So I’ve been away for a while, but it’s been entirely a matter of a lack of time. As those who know me well are aware, my full-time regular gig has been keeping me occupied. There’s something that I’ve been turning over for a couple days now, and as it’s Friday night and I finally have some personal time to address it, here it goes: simply put, examples abound everywhere for how government should work in America.
I’ve toyed with the idea before about finding a few really good analogies to describe what I think is our situation. To summarize, as a refresher: our form of government was deliberately created (it was created by design) after the ratification of our Constitution; the form, purpose and functioning of this new government isn’t a secret (it was created by men who took notes); along the way to our day, the people electing politicians got lazy or misled about how the government was supposed to work; and politicians either went along with this or took advantage of this, or both.
This put us in the predicament we’re in today. To summarize, we’re nearly $15 trillion dollars in debt. In an earlier post, The Institute on Air, I did the math and shared the back-up if you’re interested, but 87% of federal taxes are paid by taxpayers who make $67,000 a year or more. That makes their share of the debt $13,050,000,000,000.00. That’s a lot of zeros.
Any way you add it up, we're in a sea of red ink.
But even if in some fantasy land you could imagine that working, we’ve still got a gaping wound to bind up: politicians and the people who put them in office have no idea what the purpose of this government is supposed to be. Lucky you, America, because that’s about all I ever write about (hint, the question we all have to ask is: whose responsibility is it?).
Here’s the good news: once you understand the big picture, you see the correct principle applied everywhere. Two quick examples?
Example 1: to illustrate government is a tool, only able to do what it is designed to do properly, and will fail or deliver bad results if you deviate from this, try making some toast with your microwave. Or try cutting a sheet of plywood with a keyhole saw. Or try making grilled cheese with an iron. There are thousands of these examples that “meet people where they are.” Each of these explain the importance of original intent: why it matters that the people who created the tool had a specific plan in mind for how it should be used, and that screwing that up is almost always bad, and sometimes dangerous.
Example 2: to illustrate the concept of the division of powers, take any job or company and look at it from a design standpoint. I’ll use mine, and I’ll be as brief as possible.
I work at a big regional bank that makes loans to businesses. Local branches make their own decisions up to a certain point. Beyond a certain point, decisions have to be made by the corporate bosses. For example, if Janey works the opening teller shift, or not, isn’t relevant to the guys at headquarters. If we open a slot machine right next to an ATM is relevant to the guys at headquarters. If Janey opens an account for someone off the street isn’t terribly relevant. If she makes a $200 million loan to someone is terribly relevant. Got it? Decision making can’t all be centralized. If decisions like ordering Post-its and opening the day’s mail had to be run by the big shots in headquarters, nothing would ever get done. Just as bad, the things that the guys in HQ need to be focused on, the really important stuff, would be getting screwed up all the time because they’d be making decisions about light bulbs.
That, my friends, is exactly what we’re doing in America. We’ve got people in Washington telling people in San Diego what they should be teaching kids. And how much water should be in their toilets. And what types of light bulbs, God help us, they should be using.
Get educated, talk to people, and insist on better than we’ve been offered. Change the conversation. Don’t wait for someone else to do it; it’s each our duty as Americans. When politicians insist on concentrating power in Washington, what they’re saying is that we’re not responsible enough to make decisions about our lives. Are they right?
