On The Scale of Self-Deceit and Frivolity Unto Extinction, there are points well beyond first-world problems. They indicate the extent to which life in the United States is luxurious enough that we can afford to make shit up to worry about. They also confirm the point made by Bill Maher that Americans are a silly people. Consider this item, which was brought to my attention most recently:

On February 9, 2024, The Virginian-Pilot newspaper ran an article with the headline, ”PETA wants carousel maker to stop creating rides with animal figures”. Not animals. Animal figures. At the very least, that indicates the folks at PETA (the Professionally Emptyheaded Troublemaking Association) are in desperate need of hobbies or would benefit from something considerably more substantial to worry about. But no. These folks are as serious as a wide-open southern border. Get a load of this:

Sentient beings? No. They’re not. They’re inanimate, unthinking, unfeeling objects, just like the folks at PETA.

Follow the Bouncing Ball

What the hell are we doing? It seems as if I ask that question with disarming frequency. But another one occurs to me: Have we lost sight of the fact that more and more of what we’re doing is frivolous and meaningless because we (think we) don’t have more important things to worry about? I think that’s possible. I also think its possible we’ve become so carelessly apathetic because the government has convinced us (or we’ve assumed) it will take care of everything. It won’t. All it will do is grow and exert more control, even as it becomes more and more bureaucratically dysfunctional.

According to USAFacts, 2.95 million people were employed by the federal government as of last September. If you were never curious about anything else, have you ever wondered what they all do? And check this out: As of 2016, based on the latest data I found, “Compensation for Federal Workforce Costs the Government $1 Million Per Minute.” And since we’re borrowing money like drunken gamblers playing with loaded dice, we’re the functional equivalents of our own loan sharks.

We’re paying for a war in Ukraine and financing the defense of Israel at the same time at which we’re letting hordes of illegal aliens stream across our southern border and subsidizing their existences. We don’t have a humanitarian crisis. We have a crisis of priorities and common sense. We have a dereliction of duty by the federal government to protect its citizens. And we worry about images of animals on carousels? Good Grief.

Since You Asked …

People often say to me, “OB, you don’t seem to lack for criticism. But you seem to come up short in the Alternative Suggestions Department.” Point taken. Accordingly, here are an even 14 suggestions we might adopt to straighten this mess out:

1. In very general terms, let’s cut the shit. Let’s stop indulging all the first-world nitwits and woke crybabies until AFTER we’ve secured the border, stanched the fiscal hemorrhage, and restored a modicum of integrity to our elections.
2. Let’s go to dictionary.com, look up sovereignty, and close our borders. We can’t afford to (or won’t) take care of our citizenry as it is. Why would we choose to pay for illegal aliens?
3. Let’s take just half of the money we spend to support other people’s wars and give it to our military veterans, so they can take care of themselves. Then we can axe the Veteran’s Administration (VA), which is sucking wind anyway.
4. Let’s cut the budget of the National Education Association (NEA) in half and give the other half to parents who want to send their children to private schools, rather than sending them to public indoctrination centers. Then we can axe the NEA, which is sucking wind anyway.
5. Let’s cut the green, net-zero, wind-turbine, solar crap, go nuclear for sustainable energy, and cut subsidies to the green-energy frauds whose failures we continue to underwrite. Then we can axe the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is sucking wind anyway.
6. Let’s recognize, in the words of Adrian Rogers, “You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”
7. Consistent with #6, let’s ban the words revenue and investment from the taxonomy of government. Revenue is the money generated from normal business operations, calculated as the average sales price times the number of units sold. It is not taxes levied or tax dollars collected by the government. An investment is an asset or item acquired with the goal of generating income or appreciation … an increase in the value of an asset over time. It is not the allocation of tax dollars from which there is no income or appreciation generated, unless you count re-election as income or appreciation.
8. Let’s recognize that if we don’t take responsibility for ourselves, we don’t have any right to expect anyone else — especially the government — to take care of us.
9. Let’s stop calling voter ID laws discriminatory. If having to show a valid ID is discriminatory, then I’m discriminated against every time I go to the liquor store or get pulled over by a cop for drinking what I just bought in the liquor store while I’m driving. And I’m an identity-card-carrying member of the white-privileged, Western-Europe-derived, oppressive patriarchy. In what Bizarro World does that make even the slightest bit of sense, for God’s sake?
10. Let’s insist the people we elect to public office pass an exam on the same Constitution they fraudulently swear to uphold.
11. Let’s abide by the suggestions of the Constitution, send Representatives to Washington for two years, send Senators to Washington for six years, and send their asses back home to support themselves in the private sector.
12. Let’s make the U.S. government the first bureaucracy in history to get smaller and the people we send to Congress the first to say, “No,” to anything — or to at least stop making promises that won’t get them re-elected anyway because of #7 and #11.
13. Let’s trust our senses and give ourselves credit for recognizing the reality that if something doesn’t look good or smell right, it’s probably rotten.
14. Let’s stop listening to the career politicians whose careers we haven’t yet nuked and their lackeys in the mainstream media, think for ourselves, and question everything we see and hear.

Life is About Choices

If you think we should ban animal images on carousels; surrender our national sovereignty by leaving the border open; ignore our veterans, our school children, and our energy needs; impose higher taxes on the rich while half the population pays none; abdicate personal responsibility; let people vote without proof of identity (failure to show ID is a crime in a growing number of states, even if you’re not trying to vote); leave politicians in office for life as corruption and bureaucratic dysfunction grow; ignore our own senses; and do what the ruling elite tell us without question, you likely haven’t read this far. You’re also not likely to do anything about any of it.

But if you fear, as I do, that we’re on the Highway to Hell, let’s get busy. If you’re not sure what to do, start here. Shut off the news. Let the people you sent to Congress know you’re mad as hell, and you’re not going to take this anymore. Vote. Write. Stand up. Speak up. Ask questions. Don’t back down. And if you have any other ideas, call 1-800-GET-REAL. Operators are standing by to put your ideas on petitions.

Maybe if we do all those things, we can stop being a silly people.

The country we save could be our own.

Originally Published on https://www.bizcatalyst360.com/category/lifecolumns/notes-to-self/

Mark O'Brien Writer, Blogger

I'm the founder and principal of O'Brien Communications Group (obriencg.com) and the co-founder and President of EinSource (einsource.com). I'm a lifelong writer. My wife, Anne, and I have two married sons and four grandchildren. I'm having the time of my life.