The pickle...

I'm in quite a mental pickle here lately. I feel almost conflicted about my intent, like I'm living two lives. I'm working hard positioning myself for the future. I'm invested in long term projects at work and in my personal life. There are things I've done that I can't possibly reap rewards from for five or ten years, and to top it all off, I even got a new puppy that I will be responsible for well into my forties.

The other half of me has been watching the country slip into complacency. We live in a representative republic, that is run like a democracy. Our representatives on a daily basis stick their finger in the air and see which way the wind is blowing so they know how to vote. The net result is the mainstream media has become the most powerful branch in our government. I can hear it now, “but Torqued, the media isn't a branch of the government”, and that is true in a literal sense. Consider this though, the media has only to sensationalize an issue, enrage people's emotions about a topic, and the polls change. The politicians, check the polls and determine which side of an issue they better stand on to best insure their reelection. The silent majority gets out polled by the noisy minority.

Let's look at the issue of immigration, there are 300 million people in this country, 100 million classified as minorities. I can think of no reason the majority of 300 million people would want to pay twice as much tax so that a group of people could come in and take their jobs, commit crimes against them, clog up their roads, and bankrupt their emergency rooms. If you asked anyone on the street if they wanted a new government program where every citizen would have to pay for someone else's health care, food, and housing, I think the overwhelming answer would be a loud “Hell NO!”. Now throw in the mix that the person they are paying benefits for also takes their job, robs their house, and wrecks their car with no repercussions, and how many of that 300 million would vote for a program like that??

There are several groups of people who would support that plan. Socialists and communists are at the head of the line, taking from the rich and giving to the poor, and requiring their subjects to rely on the government for everything from health care to food. Today our representatives feel that the people they represent want a program just like that. So does that mean we are being governed by legislature and President who are socialists and communists?? On the surface it appears that way, but what is really happening is our media is full of socialists and communists, and they are structuring their reporting to cause our representatives to vote us out of freedom. Nope, common sense no longer runs America, instead we do as we're told, we get passionate about the things the media tells us to, and we pay tax on taxes so we can import poverty from a third world country.

Oh, but the media is not the only bad guy in this tale. In almost any mystery the best way to find the source of a problem is to follow the money. So if we let dollar signs lead us to who benefits from allowing millions of illegal immigrants into this country there is another short list of people who also gain from the fresh meat. The liberal talk show hosts claim it's “big business” who has the most to gain, the pseudo conservative talk shows all claim the Democrats want amnesty for a new class of voters who will most likely vote Democrat. Big business is a possibility, but they are also the same group who pays the largest chunk to the government. Property taxes pay for the increased load on the schools, increased health care premiums pay for people without health care, and federal taxes pay for the rest of the cost of the working poor. They may save a buck on wages, but they then give those savings to the government in the form of taxes. If big business is using illegals to increase profits, it's a short sighted strategy at best.

The Democrats might be behind the big push, but let's be honest, they are just puppets for the unions. Plus, most of them are only really concerned with what affects them. Coming up with and implementing a plan this large while keeping the American public from figuring it all out takes more thought and planning than most politicians are capable of. Remember, these are the people who flip flop on some pretty basic issues daily. The truth of the matter is, our best and brightest aren't the people who run for office.

Following that train of thought, a good place to look might be at the unions themselves. The teacher's union probably has the most to gain. Increases in students means increases in teachers, which leads to larger unions and more dues coming in. The labor unions have priced themselves out of many markets (automobiles, steel, meat packing, etc...) an influx of cheaper labor would allow them the adjustment in the market they need to bring back their popularity and the power they crave. The unions themselves don't pay any real taxes or benefits, so there isn't much of a downside.

There is one other group who would stand to benefit financially from a large migration from Mexico without having an increased tax burden, and that is organized religion. Let's see, Christianity in this country has taken some pretty big hits in the last couple decades. The Atheists have done better job of twisting the meaning of the first amendment from freedom of religion, to separation of church and state than the Christians have done defending their right to their religion. Add in the scandals with the televangelists shaking down the elderly, the child molester priests, and the Pope insulting (and then backing down from) the Muslims, and you've got a group on the ropes getting pummeled. The fastest way to gain a bunch of ground in this country would be for them to import a group of ready made church goers. If you toss in the fact that Christians are being out bred by Muslims in every developed country, the anti-birth control Hispanics are a perfect fix for the church. The icing on the cake is by forcing the middle class in this country to subsidize an increasing welfare population, more of them fall back to religion for support and hope. It's a winning situation all the way around.

I know, you're going to ask me how the church can push this issue in the government with the separation of church and state. Well that's easy, the church enacts legislation just like the media. They hop up on their soapbox and preach hot button issues that will cause the fence walkers in their flock to vote the way they want them to vote. It's really that easy, when you want a republican voted in, you bring the pro-life movement to the surface, and when you need a democrat put in place you bring up the less fortunate who need help to keep from starving.

Why did I drag all these people through the political mud? Mostly just to prove the point that we are all guilty of electing liars and crooks into office for our own selfish reasons. We are leading ourselves down a path that none of us would follow if we were independent thinkers.

What few have seen and even fewer have spoke of is the balance of a democracy. The turning point in every democracy is when more than half of the population is dependent on the government for their survival. All that is left to happen is for the majority to figure out that they can vote themselves more money and benefits from the minority that actually create wealth, effectively turning them into slaves. Big government and social services are the equivalent of parasites feeding on a capitalist animal. When the parasitic load becomes to great for the animal to overcome, the animal dies. In the case of the United States, when you kill the capitalist animal, you effectively kill the republic.

History has a habit of repeating itself, and I do believe in the near future the parasites of this country will put such a burden on the people creating wealth for the country that we will be left with only one choice. The founding fathers wrote in the Declaration of Independence: “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Yep, we're talking about a revolution, another tax revolution to be exact. When the people who pay taxes feel like they don't have a voice in their government (taxation without representation), the revolution will begin. The balance of democracy has been reached, and if an amnesty program is allowed to pass we'll be headed down that slope at a much faster clip as the politicians buy votes with our treasury.

This leads me right back to my pickle. I'm living my life planning for what has been the norm in America for the last one hundred years or so, all the while I can see the roadblock and the right turn that takes this country down a different path. I'm left here conflicted. Hoping my senses are off, my view of the world twisted, and my logic flawed. I feel like an ostrich with his head in the sand, hiding from what I see as the inevitable conclusion to the American dream. I can see flashbacks of my childhood trying to explain to my mother, “but mom, everyone else was doing it” and her response of, “if everyone jumped off a cliff would you do that too?”.

I guess I would...