Things that will not change

Things "the government" doesn't really want to solve as taken from the original post, so let's walk through these:

-Corruption

There may well be a few congress critters that want to clean up corruption but like law enforcement the corruption is now endemic and I fear the only way we could be rid of it entirely is to completely clean house of every congress critter, every bureaucrat, every single government employee, at every level...sadly this would require a total reset and usually involves a "mostly violent mass protests" ie: revolution 

 

"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful rebellions indeed generally establish the encroachments on the rights of the people which have produced them. An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."

- Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, January 30, 1787

-Fascism

Websters defines this term:

"a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition"

Now it really does not matter if you are on the right, the left, or a centrist, we can all see the echos of fascism in our current political atmosphere.  We can all see that news outlets are biased and parrot whatever the current head of state or seemingly high ranking bureaucrat says ad nauseam.  We can all agree that what comes out of the mouth of all press secretaries is heavily edited, heavily biased, and many times, blatantly a lie.  We can all see our values as a whole being squashed by the boot of the other side, but few are willing to see that both "sides" are the same anymore and it is only a matter of optics that makes them appear to be different.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

― George Orwell, 1984

 

-Human rights

This is a very pliable term so no there is no congress critter that will try to solve it.  How flexible?  Health care is a human right.  Clean water is a human right.  Abortion on demand is a human right.  Safety in the womb is a human right.  Self defense is a human right...yeah the list gets long really fast, suffice to say it will always be used by one side or the other.

 

Sign, sign

Everywhere a sign

Blockin' out the scenery

Breakin' my mind

Do this, don't do that

Can't you read the sign?

 --Les Emmerson

-War

Anything involving the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) will never be fixed.  Congress critters are constantly bombarded by lobbyists from the MIC, many have bases that employ lots of local civilian workers in their districts.  Then how many have weapons manufacturing facilities in their districts?  To cut funding means putting constituents out of work that could be voting for them in the next term.

Now factor in how much of a stockpile of Illudium P-36 explosive space modulators can we keep around before we can't store them all?  So if you can't store them you have to use them.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road. the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."
--Dwight Eisenhower Address "The Chance for Peace" Delivered Before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, 4/16/53

-Gun Violence

No pun intended but this is a loaded topic.

Gun violence has a plethora of causes, broken homes, childhood trauma, drug and alcohol abuse, psychological operations--notice lately we have moved from school shootings to random mass shootings?  The failure of society to properly teach how a gun works and that it is a tool not a disagreement moderator.  We would do well to teach anger management, conflict resolution, and mindfulness, to our youth so anger does not become death.  We have gang problems that won't easily go away without crisis intervention.  So long as the issue can be spun both ways, and the press gobbles it up to regurgitate it, this isn't going to be solved especially since the solution is cheap and easy.

"Anger is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die."

--Buddha 

-Black Markets

I see the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) as an attempt to crush both the black & the grey markets.*  It will make it near impossible to pay Mrs. Smith for watching the kids in an un-permitted day care that is in her home, the shade tree mechanic that the neighborhood all uses gets cut out too.  Both of these people are in the grey market.  Why do you think the current administration is now watching Pay-Pal, Venmo, and Cash App?

My fear is it's the front door to what the U.N. proposed back in 80's, a one world currency controlled by the U.N.

We need to be on a backed currency, be it gold, copper, lead, oak, whatever.  We need the option to conduct transactions in what backs the currency as we used to do.  I remember the fallout from Nixon taking us off the gold standard and it was not pretty...yeah, I'm getting old.

*More on this in an upcoming post 

Fiat currency is just like a Fiat car

Fix

It

Again

Tony

-Identity Politics

I once new a man that said: "The reason the government started bussing kids around instead of actually fixing the schools was to mix the races, so eventually no one could claim being a minority."  Now I am only quoting him here because in a sense he may have been onto something.  If enough people are confused they soon don't know who to be mad at.  If you confuse people enough, everyone soon is pointing fingers at well, everyone.

Lets take the current hot button issue of trans gender individuals:

"According to the Williams Institute, 1.4 million adults identify as transgender in the United States. About 0.5% of adults 18-24 identify as transgender, and 0.3% of adults 65 and older identify as transgender." Source

So we have a firestorm that is way out of proportion to reality.  We are passing laws against 0.5% of the adult population and how they live when we could be working on real problems.  The big issue is if this is what the media is showing us, what are they not showing us?

We are being split into an us versus them mentality.  As a population we are being diced up like an onion for a batch of chili when the fact that some of us are tomatoes, some onions, others are beans, and some are chunks of meat, is what makes the United States unique.  The whole melting pot tradition to me is a bit off as a melting pot is homogeneous and honestly kind of bland, but we are a batch of chili, spicy, thick with traditions, and each ingredient contributing to the whole experience.  So what are the LGBT in this?  A bit of spice, the same as the BDSM community, and the various religions too.  We can live peacefully together being black, white, indigenous, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Aussie, Catholic, Baptist, Pagan, atheist...each culture brings there own unique flavor to the whole and we should embrace them all and relish in the totality of the result.

“I don’t like ass kissers, flag wavers, or team players. I like people who buck the system. Individualists. I often warn people: Somewhere along the way, someone is going to tell you: ‘There is no I in team.’ What you should tell them is: ‘Maybe not. But there is an I in independence, individuality, and integrity.'”

--George Carlin 

 

-Police brutality

This is a tough one to really work out, but the only answer I feel is correct is that police unions have donated strategically to particular congress critters.  Considering we have factions that are "All Cops Are Bad" and "Back The Blue" both of which are probably a threat to the police unions it is easy to see why we can't get brutality brought under control so long as we have a heavy handed union to grease palms regularly. 

"He who has the gold makes the rules"

--Jaffar in Aladdin

 

-Infrastructure

It really doesn't matter who is in office they will always push for "shovel ready projects" whoever is in office will always be able to claim "See what my administration did for you?"  Why would anyone want to fix everything when they can wait and claim a win for their side?

For all the money we have dumped into foreign aid and foreign wars we could be much more advanced in our infrastructure--maybe even have real rest-areas again possibly with charging stations.  We could have fewer potholes, more secure bridges, etc.  Our Interstate highway system was built on the idea of being able to move infantry from one side of the nation to the other rapidly.  Right now between constant long-term repairs and marginal bridges, could we really use the system the way it was intended safely?

How did I get here?  Must have been that left turn in Albuquerque.

--Bugs Bunny 

-property rights for individuals 

If property rights were truly enhanced to their true point property taxes would be outlawed.  Full property rights would also make "Eminent Domain" a useless thing of the past.  By eliminating eminent domain though it makes it harder for the government be it local or Federal levels to take your property be it for a road, a military base, a sports arena, a park or civil asset forfeiture.

 “I believe the term is ‘eminent domain.’

Ah, yes.  That means ‘theft by the government,”

― Terry Pratchett

 

-tax schemes

No one in congress wants this cash cow to go away.  They can campaign every election on changing the tax code.  "Let's stick it to the rich!"  "We should exempt minimum wage workers from taxes!"  "We need to eliminate taxes on single mothers!"  Yes I have heard everyone of these in my lifetime so far and I am sure more will creep up that are even more bizarre.

A lot a sycophants will tell you that the United States has a very low tax rate compared to most countries.  The problem is those same people leave out a lot of taxes.  Typically you can figure on clearing 77% of your paycheck for the average worker after taxes so let's look a bit closer:

$15 an hour by 77% is $11.55 of that if we figure a 40 hour week we get $1,848 per month.  Now we take out rent that can't exceed 33% we are left with $1232.  Now using my own household economy I spend $125 on average for food but of that 9.35% is are taxes ($11.66) or $46.64 a month.  I use about 15 gallons of gasoline a week with $0.27 per gallon fuel tax so another $4.05 a week or $16.20 a month.  So in common, easy to just pull off the top of my head taxes, we hit $7992.92 a year or 26% and I have not added in cell phone taxes, utility sales taxes, sin taxes, property taxes, personal property taxes...

"Taxation is theft, purely and simply even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged criminals could hope to match.  It is a compulsory seizure of the property of the State's inhabitants, or subjects."

--Murray N. Rothbard

In closing I will leave you with a similar list being reflected upon from 46 years ago:

When I took office, our Nation faced a number of serious domestic and international problems:

• no national energy policy existed, and our dependence on foreign oil was rapidly increasing;

• public trust in the integrity and openness of the government was low;

• the Federal government was operating inefficiently in administering essential programs and policies;

• major social problems were being ignored or poorly addressed by the Federal government;

• our defense posture was declining as a result of a defense budget which was continuously shrinking in real terms;

• the strength of the NATO Alliance needed to be bolstered;

• tensions between Israel and Egypt threatened another Middle East war; and

• America's resolve to oppose human rights violations was under serious question.

--Jimmy Carter 39th President of the United States, State of the Union address January 16, 1981

Maura out