Try as you might, my government and the media will not sell me fiction. I consider both as marginally intelligent and completely sold out on ideas that defy common sense. Here are my top examples.
1. Tell me fracking is unsafe and bad for the country every day and I will challenge your facts and find you have none. Have idiots like Matt Damon make thousands of movies like Promised Land and I will consider them propaganda. It is doing more for the US economy than anything in the past 6 years. Without the cheap natural gas and new domestic oil production, and the jobs, tax revenue, royalties, and consumer cost savings our economy would be further in the tank. It beats legalizing marijuana and collecting taxes on a product that can damage lives, which the same people who would ban fracking, endorse.
2. Don’t tell me a pipeline from Canada bringing cheap and secure crude to Gulf Coast refineries is a bad idea. Lisa Jackson quit as the EPA head because Obama will approve this in March or April. The only thing that has changed in a year was an election. No new data, just an election and a resignation.
3. Don’t try to convince me that raising $50 billion in taxes solves a $2 trillion per year deficit problem. That money goes to New York and New Jersey victims of Sandy, which is fine. But, I know the $2 trillion still remains. To infer you’ve fixed anything insults my intelligence. I call it ” hide the problem by deflecting it elsewhere” like demonizing successful Americans.
4.Don’t tell me you can fix Newtown with stricter gun laws. I don’t care if you make assault weapons illegal, but I resent you telling me it was a root cause of Newtown. Especially if your name is Rahn Emmanuel, mayor of Chicago,where there were 500 homicides in 2012, despite strict gun laws. The mayor has a big problem and is trying to deflect his problem. Newtown is complex and I can’t be sold a simple answer by simple politicians and even simpler media people.
5. Don’t tell me illegal immigrants aren’t a drain on the economy. They require billions in public assistance. Votes count as Obama proved, but so do dollars. Dollars we don’t have. A solution that addresses both is needed, but it is unlikely.
6. Don’t tell me problems like the US postal service, Amtrak, Freddie, Fannie, the FHA, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and government growth, salaries, and pensions can’t be fixed. Just tell me you won’t fix them because you will become unelectable. That’s the simple truth. Any business would have addressed them long ago. The difference is simple. In business, if you don’t fix problems you get fired. In government, if you do, you get fired.