Say It Ain't So

If you don't think too good, don't think too much.

--Ted Williams

If you are rich and others are not, whether you find yourself in the 17th century or the 21st, you find yourself faced with an eternal question, a question with which you will inevitably be challenged by your fellow man: Why should you have so much when the rest of us have so little?

In the 17th century, the working argument was, "Obviously, I was born into this wealth, and God selected my parents and meant for me to be rich." So, in a time when God was the answer to every question which confounded people, that worked.

Not so much in the 21st century.

Now, in the 21st century we have a similar problem for the Republican party. One percent of the country owns 70% of the wealth and we have to figure out why that should be a good idea.

If we can do that and kill the two things which have justified Democrats for decades, Social Security and Medicare, well, that would be a master stroke.

So first we create a crisis. This is a great tactic and worked well throughout history: The Nazis burned down the Reishtag, the parliament building, created a sense of impending doom and rode to power as the strong force of law and order. So this works well.

Here's a crisis for you: THE DEFICIT. WE ARE ALL JUST A HOP, SKIP AND JUMP AWAY FROM BANKRUPTCY.

And why? ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS, namely, you guessed it, Medicare and Social Security.
We Republicans have been telling you for the last 50 years these government tax and spend giveaway programs would bankrupt us all. Now it's happening.

The escape from this impending disaster is of course, PRIVATE ENTERPRISE.

So, here's our fool proof plan:

1/ No more taxes.
2/ This will empower small business to create jobs, once they don't have to worry about paying taxes or taking time to deal with regulators and regulations.
3/ This will put more money in the hands of people who already have a lot of money, so they will now have enough to spare a little for the little guy, and they'll hire more little guys.

Once you unleash the horses of competition and individual incentive, the economy will come roaring back.

Problem is, small businesses and big businesses alike are swimming in cash, but they are not hiring, for the very good reason, there are not a lot of customers out there.

There are not a lot of customers because people who don't have jobs tend to not spend a lot.

So, the Democrats have said, if business is failing to hire and if private enterprise is failing to put people to work, people who will spend, then we, the people of the government will do it. Once people have jobs, businesses will have customers and we'll have tax payers and the economy will come roaring back, just the way it's done throughout history.

The Democrats have said, if the patient is bleeding out on the emergency room table, let's stop the bleeding, start the intravenous lines, infuse some blood and we'll worry about how the patient will pay for it once he's back on his feet.

Dead patients don't pay bills.

But nobody hears the Democrats because the Republicans are always big, loud and angry, so angry and so sure of themselves they can say the most transparently stupid things, like spending is the problem, lack of income is not a problem, and that stupidity gets accepted as conventional wisdom.

The next stage of battle for the Republicans is the Obamacare bill. They will argue in the Supreme Court that the government cannot be allowed to compel a citizen to buy health insurance. This is the end of liberty, if a man has to buy health insurance even though he believes he will never need it, will never get ill or injured and even if that means all the rest of us will have to pay for his heedlessness.

We know that argument in New Hampshire, where you can ride a motorcycle without a helmet and when you are found brain damaged on the roadside and wind up quadraplegic in a hospital for the rest of your life, the taxpayers have to pay for your care--but it was your Constitutional right to live free or die (or linger) and not have to pay for the risk you were taking.

In fact, if you cannot compel a citizen to buy health insurance, then what have we been doing all these years compelling people to buy health insurance in the form of Medicare? And we've been making people by unemployment insurance against their will all these years, and we've been calling it social security.

We've played the role of uber parent, forcing people to put aside money for a future they may never live.

But now, we'll have our day in court, and, you heard it here first: Justices Thomas, Scalia, Alieto and Roberts will all agree, Obamacare and by extension, Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional intrusion of government into private lives; Thomas Jefferson and John Adams and Jame Madison never said we could have these programs where the government steps in and forces citizens to plan for the future. We have no such text in the original good book we call The Constitution.

Ah, a Republican paradise, a clean sweep.