You got a problem with that?....

            My old pal Stinky Wilmont had a few of ideas about why he spent so much time in the principal’s office all those years when we were attending Millville Grade School. He was convinced it was mostly because the teachers didn’t like him. He said that was also the reason he never made the honor roll, and probably the reason he always had to be a shepherd instead of Joseph or one of the wise men every year in the school Christmas play.

            I tried to tell him he might not have to spend quite so much time in the principal’s office if he would quit carving his and his girlfriend Rowena Lufkin’s initials in the top of the desks and cafeteria tables, and that he’d stand a better chance of making the honor roll, or at least getting a D+ once in a while if he would do his homework and study a little more when we knew we had a test coming up. I also suggested he might get a bigger role in the Christmas play if he would pay a little more attention and be a little more cooperative on the days when Miss Mullin came to Millville to teach the music class, but Stinky said he was pretty sure none of that would make any difference, since the teachers didn’t like him anyway.

            I suppose most of us spend at least a portion of our lives trying to solve problems that pop up from time to time, but it always seemed to me that problems are easier to solve if we first decide what the problem really is. And probably sometimes we know what the problem really is and how to solve it, but we dislike the solution more than we dislike the problem. I’m at the age where my waistline seems to expand a little bit every winter, and even though I know what causes that problem and how to solve it, I’m still tempted to try one of those “bacon and chocolate” diets that rolls across the internet from time to time, promising me that I can lose 30 pounds in a matter of days.

            Every couple of years we have an election in this country to choose some people to solve some of our problems. People give money to candidates they think will solve their problems, and businesses give money to candidates they think will serve their problems. The government keeps track of who gives money to which candidates, and how much they give, and sometimes it makes rules about who is allowed to give money to candidates, and how much they can give.

            Sometimes people seem to get upset if someone gives a candidate more money than they gave their candidate. The concern seems to be that the person or group that gives the most money will end up getting the best end of the deal when the candidate gets elected and starts voting on legislation to solve the problems of the people who gave him the money. While that might be a legitimate concern, I’m not convinced it addresses the real problem.

            In my mind, the problem isn’t that the people with the most money can buy legislation that will give them an advantage. Rather, the problem is that anybody can buy legislation that will give them an advantage. Legislation and rules at all levels of government should protect all people equally, and legislators really shouldn’t have the power to adopt any legislation that doesn’t. And if our elected officials would stick to the limited duties of running a limited government, it wouldn’t matter if one person gave them a million dollars, or if a million people gave them one dollar.

            You got a problem with that?