I have no delusions that an amorphous group of elected representatives, of wide-ranging intellectual capacity, is capable of stumbling about the halls of Congress to formulate, debate and legislate any bill that would significantly improve my quality of life, enhance my liberty or provide me greater access to the pursuit of happiness. Like most big, big things, the various parts and internal activities of government too often operate in independent and contrary ways. The result is inefficient productivity and, at the extreme, destructive chaos. Our legislators, like the vast majority of others, have become a dysfunctional beast whose every step or misstep is added indelibly to an unreadable blueprint of political incorrectness. This atmosphere of misrepresentation has made us all wary of our place in the grand scheme, a wariness only trumped after closer examination reveals that there simply is no grand, or any other scheme at all.
The latest reality show debate over tax cuts is a distillation of my premise, with Republicans, (who I guess have become the public face of corporate America while pretending to be the anti-government champion of the common man), refusing to embrace equitable taxation, while Democrats, (the well-meaning yet slow-moving champions of…well, no one, really), posture and pout as they are outmaneuvered time after time. The result, (other than an unrelated add-on extension to unemployment insurance), only benefits the very, very rich. The extension of the Bush tax cuts is an infinitesimal blip on the balance sheet of 90% of us; a token incentive at best. The politically correct version would be to only tax the wealthiest, not as punishment, but as the logical response to, “Hey, look at all the piles of dough you guys made living the American dream and, oh, yeah, because of the way needy politicians suck up to your every whim…don’t you think you should be paying your fair share, at least to insure that the sucking continues?”
Like too many of the rules and regulations meant to guide our social activity, political correctness has become little more than a George Carlin sketch. For many of us playing the home game, the easy version of proper word substitutions for race and gender is challenging enough. In the pro game, party affiliation supersedes substance, electability outweighs performance and truth…is in the mind of the beholder. For anyone wishing to be further enlightened on just how hopelessly politically incorrect we have become, there is a new rule book on the bestseller list with easy to understand words…even the made up ones. It’s called, Decision Points.