects that don't involve roads.

   I guess I believe that before any branch of government starts demanding more road use taxes from us, all levels of government need to spend the money they have already taken from us for its intended purpose, roads.

   I guess the government doesn’t believe that.

What's in a name?...

    When I was student at Millville Grade School, it seemed like just about everybody there had a nickname. I wasn’t always sure why.  It wasn’t that the nicknames were always shorter, or easier to spell or pronounce than the person’s given name. Sometimes I didn’t know what the names represented, like Ginky or Crowbar. Sometimes they were simpler, more descriptive, and easier to relate to the individual, like Tubby, Slim, Stretch, or my old buddy Stinky Wilmont.

  Even if you had never met the person, if you heard someone talking about Tubby, you probably got the idea that he was on the heavy side, just like you would probably get the idea that Slim wasn’t. You could probably also guess that Stretch was one of the taller students, and the name Stinky offered more than one possibility, probably none all that pleasant.

  WhiIe I don’t suppose there is anything inherently wrong with nicknames, I think sometimes the more descriptive ones tend to narrow our view of that person, or persons. Years ago, and hopefully to a lesser extent today, certain nationalities and ethnicities were grouped together and associated, good or bad, with certain traits or behaviors. Some groups were imagined to be hard-working or lazy, some prone to drunkenness or crime, and some frugal or spend thrifty. In reality, any group of people is actually a group of individuals, and regardless of which group they belong to, most individuals are usually “just folks”.  

  I saw a chart the other day that listed various types of conservatives, and then described their opinions on various issues of the day in one or two words. Probably a lot of my liberal leaning friends would get a chuckle from it. I don’t imagine most of my conservative leaning friends would find the humor.

  No doubt it’s easier to dismiss thoughts we find disagreeable by attributing them to a group of people, and then dismissing the entire group. If you read the editorial page, you have probably noticed a barrage of letters lately claiming that people in favor of charter schools are out to ruin public schools, along with another barrage of letters claiming people who oppose charter schools support mediocrity in education. Like many of you, I know people who support charter schools to various degrees, and I don’t think hardly any of them want to destroy public schools. I also know people who oppose charter schools to various degrees, and hardly any of them support mediocrity.

  I’ve heard and read a lot of single word descriptions for people who support gun rights, just as I’ve heard a lot of single word descriptions for people who support more controls over gun rights. The same thing happens when people describe proponents of a more limited federal government, and it happens again when those proponents of a more limited government describe proponents of a less limited government.

  Of course we would all like to believe that people we share opinions with are more complex and learned than the people we disagree with. It makes it easier to justify a “one size fits all” government and the “one size fits all” laws that accompany it.

  But in the end, even if we don’t want to admit it, we probably agree quite a bit with the same people we disagree with quite a bit. Enough so that we should be willing to give the folks we disagree with almost as much consideration as the folks we agree with. After all, they’re just folks.

  It’s not all that complicated, but it’s not all that simple, either.

Take that....

  The Delaware County Circuit Court recently ruled that Ball State University could forcibly take private property in order to build a hotel. As if this decision wasn't horrible enough, BSU is also insisting that the victims of the decision should be required to post a $1 million appeal bond before another court can re-hear the case.

  As we continue our decline into a state of unlimited government, we all need to remember that under the court's rationale, if a state college decided to open a satellite school anywhere, any neighboring property would be fair game for any reason. If taking property to build a hotel because people visiting the university might stay in that hotel passes muster, it is hard to imagine a scenario where any taking couldn't be justified by a court.

  More and more, this old quote hits home:

 
"In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."...Martin Niemöller

 We may not own a printing company, and we may not live in Muncie, but if we care at all about the right to own property, we need to speak up.

 Now.

The estate we're in....

   I was in on a conversation today with a person who had been working on some estate planning. I'm all about thinking ahead, but I don't really have any estate that requires much planning.

  I guess the purpose of estate planning is to insure that your assets and possessions won't be taken after you die. Sounds like a plan. It's always a good idea to protect your stuff. I suppose that's why people lock their doors and buy insurance.

 The thing is, estate planning isn't for protecting your stuff from your run of the mill bad guys. It is for protecting your stuff from the government.

  Stop and think about that for a minute. Some people spend thousands of dollars to protect their possessions from the government. Some people don't. People who spend thousands of dollars get to pass their possessions on to their children. People who don't, don't.

  I'm not sure when we reached the point in this country that we had to scheme and plan to keep the government from taking our stuff. Or when we reached the point that we believe it's alright for people who understand estate planning, and who can afford estate planners, to keep their stuff, but it's not alright for people who don't understand or can't afford it to keep theirs.

  There are a few things government should do. It should protect us from force and fraud.

  It shouldn't take anybody's stuff. Dead or alive.

 

Tempering our tolerance...

   We have a two and a half year old grandson that doesn’t have a lot of tolerance for his six month old sister. I don’t suppose that’s an unusual situation, and we’re convinced he will warm up to her presence eventually. I probably wasn’t as tolerant of my younger siblings as I should or could have been in my younger days. That’s why I’m not convinced tolerance is something we are born with. I think it has to be taught and learned.
 
  I grew up with seven brothers and sisters, so the tolerance we didn’t learn for each other on our own, we were taught out of necessity by our parents. I also learned a lot about tolerance from my parents when my old buddy Stinky Wilmont would come over to our house for a visit. Stinky quite often behaved outside of the accepted social norms that Mom and Dad had established for the immediate family, but my parents seemed to tolerate worse behavior from him than they would from us. I figured out later that sometimes toleration is influenced by expectations. I guess Mom expected better behavior out of her offspring, so she tolerated less bad behavior.

  You never know where or when tolerance is going to show up or run out. Sometimes we seem to be more tolerant of questionable behavior from people we don’t know than we are of those we know. I imagine most parents at some time have said “I’d never tolerate that from my kids!” upon witnessing something outrageous from somebody else’s child, but in reality I think most of us are more tolerant and forgiving of family, even when they don’t live up to our expectations.

  Being of the Libertarian persuasion, I tend to be more tolerant of other people’s social behavior than perhaps some of my Republican and Democratic cohorts might be. I don’t see the need for a lot of laws regulating peaceful interaction and dealings between consenting adults. That’s not to say that I approve of all of their peaceful interactions and dealings. It just means as long as they are not forcing their opinions and actions on anybody else, I can tolerate it.

  While we Libertarians are more tolerant of people and their choices, the other parties have a leg up on us when it comes to being more tolerant of government. Republicans and Democrats add about 40,000 new laws and government regulations each year to the two million or so that are already on the books.

  Generally speaking, Republicans are usually more tolerant of new laws and regulations that are passed when they are in control, than they are of the new laws and regulations that are passed when the Democrats are in control. And generally speaking, Democrats feel the same way. Of course, once a new law, regulation, or program gets on the books, both parties seem to get more tolerant about it. Generally speaking, of course.

  Our nation is currently involved in a discussion as to whether the President of the United States has the power to execute an American citizen without formal charges, without a trial, and without any public justification. The President and his aides claim that he does. And since the President is a Democrat, the other Democrats seem to be tolerant of White House position on the matter. Again, generally speaking. I suppose the Republicans’ tolerance on the issue stems from their belief that they will regain the White House someday, and retain the same power.

  As a Libertarian, it makes me wonder if there is anything the government could do that they wouldn’t tolerate.

Take that...

  I read today that the Indiana Legislature is looking at drug testing welfare recipients before they give them "their" benefits. It's been done in other states, usually with Republicans arguing that it needs to be done to ensure that the recipients aren't misusing the money, and Democrats arguing that it violates the recipients rights and ultimately costs the state more than it saves.

  I wouldn't argue either point, because neither point addresses the real issue.

  Both sides assume that somebody has a pre-existing claim to your money. They don't. I should decide on who qualifies to be the recipient of my charity, just as you should decide who qualifies to be the recipient of yours.

  I admit I would probably be a little hesitant to give assistance to someone who continually makes crappy decisions, but that's my choice. It shouldn't be the governments.

Either way.