PRINCIPLES without Interest

 

 

My Response to: Confessions of a Flip-Flopper November 21, 2011 - 1:18 am - by Roger L Simon

 

Changing one’s mind as we go through a process of gathering more information is an intellectual right, however there is a very clear line where matters of PRINCIPLE are non-negotiable.

I am not speaking of a choice between which deficit financed budget is more palatable to one’s own constituency be they conservative or liberal.

I AM speaking of, for instance, the PRINCIPLE that theft is wrong. There is no time, situation, or scenario when you will be found to have commissioned a "justifiable theft".

With blatant disregard, we are daily passing on debt we cannot by any reasonable means repay to our unborn future generations who have no voice or roll in these obligations other than to pay the bill.

That is THEFT and that is WRONG!  Furthermore, looking at the global debt crises, it is an act of global inter -generational suicide upon our species! We, by the power of the printing press, are eating our own children. It is mass psychotic behavior on a scale which makes the Holocaust look more like a temporary FLIP-FLOP of good judgment for German citizens on their national policies.

I do not mean to offend the survivors of the Holocaust by trivializing their suffering. My intent is to elevate awareness to the eventual consequences our current course of action will have upon our children and their children for generations to come.

The Burden of Shame

 
Do you feel the people inhabiting the modern day city of Rome should bear the burden of shame for the Roman decimation of the native (Indigenous) peoples who once resided, presumably peacefully, on that portion of the present day Italian Peninsula?

They were a pre-literate agrarian society known as the Etruscans, who were so thoroughly snuffed out by the Romans that not much more than this is known about them. The picture to the left is what a common Etruscan Sod and Stone Dwelling from the First Millennium BC would have looked like.

Perhaps, my initial question is premature since the Etruscans at the very least displaced, but more likely conquered and possibly enslaved, a previous civilization. This unnamed pre-Etruscan civilization built basic tombs and had developed religious rights for their dead. They crafted tools from not only elk bones, but had and developed metallurgy to the point of producing numerous bronze artifacts such as rings and axes specifically designed for war as well as others designed for hunting.

Wait, the evidence of war axes made of bronze indicates that even these ancient indigenous people had the blood of some other previous occupants of the real estate that the Pope calls “home” on their hands.

We really don’t need to creep around in the dark recesses of history where Stone Age people may have pounced upon one another for the nicer cave with all the modern conveniences (e.g. - access to hunting grounds, water, less bat shit, or what have you). What of the bloody Roman Empire? People flock from all over the world to see the Coliseum where the blood of millions of subjugated peoples was spilled for fun of the common Roman. Aren’t the People of modern Rome, as well as the modern nation of Italy as a whole, at this very moment not only enjoying the spoils of these murdered people, but they are profiting from the tourist trade. Hundreds of millions of Euros flow to Rome every year, should they not hang their heads in shame for their crimes against humanity?

No!
From Beijing to Machu Picchu and from Ireland to Polynesia everyone wiped out or enslaved someone else to take their resources or real estate. This process isn’t a recent occurrence either. It was not brought on by over-population of the virus, more commonly known as humanity. It is not caused by Capitalism, Western civilization, some murky inherent dehumanization within industrial society, or the religious “Right”, as many Social(ist) Studies textbooks in use today would have you and your children believe. These tools of  "Critical theory" believe that the American people as a whole are culpable for an offence given by generations long dead against a people who are no longer living. Their ill-concieved rant fails to note that the vast majority of American citizens today are not descendants of those who profited from either slavery or the near extermination of the indigenous peoples of North America.

In truth, while the atrocities of African slavery and tribal genocide were being carried out, the majority of our European ancestors were living under near Medieval feudalism in Europe. The life of a serf is arguably equal to if not worse than that of a slave. A slave was purchased at a cost and considered valued property, while a serf was merely another mouth for the noble lord to feed once his crops had been harvested and when he needed no bodies to impale against another feudal lords pikes in his ambitious plan to take something that did not belong to him.

Once, again if anyone is to blame or to be called into account, it is not the People of the United States, Western culture, Capitalism, or Christendom, but government controlled by the few and claiming to be acting on behalf of a cause much higher than their own naked ambition.

Debt Limit Drama

 

They had us, didn't they? It was griping, dramatic, emotional, and the shocking conclusion left us feeling much like the series finale of Alf. Do you remember that? No of course not, I was one of the 11 viewers who tuned in for that television event. I had to see how the writers could bring a show as asinine as Alf to anything resembling a logical conclusion. The answer is they couldn't and it ended with, 

“To be continued…” 

I kid you not, and that is how the debt limit deal ended as well. There was no genius 11th hour catharsis, no remarkable turn of events that set us down the road to a bright or even sane fiscal future, and nothing to demonstrate that “The Tea Party” remains a force to be reckoned with. What we got was “To be continued…” and when the next debt limit ceiling looms near, it will terminate in yet another capitulation to the lure of reckless spending. This “compromise” could have been cut weeks ago. What was the point of running the budget cutting football all the way to the one yard line on fourth down only to take a knee and surrender the game?  The drama? The photo ops? The lack of any useful work to perform?

 

Regardless of how you analyze this play by the Republicans, the final score read:

Conservatives: 0           
Liberals: 2,400,000,000,000

Sure, there is the estimated $917 billion in initial "cuts", which in fact are reductions in spending increases.  There is an additional $1.5 trillion to be carved from the bloated budget later. However, both of these adjustments will be implemented by the same pack melodramatic miscreants on a bi-polar spending spree who created the 14 trillion dollar national debt that precipitated this Stand-off Showdown in the first place. Create the beast, then play the white knight coming to slay the beast, mount your trusty stead and charge! charge! charge another two and a half trillion bucks.

Somehow this scenario seems strikingly familiar, doesn’t it? Of course, we have been the victim of these creative government financing arraignments repeatedly for the past 75 years. It was 1936 when the first Balanced Budget Amendment, House Joint Resolution 579, was introduced by Harold Knutson (R–MN) and summarily executed in Congress. Mr. Knutson must have appeared a serious killjoy that early in the game with only 16 Billion in public debt to be concerned about. Today the government will spend 16 billion dollars before noon tomorrow, and 6 Billion of that will have to be borrowed!

I must admit my disappointment the Tea Party is shared with the Obama Dream Team. I expected more from the "Smartest People on the Planet" as they were touted in the opening days of the Administration. With the large number of former Goldman Sachs executives in the Obama administration, I'm dismayed that they couldn't structure a magnificently pitched, highly leveraged, poorly labeled, and remarkably incomprehensible market security out of the national debt. Current debt could be exchanged for unsecured equity.  When this house (and senate) of cards comes crashing down, the US stock price drops to zero, and the stockholders (China, Saudi Arabia, and anyone else but us) get screwed instead of our children! I suppose that only works for investment banks, insurance companies, labor unions, and other major campaign contributing types.

Inevitably the results of the hundreds of similar  compromises in the past have yielded tax increases which materialize in multiples of the original figures and spending cuts which disintegrate in to the ether. Year after year the deficit recorded on the bottom line will grow inexorably and the National Debt will deepen exponentially. The chance of the horrific "default" will engulf the Treasury and become a mater of inevitability. The American Dream and our children's futures pass into history. The same Esteemed Members of our Distinguished Congress who produced this grand "compromise" will hastily resolve to retire internationally in a tropical land with no extradition treaty.

I hope you don't think I am being entirely cynical, because I'm really not completely pessimistic on the future. I'm sure our children will look back on this debt limit hullabaloo some day and laugh about our fuss and bother over the matter. They will have more pressing concerns to attend to as they huddle together for warmth against the freezing wind in the dirty alleyways they will call home.