Midnight rant

Well, there he goes again. Marty's going to talk all serious and stuff. He's gonna rant.

You know what the trouble is in this old world? When something goes bad or something bad happens, we don't really know what to do, who to believe, or what the actual truth is about what's going on.

So what do we do about BIG SPECTACULAR PROBLEM? We watch news and news shows for information. But here's the rub: I'm not going to believe shrill Chris Cuomo and you're not going to believe shrill Tucker Carlson. That said, I'm not sure any of us should believe shrill anybody. Maybe we should all take a pill and calm down when talking about serious matters. Shrill doesn't help. I'm inclined to say it usually hurts, as it seeds rancor and not harmony. Rancor stymies truth and understanding.

But more than that. We all have our sources we trust and those we don't trust. But can we know who or what to trust?

The recent corona troubles I think highlight this problem. I say reporting is wrong, you say it's not, but where can we find data which reasonably demonstrates who's right? Masks bad, masks good, the virus lives on stainless steel forever but then not so much, social distance good unless you're protesting, blah blah. It all seems to change rather suddenly. And I can't help anyway noticing a certain obvious hypocrisy involved.

Tests are reliable except when they're not. Cases are added and subtracted all the time, and why? On what grounds? Florida testing appears tragi-comically skewed (it was done either through attempting to influence action a certain way or is a result of spectacular ineptitude, and I personally lean towards an attempt to influence policy yet in a particularly stupid manner; how's that for combining points?) and there are issues within Texas about how accurate their counts are. And those are only two states offering, ah, uh, I'll say conflicting information just to be kind. What's a fella to think?

We're told it's a national crisis, yet nearly half of all fatalities have been in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Shouldn't that raise a flag? Please notice I have not yet gotten to questions of political action or incompetence yet. It may be simply that the population there is so dense that transmission is too readily accommodated. Yet political actions must play a part, musn't they? And that after months and months of being told (shrilly) that it's all going to end badly for us IF WE DON'T ACT IMMEDIATELY IF NOT SOONER. That won't entice the political wizards into doing something, just anything, will it? Particularly as they tend to be some of the ones feeding whatever the crisis of the day is.

I believe in a certain thing called common sense (yes, it exists). It is very, very rare that anything requires the immediate and unquestioning extreme actions which corona has caused. Common sense dictates that things almost never are or ever will be as bad as leaders (governmental or societal) insist they will be IF WE DON'T ACT NOW. Please. That exact attitude destroys any real chance common sense might have. Sudden, knee jerk reactions tend not to end well for anybody involved. And I think that's a clue to the real problem here: we want all bad things ended right now kapow. Life don't work that way. It never has and it never will.

Demanding that action, any action, be taken immediately generally only makes the problem worse. We almost never have to make decisions post haste. When we do make such hasty choices, things tend to go south pretty quickly.

The answer? Try as best we can to get good information to act on and then act on it. If we can. I personally would leave a lot more problems to individuals acting cooperatively to figure out as best they can on their own without government getting in the way, because government (and the media) tend only to make things worse. The corona scare I will argue illustrates this point ideally. Shrill sells papers and wins elections. That's all.

This means if you have a health problem go to health care professionals in the private sector because they're the ones truly interested in your health. Their livelihoods depend, directly and immediately, on making you healthy. Personal relationships develop where they care, person to person, about you. There is no personal relationship between you and Dr. Fauci. Government bureaucrats ultimately only care about what influence they can have and how they can keep their cushy job. A job almost certainly without censor if they make a mistake. Even though your life can be ruined when they're wrong.

That's it, I quit. See what you get when Marty wakes up suddenly at 1 AM?

Government Help is not Charity

Is government aid charity? What brings this question up is Mitt Romney's explanation for his electoral defeat: the President offered gifts such as health care to the voters. The former Governor said more, but one illustration is enough. Basically, he alleges that Barack Obama bought the election.

Which us back to the original point. Many people will read this and similar stories and go on to defend the President's acts as charitable. But is government aid charity?

This is not to question the safety net factor. There is certainly nothing wrong with having in place government programs which help those in true need. If you cannot feed yourself or your family under your current circumstances, if indeed you do need health services which you cannot provide for, then it becomes rational for the government to offer aid when, if, or as necessary. Even that is rife with peril, however: it can (and has) lead to dependency and the sense of entitlement, and it can lead to the government deciding who gets what. A simple look at Ethiopia during the 1980s shows what government control of resources can lead to in the extreme. Don't think for a moment that that can't happen here. It may be in the far future if at all, but it can happen here. With the distribution of food, and with health care too, quite honestly.

So is government aid charity?

Well, is it charitable to vote for people to take money from people who are not you in order to help people who are not you and who you do not know? Or is charity something you are supposed to do for the sake of others who cannot, at a given time, help themselves? This is the problem with liberal and Democratic voters. They believe that they are doing their duty towards society by making someone else do their charitable work. Yet however good that work might be in itself, its morality becomes questionable when it is supposed to be your work. Demanding that the government do your work is not charity. It is at worst lazy, and at most, theft of the wages and resources of others.

So, finally, is government aid charity?

No.

Liberals on Obama: 2010 does not look good.

There have been many reports on the disappointment the liberals have felt over the Obama Presidency. He has turned into something of a hawk on Afghanistan while allowing his health care initiative to list in the ocean, for example. Given that congressional bi-elections tend to be lower key and that, generally, only those folks deeply interested and energized by politics as politics tend to make hay with them, it means that without a committed liberal push the Democrats are likely to lose ground this coming November.

To be sure, the party in power tends to lose out in the mid-term vote. But one wonders how far the pendulum may swing in light of the events of 2009. Other than what has been mentioned above, the economy is not showing any signs of significant improvement, and the fact that Democrats are using raw power to force through health car reforms which a solid majority of the nation opposes must be viewed with concern by the party elite. Given that liberals tend to be less inclined to turn personal views into political action and the recipe is there for electoral disaster along the lines of the fate suffered by the Clinton Administration in November 1994.

It is too early to tell, and unless and until the GOP can offer a compelling alternative we may end up with a situation on which neither side takes advantage. There are, after all, disappointed conservatives for whom there is distrust of the GOP. Ultimately it may come down to how individuals act and react. In that, let's hope for a few more unguarded salvos such as the recent talk of Harry Reid. You can insult people only so much before they react with impunity, Mr. Senator. Those who truly support slavery are those who want us to be slaves of government largesse.