The Way We Perceive Things

Where in the world is South Dakota? While still quite young, it was a surprise for me to learn that what is considered the Middle West is east of where I lived in South Dakota. However, when considering the area covered by the High Country News magazine, our state is not part of the west. Even though South is part of our state’s name, we are northerners.

Look at that name Middle West and consider that the even though there is a place like that in our country, there is no corresponding complimentary Middle East within our borders. How did these apparent misnomers get by all the political correctness my neighbors like to make fun of. Perhaps, they aren’t socialist concepts?

Socialism seems to be a new buzz word with about the same relationship to reality as some of the place names in our country. I know where Dallas South Dakota is, but when you hear people talking about the Dallas Cowboys, rarely is the boot and hat variety of our locale the topic of the conversation.

Likewise, socialism had a definite definition when I took classes that touched on political science. What I hear as defining socialism today blurs the lines of reality and could be used to describe situations that many of the users of the term would not want included in their disdainful labeling fiesta. Like using taxpayers’ dollars to provide health care for the general public is socialistic. Using taxpayers’ dollars to provide health care for veterans, elderly people, and elected officials is an accepted element of our idea of capitalism. Using taxpayer dollars to feed hungry people is socialist welfare. Using tax payer dollars supplement the relocation of independently healthy and profitable businesses is capitalism. Providing free access to publicly owned highway and road systems, free access to public owned schools, and free access to many other publicly provided services is capitalism and certainly is not wealth transference. However, providing housing assistance to people in need is socialistic redistribution of wealth. Are you confused?

How did these concepts get so turned around? Is there a difference between a business perk and welfare? Don’t get into argument that one is earned and the other is not because upon close scrutiny it can get very hard to identify which is which. Is a gift really a gift if there are conditions associated with reception eligibility? Most of us have heard of perks that come with the job but aren’t tied to the ability to do the job or to doing the job well. If that isn’t the case, what is all the fuss about bonuses for executives that are considered responsible only when the company shows a profit and not when there is a loss?

Why is it that Republican spending is capitalism and Democratic spending is socialism? Ronald Reagan’s administration ran up the first trillion dollar national debt, George W. Bush funded the first major war without a tax increase, and during the G. W. Bush administration a Republican controlled congress went on a spending spree that dwarfed all previous congressional spending sprees. No one accuses them of being borrow-and-spend Republicans. The cost of the Iraq war wasn’t even included in the normal federal budget; instead it was more on the order of an addendum called a supplement. Where were the current Tea Party protestors then and why don’t the protestors now identify these glaring omissions in their public presentations? Well, the answer to that is not really a surprise to anyone; that would be admitting to some holes in hull of their boat as well as the holes in their opposition’s vessel.

What’s that you say? This opinion piece includes some of those inflammatory words? Nanner nanner nann nerr, big fat water rat . . . That proves my point, we’re both able to tell the difference in how to describe things so that they sting and so are most children when they use name calling. Many times we use these words as devices to get the reader or listener’s attention. Unfortunately, instead of adding a little spice, we end up dropping a dump truck load of salt on an open wound. Then it becomes questionable as to just what the intention was or is for the use of this type of language. There are lots of people that use the strategy of divide and conquer. Why we do what we do depends a lot on the relationships involved.

Many of my conservative neighbors in this state have their personal finances under control. They don’t borrow unnecessarily and they don’t spend that way either. However, they wouldn’t let their children go under financially without trying to help them, even when their children may not necessarily be all that deserving of that help. They do it with the hope that in the end the children will see their own mistakes and avoid them in the future. Why is it so difficult to transfer or apply that same idea and reasoning to the family of man? Many of these neighbors that I refer to, have applied that theory through religious organizations they belong to and/or support. The hang-up is in the terminology and labels that we have learned to apply to public programs. Some how the corporations and certain other groups have convinced us that the perks they receive from our government are something other than the so called nefarious welfare giveaways. You wouldn’t be so confused about that at home, even if your children were to incorporate.

There is enough faulty public and private perception and management to satisfy even the sloppiest and unskilled examples of researchers. Unfortunately, most research is left up to political leaders and news outlets that are more concerned with profits and furthering the political ideals and agendas of their owners than in conducting real investigative journalism. Many people are more inclined to look and listen for what they want to hear rather than to skeptically question what they read or hear. Fortunately, there have always been good journalists that do their jobs and provide the information the public needs to separate the spin from the truth. The trouble is that the other kinds of journalists are many times easier to pay attention to since they are serving the food we like to eat.

Now that skepticism is no longer unpatriotic, we need to do what the Tea Baggers claimed to be doing. We need to question the actions of our elected officials. We should question our foreign policy, question our fiscal policy, question our monetary policy, and generally question all of our government policies; forming our questions with the intent of identifying what is good for the country and not what is good for our favorite political party. Political theory and idealism is good for elections and bad for legislation. Do a little checking and you can find lots of examples of good legislation when the political idealism was checked at the door of the debate hall.

Start by checking your own vocabulary and eliminating inflammatory labels and accusations. One-upmanship is an elementary school device that we should be able to do away with. The conservative and liberal talk show hosts have become trainers for the rest of us in how not to get along. We need to find better examples and better teachers. They exist and some of them helped to write our Constitution. Emulate the speakers that don’t insight riot, let the cooler heads prevail and become a majority. There will be plenty of opportunities to sling mud in the elections, but let us keep our hands clean when we are about the country’s business.

I have a brother-in-law that I think very highly of and he ascribes to a political viewpoint quite different from my own. For a while we had to give up talking about politics because we couldn’t do it without becoming emotionally aggravated. Lately, we have been talking about political issues; not because we have changed the way we think, but because we have changed the way we describe what we think. Now it appears as though we agree on far more issues than before, probably because we always did.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan
ftp://ftp.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdm121980.pdf
ftp://ftp.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdm121989.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost_of_war_counter_notes
http://momocrats.typepad.com/momocrats/2008/10/tax-and-borrow.html