The New Aristocracy (Rusted Sky)

Watching the Health Care Reform debates... well, perhaps 'debates' are the proper word, but I don't know what is... I'm struck by something.

The people we've elected to represent us in Washington aren't listening.

And the media isn't helping.

And the government is proceeding in a passive-agressive way to hamstring the American economy.

So you ask yourself... just why? Who benefits from a failing economy? Who's benefiting from selective coverage of the issues facing the nation? And why does an elected member of our government feel that the wishes of the people who put him into office count less than the desires of his Party leadership?

The Tea Party movement is certainly picking up steam - and the media would rather focus on a few dozen anti-war demonstrators on a nice Saturday in Washington than the 30k+ who showed up outside the Capitol to protest passage of HCR. Any rational politician should be looking at the opposition's size and scope and going "Okay, maybe I'm missing something here." But that assumes (a) the politician is rational, and (b) the politician is concerned about the repercussions from their decision to support something that many, many of his constituents emphatically do not want.

That you have as many Democrats willing to vote for this thing, despite stated objections by their constituents, despite near-continual demonstrations AGAINST it, despite their phone lines being overloaded by the call volume in objection, leads me (and, of course, your mileage may vary) to think that either they're not rational (which I have a hard time believing) or the rewards they're promised outweighs the risk of being tossed out on their assets at the next election.

As I've pointed out before, as a country we're broke. We're so broke we can't even pay attention, with $2 trillion income, debt of $12 trillion, deficit spending of about $2 trillion this year and at least trillion dollar deficits for the next decade. How is health care supposed to help that?

The supposed idea on this is that having government handle health care will ease the stress on businesses... but where is the government supposed to get the money from? Taxes...

You starting to see anything a bit wrong here?

Now, the EPA's done it's darndest to increase the difficulty of businesses to comply with environmental regulations. The carbon taxes are designed to do one thing - get businesses to reduce their carbon output. (Well, that's the stated purpose. We know where the money's going to go, and where it's going to come from, right? To the government, from the taxpayer, by means of the business raising the cost of it's services.)

So - energy prices go up - passed along to the customer. Energy is KEY to everything - if we don't have oil we can't transport goods and raw materials. When oil's in short supply, it costs more to transport goods and raw materials. When the raw materials prices go up - the finished goods cost goes up. All prices rise, and everyone hurts.

You're not going to see the economy grow in conditions like that - you're going to see it shrink. But that's okay, because there's one class who's not going to be hurt by it.

The aristocracy.

They're insulated by their positions from what's happening 'down on the ground' in flyover country - and by their votes they've made sure they're essentially untouched by the programs they're pushing on the rest of us. THEY know what's best for us, you see - and are going to make sure we get it whether we want it or not. They're in control, and I believe they figure they're alwas going to BE in control.

I believe they've persuaded themselves that they're absolutely essential to the running of this country. That without their constant guidance and 'help' the country would completely fall apart. In fact, Pelosi reminds me of my late aunt Wilmetta - a meddlesome busybody who knew what was best for everyone in the family, and tried hard to make sure that everyone did what SHE thought was best... Which was probably why her siblings darn near abandoned her. Her husband, my uncle Oscar, was an exceedingly patient man - and I think (from family stories) he was pretty much responsible for tempering a LOT of her excesses. But after 50 years of marriage, he developed Altzheimers - and apparently one night her nagging and whining and complaining got to be just too much for him, and in a fight he broke her arm.

This led to him being put in a nursing home, and her in a different home. (There's speculation that it may not have been Altzheimers, but just a desire for some peace and quiet.)

So now, we're at a point where despite wide opposition, despite the lack of coverage of SAID opposition, despite plenty of polling telling Obama and Co that we DO NOT WANT what they insist we must have, we're going to get it.

And they're proud to give it to us.

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