Answering Fan Mail

I received an email about ten minutes ago, snidely informing me that I had failed to deliver a blog post yesterday as I said I would the day before. This email raised some interesting questions for me.

1) Where did you get my email address?

2) You obviously have no life.

Okay, so the second one wasn't a question. It would seem that someone misunderstood what I meant by "tomorrow." What I clearly meant was "I have things to do on my weekends, and will post something else when I jolly well feel like it."

Welcome back to Thinking Out Loudest.

I've been tossing around a lot of smaller issues in my mind, and I'd like to put them here. The problem is, I have a constitutional problem with posting short blog entries, so I've let them slip through. To remedy this, I'm going to make a post conglomerating all of them in neat, bite-sized sections. They'll even have their own titles!

Buying Your Vote

I've heard a lot in the news lately about Super-PACs, and the buying of votes. If you ask a corporate honcho who's in charge of one what they represent to America, they'll tell you that PACs are simply the exercising of a right to have one's voice heard. If you ask a democrat on Reddit what they mean for America, you'll get a ten page manifesto on why we live in a horrible third-world plutocracy because of them, culminating in a Marxist view on how we can redistribute the wealth of our richest citizens to fix all of the world's problems and make it rain kittens.

But what do they actually mean for America? Instead of listening to other people, you should listen to a blogger who has very little that would actually make him credible in the debate.

One of the biggest concerns raised with PACs, or Political Action Committees, is that they distribute the voice of the people based on wealth, resulting in corporations (generally the largest concentrations of wealth you'll find) being disproportionately loud. Except that TV networks have always sold their advertising to the highest bidder, whether that be a corporation, a PAC, or that lunatic down the street you've always suspected was secretly wealthy.

Keep reading, I'll tie this together with a rant at the end.

The Modern Robin Hood is a Fat Nerd in his Parents' Basement

Is that title too harsh? I think that title may be too harsh.

I am not a democrat. Ignoring the fact that to associate myself with the rampant corruption large political parties tend to accumulate would shatter every moral fiber in me, I really strongly disagree with democrats on most economic issues. See, if you ask a democrat about taxes, they'll give you a fifty page manifesto saying that we're living in a third-world plutocracy, and the only way to fix it is to have a sliding tax bracket scale up to 75% for those who make over a million dollars. They will culminate in a Marxist view on how we can redistribute the wealth of our richest citizens to fix all of the world's problems and make it snow baby bunnies that poop civil rights.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I do tend to find myself in communities saturated with democrats. One of the most common complaints about society I hear from them is that "the wealthy need to give back to society." It's a noble enough sentiment--people should care enough about each other to help each other when they need it--but the ways they tend to demand it implemented are no less garish than Robin Hood's methods. As great as your 75% tax brackets may sound to you, it's hugely discouraging to a potential entrepreneur to be told that "If you work hard, one day you'll get to keep a quarter for every dollar you make."

The real problem with taxes isn't that they're not high enough. 

The rent, on the other hand, is most assuredly too damn high.

The problem is that they're not being paid. We've all heard about how little (15% little) Mitt Romney pays in taxes, compared to the nearly 30% he's supposed to be paying, and this isn't an altogether uncommon tune. See, upping the 30% tax bracket to 50, 60 or 75% would do a really good job of hitting those who are honest about their taxes, and would continue to let those who dodge them off easy. If deduction loopholes were closed, on the other hand, the Feds would still get their revenue gains while only punishing those who would pay dishonestly low amounts.

Again, this will be tied together in a moment.

Those Old Magazines in the Lobbies

The third huge issue that tends to get harped on around the internet is political lobbying. The basic idea of lobbying is that a corporation/civil rights group/cult-thinly-disguised-as-a-religion-ie-all-of-them (Actually that last one is a lie, it's illegal for cults [and religions, if you insist that there's a difference] to directly lobby) pays people to go whisper in the ears of congress-men and women, telling them to vote the way said group wants and possibly hinting that next season's campaign funding might depend on it.

If you can't tell, I am not a fan of lobbying. Unfortunately, both sides have good points. If you ask a lobbyist about their job, they'll tell you that they're simply exercising their 1st amendment right to petition, which I think we can all agree is an important right. Of course, if you ask a democrat, they'll give you a two-hundred page manifesto on how lobbying is thinly veiled bribery that's turned our country into a third-world plutocracy.  They will culminate in a Marxist view on how we can redistribute the wealth of our richest citizens to fix all of the world's problems and prevent earthquakes by the clever use of scientifically bred unicorns that leave flowers in their hoof-prints and sing songs about racial equality.

It's a tricky issue to be sure. There's no real way to outlaw the act of lobbying, because it IS protected by the first amendment, and we don't want to set any nasty precedents when it comes to that. As for the thinly-veiled bribery (which IS present), it's hard to catch lobbyists in this sort of behavior and even harder to draw a line as to where it begins.

Which leads me to my final point.

The Guilty Party: We've Sold the Museum to the Gift Shop

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the guilty party for everything I've mentioned above.

That's right, every single person highlighted in green. Except maybe Alaska. We need to cut them a break, it's COLD up there, and they already have to deal with Palin.

That's right, I'm blaming all of us. All of the US, that is. Here's why.

If you go to a shady part of town and buy a car stereo for half what it's worth, you are almost certainly guilty of buying stolen goods. However, you are not the first person the police are going to (or at least,  should) hunt down. You committed a crime, and you pretty much knew you were committing a crime, but this was only made possible by your enabler (the guy who sold you the stereo) committing a far more important crime--the actual theft of the stereo.

Similarly, a Political Action Committee is "buying" votes for their cause with their disproportionate amounts of the money in circulation. However, those votes aren't literally made of the money. Those votes are your neighbors' votes. Those votes are your mothers' votes. Those votes are your votes, the ones you allowed to be swayed by those mudslinging TV ads.

Just as important are the votes that you didn't cast. About half of us can be assed to show up to throw a piece of paper in the box when it's the president we're dealing with electing, but less that 40% of us show up for elections that are only house or senate. What the fuck, America? It's really easy to let corporations get their way when we can't even get a majority to show up, let alone agree on anything.

Same goes for the taxes. Yes, it's really cute when you file so many deductions the Feds end up paying you for your taxes, but it's causing the damn problem. And don't give me any crap about what a small percentage middle-class deductions make up. It doesn't change the fact that you're demanding the rich start being honest when you can't figure out how yourself. You may make up a smaller piece of the pie, but you're still lacing your piece with arsenic after sucking all of the apple out. The rich should quit filing ridiculous deductions, but so should you.

I (well, my family in general) have been guilty of this in the past too. My family has varied in income between the 60-70k bracket and the 0-10k bracket, and it seems like my parents always managed to find enough deductions to avoid actually sending a dime in. Cut it the hell out, or quit complaining when the rich do the exact same thing on their larger scale.

And the crowning jewel on this cake (Wow, that was a tasty AND shiny mixed metaphor) is our wonderful (read, pile of shit) government. I say now without blinking and without the slightest regret that every house representative and senator needs to be voted OUT of our government. The lobbyists buying votes may be bad, but they're not half as bad as the guys selling their votes. And even they're not too bad compared to the morons (that's us) who keep voting them right back in to continue their work.

So yeah, the corporations of America have a share of the blame. The same share I'll give to the politicians, the lobbyists, and every single citizen in our nation. Keep screaming for change, but we all have to push before this bandwagon is going anywhere. So stand up with me, please. Leave the basements and lecture halls, and help me push.

Or, if you like, complain that you don't have a choice in this nation. It's your attitude that's ensuring you never will.

By the way, stalking me to find my email address and pestering about my blog schedule? That's the wrong kind of pushing.

~GK