The Bookworm Beat — Time Suckage edition (and Open Thread)
This was one of those days in which, due to a combination of duty and sloth, I watched my time just go sucking down the drain. In the morning, I spent several hours caring for my mother, recycling electronics, donating to Goodwill, and shopping. When I got home, instead of sitting down at my computer, I yielded to my daughter’s importuning to watch “just one more episode of ‘Say Yes To The Dress (Atlanta).'” And just like that — boom! — I’ve lost two hours of my life watching brides fight with the friends, family, and self-image to get the “perfect” dress.
People in the old days were more productive — writing novels with quills by candlelight, circumnavigating the globe on sailing ships and donkeys, building grand cathedrals by hand — because they had less time suckage. It’s the junk time that wastes time.
I’d give myself several lashings with a wet noodle if I had the time to do so . . . except that I have to leave in 5 minutes for an appointment with my banker.
Since I don’t have time even to link to anything, I thought I’d run through a few thoughts in my mind, and then hand the baton to all of you. Please forgive typos. I’m not kidding about being rushed, and I’m taking the gamble of leaving without proofreading.
I heard a snippet on the radio today saying that Obama signed into law today a bill to fix veterans’ health care. Among other things, the new bill allows the Veterans’ Administration to fire poorly performing upper level managers. Think about that for a moment. It is, in a nutshell, everything that is wrong with our bloated federal government. In the normal world, nobody thinks twice about firing people who aren’t doing their job. In the government world, you need special Congressional permission even to think about doing so.
What’s even more shocking about the above story is that most people don’t even think twice about that little factoid. Instead of thinking, “Get rid of the government unions, slash the federal budget, limit government to all put basic, essential government services,” they’re thinking, “Great, now the problem is fixed, and veterans won’t die at the hands of their own government.”
Honestly, when I look at the headlines — the Middle East aflame, Putin flaunting his personal strength against Obama’s manifest weakness, rising antisemitism, ISIS approaching some of the world’s biggest oil reserves, ISIS threatening mass genocide, a broken border, a stagnant economy, horrific race relations in America under a black president, etc. — I don’t understand why the American people aren’t rising up with one voice and throwing out every bum in Washington, D.C., not to mention all of the blue State capitols.
We’ve been so brainwashed that we think this is good enough. It’s okay to have a president who thinks the constitution is a hindrance; a Democrat party that is willing to welcome in 5-8 million illegal aliens (destroying minority employment) just so that it can ensure votes; and a Republican party that will say “yes” to anything the Democrats propose so long as it can keep a presence in Washington and, through that, keep the money flowing into their and their friends pockets.
Socialist and theocratic societies relentlessly believe that man can be perfected. By contrast, capitalism accommodates human weaknesses, rather than ignoring them. That’s why it’s been so successful. But it cannot work if allows man to debase himself so that he is nothing more than weakness. As the Founders understood, without a moral underpining that comes, not from the state, but from the individual, capitalism is as brutal a system as any other.
We in America seem to have achieved the worst of both worlds: the immorality of socialism combined with the brutality of corrupted, crony-ridden capitalism. We can recover, but it’s not going to be enough just to elect a Republican here or there. We can recover only if America discovers its love both for freedom and decency.
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