And did I hear you say,
he was meeting you here today
to take you to his mansion in the sky
It has been said repeatedly that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly expecting a different result. So it was for Delta Dawn who waited for a mysterious stranger to come and take her away. She had been doing this for years and no longer questions that her man is coming. The reality that he hasn’t will not and cannot sway her core belief-The stranger has been delayed, his arrival is not in question. How could she see it any different. How easy for us to see and yet all of us have some issue of faith that is as blind. The axiom of conservative politics is lower taxes and raise productivity hence making greater return on lower rates. So why not scrap taxes entirely-the economy will boom and we will all prosper-or not.
There is a point of diminished returns that is reached long before taxes are at a point that will satisfy the ardant anti-tax crowd. The only solution for them for budget balancing is to cut services. Why not cut education spending? Teachers are leeches.
Jails? Again non-productive and inmates don’t need all of those creature comforts, after all it is supposed to be punishment, so let’s just cut the budget and make the process more efficient. Better yet let’s privatize the whole effort and those who want the services can pay. Very efficient allows for the reduction of government and helps to balance the budget. What could possibly be wrong with a system like that?
Unless you believe that the US Constitution is a social contract between government and the people in which the government specifically agreed to take care of essential functions “to promote the general welfare” so to speak. Public education is vital for industry as it provides trained and capable workers for a work force the increasingly requires more and more skills. To treat this like an industry and go into cost cutting mode to increase profits is to ignore what those profits are supposed to look like. The profits of education are not seen in lowered cost of education, but in the flexibility and readiness of the future workforce. This takes money and training for teachers and respect for the same. Punishing teachers for poor performance without looking to further remedies short circuits the process and leads to false economies. Fewer teachers working harder for less money does not create brilliant students . How can it?
Prison? Prisons already brutalize. Admittedly there are some prisoners who cannot be rehabilitated, but if we value human life and if we value each citizen there must be a way to work to integrate wrongdoers into a productive and satisfying relationship with society. Our current system and any system encouraged by cuts in funding will only serve to sustain prison as a place to teach the strong to survive by preying on the weak, as a place for training for further criminal behavior rather than as a place to model correct behaviors and reward socially acceptable behavior.
Medicine? Let us not even start down that one today. Just don’t get sick or injured and all will be fine. Suffice it to say that the cost of prevention is much less than the cost of treatment in an emergency room and God help us if government stops funding that solution without funding prevention.
Meanwhile Delta Dawn is waiting for that dark haired stranger, the people in the pews are waiting for Jesus and a 1000 Muslim Martyrs are awaiting their 70,000 virgins.
